Precious Metals Strategy: Bullion or Jewelry?

Written by Jeff Nielson (CLICK FOR ORIGINAL)

 

 

 

 

Bullion confiscation has been a risk and concern which has been analyzed in previous commentaries and examined from different angles, so it’s not surprising that this was also the subject of a recent reader question. Part of the answer to that query raised a new topic: the “anti-bullion confiscation” strategy.

What is the easiest way for silver- and gold-holders to avoid the harm and impact of any bullion confiscation decree which might be announced? The answer is to not hold bullion, or rather, not to acquire all your precious metals holdings in the form of bullion.

By now, most readers are aware that historically, the world’s largest bullion market and thus largest repository of bullion is found in India, distributed amongst its enormous 1+ billion population. Indeed, the comically fraudulent attempt by the bankers to “liberate” some, most, or all of the 20,000 tonnes of gold estimated to be held in India was the subject of a recent commentary.

Despite the large income and wealth disparity in India, the majority of gold and silver held in India is distributed amongst its massive peasant/agrarian population. The majority of this population either refuse to use (or trust) banks, or simply lack access to such financial services altogether.

As a consequence of this reality, the modest amounts of wealth accumulated by these families is invariably held in silver and gold. However, Indians don’t carry their silver or gold in the form of coins, or even store it in the form of bars. They wear it, in the form of jewelry, typically hung around the necks of Indian women.

In North America (and the West, in general), “jewelry” and “bullion” are essentially entirely independent concepts. We buy jewelry for vanity, or to earn the favour of females; we exchange our paper currencies for silver or gold bullion as a preferred strategy for wealth preservation. Perhaps it is time for our populations to eliminate that distinction and merge these two activities into a single strategy.

Regular readers are fully aware of the criminalized nature of our governments and economies, with the nexus of all that corruption emanating from the financial sector (under the control of the banking crime syndicate). The actions of these regimes have become increasingly lawless, with the theft-of-assets known as “the bail-in” being the most extreme example to date.

In such societies, it is no wonder that the concern of bullion confiscation becomes an increasingly larger issue in the minds of precious metals holders. For this reason, “diversifying within the sector” has been a frequent theme of previous commentaries. Hold silver and gold. For those who consider themselves competent to engage in equities investments, spread some of your precious metals holdings into the extremely suppressed and undervalued gold and silver miners as well.

Now we have another example and means of diversifying within the sector: holding our physical silver and gold in the form of bullion and jewelry. We should remember that previous acts of bullion confiscation in Western societies (by the US government in 1933 and 1934) focused exclusively on bullion: coins and bars of gold and silver.

Numismatic coins were exempted from seizure. However, “bullion certificates” were included, thus in any modern confiscation, all bullion held in “funds” or “accounts” would be the first bullion seized. We cannot be certain that numismatic coins would be exempt in any future seizures.

However, there was certainly never any thought given to confiscating silver or gold jewelry in those US seizures. Even the most lawless of regimes would be extremely hesitant to attempt to invoke a jewelry confiscation as part of any broader bullion confiscation perpetrated against our populations.

The arguments against attempting to perpetrate any sort of jewelry theft or confiscation are numerous and powerful, and they begin with our still-strong cultural attachment to the world’s only form of Honest Money. Thanks to decades of anti-bullion brainwashing, only a tiny percentage of our populations currently have the prudence to store some or most of their wealth in the form of silver or gold bullion.

Conversely, all of us, except for the growing population of desperately poor, have at least a few items of gold or silver jewelry in our possessions. Indeed, with respect to the married majority, gold engagement rings and wedding bands are regarded by most as an essential symbol of that commitment. As well (particularly for the younger and/or more avante-garde segment of the population), body-piercing is now endemic in our culture.

Much of our population retains a literal physical attachment to their gold and silver. Meanwhile, for the more affluent, there is perhaps an even stronger wealth attachment to jewelry. For the wealthy of the West, just as with the peasant population of India, gold jewelry (in particular) is a symbol of wealth and status.

For these reasons (and more), it is virtually unthinkable that Western corruption would descend to the invasive extreme of any sort of jewelry confiscation. And for that reason, precious metals holders may decide that now is the time to consider acquiring jewelry as part of their overall wealth preservation strategy.

Here it must be understood that there are pros and cons involved, so even those who are most fearful of bullion confiscation — or simply most enamoured with jewelry — would not want to take this strategy to an extreme. The first con to consider here is cost (and thus efficiency). Swapping our paper for gold or silver jewelry inevitably yields far fewer ounces-per-dollar, as we pay for the craftsmanship involved in the fabrication of the jewelry followed by a retail mark-up that is usually higher than what we experience in swapping our paper for bullion.

We also need to consider the reduced liquidity of jewelry. If one needed to “raise cash” for an item of jewelry today, the options range from bad to worse. Selling jewelry back to a jeweler inevitably has a steep discount attached, meaning we lose for a second time in our paper-for-jewelry strategy. Sinking even lower, we can head to pawn shops to attempt a jewelry-for-cash swap and experience an even greater price shock as we are told what our gold or silver jewelry is (supposedly) worth.

Faced with those concerns, larger and/or wealthier precious metals holders may see foreign storage of their bullion as a means of avoiding both the risk of domestic confiscation and the transaction costs involved in storing our wealth in the form of jewelry. Yet here as well, there is no perfect strategy available.

