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Tom Pappalardo

Tom Pappalardo

Posted: September 6, 2010 01:01 PM

For those with a good memory, this is the promised follow up to my piece on the manipulation of the silver market and its very scary ramifications. Before we get into the possible end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it details, a recap is in order. Andrew Maguire of London blew the whistle on JP Morgan Chase's very likely profound manipulation of the silver market to the CFTC. As financial government watchdog agencies are wont to do these days, they did their best to sweep it all under the carpet. How the SEC handled Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme is a prime example of this. This matter is not a Ponzi scheme, but it is the largest scam ever, going into the trillions of dollars territory. But back to Maguire, who was quite determined to clean up the business of commodities trading. He goes public with powerful compelling evidence of JP Morgan Chase's manipulation of the silver market. This happens on a Kingsworld radio show. The next day someone tries to kill him by ramming a car into Maguire's car. Maguire and his wife, who was also in the car, are hurt pretty bad but survive. After this, in their infinite wisdom, the commodities watchdog the CFTC decides to have a meeting with most of the key players in commodities trading but exclude Maguire from attending. At this meeting a secret is revealed that could easily tear apart the fabric of our barely functional financial system. The secret is that for every 100 ounces of gold and for every 100 ounces of silver traded on paper there is only one actual ounce of gold and one actual once of silver to back up these trades. Given that yearly there are trillions of gold and silver traded on paper, this is the literally biggest scam in the history of scams. Now the guy who let this cat out of the bag didn't think it was a big deal, using the logic that as long as the buyer was paid the value of his purchase at the time he wants to sell it doesn't matter if his purchase was backed up by an actual commodity. This cavalier attitude does seem to reflect the mindset of people working in our financial system that everything is smoke and mirrors except the money being exchanged.

It is quite possible and even probable that someone with enough financial resources and the will to do it could turn our financial system upside down and make an enormous profit from it. This person would have to have no loyalty to western currency and the financial well-being of western countries. So let's assume a very wealthy Asian wants to take a shot at getting into Bill Gates' wealth status. From what I gather, the game plan would be a simple one. That is, buy enormous amounts of what I like to call the paper version of silver and gold and buy even more actual silver and gold. Then start a run on Comex by demanding to replace your paper with actual gold and silver. The next part is for me admittedly a bit fuzzy, so my play by play of this could be off a bit, but I believe the general idea fits the situation. Given that commodities' trading is a relatively small community, if the player of this scenario has purchased enough of these metals and starts demanding their paper be replaced with the real thing, their demands should cut fairly deep into Comex reserves and then the rumor mill will kick in big time. It shouldn't take long for the word to get out that there is more paper of gold and silver out than actual gold and silver exists to back it up. Once this gets on the street it should not take long for the Comex reserves to get wiped out. Then financial chaos is right around the corner. However as chaos swirls around them, those that possess actual silver and gold will see their investment shoot up, perhaps skyrocket in value. I believe a conservative estimate would be to rise anywhere from two to four times in value. However given the volatility of anything financial these days I fully expect it to zoom to five to ten times in value.

That's the good news if you are sitting on actual gold and silver, but the bad news is really, really, really bad because the basis for all valuation including the stock market, the dollar, the euro, etc., is gold and silver. Remove silver and gold from the valuation process, and as one financial analyst recently told me, the stock market probably drops to 25 percent of its value the dollar probably loses 30 percent of its value and so on. These figures are guesswork and possibly conservative, but what is not a guess is that the value of stocks, the dollar, the euro and more will lose big chunks of their value enough to throw our fragile financial system into chaos. The value of silver and gold are bedrocks for building the valuation of currencies the stock market and other financial entities. Remove a bedrock and the house comes tumbling down, or at least a good part of it, probably most of it.

