What the treasury secretary might be telling Asia

1:41p ET Saturday, March 3, 2007

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

The U.S. Treasury Department this week announced that Secretary Henry Paulson will visit Asia next week. Here is Treasury's press release.

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U.S. Treasury Department Press Release
Thursday, March 1, 2007

http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp291.htm

Treasury Secretary Paulson
to Visit Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing,
and Deliver Speech
in Shanghai Next Week

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. will travel to Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, and Shanghai next week to meet with government officials and local business leaders. The secretary will deliver a speech in Shanghai on March 8 at the Shanghai Futures Exchange.

The secretary will be in Tokyo on March 5-6 to hold bilateral meetings with Prime Minister Abe, Finance Minister Omi, Bank of Japan Governor Fukui, Minister for Economic and Fiscal Policy Ota, and Financial Services Minister Yamamoto, among others.

He will travel to Seoul on March 6, where he will hold bilateral meetings with President Roh, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economy Kwon, and Trade Minister Kim.

He will meet with Vice Premier Wu Yi in Beijing on March 7 before going on to Shanghai. While in Shanghai, Secretary Paulson will meet with financial sector leaders and local government officials, and deliver a speech on Chinese financial markets reform on March 8.

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GATA's friend Peter Berry imagines Secretary Paulson's remarks to the Asian officials this way:

To Prime Minister Abe and his colleagues in Japan: "Good job. Your profits are waiting as agreed. Now please weaken the yen again, as the unwinding of the yen carry trade is making us dizzy and I need to return to the United States with something positive."

To President Roh and his colleagues in South Korea: "We think that our rapprochement with your family members across the 38th Parallel will provide you excellent markets for your (over)production. (While our own markets freeze up and will be closing soon. Sorry about that)."

To Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi and the apparatchiks in Shanghai: "This is win-win. With your help, we've succeeded in lowering the price of gold and obtaining scarce physical by shaking the GLD tree to the tune of more than 3 million ounces in the last week. No one in the West believes in the metals anymore, and we will continue to beat back the price as well as we can to meet your reasonable demands to exchange our paper and electronic credits for something tangible. And now, if you will allow my colleagues and me, we can rig your markets for you better even than you can for yourselves."

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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