Free Republic

The Texan senator’s gold standard policy is a terrible idea with a long history. But if you run a business, are employed by one, care about the stability of the financial system, or would prefer that the U.S. economy not be needlessly thrown into disarray — a group that seems like a pretty broad coalition of voters — Cruz’s economic policy is not OK. He told CNBC on Friday that he wants to push America back to the gold standard. This is a hare-brained policy that no other country uses and not a single surveyed economist thinks is a good...

In a deal that defies currently accepted norms, Donald Trump has rented out the 50th floor of the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street to American Precious Metals Exchange (APMEX) and has allowed the company to pay the security deposit in gold.Trump agreed to accept three 32-ounce bars of gold in lieu of the cash security deposit. As of this writing, gold was trading at $1227.40 per ounce, making the 96 ounces of gold that Trump is holding worth $117,830.40. That should be more than sufficient to cover the security deposit for the 10-year rental.The deal is a win-win situation...

For the first few months of 1980, the silver market had been slipping as newly enacted rules began tightening their grip on the Hunt Brothers’ silver scheme. On March 27 (known as “Silver Thursday”), silver opened at $15.80 and closed at $10.80 as the Hunt Brothers reportedly initiated a massive sell-off of silver and contracts to meet their obligations. Commodities and the futures market crashed on these reports, but rallied somewhat, bringing silver to $12 an ounce within a few days. But the futures contracts owned by the Hunts were predicated on silver at $35 an ounce. What had been...

The lords of finance are losing their touch. Institutions which dragged the world from its worst depression since the early 20th century are finally seeing their magic desert them, if conventional wisdom is to be believed. Eight years on the from the Great Recession, voices as authoritative as the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of International Settlements - dubbed the 'central bank of central banks' - have called time on the era of extraordinary monetary policy. Having hoovered up $12.3 trillion (£8.5 trillion) in financial assets and carried out 637 interest rate cuts since 2008, central banks have been stunned...

Canada, home to some of the world’s largest gold-mining companies, recently announced that it had effectively liquidated all of the country’s holdings of the shiny metal and is moving to what a government spokesperson described as “easily tradable” assets. It has been a long process. Canada held 1,088 tons of gold in 1955. By 2000, it was down to 46 tons. Today, just 77 ounces remain. This puts Canada in last place in the most up-to-date compilation of data on gold reserves compiled by an industry group, the World Gold Council. In the Council rankings, Canada is now in last...

Laurie Rimon spotted a gleam while on a hike in northern Israel with several friends. It turned out to be a gold coin so unusual, Israeli archaeologists say there is only one other one with the same symbols in the world. "It's extremely exciting," said Dr. Donald Ariel, an expert with the Israel Antiquities Authority, in comments released by the agency, which says the coin was struck by Roman Emperor Trajan in the year 107. "His gold coins are extremely rare." One side of the gold disc shows an image of Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire more than...

BlackRock's Gold ETF (IAU) has seen fund inflows every day in 2016 (no outflows at all) and with the stock trading above its NAV for most of the year, the world's largest asset manager has made a significant decision: •*BLACKROCK SAYS ISSUANCE OF GOLD TRUST SHARES SUSPENDED• *BLACKROCK SAYS SUSPENSION DUE TO DEMAND FOR GOLD ... It appears the huge demand for physical gold (and lack of supply) is finally catching up with the manipulation of paper prices. If this is anything other than a brief technical suspension, it could well unleash panic-buying as we already pointed out - there...

Tyler Durden March 3, 2016One month ago, when looking at the latest Canadian official international reserves, we noticed something strange: Canada had sold nearly half of its gold reserves in one month. According to the February data, total Canadian gold reserves stood at 1.7 tonnes. That was just 0.1 per cent of the country’s total reserves, which also include foreign currency deposits and bonds. As we noted, the decision to sell came from Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s office. “Canada’s gold reserves belong to the Government of Canada, and are held under the name of the Minister of Finance,” explained a...

Venezuela sent $1.3 billion worth of gold bars to Switzerland in mid-January, according to data from the Swiss Federal Customs Administration. That gold was shipped out just weeks before two big debt payments due this month, totaling $2.3 billion. On Friday alone, Venezuela has to pay bondholders $1.5 billion. Venezuela is running out of cash and many experts believe there's a high chance it will default by this fall when a string of big debt payments are due. "It's a question of when Venezuela will default, not if," says Russ Dallen, managing partner at LatInvest, a firm that invests in...

Germany's financial regulator has said it won't take further action against the country's largest bank over alleged interest rate rigging and precious metals price fixing. The moves takes the spotlight off a former boss. The watchdog, known as Bafin, announced on Thursday it had ended several major special audits against Deutsche Bank. [...] Deutsche Bank paid $2.5 billion (2.26 billion euros) in fines in April last year after investigations on manipulating interest rates. The bank was also probed for its role in rigging prices of gold, silver, platinum and palladium. It also recorded a multibillion-euro loss for 2015. Bafin officials...

