no hokum, ahoy lotta gata'ing to gatacrash & shake & rattle & roll
Subj: GATA goes to Vancouver & GATA story in London Telegraph
& GATA in Forbes/GATA egroup & Gallery Opening
Date: 9/12/99
From: LePatron@LeMetropoleCafe.com
To: dougak
Le Metropole Members,
I will be leaving this Tuesday for a quick trip to
Vancouver in behalf of GATA - and will be staying at
the Delta Vancouver Airport Hotel. If any Cafe members
know of any Vancouver press, gold companies or
individuals that would like to know more about the
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, I will be available
for dinner at the Pierre Restaurant next to the Delta
Hotel at 6:30 Tuesday evening and at 8:00 o'clock the
following morning at the Delta Club Lounge for breakfast.
Then, I take off to return to Dallas, Texas.
GATA is stepping up it's probe into the manipulation
of the gold market. I want all of you to know that all
of our information presented to you thus far has come
from individuals that I have known for many years and,
or, from sources they have known for many years. We
are investigating the manipulation of the gold market
and on a search for the truth of all that is going on
around this "collusive activity." As many of you know,
we have been working nights and weekends, without pay,
in an effort to get to the bottom of it all. The means
doing our homework and running out a lot of ground balls.
We will continue to make a "relentless" effort to expose
to the world what the gold market is all about these days
and will do so until the "Hannibal Cannibals" have been sent
scurrying through the back end of "the enveloping horn"
- which will send the gold price soaring to its proper
equilibrium price.
If any of you know reporters that would like to
take the time and effort to know how logical and
obvious our assessment of the manipulation of the
gold market is, I suggest you urge them to go
to the Library's at the James Joyce Table and
the Matisse Table and cull out all the material pertinent
regarding the bullion dealers, etc; the obvious nature of
the "collusion" becomes very apparent when viewed in
detail and over a period of time. It is one year's worth of
gathering of info on my part. I am doing the same culling
and will have it available in a packaged format in the
weeks to come. It will take some time to review, but
one cannot come away with any other conclusion that we
have a big "scandal" here and staunch "cartel"
activity that has permeated the gold market.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, here is the latest: Bill
Jamieson, the Economics Editor of the London Telegraph
has written a story about GATA and our efforts to find
out if the rumor we heard about Hillary Clinton/gold/
BOE story is true.
It might be helpful to keep two things in mind here
when reading Bill's story. Watergate started out in
the papers as a third rate burglary - a minor event.
In the end, much of the entire Nixon administration
was implicated and it brought down a President.
The idea that there could have a stained dress in
the Lewinsky/Clinton matter was first said to be
preposterous (nobody could be that stupid) and those
that got the word out about "the dress" were
initially scoffed at.
The London Telegraph
"Lawyer probes Clinton gold claims"
By Bill Jamieson
Sunday, September 12, 1999
"One of America's most senior lawyers has been hired to
investigate unfounded allegations on the Internet that
Hillary Clinton made huge profits from the recent slump
in the price of gold.
The U.S. Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) has
hired one of America's biggest anti-trust law firms to
investigate allegations that a blind trust set up for
America's First Lady "shorted gold financial
instruments" just before the Bank of England's
announcement of gold sales on May 7. The announcement
caused a slump in the gold price.
The allegation -- uncluttered by fact and bare of
supporting evidence -- surfaced on a U.S. website for
financial market aficionados last weekend. Bill
Murphy, GATA's chairman, said: "If true, it is an
outrage and is further anecdotal evidence of the
conspiratorial nature of the Bank of England gold sales
and of the high level nature of the manipulation of the
gold market."
GATA has retained the Philadelphia firm of Berger &
Montague to investigate the rumours. The lawyer on the
case is Jerome Marcus, described by Murphy as "the
silent brains" behind the Paula Jones case for five
years.
Mr. Marcus said: "We have just begun our inquiries and
there is little as yet to report. Even if there was any
transaction through a blind trust, this would raise
questions of credibility. These people all know each
other. It is very tantalising but we have to establish
first whether it happened."
