Mining Web examines gold mining mergers

12:50p EDT Thursday, June 22, 2000

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Gold Newsletter's special edition for June has a
very helpful article about GATA by Gold Newsletter
Editor Brien Lundin, which I've taken the liberty to
append here. Thanks to supporters like Gold
Newsletter, our message about manipulation of the
gold market is getting around the world.

Please post this as seems useful.

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

* * *

GATA is charging ahead!

By Brien Lundin, Editor
Gold Newsletter
2400 Jefferson Highway, Suite 600
Jefferson, Louisiana 70121 USA

Special Edition / June 2000

Anyone who has read Gold Newsletter for long is
aware of the efforts of the Gold Anti-Trust Action
Committee, spearheaded by an old friend of ours,
Bill Murphy. This group has been working at great
effort and against huge odds to bring extensive
evidence of gold market manipulation to light.

For a long time it appeared that, despite the
support of Gold Newsletter and other gold-market
analysts, as well as a few forward-thinking gold
producers, GATA was doing no more than tilting at
windmills. As I noted a few issues ago, that is
changing.

The latest developments have come with the
revelation that, during its trip to Washington, in
May, it had extensive meetings with some of the most
powerful members of Congress, including House
Speaker Denny Hastert and Rep. Spencer Bachus,
chairman of the House Subcommittee on Domestic and
International Monetary Policy. House Majority Leader
Dick Armey also expressed interest but was unable to
attend the meetings.

After these meetings, the Select Committee on
Intelligence and the Senate Subcommittee on
Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information
requested copies of the documents GATA had backing
up its assertions.

As you may remember, GATA maintains (and has
accumulated a mountain of evidence) that major
quot;bullion banksquot; and hedge funds have conspired to
keep a lid on the gold price, possibly in concert
with some government entities. Their motives would
be many, but the most powerful would be money: By
borrowing gold at very low interest rates from
central banks, they can sell the gold and invest the
proceeds in higher-earning and more speculative
investments.

It's quot;free capital,quot; and it's available as long as
the gold price remains steady or trending downward.

The problem is that this has been going on for years
now, and a mountain of gold has been borrowed, sold,
and replaced by quot;IOUs.quot; If the gold price rises --
as it should, since global demand is far
outstripping supply -- major investment houses could
go under as they try to buy gold to cover this huge
accumulated short position. (In the process, some
analysts say, gold could quickly leap to more than
$600 per ounce.) This is why Congress is interested
in the issue.

As soon as it became known in early June that the
highest seats of power in Congress were interested
in what GATA had uncovered, gold began to shoot up.

This is a developing story of utmost importance not
only to gold investors but to anyone who has money
at risk in the markets. I strongly suggest that you
review the document that GATA presented to Congress.
You cant get it at www.gata.org.