Thursday, March 21, 2013

Swiss People's Party (SVP) Forces Gold Referendum

The conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP) has garnered enough signatures concerning a ban on the selling of gold reserves in the country to force a referendum on the issue.

Called "Save our Swiss Gold," the proposal would disallow the central bank of Switzerland from selling any of the gold it holds in reserve, as well as keeping a minimum of 20 percent of its assets in gold.

"Gold reserves aren't speculative objects for the SNB or politicians. They belong to the people," said SVP politician Luzi Stamm.

During 2007 through 2008 the Swiss National Bank (SNB) sold about 250 tons of gold, resulting in an outcry from citizens. While promising it won't sell any more of its gold holdings (laughter in the background), it still is threatened by the idea of rules being put into place which would hinder it from taking steps in shaping the monetary policy of the nation.

SNB spokesman Walter Meier said this: "The SNB has considerable concerns, in particular of a monetary policy nature, about the initiative's demands."

Of course if the SNB had no intention of reneging on its promise, it makes one wonder why it is it's concerned about the demands of the SVP.

Near the close of 2012 the SNB had a total of 1,040 tons of gold in reserve. That equaled about 50.8 billion ($54 billion) Swiss francs at the time.

Another provision of the initiative is that the Swiss National Bank must store all of its gold reserves within the borders of the country.

At this time it is alleged most Swiss gold is stored in the country, although some is stored in other parts of the world in light of crisis scenarios envisioned by the bank.

I wonder if Swiss citizens look at Germany's demand for the repatriation of its gold from America, which it'll have to wait years to get.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Gold Investors Have No Fear, Job Numbers Skewed

In what was undoubtedly a plant in the latest notes from the Fed meeting, along with the so-called big beat in jobs creation, it makes you wonder why the price of gold, and silver for that matter, shrugged off the news and not only held steady, but moved up a little.

The obvious reason is investors know that this is a bunch of nonsense. The Federal Reserve isn't going to stop printing money, and the jobs number were so fudged it's almost a certainty that they will be downwardly revised; probably in a big way.

Concerning the Fed notes, that was an attempt to keep investors in gold and silver at bay while the central bank kept its loose money policy in play. While those in the know understand the ploy, the mainstream financial media are now using the comments in the notes as talking points, repeating the mantra of the possibility of the Fed stopping its stimulus strategy. This is all orchestrated, again, for the purpose of planting uncertainty in the minds of investors, whom the Fed and government want to have believe the economy is growing at a strong pace.

Part of this is for the reason of manipulating commodity prices so inflation doesn't overwhelm the country in an obvious way, in which even the uninitiated could be confused as to whether or not it was economic weakness and the consequences of the failing Keynesian monetary policy implemented by the central bank.

So hopefully most of you reading this won't believe for a moment that the Fed is going to stop stimulating. It's not going to happen any time soon, and that can be absolutely counted on, no matter what tactics are used and what the mainstream media reports. Neither can be trusted in these matters.

As for the jobless numbers, they're somewhat laughable.

Dave Lutz, the head of exchange-traded fund trading and strategy at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Baltimore, and one of a number of experts who put the numbers in perspective, said, "Today’s report showed the so-called participation rate, or the percentage of working-age people in the labor force, slipped to 63.5 percent, the lowest since 1981."

Another say this:

 
According to the household survey (on which the unemployment rate is based) the economy added a healthy 170,000 jobs. However, a whopping 446,000 of those jobs were part-time jobs. Simply put, the economy shed 276,000 full-time jobs.
The BLS labeled those 446,000 part-time jobs as "voluntary". I am not so sure.
A Gallup Survey yesterday on Jobs show the percentage of workers working part time but wanting full-time work was 10.1% in February, an increase from 9.6% in January, and the highest rate measured since January 2012.
Gallup notes "Although fewer people are unemployed now than a year ago, they are not migrating to full-time jobs for an employer. In fact, fewer Americans are working full-time for an employer than were doing so a year ago, and more Americans are working part time. Although part-time work is clearly better than no work at all, these are not the types of good jobs that millions of Americans are still searching for."

There are a couple of conclusions to come to. The data are correct and the job market is robust, or there are a growing number of people have their hours slashed because of Obamacare parameters, and are going out to get a second job. At this time it appears the latter of these two scenarios is the reality.

That tremendously skews the jobs numbers, which will will a certainty result in a significant downwardly revised report.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Gold Price and Propaganda

The propaganda has turned openly laughable. On the popular major financial news networks, the recent decline in the so-called Gold price has prompted quite the parade of clowns on the ship of fools to trumpet nonsense.

The widely published and posted Gold price is dominated by futures contracts, and thus as corrupted as meaningless. The entire global financial structure is crumbling before our eyes.

The gang of central bankers has applied their monetary policy for four and a half years since the implosion of Lehman, Fannie Mae, and AIG. The first is dead, while the second has transformed into a sanctioned subprime lender again, and the latter is a sinkhole.

continue reading ...