The allegation is the latest twist in a series of wild
conspiracy theories claiming massive gold market
manipulation, and doubtless the fact that Clinton's
recent down payment for a new home in Westchester
County, New York, came from her blind trust will
further fuel imaginations.
GATA has been campaigning for months for a halt to IMF
and central bank gold sales and for an investigation
into alleged gold market manipulation. Murphy has
written to Sen. Phil Gramm, chairman of the Senate
Banking Committee. His 21-page letter is testimony, if
nothing else, to the fact that nothing and no one is
being ruled out in GATA's global hunt for gold market
manipulators.
This year the price of gold has fallen from more than
$280 an ounce to $256.65 now, the bulk of this fall
coming after the surprise announcement by Gordon Brown
of a programme of Bank of England gold sales. The first
of these auctions was held in July, and the second is
due next week."
End.
Here is what we have so far regarding our probe into
the matter from two diligent Cafe members. We have just
begun and have found out through a White House Press
release about a Clinton blind trust called, "Boston
Harbor Trust Co." I checked the Massachusetts' government
agencies and they have no record of it. If anyone on
the internet has pertinent, reliable information and
can help us in this matter, we would like to review
what can be provided. If anyone would like to speak
confidentially with our attorneys, that can be arranged.
Note 1:
"Bill -- a little checking on the net disclosed
the following:
Boston Harbor Trust Co. is a subsidiary of Pell, Rudman
& Co., a firm that runs money for rich people (minimum
investment $1 million). Edward Rudman is the CEO. Pell
Rudman is a subsidary of United Asset Management.
I'm not sure, but I suspect that Edward is the son of
Warren, former U.S. Senator. (I think that because
Warren's father was named Edward; he died a couple of
years ago, and his obit came up in one of the searches
I ran.) I can't say it would shock me.
Edward is (or was) on the board of something called
the Northland Company, which was owned or controlled
by a family called Danziger (father Robert was the CEO).
He's also the chairman of Beth Israel Hospital's
Board of Trustees. (Maybe he's Warren's brother instead
of his son, since I doubt you get to be chairman of
the board at Beth Israel if you're under 50.)
I didn't find anything on Pell, but if Edward is who I think he may be,
perhaps Pell is related to the former Senator of that name.
Maybe you can see if any of these names rings any
bells with any of your friends."
Email 2:
"I never give up. I found the following from The
Congressional Record. Yes, THAT congress. It is very
long so I am cutting and pasting a couple of
snippets to wet your appetite.
1994 Memo: White House 'Task List'
-------------------------------------
This is a memorandum prepared by a White House that
has carefully outlined 39 separate scandals and the
strategy for covering them up.
-------------------------------------
Congressional Record Online
September 11, 1996 Congressional Record pages
H10207-H10215
[Congressional Record: September 11, 1996 (House)]
[Page H10207-H10215]
>From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
WHITE HOUSE TASK LIST
--------------------------
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Roth). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of
May 12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Cox]
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the
majority leader.
Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon
to talk about a document that was recently provided,
very belatedly, by the White House to the Congress, a
document now referred to as the task list. It is dated
December 13, 1994, but it was just provided to the
Congress in recent days.
The task list shows 39 scandals that the White House
staff in the West Wing, taxpayer supported staff,
decided that they needed to work on because there
was now going to be a Republican Congress. This memo
was prepared just after the November 1994 elections.
Now these are all admissions by the Clinton White
House to themselves within the White House internally
of what they were doing wrong. GSA. Value Partners.
Now Value Partners was, of course, the partnership
that Hillary Rodham Clinton invested in. Rather than
putting their funds in a blind trust, they did not do
so like President Bush did, like President Reagan did,
like President Carter did; rather, ran their own
investments, and Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner
in Value Partners, a hedge fund which sold short
pharmaceutical stocks at a time that the pharmaceutical
stock market was falling through the floor because
of the Hillary Rodham
Clinton
[[Page H10208]]
Task Force, and that was, of course, scandal number 7
or so up here on the list. Presidential campaign,
FEC audit. Commodities. Now of course we know what
the commodities is all about. That is the miraculous
fortune that Hillary Rodham Clinton made on the
investment of a mere thousand dollars in the cattle
futures market.
