'Conspiracy' defines government, and 'cowardice' the monetary metals mining industry

2p ET Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Our friend T.P. writes:

I have read enough to believe that there is significant manipulation of gold and silver prices.

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I must surmise that the banks, traders, and the U.S. government authorities have advised the mining companies to stand down. What other reason could it be?

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Not that it has much chance of penetrating the cowardice of any monetary metals mining company, but T.P. and any investor in the monetary metals mining industry might ask the managers of their companies to reconsider "conspiracy theory" as a term of disparagement here.

Dictionary definitions of "conspiracy" go like this: "An evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons" -- that is, anything treacherous plotted or implemented in secret.

Of course this is the definition of much of government, even in nominally democratic countries.

T.P. and other investors might ask mining company managers whether they would be allowed to attend, for example, the secret meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund, or the governing bodies of any central bank.

If those agencies discuss or do anything in secret that is against the interest of monetary metals miners and investors or anyone else, those agencies are by definition conspiracies.

Of course the managers of T.P.'s mining companies are hardly alone. Even the most highly regarded and wealthy managers of companies that mine the monetary metals pretend not to understand this, though one of them, Frank Giustra, indicated in January that he is beginning to suspect that central banks and governments are working against gold prices:

http://www.gata.org/node/17223

If Giustra, a billionaire and confidant of former President Bill Clinton, ever chose to act on his suspicion, he might change the world.

Then monetary metals mining company investors might urge the managers of their companies to review and try rebutting the extensive documentation of government suppression of monetary metals prices compiled by GATA here:

http://www.gata.org/node/14839

Anyone who reviews those documents will discover that far from being mere "conspiracy theory," gold price suppression is actually long-established Western government policy, recorded in government archives, both public and secret.

That is, there is no "theory" here, only historical fact.

But as hopeless as the monetary metals mining industry seems, there are reasons for its cowardice.

First, the mining industry is the industry most vulnerable to regulation and expropriation by government, being subject to mining permits, mining royalties, and environmental regulations applying to public lands. Any government can shut down a mining company at any time on almost any pretext, and if a government is controlled by the financial interests that congregate around central banks, as most governments are, it will not want the monetary metals competing strongly for investment purposes with central bank-issued currencies and government-issued bonds.

Second, the mining industry is the most capital-intensive industry. That is, opening a mine of any size typically costs billions of dollars, which causes the industry to rely for its financing on the biggest investment banks, which are the most intimate agents and appendages of central banks, the operators of the monetary metals price suppression scheme.

So to ask a gold or silver mining company to overcome its cowardice and to stand up for its shareholders against central banks and governments is asking a lot. But after all these years of price suppression, such companies should ask themselves whether, if, as it seems, they are in danger of dying from futures market derivatives underwritten by governments and central banks, they want to die on their knees or on their feet.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
CPowell@GATA.org

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