By Ted Butler:

A friend and long-time subscriber who intends to write a book about the silver manipulation asked if I could provide him with a bit of history. To my mind, the silver manipulation dates back to early 1983, when the commercial traders grew confident that they could sell any quantity of paper short contracts to the technical fund buyers on the COMEX. By that time the commercials learned that technical fund buyers would never take physical delivery and could be counted on to buy or sell based upon price signals that the commercials could easily influence and control. In essence, the game has remained remarkably similar ever since.

The important thing to remember is that regardless of how many years and decades that the silver manipulation has been in place, when it ends, it will end in a virtual instant. That’s why it’s better to be positioned early in silver, rather than late.

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From SD Contributor  Ted Butler

What Now For the Price of Silver? by Israel Freidman

Many years ago, when the price of silver was $4 to $5, Mr. Ted Butler and I wrote many articles in which we predicted that silver would be a great investment for the long term. Now that prices are 7 to 8 times higher, we can say that we were right. More importantly, the reason we were so bullish on silver had to do with supply and demand and nothing to do with inflation or the value of the dollar. I still feel that way. The only thing that has changed is the price and not the reality of supply and demand. Silver demand still is on a course to overwhelm silver supply and when that occurs in any commodity, look for higher prices.

We must first consider the state of the world today and into the future. The world population has just hit the 7 billion person mark, up from 6 billion twelve years ago. The world adds 75 million new souls each year. In addition to the greater numbers of new potential consumers, there is also a move to increased standards of living in places like India and China. Overall improvements in longevity mean that we have more people living and consuming longer than ever before. At the same time, the raw materials necessary for everyone to live better are getting harder and more expensive to produce. Will we have enough raw materials to sustain the march towards higher living standards? I say yes, but at what cost? Those necessary raw materials will not come to us cheaply. Therefore, it would seem wise to set aside and hold those raw materials which are destined to climb sharply in price.

The best raw material to hold in my opinion is silver. [Read more...]

By Ted Butler

Submitted by Ted Butler

‘Perhaps the most amazing thing of all, at least to me, is the glaring fact that even after four years of non-stop public allegations about involvement in the silver manipulation, JPMorgan still remains the big short.‘

There has been an explosion of interest and commentary these past few days as a result of a front page story in Monday’s edition of the influential Financial Times (of London). The story stated that the CFTC was set to drop its four year investigation into alleged silver price manipulation due to insufficient evidence to bring charges, according to three unnamed sources. I went to sleep Sunday evening when the story first appeared prepared to wake up to similar and confirming stories in other publications. Instead, there were no other stories confirming the case was set to be dropped; only strong statements that the FT was story was “premature” and “inaccurate in many respects” by a named source, Commissioner Bart Chilton of the agency.