Marc Faber: "Next Week We Will See If Bernanke Is A True Money Printer Or Just An Amateur"

"The whole world is mad" - so says Marc Faber when beginning his latest observations of the markets in the attached Bloomberg TV interview. "Stocks will be dropping 30%, then rallying 20%, and dropping another 30% -  that's going to be the pattern. And whoever can't live with that shouldn't be buying equities at all." And while the publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom report, said "there is a case to be ultrabearish about everything, and markets are going to go lower" he notes that markets are "extremely oversold" and he expects a "snap-back" rally in the U.S. Standard & Poor's 500 Index of about 40-50 points.

Swelling Nostalgia For Gold-Backed Money And A Balanced Budget Amendment

article by: Bill Bonner

After such stunning gains over the last few weeks, the stuff that Ben Bernanke does not regard as money, gold, needed a rest. But if gold isn’t real money, what is?  Pieces of paper that a private bank and the U.S. Treasury say is real money?

There’s no magic to money. It works as a medium of exchange and a store of value when its quantity is strictly controlled. That’s what’s nice about gold. Its quantity is controlled by nature herself. People have been trying to get around it for centuries. Alchemists labored long and hard to turn base metal into gold.

None succeeded.

Gold And Silver: We Were Right – They Were Wrong

by Brandon Smith of Alt Market

Only now, after three years of roller coaster markets, epic debates, and gnashing of teeth, are mainstream financial pundits finally starting to get it. At least some of them, anyway. Precious metals have continued to perform relentlessly since 2008, crushing all naysayer predictions and defying all the musings of so called “experts”, while at the same time maintaining and protecting the investment savings of those people smart enough to jump on the train while prices were at historic lows (historic as in ‘the past 5000 years’).  

Russia Joins China In Rejecting U.S. Debt, Buys Gold Instead

China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, has been concerned about the safety of its U.S. treasury debt holdings for years.

In March 2009, Chinese Premier Wen Jinbao warned Washington that "We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S.  Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried."

Premier Jinbao's  was right to worry about the safety of China's U.S. debt holdings.   Since March 2009, the U.S. debt has increased by more than $3 trillion and Congress is now being pressured by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury to increase the national debt limit by another $2 trillion.  The parabolic increase in U.S. debt, along with recent downgrade warnings on U.S. debt from the credit rating agencies, must be keeping the Chinese up at night.

China Becomes World’s Larest Gold Buyer - Buys 93.5 Tonnes Of Gold Coins / Bars in Q1 - Gold Ownership Rising From Minuscule Levels

from Goldcore.com

Gold and silver are higher again today with the debt laden dollar, euro and yen all being sold. News that China has become the world’s largest buyer of gold bullion and has seen investment demand double continues to reverberate in the markets and may have contributed to this morning’s strength.

Both gold and silver are marginally higher for the week and after last week’s gain appear to have regained their poise and are consolidating after the recent sell off.

Ron Paul Says: Sell The Gold In Ft. Knox (If There Is Any)

Selling Gold at Fort Knox Emerges as Next Big Question in Debate on Federal Debt Limit

by: David Pietrusza

NEW YORK — The next big question on the federal debt limit could be whether to start selling the government’s holdings of gold at Fort Knox — and at least one presidential contender, Ron Paul, has told The New York Sun he thinks it would be a good move.

The question has been ricocheting around the policy circles today. An analyst at the Heritage Foundation, Ron Utt, told the Washington Post that the gold holdings of the government are “just sort of sitting there.” He added: “Given the high price it is now, and the tremendous debt problem we now have, by all means, sell at the peak.”

Inflation Is Already Here

by Brad Schaeffer

The recent correction in the commodities markets may be providing Bernake, Geithner and their easy money acolytes with a sense of relief given the relentless run up in prices of raw materials since the announcement of QE back in 2008, but they should not sleep tight just yet.  As anyone in the markets will tell you, when any underlying commodity has a price move so vertical in its trajectory it’s bound to face a correction as the smart money, having gotten in for fundamental reasons much earlier along the trend line now wait for the panic buyers or the Johnny-come-lately’s to give the rally that last unsustainable spike to unload their longs and leave the suckers holding $40.00 silver in their purses.

