Are we on the verge of witnessing the death of the paper Gold scam?

A look at the situation with precious metals at the moment and the manipulation of prices. Here is an interesting quote from part of the conclusion near the bottom,

"It means that we are entering a period when there will be unprecedented volatility for precious metals.  There will be tremendous ups and downs as this crisis plays out and the bankers try to keep the paper gold scam from completely unraveling.

Meanwhile, nations such as China continue to stockpile gold as if the end of the world was coming."

Via theeconomiccollapseblog.com, 8 May 2013 (Thanks Troy) - The legal claims on physical gold far exceed the amount of physical gold that the banks actually have by a very, very wide margin.  And right now the bankers are scared out of their wits because their warehouses are being drained of physical gold at a frightening rate.  So what happens when their physical gold is gone but they still have lots and lots of people with legal claims to gold? 

When that moment arrives, it will represent the end of the paper gold scam.  Many believe that the recent takedown of the price of paper gold was a desperate attempt by the bankers to put off that day of reckoning, but it appears to have greatly backfired on them.  Instead of cooling off demand for precious metals, it has unleashed a massive "gold rush" all over the globe.  Meanwhile, word has been spreading among wealthy families in both North America and Europe that they had better grab their physical gold out of the banks while they still can. 

This is creating havoc in the financial community, and at least one major international bank has already declared that it will only be settling those accounts in cash from now on.  The paper gold scam is starting to unravel, and by the time this is all over it is going to be a complete and total nightmare for global financial markets.


For years it has been widely known that the promises that banks have made regarding their gold far exceed their actual ability to deliver, but we have never reached a moment of such crisis before.

Posted below are quotes from people that know precious metals far better than I do.  What these experts are saying is more than a little bit disturbing...

-CME President Terry Duffy: What’s interesting about gold, when we had that big break two weeks ago we saw all the gold stocks trade down significantly, we saw all the gold products trade down significantly, but one thing that did not trade down, was gold coins, tangible real gold. That’s going to show you, people don’t want certificates, they don’t want anything else. They want the real product.

-Billionaire Eric Sprott: So we see all of these paper (trading) volumes going through that bear absolutely no relationship to what’s going on in the physical markets. As you know I have always been a proponent of the fact that supply in the gold market was way less than demand, and by a very large factor. I think demand exceeds supply by at least 60%. The central banks are surreptitiously supplying that gold, and ultimately they will be running on fumes.

When we hear about the LBMA not willing to deliver gold, and JP Morgan’s inventories at the COMEX have gone from 2.4 million (ounces) down to 160,000 ounces, it just makes you realize that all of this paper trading means nothing. It’s the real physical market that you have to rely on.

-JS Kim: FACT #1: COMEX gold vaults were recently drained of 2 million ounces of physical gold in one quarter, the largest withdrawal of physical gold bullion from COMEX vaults in one quarter during this entire 12-year gold and silver bull. There has been speculation about the reasons that spurred these massive withdrawals of gold from COMEX vaults, but the most reasonable speculation is that no one trusts the bankers to hold on to their physical gold anymore, especially in light of Fact #2. Note below, that both registered AND eligible stocks of gold had heavily declined in recent months. Such an event signals a general distrust of the banking system from everyone holding gold in registered COMEX vaults.

FACT #2: One of the largest European banks, ABN Amro, defaulted on their gold contracts and informed their clients that they would only settle their gold bullion contracts in cash and not in physical. So much for the supposed legality of financial contracts as a "binding" contract. So whether Fact #1 caused Fact #2 or vice versa is irrelevant. What IS apparent is that the level of trust in bankers to safekeep physical gold and physical silver is disappearing, as it should be, and as it should have already been for years now. But truth always takes some time to catch up to banker spread lies and that is what is happening now. I have been warning people never to trust bankers in deals involving gold and silver for years now, as in this article I wrote nearly four years ago informing the public that the SLV and GLD are likely a banker invented scam as well.

