The Fed’s Prodigal Son Effect

Wealth inequality is a hot topic. The Left is attacking the rich, and proposing taxes to drain away their wealth (and the wealth of the middle class). There is no economic or moral justification for a tax on those who … Read More

Recent Fed Repo Intervention Isn’t Just A ‘Plumbing’ Problem, It’s A Regulating Problem

The banks have recently got into trouble. They got used to being able to pawn off some Treasury bills whenever they needed cash, but last month there were no lenders. So on September 17, the Federal Reserve stepped in with … Read More

To Frexit or Not to Frexit?

This was also a holiday-shorted week.

As we write this, the big news comes from the election in France. The leading candidate is a banker named Emmanuel Macron, with about 24% of the vote in a 4-candidate race. The anti-euro … Read More

Last Week’s Massive Silver Spike: What Does It Mean?

On Wednesday through Friday, the price of silver spiked massively. It ended the week about $2 higher than the previous week. The last time we recall silver price action like this was about 3 years ago, in August 2013. That … Read More

The Cost of Bullish Bets

There are two views of the markets for the monetary metals. One, as we have discussed many times in this Report, holds that gold and silver will eventually go up so high that those who own the metals will be … Read More

How the Fed is Making Wealth Destruction Profitable

Many people agree that it’s important to move to a free market in money (i.e. the gold standard). They also say that it’s just as important to fight bad taxes and regulation. In their view, government interference in the economy … Read More

The Service Economy

I have visited and spent weeks at a time in Europe. On this recent trip however, something clicked for me as I stared out my hotel window at a train station and seeing other public mass transportation moving on the … Read More

Why Have Gold Miners Stopped Hedging Against Gold Prices?

There are two ways to run a gold mining company. One respects the simple fact that it is producing money. It is not eager to trade its the money it produces for government paper, legal tender laws be damned. It … Read More

Gold is Up, but Fundamental Price is Still Higher

The dollar dropped about half a milligram gold, and 50mg silver.

But who wants to read about the universal currency falling, failing? Few people are so barbarous as to think of the dollar’s value as being priced in terms … Read More

Everything You Need to Know About Our Failing Monetary System But Were Afraid to Ask

Larry Parks conducts this fast-moving interview with Keith Weiner. In 30 minutes, they cover many of the topics central to understanding the consequences of dishonest money. This discussion is accessible to the layman without expertise in economics.

Keith Weiner

Keith Weiner … Read More

The Decline and Fall of Silver Backwardation

The gold price moved up $18. However, the silver price moved up 60 cents which is a much bigger percentage. The silver community is getting pretty excited.

A market trend will often begin when a small number of traders … Read More

The Cotton Candy Market

As I have discussed previously, if you borrow cash then it’s not income. This is why no one in his right mind borrows to buy consumer goods. Those who try cannot sustain it for long.

What if someone else borrows? … Read More

Silver Price Spikes, But What Demand

For a few frenzied minutes, while everyone was sleeping, the price of silver spiked 56 cents. Well, at least the West Coast of America was sleeping. It began at 8:30 in New York, where presumably most traders were not sleeping. … Read More

Prediction: Gold and Ratio Up, Stocks Down

The price of gold moved up moderately, and the price of silver moved down a few cents last week. However, there were some interesting fireworks in the middle of last week. Last Tuesday, the prices dropped and last Thursday, … Read More

Efficient Malpractice

Take the notion of the efficient market. What does that mean? Today, hordes of people are coming out of economics and finance majors believing an absurdity. Yes, I said absurdity. They think that, if the market is efficient, it’s impossible … Read More

The Dog That Did Not Bark

In the famous Sherlock Holmes Story, the detective identified the perpetrator from the fact that a dog didn’t bark. The dog didn’t bark because it knew the perpetrator. This story makes a good analogy to what happened on Thursday, Sep … Read More

Gold Rally is Consistent With Fundamentals, Not Speculation

The prices of the metals moved up a bunch this week, with gold + $32 and silver +$0.55. We have seen some discussion of gold backwardation in the context of scarcity, and hence setting expectations of higher prices. That’s good, … Read More

Gold Markets Driven By Manic-Depressive Crowd of Speculators

Consider the sport of betting on the sport of horse racing. It’s actually similar to the analysis of the gold and silver markets. How’s that?

First, there is the manic-depressive crowd. Sometimes (as we are told—we don’t hang out at … Read More

Gold Investors, Use Fundamentals vs. Speculation, Rumors and Conspiracies

Last week was a fairly quiet week in the market for the metals, with a min-rally on last Thursday especially in silver which hit almost $15. By the end of last week, the price of gold was down $13 and … Read More

Move Over Entrepreneurs, Make Way for the Speculators

Once upon a time, before banks and before even private lending, there was only one way to prepare for retirement. People had to hoard something durable. Every week, they would set aside part of their wages to buy salt (later, … Read More

How to Filter the Speculative Noise Out of Gold Prices

Last week, we called for a rising gold to silver ratio. On last Wednesday, this ratio hit nearly 80 before backing down a bit by the end of the week. It did not happen with a rising price of … Read More

Who the Heck Consumes His Capital?!

I have been writing about consumption of capital, using the example of a farmer who sells off his farm to buy groceries. It’s a striking story, because people don’t normally act like this. Of course, there are self-destructive people in … Read More

The Exquisite Market Setup

There is an exquisite setup building once again. Tight fundamentals in the gold market apply upwards pressure on the price. For quite a while, we have been saying gold’s fundamental price was around a hundred bucks above the market … Read More

Why Is Gold Becoming Scarcer

For quite a while, we have been talking about scarcity in gold. The cobasis for both October and December is positive. These contracts are backwardated. The cobasis for the February 2016 contract is not far from backwardation. The gold … Read More