Golden Minerals Company

Some recent interviews with Nigel Farage, Peter Schiff and James Turk.

Nigel Farage: Financial “Cataclysm” To Come, Gold to Unimaginable Levels

You may remember Nigel Farage as the EU parliament member who tore into the President of the EU and most recently held a funeral for the Euro (complete with casket, pall bearers, and procession) on the streets of London.

Mr. Farage is a former commodities broker on the London Metals Exchange, so he understands the financial markets and monetary system (unlike 99% of the other politicians in the EU and DC), as well as the implications of the current debt crisis facing not just Europe, but the entire world. You’ll rarely hear a politician come out from behind the curtain as Nigel Farage does. Like most of us, he’s not very optimistic about what’s to come, and he lays out his views in an interview with King World News which is well worth listening to in full:

Paralysis, I think that’s the only way one can describe it. They put together a currency, an economic and monetary union of countries that were entirely unsuited to each other. The idea that Greece and Germany could coexist under the same monetary framework was always a joke as far as I was concerned.

So now we’re at the crisis point where the Greeks have been bailed out twice. The Portuguese and the Irish have been bailed out once and we now have the markets indicating that there are problems in Spain and possibly even in Italy, which is the Eurozone’s third largest economy.

…

The banking system is just in the most awful mess. And of course, what will happen, and this is what the markets fear, is that once we get countries like Greece defaulting we then have an admission that the debts they owe to these banks are not going to be paid back. That, in essence, is what default really means. So, I’m afraid we’ve just had the most catastrophic series of people running banks, they’ve been encouraged by big government, the whole concept of financial regulations has failed, and we are indeed heading into very dangerous waters.

I think that default of Greece and Portugal, and possibly Ireland, too, are inevitable.

…

I think the worst in the financial system is yet to come, a possible cataclysm and if that happens the gold price could go (higher) to a number that we simply cannot, at this moment, even imagine. Gold is in an uptrend and professional traders should be buying the dips.

Source: King World News

There is simply no way that Greece, Portugal and likely a host of other countries (not just Ireland) will not eventually default. We really don’t know the extent of the debts and leverage involved because all of the monetary and financial machinations over the last ten, and especially three, years have been done in secret. There are likely hundreds of banks and many governments that have significant exposure to toxic assets – and not just in Europe. Our own Federal Reserve reportedly holds over a trillion dollars in assets that are essentially worthless.

If we were, as former Secretary Hank Paulson said, “very, very close” to meltdown in 2008, and they were threatening us with tanks on the streets of America, and absolutely nothing has been resolved, then what’s in store for us going forward?

Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday, that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousands points the first day, another couple thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no.

House Representative Brad Sherman (D-California)
Debate on the House Floor, October 2, 2008

We can’t stress enough how serious this crisis is for the general global economy and the stability of the entire social and political systems of developed Western nations. Trillions of non-existent dollars and euros have been committed to resolving this crisis, and we are now worse off than when we started stimulating in 2008.

Do not underestimate what’s happening here.

Peter Schiff - Gold & Silver Plunge Mirrors 2008, What’s Next?

“Yeah it does, it is definitely reminiscent of that time period, lots of selling. I think emotional or forced selling is probably what’s driving it. It’s a sale as far as I’m concerned for people who want to buy, but it does show the dangers of using leverage.”

“Anyone who bought silver on leverage last week probably already has a margin call, so that’s difficult. But for the cash buyer who is buying to preserve their wealth from inflation, yesterday was a great day. Days like that are opportunities.

I know for some people they are thinking, ‘Oh no, my gold has lost value.‘ Your gold is still your gold, your silver is still your silver. Yes, if you had to sell it today you couldn’t get as many dollars or euros for your gold, but we’re not selling it today so what difference does it make?

We’re holding it because we’re probably going to need it for tomorrow and so the forced selling is a good opportunity for the people who aren’t forced to sell and still are looking to buy.

I have a feeling that all of this volatility is on the speculative end. It’s the leveraged players, it’s the hedge funds, the big money that’s gambling. The physical market is not driven by speculators, it’s real demand by people from all around the world who want to save and who don’t want to do it in currencies where the interest rates are at zero and where the printing presses are running at full speed.

I think physical buyers are going to respond to the drop in price by increasing their purchases. That’s how the market works, when prices are lower, you want to buy more....

“It’s only the speculators that are looking to buy high and chase momentum. Then when it goes down they look to bail out.

They (speculators) are not there to be long-term investors and as soon as the momentum goes, they are out the door. If I liked silver last week at $40 an ounce, I’ve got to like it even more at $30 an ounce. It’s the same silver, so if I can get it for less money, why wouldn’t I buy it?”

When asked what he is doing with his own money Schiff stated, “I bought some mining shares in my personal account in the last couple of days and even some non-mining shares. I like to take advantage of lower prices. You always have to be looking at these declines as buying opportunities.”

When asked about the plunge in the stock market Schiff responded, “We’re still in a bear market long-term. I think when Ben Bernanke came out and basically had a gloomy assessment of the economy, yet had no QE3, just ‘Operation Twist,’ that probably disappointed a lot of people.

When people realized we are not getting any help from the Fed, the banking sector just rolled over because ‘Operation Twist’ is going to put the squeeze on the banks. I think if Bernanke stays true to form, he’s going to come to the rescue with QE3, the printing press. When that happens, gold and silver should be off to the races.”

KWN Special - James Turk: “We are Looking at Another Lehman”

“Think about what’s happening over here in Europe, Eric, you’ve got huge bank runs going on throughout the continent. There’s a dollar shortage, the forward rates on the euro and the dollar are out of whack, the swap rates are way out of whack, the gold forward rates are way out of whack.”

“I like to sometimes explain it (the chaos in the markets) by looking at a spinning top. Before the top finally stops spinning, you see some tremendous wobbles. We’re getting one of those wobbles now in the financial system and I think the top is going to fall over and a (major) bank is going to fail as a consequence.

In that kind of environment you don’t want to take any counterparty risk. You want to own physical metal, you want to own a tangible asset....

When asked if there is a risk of a bank holiday on either side of the Atlantic, Turk responded,

“Yes, I think that’s a real possibility...Nigel Farage had it nailed the other day when he did the interview with you, it’s just paralysis. The system is broken and there is no direction coming from government as to how to fix the system.

So you are getting these markets completely spinning out of control, waiting for some kind of resolution. The fact that they (central planners) are trying to keep this broken system going is what’s creating all of this volatility in the market place. It feels a lot like 2008, in the days before the Lehman (collapse) and I think we are probably going to see another Lehman here, Eric.”

Comment:

First, let me say this:

Here in the "backwaters" of the MSM, I really understand how privileged the whole world is to have access to the internet, imo the “great playing field leveller”.

Without it, many of the above comments would never get ”aired” to average joe/jane.

Second:

This snippet from James Turk, imo. best describes what we are faced with

Snippet:

“Yes, I think that’s a real possibility...Nigel Farage had it nailed the other day when he did the interview with you, it’s just paralysis. The system is broken and there is no direction coming from government as to how to fix the system.

Suggest patience is the key. The overall fundamentals of the market have not changed, even though some of the rules are being “thrown out the window” and “cheats” sometimes seem to have control.

DLTBGYD

Good Luck to all!