Hope this helps. The information is out there.
We just have to keep digging."
GATA was mentioned in the most recent Forbes. It is
another negative gold story from an establishment
oriented writer. But at least John Dizard, is letting
the world know we are out there. That is more than
most of his ilk. Two excellent writers commenting on
GATA in a couple of days. I might faint!
The Great Gold Price "Conspiracy";
Or, Read This Before You Invest In Gold
By John Dizard
Forbes Magazine
"The ideology of fanatic gold investors -- and that
means most gold investors -- has always been a blend of
libertarian and reactionary elements. They talk about
Fed conspiracies. They loathe government and its "paper
money." They scorn fools who believe in stocks and the
dollar. Their feeling of superiority was reinforced in
the '70s, as the price of gold zoomed up 1,462 percent
while the equity and bond markets crumbled (along with,
as they saw it, things like law and order).
But since 1980 gold-stock owners have lost more than
90% of the value of their holdings, measured against
the S&P 500. The price of gold is down to a 20-year low
of around $250 an ounce. Most economists blame the drop
primarily on low inflation and the proliferation of
other inflation hedges, especially derivatives. But to
goldbugs there has to be a conspiracy. And they think
they've found it: speculators -- along with mining
companies and other members of the gold industry --
borrowing masses of gold, selling it on the spot
market, investing the proceeds in higher-earning
securities, then paying back their loans with cheaper
gold. If this goes on, they warn, we're in for a
financial crash because banks and dealers will have to
pay an exorbitant price to cover their short positions.
The goldbugs have a point in that there is short-
selling going on and it has helped depress the price of
gold in the short term. But most of the short-sellers
have offsetting long positions in real supplies for
future delivery. Speculative selling is limited, partly
because the market is so illiquid. The real problem is
the huge pile of gold sitting in government and private
vaults. And though there may be a temporary rally soon,
the downward spiral in price is likely to continue.
Sniffs Randall Oliphant, president and CEO of giant
Barrick Gold of Toronto: "I don't see how promoting a
conspiracy theory encourages people to invest in gold."
Most of the selling is being done by mining companies
such as Barrick, hoping to lock in a margin between
production costs and prices -- a prudent, even routine
practice in most industries They borrow gold from so-
called bullion bankers (big-name banks and financial
firms, which in turn borrow the metal from central
banks) Then they sell the gold and use the proceeds to
pay their production costs, eventually repaying the
loan with their own product.
Why does that strategy infuriate gold fanatics? First,
in the short run the hedging depresses the spot gold
price as the borrowed metal is sold into the cash
market. And as John Brimelow, a gold-stock analyst,
points out, the mining companies are essentially
forgoing "upside potential in the event of a big price
rise -- since some future production will have already
been sold at a lower price -- in return for a more
predictable but limited earnings stream. This hurts the
gold shareholders, who lose the potential from a higher
gold price, though management pay is safer."
Says one goldbug: "Barrick Gold is evil. They have
debauched this market."
Bad as the mining companies are -- in the goldbugs'
eyes -- even worse are the hedge funds, dealers, and
other speculators who have supposedly sold billions of
dollars worth of gold into the spot market and invested
the proceeds in equities, junk bonds, and other paper.
That only works, the goldbugs claim, if interest rates
on the borrowed gold (now around 2 percent for six
months) and gold prices both stay low. So the
speculators supposedly collude to keep things that way.
We're not just talking about a few malcontents wearing
T-shirts imprinted with a Glock 9mm pistol and the
legend "I Don't Call 911." Listen to John Willson,
president and CEO of Placer Dome, the second-largest
North American gold producer: "I believe there are
forces, such as the central banks, that can get
together to modify or manipulate the gold market. They
keep the price down."