FACT #3: Silver fraud whistleblower and London trader Andrew Maguire stated that the LBMA was having trouble settling gold contracts in bullion as well and stated that institutions that asked for physical settlement “were told they would be cash settled instead by a bullion bank.” In plain English, this is a default. So Andrew Maguire reported that the LBMA had already gone into default. In light of Fact #1 and Fact #2, the dominoes were starting to tumble and the house of cards that the bankers had built in gold and silver paper derivatives to deceive and hide the true fundamentals of the physical gold and physical markets from the entire world was rapidly starting to crumble. A financial earthquake of magnitude 2.5 was quickly threatening to evolve into one of the biggest financial earthquakes of all time in which the world’s confidence in all global fiat currencies would effectively have a well-deserved funeral.

-Jim Sinclair: I think the reality is the supply situation is extremely volatile at this point, and even discussing it is like rubbing a raw nerve to the people who are in charge. The amount of discussion on the subject of warehouse supply, supply that is represented by the gold leases, indicated to the central planners that the demand for physical was going to continue to effect the exchanges.

Although they did not expect any grandstand delivery, the mere continued draining of physical inventories was threatening the very functioning of the paper exchange. That threatening of the paper exchange and its ability to continue functioning is really taking off the blinders and revealing the truth behind the critical question, ‘Where is the gold?’

The question now is, ‘Where has the gold gone?’ Who has all of this gold? Because of the nature of gold leasing, all of this gold has been purchased and it has gone somewhere. The reality of the empty vaults reveal that the gold has gone missing.

-Ronald Stoeferle: We’re seeing this rush to physical gold not only in the retail market, but also for the institutional players...[it's] just overwhelming…I [estimate] a 130-to-1 [ratio of paper to physical gold]…and I think in the last week we were really close to [triggering] a default of the paper market.

-Gerhard Schubert, head of Precious Metals at Emirates NBD: I have not seen in my 35 years in precious metals such a determined and strong global physical demand for gold. The UAE physical markets have been cleared out by buyers from all walks of life. The premiums, which have been asked for and which have been paid have been the cornerstone of the gold price recovery. It is very rare that physical markets can have a serious impact on market prices, which are normally driven solely by derivatives and futures contracts…

I did speak during the week with several refineries in the world, of course including the UAE refineries, and the waiting period for 995 kilo bars is easily 2-3 weeks and goes into June in some cases. A large portion of the 995 kilo bars in the UAE goes normally into the Indian market, but a lot of the available 995 kilo bars are destined for Turkey, at this time. We heard that premiums paid in Turkey have reached anything between US $ 20 and US $ 35 per ounce.

-James Turk: Another indication of the demand for large bars is the huge drawdown in the gold stock in COMEX warehouses. It is noteworthy that COMEX reports show the drawdown is largely the result of dealers removing their inventory, their working stock. When that happens, you know the availability of supply is constrained.

What all of this means, Eric, is one thing. If the central planners want to keep the precious metals at these low prices, to meet the demand for physical metal they will need to empty more metal from central bank vaults, or borrow metal from the ETFs as some have suggested is happening. Otherwise, the central planners will have to step back and stop their intervention, thereby letting the price of gold and silver rise so that demand tapers off, bringing demand and supply of physical metal back toward some kind of balance.

We've seen this same situation several times over the last twelve years. It is what I have been calling a “managed retreat.” Despite the current weakness, I firmly believe we have again entered a critical period where the central planners will need to retreat once again in order to let the gold and silver prices climb higher.

-The Golden Truth: And then I get a call from a close friend in NYC last Friday.   His career has been in private wealth management in the private bank department of the Too Big To Fail banks.  He's been looking for work and chats with old colleagues all the time.  He called my Friday and told me he just got off the phone with a very high level private banker from a big Euro-based TBTF bullion bank, but who was at JP Morgan until about six months ago.

This guy told my friend that there is a scramble by many very wealthy European families/entities to get their 400 oz bars out of the big bank vaults. He knows this personally, for a fact.  He said the private banker community is small over there and the big wealthy families all talk to each other and act on the same rumors/sentiment.  The Bundesbank/Fed and the ABN/Amro situations triggered this move.  He knows for a fact JPM tried to calm fears about 3 months ago by sending a letter to it's very wealthy clients assuring them their bars were safe, in allocated accounts.  He said right now those same families are walking into the big banks like JPM and demanding delivery of their bars or threatening to take their $100's of millions in investment portfolios to competitors.  His wording was "these people are putting a gun to the heads of private banks and demanding their gold."

