Tom (long time no see, Happy New Year), while Bill's desire to get after the POG fixers is laudable, it is a little "Don Quixotic", IMHO. Not only do the Fed's report (always "late" their activities in the gold market (as well as in other markets) Their defense will be is that their charter is to do just that in order to provide stability in the market place.
Personally, I still think as I did two years ago that the CB are on a long term path to "demonetize" gold completely. With the appearance of the Euro, I believe that CB's will use Dollars, EURO and Yen (and in the future probably some kind of "Pan Asian" currency) as reserves and shed more and more of their gold. The CB still have a lot of gold in their coffers (I am not sure what the number is, but I think it was about 10 times a typical annual world production). I realize that the European initially agreed to keep some gold as reserves, but in time (and in stealth?), they will decrease that portion of total reserves, IMHO.
Finally, I do not think that in the current deflationary environment, the gold bears need much help from the Fed's and the CB to keep gold under $300, Russia and S.A. take care of that, I presume.
Zeev |