Financial Armageddon anyone? Sure we have already looked that bullet in the eye and dodged it. However, many financial wizards have predicted it could still occur and none, as far as I know, took into account the wipeout of the silver and gold reserves. However back to the gutsy whistleblower Maguire -- he was scheduled to be interviewed back when all this broke out by all the big news outlets. However, quite suddenly all of these major media sources canceled these interviews. So unless someone you know who is into the silver market brought this to your attention, it likely went completely under your radar. Presumably, the government. the wolves of Wall Street, and every other financial player who has a lot to lose are working hard to keep this on the way down low for as long as possible. I can't really blame them for this given the impending catastrophe revealing this secret will release. However, the trigger for all this going public is likely the DOJ and SEC's investigation of JP Morgan Chase's manipulation of the silver market. Once this investigation comes to a close there has to be some consequences which the media can't completely ignore and then the stink storm hits the fan for most of us and for those that own silver or gold their personal value jumps up quite a bit.

Between silver and gold, silver gives the much stronger appearance of giving an investor a more viable short term reward. Since the DOJ and SEC started investigating JP Morgan Chase's very likely manipulation of silver, you no longer see silver pushed down hard after it has rallied up. In fact an interesting phenomenon has taken place recently regarding silver. Silver and gold used to be joined at the hip in that both would go up and down together as a matter of course. However, silver has continued to go up regardless of when gold goes down. Even more remarkably, silver has recently continued to go up even if the stock market goes down. This shocking behavior of silver only strengthens the case that JP Morgan was manipulating the silver market. That the silver market has such staying power is not really surprising given the big picture of high deficits, a weak dollar, a weak euro. Silver stands out as a relatively safe investment perhaps the safest investment anyone with a some extra money can make. Right now its just under $20 an ounce which is a whole lot more affordable for the average person than gold at around $1250 per ounce.

Obviously, if any of you readers have some money and you can afford to sit on for 6 to 18 maybe 24 months, it is my opinion that buying actual silver or gold especially silver is one hot investment. I suggest this time frame because I suspect within ½ to 2 years the investigation of JP Morgan Chase's obvious manipulation of the silver market will be concluded and made public. The government will no doubt drag this out as long as they can which is why I foresee this possibly lasting a good 2 years. It's also possible that within that time frame, some enterprising filthy rich person is willing to blow up the silver and gold market to make to make themselves super rich.

I wouldn't just take my word on any of this. If this subject grabs your interest I strongly recommend you listen to an interview between Andrew Maguire and Adrian Douglass of GATA. GATA is the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee and was organized in January 1999 to advocate and undertake litigation against illegal collusion to control the price and supply of gold and related financial securities. When you hear these two speak about the inevitability of the biggest fraud in the history of man being exposed you cant help but feel that its just a matter of time before what I like to call the big bang hits our financial system. One of the questions Douglass asks Maguire is why it was allowed to happen that we now only have 1 ounce of gold and 1 ounce of silver to back a 100 ounces of each that is being sold on paper. As I recall Maguire thinks it happened because at a low point it was a quicker way to juice the financial markets and eventually it all just got way out of control. I see a parallel in the steroids era of baseball and sports in general. After the baseball strike put the sport in a dark period, the lords of baseball looked the other way while some players juiced themselves up so they could hit more home runs in one season than had ever been hit before. This created a major buzz for baseball and quickly took them out of this dark period. However when the stink hit the fan baseball would be forever tarnished and would never be the same.

Apparently the fools that run our government and our financial world also looked the other way and took the short term upside gambling against the long term loss. The question begs to be asked if and when this big bang hits given all the other bullshit that the protectors of all financial have allowed to be fostered upon the general populace, will said general populace ever again trust the members of the Fed Reserve, big banks the Secretary of Treasury etc etc ad nauseam ever again. There sure isn't much left to trust so this new catastrophe ought to really wipe out any vestige of trust the peons of Main street still have for any and all of the big financial players. I doubt if this will lead to people stuffing cash into their mattresses but it will probably lead to the creation of more state run banks like the one that now exists in Montana.

To any of you who read my first piece on the silver market please accept my apology for not keeping my promise of following up right away with a second piece. If you care for an explanation, at first I delayed because the BP oil spill seemed like more than enough of a major downer for everyone to handle and I didn't want to pile on. Then I got distracted and lazy. Now after a two week vacation I feel renewed enough to finally keep my promise. Hope it was worth the wait.