I know this information is good because I know my friend's background and when he tells me his source is plugged in, the guy is plugged in. Not only that, my friend's source said that there's no doubt that someone like a John Paulson, not necessarily specifically him, but entities like him or it may include him, have held a gun to GLD and demanded delivery of physical in exchange for their shares.

Regarding the Bundesbank/Fed situation, recall that the Bundesbank asked to have some portion of its gold sitting - supposedly - in the NY Fed vault in NYC sent back Germany. The total amount is 1800 tonnes.  After behind the scenes negotiations, the Fed agreed to ship 300 tonnes back over seven years.  To this day, the time required for that shipment has never been explained.  Venezuela demanded the return of its 200 tonnes held in London, NYC and Switzerland and received it all within about four months.

And regarding the ABN/Amro situation.  ABN/Amro offered a gold investment account product that offered physical delivery of the gold in the investment account when the investor cashes out.  About a week before the gold price smash, ABN sent a letter to its clients informing that the physical delivery of the bullion was no longer available and that all accounts would be settled with cash at redemption.

I believe it was these two events that triggered the big scramble for physical gold by wealthy families/entities who were suspicious of the integrity of their bank vault custodial arrangement anyway.

*****

So what does all of this mean?

It means that we are entering a period when there will be unprecedented volatility for precious metals.  There will be tremendous ups and downs as this crisis plays out and the bankers try to keep the paper gold scam from completely unraveling.

Meanwhile, nations such as China continue to stockpile gold as if the end of the world was coming.

According to Zero Hedge, Chinese gold imports set a brand new all-time record high in March...

Quite the contrary: as export data released by the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department overnight showed, Chinese gold imports in March exploded to an all time record high of 223.5 tons.

And the number for April is expected to be even higher.

Does China know something that the rest of us do not?

We are also seeing a rapid decoupling between spot prices and physical prices.  In fact, it is quickly getting to the point where the spot price of gold and the spot price of silver are becoming irrelevant.

For example, demand for silver coins has become so intense that some dealers are charging premiums of up to 30 percent over spot price for silver eagles.

That would have been regarded as insane a few years ago, but people are now willing to pay these kinds of premiums.  People are recognizing the importance of actually having physical gold and silver in their possession and they are willing to pay a significant premium in order to get it.

We are moving into uncharted territory.  The paper gold scam is rapidly coming to an end.  In the long-term, this will greatly benefit those that are holding significant amounts of physical gold and silver.

At least 26 tornadoes touched down in Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois and Iowa in the USA on Sunday - Webbot IDIR Hit

via http://www.transients.info/2013/05/at-least-26-tornadoes-touched-down-in.html

CNN has an article written up below discussing the situation. As many as 26 tornadoes have been reported to have touched down in Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois and Iowa on Sunday in the US. These tornadoes caused widespread damage. One death has been reported in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma.

This is a webbot IDIR hit as Clif High specifically mentioned an increase in tornado activity recently. We should be expecting this over in Europe as well, and possibly other locations around the World.

A tornado touches down southwest of Wichita near the town of Viola, Kan., on Sunday. The tornado was part of a line of storms that passed through the Central Plains states. - Travis Heying / MCT via Zuma Press

Via cnn.com, 20 May 2013 - CNN) -- At least one person was killed Sunday when a string of tornadoes ripped through four states, tearing roofs off homes, downing power lines and tossing trees like matchsticks.
The death happened in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, said Sheriff Mike Booth. He had no details.
Booth said that two other people are missing at a trailer park in that county.

Rescue crews were picking through the mangled metal remains of mobile homes as darkness fell Sunday.
 See funnel cloud in Oklahoma See massive tornado in Kansas

As many as 26 tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois and Iowa, according to the National Weather Service, with Oklahoma and Kansas being the hardest hit.

