World on course for next risis, warns Gordon Brown

Telegraph.co.uk

The former prime minister said that unless leaders take more action, the recent credit crunch could prove just the "trailer" to a string of crises.

"In 2008, when we were hours away from ATMs running out of money, small businesses being unable to pay their staffs, and schools and hospitals closing down through lack of cash flow, it felt as if the crisis of the century was upon us," he wrote in US magazine Newsweek.

"But if the world continues on its current path, the historians of the future will say that the great financial collapse of three years ago was simply the trailer for a succession of avoidable crises that eroded popular consent for globalisation itself.

"Those who believe that the world has learned from the mistakes that led to the crash are mistaken."

Mr Brown said the "resolve" to act seen immediately after the crisis has been replaced by indecision and vested interest. He urged politicians at the next G20 summit, which takes place in

Cannes in November, to take control of a globalised financial system which is still "perilously" unregulated.

Mr Brown's comments come amid repeated warnings by European policy-makers that the debt crisis surrounding the eurozone's weaker nations could have a worse systemic effect on global markets than the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008, which precipitated the last crisis.

They fear "with good cause" that if Greece has to restructure its debt - effectively default - it could unravel a chain of trades based on the problematic debt and lay bare the interconnectedness of institutions around the world, said Stephen Lewis, an analyst at Monument Securities.

 Original Source


This material is for informational purposes only. Although it is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, Leland National Gold does not guarantee its accuracy, or being all-inclusive. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. There are risks in buying and selling physical metals. The potential for loss as well as gain increases by leveraging physical precious metals transactions. Never trade with more money than you can afford to lose, and always be sure to read the Risk Disclosure provided in your account documents.

Have Gold and Silver reached a peak?

From an article on Coin Week:

In an overall boom market for gold and silver, there will be periodic bouts of profit-taking, where prices dip for a short-time. Also, as I have explained multiple times before, the US government, its trading partners, and its allies, have a huge incentive to suppress gold and silver prices.
Those interested in precious metals need to be able to identify whether price drops indicate a genuine market top, a temporary bout of profit-taking, or if they are simply the result of price manipulation at the behest of the US government.
Gold’s price is basically a report card on the US dollar, the US government, and the US economy. If the price of gold is rising, something is headed in the wrong direction. Silver often trades in sympathy with gold. If the prices of gold and silver rise, that would eventually force the US government to pay higher interest rates on its debt. A falling US dollar would lead to higher consumer prices.
Well, the US Dollar Index, a measure of the value of the dollar against a market basket of other currencies.
In response to a falling dollar, the prices of gold and silver soared until near to the close of COMEX trading last Friday. Gold reached another all-time high (ignoring inflation). Silver came close to breaking above its January 1980 all-time high. The indications were that further price rises might accelerate.
Both gold and silver backed off from the highs achieved late Friday. Is this drop a sign of a market peak (as the US government would prefer the public to believe), temporary profit-taking, or were the metals pushed down by aggressive US government price suppression tactics?

The available information indicates that virtually the entire decline can be attributed to desperate actions by the US government, its trading partners, and allies.
Some of the more obvious gold and silver price manipulation tactics of the past eight days include the COMEX twice raising silver margin requirements. Further, at least two brokerage firms last Friday raised their clients’ margin requirements for leveraged accounts far above the higher COMEX minimums. The raising of these internal margin requirements forced many customers to liquidate leveraged accounts.
.......

Read more here



This material is for informational purposes only. Although it is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, Leland National Gold does not guarantee its accuracy, or being all-inclusive. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. There are risks in buying and selling physical metals. The potential for loss as well as gain increases by leveraging physical precious metals transactions. Never trade with more money than you can afford to lose, and always be sure to read the Risk Disclosure provided in your account documents. – Leland National Gold Exchange

Egypt bans gold exports

From an article on Reuters-Africa:

A decree banning the export of gold in all its forms, including jewelry and ornaments, was issued by newly appointed Trade Minister Samir el-Sayyad. It takes effect immediately and continues until June 30, the official news agency MENA reported.

"This decision, which comes in light of the exceptional circumstances the country is passing through ..., is to preserve the country's wealth until the situation stabilises," MENA said.

The original article can be found here.

This material is for informational purposes only. Although it is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, Leland National Gold does not guarantee its accuracy, or being all-inclusive. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. There are risks in buying and selling physical metals. The potential for loss as well as gain increases by leveraging physical precious metals transactions. Never trade with more money than you can afford to lose, and always be sure to read the Risk Disclosure provided in your account documents. - Leland National Gold Exchange

Madoff says the "whole government is a Ponzi scheme"

From an article on Yahoo Finance:

"The whole new regulatory reform is a joke," Madoff said during a telephone interview with New York magazine in which he discussed his disdain for the financial industry and for its regulators.

The interview was published on the magazine's website Sunday night.

Madoff did an earlier New York Times interview in which he accused banks and hedge funds of being "complicit" in his Ponzi scheme to fleece people out of billions of dollars. He said they failed to scrutinize the discrepancies between his regulatory filings and other information.

He said in the New York magazine interview the Securities and Exchange Commission "looks terrible in this thing," and he said the "whole government is a Ponzi scheme."

A Ponzi, or pyramid, scheme is a scam in which people are persuaded to invest through promises of unusually high returns, with early investors paid their returns out of money put in by later investors.

A court-appointed trustee seeking to recover money on behalf of the victims of Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme has filed a lawsuit against his primary banker, JPMorgan Chase, alleging the bank had suspected something wrong in his operation for years. The bank has denied any wrongdoing.

Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence in Butner, N.C., after pleading guilty in 2009 to fraud charges.

In the New York magazine interview, Madoff, 72, also said he was devastated by his son Mark Madoff's death and laments the pain he wrought on his family, especially his wife.

"She's angry at me," Madoff said. "I mean, you know, I destroyed our family."

Mark Madoff, 46, hanged himself with a dog leash in his Manhattan apartment on the second anniversary of his father's arrest. He left behind a wife and four children, ages 2 to 18.

At the time of his suicide, federal investigators had been trying to determine if he, his brother and an uncle participated in or knew about the fraud. The relatives, who held management positions at the family investment firm, denied any wrongdoing.

Bernard Madoff has maintained that his family didn't know about his Ponzi scheme.

This material is for informational purposes only. Although it is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, Leland National Gold does not guarantee its accuracy, or being all-inclusive. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. There are risks in buying and selling physical metals. The potential for loss as well as gain increases by leveraging physical precious metals transactions. Never trade with more money than you can afford to lose, and always be sure to read the Risk Disclosure provided in your account documents. - Leland National Gold Exchange

Why not GLD? Ask GLD Managing Director Jason Touissant

Just google the phrase "GLD Managing Director" and you will see that Jason Touissant (managing director of GLD) owns physical precious metals, but NO shares of his own trust.  So, why are physical metals better than precious metal ETFs?  Maybe you should ask Touissant!  How can one be confident in the performance of ETFs when the Managing Director of one of the most widely traded metals ETFs himself doesn't even own one share of his own fund?  Good question.


Here is a link to the interview (apologies for the terrible quality, I couldn't find it in any other form)

This material is for informational purposes only. Although it is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, Leland National Gold does not guarantee its accuracy, or being all-inclusive. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. There are risks in buying and selling physical metals. The potential for loss as well as gain increases by leveraging physical precious metals transactions. Never trade with more money than you can afford to lose, and always be sure to read the Risk Disclosure provided in your account documents.