naked capitalism

Anonymous says:

Is it possible to draw any conclusions about anything from a day with such low trading activity?

Anonymous says:

In times of conflict, scores get settled, personal and up. Have a look at Rwandan report. Much of the killing on a local level had to do with old family scores, do to diminishing land and ethnic family traditions with marriage ( who takes care of mom and dad and who gets land to start a new life).

So in fact much of the killing was intra family, compounded by unresolved land disputes (court cases). MSM did a horrible job of making it out to be a straight ethnic cleansing job.

So you can expect a fair bit of this to compound the problem in these areas of conflict. Simple land/resource grabs.

Seems next year will be one unstable black hell hole manginifed by another.

Skippy

Anonymous says:

An ETF for platinum is PGM

Anonymous says:

National Geographic has a banner article in their January 2009 issue vilifying gold. There’s a chart on page 42 showing the price of gold since 1718 in 2008 dollars. Of course, an inflation adjusted chart of gold (money) will show a relatively constant price. Using the US government’s statistics on anything, let alone inflation is suspect in itself, but this worthless information is over the top.

Another chart is called “How it’s used”, plotting gold “consumption”.
jewelry- 2,399 tons
electronics- 311 tons
etf’s- 253 tons
bar hoarding- 235 tons
coins- 209 tons
dentistry/other- 151 tons

That’s a total of 3558 tons. Near the chart in fine print are the words “excluding central banks”. Hmmm, I wonder how much the central bankers hold? Well, how about 30,000 tons?

http://www.reserveasset.gold.org/why_hold_gold/

There’s really no way to verify the 30,000 ton figure, but let’s just assume there’s a lot.

I can draw two conclusions from the above information.

1. Central Bankers love gold.
2. Price manipulation is easy.

I’ll hang on to mine.

Anonymous says:

I would say gold is rising more on the recognition that the FED and the US government intend to attempt to inflate away the debt by devaluing the dollar much as FDR did in the 30’s.

SlimCarlos says:

Yves,

That the dollar didn't budge was interesting. That gold popped was meaningless, at least on a day like Boxing Day friday. Someone just ran the stops on Globex. Often they'll run it down near the open; on Friday they ran it up.

Bloomberg makes up stuff. They can't simply say: "Gold (or oil or cotton or the S&P) was up (/down) sharply because, for some unknown reason, buyers (/sellers) outweighed sellers (/buyers)." So they make up a reason. I know this firsthand, at least with one reporter. I am sure other agencies do this too. If the sheen of Newtonian order is removed, one aspect of agencies' raison d'etre, a "value-added" one at that, would be removed.

That said, gold looks ok here. Should have a good 2009. ZIRP and the race to the bottom should help.

Anonymous says:

In all other currencies, gold is priced at all time highs.

Gold is showing tremendous strength especially with oil being down.

Having 10%-20% of your cash in gold would cover any future inflation…..if you could find any to buy. Waiting times could be 2 to
3 weeks out and premiums are running 10%. Still a nice insurance investment.

Second choice, buy the source, miners.

The train is leaving the station.

Anonymous says:

Gold went up the $20 in about 5 minutes after it topped a key technical level at $850. Check the chart, the mover up was very very fast based on short covering. The article is an example of idiots trying to explain things they don’t have a clue about.

feeblemind says:

Last summer I saw a chart showing gold and oil moving almost in lock step with each other over the last 3 decades. Even at $140/barrel, it took about the same amount of gold to buy a given amount of oil as 10 or 20 years ago. So my question is, is gold too high or is oil too cheap?

Max says:

So my question is, is gold too high or is oil too cheap?

With 50% confidence, I say it’s the latter.

Anonymous says:

Russia took to long to announce the backstopping of private debt. Unrest already starting.

Red China will do public work projects but no way can they backstop the pool of foreign investments evaporating before their eyes.

Germany can’t restart Euroland.

USA has only done the temporary fixes necessary for the short term.

Worldwide, if battles turn into wars then gold will rise faster and further.

Paper currencies are debt from the get-go, a promise to accept and honor via trust versus a tangible.

melvin polatnick says:

Becoming a union member was the quickest way to make a decent wage. Everybody wanted union membership. Easy credit made everything affordable and higher prices for union made goods and services were easily overlooked. Buying the union label was patriotic because it supported a higher standard of living for Americans. That was the way things were for decades. But the U.S. is now going through a recession and the consumer is becoming extremely price conscious and searching for bargains. Goods and services without union labor are cheaper and therefore more desirable. Unless the consumer is willing to pay the higher cost of goods and services the union worker will soon become extinct. Millions of former union members will then be forced to renegotiate their salaries on an individual basis.
Let us hope the economy recovers and the union label will fly high again.