Some of those reports might have been of the same tornado.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency Sunday for 16 counties.

One touched down near Wellston, Oklahoma, taking out power lines and damaging several homes, according to video from CNN affiliate KFOR. The affiliate's helicopter pilot estimated the funnel cloud to be about a half-mile wide.

"It's tearing up everything," the pilot said. "Just ripping everything up in its sight."

Aerial video from KFOR and CNN affiliate KOCO showed severe damage near Wellston and near Carney, Oklahoma. Roofs were ripped from homes, branches stripped from trees and roads were filled with debris.

Tornadoes were also reported east of Dale, west of Paden, and near Prague in Oklahoma.

Part of Interstate 40 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, was shut down in both directions Sunday night after a tornado touched down there, overturning multiple tractor-trailers.

Still more tornadoes were spotted in Iowa, near Earlham, Huxley and east of Dallas Center, according to the weather service.

It did not mince words, telling people to take cover there, as elsewhere.

"You could be killed if not underground or in a tornado shelter. Complete destruction of neighborhoods, businesses and vehicles will occur. Flying debris will be deadly to people and animals," it said in its Kansas advisory.

The twisters are part of a severe weather outbreak that is sweeping through parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa and Missouri as the storms sweep east.

Baseball-sized hail, wind gusts and tornadoes are threatening to pummel parts of the central Plains and Midwest through Monday.

Beyond the Midwest, other areas were already seeing severe weather on Sunday. In Atlanta, serious flooding was reported amid storms producing heavy rainfall.

Here's a quick look at CNN meteorologist Melissa Le Fevre's forecast for Monday:

Kansas
The surface front may stall on Monday, leading to showers and thunderstorms through the day. Localized heavy rainfall may lead to the need for flood watches and warnings.

Oklahoma
There is a threat for strong storms in the late afternoon. With the heavy rain that will occur through the weekend, flooding could become a problem Monday night.

Iowa
Showers and storms are expected to develop on Monday afternoon. Large hail is possible and though the tornado threat looks low, it cannot be ruled out.

Missouri
Flooding is expected to become an issue after localized heavy rainfall. Afternoon storms could produce large hail, damaging wind gusts and possible tornadoes. In St. Louis, storms will reorganize during the afternoon and evening hours. Threats include large hail, damaging winds and the possibility of tornadoes.

Maps of the Global Coastal Event and a possible future World

Via BogsLife, 16 February 2013 - Clif High’s work at Half Past Human has been forecasting a global coastal event for some number of years. In addition, Courtney Brown’s remote viewing experiments at the Farsight Institute also see global coastal disaster arising from their post-2012 project. For many years seers have been telling us of an event, or events, that alter the face of our planet.

With the passing of Asteroid 2012 DA14, it seems like an auspicious time to take out the maps, blow off the dust, and arrange them on the table in front of us. Let’s hope this event doesn’t happen, but if it does, let’s be prepared for it, and see what others have brought back to us from their imagings. It is very odd indeed that so many people see the same basic thing, over and over again. Be prepared, no fear.

Gordon Michael Scallion of the Matrix Institute has been having visions since 1979 of a changed Earth. He began sketching maps in 1982 and updated them through the years as he gathered more information. The “Future Map of the World” is his effort to depict the whole enchilada. He’s given us beautiful, detailed, full color maps that the Institute sells on its web site. That doesn’t mean this is going to happen the way he sees it, you can be very detailed, and very wrong, but he’s obviously put some work into looking at this. They are nicely done maps, so I use them as a starting point.

There is an enlarged map for the North American continent which includes some descriptions of climatic zones and magnetic pole locations.

Here it is broken down into sections, West coast first.

Central continent.

And finally, the East coast.

Scallion’s Map of Africa and some of Europe and the near East.

Edgar Cayce’s Map, which is the map used by the UNITED STATES Navy. This is probably why the seat of government has been moved from Washington D.C. to Colorado.

Another version of the Cayce Map.

Edgar Cayce World Map.

Ashton Pitre’s Map.

Dr. Chet Snow’s map.

Aron Abrahamsen’s Map.

