by
Max Morton
Asia
by
Adam Taggart
by
Alasdair Macleod
Executive Summary
- The West is extremely vulnerable to financial and currency de-stabilisation through precious metals
- Access to energy supplies will be the real weapon used in the battle over Ukraine (and future geo-political wars)
- Why sanctions against Russia will not succeed
- The East is mobilizing to become less dependent on the West
If you have not yet read Is Part 1: Ukraine: A Perspective from Europe available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Russia’s strategy towards Ukraine appears to be to ensure NATO is excluded from Ukrainian territory, the irony being that if NATO members hadn’t interfered with Ukrainian politics in the first place the current crisis would not have occurred. As it is, at a minimum she will seek to secure Donetsk and Luhansk and force the Kiev government to drop any ambitions to join the EU economic bloc.
The fact that NATO is divided between on the one side the US and UK plus all its ex-communist members and on the other the great European welfare states, requires there to be two distinct levels of Russian strategy. They must not be confused with each other, one macro and the other micro.
Macro-Geopolitics Linked To Gold
At the higher level there is the geopolitical clash with the US. This is not just a matter of Ukraine, but it is rapidly becoming the Shanghai Cooperation Council versus America. The US is also embroiled in territorial disputes between its allies and China over mineral rights in the South China Sea. The Middle-East now sells more oil to China than the US, and by leaving the US sphere of influence will fall increasingly under the SCO’s spell. Presumably, America has woken up to the threat to its hegemony from the powerful alliance that is the SCO, together with the loss of Pakistan and India into that sphere of influence. It goes further: even Turkey, a long-standing NATO member, plans to defect to the SCO, apparently a personal project of Recep Erdoğan, the recently re-elected Prime Minister.
American-initiated actions against Russia will probably be kept by Russia and the SCO in this big-picture context. It will be treated as an attack against an SCO member, speeding up integration and trade agreements designed to exclude the US dollar as a settlement medium. In this context the SCO members already appear to have agreed on the need to increase gold ownership as an undefined part-solution to replace the US dollar as the currency standard. In other words, the rush to acquire above-ground gold stocks will continue, and China through her refiners is processing and keeping increasing quantities of African-sourced gold as well as her own which would otherwise have gone to the West.
The Russian central bank has been adding to her monetary gold reserves and officially now has more than China (though China is known to have substantial holdings of bullion not currently declared as monetary reserves). All mine output is likely to be absorbed by the State. Russia has continued to build her gold reserves at a time when it could be argued by western analysts that she needs to hold on to all her foreign currency, given the prospect of escalating sanctions. The truth is that…
The Rise Of The East
PREVIEW by Alasdair MacleodExecutive Summary
- The West is extremely vulnerable to financial and currency de-stabilisation through precious metals
- Access to energy supplies will be the real weapon used in the battle over Ukraine (and future geo-political wars)
- Why sanctions against Russia will not succeed
- The East is mobilizing to become less dependent on the West
If you have not yet read Is Part 1: Ukraine: A Perspective from Europe available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Russia’s strategy towards Ukraine appears to be to ensure NATO is excluded from Ukrainian territory, the irony being that if NATO members hadn’t interfered with Ukrainian politics in the first place the current crisis would not have occurred. As it is, at a minimum she will seek to secure Donetsk and Luhansk and force the Kiev government to drop any ambitions to join the EU economic bloc.
The fact that NATO is divided between on the one side the US and UK plus all its ex-communist members and on the other the great European welfare states, requires there to be two distinct levels of Russian strategy. They must not be confused with each other, one macro and the other micro.
Macro-Geopolitics Linked To Gold
At the higher level there is the geopolitical clash with the US. This is not just a matter of Ukraine, but it is rapidly becoming the Shanghai Cooperation Council versus America. The US is also embroiled in territorial disputes between its allies and China over mineral rights in the South China Sea. The Middle-East now sells more oil to China than the US, and by leaving the US sphere of influence will fall increasingly under the SCO’s spell. Presumably, America has woken up to the threat to its hegemony from the powerful alliance that is the SCO, together with the loss of Pakistan and India into that sphere of influence. It goes further: even Turkey, a long-standing NATO member, plans to defect to the SCO, apparently a personal project of Recep Erdoğan, the recently re-elected Prime Minister.
American-initiated actions against Russia will probably be kept by Russia and the SCO in this big-picture context. It will be treated as an attack against an SCO member, speeding up integration and trade agreements designed to exclude the US dollar as a settlement medium. In this context the SCO members already appear to have agreed on the need to increase gold ownership as an undefined part-solution to replace the US dollar as the currency standard. In other words, the rush to acquire above-ground gold stocks will continue, and China through her refiners is processing and keeping increasing quantities of African-sourced gold as well as her own which would otherwise have gone to the West.
