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I guess while we/I'm on the subject of the Plunge Protection Team, I took Puplava's challenge a few days back and started searching for evidence of the PPT, ESF, etc.

My homework is incomplete and inconclusive to date. For the record, I'm willing to believe PPT intervention could be happening, but I'd like to see some hard proof that it is and I've yet to find it.

However I do see some patterns. Most of the advocates of PPT activity seem to be pushing precious metals. Most of the 'evidence' cited of PPT intervention is anecdotal (not surprisingly) and frequently contradictory in that either the PPT is responsible for every upward move in the last 3 years, or some PPT theorists pick some moves as evidence while other PPT theorists pick different moves, but there is not a lot of concensus.

Which, if the PPT intervention is true, I find surprising and brings me to this question: How could something so big as the 'miracle private buyer' who enters huge market-turning sales remain un-identified? There is a whole industry of inside and institutional trade watchers who seem to know the trading bread-crumbs of everybody except the mysterious 'miracle private buyer'. I know a little about how brokerages and trading floors work, and I find it hard to believe that such a secret could be kept so well for so long. Further, such massive trades I would think would need to be spread across several brokerages, and I'd think someone, sometime would divulge what was happening at least once. Or traders would talk shop and compare notes and agree that they all received the same market order on any given plunge.

But as I said, so far the factual evidence I've been able to find is non-existant. So how is this PPT intervention kept secret?

You must not be looking very hard. Not only is it common knowledge that the PPT exists, but there is plenty of proof. Just go to google, or follow either of the following links.

Working Group on Financial Markets

Plunge Protection Team

You can decide on your own just how involved they are right now, but as far as masking their trading activity, you must be kidding. Citigroup and JPM are practically government agencies and are owners of the FED itself. They easily covered for Enron and helped facilitate the crime so well that even CEO Lay didn't know what was going on. Enron simply ran out of money -- something Greenspan and the Treasury Dept. will never do as long as they have the printing presses.

Richard W.