Gold is Money. Its been said before, notably by the late JP Morgan. Yet today we find ourselves forgetting that gold is money.

Jim Sinclair has made some very accurate calls in his time, and is one of the most recognized experts in gold today. A recent message from Mr. Sinclair, I have bolded where he says gold is money:

As far as I am concerned:

1. I do not anticipate a one month or more drop in gold. Neither does Monty Guild, so be careful not to read his general commodity comment ass-backwards.
2. The worst case scenario is a chop after the low of April 28th set in, and the rally high in the low $950s. Following this the chop gives way to a break above $1034 on its way to $1200 in 2008. Write that down for the dark night of your gold soul.
3. Gold is a currency, not a commodity.
4. Gold while remaining as a currency is now more tied to the euro than the USDX.
5. Weakness in crude, if you can call any price above $100 a barrel weak, helped gold be prone to lower prices.
6. Gold?s real help moving lower was a push by COT that triggered the mindless black boxes which are as nuts on the upside as they are on the downside.
7. If tonight you curse gold, keep this in mind when it crosses$1034, and please leave never to return.
8. Hold my hand when you feel low as gold takes a beating, and when you feel high as a kite when higher highs happen. I will moderate both for you.
9. The greatest technical analysis trick is simple to learn. Whatever your emotions say to you is totally wrong. Whenever you want to margin to the rafters it is time to eliminate debt.

Regards,
Jim

Modern economic alchemy has labeled gold nothing more than a commodity, a bygone relic, with no industrial or commercial use in todays world of paper and electronic markets.

But what happens when those who are in charge of those paper and electronic systems abuse it? What happens when people lose confidence in it? What happens when the paper becomes ever more worthless in the eyes of the world?

Quite simply, a return to gold is money. It has been money for over 5000 years. Human beings have this interesting tendancy to forget history, and what we have learned from societies past.

Economies, and nations, both regional and global have gone back and forth from ‘easy money’ to ‘disciplined money’ in a recurring pattern that so far has shown no reason of stopping.

Governments of course favor easy money, because they can print as much as they like, and spend as much as they like, with no sensible restraints on wars, emergency relief, subsidies on foolish programs, and social welfare that dwarfs the entire global gdp combined.

The bad part of course, is this propensity to print and create tens of trillions of dollars out of thin air is called inflation, and it is spreading around the globe like a cancer. Food riots, oil heading to $200 a barrel, $5.00 a gallon gas, and the sad part is, this is just the beginning.

There are, however, solutions. Investigate gold and silver. Learn why gold is money. Most importantly, learn why the cycle is again shifting back to gold is money, and what it means in terms of how high gold will truly go.

Do your research, because for the ones who bury their heads in the sand and fail to see it coming, there will be terrible losses as stock markets come down from baby boomers sucking their money out as they retire in hordes.

Some however, will be gathering wealth because they were smart enough to learn from history.

To Learn more about gold and silver and how it can impact your wealth, or for information on how to open an Anglo Far East Gold or Silver Bullion Account, Click here.

Simon Heapes; Price Controls will fail eventually, Rome gives us the historical pattern of this!

Like the Wise King Solomon once said, “there is nothing new under the sun”!

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Finally, the very survival of the state was at stake. At this point, the Emperor Diocletian (284-305 A.D.) took action. He attempted to stop the inflation with a far-reaching system of price controls on all services and commodities. [10] These controls were justified by Diocletian’s belief that the inflation was due mainly to speculation and hoarding, rather than debasement of the currency. As he stated in the preamble to his
edict of 301 A.D.:

For who is so hard and so devoid of human feeling that he cannot, or rather has not perceived, that in the commerce carried on in the markets or involved in the daily life of cities immoderate prices are so widespread that the unbridled passion for gain is lessened neither by abundant supplies nor by fruitful years; so that without a doubt men who are busied in these affairs constantly plan to control the very winds and weather from the movements of the stars, and, evil that they are, they cannot endure
the watering of the fertile fields by the rains from above which bring the hope of future harvests, since they reckon it their own loss if abundance comes through the moderation of the weather [Jones 1970: 310].

Despite the fact that the death penalty applied to violations of the price controls, they were a total failure. Lactantius (1984: 11), a contemporary of Diocletian’s tells us that much blood was shed over “small and cheap items” and that goods disappeared from sale. Yet, “the rise in price got much worse.” Finally, “after many had met their deaths, sheer necessity led to the repeal of the law.”