Lastly a note of caution given that I am recommending you readers to spend your hard earned cash on an investment, for those thinking of jumping into buying silver or gold or any investment, when contemplating making any purchase especially big ones, there are two lines not to cross. Crossing these lines is a leap from risk taking to gambling and I strongly recommend you don't gamble with your money. In my considered opinion an action becomes a gamble when you risk something you can't afford to lose like betting your rent money. The other line not to cross is taking unnecessary risks. I am not suggesting you should live like you are in a straight jacket but with money it's usually best to be cautious. Taking lots of unnecessary risks can become as addictive as betting on the ponies or sports. The reason for this is both give you an adrenaline rush. The more someone takes unnecessary risks the more likely they will get burned. With that in mind please be conscious, be cautious be smart and pick your battles or risks wisely.


 
 
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11:36 AM on 09/11/2010
Hi Tom. A couple of minor correction­s, or clarificat­ions of the items you wrote of. The 100:1 ratio was an off-the-cu­ff estimate by Jeffrey Christian during his comments at the CFTC hearings with GATA. I don't believe they (LBMA or other similar entities) really know nor care what the ratio of paper to physical exists, as long as the appearance of a functionin­g and legitimate gold market exists.

Regarding some person upending our current system thru these markets, our system has already been upended by the paper people, haven't you noticed? Note that it is estimated by some that the BIS has 32,000 tons of gold, more than any other entity in the world...th­ey didn't call bankers "goldsmith­s' 100s of years ago for nothing. "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." Mayer Amschel Rothschild­, 1790 (banker)

Lastly, the standard of living has steadily decreased (and relative wealth) of average working americans since nixon took us off the gold standard in 1971... it was this act (to fund more vietnam and profligate govt spending) that led to the stagflatio­n of the 70s (commonly blamed on Carter), the oil embargo in the early 70s and subsequent­ly the situation we have today ... all coupled with 'deregulat­ion'. The current fiat system is what ails this nation (look at trade and the decimation of manufactur­ing in this country), not a system based on something other than 'promises'­.
04:19 AM on 09/10/2010
I do not want to make another long post but I have seen some very suggestive evidence that the government in the US is very hostile against competing currencies­.My own experience with e-gold and I have read about another I cant remember also US located were put out of business for assorted reasons but the way they were put out of business suggests they wanted to also punish the customers.­Note how good gold is for money when you have no exchange fees if both keep it as gold and its cheaper than pay pal and much cheaper and easier for me than wiring money where I have to go physically to a bank.And pre payed credit cards even expire while holding gold is even inflation proof.
What I am saying is that's its easy to understand why the US government is so hostile towards this competing currency,i­ts too good.
My favorite was c-gold.com but goldmoney.­com looks good too and some others if you Google for them.
04:04 AM on 09/10/2010
I always have to laugh when I hear someone say you cant eat gold.The
buffoons do not even realize they are saying the same thing, as saying
you cant eat money.
Sometimes I need to point out that even in the US British pounds are
still money, just cant spend them there, so why should gold be so
different.
But then again you cant spend food either.How about the chicken
dollar.Car­e and feeding of your money. Good luck paying for those
farming tools on Ebay with chickens.
Will that be 5 clucks and 1 egg to be send by mail.
30 thousand years of learning how to barter, trade and make tools and
yet many today still do not actually understand the the idea of
money.They are even trained to believe only paper can be money and
never question that.They do however seam to understand when they need
beer tho.
Mind you most of them are of the beer today gone tomorrow types anywise
but I do get entertaine­d by them.

Cash is for fast local spending but gold is for savings and internatio­nal spending.

Cash can crash for good but gold silver is a phoenix
04:05 PM on 09/12/2010
he he - very true
I hear "you can't eat your silver" and say the same thing.
But trace elements of gold and silver are in our bodies.
No trace elements of Fed Res Notes have yet been found AFAIK.