A "mystery" gold mount found in a Norfolk field has provided "another piece of the jigsaw" for historians looking for Anglo-Saxon settlements. The item was found near Fakenham and is possibly from a sword grip, but experts say it has differences to similar finds. Dr Andrew Rogerson, county archaeologist, said: "It's a fragment, but there's no context for it." No evidence of dwellings has ever been found in the village. The Portable Antiquities Scheme, which is in the process of valuing the item, said it was "similar to sword-grip mounts from the Sutton Hoo ship burial and the Staffordshire Hoard"....

The U.S. Secretary of Defense is in Belgium holding meetings with anti-ISIS coalition partners.With that totally under control, President Obama is doing his thing today: Mostly a fundraising day for Pres Obama in CA. Three for the DNC and one for the @dscc.ALso tapes appearance today on @TheEllenShow.— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) February 11, 2016 Today's Dem fundraisers are the first for Pres Obama in 2016. He did 35 fundraisers last year and 459 fundraisers since taking office.— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) February 11, 2016 The @dscc fundraiser is closed to press coverage, the 3 DNC events are pen & pad only,...

The stock market is having a horrible time so far in 2016, with the S&P 500 down more than 9%. Gold, on the other hand, is up nearly 10% year-to-date and hit a four-month high of just under $1200 per ounce on Monday before dipping 0.7% Tuesday to $1189.30. It's a bit of a cliche to say that people turn to gold in times of uncertainty: Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. Gold did phenomenally well from 2000-2011 but really suffered after hitting nearly $2000 per ounce in 2011. From 2011 to 2015, the yellow metal pretty much fell in...

China's government doesn' share exact figures, but the vast majority of gold heading into mainland China passes through Hong Kong, which does make its records public. Gold imports to China have surged over 700% since 2010, according to the latest data from Hong Kong. Exactly what China is doing with all that gold remains somewhat of a mystery. The increasingly wealthy Chinese are buying, but that doesn'txplain all the jump in demand. The government says its gold reserves have grown only a little in recent years. Experts question whether China is telling the whole truth. "hina has a lot more...

Echoing the recent sentiments of Steve Forbes, this week Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz told a group in New Hampshire: "Money is ... a unit of measurement. So, the reason why we see these rapid oscillations in commodities markets, it's because of unstable currencies. And it's why I think we should look at going toward rules-based money supply, ideally tied to gold, so you have stability." Perhaps this will trigger another flood of disagreement in the mainstream press, such as the recent New York Times item which reported that 40 out of 40 "leading economists" said that a gold standard...

The president has nominated attorney J. Mark McWatters for the bank board. However, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, has said he's "in no hurry" to hold a hearing or a vote on the nomination. Other pending confirmations take precedence, he said.The last of the 2015 lobbying reports are in, and the top corporate spender turns out to have been the Boeing Company, at $21.9 million. Not coincidentally, the aerospace giant also outranks thousands of other firms in profiting from the subsidies doled out by the Export-Import Bank. Last year, Boeing benefitted...

After someone decided to dump $1.2 billion notional in gold futures this morning as the jobs data hit - sparking a $20 tumble in the precious metal - it appears stock sellers are greatly rotating to the safety of bullion (over bonds)...

A very unusual case of smuggling took place on Thursday, as huge quantities of gold, steroids and smart phones were found in the car of a European Union (EU) representative in Israel, as he drove into the country from Jordan. Dozens of kilograms of gold, hundreds of smartphones and a full package of steroid drugs were discovered by customs inspectors in the car as it tried to pass through the Allenby Border Crossing from Jordan, reports Channel 2. The EU diplomat was detained and later released, and his driver - an Arab resident of the northern Atarot neighborhood of Jerusalem...

Jared Dillian, Mauldin EconomicsJanuary 3, 2016 Long before I started writing for Mauldin Economics, I was a gold bull. A mega-gold bull. This started in 2005. I was making markets in ETFs at the time and—as head of the ETF desk at Lehman Brothers—I signed the firm up to be one of the early authorized participants in the SPDR Gold Shares fund (GLD). I was pretty excited. It may seem quaint now, but at the time there really wasn’t an easy way to invest in gold outside of coins or bars (high transaction costs, cumbersome) or futures (high barriers to...

Tyler DurdenFebruary 1, 2016 Willem Middlekoop, author of The Big Reset – The War On Gold And The Financial Endgame, believes the current international monetary system has entered its last term and is up for a reset. Having predicted the collapse of the real estate market in 2006, (while Ben Bernanke didn't), Middlekoop asks (rhetorically) -can the global credit expansion 'experiment' from 2002 – 2008, which Bernanke completely underestimated, be compared to the global QE 'experiment' from 2008 – present? - the answer is worrisome. In the following must-see interview with Grant Williams, he shares his thoughts on the future...