So things aren't fixed ?

So it's the middle of the night here and I'm bored, I got to thinking about a whole lot of stuff about my stack and I got to wondering about if the whole market is rigged, and what if it is, or isn't and the different people involved.

I started with what I know, LIBOR for example the whole kit and caboodle of worldwide Banksters rigging the whole fucking market, a proven fact. The whole western world fixed and fucked over to achieve the best outcome for a very few while screwing the whole planet basically.

And then I juxtaposed that information with people I know of here on Silver Stackers who seem to think that NO it is market influences that determine the price of commodity's such as precious metals. I wont name them or those I agree or disagree with but to regular readers they would be fairly obvious.

On the one hand we have an admitted rigging of the whole system of western banking via LIBOR and on the other, a bunch of people that think if you hold the notion that the precious metals markets are also prone to such manipulation you are a conspirator or just plain out of your fucking mind for thinking so.

Take the recent German Gold issue as an example, 7 years for Germany to get back a portion of their gold while a country such as Venezuela can organize such things in short order, but if you question the general rhetoric you are labeled as a conspiracist or just plain out of touch with reality.

I pose a question to those here who think the likes of myself and others are fringe dwellers for questioning the legitimacy of the current status quo by asking difficult questions about supposed legitimate answers.

If indeed it is a fact that the likes of LIBOR and other high level banking corruption exists , If as well known that Currency manipulation by federal banks exists, and if as well evidenced in recent times that high level corruption by the likes of HSCB and others go unpunished by merely paying a pittance in fines and thereby avoiding investigation that under any other circumstance would lead to jail time for those involved, IF all of this as it actually exists does happen. (and it does)

Is it too much of a stretch for your minds to think that maybe....just maybe...that the high yielding game of precious metals might be a game that the very same people play and might do so on a regular basis ? With impunity the same way they play everything else ?

Seriously people night after night after night, you see crimex open and raid the metals unless it suits them to do otherwise or they miss a catch, and who is watching them ? The very same people who raise the margins when things get out of their control and also take five years to investigate anything ???

People talk about waking up here, about being contrarian and being ahead of the herd. But I see a lot who are still synced into the system and defend it day in day out. They know the system is corrupt and broken but still give it the benefit of the doubt despite the evidence there in front of them. Anything that does not conform is dissed as a conspiratorial theory by a conspiracist who just doesn't understand the way they do, judged upon the acceptance of the mainstream, and reinforced by the need to conform along with the majority belief that the absolute corruption of the entire system is just an aberration highlighted here and there by the mainstream media when allowed.

You know the system is broken, corrupted, controlled. But when someone tells you so or dares to show you in black and white, points you to the evidence, questions your understanding, challenges your reality. You turn away, fall back on your well provided support system and blame them for the uneasy feeling you get inside and label them as a non conformist conspiracy freak.

Thoughts ?

 

I can't be bothered justifying it to anybody these days

 

http://www.eternallyaware.com/index.html

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

 

As to Venezuela, according to this article they brought home 160 tons in two months. I'm guessing they weren't bothered about maintaining the status quo.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...ast-shipment-of-repatriated-gold-bars-1-.html

 

Three things that cannot remain hidden.
The Sun
The moon
And
The Truth.
(Buddha)
I may be blinded by the shiny stuff,but I am fairly confident that the truth may come to light in my time.And plan to have a very healthy stack when it does.

 

+1

Yep, this is pretty much where I am at nowadays too.

Half the time you're defending your decision to be invested, even in places like SS.

It's just nuts and not worth the effort to even bother.

 

I think the game is now at the point where it is advisable to not be noticeable if you hold a future and others do not. When people, whom I've previously pointed toward the advisability of preserving some wealth in gold, ask "so how's the POG" I shrug and say - "don't know, sold it all a few months back except for my birth year sovereign as a souvenir".

At this stage of the ponzi scheme I think it's wise to keep your circumstance to yourself. People don't thank you for being "smarter than them", especially if they're knee deep in debt trying to feed the children.

I take my advice from some of the great thinkers - "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and tear you." Not that I consider people dogs or pigs but the advice is clear.