Germany in call for ban on oil speculation

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Last Updated: 1:40am BST 26/05/2008

German leaders are to propose a worldwide ban on oil trading by speculators, blaming the latest spike in crude prices on manipulation by hedge funds.

It is the most drastic proposal to date amid escalating calls from Europe, the US and Asia for controls on market forces, underscoring the profound shift in the political climate since the credit crunch began. India has already suspended futures trading of five commodities.

FULL ARTICLE

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Simon Heapes says: Although the fall of Rome appears as a cataclysmic event inhistory, for the bulk of Roman citizens it had little impact on their way of life. As Henri Pirenne (1939: 33-62) has pointed out, once the invaders effectively had displaced the Roman government they settled into governing themselves. At this point, they no longer had any incentive to pillage, but rather sought to provide peace and stability in the areas they controlled. After all, the wealthier their subjects the greater their taxpaying capacity.

In conclusion, the fall of Rome was fundamentally due to economic deterioration resulting from excessive taxation, inflation, and over-regulation. Higher and higher taxes failed to raise additional revenues because wealthier taxpayers could evade such
taxes while the middle class–and its taxpaying capacity–were exterminated.

Although the final demise of the Roman Empire in the West (its Eastern half continued on as the Byzantine Empire) was an event of great historical importance, for most Romans it was a relief.

Alex’s Notes: today we are seeing a mirror of this repeat itself with the BRIC Nations. They are net buyers of gold for their treasuries, while the western nations are net sellers. Just as we saw with the Byzantines buying up the gold and silver sold off by Rome’s treasury, so the pattern repeats itself yet again.

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U.S. Begins Rationing Popular ‘Silver Eagles’
Losing a Mint:
Curb on Coin Sales
Angers Collectors;
How $1 Fetches $19
By IANTHE JEANNE DUGAN
May 23, 2008; Page A1

The government rationed food during World War II and gasoline in the 1970s. Now, it’s imposing quotas on another precious commodity: 2008 dollar coins known as silver eagles.

The coins, each containing about an ounce of silver, have become so popular among investors seeking alternatives to stocks and real estate that the U.S. Mint can’t make them fast enough. In March, the mint stopped taking orders for the bullion coins. Late last month, it began limiting how many coins its 13 authorized buyers world-wide are allowed to purchase.

“This came out of nowhere,” says Mark Oliari, owner of Coins ‘N Things Inc. in Bridgewater, Mass., one of the biggest buyers of silver eagles. With customers demanding twice as many as they did last year, Mr. Oliari would like to buy 500,000 a week. But the mint will sell him only around 100,000.

The coins have a face value of $1. But the mint sells them for the going price of silver, plus a small premium, to a handful of wholesalers, brokerage companies, precious-metals firms, coin dealers and banks. The dealers mark the coins up a bit more and sell them to the public. Currently, the coins are fetching about $19 apiece, with some sellers seeking more than $20.

For Coins ‘N Things alone, the shortage is costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost sales of silver eagles. The firm sells about $1 billion worth of precious metal every year, including silver, gold and platinum coins. Mr. Oliari, a 50-year-old numismatist who has been in the business since 1973, sniffs: “You can’t print what I want to say about the mint.”

The mint, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury, has offered little explanation beyond a memo last month to its dealers. “The unprecedented demand for American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins necessitates our allocating these coins on a weekly basis until we are able to meet demand,” the mint wrote. A spokesman declined to elaborate.

‘Poor Man’s Gold’

The rare shortage offers a glimpse into the growing love of a commodity known as “poor man’s gold.” With more silver mined than gold traditionally, silver has always been far cheaper than gold and today has less than 2% of gold’s value.

But silver is growing in popularity, and some investors are betting that its value will surge as inventory shrinks. Big investors are loading up on silver eagles, which are the only American silver coins allowed in individual retirement plans. For small investors, they are an accessible way to get into the metal boom.

“Unlike gold, these coins can be bought by regular citizens,” says J.R. Roland, a Brownsville, Tenn., judge who recently began buying the coins — and trading them on eBay. “In these economic hard times, silver coins are a great way to invest.”

