(GATA News) Yes, but to me (Dougak) great & easy "Mystery Novel, Who Done It."
Subj: Midas - The Intrigue Builds
Date: 1/5/00 9:29:16 PM EST
From: LePatron@LeMetropoleCafe.com
To: dougak
Le Metropole members,
Midas du Metropole has served commentary,
The James Joyce Table,
The Intrigue Builds.
...for the entrenched bears. Frank Veneroso told me today that he expects
the monthly deficit to rise to 200 tonnes per month by the end of the
year if the price of gold were to stay at these levels.
Speaking of Frank Veneroso, here are some snippets from his most recent
gold commentary:
[START]
"We now understand that most market participants believe there is such
a large undisclosed seller. Because of the September 24th Washington
Agreement by the European central banks, they argue that the European
central banks are not the principal parties involved. Therefore, it must
be the Fed. A year ago such claims were made only by a fringe group;
apparently this view is now widely held.
"Actually, that there is a large undisclosed official seller of gold
other than the European central banks does not necessarily imply the
Federal Reserve or US Treasury is the seller. There are large holdings
in Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, the Vatican, etc, which could be under sustained
liquidation. However, though we would prefer not to we can no longer
avoid bringing up the possibility of clandestine Fed or Treasury
management of the gold price..
"To make Fed manipulation of the gold market likely, there must be a motive.
Manipulating the gold price cannot be an end in itself. It must be part
of a greater master plan; it must be a sideshow to a greater game."
[END]
The real precious metals story of the day was this Kitco post.
Many of you sent it to me and for good reason.
It is a blockbuster.
I'll let you read it and then make some comments. It is chilling to think
about what GoldBird1 has to say after reading Frank's general comment:
Date: Wed Jan 05 2000 04:24
GoldBird1 ( Armstrong-Republic-manipulations ) ID#396247:
Copyright 1999 GoldBird1/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved
"Whilst I have read a lot on this site about Armstrong and his supposed
short gold position, etc., etc., etc., I just thought everyone should
know that it is all BS. I have worked inside Republic Bank and quite
frankly the whole thing stinks of a major set up intended to frame
Armstrong big time. Armstrong was right about the manipulation of silver
and a whole lot more . Not only was silver manipulated, they do it all
the time. If you want to know the truth, it was Republic who has been
behind almost every manipulation I know of for at least the last 10
years, I've seen it first hand. Buffet is not lily white and this silver
purchase of his was not the first. The manipulation by Phibro in 1995
when they exercised the call options way out of the money was executed
by Andy Heck who now works for Republic. The CFTC went to Phibro
demanding to know who the client was behind the trade and they refused
to give up the name. The CFTC did not do their job, as usual, and just
walked away demanding that they exit the trade. Phibro was owned by
Salomon Bros and the authorization to squeeze silver was given
personally by Buffet.
Does anyone really think that a small sub like Phibro could do a $1 billion
trade without board approval from above? It doesn't end there.
Bribes were paid to Russian officials to "recall" platinum so it could
be inventoried. Republic helped Tiger corner the market in palladium and
stored it for them just like they moved the silver from NY to London for
Buffet. This thing even goes back to the manipulation of the US Treas
Auctions. The govt boys are so stupid, when they threatened to take the
license away from Salomon Bros, Buffet came to the rescue. Ha! He was
behind that trade as well and his name was concealed then, as always.
Then that trader left and started LTCM and had a real merry old time.
Look at who his investors were! Just before it blew up, Buffet agreed to
bailout that operation and wrote a letter stating that if his offer were
ever revealed, it would be void. That letter was published in the WSJ
because it blew up before Buffet could put the deal to bed.
The point is, Armstrong was trying to fight the crowd. He knew what was
going on and the word inside the bank was that he might even have tapes
of conversations between a lot of the players. Everyone is really
worried about that for sure. These guys take the market up get all you
suckers believing the rally is real and then slam it again. How do you
think they make their billions? They don't care about bull markets. They
shag the markets to make their billions off of the people who don't have
a clue. They rotate between the markets. All the same names were on the
short-side in copper. Sumitomo tried to fight these guys. They baited
the Japanese into the trades offering them untold credit. They then
would short copper against them. Sumitomo tried to defend their position
and ended up buying the entire inventory. When they had Sumitomo loaded,
they ran to the authorities and did them in calling it a manipulation.
They made a fortune on that short trade. To add insult to injury,
Sumitomo ran to Goldman Sachs for help, Goldman started selling
thousands of contracts in copper that day and then accepted the work out
the following day after front-running their own client. Jimmy Goldsmith
was involved in this one as well as Safra, Tiger and a host of others.
