Re Volcker. Baires: Martin Armstrong who you know, and Alan Micik who has an advice service on gold say it is not possible for the Fed or anyone else to control gold prices for any length of time. Can for a while but they always run out of ammunition. Market may be relatively small but the world is big. These guys play the psychological/political game, if Volcker was honest he'd say in lamenting tones, tears running down, "I wish I could have kept the price of gold down, but I knew I couldn't and so I didn't even bother trying." Ike