In March, sales of silver eagles surged more than ninefold from the previous month, to 1.85 million. This year, the mint has sold 6.8 million, representing more than twice last year’s pace. Still, numismatists are clamoring for millions more as the price of silver soars. It has more than doubled in the past three years and now trades at around $17 a troy ounce, which is slightly heavier than a traditional ounce.

Linda Wood, a 57-year-old Pittsburgh accountant, scours eBay, coin shops and flea markets in search of silver eagles. One by one, she has accumulated about 300 in the past few months and stores them in a bank safe-deposit box.

Traditional coin collectors may be impressed with the government’s written description of silver eagles as “one of the most beautiful coins ever minted.” But Ms. Wood isn’t in it for aesthetics. She became a silver bug after she and her husband saw the value of their individual retirement accounts decline by $2,500 — a “significant” chunk. “I just need bullion,” she says. “I wouldn’t care if the coins were ugly.”

Amid the mint caps, shady silver-eagle hawkers are thriving. Some coins are priced at $25 and higher. Mr. Roland says that he had to wait a month after ordering some on eBay recently, because the sellers didn’t even have the goods. “I can’t wait long, because you never know what’s going to happen with the price,” he says.

In Manitowoc, Wis., Dan Zirk, owner of Manitowoc Card & Coin, has sold twice as many silver eagles as he did last year. So he has stashed away his remaining handful of 2008 coins, betting the price will rise. “I want $22 apiece,” says Mr. Zirk. He says customers, meanwhile, are asking for earlier years and other forms of silver.

Lady Liberty

The government began producing silver eagles in 1986, basing its design on Adolph Weinman’s 1916 “Walking Liberty” half dollar. The front features a flag-draped Lady Liberty striding toward the sunrise, carrying branches of laurel and oak symbolizing civil and military glory. On the reverse, a design by John Mercanti features an eagle with a shield, olive branch, and talon and arrows.

The coins are made at an armored facility in West Point, N.Y., alongside the military academy. Dealers say they heard the mint had run out of planchets — round metal disks ready to be struck into coins. The disks are used for various coins, and the companies producing the blanks also are busy, limiting the mint’s ability to increase production. The mint won’t comment on the planchets.

Coins Divvied Up

Each Monday morning now, the mint divides its silver coins into two pools. It divvies up the first equally among authorized purchasers. The second is allocated proportionately, based on the buyer’s past purchases. The mint limited purchases once before — in the late 1990s, when investors loaded up on silver, wrongly anticipating that a failure by the world’s computers to adjust to the new millennium would cripple the economy.

Jim Hausman, head of the Gold Center in Springfield, Ill., one of eight companies in the U.S. authorized to buy silver eagles, estimates that the rationing will cut his expected annual sales of four million silver eagles in half.

And the result, he says, is almost un-American. Increasingly, investors are taking a shine to alternatives. The Royal Canadian Mint saw its sales of silver Canadian maple-leaf bullion coins rise 40% last year, to 3.5 million, according to a spokesman.

Some investors expect the craze to end badly. They draw comparisons to what happened to silver in the 1970s. A rich Texas family poured billions of dollars into silver, and prices surged above $50 an ounce in 1980, only to plunge again after government intervention.

“It’s akin to what happened when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market,” says Wendell Curry, who owns McAllen Gold & Silver Exchange in McAllen, Texas. “The silver hawks are now trying to corner silver American eagles. And it’s making it harder for mom and pop to buy these for their grandchildren.”

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Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

In response to our request for access to documents involving gold swaps and the U.S. gold reserve, the Federal Reserve Board has provided GATA about 900 pages that are nearly all just copies of correspondence from the public to the Fed. As might be expected, the only documents that seem as if they might have useful information have been withheld from us or redacted into meaninglessness.

But as you may see from the most recent letter from GATA’s Washington law firm, William J. Olson P.C. of McLean, Virginia, GATA is pursuing the Fed’s appeal procedure in regard to the withholding and redacting, and our freedom-of-information initiative already has proven worthwhile. For it has established that the Federal Reserve does have secrets about the U.S. gold reserve — that things have been done with their gold that the American people might object to if they were allowed to know, or that things have been done with the gold reserve that can be accomplished only by deceiving the financial markets.

The Fed’s acknowledgement that it is withholding information about the U.S. gold reserve may be taken as more evidence that the U.S. government is surreptitiously manipulating the gold market.