For even those individuals who choose most wisely in shopping for a “safe” jurisdiction, the risk of bullion confiscation in this second jurisdiction will still be greater than zero. A government which appears honest today could morph into something more sinister tomorrow, or simply a new election can result in a complete change in the political landscape.

Then we have a different form of liquidity concern. Not only is there time (and cost) involved in choosing to retrieve one’s bullion held in a different jurisdiction, but we could face a far more serious impediment as we think through such a strategy.

Suppose we choose to store some of our precious metals holdings overseas, and we do so to escape a potential bullion confiscation event, and then such a seizure does occur. If we cannot legally hold gold or silver bullion, we certainly will not be able to legally ship such bullion back to our own jurisdiction (and possession) if or when we require some of that bullion to satisfy immediate liquidity demands.

Storing a large portion of our wealth overseas essentially implies a commitment to relocate, in any worst-case scenario. If we couldn’t bring our bullion home (over the foreseeable future), then we would need to move to wherever our bullion was stored. No matter how we engage in our diversification-within-the-sector strategy, we find no perfect answer.

Our governments have clearly abandoned the Rule of Law, as witnessed by the systemic, financial crime in which they not only facilitate, but participate. Given this reality, no matter how carefully we plan, we cannot be immune from all potential (lawless) acts administered with brute force by fascist regimes.

 

We have liquidity concerns. We have safety concerns. We have cost and efficiency concerns. We diversify within the sector, because no one strategy can possibly address all of these concerns. It is thus important for readers to become fully apprised of all their options (and the risks involved), and then to allocate their wealth amongst those options in a manner most personally optimal.

 

 

Please email with any questions about this article or precious metals HERE

 

 

Precious Metals Strategy: Bullion or Jewelry?

Written by Jeff Nielson (CLICK FOR ORIGINAL)

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1Sdiieg Sprott Money

Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.” ? Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Adding yet another layer of farce to an already comical spectacle, the 2016 presidential election has been given its own reality show. Presented by Showtime, The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth will follow the various presidential candidates from now until Election Day.

As if we need any more proof that politics in America has been reduced to a three-ring circus complete with carnival barkers, acrobats, contortionists, jugglers, lion tamers, animal trainers, tight rope walkers, freaks, strong men, magicians, snake charmers, fire eaters, sword swallowers, knife throwers, ringmasters and clowns.

Truly, who needs bread and circuses when you have the assortment of clowns and contortionists that are running for the White House?

No matter who wins the presidential election come November, it’s a sure bet that the losers will be the American people.

Despite what is taught in school and the propaganda that is peddled by the media, the 2016 presidential election is not a populist election for a representative. Rather, it’s a gathering of shareholders to select the next CEO, a fact reinforced by the nation’s archaic electoral college system.

Anyone who believes that this election will bring about any real change in how the American government does business is either incredibly naïve, woefully out-of-touch, or oblivious to the fact that as an in-depth Princeton University study shows, we now live in an oligarchy that is “of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.”

When a country spends close to $5 billion to select what is, for all intents and purposes, a glorified homecoming king or queen to occupy the White House, while 46 million of its people live in poverty, nearly 300,000 Americans are out of work, and more than 500,000 Americans are homeless, that’s a country whose priorities are out of step with the needs of its people.

As author Noam Chomsky rightly observed, “It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars.”

In other words, we’re being sold a carefully crafted product by a monied elite who are masters in the art of making the public believe that they need exactly what is being sold to them, whether it’s the latest high-tech gadget, the hottest toy, or the most charismatic politician.

As political science professor Gene Sharp notes in starker terms, “Dictators are not in the business of allowing elections that could remove them from their thrones.”

To put it another way, the Establishment—the shadow government and its corporate partners that really run the show, pull the strings and dictate the policies, no matter who occupies the Oval Office—are not going to allow anyone to take office who will unravel their power structures. Those who have attempted to do so in the past have been effectively put out of commission.

So what is the solution to this blatant display of imperial elitism disguising itself as a populist exercise in representative government?

Stop playing the game. Stop supporting the system. Stop defending the insanity. Just stop.

Washington thrives on money, so stop giving them your money. Stop throwing your hard-earned dollars away on politicians and Super PACs who view you as nothing more than a means to an end. There are countless worthy grassroots organizations and nonprofits working in your community to address real needs like injustice, poverty, homelessness, etc. Support them and you’ll see change you really can believe in in your own backyard.

Politicians depend on votes, so stop giving them your vote unless they have a proven track record of listening to their constituents, abiding by their wishes and working hard to earn and keep their trust.

Stop buying into the lie that your vote matters. Your vote doesn’t elect a president. Despite the fact that there are 218 million eligible voters in this country (only half of whom actually vote), it is the electoral college, made up of 538 individuals handpicked by the candidates’ respective parties, that actually selects the next president.

The only thing you’re accomplishing by taking part in the “reassurance ritual” of voting is sustaining the illusion that we have a democratic republic. What we have is a dictatorship, or as political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page more accurately term it, we are suffering from an “economic élite domination.”

Of course, we’ve done it to ourselves.

The American people have a history of choosing bread-and-circus distractions over the tedious work involved in self-government.

As a result, we have created an environment in which the economic elite (lobbyists, corporations, monied special interest groups) could dominate, rather than insisting that the views and opinions of the masses—“we the people”—dictate national policy. As the Princeton University oligarchy study indicates, our elected officials, especially those in the nation’s capital, represent the interests of the rich and powerful rather than the average citizen. As such, the citizenry has little if any impact on the policies of government.