Or as Yoda said, paraphrasing the I Ching - 'Do or do not do - there is no try'. Meaning doing (and being free by the doing) are the essence of us and trying to change other people is not our job - it's their job.

Sorry, must be the church bells in the distance this Sunday morning.

 

OK SouthernCross I will put it this way.
If you were able to get inside information data on say 100,000 of our population here in Australia and analyze their every move, what would you find?
I would suggest some would be tax cheats. Others would be cheating on their spouse. Some being violent. Some being completely honest. Others being completely corrupt at home and in the workforce. I don't accept the assumption that people are basicly good. It depends what they want and how far they are prepared to go to achieve their results.

That brings me to the next point. Of the above, I would expect a higher percentage of corruption where there is an opportunity for supposed easy money to be made. There is so much corruption and manipulation within the stock exchange, in particular corporate australia. Where are our regulators? One the most unregulated areas imo is the LIC's where companies are so intertwined that Directors can fleece the minnows of shareholders. Then you look at Superannuation. Ater years and years of being in the market, I have one company that I am invested in. Its a penny dreadful and basicly a gamble.

Considering that the Precious Metals would also attract the same type of people, why wouldn't there be corruption at some of the highest levels within the corporate world? IMO, the Financial system is full of corruption including alot of pollies.

Maybe, people can shout all they want saying its not fair.
Then again, those same people can easily justify their existence over someone who lives in 3rd World poverty.

IMHO, when I first discovered that the world wasn't fair it took me years to accept it, get over it and move on.

Nothing really surprises me anymore.

Cheers markcoinoz :|

 

SC, I don't think you're a "fringe dweller" by any means.

Years ago, I used to trust the system. Apart from some policy differences between the political parties, I thought governments were at the very least decent, and in most cases good. I thought banks were a place that served hard working folks, and made a profit by loaning out my deposits to similar hard working folks who wanted to buy a house. That was then, this is now.

I trust no bank, and no politician in Australia. These people are thieving - immune from the law - cheating - lying thugs. And I do not use the word thugs lightly. They are the scum of the earth, and any way in which they can twist the truth, or the numbers, or their own mother to suit themselves, line their fat-cat pockets at the expense of any one and any thing else, and it will be done.

Words really cannot describe accurately the disdain and level of non-respect I hold for these people.

One thing I do know - or at least sincerely hope. There will be a day when Joe Average learns of these truths too, and that will be the day of reckoning for these fat-cats.

I am looking forward to that day when Karma pays these people back for the things they've done.

 

Great post sotherncross.

Normalcy bias rains supreme unfortunately.

 

If people think that the governments and privileged institutions sucking at the tit of the money power are altruistic organisations that can be depended upon to sustain themselves and their communities, then they just aren't paying attention or are selling you something (like protection). And, unless you hold some kind of position of respect with those of the first instance, or they specifically ask for opinions, there is nothing you can do to help them because they have no reason to listen to you. In fact, what you do say may come back to haunt you given that the principle of "6 degrees of separation" means criminal elements or worse are never far away.

These days I limit any discussion to the principles of money if it comes up and don't initiate the topic of PMs. Like kids watching Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter last night providing the perfect opportunity to explain the allegory of bankers as vampires and silver as debt free money. Which, incidently, Ellen Brown summaries in this article I saw this morning on the Trillion Dollar Coin.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/trillion-dollar-coin

 

It's a nice rant.

I'd like to add that just because there is evidence that some things are manipulated, does not imply that all things are manipulated. If you know a bit about logic, you will know that it only takes a single counter-example to prove a generalised statement to be incorrect.

That said, there is evidence of some manipulation. What we don't necessarily know is how much manipulation, and to what extent.

We can make assumptions, but these should always be counted as assumptions, not fact.

If the aim of the game is wealth preservation, then I think you'll find many of the stackers here are merely managing their risk exposure to AUD / fiat currency by diversifying into PMs. Whether the PM market is manipulated or not is fairly immaterial for such purposes, as long as the AUD stays stable.

Speculators on the other hand, want the price to rise in a parabolic fashion (even hyperbolic...haha) to make a profit in... fiat.