You can find GATA’s letter of appeal here:

http://www.gata.org/files/GATA-FedFOIAppeal.pdf

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

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Alex’s Notes: Unexpected inflation?? You have got to be kidding me.

It does not cease to amaze me how often main stream media financial analysts are either completely ignorant of how the economy works, or are deliberately creating spin to keep consumers fat dumb and happy.

The bottom line is we have added over 14 TRILLION dollars to the money supply and currently the rate of adding money is only increasing. We are about to hit 19% in terms added change to money supply.

How anyone can expect that we will not see price increases under such conditions and call themself a financial analyst is beyond my comprehension.

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India’s Inflation Unexpectedly Accelerates on Food
By Cherian Thomas

May 16 (Bloomberg) — India’s inflation rate unexpectedly rose to the highest in 3 1/2 years, adding pressure on the central bank to raise borrowing costs further to tame prices.

Wholesale prices rose 7.83 percent in the week ended May 3 from a year earlier, after gaining 7.61 percent in the previous week, the government said in a statement in New Delhi. Economists surveyed had expected a 7.55 percent increase.

Increasing borrowing costs will check the flow of money to speculators in the commodities market and rein in food prices, former central bank Governor Bimal Jalan said in parliament last month. The government, to augment monetary policy action, has persuaded steel and cement makers in the past week to cut prices and help slow inflation.

“More monetary tightening cannot be ruled out,” said Rajeev Malik, senior economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Singapore. “More measures are likely as inflation is expected to remain above the central bank’s target of 5.5 percent.”

The index for fruits, vegetables and other food items rose 0.5 percent, while that for manufactured products gained 0.3 percent, today’s statement showed.

The rupee declined to 42.73 against the dollar from 42.65 before the data was announced. The yield on the benchmark 10- year bond was little changed at 7.88 percent, holding near this week’s high.

China Inflation

India and China, the world’s fastest growing major economies, are battling rising prices stoked by consumer demand and high food costs. Wholesale prices in China rose 10.3 percent in April from a year earlier, the fastest since at least 1999.

India’s central bank twice asked lenders to set aside more funds last month, raising the so-called cash reserve ratio to 8.25 percent, the highest since March 2001, from 7.5 percent. The Reserve Bank of India may raise the ratio for a third time this year to control inflation, according to six of nine economists surveyed by Bloomberg News on April 30.

India’s cement makers joined steel producers on May 14 in pledging to cut prices after Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said the government will take “administrative action” against them for behaving like cartels.

Chidambaram yesterday said there is significant scope for further reduction in cement prices. Steel Authority of India Ltd. and other Indian steelmakers on May 7 agreed to lower prices for a second time since April.

Indian Elections

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry, an Indian trade organization, says it expects the combination of steps taken by the government, central bank and companies to slow inflation to 6 percent in the next four to six weeks.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government has been stepping up measures to cool prices in Asia’s third-largest economy to improve his re-election chances in a vote that must be held before May 2009.

The government wants to bring inflation down to 4 percent, to protect consumers in a nation where the World Bank estimates half the 1.1 billion population live on less than $2 a day.

Over the past two months, the government scrapped import duties on edible oils, steel products and banned the export of cement, pulses, rice, wheat and edible oil to contain prices.

Last week, under pressure from its communist allies, the government also banned futures trading in soybean oil, rubber, chick peas and potatoes to reduce speculation. It halted wheat and rice contracts last year and lentils in 2006.

Today’s inflation rate may be revised in two months when India’s government reviews the figures after receiving additional price data. The Commerce Ministry today increased the inflation rate for the week ended March 8 to 7.78 percent from 5.92 percent.

                       Week Ended    Week Ended     Percentage
                         May 3         April 26        Change

Primary articles         239.3         238.6           0.3
Fuel, power              345.4         342.5           0.8
Manufactured products    198.9         198.3           0.3
Food products            204.3         202.8           0.7
Edible oils              186.6         187.9          -0.7
Cement                   220.8         221.6          -0.4
Iron & steel             354.6         360.6          -1.7
Pulses                   241.8         243.9          -0.9
Fruits & vegetables      253.2         247.1           2.5
Total                    228.6         227.7           0.4

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aN4UwM8U3oQA&refer=economy

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