The Russian central bank has been adding to her monetary gold reserves and officially now has more than China (though China is known to have substantial holdings of bullion not currently declared as monetary reserves). All mine output is likely to be absorbed by the State. Russia has continued to build her gold reserves at a time when it could be argued by western analysts that she needs to hold on to all her foreign currency, given the prospect of escalating sanctions. The truth is that…
by
Adam Taggart
by
Alasdair Macleod
Executive Summary
- Central planning are colluding – but failing – to diminish world demand for bullion
- The BRICS are planning a future of less dependence on the West, and gold will play a role
- The East sees gold as "on sale" at today's prices
- Analysis shows they're right; gold is much cheaper than it should be compared to pre-QE levels
If you have not yet read There Is Too Little Gold in the West, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part I, I went through the history of Asian demand for gold, starting with the Arabs’ need to find a home for increasing quantities of petrodollars from the late 1960s onwards. My conclusion was that there is very little bullion in private ownership left in the West, there is an unmanageable short position in the unallocated gold accounts held with the bullion banks, and the bulk of accessible monetary gold controlled by central banks is already leased and has been sold into the market to satisfy Asian demand.
The result is that merely suppressing the gold price to enhance credibility of the dollar as a reserve currency is no longer the problem. The problem is now one of crisis management. Western central banks have done everything they can, even persuading the Reserve Bank of India to suppress India’s gold imports. We know this is most probably the case because the Indian authorities have already learned the lesson that gold imports could not be controlled, which is why the Gold Control Act was abolished in 1990. Furthermore, the newly-appointed RBI Governor, Raghuram Rajan is an ex-IMF chief economist, has spent a significant part of his career in the U.S., and is therefore likely to be fully sympathetic with Western central bank objectives. He appears to be the West’s place-man.
Other than the question of Indian demand, there are two possible reasons for the flows of gold from West to East: geo-political, whereby one or more Asian nations are deliberately creating a potential crisis for the West, and different valuation criteria. Both are true and…
The Very Real Danger of a Failure in the Gold Market
PREVIEW by Alasdair MacleodExecutive Summary
- Central planning are colluding – but failing – to diminish world demand for bullion
- The BRICS are planning a future of less dependence on the West, and gold will play a role
- The East sees gold as "on sale" at today's prices
- Analysis shows they're right; gold is much cheaper than it should be compared to pre-QE levels
If you have not yet read There Is Too Little Gold in the West, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part I, I went through the history of Asian demand for gold, starting with the Arabs’ need to find a home for increasing quantities of petrodollars from the late 1960s onwards. My conclusion was that there is very little bullion in private ownership left in the West, there is an unmanageable short position in the unallocated gold accounts held with the bullion banks, and the bulk of accessible monetary gold controlled by central banks is already leased and has been sold into the market to satisfy Asian demand.
The result is that merely suppressing the gold price to enhance credibility of the dollar as a reserve currency is no longer the problem. The problem is now one of crisis management. Western central banks have done everything they can, even persuading the Reserve Bank of India to suppress India’s gold imports. We know this is most probably the case because the Indian authorities have already learned the lesson that gold imports could not be controlled, which is why the Gold Control Act was abolished in 1990. Furthermore, the newly-appointed RBI Governor, Raghuram Rajan is an ex-IMF chief economist, has spent a significant part of his career in the U.S., and is therefore likely to be fully sympathetic with Western central bank objectives. He appears to be the West’s place-man.
Other than the question of Indian demand, there are two possible reasons for the flows of gold from West to East: geo-political, whereby one or more Asian nations are deliberately creating a potential crisis for the West, and different valuation criteria. Both are true and…
by
Adam Taggart
Executive Summary
- Large players (and likely price manipulators) now have incentive for precious metals prices to rise
- Investor demand for bullion remains at record highs
- Competition for bullion from the East continues to heat up
- Central banks buy more bullion as Comex inventories deplete
- The key signs to know when it will be time to sell your gold & silver
If you have not yet read Part I: Is Gold at a Turning Point? available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Manipulation
Much has been written across the Web (including here at PeakProsperity.com) about whether or not the precious metals markets are manipulated in price by big players (major multi-national banks such as JP Morgan). Without delving into the many arguments on both the pro and con sides, Chris and I are of the opinion that sufficient data exists to convince a reasonable observer that price manipulation in the PM markets is indeed real, or, at the very least, highly probable. (For those remaining doubters out there, have a look at the evidence here, here, and here, and let us know if you have a rational, non-manipulative explanation.)
One of the most glaring signs of likely manipulation has been the massive short positions that a small number of large banks (JP Morgan being the most prominent among them) have held for many years, particularly in the silver market [measure positions as % of world silver production]. And not only were these unlimited positions allowed, but this cabal of banks was allowed to naked-sell PMs short (i.e., sell metal without actually owning it first). On the other side of the coin, the long side, position limits were enforced, and there was no similar ability to buy more metal than one could pay for. This imbalance of rules certainly provides the mechanism by which PM prices could be artificially jockeyed more easily to the downside. In this context, a decline from the high $40s to the low $20s looks more understandable.