Another map from an unknown source.

Len and Lori Toye’s America Map.

Len and Tori Toye’s world map.

Composite map, showing four in one.

Dolores Cannon’s Nostradamus Map.

George Shaffer’s Map.

Post Earth Change Map, Source Unknown.

Ley Lines and Vortices.

No map series would be complete without a Buckminster Fuller Dymaxion map to remind us that we’re an island.

Electric Universe - Scientists Are Shocked As NASA Telescopes Observe Brightest Gamma-Ray Burst Ever Detected!

On Saturday, April 27, the Fermi Gamma-ray Telescope detected a sudden, powerful flux of high-energy gamma-rays, indicating a historic burst event in a distant galaxy. The instrument then notified other telescopes located in space and on the ground that a Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) had been detected. 

Image Caption: Swift's X-Ray Telescope took this 0.1-second exposure of GRB 130427A at 3:50 a.m. EDT on April 27, just moments after Swift and Fermi triggered on the outburst. The image is 6.5 arcminutes across. Credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler

Fermi’s main instrument the Large Area Telescope (LAT) detected gamma-rays as high as 94 giga-electron volts (GeV), nearly three times the maximum energy ever detected by a burst. 

GRB events of various types are detected a few times a week on average, but are rarely found to be this bright or energetic. Also unique to this particular event was that the emission continued for nearly a day, easily besting the duration record for such an event. The event lasted long enough that many other observatories, including the Swift satellite, were able to monitor the source. 

“We have waited a long time for a gamma-ray burst this shockingly, eye-wateringly bright,” according to Julie McEnery, project scientist for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “The GRB lasted so long that a record number of telescopes on the ground were able to catch it while space-based observations were still ongoing.” 

The rapid production of high-energy gamma-rays by the GRB likely resulted from the collapse from a very massive star, some tens or possibly hundreds of times the mass of our Sun, and will continue to evolve much like a standard supernova. As the core collapses into a dense black hole, the jets, beamed by the powerful magnetic fields, drives matter into the surrounding medium. 

The initial afterglow, created as the matter in the jets interacts with matter surrounding the star, can last for months in various wavelengths. The shockwaves from the explosion can ignite the surrounding medium and create a brilliant nebula that can persist for hundreds of thousands of years and expand over light-years of space. 

The next task is to continue monitoring the source region and search for an expanding supernova remnant, and the massive black hole that is sure to lurk within. 

Since this event occurred some 3.6 billion light-years from Earth, which is relatively close for a GRB, we have a great opportunity to learn more about the most powerful explosions in the Universe. “This GRB is in the closest 5 percent of bursts, so the big push now is to find an emerging supernova, which accompanies nearly all long GRBs at this distance,” said Neil Gehrels, principal investigator for the Swift experiment. - Red Orbit.

Sun releases another powerful Solar Flare with an X-ray Flux of X2.9 - Largest flare for 2013

Via transients.info

A day later, we have yet another record breaking solar flare for 2013. Yesterday I posted the following entry, 'Sun releases a powerful Solar Flare with an X-ray Flux of X1.8 - Largest flare for 2013' which discussed that subject in question along with information on past strong solar flares.

So is this flare Earth facing? The CME occurred on the west side of the sun, which is rotating towards the Earth. if these strong solar flares continue and as the Sun rotates around and the area they are erupting from faces us, thats when we should be paying a bit more attention.

Credit to spaceweather.com

This is yesterdays X1.8 solar flare above. You can find the animation of the event for yesterday here, http://spaceweather.com/images2013/13may13/xflare_anim2.gif

Credit to spaceweather.com

The above picture shows the location of where the flaring activity started yesterday. 

By my estimation, going by this website here, http://noschese180.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/day-145-how-does-the-sun-rotate/, I expect this area of the Sun where all this activity is occuring, to be fully facing the Earth within five to seven days time. That time frame would be from the 19th of may to the 21st of May.

I am just going to leave it at that for this one. =)

The "Great Horned" 1734 - Massive Sunspot Seen Moving Across The Sun; Has Beta-Gamma Magnetic Field, Harboring Energy For Earth-Directed M-Class Solar Flares!

