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How to bring central bankers to heel? Ask them some questions
12:03p ET Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Telegraph is a world-class financial journalist and his commentary today, appended here, analyzing the venality of the Federal Reserve is probably as incisive as anything in the financial press. But he poses and then fails to answer the question he concludes his commentary with: "How can we bring these central bankers to heel?"
Nothing will bring central bankers to heel faster than peppering them with detailed questions about their surreptitious market interventions -- particularly in regard to gold. Such questions are obvious and they abound. Here are some suggestions:
http://www.gata.org/node/10229
Like all mainstream financial journalists, Evans-Pritchard declines to pose any questions to central bankers, perhaps on the assumption -- a good one -- that they'll never answer, or never answer candidly. (As the Fed's former vice chairman, Alan Blinder, remarked on national television in the United States a couple of decades ago, "The last duty of a central banker is to tell the public the truth.")
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Golden Phoenix Q2 2011 Conference Call Posted at Company Internet Site
The second quarter 2011 conference call of Golden Phoenix Minerals Inc. (GPXM) has been posted at the company Internet site for immediate playback. The call includes updates on the start of gold production at the company's Mineral Ridge gold project in Nevada, the letter of intent to acquire the Santa Rosa gold mine in Panama, and the company's due-diligence efforts to secure a senior stock exchange listing.
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http://goldenphoenix.us/conferencecalls/
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But that doesn't mean that the public can't be informed by itemizing the questions that central bankers refuse to answer. Indeed, the full range of hidden central bank policy can be well outlined by itemizing these questions and trumpeting the subversion of democracy, the subversion Evans-Pritchard acknowledges at the end of his commentary.
So come on, Mr. E-P. Leaven your commentary with some journalism. Call up some central banks and ask them to describe the full range of their market interventions today, this week, this month, this year, and in the last 10 years. Start with gold, where the evidence already has been compiled for you in the most conscientious detail:
http://www.gata.org/taxonomy/term/21
When they "no comment" you, report their unaccountability and the evidence of those interventions. Then seek comment from elected officials. And then ask your question about democracy.
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
* * *
The Fed Is a Rogue Elephant
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The Telegraph, London
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100011419/th...
Ben Bernanke has moved the goalposts yet again.
Headline CPI inflation in the US is 3.4 percent. There is no deflationary threat at this stage that can justify holding rates near zero until the moon turns into blue cheese, let alone embarking on emergency money printing.
The Bernanke Fed has more or less ignored headline inflation until now, arguing that what matters is “core” inflation. This strips out energy, fuel and food, which none of us consume of course.
Unfortunately, core inflation has been catching up lately. The Dallas Fed's "trimmed mean" measure known as core PCE has risen (on a six-month annualized basis) from 0.9 percent in January to 2.1 percent in June.
So what the does the Fed do? It switches tack and says that headline inflation is not such a bad gauge after all. They do this knowing that the oil and food shock has subsided and that the headline rate will fall back for a while. This will create the impression that inflation is abating. "Cheeky," said ING’s global economist Rob Carnell.
Indeed.
As you can see from the two charts below, the broad M2 money supply is growing robustly at 8 percent and narrow M1 is growing at over 15 percent.
Yes, I know, Ben Bernanke thinks the money data is a "Black Box" that cannot be understood, and ultimately a form of medieval witchcraft. Well, perhaps he should rethink. This is not picture of an economy facing imminent deflation.
Note how weak M2 was fifteen months ago (and broader M3 -- which Bernanke has abolished, but others track -- was actually contracting at 1930s rates). That was a very good lead indicator of the economic relapse we saw in the first half of 2011.
I am wary of Bernanke's sudden change of heart on headline inflation. It confirms my suspicion (shared by many readers) that the Fed is deliberately bringing about inflation and currency debasement to cushion the effects of debt-deleveraging. This amounts to a soft default on America’s debts.
QE1 was an entirely appropriate response to the threat of spiralling collapse and an implosion of the money supply. I backed it whole-heartedly, and make no apologies for doing so.
QE2 was a different animal. The threat of imminent deflation was bogus. The effect was to juice stock prices and increase the asset wealth of the rich, hoping for a trickle down. In reality it punished poor people through rising food and fuel costs long before any trickle came through.
Needless to say, it also punishes prudent savers in order to rescue improvident and promiscuous borrowers. This has immense social and moral consequences over time, and risks undermining the virtues that made America the world's paramount power.
Dallas Fed chief Richard Fisher said in a speech last March, further QE would "only prolong the injustice that we have inflicted on savers."
He warned of the risk that the Fed will be viewed as "a pliant accomplice to Congress' and the executive branch’s fiscal misfeasance," if it carries on down this road. "Barring some frightful development, I will vote against any program that might seek to extend or enlarge the substantial monetary accommodation we already have provided. The liquidity tanks are full, if not brimming over. The Fed has done its job. What is needed now is for business to be incentivized to commit that liquidity to creating American jobs. This is the task of the fiscal authorities, not the Federal Reserve."
Mr Fisher stuck to his word. He voted against the Fed's promise yesterday to keep rates near zero until mid-2013.
The Fed is engaged in dangerous forms of social engineering. Central banks should never enter this territory.
Yes, I have been critical of the ECB for other reasons. It allowed the Club Med bubble to build up from 2004-2007, misread both the oil spikes of 2008 and 2011, has allowed M3 to gyrate wildly, but the ECB is not -- or not yet -- a rogue elephant trampling social norms under foot.
An intellectual case can be made that inflation should be raised to 4 to 6 percent in the Western world to lift us out of our debt trap. EX-IMF chief economist Ken Rogoff and others have made exactly that argument. Fine. Let debate be joined.
But if so, the Fed needs to state this openly and not carry out a social revolution by subterfuge. Any such decision should be subject to democratic endorsement by elected parliaments.
How can we bring these central bankers to heel?
* * *
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Prophecy Platinum Reports 10.97 Million Ounces Inferred
and 1.04 Million Ounces Indicated PGM+Gold in Yukon
An independent resource report on the Wellgreen project in the Yukon Territory in Canada has just confirmed that it as one of the largest platinum group metals projects in Canada and one of the few outside South Africa, Prophecy Platinum Corp. Chairman John Lee says.
The report, compliant with Canadian National Instrument 43-101, was written by geologist Todd McCracken of Wardrop Engineering Inc., a Tetra Tech company. It incorporated drill data from 701 diamond drill holes (182 surface and 519 underground) totaling more than 53,222 metres. Using a 0.4 percent nickel equivalent cutoff grade, the Wellgreen deposit now contains a total inferred resource of 289.2 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.53 g/t platinum, 0.42 g/t palladium, 0.23 g/t gold (1.18 g/t PGM and gold), 0.38 percent nickel, and 0.35 percent copper. Separately, the deposit also contains an indicated resource of 14.3 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.99 g/t platinum, 0.74 g/t palladium, 0.52 g/t gold (2.25 g/t PGM and gold), 0.69 percent nickel, and 0.69 percent copper.
Prophecy Platinum Corp. trades on the Toronto Venture Exchange under the symbol NKL, on the pink sheets in the United States as PNIKD, and in Frankfurt as P94P.
For the complete press release on the Wellgreen report, please visit:
http://prophecyplat.com/news_2011_july14_prophecy_platinum_new_resource_...