Well, a very important part of this story has just shifted. The CFTC (Commodities Futures Trading Commission) publishes a monthly report illustrating the positions taken in Comex Futures Contracts
After nearly ten years of being net short in Comex gold futures, U.S. banks have been recently decreasing those short positions, and – for the first time since 2004 (with the exception of a single month in 2008) – they have flipped to become net long gold in May (see bottom chart below)…
The New Game-Changers for Gold & Silver
PREVIEW by Adam TaggartExecutive Summary
- Large players (and likely price manipulators) now have incentive for precious metals prices to rise
- Investor demand for bullion remains at record highs
- Competition for bullion from the East continues to heat up
- Central banks buy more bullion as Comex inventories deplete
- The key signs to know when it will be time to sell your gold & silver
If you have not yet read Part I: Is Gold at a Turning Point? available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Manipulation
Much has been written across the Web (including here at PeakProsperity.com) about whether or not the precious metals markets are manipulated in price by big players (major multi-national banks such as JP Morgan). Without delving into the many arguments on both the pro and con sides, Chris and I are of the opinion that sufficient data exists to convince a reasonable observer that price manipulation in the PM markets is indeed real, or, at the very least, highly probable. (For those remaining doubters out there, have a look at the evidence here, here, and here, and let us know if you have a rational, non-manipulative explanation.)
One of the most glaring signs of likely manipulation has been the massive short positions that a small number of large banks (JP Morgan being the most prominent among them) have held for many years, particularly in the silver market [measure positions as % of world silver production]. And not only were these unlimited positions allowed, but this cabal of banks was allowed to naked-sell PMs short (i.e., sell metal without actually owning it first). On the other side of the coin, the long side, position limits were enforced, and there was no similar ability to buy more metal than one could pay for. This imbalance of rules certainly provides the mechanism by which PM prices could be artificially jockeyed more easily to the downside. In this context, a decline from the high $40s to the low $20s looks more understandable.
Well, a very important part of this story has just shifted. The CFTC (Commodities Futures Trading Commission) publishes a monthly report illustrating the positions taken in Comex Futures Contracts
After nearly ten years of being net short in Comex gold futures, U.S. banks have been recently decreasing those short positions, and – for the first time since 2004 (with the exception of a single month in 2008) – they have flipped to become net long gold in May (see bottom chart below)…
by
David Collum
Background
I was just trying to figure it all out.
~ Michael Burry, hedge fund manager
Every December, I write a Year in Review that has now found a home at Chris Martenson’s website PeakProsperity.com.1,2,3 What started as a simple summary intended for a couple dozen people morphed over time into a much more detailed account that accrued over 25,000 clicks last year.4 'Year in Review' is a bit of a misnomer in that it is both a collage of what happened, plus a smattering of issues that are on my radar right now. As to why people care what an organic chemist thinks about investing, economics, monetary policy, and societal moods I can only offer a few thoughts.
For starters, in 33 years of investing with a decidedly undiversified portfolio, I had only one year in which my total wealth decreased in nominal dollars. For the 13 years beginning 01/01/00—the 13 toughest investing years of the new millennium!—I have been able to compound my personal wealth at an 11% annualized rate. This holds up well against the pros. I am also fairly good at distilling complexity down to simplicity and seem to be a congenital contrarian. I also have been a devout follower of Austrian business cycle theory—i.e., free market economics—since the late 1990s.4
Each review begins with a highly personalized analysis of my efforts to get through another year of investing followed by a more holistic overview of what is now a 33-year quest for a ramen-soup-free retirement. These details may be instructive for those interested in my approach to investing. The bulk of the review, however, describes thoughts and observations—the year’s events told as a narrative. The links are copious, albeit not comprehensive. Some are flagged with enthusiasm. Everything can be found here.5
2012 Year in Review
by David CollumBackground
I was just trying to figure it all out.
~ Michael Burry, hedge fund manager
Every December, I write a Year in Review that has now found a home at Chris Martenson’s website PeakProsperity.com.1,2,3 What started as a simple summary intended for a couple dozen people morphed over time into a much more detailed account that accrued over 25,000 clicks last year.4 'Year in Review' is a bit of a misnomer in that it is both a collage of what happened, plus a smattering of issues that are on my radar right now. As to why people care what an organic chemist thinks about investing, economics, monetary policy, and societal moods I can only offer a few thoughts.
For starters, in 33 years of investing with a decidedly undiversified portfolio, I had only one year in which my total wealth decreased in nominal dollars. For the 13 years beginning 01/01/00—the 13 toughest investing years of the new millennium!—I have been able to compound my personal wealth at an 11% annualized rate. This holds up well against the pros. I am also fairly good at distilling complexity down to simplicity and seem to be a congenital contrarian. I also have been a devout follower of Austrian business cycle theory—i.e., free market economics—since the late 1990s.4
Each review begins with a highly personalized analysis of my efforts to get through another year of investing followed by a more holistic overview of what is now a 33-year quest for a ramen-soup-free retirement. These details may be instructive for those interested in my approach to investing. The bulk of the review, however, describes thoughts and observations—the year’s events told as a narrative. The links are copious, albeit not comprehensive. Some are flagged with enthusiasm. Everything can be found here.5
by
Adam Taggart
by
Adam Taggart
Total 10 items
Community
by blaggers 
eQRP: Self-Directed Retirement
Learn more