We allowed our so-called representatives to distance themselves from us, so much so that we are prohibited from approaching them in public, all the while they enjoy intimate relationships with those who can pay for access—primarily the Wall Street financiers. There are 131 lobbyists to every Senator, reinforcing concerns that the government represents the corporate elite rather than the citizenry.

We said nothing while our elections were turned into popularity contests populated by individuals better suited to be talk-show hosts rather than intelligent, reasoned debates on issues of domestic and foreign policy by individuals with solid experience, proven track records and tested integrity.

We turned our backs on things like wisdom, sound judgment, morality and truth, shrugging them off as old-fashioned, only to find ourselves saddled with lying politicians incapable of making fair and impartial decisions.

We let ourselves be persuaded that those yokels in Washington could do a better job of running this country than we could. It’s not a new problem. As former Senator Joseph S. Clark Jr. acknowledged in a 1955 article titled, “Wanted: Better Politicians”: “[W]e have too much mediocrity in the business of running the government of the country, and it troubles me that this should be so at a time of such complexity and crisis… Government by amateurs, semi-pros, and minor-leaguers will not meet the challenge of our times. We must realize that it takes great competence to run a country which, in spite of itself, has succeeded to world leadership in a time of deadly peril.”

We indulged our craving for entertainment news at the expense of our need for balanced reporting by a news media committed to asking the hard questions of government officials. The result, as former congressman Jim Leach points out, leaves us at a grave disadvantage: “At a time when in-depth analysis of the issues of the day has never been more important, quality journalism has been jeopardized by financial considerations and undercut by purveyors of ideology who facilely design news, like clothes, to appeal to a market segment.”

We bought into the fairytale that politicians are saviors, capable of fixing what’s wrong with our communities and our lives, when in fact, most politicians lead such sheltered lives that they have no clue about what their constituents must do to make ends meet. As political scientists Morris Fiorina and Samuel Abrams conclude, “In America today, there is a disconnect between an unrepresentative political class and the citizenry it purports to represent. The political process today not only is less representative than it was a generation ago and less supported by the citizenry, but the outcomes of that process are at a minimum no better.”

We let ourselves be saddled with a two-party system and fooled into believing that there’s a difference between the Republicans and Democrats, when in fact, the two parties are exactly the same. As one commentator noted, both parties support endless war, engage in out-of-control spending, ignore the citizenry’s basic rights, have no respect for the rule of law, are bought and paid for by Big Business, care most about their own power, and have a long record of expanding government and shrinking liberty.

Then, when faced with the prospect of voting for the lesser of two evils, many simply compromise their principles and overlook the fact that the lesser of two evils is still evil.

Perhaps worst of all, we allowed the cynicism of our age and the cronyism and corruption of Beltway politics to discourage us from believing that there was any hope for the American experiment in liberty.

Granted, it’s easy to become discouraged about the state of our nation. We’re drowning under the weight of too much debt, too many wars, too much power in the hands of a centralized government, too many militarized police, too many laws, too many lobbyists, and generally too much bad news.

It’s harder to believe that change is possible, that the system can be reformed, that politicians can be principled, that courts can be just, that good can overcome evil, and that freedom will prevail.

So where does that leave us?

Benjamin Franklin provided the answer. As the delegates to the Constitutional Convention trudged out of Independence Hall on September 17, 1787, an anxious woman in the crowd waiting at the entrance inquired of Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic,” Franklin replied, “if you can keep it.”

What Franklin meant, of course, is that when all is said and done, we get the government we deserve.

A healthy, representative government is hard work. It takes a citizenry that is informed about the issues, educated about how the government operates, and willing to make the sacrifices necessary to stay involved, whether that means forgoing Monday night football in order to attend a city council meeting or risking arrest by picketing in front of a politician’s office.

Most of all, it takes a citizenry willing to do more than grouse and complain.

We must act—and act responsibly—keeping in mind that the duties of citizenship extend beyond the act of voting.

The powers-that-be want us to believe that our job as citizens begins and ends on Election Day. They want us to believe that we have no right to complain about the state of the nation unless we’ve cast our vote one way or the other. They want us to remain divided over politics, hostile to those with whom we disagree politically, and intolerant of anyone or anything whose solutions to what ails this country differ from our own.

What they don’t want us talking about is the fact that the government is corrupt, the system is rigged, the politicians don’t represent us, the electoral college is a joke, most of the candidates are frauds, and, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we as a nation are repeating the mistakes of history—namely, allowing a totalitarian state to reign over us.

Former concentration camp inmate Hannah Arendt warned against this when she wrote, “No matter what the specifically national tradition or the particular spiritual source of its ideology, totalitarian government always transformed classes into masses, supplanted the party system, not by one-party dictatorships, but by mass movement, shifted the center of power from the army to the police, and established a foreign policy openly directed toward world domination.”

Clearly, “we the people” have a decision to make.

Do we simply participate in the collapse of the American republic as it degenerates toward a totalitarian regime, or do we take a stand at this moment in history and reject the pathetic excuse for government that is being fobbed off on us?

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1JGCGBA Tyler Durden

Last week we brought you drone footage from Homs, Syria’s third-largest city.

The clip was just the latest bit of evidence to support the contention that when the US and its allies seek to bring about regime change in the Mid-East, the results are very often far worse than whatever the political “problem” was in the first place.