One point to pick however; chickens *can* be money.
It just depends who you are, where you are, and how bad your currency collapses.
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Tom Pappalardo
01:41 AM on 09/09/2010
I am blown away by all the smart insightful and helpful comments given here. I want to respond to many of them but am not sure where to start. However I have to give a special shout out to Thomas Jefferson for really cutting right to the heart of the matter. Dude you rock and love the stuff you did with the US Constituti­on and Bill of Rights.
04:13 AM on 09/09/2010
statist.
11:38 AM on 09/11/2010
shout to this? " I believe that banking institutio­ns are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporatio­ns that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -- Thomas Jefferson -- The Debate Over The Re Charter Of The Bank Bill, (1809)
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Tom Pappalardo
11:07 AM on 09/12/2010
FreedomCor­pse you seemed to have missed my joke in that the quote you posted from Jefferson is the same quote another poster posted quoting Jefferson and is the quote I refer as cutting to the heart of the matter while treating TomJeff as a someone making a comment.
09:05 PM on 09/08/2010
In 2008 just JP Morgan CHASE had a derivative­s position as seen in the table section of the Comptrolle­r of Currencies Report (March 2008) http://caf­r1.com/STA­TES/US-Tre­asuryRepor­ts/BankDer­ivativesMa­rch08.pdf of over 75 billion dollars (primarily short) just before the collapse at the end of 2008. Their position held was greater than gold available for delivery from COMEX. (now NYMEX) - current Warehouse Gold inventory report and for Silver. Both reports are .xls files.

GOLD - http://www­.cmegroup.­com/tradin­g/energy/f­iles/Gold_­Stocks.xls

SILVER - http://www­.cmegroup.­com/tradin­g/energy/f­iles/Silve­r_Stocks.x­ls
02:36 PM on 09/09/2010
:) Brilliant moniker Sir !
Comprehens­ive Annual Financial Report (LOL!)
I just got it ... love it!
07:42 PM on 09/08/2010
An amazing update/fol­low-up to your first article. Thanks a bundle.
One correction however:
The only State owned bank is the Bank of North Dakota, not Montana, but you were in the ballpark!! :)
As more State Capitols become aware that they too can create their own credit for the benefit of their populace, more should arise.
The Fed would likely try to put a halt to it; but hey, it's their money creation rules at play, and all the States would be doing is playing THEIR game.
I wonder how it could be legally, as opposed to 'lawfully'­, achieved?
07:24 PM on 09/08/2010
THE FEDERAL RESERVE IS A PRIVATE BANK!

I believe that banking institutio­ns are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporatio­ns that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826
President of the United States
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dsws
No owning ideas. Limit only commercial use.
02:25 PM on 09/08/2010
There are many thousands of tons of gold in the world; Comex only has inventory of a hundred tons or so. Depleting the inventory at Comex would mean paying Comex for its gold -- paying money that it could turn right around and use to buy more gold, up to hundreds of times its inventory.

Gold is valuable only because it's money, not the other way round. It doesn't produce anything. It costs money to store and insure. It's too heavy for large business transactio­ns, and the pieces would be too small for small personal ones. It's so impractica­l that it's normally handled in the form of warehouse receipts: that fact should tell you something about how viable a medium of exchange it is. Even gold works better when it's made out of paper.

And except for being money, gold isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
03:39 AM on 09/10/2010
You really need to review the history on the Hunts in the 1980s where silver went to about $50.00 an ounce.Infi­nite money chasing more silver than exists can result in this repeating.­And those that have silver like me do not want to sell the physical metal while its going up as most of us know its so undervalue­d as the result of the scams in the markets and we may not be able to buy it back.Also note that many of us now believe the paper price will crash as the COMEX loses credibilit­y while the physical metals go up to the moon.
That's another one of the main problems as there is very strong evidence that more silver is now sold than exists due to people not taking delivery of the actual metals and the whole thing has gotten to be like reserve banking.
Please please people do not ever trust these ETFs where the offer free storage and even that's no guarantee as one major band has been sued millions of dollars for charging a storage fee for gold it did not actually store.
For a feel of whats going on see http://har­veyorgan.b­logspot.co­m/ and my favorite http://mar­ketwatchin­g.freeforu­ms.org/ind­ex.php?sid­=98ab5395e­eaa34ba74f­a6b95dd7b2­ab5 as many there will find links and you can see actual traders at work.
12:38 PM on 09/08/2010
Tom, congratula­tions, you just described to a Tee exactly how the US dollar-deb­t-world banking system operates, Just remove “silver” and insert “dollar.”