Traders just want volatility (with a minor level of predictability), because it doesn't matter where the price goes, so long as it goes up and down and money can be made.

Back to the OP - and I think markcoinoz may have alluded to this - but why bother manipulating the PMs markets for profit? We're talking small $$ here, totally insignificant compared to other markets. Sure, there are other strategic reasons to keep PMs low, but not for immediate profit (IMO).

 

I have been pondering this thread all day, so here goes...

To me, the voluntary decision to enter into PM ownership is the decision to enter into a game of trading and dealing in which the big players have high stakes that are worth them protecting. The majority of stackers enter the game under full awareness of the market forces at play ironically, it is these very market dynamics, or the foreseen downfall of these forces, that provides the reward potential for investing in PM's. Thus, without this market characteristic, stackers may not have bothered stacking at all.

Personally, I find it difficult to distinguish the line in the sand between playing the game well, using informational and financial advantage, and what is otherwise commonly labeled by stackers as corruption.

Economics, is at its root, the study of incentives: how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. We all learn to respond to incentives, negative and positive, from the outset of life, and everything we do in life (including all transactions, and especially PM investment) is for an incentive pay-off. There are three basic flavours of incentive: economic, social, and moral.

Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work whereas economics represents how it actually does work.

It seems to me that a lot of stackers voluntarily enter the PM game with the intent of obtaining an economic incentive. When they find it is not turning out the way they planned, they cry foul on the grounds of morality or social cost. This is characteristic of human nature it is easier to pass blame or make excuses than admitting one may not have been correct in their analysis or beliefs. What baffles me is that they entered PM ownership under full knowledge of the forces at play, and most likely because of these very forces then proceed to incessantly collectively campaign against the very market structure that makes PM investment attractive?

 

People challenging stackers on this forum?
I don't think anyone here defends the current system fully.

Where some see manipulation others see profit taking.
Where some see stupid decisions others will wonder "what if Ben does nothing?"
Where some see imminent collapse of the USD others know it's very, very unlikely.
Where some worship people like Bill Murphy others know they are full of shit.

However, at the end of the day, no one can agree things are going smoothly and something has got to give. I don't think you'll find 1 person on this forum that thinks PMs are a bad long-term investment given the state of world economies either.
In my opinion there are quite a few "conspiracy freaks" here but given they're investing in PMs they're smarter than the majority - even if I don't agree with their buying strategies.

I hate Governments and I hate fiat, but until the dumbed down masses share that view there's no point trying to play the game differently.

 

Great post wrcmad.

The one part I disagree with though is that (all?) stackers necessarily enter the game for an economic incentive. Perhaps I don't understand the term, but I read it as 'economic gain'. Wealth preservation in itself is not a gain, it is just the absence of a loss.

So if someone wants to preserve their wealth, and their main concern is that the current system is volatile and corrupt, then wouldn't they continue to hold that same view whilst buying PMs to hedge that risk? When they stop holding that view, then they should sell their PMs as they no longer serve their wealth preserving purpose (as they now believe wealth can be preserve through fiat).

As for speculators and traders though, I totally agree in that context.

 

I don't see the difference between 'gain' and 'absence of a loss'. In economic context they are both an economic pay-off or economic benefit, and thus economic incentive for PM investment. Maybe just semantics?

 

I guess this is the problem with 'inflation', in that it incurs a loss on someone who holds currency.

The economic incentive, or gain, does change though depending on whether you are talking about 'real' or 'nominal' gains though. If your intended real gain is zero, is that an economic incentive?

Maybe it is semantics.

What a strange world we live in, where just holding currency equates to a continual loss, and to maintain a level of wealth requires the act of continually putting it in some form of risk.

I still don't think your last paragraph holds for stackers who seek to preserve wealth though.

 

Dog, you raise a good point here. Whilst I'm not the OP, and don't want to appear to be responding "on their behalf", I can hopefully share my thoughts on this

You're right, first and foremost, in saying that there is no absolute proof on manipulation (at least in my eyes), but I have seen things that make little to no sense in the time I've had my eyes on precious metals. That said, smoke =/= fire in this case, and I agree with you there.