They amazingly are all on the right side of everyone of these trades.
Hell - bribes were even paid to bank officials at the Central Bank of
Thailand to start the Asian Crisis! That was the evidence the Japanese
took to the G7 meeting and demanded controls against the organized hedge
funds. The US govt refused to do anything against the group of players
because this thing is so dirty nobody wants the truth out there. They
told the Japs they would agree to sanctions only. That's why Armstrong
is being served up as the Xmas turkey. Quite frankly, he knows too much.
Safra was paying bribes to people inside the IMF as well. They all
thought they had the IMF in their pocket. That's why they all invested
so much into Russia. They even set up Bank of New York on behalf of a
rival group of thugs in Russia and because Republic hates Bank of New
York because they are not part of the club.
These markets are never going to breakout until someone breaks up this
organized mob of billionaires. The govt is either too stupid or they are
involved with them ==== a high probability! After all, Armstrong had a
$1 billion credit line in the bank and everyone knew it. Suddenly, his
credit line was pulled and Republic took $500 million of his clients
money pretending it was never there. That order came from good old Mr.
Safra himself and was carried out by George Wendler personally. And if
anyone believes that story about Safra's death, I guess they believe in
Santa Claus and a few other sudden deaths when the heat got turned up.
If Armstrong or his clients got Safra on the stand, the whole thing
could have unraveled. His bodyguard was changed just after this affair
started. You fill in the blanks.
Armstrong was never short 700 tons of gold. In fact, to get the silver
manipulation going, Armstrong was out of the country and they ran their
orders through Republic to make everyone think it was Armstrong covering
short positions he never had. The records are all there!
All this stuff is on tapes, docs and emails. The question is, will the
govt go along with the big boys and cover everything up again? If so,
they say already Armstrong won't make it to trial. They cannot afford a
open trial with everything Armstrong knows. He probably knows far more
than what has been written here. They just can't afford for the world to
know how rigged this game truly is and how these billionaires really
make their money at the expense of everyone else.
That's the real story. Take it for what it's worth."
End.
What intrigue!
Is it a set up?
For real?
Well, while I do not believe in any way Martin Armstrong is just a patsy,
I am impressed. Here goes why:
I know all about the Phibro silver story.
I know Andy Hecht (not Heck).
I met his boss at Phibro, Andy Hall, when I took the number two Indonesian
Oil Minister (Mr. Wijharto) up to see him in Connecticut about 11 years ago.
What happened was that Andy Hecht and his partner, Jimmy DiPizza,
sensed that they could pull off a squeeze of the silver market
because they believed in the silver supply/demand fundamentals.
There was no manipulation. They wanted the silver and wished to make
a play in the market..
Hecht and DiPizza got the OK from Phibro CEO, Andy Hall.
The trio got the OK from Warren Buffet, Chairman of Salomon, to go ahead.
Their maneuver was shocking as they bought silver calls above the market
that expired way out of the money. The problem for the shorts was that
Hecht declared he wanted the silver anyway. Lots of it. The shorts were
stunned and panicked. I cannot recall anyone doing that before.
The price of silver soared.
But surprise, surprise, the government stepped in because they knew
that Phibro really could squeeze the market. They had a powwow with Buffet.
Buffet went to Hecht/DiPizza and said we can win this battle, but he
could lose the war in a big hassle with the U.S. government, so he had
Hecht and Piazza exit the trade. Miraculously, they got out with NO loss.
That was a big deal as they had accumulated a sizable position.
Did the government take part of the position off its hands? Was that the
start of our government's interference in the precious metals markets?
Funny thing was that when Buffet left Salomon, he still liked the silver
story/trade, so he went back to DiPizza to buy a boatload of silver for
his own account and that news surfaced a couple of years ago. As far as
I know, he still owns that silver and DiPizza is still his broker.
One other corroboration of the posting is the comment about the hedge
funds and Thailand. Sources close to the Cafe told me that they had
heard years ago that the hedge funds had a wink and a nod from the U.S
Government to go after that market.
As far as the rest of it goes, you have heard me describe some hedge funds,
some bullion banks and the N.Y. Fed as a "Goon Squad" for the past year;
this commentary just fits right in.
My only exception to the Kitco post is that it gives one the impression that
Martin Armstrong is being overly persecuted. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't.
Either way, I did some homework today and called Tony Hagen of the Trenton
Times in New Jersey. The timing was a coincidence as he was following down
my request to look for a document of whether Martin Armstrong traded gold.
I heard and learned the following from Tony:
1. Mr. Nathan, the top gun at the CFTC, would not confirm whether Martin
Armstrong traded gold and silver or not. Tony said he stuttered while he
spoke to him.
