Dr. Jeffrey Lewis: Recent Episodes
Dr. Jeffrey Lewis
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It is hard to believe that this tiny little under priced, battered and abused paper silver market is important enough for collusion by the big banks, as well as the government.
The agitation can come from many things. From ‘known knowns’, like subprime or student loan defaults - to the unimaginable or trivial, like some upper air disturbance or a media driven accident that turns violent.
The next generation will look back at the current period with utter astonishment. The archives will be riddled with debates and all manner of euphemisms for what led to the collapse of the world’s first and last fiat reserve currency.
...backed by an amorphous construct - one that it is powerful and hostile. It is mathematically impossible to repay both official and unofficial debt without collapsing the system that manufactures it.
From domestic divisions to geopolitical tensions and hot spots boiling over - the confusion was palpable. There were too many places to look for blame. Too many contributing causes.
Whether imposed by authority or by accident, a true banking holiday would make the value of necessities skyrocket in price relative to the sudden supply shortage.
To measure a ‘return’ with anything other than ounces at this stage in the game is absurd.
It may have arisen from humanity - human systems - but finance has morphed so far beyond anything humane that it is unrecognizable. It is other-worldly
Some have pointed out that this marks the end of the “petro-dollar” - and a foreshadowing of the end of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency
The word “regulation” has become a euphemism for control and the infestation of concentrated power and wealth.
The precious metals have nearly always been a key signaling mechanism — acting as the most efficient economic and financial communicator.
Economics and finance can serve as one such portrait. China will lurch toward achieving first world status - but it will not go without spillover effect with the surround.
Once an outcry floor worked by the ‘everyman’, protected by camaraderie and common sense; futures markets are now infested with a faceless ivory tower elite.
A return to hard money will grow from the shadows, as more and more mainstream investors are forced out of the current financial ponzi
The mainstream investor is about to really feel the temperature drop, despite a thousand reminders that the cold financial winter is coming.
Legal tender, Fiat, unbacked Federal Reserve notes, is based on a lie. A false principle, central to each successive layer of untruth.
If you look close enough, you can see the shadow of the matrix. You can smell the stench of boiling frogs.
Across the spectrum from futures positioning, the influx of SLV speculation, and the frantic in and out movement of physical silver from COMEX warehouse to warehouse are shining warning lights.
If you look close enough, you can see the shadow of the matrix. You can smell the stench of boiling frogs.
If you were prepared for the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 and wonder when it will even follow through - now is the time re-check the financial earthquake kit.
Behind the scenes (or rather, behind the curtain of propaganda) the most influential of the banking class is sending out smoke signals.
The next collapse will come wrapped in some other fear-laden, false flag-riddled tragic disaster meant to distract and protect the elite.
Silver is what it is. The paper price goes up or down, but your stack doesn't transform.
This is a time when people will look back on us and see this moment as the tipping point where the average man began to understand modern finance and monetary system.
The Fed will continue to be the buyer of last resort until the population and culture wake up to "bank holidays, runs and/or "bail ins".
Commenting on these markets over the last decade, I often wonder how long they can keep it all together. The entire house of cards has stood up much longer than anyone has expected.
Figuring out when to jump back in the river and bring it back into the system is a whole other challenge...
Lurking further below the surface is the ability and willingness - from academia across the political spectrum - to print what it takes to keep the banks alive.
In the age of electronic price discovery and massive reckless monetary Imbalance anything can happen - and it probably will.
How did it come to pass that banks were given access to the commercial category of traders?
Jeff Clark's recent "bullish" silver piece missed the unmentionable elephant in the room.
Warren Buffet talks down gold as a way of protecting his interests and to bide time before everything falls apart.
The world monetary system is even more tightly wound. Each day that goes by whistling past the reality guarantees that. When the next crash arrives, the dollar's demise will play center stage.
The precious metals are lynch pins. They are nagging and persistent counter-parties to money printing gone wild.
The world monetary system is even more tightly wound. Each day that goes by whistling past the reality guarantees that. When the next crash arrives, the dollar's demise will play center stage.
The precious metals are lynch pins. They are nagging and persistent counter-parties to money printing gone wild.
Nearly seven years after the world's greatest financial crisis, we remain in monetary emergency mode, an irony matched only by the last minute (literal, and relatively quiet) battening down of the monetary hatches.
All modern currencies are fiat. The numeraire of the moment floats in a cesspool of policy designed for management and intervention.
The REPO market is the transmission mechanism that drives liquidity. It is breaking down beneath the surface.
If silver prices were to suddenly move back toward natural price equilibrium, there would naturally (not always the best thing) be a rush to get on board.
Silver is not just any old commodity. It is old money. Despite massive efforts and price fixing, clipping and manipulation, it has remained central to monetary and political systems for centuries. Today it is small and relatively dark in the context of modern investing.
Despite the persistence of the recovery meme, financial markets are more fragile to risk than ever before.
Price discovery in all commodities is an electronic paper affair. While the macro-economy and the geopolitical provide a distant framework, they do not wield significant direct influence.
The financial powers, in the name of government treasuries (along with the IMF) have a keen eye trained on the lowest hanging fruits of monetary assets. What was once unthinkable is fast becoming a reality as bail-ins promise to morph into the confiscation that only precious metals investors have been known for fearing.
The missing variable in the great monetary equation is money velocity. We hear it over and over again, "There is no money velocity." And therefore, inflation cannot be a problem and is not.
If you don't hold it, you don't own it. This should be the soothing mantra for all long term precious metals holders.
The real elephant in the room for silver demand may be the oldest form of silver - the demand for silver jewelry.
The particularly ruthless destruction of wealth that disproportionately have an effect on the poor and elderly is a process that slowly, then all at once, destroys the middle class - which has its roots in the debasement of money.