But, I read this line you wrote (quoted above), in which you essentially ask "Why bother manipulating the PM market for profit?". Fair question!

Here's why:

Gold, and to a lesser extent, Silver, have, for around 5 milennia, been a stable, reliable, widely accepted store of value and medium of exchange.

On the other hand, here, now, and today, we have central banks around the world printing fiat currency at *extremely* scary levels. We have a stated policy from the Federal Reserve in the US of "Quantitative Easing forever". This means that each and every day that goes past, more and more fiat currency pumps into the system, debasing the value of the currency we all hold. Those who can see these events realise too that one day, this will all come home to roost, as it were, and either the currencies will be inflated away to the point where they represent a shadow of their prior selves (think in terms of $100 or more for a loaf of bread), or the currency will suffer a loss of confidence and self-implode (I personally would suggest that around the time we're printing $10,000 notes would perhaps present a tipping point for some of the population!). This loss of confidence, in my opinion, could come from the citizens within a country "refusing" to recognise their own currency as a valid and acceptable form of payement, or it might come from other countries who may hold instruments denominated in the currency losing confidence in that countries ability to pay, and dumping these securities on the market for "whatever they can get", causing a chain reaction of the same types of selloffs around the world.

Whichever way this happens, I can see no resolution other than the eventual demise of (at least) the US Dollar, and that will probably take most, if not all other fiat currencies with it.

So - why do I believe the PM market is being manipulated? So as to allow those that are "in" on things the opportunity to convert into PM's just prior to the destruction of these currencies, so they can preserve their wealth. I will also say that I believe the powers that be have colluded, and agreed on (at the least) a fairly finite range of dates (think in terms of a week or two) as to when they will let the ball go on all these shenanigans. EDIT: I should say at this point - I don't believe the PM market is being manipulated for "profit" as most would currently think of the definition of that word. I believe it's being manipulated as an available haven of value storage, as noted above.

Why do I think this? This may come as a surprise or cause upset - that isn't my intention. But, if I were to play a bit of "Devil's Advocate" here, I could say that the world today is overpopulated on average. Whilst it's technically possible for us to sustain our current population food-wise (if one ignores the many distribution problems that exist), there's an easy argument to say that a reduction the worlds population by a fair degree would be of benefit in the "bigger picture". Part of this is because our level of automation and technical production capabilities simply means that we don't actually, as a planet, have enough manual work that needs to be done so as to keep the bulk of the population gainfully employed. As a result, there is a certain subset of society that are unable to find work, and another, possibly overlapping to a degree subset that don't want to find work. In an ideal situation, and removing the emotional and moral issues from this line of thinking, a reduction of population around the world would be a benefit to the planet, and very likely those in power controlling things in the background. In decades gone past, wars the enveloped most countries of the world created "dents" in the population curve that acted, to some degree, in curtailing population growth around the world. But, since 1945 - nearly 70 years ago, there has been no world war that has claimed many millions of lives. In the interim, population growth has jumped rapidly.

If you stop and put on your "Government Planning" hat - that is to say, look at the figures objectively, remove all emotion, and consider all possible solutions, one comes to the conclusion that one of the best ways of reducing the population is simply to let a reasonable percentage of the population die, whether due to lack of food, lack of water, or other reason. Think too that if this is "the plan", those carrying it out do not care which individuals survive and which ones don't - their criteria will be along the lines of "Can they think for themselves?", "Are they problem solvers?". Those that can sit back today, analyse the events going on around them, and have the wherewithall to prepare for this are those that would be ideal candidates for survivors if such a plan were being concocted/enacted.

Now consider for a moment that this is "on the cards", that a group of leaders around the world have already decided upon this course of action.

Then stop and look back with 20/20 hindsight on events in recent times, and consider the angle those events would have upon a plan as described here - I think folks can draw their own conclusions, we here on these forums are keenly aware of things that are going on around the world.

Am I a "consipacy theorist" or "nutjob"? Possibly some may think that, reading the above, though I hope not! Just to be clear, I'm not saying "This is the thing", I'm saying "This is a possibility". Take it, along with many other equally valid explanations and paradigms, and just keep all possibilities in your thinking.