What began a decade ago as a covert effort to usurp the Alawite government by playing on the sectarian divide, mushroomed over the years into an overt effort to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. Now, much like Libya, Syria is a lawless wasteland. Its infrastructure is destroyed. Its people have fled (the ones who are still alive). Its resources have been commandeered by extremists. Its cultural heritage lays in ruin.

And it’s not over yet.

With the stakes now higher than ever as the US inserts SpecOps and Russia continues to bombard rebel positions, we wonder if they’ll be anything left of the country by the end of the year. Underscoring the extent of the destruction are the following images, also from Homs.

Somehow we doubt the city would bear any resemblance to these indelible visuals were it not for Washington’s support of the “peaceful, democratic resistance.”

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1Vti6oS Tyler Durden

Submitted by Ronan Manly of BullionStar

Update on Bundesbank Gold Repatriation 2015

Deutsche Bundesbank has just released a progress report on its gold bar repatriation programme for 2015 – “Frankfurt becomes Bundesbank’s largest gold storage location“.

During the calendar year to December 2015, the Bundesbank claims to
have transported 210 tonnes of gold back to Frankfurt, moving circa 110
tonnes from Paris to Frankfurt, and just under 100 tonnes from New York
to Frankfurt.

As a reminder, the Bundesbank is engaged in an unusual multi-year
repatriation programme to transport 300 tonnes of gold back to Frankfurt
from the vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), and
simultaneously to bring back 374 tonnes of gold back to Frankfurt from
the vaults of the Banque de France in Paris. This programme began in
2013 and is scheduled to complete by 2020. I use the word ‘unusual’
because the Bundesbank could technically transport all 674 tonnes of
this gold back to Frankfurt in a few weeks or less if it really wanted
to, so there are undoubtedly some unpublished limitations as to why the
German central bank has not yet done so.

Given the latest update from the German central bank today, the
geographic distribution of the Bundesbank gold reserves is now as
follows, with the largest share of the German gold now being stored
domestically:

• 1,347.4 tonnes, or 39.9%, stored in New York;
• 196.4 tonnes, or 5.8%, stored in Paris;
• 434.7 tonnes or 12.9% stored at the Bank of England vaults in London;
• 1402.5 tonnes, or 41.5% now stored domestically by the Bundesbank at its storage vaults in Frankfurt, Germany

In January 2013, prior to the commencement of the programme, the
geographical distribution of the Bundesbank gold reserves was 1,536
tonnes or 45% at the FRBNY, 374 tonnes or 11%, at the Banque de France,
445 tonnes or 13% at the Bank of England, and 1036 tonnes or 31% in
Frankfurt.

The latest moves now mean that over 3 years from January 2013 to
December 2015, the Bundesbank has retrieved 366 tonnes of gold back to
home soil (189 tonnes from New York (5 tonnes in 2013, 85 tonnes in
2014, and between 99-100 tonnes in 2015), as well as 177 tonnes from
Paris (32 tonnes in 2013, 35 tonnes in 2014, and 110 tonnes in 2015).
The latest transfers still leave 110 tonnes of gold to shift out of New
York in the future and 196.4 tonnes to move the short distance from
Paris to Frankfurt.

In the first year of operation of the repatriation scheme during
2013, the Bundesbank transferred a meagre 37 tonnes of gold in total to
Frankfurt, of which a tiny 5 tonnes came from the FRBNY and only 32
tonnes from Paris. Whatever those excessive limitations were in 2013,
they don’t appear to be so constraining now. In 2014, 85 tonnes were let
out of the FRBNY and 35 tonnes made the trip from Paris. See Koos
Jansen’s January 2015 blog titled “Germany Repatriated 120 Tonnes Of Gold In 2014” for more details on the 2014 repatriation.

Those who track the “Federal Reserve Board Foreign Official Assets Held at Federal Reserve Banks” foreign earmarked gold table
may notice that between January 2015 and November 2015 , circa 4
million ounces, or 124 tonnes of gold, were withdrawn from FRB gold
vaults. Given that the Bundesbank claims to have moved 110 tonnes from
New York during 2015, this implies that there were also other
non-Bundesbank withdrawals from the FRB during 2015. Unless of course
other gold was withdrawn from the FRB, shipped to Paris, and then became
part of the Paris withdrawals for the account of the Bundesbank. The
FRB will again update its foreign earmarked gold holdings table this
week with December 2015 withdrawals (if any) which may show an even
larger non-Bundesbank gold delta for year-end 2015.

Notably, the latest press release today does not mention whether any
of the gold withdrawn from the FRBNY was melted down / recast into Good
Delivery bars. Some readers will recall that the Bundesbank’s updates
for 2013 and 2014 did refer to such remelting/recasting events.

Today’s press release does however include some ‘assurances’ from the
Bundesbank about the authenticity and quality of the returned bars:

“The Bundesbank assures the identity
and authenticity of German gold reserves throughout the transfer process
– from when they are removed from the storage locations abroad until
they are stored in Frankfurt am Main. Once they arrive in Frankfurt am
Main, all the transferred gold bars are thoroughly and exhaustively
inspected and verified by the Bundesbank. When all the inspections of
transfers to date had been concluded, no irregularities came to light
with regard to the authenticity, fineness and weight of the bars.”