For long term investors and precious metals observers, the range-bound price action has rubbed salt into the open wound of short price sentiment. That is, if there is anyone left to remember the move up to $50 in 2011.
The underwater beach ball analogy may be overused, but it continues to be a valid description of the deep state of silver.
Many assume that the day will come when they seek to punish precious metals owners. However, the punishment was put in place long ago by suppressing the price and forcing a debt backed currency on an unsuspecting world citizenry by decree.
Silver and gold price sentiment is an unmentionable reflection of the desires of central banking, backed by a currency enforced by decree. Real price discovery is the forbidden yet beating heart of darkness - where few are willing to travel.
The mainstream is on an academically-driven mission to politicize conspiracy theories and lump them all into the same category. While gold and silver manipulation is an ancient conspiracy fact, eyes are wide shut to the general awareness in the face of one revelation after another.
On average, every quarter we are exposed to yet another price guidance by a mainstream analyst. Such analysts usually reside within a large investment bank. These calls become focal points for a sector and often seem to carry with them some form of self fulfilling prophecy.
A recent 60 Minutes television show interview revealed the long established electronic trading mechanism used to front run and carry out price management and profit schemes across trading seconds. In the wake of the interview, one cannot help wonder how many degrees of separation exist between public awareness of this and its connection to futures and precious metals price manipulation.
It should be clear now to most precious metals observers that gold and silver price manipulation is just as common to the metals as it is to every other asset class. And equally evident should be the realization that resolution will not come from organized efforts. Be it regulation or legal class action, market forces will more than likely assert themselves.
Investors and observers watching the drama unfold in the Ukraine should not be surprised at the short price action of the precious metals, mainly gold and silver. Throughout the crisis (and as matter of record with practically every other crisis) the metals are driven down by a system that becomes more sophisticated each day.
Manipulation is just one more arbitrage made legal and hugely profitable for pockets deep enough to position themselves. Obviously, it also conveniently serves to indirectly support the medium of exchange by pressuring and controlling the price of its counterpart, the precious metals.
Disaster, by over-optimization, is another important way to frame the much-heralded "just in time" inventory practices which are used broadly by industry and grafted to monetary assets like precious metals.
There is something rather absurd about the ever-so-slightly loosening death grip that the mainstream financial media has around the issue of precious metals price manipulation. The painfully reluctant (and largely incomplete) reports on the subject have fueled a series of seemingly derivative-like conspiracies.
The dividing line between silver performing as a monetary asset versus an industrial commodity is tethered to a broken price discovery system, where unlimited position limits are held by the most influential of traders.
By law, fiat money is debt in our current environment. It turns rational people into outlaws and criminals.
We've created a thousand 100 year storms that threaten the entire global economic system. The movement of this money into the depressed conditions that (unknowingly) await its arrival will leave no one untouched.
The Chinese financial system, along with the rest of the emerging market, exist as an extension of "the world is flat monetary policy" on a scale never seen before.
With incredible bullish and widely misunderstood fundamentals generally kept sequestered from the mainstream, it is easy to rationalize higher prices eminent at any point in time.
Nothing matters to anybody until it matters to everybody — and by then it's too late. This could easily be said for the gold and silver price manipulation.
Sadly, it is more likely that adoption of crypto currencies and/or the return to monetary metals will be missed by the majority.
The errors of financial policy, led by the world's central banks, have once again created the makings of a massive crisis.
If the new-found mainstream awareness of price manipulation of precious metals is embraced with anything close to the impact of LIBOR and similar scandals, the news may ultimately be a sweet sorrow.
There are many possible trigger points, capable of inducing the kind of inferno the financial system is fragile to. A true black swan would be devastating.
Precious metals paper price discovery was already damaged, but the rise of the machines has made the damage more complete.
We've covered the mechanisms used to manipulate the metals extensively, but it is important to point out the differences between gold and silver in terms of how they are managed.
The catalyst for much higher silver prices will be of a monetary, rather than an industrial, demand-led series of events.
The consensus is that price manipulation will go on forever and this is perhaps the most bullish reason that it simply will not.
When it comes to perception of the markets and the proper assessment of risk, it is imperative, however tedious, to step beyond the noise- especially with precious metals.
When will Americans eventually wake up to what has happened to their country and the enormous fraud that controls all markets?
The last time housing market sentiment and precious metals prices lined up this way, we were on the cusp of massive volatility and collapse.
It may be impossible to precisely diagnose the event or chain of events that trigger the great return, but we can sober to the almost certain probability.
The Target debacle is one of a myriad of potential Black Swans in a system extremely vulnerable to accidents
Much confusion persists regarding the method, or mechanics, of how the big banks are able to push the price of precious metals around at will for so long.
In contrast with digital fiat, precious metals are obviously an old world technology that, despite machinations to the contrary, have continued to exist.
The push higher in stocks could leave silver and gold as the temporary black sheep everyone forgets about - but rarely does this last for long.
China and (to a lesser extent) the so called BRIC nations have been rapidly accumulating Western precious metals for years.
Dollar collapse is about as far from the mainstream concern as the next major earthquake - both inevitable and natural events.
Recent price performance and sentiment have all but wiped precious metals off the map - even for the most prudent of value investors.
Beyond the typical underlying changes in money supply there are very important silver fundamentals that will continue to push the value of physical silver higher and higher.
Slowly, the status of the dollar as reserve currency is slipping away, threatening hyperinflation.
By keeping precious metals in performance control, the general population fails to see outward signs of inflation - at least for a while.
Among the alternative financial press (the so-called bloggers of finance) there is a renewed buzz regarding a slowly unfolding crisis.
The fiat money transmission mechanism will eventually come. This will occur, for the most part, thanks to the Treasury.