My view is that there has been a very clever piece of market manipulation and news management going on between governments, major banks and their puppets in the media.

The deflation argument is being swallowed hook, line and sinker and this is what those at the top need to happen to allow them to maintain confidence in Treasury paper and paper currencies in general and hence keep short term rates low to bail out the banks. They've probably succeeded for now.

In the medium to long run this will be seen as an extended opportunity, for those of us who can see through this charade, to continue to accumulate metal and shares in good quality juniors and producers.

I look around me in the UK and all I see is debt at every level and a population wholly unsuited (because of demographics and an entitlement culture) to working through this mountain of liabilities. There is already a clamour to "do something" which will be impossible for the politicians to resist once they overcome their current paralysis and stare a 2010 election defeat in the face. The monetary spigots are about to be opened.

Two (mildly) interesting things that happened to me recently:-

I needed to collect some rent off a tenant a while back and walked to the bank with her. They would only give her £500 in cash. They told her she would have to ring an order in beforehand to get more than that. I could be wrong but I suspect this is since the Northern Rock fiasco, i.e. they are worried about another run on a bank.

A few weeks back I received a phone call on my mobile from HBOS Bank asking if my business had any saving to deposit with them. I don't bank with HBOS. This seemed odd to me and has never happened before but would you deposit money in a bank that was so desperate for cash that they had to cold call small business owners on their mobiles to try and bolster their balance sheet? No thanks!

Clearly the banking system is in awful shape but it cannot be allowed to fail. Any amount of money can and will be printed to bail it out. They're just going to try and make it look like it isn't a big deal when it happens (and it is already happening). That is why gold and silver have been trashed. That is why oil is being talked down. We peaked in May 2005 remember. We need to bring on line new production of 5mbpd every year to keep up with depletion and rising demand in the developing world. We cannot do that so prices have to go higher to create demand destruction in the world as a whole, not just in the US and Europe.