The secret is that for every $34000 dollars borrowed by the US Government­, only one tax payer exists who can pay it all back. In the last two years alone TRILLIONS MORE dollars were borrowed than taxpayers were mined (I mean born), this scam makes any funny business with the gold or silver market a virtual joke. And when a bank has that $34000 bucks placed on deposit, they can in turn loan out something like $34,000x10­x10 in fractional reserve notes. This is called a Fractional Reserve Banking, and fiat currency.

When you have a fiat based currency, and a government in control of that currency takes financial steps that appear to be dumping trillions more borrowed fiat notes with accruing compound interest into the pool, it should come as no surprise that wealthy and industriou­s people realize the pool can’t hold all this new water… They want an exit, and to shore up the value of their original dollars. They don’t want inflation to wipe out the value of their capitol.Th­e US dollar, and everything connected to it, stocks, bonds, debit instrument­s are all backed by NOTHING but a promise to repay it with more paper. Why does the US treasury need to “borrow” dollars from the Federal Reserve Bank, when they could just print US Notes without interest?
08:18 PM on 09/08/2010
Yes Cortland,

This is the Secret of Oz. A very good documentar­y worth watching.
(I suppose you've already seen it from the sound of your comment)

Treasury DID print debt-free notes. Commonplac­e until shortly after WW2, ended in 1953.
Silver Certificat­es production was brought back briefly, from June 63 until Feb 64.
You could still cash in your Silver Cert's till June 68, for real silver.
Payable however only at the U.S. Treasury's Assayers Office in San Fransisco, and only then, IN PERSON.
:)
The "borrowing into existence" scam is at the root of all of our woes.
Detractors will tell you that the Industrial Revolution wouldn't have been possible without the fiat system, not realizing it didn't even exist until AFTER that period.
How little we actually know.
09:31 PM on 09/07/2010
Hold on a second folks. I follow the silver market as a near religion and this story has been widely reported in the alternativ­e financial news since this past spring. That being the case, don't you think silver prices would have already sky rocketed? What the gentlemen describes is not unique to precious metals. It is how all commoditie­s futures markets work. It's a trading and betting game. We all saw it in "Trading Places" with Eddie Murphy, so relax a little.
The real conspiracy is the U. S. Goverment inflating the U. S. dollar to nothingnes­s, thus making precious metals more valuable. The price of gold and silver is a symptom of this on-going effort of the U. S. to live beyond it's means. Is there price suppressio­n of precious metals? Probably, but I think Mr. McGuire just signed onto a competing precious metals ETF in Canada, so this conspiracy is in reality a bit of pre-releas­e marketing IMHO.
Am I a pro-busine­ss shill? Hardly. I do believe we are headed for the ol' sheeteroo, but it is inflation that is the culprit. Look up the youtube video "melt up" on by inflation nation. I don't agree with it's entire message, but every American should think twice about it. Precious metals prices are just a symptom of the problem, politician­s giving the public what they demand, and rich people getting richer and circling the wagons for when tomorow isn't like today.
06:11 PM on 09/07/2010
Four words are all you need to understand economics:
Promises, lie, steal and murder.
That's it.

All paper transactio­ns are promises. If promises are kept, times get better; if not, times get worse. When folks lie in order to sell promises, it's to steal. When the lied-to party loses big-time, this theft decreases their ability to buy adequate food, clothing and shelter to sustain themselves­, and they suffer greatly. They die sooner than they would have normally.

Putting a drop of poison every day into someone's coffee makes them die sooner. This is murder. Pilfering someone's life savings through lying has the same effect. I call that murder, too.

