Are We On The Verge Of Witnessing The Death Of The Paper Gold Scam?

The legal claims on physical gold far exceed the amount of physical gold that the banks actually have by a very, very wide margin. And right now the bankers are scared out of their wits because their warehouses are being drained of physical gold at a frightening rate. So what happens when their physical gold is gone but they still have lots and lots of people with legal claims to gold? When that moment arrives, it will represent the end of the paper gold scam. Many believe that the recent takedown of the price of paper gold was a desperate attempt by the bankers to put off that day of reckoning, but it appears to have greatly backfired on them. Instead of cooling off demand for precious metals, it has unleashed a massive “gold rush” all over the globe. Meanwhile, word has been spreading among wealthy families in both North America and Europe that they had better grab their physical gold out of the banks while they still can. This is creating havoc in the financial community, and at least one major international bank has already declared that it will only be settling those accounts in cash from now on. The paper gold scam is starting to unravel, and by the time this is all over it is going to be a complete and total nightmare for global financial markets. [Read more...]

Alasdair Macleod- Physical Gold vs Paper Gold: Waiting for the Dam to Break

dam breakingIn this article I will argue that the recent slide in the gold price has generated substantial demand for bullion that will likely bring forward a financial and systemic disaster for both central and bullion banks that has been brewing for a long time.
To understand why, we must examine their role and motivations in precious metals markets and assess current ownership of physical gold, while putting investor emotion into its proper context.
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Rick Santelli: Paper Gold…Game, Set, Match!

paper goldRick Santelli today gave an EPIC RANT on the difference between physical gold and paper liabilities commonly traded on commodities exchanges.

I don’t even look at gold as gold anymore since they securitized it. If things went badly in the world that I used to observe as a gold bug; the gold would end up in the hands of the gold bugs. If things go badly now, they’re going to end up with checks from ETFs!
Sorry, it’s not the same! The reign of paper gold as the Ayn Rand endgame, to me, that’s over. Game, Set, Match!
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“Tug of War” in Gold as Asians Buy Physical and ETF Investors Sell

tugofwarOutflows from the world’s biggest gold exchange traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust (ticker: GLD), continued yesterday for the eleventh day running, taking the total volume of gold held to back GLD shares to its lowest level since November 2011.
“It is really a tug of war between ETF selling and physical buying right now,” says Yuichi Ikemizu, head of commodity trading, Japan, at Standard Bank.   “We have seen quite good physical demand from China and Southeast Asia, but the ETF selling has put a lid on gold prices.” [Read more...]

MEXICO’S FEDERAL AUDIT DEMANDS PHYSICAL INSPECTION OF SOVEREIGN GOLD HOLDINGS HELD AT BOE!

Bank of Mexico*BREAKING
Guest Post, by Guillermo Barba

Today we have an exclusive note on this blog: the Mexican Superior Audit of the Federation (“ASF” in Spanish), in its Report of Supreme Audit Results of the 2011 Public Account” delivered last week to the Chamber of Deputies, gave a stern “recommendation” to the Bank of Mexico (Banxico) to audit the Bank of Mexico’s gold reserves held in London at the Bank of England.

The reason is one of the most important issues we have addressed here: the gold reserves of Mexico.
As you may recall, last year we informed that after four months of legal wrangling with Banxico, it was forced to give us the information about the supposed physical location of Mexico’s sovereign gold holdings.  In the disclosure, we discovered that 95 percent of the Mexican gold reserves (about 125 tonnes) were abroad, and almost all (99%), in London, England.The ASF has determined that Mexico should “make a physical inspection with the counterparty that has the gold under its custody, in order to be able to verify and validate its physical wholeness and thecompliance with the terms and conditions of dealing with this Asset…” It was verified by the ASF that this has never been done by Banxico.