Hey..I'm with you. Screw anybody....as long as their is a profit to be made.
"The suit was filed by Blanchard and Company, Inc., New Orleans, the largest retail dealer in physical gold in the United States, and by Blanchard clients who bought gold bullion. Blanchard (www.blanchardonline.com) is paying the costs of the suit, which asks the Federal Court to terminate the trading agreements between Barrick and J.P. Morgan Chase and other, as yet unnamed, bullion banks. It also seeks the payment of treble damages to Blanchard's clients for the losses they have suffered as a result of Barrick's and J.P. Morgan Chase's unlawful price manipulation, anti-trust violations and unfair trade practices.
"Since the end of 1987, when the collaboration between Barrick and J.P. Morgan began, the growth of global income and wealth would have lifted the gold price to approximately $740 if the price had been able to respond to the normal laws of supply and demand," stated Blanchard's Chief Executive Officer, Donald W. Doyle, Jr. "If gold had kept pace with inflation, the price today would be approximately $760."
"The lawsuit claims that in the past five years Barrick and J.P. Morgan Chase injected millions of additional ounces of gold into the market - additions that were several times as great as the annual production of every gold mine in South Africa, the largest gold producing nation in the world. By using privately negotiated derivative contracts and concealing the addition of billions of dollars worth of (physical) gold with off-balance sheet accounting, Barrick was able to make it virtually impossible for gold analysts and investors to determine the size and the market impact of its trading positions.
"The same type of accounting maze that hid Enron's debts made it possible for Barrick to manipulate the price of gold without the checks and balances that come from public scrutiny. As a percentage of Barrick's total assets, its off-balance sheet assets make Enron look like a champion of full disclosure," said Doyle. "Is Barrick a gold mining company, or is it a hedge fund with a mine out back?"
"The suit alleges that J.P. Morgan Chase financed Barrick's repeated short selling with remarkably advantageous terms not available to others, including deferred repayments and no margin calls. Doyle said the short-sales scheme between the bank and Barrick appears to be the proverbial "money for nothing."
"Over the past five years, J.P. Morgan Chase loaned gold to Barrick at approximately 1.5 percent; sold the gold into the market and invested the dollar proceeds at approximately 6.5 percent; then paid both the proceeds from the sales and the 5 percent interest differential to Barrick whenever it repaid any of the borrowed gold. During a period when the price of gold dropped by more than 25%, Barrick's annual operating cash flow increased by more than 400%."
If the above proves to have merit, count on class action suits with there not being enough money in defendants control to pay all the claims. This may be also curtains for Alan Greenspan and several or more Treasury Secretaries, but not the present one.