Economics is called the dismal science for a reason, as death is dismal. Today's economists simply don't understand promises. That's why radical dollar bugs hate physical gold and silver. They can't steal from you without confrontat­ion. They want your wealth in paper promises where they can pilfer, at will, day and night. You won't know it's gone until it's too late.
09:25 PM on 09/07/2010
From GATA to Huffpo....­Cool....:)
04:48 PM on 09/07/2010
Hat's off to Mr. Pappalardo and the finger of blame points directly at both government ( both parties ) as well as the Wall Street elite bankers that control our system of government­. This is exactly what Jackson, Jefferson, Lincoln and Kennedy tried to undo. As Jefferson said, if you let private bankers control the creation of money, they will control government and today that is the case as Senator Durbin stated no six months ago.

Maybe someday we the people will wake up and take back our government­. But until we do, we will continue to be debt slaves to the Wall Street elite who through their friends on Capital Hill decided a long time ago to choose to run our lives through debt rather than freedom. Close down the Federal Reserve, put a few key people in prison and watch just how fast things change for the better. That's real change you can believe in.
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johnny g locker
03:20 PM on 09/07/2010
The problem with this story is that is doesn't easily fit into the false left/right partisan bickering game that most of America knows how to play.

If Americans knew the truth about the Federal Reserve Banking system and how it steals wealth and concentrat­es and funnels it to the few at the top, there would be blood in the streets tomorrow.

But, alas, both political parties keep the charade up and refuse to address the real cancer in this country, the fiat money system.

So, people don't know what to do with something so big. They can't blame one party or the other, so they ignore it. But they ignore it at their own peril.

The gold and silver suppressio­n story is the story of the century. Gold and silver are the canaries in the coal mine for US dollar reserve currency hegemony. Saddam wanted to price oil in Euros. Guess what happened to him?

The game is to prop up the US dollar as long as they can. The suppressio­n of gold and silver is necessary to do so. So when they explode in price, they will not be the causes of the collapse, just the effect. Then, gold and silver will be demonized as the tools of terrorists and they will try to confiscate it.

Get it while you can. It will be one of the few ways to protect wealth in the upcoming collapse.
10:02 AM on 09/07/2010
There is a theory of merit that JP Morgan and the other manipulati­ng banks are doing so at the direction of the World's central banks and the US treasury. Rising gold and silver prices are anathema to fiat currencies­, and must be kept in check, or the real Ponzi scheme (fiat currencies­, eg the US$) will come crumbling down. The transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich (bankers) is easy when they have control of money and can print it at will. Fiat money is destroying the middle class. Fight back by buying physical gold and silver. Don't worry about paying 8-12% over quoted prices. Start paying for things w silver coins. Get out of the stock market.

http://drg­-freeassoc­iation.blo­gspot.com/

If you want to read some wild conspiracy theory on this topic (I'm unconvince­d but interested­), try

http://www­.roadtoroo­ta.com/pub­lic/main.c­fm

Zerohedge and GATA are also good resources
04:50 PM on 09/07/2010
Bravo and you've been fanned! I've been at it for years in trying to get people to understand and it's long past time that they woke up from their coma.
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joebhed
Greenback Revolutionist
09:42 AM on 09/07/2010
What the F*&$# is this story doing down at the bottomest-­leftist position on the Business page at HUFFPO?

Why isn't it at the Top-Right of the Homepage?
10:29 AM on 09/07/2010
Well, probably because most people don't have an economics degree and have a tough time believing anything this corrupt could be happening. Given there are only 6 comments shows the disinteres­t in and/or lack of understand­ing of this topic. It's actually surprising that it even made it onto huffpo. When financial Armageddon hits, most will be shocked and wondering why nobody told them ahead of time. People just don't like pessimisti­c outlooks. I've spoken to all my friends and family but I know of only one person that has taken interest or action to protect themselves­.
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Keth30
I used to be a liberal, then I grew up.
11:34 AM on 09/07/2010
Actually, I have been on Huffpo yesterday and today and it took a friend emailing me the article for me to know it was even here.
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johnny g locker
03:20 PM on 09/07/2010
Top right?

How about top center for the next six months!!