Is gold demand soaring or plunging?

3:30p ET Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Richard Smith, proprietor of Coin and Stamp Gallery Inc. in Phoenix and its Internet site, Only Gold, has written an essay purporting to dispute GATA's interpretation of the U.S. Mint's suspension of sales of gold eagle coins. GATA construed this as more evidence that the futures price of gold on the commodities exchanges does not represent the price of the real metal. (See http://www.gata.org/node/6489.) Smith's response is headlined "Remember GATA? Another Gold Conspiracy Unveiled," and you can find it here:

http://www.onlygold.com/ArchivesPages/HomePageArticleFound.asp

But even Smith observes that the Mint cannot keep up with demand for gold eagles, even as the futures price of gold has been plunging, which ordinarily would indicate a collapse in demand. In any case, GATA's complaint, to which Smith objects, was aimed not at the Mint but at the futures markets and the financial institutions and governments that manipulate them.

While Smith writes that an official statement from the Mint about its suspension of gold eagle sales is expected shortly, your secretary/treasurer telephoned the Mint's public information office on Friday and again on Monday in search of such a statement and was promised calls back, but no calls back have been made. Your secretary/treasurer now has his congressman's office trying to get an official explanation from the Mint.

Any government agency operating on the level should be able to do far better than this. What the Mint announces to coin dealers privately it should be able to announce to the public simultaneously. After all, the Mint has a very nice Internet site with a section for press releases:

http://www.usmint.gov/pressroom/

But as of this hour the Mint has posted nothing about the suspension of gold eagle sales and refuses to return telephone calls from the public seeking information on the subject.

Once again, where gold is concerned, government does not seem to be operating on the level, and nobody on gold's side should be making excuses for it.

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

* * *

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at http://www.gata.org/.