(Of course, that sentiment hasn't stopped his company
from selling short 5 million ounces, or about 1 1/2
years' production.)
Fueling the goldbugs' bitterness, former stalwarts such
as the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank have
announced that they will sell a large part of their
reserves over the next couple of years. (The former
auctioned 25 metric tons -- or 61,600 pounds -- July
6.)
In January gold enthusiasts formed a lobbying group
called Gold Anti-Trust Action Inc. and hired veteran
Philadelphia tort specialists Berger & Montague to look
into a case against "colluders" among the dealers and
banks. The World Gold Council, an industry trade group
headed by Willson, has its own investigation.
Says Bill Murphy, GATA's chairman: "It is clear that
the shorts will blow up in the not too distant future."
How much gold is at issue here? The most extreme
goldbugs say speculators alone are borrowing up to
8,000 metric tons, or about $68 billion worth. The more
moderate, such as Willson, think the world's total
short position is maybe 7,000 to 9,000 tons, divided
roughly equally between speculators and industrial
users such as mining companies and jewelry makers.
Phillip Klapwijk, managing director of Gold Fields
Mineral Services Ltd., an industry economic research
firm, puts the total short position at about 4,300 tons
at the end of 1998, most sold by miners and industrial
users. (Since then, perhaps 500 to 1,000 tons more have
been sold short.)
Let's put this in context before we talk about a
teetering inverted pyramid of speculation. There are
about 137,400 tons -- about $1.1 trillion worth -- of
gold above ground, some 31,400 of which is held in
central banks, according to Gold Fields. All the
"global macro" hedge funds combined have maybe $30
billion available for trades such as selling gold
short, and most of that is committed to other
positions.
The mines, for their part, are likely to slow their
hedging in a couple of years because they and their
banks will reach the limits of prudence. That probably
means no more than 3,000 tons of producer hedging over
the next two to three years -- a little over one year's
production.
The capital and credit for a short-selling conspiracy
simply aren't there.
"Gold is best looked on as a slowly depreciating
currency. It is in the early stages of being turned
into just another commodity," says Kevin Crisp, chief
gold researcher for J.P. Morgan.
Once it's demoted to the status of pig iron and oats,
you can expect to see the price falling to or below the
cost of production. That could be a good $50 or more
under even today's depressed level. Hard to see a
comeback from here. And hard to see a conspiracy."
-END-
Chris Powell, GATA Secretary, has given us a "10"
performance as e-group moderator. I highly recommend
that Cafe members sign up for this "FREE" service
to monitor some news relevant to GATA. This is the deal:
You will receive official GATA dispatches that
are posted separately from those posted through the
Cafe and will be advised of articles in other
publications and at other Internet sites that are
of interest to gold investors. You WON'T get junk mail
by signing up for the GATA email list; it is absolutely
confidential. To put yourself on the GATA email
list, just send a request to GATA@eGroups.com, or
enroll yourself by going to:
egroups.com
To rap up this weekend diatribe I would like to send
you all this invitation in case anyone is in the
Dallas, Texas area on Sep. 25. I will be there and
would love to meet you:
THE FAIRMONT
Cordially invites you to the Grand Opening Reception of
the ARTS DISTRICT GALLERY
Saturday, September 25th 6 P.M. - 8 P. M.
Featuring
"Masterpieces Revisited" by Alain Despert
A unique and colorful series of contemporary paintings
inspired by master works of Picasso, Matisse, Monet,
Gaugin, da Vinci, and many others.
Cocktail reception with music Artist in attendance
Address: At the Fairmont Hotel
1717 N. Akard at Ross
Dallas, Texas 75201
Alain Despert has been great to GATA. You can still
obtain a GATA print for $500 plus shipping. He
is a terrific artist and a great fan of ours. I hope
that some of you will consider supporting us by
buying the GATA fine art print that can be reviewed
at the Matisse Table. We are stepping up the pace
and need all the support we can get.
All the best,
Bill Murphy
Le Patron
Chairman, Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee
lemetropolecafe.com |