But why the need to for such a general comment on the quality of the
bars while not providing any real details of the bars transferred, their
serial numbers, their refiner brands, or their years of manufacture?
Perhaps remelting/recasting of bars was undertaken during 2015 and the
Bundesbank is now opting for the cautious approach after getting some
awkward questions last year about these topics – i.e. the Bundesbank’s
approach may well be “don’t mention recasting / remelting and maybe no
one will ask”.

 

Source: Bundesbank

Limited Hangout

This bring us to an important point. Beyond the Bundesbank’s
hype, its important to note that the repatriation information in all of
the press releases and updates from the Bundesbank since 2013  has
excluded most of the critical information about the actual gold bars
being moved. So, for example, in this latest update concerning the 2015
transport operations, there is no complete bar list (weight list) of the
bars repatriated, no explanation of the quality of gold transferred and
whether bars of various purities were involved, no comment on whether
any bars had to be re-melted and recast, no indication of which
refineries, if any, were used, and no explanation of why it takes a
projected 7 years to bring back 300 tonnes of gold that could be flown
from New York to Frankfurt in a week using a few C-130 US transporter
carriers.

There is also no explanation from the Bundesbank as to why these 100
tonnes of gold were available from New York in 2015 but not available
during 2014 or 2013, nor why 110 tonnes of gold somehow became available
in Paris during 2015 when these bars were not available in 2014 or
2013.

The crucial questions to ask in my view are where the repatriated
gold that has so far been supplied to the Bundesbank from New York and
Paris has been sourced from, what were the refiner brands and years of
manufacture for the bars, what was the quality (fineness) of the gold,
and are these bars the same bars that the Bundesbank purchased when it
accumulated its large stock of gold bars during the 1950s and especially
the 1960s.

In essence, all of these updates from Frankfurt could be termed
‘limited hangouts’, a term used in the intelligence community, whereby
the real behind the scenes details are left unmentioned, and questions
about the real information is invariably left unasked by the mainstream
media. Overall,  it’s important to realise that the Bundesbank’s
repatriation updates, press releases, and interviews since 2013 are
carefully stage-managed, and that the German central bank continually
dodges genuine but simple questions about its gold reserves and the
physical gold that is being transported back to Frankfurt.

For example, in October 2015, the Bundesbank released a partial
inventory bar list/weight list of it gold holdings. At that time, on 8
October 2015, I asked the Bundesbank:

Hello Bundesbank Press Office, 

Regarding the gold bar list published by the Bundesbank yesterday (07 October http://ift.tt/1FX4LSU), could
the Bundesbank clarify why the published bar list does not include,for
each bar, the refiner brand, the bar refinery serial number, and the
year of manufacture, as per the normal convention for gold bar weight
lists, and as per the requirements of London Good Delivery (LGD) gold
bars? 

Bundesbank bar list:http://ift.tt/1QECgwQ 

From the London Good Delivery Rules, the following attributes are required on LGD bars http://ift.tt/1lUs06M

“Marks:   

Serial number (see additional comments in section 7 of the GDL Rules)    

Assay stamp of refiner    

Fineness (to four significant figures)    

Year of manufacture (see additional comments in section 7 of the GDL Rules)”

 “The marks should include
the stamp of the refiner (which, if necessary for clear identification,
should include its location), the assay mark (where used), the fineness,
the serial number (which must not comprise of more than eleven
digits or characters) and the year of manufacture as a four digit
number unless incorporated as the first four digits in the bar number.
If bar numbers are to be reused each year, then it is strongly
recommended that the year of production is shown as the first four
digits of the bar number although a separate four digit year stamp may
be used in addition. If bar numbers are not to be recycled each year
then the year of production must be shown as a separate four digit number.”http://ift.tt/1QECiF4

Best Regards, Ronan Manly

 

The Bundesbank actually sent back two similar replies t the above email:

Answer 1:

“Dear Mr Manly, 

Thank you for your query. Information
on the refiner and year of production are not relevant for storage or
accounting purposes, which require the weight data, the fineness and a
unique number identifying each bar or melt. The Bundesbank has all of this information for each of its gold bars. By contrast, particulars relating to the refiner and year of production merely provide supplementary information. They tell us part of the gold bar’s history but do not describe its entire ‘life cycle’.”

Yours sincerely,

DEUTSCHE BUNDESBANK Communication

 

Answer 2:

“Dear Mr Manly,

The crucial data for storage and
accounting purposes are the weight, the fineness and a unique number
identifying each bar or melt. The Bundesbank has all of this information
for each of its gold bars, which it records electronically and also
makes available to the public. In addition to the data on weight and
fineness, the Bundesbank, the Bank of England and the Banque de France
identify gold bars exclusively on the basis of internally assigned
inventory numbers and not using the serial numbers provided by the
refiners. These custodians do not classify the bar numbers stamped onto
the gold bars by the refiner as individual inventory criteria. They do
not use the refiner’s bar numbers as these are not based on a unique
numbering system that can be used for identification purposes. Stating
the refiner and the year of production is not required for storage or
accounting purposes.”

Yours sincerely, 

DEUTSCHE BUNDESBANK Communication

 

Even the large gold ETFs produce detailed weight lists of their bar
holdings, so you can see from the above answers that the Bundesbank is
resorting to flimsy excuses in its inability to explain why it is not
following standard practice across the gold industry.

