Terrorism & Gold - By Stephen Clayson 10 Jul 2007
LONDON -- With a fresh wave of terrorist attacks hitting London recently, it is interesting to ask what effect this is likely to have on the gold market in the longer term. The renewed terrorist onslaught here in the U.K. indicates that the problem of militant Islam is only likely to get worse, not better. It also indicates that the security services are clearly incapable, although surely not for want of trying, of keeping tabs on, and hence interdicting, every plot.
The London car bombs of 29 June were foiled by sheer good luck, but we can’t count on that to save our bacon each time a militant Islamist cell attempts to create mayhem. The Glasgow airport attack the following day, while crude in its conception and execution, was a sort of success for the terrorists. The images of their burning car rammed up against the bollards out the entrance to the airport terminal will not soon be forgotten.
And worse still, no one knows what other plots are being hatched as we speak in one of the Islamic enclaves that are scattered across modern Britain.
Rightly or wrongly, we have acclimatised to the threat of Islamic terrorism as a part of our lives. Stoicism is the order of the day. While many people lack much faith in the government’s ability to protect them, they have no option but to go about their daily business and continue for example, to fly, despite the position of airports at the top of the terrorists’ hit list. While this minimises the economic disruption entailed by the terrorist threat, it does nothing to lessen the likelihood of another atrocity.
Gold was given a fillip by the attacks in London on 29 June, closing up $8.30 an ounce on the first say of trading after the attacks, although with the aid of a weakening dollar. Not a particularly strong fillip then, and certainly not like the one that followed the 9/11 attacks. It is likely that the amateurish nature of the attacks carried out in Britain and the fact that no loss of life or even injuries were caused diminished the element of panic needed to spur the gold price in an event like this.
Another attack, heaven forbid, on anything even approaching the scale of 9/11 would probably have had a much more significant effect on the gold price, as might an attack on the U.S., which remarkably has been spared terrorist bloodshed since the destruction of the World Trade Centre.
Another attack on the U.S. would be of more significance to gold not least because it would cause the dollar to weaken. The dollar is still the big story as far as gold goes. Gold inversely tracks the greenback, and responds to moves in the dollar, and even to developments that look bullish or bearish for the dollar, more reliably than it responds to any other factor.
But gold does react to terrorism, even as the world seemingly becomes more inured to it. An intensifying terrorist threat, not just in the U.K. and the U.S., will provide an ongoing incentive to hold gold.
Back in the U.K., The fact that the terrorists who carried out the most recent attacks were doctors recruited to the country, evidently after the minimum of vetting, to serve in the state-run National Health Service, demonstrates that the current immigration system is a gift to terrorists. But don’t count on the government to see that.
The administration of newly endued Prime Minister Gordon Brown is just as steeped in political correctness as Tony Blair’s was, and as a result, the likelihood of it taking meaningful action to mitigate the terrorist threat in the U.K. is small.
So sadly, we can be almost certain that further attacks will occur, most likely with loss of life as a consequence. And investors can count on terrorism as a continuing source of support for the gold price, albeit not the primary one.
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history repeat itself - We will be back to -
- The Gold Standard -
The GOLD has been the rule and praxis for -
The Real Money -
valuations for 1000s of years -
compared to 36 years by Nixon's rule - to let the Bucky float free - without anything backing it more than - the fiatzpaperz its printed on -
The Gold Standard makes PEACE - Liberty and Freedom as a 888 rule -
Ron Paul of Texas - The End of Dollar Hegemony -
HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS Before the U.S. House of Representatives February ...
video.google.com.
tinyurl.com
Imo. Tia.
$6 price target for NGX -
Northgate Minerals Corp. (NGX : TSX) Estimates upped on new gold & copper prices Blackmont Capital maintains "buy", 12-month target price is raised to $6.00 - Imo. Tia. God Bless
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siliconinvestor.com
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Ps. Its aproblem with fiatz we know - we don't no know when all fiatz will be hit? - but when it start - EX. With inflation at officially more than 3,700% (some economists put it as high as 9,000%), supermarkets are unwilling to comply, so a price-control unit has been trying - to enforce it - news.bbc.co.uk |