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So where's Yamashita's silver?

Section: Daily Dispatches

1p ET Sunday, October 18, 2009

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver):

In reply to Thunder Road Report editor Paul Mylchreest's new study of the gold market (http://www.gata.org/node/7906), which concluded that the market is either terribly short real metal or is laundering fantastic amounts of improperly obtained gold, perhaps the fabled "Yamashita's gold" of Japanese plunder from World War II, our friend B.B. writes:

"Given that the silver market has similar characteristics to the gold market in terms of lopsided shorting and daily trading charts that are often nearly identical, should we conclude that there is also a huge stash of 'Yamashita's silver'? Also, since it has been reported that a recent call for delivery of a significant tonnage of gold resulted in some bizarre shenanigans to cover the delivery, does it not seem likely that maybe the 'Yamashita's gold' story is being trotted out to replace the threadbare story of the sale of International Monetary Fund gold?"

Actually, the "Yamashita's gold" story has been around as long as the threat of IMF gold sales, and even in the paranoid atmosphere of the gold universe it may be a little hard to believe that this story has been underwritten by increasingly desperate central banks.

The evidence is that even if some hoard of plundered gold was secretly seized from the Japanese military at the end of the war, it already has been liquidated one way or another and has left official hands. Otherwise the gold price would not have quadrupled in 10 years, and Western central banks would still be selling gold in large amounts with public flourishes and not just threatening over and over to sell gold that the IMF probably doesn't have. Further, those central banks would not have resorted so irresponsibly to derivatives, swaps, and other mechanisms of fractional reserve gold banking for price suppression. They'd just be dumping gold all over the place in pursuit of their greatest desire: to make it worthless.

Indeed, if "Yamashita's gold" really ever existed and was still around, we'd be finding gold coins as the mystery prizes in Crackerjack boxes. To the contrary, today we find that gold has gained another remarkable physical property -- in addition to being the most lustrous and malleable of metals, in the hands of central banks, bullion banks, and exchange-traded funds gold now becomes invisible as well.

General Yamashita was hanged 63 years ago. When the world realizes how they have rigged markets to enslave and expropriate it, Western central bankers will be lucky not to follow him.

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

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