For additional Bundesbank’s prevarications on its gold bars, please see my blog “The Keys to the Gold Vaults at the New York Fed – Part 3: ‘Coin Bars’, ‘Melts’ and the Bundesbank” in a section titled “The Curious Case of the German Bundesbank”.

Finally, see BullionStar guest post from 8 October 2015 by Peter Boehringer, founder of the ‘Repatriate our Gold’ campaign – “Guest Post: 47 years after 1968, Bundesbank STILL fails to deliver a gold bar number list“.
This guest post adeptly takes apart the Deutsche Bundesbank’s
stage-managed communication strategy in and around its gold repatriation
exercise, and asks the serious questions that the mainstream media fear
to ask.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1PkbWHq Tyler Durden

The story of Ammon Bundy and his not so merry band of Federal Wildlife Refuge occupiers is about to come to its end.

Following the overnight arrest of the Oregon militia leader and six of his associates by the FBI, as well as deadly shooting during a confrontation with federal authorities of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, spokesperson for the militiamen occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, moments ago Portland’s KATU reported that Ammon Bundy, through his attorney, asked the remaining armed occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to stand down and go home.

Bundy and the others were taken to Portland and booked into the Multnomah County Jail and made their first appearance in federal court on felony charges.

It was here that Bundy decided to stand down.

“I’m asking the federal government to allow the people at the refuge to go home without being prosecuted,” Bundy said through his attorney Mike Arnold, who stood outside court to read Bundy’s statement. “To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is ours for now in the courts. Please go home.”

Earlier, the handful of remaining armed occupiers tried to convince more people to join them via a YouTube livestream and told any would-be occupiers that if the federal authorities “stop you from getting here, KILL THEM!”

The occupiers took over the refuge Jan. 2.

In addition to Bundy, those arrested were Ryan Bundy, Brian Cavalier, Shawna Cox and Ryan W. Payne. They were taken into custody during a traffic stop. Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy and online talk-show radio host Peter Santilli were arrested in Burns. Jon Ritzheimer was arrested after surrendering to authorities in his home state of Arizona.

Top row from left are Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Brian Cavalier and Shawna Cox. Bottom row from left are Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy, Ryan Payne, Jon Eric Ritzheimer and Peter Santilli. (Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office/Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

KATU adds that a federal judge ordered the seven defendants in Portland to stay in federal custody. The judge ruled there’s a risk they wouldn’t show up in court, and those under arrest pose a danger to the community because the occupation at the wildlife refuge continues.

Defense attorneys argued that none of those under arrest have significant criminal records, but the judge agreed with prosecutors that all should remain in custody until a detention hearing scheduled for Friday.

None of the seven defendants entered any plea on the charge of impeding federal wildlife officers from doing their job, although the outcome of the legal process at this point is virtually assured: prison, of the Federal kind.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1UrVllc Tyler Durden

The PBOC FX intervention team continue to be busy in offshore Yuan this week as for the 4th time in 3 days, a mysterious panic-buyer lifted CNH between 5 and 10 handles higher for no good reason other than to show George Soros (and Bill Ackman) who is boss (i.e. drive away the shorts). In keeping with the recent “stability” the Yuan fix was flat but another 340bn Yuan was injected – except China CDS pushes to Aug 2015 wides indicating severe stress and suggesting devaluation looms.

 

Offshore Yuan in all its manipulated glory…It would appear 6.61 is the number to bet against!!

 

Stability… or is it artificial (as CDS signals anything but)

But more liquidity…

• *PBOC TO INJECT 340B YUAN WITH REVERSE REPOS: TRADERS
• *PBOC TO INJECT 260B YUAN WITH 28-DAY REVERSE REPOS: TRADER
• *PBOC TO INJECT 80B YUAN WITH 7-DAY REVERSE REPOS: TRADER

We look forward to the post China New Year unwind of all that liquidity.

You can only hold the big balloon under water for so long…

 

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1nzskd9 Tyler Durden

Via EconomicNoise.com,

Hans Christian Andersen told the story of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” as part of his  Fairy Tales Told for Children collection. The tale is almost two hundred years old. Most know how a little boy was the first to announce that the emperor had no clothes. Andersen’s tale is being re-written today and should be entitled “The Empire Has No Clothes.” This story is one occurring around the world.

Governments are in disrepair and disrepute everywhere. They are increasingly viewed as exploitive, ineffective and catering to privilege. Public interest, the idealistic goal of government, never was real in the sense that it overrode the private needs and wants of officeholders. “Public servants” were never better stewards of public interest than private citizens pursuing their own self-interest. Indeed, once the returns to power increased, self-selection made most politicians inferior in morality and public interest than the typical citizen.

The discomfort and turn against government occurs not because any of its behavior is new. Government has always been dishonest and a scam. What changed over time is the magnitude of government and its burden on citizens. The pain of tolerating it has apparently reached that threshold where people are no longer willing to ignore it.

Governments around the world have become leviathans, meddling in the most minute and personal decisions of its citizens. Supporting government in its infancy required no taxation. Today the average citizen pays more than 40% of his production as tribute and support to the empire. Few believe they get much of value in return.

Even with such confiscatory theft, governments are spending themselves and their citizens into bankruptcy. Capital that entrepreneurs need to start and grow businesses is now consumed by government vote-buying schemes and stupidity. As a result, economic growth cannot occur, jobs are lost and the standard of living declines.

