"This IMF catastrophe in Cyprus is literally a landmark event in history, and the single most important event in the entire history of the gold market."

Okay. The very first thing that must be said is that whatever your differences might be with Jim Sinclair, the man positively oozes integrity...and humor. Not surprisingly, his audience reflected that. It was comprised of working people, not flashy Wall Street money managers, or low-life big shot NYC bankers. Yes, you saw a few pin-striped suits, but a good portion of the audience were hardly wearing power clothing. It was also interesting to note how many young people there were. Ages went from very old to very young and everything in between. The audience was also a veritable United Nations with people from Bratislava, India, and points all over the globe. The audience was serious about learning from Mr. Sinclair, but were also nearly raucous enjoying his jokes.

Although the place was packed, a good time was had by all.

The format for the afternoon was questions asked by audience members who lined up in front. And then Jim Sinclair just rattled off answers. He's extremely cordial with everyone and extremely respectful. (If you've read his blog, he's WYSIWYG!) No question was too basic or too complicated and he challenged audience members to come up with the toughest questions they could think of. And Mr. Sinclair answered questions for hours without a single break and without a single stumble. Quite a performance, let me tell you!

I would say that about 75% of the topics covered were matters he's repeatedly stressed and gone over for the last 2 years at jsmineset. But I'll get to that later.

Santa was on fire today in New York City. He held a marathon Q&A over four hours to a packed audience!

Some highlights:

Cyprus is a paradigm change from Bailouts to Bail-ins. New form of QE, from bailing out the banks to using people's money to bail them out. It was planned. Spain and New Zealand doing the same.

Time's a ticking. You have two years to get your money out of your IRA.

Silver will do well but not as well as gold. But I don't want to pee on anybody's parade

Bitcoin: Not practical.

Sprott: A man you can trust to hold your money. PSLV - phewey.

The entire financial system is a ponzi scheme.

When's the tipping point? We passed it. We've entered Wonderland.

The gold market is bigger than the evil players who are fat and lazy. The economic shift from west to east is happening economically and militarily.

Iran: Risk off. China and Russia has got their back.

Why doesn't Sprott take down the COMEX instead of waiting three months for delivery? He's a gentleman.

The food business: An excellent career for your sons and daughters.

The Euro to outperform the Dollar.

The wise man with grey hair spoke and all listened.

Jim Sinclair was asked about miners about half a dozen times. He tried to refuse to endorse specific stocks, but he personally endorsed Rob McEwen (MUX) as someone who is on fire and who "believes". (On the other hand, Sinclair suggested that McEwen should diversity and get some mines outside of just South America.)

Overall, what Sinclair had to say about miners was what he has been emphasizing for quite some time now, i.e., the miners that will succeed are those that 1.) establish a fair partnership with governments (his is almost 50/50) and 2.) cut unreasonable operating costs and begin to pay hefty dividends to shareholders. Looking ahead a few years, he said that miners should be like utilities, paying high dividends but uninteresting.

Of course, he also spoke about how underpriced the XAU is. Historically, the XAU has been 20% the price of gold. Currently it's more like 8%, thus represents a good value.

He also spoke about his own company, Tanzanian, explaining that 4 out of his 5 ongoing projects would not be sold off to the majors as they were close to the surface mining and did not require the expertise of the majors. He was very, very proud of all the stellar work his company has done to date and promised that his company's stock would not be diluted, i.e., no more shares would be issued, at which point the entire room erupted in cheers!