http://goldtadise.com/ "Finally, I would like to pass on 2 anecdotal stories which I experience recently which also fit into this bottom narrative. I attend 4-5 mining conferences a year and last week was at the New Orleans Investment conference. Now these conferences have been suffering dwindling attendance for 2 years now so the statement that animal spirits were at a low doesn’t really pinpoint a bottom too accurately since that’s the way its been for 2 years now, but two things happened to me that really made me take notice. First was that I went by the Sprott Booth and saw Rick Rule there standing alone. That’s right, alone. Normally there is a mob scene around Rick trying to pepper him with questions and to find out the latest story. Well I engaged him for 20 minutes without anyone even coming by to try to but in. Frankly I have never seen this occur before. That was a anecdotal bottom indicator in my view, Next I went to the GATA briefing. Chris Powell and Bill Murphy gave the drivel, nothing really new, but I was curious if anything had changed…it hadn’t. Now I have never really been a GATA follower, although I do believe they are correct, but its not something to involve oneself in because, although true, it mainly serves to distract oneself away from the business of making money. Nobody has made money from these guys is what I am saying. But here is the thing that struct me…They both came across to me as defeated. They have mentally lost the righteous battle they have been fighting for 15+ years. They freely admitted they couldn’t change anything and it in fact wasn’t going to . This is such a sea change from years past. Its just an anecdotal story with out much specific meaning, but when one puts this in context with all these other bottom indicators I am picking up it says something."