The current political contest in the United States reflects the attitude of citizens against government. Outsiders are either winning or gaining popularity in the primaries. The public is fed up with government as shown by polls such as this one. The political establishment still has not grasped the real reasons for their unpopularity.

The Empire

The phrase “limited government” is used to differentiate a so-called government “of, by and for the people” from government that is not limited or “of, by and for the people.” Arguably Abraham Lincoln’s description was the best piece of Statist propaganda ever delivered to the public. It was not true when he said it and it is implausible to even utter such a sentiment today without being ridiculed.

“Limited government” is a clever phrase that is both untrue and impossible. It is akin to describing cancer as “limited cancer.” Left alone, cancer grows and kills. So too does government. A more accurate but less flattering description of government is “limited tyranny.” Limited government is merely a euphemism for limited tyranny. Unfortunately neither government nor tyranny can be limited.

Power is like cancer. It grows and eventually destroys whatever it preys upon. The only way to constrain power is with greater power. But therein lays the insoluble problem. Government was an attempt to provide order to society. It was granted power over others to keep order. But granting such power and controlling it was not possible. Who was to constrain the power? No entity with power willingly limits its power. Setting up another layer of government or power to do so only worsens the situation. Ultimately all power succumbs to Lord Acton’s undeniable truth:

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Power granted is always limited yet it always grows and is abused. Power, even in small doses, qualifies as tyranny. Idealists may not recognize it as such until it becomes so great that the tyranny can no longer be denied or ignored. The notion of limited government is fantastical. It is the belief in unicorns, tooth fairies and Santa Claus! Only the young or naive believe in such things.

History provides no examples of government staying within the bounds granted. All governments grow and become increasingly oppressive. The passage of time and human nature ensure such outcomes.

Is Civilization At An Inflection Point?

The current disgust with government is palpable. It is the reason why a braggart like Donald Trump can challenge for and likely win the Republican nomination for president. It is also the reason why a septuagenarian Socialist can challenge an anointed Democrat candidate. Both political contests reflect  hatred toward the political class. The voters are saying STOP! They turn to outsiders out of desperation.

Is this merely a political phase that can be remedied? Is it merely a normal ebb and flow of the political process? It is easy to answer in the affirmative to both of these questions. History shows few exceptions and the few are usually bloody and violent. It is easy to be influenced by a form of confirmation bias when assessing such conditions. However, my personal judgment is that this dissatisfaction is not something temporary that will self-repair.

Regardless of who is nominated and elected in the next presidential race, it is my opinion that this outcome is meaningless. This country and likely other so-called advanced democracies seem to be at an inflection or turning point. History is typically not useful in identifying such times.

If my guess is correct, none of us alive today will see its occurrence. The process will likely be lengthy and contested. It will take decades before a final determination can be made.

Donald Trump is not a politician although he is likely to be elected. Voting for Donald Trump (or Bernie Sanders) is a protest vote against government. It is the nation’s Howard Beale moment:

I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter.

 

 

Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV’s while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore.

 

We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad. You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!’ So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’ I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”

It will be the first shot fired against the Empire. It will be ineffective but will be the first signal that the process of citizens taking back their country has begun.

Donald Trump (or Bernie) is a sign of how frustrated the electorate has become. Voters don’t know how to stop what is happening to them and their country but they are mad as hell and are not going to take this anymore. The upcoming election will change nothing. The best that the public can hope for is to elect a wrecking ball that will dent or damage some of the government apparatus. That is probably a foolish hope, almost certainly one that will not be fulfilled.

The ballot box will be ineffective in satisfying the public. Other means will be tried. The Empire will not stand idly by while its power is threatened. It will strike back at any attempt to slow its growth or rate of plunder. It will become truly vicious, not unlike a wounded and cornered animal. Power is never relinquished willingly.

Government, more properly called The State, has always been dependent on a myth. That myth is that society cannot be orderly without government and that all perceived ills can be solved by it. The reality is that society preceded government and that the State is little more than an Al Capone with better PR and no Eliot Ness.

Our founders did their best with The Constitution. Few believed it could be preserved easily. Thomas Jefferson knew as much when he stated:

Every generation needs a new revolution.

I suspect he thinks less of us for not honoring his solution — yet!

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1nzsilk Tyler Durden

“The real question now is whether continued pressure on for-profit colleges will result in further closures and more petitions from hundreds of thousands of students with tens of billions of loans they now know can be legally discharged.”

That’s what we said last May when disgruntled students from the now defunct Corinthian Colleges began to press the Department of Education for debt relief after the government accused the for-profit institution of using fraudulent recruiting practices.

Long story short, students are entitled to have their debt expunged if they can prove that they’ve been defrauded. When the government forces a school to close its doors, it’s obviously quite difficult to deny students’ claims, which means that if Congress is serious about going after the for-profit college space, they’re effectively setting the stage for a massive taxpayer bailout of the schools’ students.

At issue are claims the schools make about things like graduation rates and job placements. As WSJ wrote last week, “thousands” of students are now “flooding the government” with appeals to have their loans discharged on the grounds they’ve been the victims of fraud.

The problem for the government is that the obscure law which allows students to apply for loan relief is short on specifics. That is, it doesn’t spell out what qualifies as “fraud” which means that while there are some clear-cut cases, there’s also quite a bit of ambiguity – especially when it comes to the for-profits.

“They promised us to get jobs in the field, and most of us ended up at Office Depot,” one former Art Institutes student told the Journal, describing his less than satisfactory experience at the school, where he studied to be a video game designer.

