in this article "is the end of the comex nigh" andy hoffman sums up the case against the comex, and the explanation for weak gold (and especially silver) prices. the supply/demand imbalance, closure of mints both private and government, the disparity between price action on the comex and everywhere else in the world, the declining open interest, the outsized short positions, the activity of goldman sachs in japan, the importance of the december contract - it's all here in one place. this is the best summary i have seen for the manipulation of silver and gold on the comex:

Anyhow, what makes me think the end of the COMEX is nigh, at least in its role as a price-setting mechanism for global gold and silver prices? Well, nothing is guaranteed, but the December futures contract is the largest of the year, and is set to expire shortly. Physical gold and silver have already started to slowly leave the COMEX warehouses (particularly in silver), and the amount of outstanding contracts this late in the contract yields the potential for significant demands for physical delivery.

Several well-known Precious Metals experts (such as Jim Sinclair and Eric Sprott) have been actively bringing this point into the public light, doing their best to organize physical offtake of the 100 oz. gold and 5,000 oz. silver contracts. At current prices, one such gold contract would cost about $80,000, and one such silver contract about $50,000, hardly large amounts in today’s world of multi-trillion bailouts and “liquidity injections”.

All of the COMEX inventories (currently 8.5 million ounces of gold and 129 million ounces of silver) do not need to be delivered, but any kind of material change has the potential to spook the market into fearing a run on the metals. If this occurs, the COMEX market rigging scheme will be finished, with the obvious results being that 1) gold and silver prices would immediately rise to significantly higher levels, and 2) the non-stop attacks on COMEX gold and silver would either halt or lose their ability to impact the REAL global gold and silver prices. Would such action also have a spillover impact on industrial metals such as copper? It is hard to tell, but clearly the inflationary signal given by rising gold and silver could only help the base metals, particularly at a time where global inventory levels are historically low.

I am not naïve enough to believe the Cartel is not aware of this potential “situation” on the COMEX, and will likely do everything in their power to prevent it from happening. But the December contract will likely see them face some stiff competition, perhaps the most they have experienced yet. And even if it doesn’t happen now, the odds of it occurring in the near-future are rising exponentially, especially given the escalating nature of the financial crisis and its accompanying bailouts.

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/12...