If It Is Time To Sell Gold Then Why Are Central Banks Hoarding Gold Like Crazy?

Has the time to sell gold now arrived?  Before you start dumping all of your gold, you might want to check out what central banks all over the globe have been doing.  There is some serious hoarding of gold that is going on.  For most of the past two decades, central banks have been net sellers of gold, but now many of them are gobbling up gold as fast as they can.

Ben Bernanke’s Lone Positive Legacy: A Return To The Gold Standard

by: Bill Frezza - Forbes.com


I’ll make two predictions with utter confidence. The first is that one day Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will be ridden out of town on a rail, joining Arthur Burns in that special circle of hell reserved for monetary debauchers. The second is that in the aftermath of our pending inflationary disaster we will see the gold standard return.

Where Were You On Super Bowl Weekend?

compliments of: tfmetalsreport.com


I was in Vegas with my friend, Sweetness. He and I gambled too much. Drank too much gin and played a little golf.

Where were you? Did you watch the game? Perhaps you had a party? Maybe you're not an american football fan so you spent the weekend relaxing and catching up. Either way, like me, you had no way of knowing what was going on behind the scenes.

My next question is: Where was Ben Bernanke? Where was Tim Geithner? Where were the rest of the Fed governors and the heads of the TBTF banks? We may never know, though history one day may record their actions for posterity.

How To Buy Gas For $0.25 Per Gallon

by: Chip Wood

Some neighbors and I were reminiscing recently about "the good old days" when the talk turned to how cheap things were back then. I immediately concurred. I told them of the very first credit card I got for one of the gas-station chains. Back then gasoline cost less than 25 cents a gallon.

And then I said something that stopped them cold: "Do you know that you can still buy gasoline for 25 cents a gallon?" They were all certain that there was a trick to my question … and there is.


My claim is absolutely, totally, 100% true – if you pay with a quarter that was minted prior to 1965.

We've written many times before about how much we like "junk silver" coins – the dimes, quarters, and half-dollars the U.S. Mint produced prior to 1965. These coins are 90% pure silver. A $1000 face value bag of them contains 712 ounces of the metal.

$50 Silver - The Price Point Of Liberty

article by: Jack Mullen

$50 dollar silver is the first sign of blue sky after a devastating storm. It's the morning after sunshine bringing people out of hiding and together again for the process of rebuilding with the promise of a new start.

Fed’s Printing Press Likely To Boost Bullion Through June

Gold charged out of the gates Monday with a new nominal high of $1,478 on concerns about Japan, Libya, and European debt, followed by expected profit taking. Prices Thursday hit $1,475, aided by bad U.S. jobs data, inflationary signs, and predictions the Federal Reserve will finish its quantitative-easing plan. “The debate over an early end to QE2 is finally subsiding, with the chances of an early end rapidly diminishing,” said HSBC analyst James Steel.

Uncle Sam Gets A Shot Across The Bow From Standard & Poors

by: Craig Hasten

S&P delivered a stunning downgrade to the US rating this morning to negative that immediately sent the financial markets into panic mode.

Gold surged upon the delivery of the S&P report and at the time of writing this the Dow has plunged 219 points.

To many this news comes a complete shock but my only question is "what took them so long to see the light"? I am going to venture to say that their decision was probably brought about by the recent circus side show over the pathetic budget cuts that both the Democrats and Republicans were so proud about. It looks like S&P can finally see that neither party is taking the runaway government spending seriously.

A Golden Tipping Point: University of Texas Takes Delivery Of $1 Billion In Physical Gold

article compliments of ZeroHedge.com

Tipping points are funny: for years, decades, even centuries, the conditions for an event to occur may be ripe yet nothing happens. Then, in an instant, a shift occurs, whether its is due a change in conventional wisdom, due to an exogenous event or due to something completely inexplicable. That event, colloquially called a black swan in recent years, changes the prevalent perception of reality in a moment. This past week, we were seeing the effect of a tipping point in process, with gold prices rising to new all time highs day after day, and the price of silver literally moving in a parabolic fashion. What was missing was the cause. We now know what it is: per Bloomberg: "The University of Texas Investment Management Co., the second-largest U.S. academic endowment, took delivery of almost $1 billion in gold bullion and is storing the bars in a New York vault, according to the fund’s board."