“In short, it’s just a matter of time before the ‘thousands’ of appeals flooding the Department of Education turn into tens and hundreds of thousands as recent graduates suddenly discover the harsh realities of America’s waiter and bartender economy,” we said.

Well you can add DeVry students to the list of those who will very shortly be sending the Education Department a mountain of discharge requests because the FTC has now accused the school of deceiving prospective students about the employment success of graduates.

“The Federal Trade Commission—one of several federal agencies investigating the for-profit school industry—took aim at DeVry advertisements claiming 90% of its graduates who sought jobs found them in their field of study within six months of graduation,” WSJ reports. “In a suit filed in a California federal court, the FTC is asking a judge to provide monetary remedies to allegedly deceived students, including refunds and restitution.”

Needless to say, shares of DeVry had a rough session:

For its part, the school says the FTC has no legal basis to file the complaint. “DeVry Education Group intends to vigorously contest a complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission, challenging the employment and earnings outcomes of DeVry University graduates,” a statement from the company reads.

But again, someone will end up having to pay these students restitution (i.e. their debt will be expunged one way or the other whether it’s through a refund from DeVry or federal debt relief). As a reminder, most students at for-profit schools receive federal aid, which means that if DeVry ends up successfully contesting the idea that it’s responsible for refunding students’ tuition, the students can just appeal to the government for debt relief. After all, it’s not exactly like the Department of Education could refuse after the FTC sued the school for fraud. 

But the reall punchline is this, again from WSJ: “[The FTC] accuses the school of including workers in low-paying retail jobs as finding work in their field of study, such as a business administration major working as a restaurant server.“

And there you have it America. The “waiter and bartender recovery” is confirmed … by none other than the US government.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1WOFcrl Tyler Durden

It should surprise nobody that when it comes to perpetuating the global central bank “put”, China – which is at daily danger of having its house of trillions in non-performing loan card collapse at any moment – has perfected moral hazard better than any western central banker. However, even the staunchest cynics will be stunned by the latest development out of the Shanghai government where starting next month, venture capital firms which invested in high-tech startups since the beginning of 2015 can apply for government compensation if their investment loses money.

In other words, while until now the government had bailed out corporate bond and bank loan investors, and was actively micromanaging the burst stock bubble (unsuccessfully), it will now enter the venture capital and private equity arena in what may be the grossest misallocation of capital unleashed by China to date.

The policy is laid out in a regulation dated December 29 that the city’s Science and Technology Commission put on its website on January 21. Under the regulation, if the sale of a VC’s stake in a startup fails to cover its original investment, it can ask the government for a payout amounting to 30 or 60 percent of the shortfall depending on the size and revenue of the firm it backed. 

The most any VC firm can receive in one year is 6 million yuan. The limit on individual investment projects is 3 million yuan although we are confident both these limitations will be breached grossly and repeatedly.

Shanghai is not the first Chinese city to implement this lunacy: an investor with a financial institution in Shanghai said the city did not invent the idea of subsidizing high-risk private financial investment. Other local governments in China have implemented similar rules but none of them offer quite as much compensation, he said.

With other local governments it was more of an ad hoc arrangement, he said. “You go to the government’s public finance bureau, asking for money, and they will tell you to wait as they go over their budget. Usually they’ll return and say there are no funds left, so you’ll have to wait until the next year and see.”

According to Caixin, the payout offer is intended to encourage private VC investment to support innovation and the development of Shanghai as a global high-tech center, the document says. The policy is to last for two years. 

Of course, what it will encourage instead is another round of massive fraud, and investing in idiotic projects that have zero hope of recovery let alone return, because when one is spending with a full government backstop – like during episodes of QE – the last thing one cares about is trivial concepts like “risk.” There is only the guarantee of return and as Allan Meltzer put it best, “Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. It doesn’t work.”

What it does do is assure that an even greater bust will take place once this particular bubble bursts, however in the process billions in taxpayer funds will be “allocated” to a handful of individuals who will promptly abuse China’s capital controls and end up purchasing luxury apartments in Manhattan.

Surprisingly, instead of keeping their mouth shut and just accepting the government’s risk-free money, some have dared to speak out against this idea which can only be classified as sheer idiocy:

The idea will have a “disastrous” impact on the principles of the capital market, said Andrew Y. Yan, managing partner of private equity investment firm SAIF Partners.

 

“A fundamental principle of the market economy is the match between risk and return,” he said. “VC investments are extremely risky and limited to only a very few people and institutions. The negative consequences of using public money to compensate investment losses will be unimaginable.”

 

Xie Zuoqiang, vice president of the PE firm Prosperity Investment, said the new policy provides no clear standards and procedures on calculating losses, leaving loopholes that can be abused to cheat tax payers’ money. He also said the two-year life of the regulation creates uncertainties because VC investments often last longer than that. “The policy may be well-intentioned,” he said, “but supporting an industry is a long-term initiative.”

Actually the policy is beyond idiotic, however it is clearly designed to enrich a handful of “venture capitalists” who like U.S. bankers have purchased local government puppets to do their bidding for them.

That said, there may be a silver lining: very soon the infamous “zero-corn” Theranos may liquidate in the US only to be reconsistuted in Shanghai, where its fraud will guarantee massive taxpayer funds are spent to boost the bank accounts of every criminal involved.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1PTM2GN Tyler Durden