Around the world, amateur astronomers are snapping pictures of behemoth"GREAT HORNED" sunspot AR1734 as it crosses the solar disk. In Buffalo, New York, photographer Alan Friedman noticed something when he rotated his picture 90 degrees. "Sunspot 1734 has a definite owlish look!" 

"But who gives a hoot," he continued, "this grand active region looks fantastic from every perspective."

The owl could be poised to explode. Sunspot AR1734 has a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares, almost-certainly Earth-directed because the sunspot is facing our planet. 

NOAA forecasters estimate a 45% chance of M-flares today. The question is, where will the eruptions come from? There are at least three choices: Sunspots AR1731, AR1734, and AR1739 all have 'beta-gamma' magnetic fields that harbor energy for strong eruptions. The largest of the three, AR1734, is directly facing Earth:

Amateur astronomer Pepe Manteca took the picture yesterday from Barcelona, Spain. The large dark core on the right is more than 3 times wider than Earth--dimensions that made the spot an easy target for Manteca's backyard solar telescope. "It is a stunning sunspot!" he says.

IMPULSIVE SOLAR FLARES: A couple of impulsive solar flares were detected around Sunspot 1739 on Sunday afternoon. The first measured M1.4 at 17:56 UTC, and the second measured C8.3 at 20:02. This region may produce further M-Class activity within the next 24-48 hours.

M5 SOLAR TORNADO: Sunspot group AR1739 erupted on May 3rd, producing an M5-class solar flare and a "solar tornado." 

WATCH: Solar Tornado.

The explosion also hurled a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) into space: movie. Traveling almost 1300 km/s, the electrified cloud is expected to sweep past a couple of NASA spacecraft (EPOXI and Spitzer) on May 7th. No planets, however, were in the line of fire.


SUNSPOTS: Below is an updated image of the visible solar disk on Monday morning. Solar activity declined to lower levels this morning. Sunspot 1731 is now located on the western limb and will continue to rotate out of direct Earth view. Active Sunspot 1739 is showing signs of decay and may soon no longer be a threat for strong solar flares. Sunspots 1732, 1734, 1738 and 1740 all continue to be stable and quiet. There will remain a chance for at least M-Class flares today.

Three sunspots have beta-gamma magnetic fields that harbor energy for M-class solar flares:
AR1731, AR1734, and AR1739.
Credit: SDO/HMI

CORONAL HOLE: Solar wind flowing from this coronal hole should reach Earth on ~May 6-7. 

Credit: SDO/AIA.

Space Weather updates - Ring of Fire Solar Eclipse, bushy filament of magnetism update, M-Class Solar Flare

Via spaceweather.com, 11 May 2013 - M-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: A sunspot located just behind the sun's northeastern limb erupted during the early hours of May 10th, producing an M3-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the explosion's extreme ultraviolet flash: movie. The farside active region will turn toward Earth in the days ahead, so stay tuned.

"RING OF FIRE" SOLAR ECLIPSE: As the sun rose over Australia on Friday morning, May 10th, the solar disk turned into a ring of fire. The day began with an annular solar eclipse:

Nicole Hollenbeck took the picture from inside the narrow path of annularity about 70km south of Newman, Australia. At the time, more than 95% of the sun's diameter was covered by the Moon.

In an annular eclipse the Moon is not quite big enough to cover the entire solar disk. A blinding ring of solar fire juts out around the Moon, overwhelming the sun's delicate corona. It may not be the same as totality, but annularity has a charm and beauty all its own. Browse the gallery for more images from the eclipse zone.

SPECTACULAR PROMINENCE, GONE: For the past few days, astronomers around the world have been monitoring a bushy filament of magnetism dancing along the sun's western limb. Sergio Castillo of Inglewood CA photographed the structure on May 9th just before it collapsed:

"OMG! This giant prominence was one of the most spectacular I have ever witnessed," says Castillo. "Yesterday, however, it collapsed on its own magnetic field and nothing remains of it."

The filament has disappeared from the sun, but all 250,000 km of it may still be found in the space weather photo gallery.