2. Somehow, Tony then got his hands on a September 14, CFTC News Release
entitled, "CFTC Obtains Asset Freeze and Appointment of a Receiver in
Civil Injunctive Action Filed Against Princeton Global Management Ltd.,
Princeton Economics International. Ltd., and Martin Armstrong."
At the time of this release, the newspapers and wire services reported
that Armstrong lost money trading in "oil, yen and U.S. Treasury bonds."
Many of us remember that because gold and silver was not mentioned BY
ANYONE. Then on top of that, Martin Armstrong said the following to GATA:
What Will Tomorrow Bring
By Martin A. Armstrong
Copyright November 18th, 1999
"Gold is also a key market to watch as to discerning the future that
lies ahead. Our short-term outlook warned that the seasonal pattern
for gold was an early summer low followed by a rally into an October high.
That forecast has proven to be correct. Of course thanks to a lot of
false information about shorts and conspiracies, a panic rally to the
upside unfolded. To set the record straight, neither the company, any
public fund, Japanese client or myself had any short positions in this
market. The CFTC never made any such announcement about gold positions.
Reports by such individuals on the Internet were simply made up
like so many other things GATA reports."
In the CFTC Complaint, number 12 is entitled, "Failure to Inform
Nichimen of Trading Losses in Accounts:
"In addition to providing false monthly account balances, the Cresvale
statements that Nichimen received do not reveal futures trading losses
incurred by the Nichimen accounts at RNYS. From June 1996 through
October 1997, the RNYS PGM K-4 account traded in Japanese yen contracts,
as well as Treasury Bond, gold, silver and S&P 500 stock index futures
contracts."
Armstrong's November 18 comment contradicts the facts. This whole mess
gets stranger by the day. Clearly, he was referring to this CFTC
document. What he should have said is that the mainstream media kept
this fact out of their papers. That would have been true.
To compound all of this, the period described above is inclusive of when
Buffet made his move in silver, early 1997. This CFTC document does not
say he was short at the time, but he was the most vociferous silver bear
in the world at the time. Are we expected to believe, he was not short
silver? That is what Goldbird1 suggests: "to make everyone think it was
Armstrong covering short positions he never had."
My head is spinning. What is clear is that this whole thing stinks.
The good news is that the stench is beginning to smell SO BADLY that it
cannot be overlooked any more. I received calls today from a South
African business writer, the British Broadcasting Company and Ferdinand
Lips, who is leading the fight to try and defeat the Swiss gold sales.
Ferdinand is no lightweight. He is a former Managing Director of the
Rothchilds Bank in Zurich, Switzerland, owned his own bank at one time,
Bank Lips Ag, and is a Director of Durban Deep in South Africa.
Wrap up: On a real upbeat note for GATA co-founder, Chris Powell,
the rest of the GATA Committee and I:
Harry Schultz, publisher of the world's leading financial/geopolitical
newsletter says:
"There are millions of people who don't like the disgusting depreciation
of their paper currencies, year after year. They usually are also
pro-gold people who want gold as a backing for currencies, which we all
used to have but have had it stolen away from us, without our permission!
They are often gold shareholders who are aghast to see their own govts
intervene to control the price of gold, a dictatorial act that is astounding
& which the media ignores.
"What Bill Murphy & GATA have given all these millions of people
is HOPE with a capital H...!!!
"He gives us/them all inspiration that the political gladiators who sell
govt gold that belongs to the people - not them, not the govt, will not
prevail. Hope that gold can be returned to its proper role as paper
currency backing. Hope that the cannibals who sell gold short to keep
the price down will be stopped & punished. That the govts who connive
in this illegal game will be exposed and stopped.
"For years the monopolists have gotten away with this game.
Now, at last, there is hope that they can be brought to book.
Bill Murphy & GATA have also shined the spotlight on gold miners
who foolishly sold gold short. Now shareholders won't stand for such
nonsense any more! HSL started this campaign, but GATA is carrying it
into the wide wide world via the internet.
"It's a new world. Gold has ALWAYS represented freedom for the individual.
That's why the govts are opposed to it. GATA & internet are, in my opinion,
going to defeat them.
End.
Harry, in behalf of GATA and all our "internet" supporters, we thank you
for such kind words and your confidence in us. We will not let you down.
Midas
Bill Murphy ( Midas )
For new readers, the above mention of GATA is as follows.
Bill Murphy, Chairman, Gold Anti Trust Action (GATA) gata.org
Also, GATA related articles can be obtained at the pay for view site.
Bill Murphy, Le Patron, Le Metropole Cafe lemetropolecafe.com |
