Free Republic

56a ET Sunday, July 12, 2020 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Surreptitious intervention in the gold market by the U.S. government is the target of legislation introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Alex X. Mooney, R-West Virginia. In a letter to House colleagues seeking support for his Gold Reserve Transparency Act, H.R. 2559, Mooney writes: "Because there are concerns the U.S. Treasury may have sold, swapped, leased, or otherwise placed encumbrances upon some of America's gold, H.R. 2559 also requires a full accounting of any and all sales, purchases, disbursements, or receipts; a full accounting of any...

LONDON (Reuters) - Gold pushed above $1,800 an ounce on Wednesday for the first time since 2011, with analysts expecting further gains as investors stock up on an asset they expect to hold its value while the coronavirus convulses the global economy. Spot gold prices have surged 40% in the last 14 months and are within striking distance of 2011's record high of $1,920.30 an ounce. "We'll be challenging the $2,000 level by the end of the year," said Ross Norman, an independent analyst. "We are in a bull market for gold." (Graphic: Gold's latest rally, https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/jznpnzmokpl/GR%20RALLY.JPG) Powering the rally...

According to multiple industry reports published this week, the Wuhan-based, NASDAQ-listed Kingold Jewelry issued 83 tonnes of alleged gold -- valued at $4.2 billion and the equivalent to 22 percent of the country's gold -- as collateral to obtain loans from at least 14 Chinese money lenders and trust banks. Except the "gold" in the bars is suspected of being gilded copper. "This is hardly surprising; most of the fakes we see in our business are coming out of China," Michael Wittmeyer, a gold expert for JMBullion.com. "There are replica products of what we sell online, and while people pay...

The story is shocking in exposing just how multi-faceted fraud is in China: capitalizing on pre-existing cronyism and connections with China's powerful army, the founder of Kingold was allowed to basically do anything he wanted, no questions asked, including counterfeiting over 83 tons of gold bars to get billions in funds to participate in China's housing bubble, only for a series of unexpected events to unwind the frauds one after another and expose the type of sordid scandal that is at the heart of most Chinese "enterprises" and business ventures.

CAIXIN Mystery of $2bn of loans backed by fake gold in China Nasdaq-listed Kingold's play for trove of property stymied by corruption probe The 83 tons of purportedly pure gold that Kingold creditors held in their coffers as of June would be equivalent to 22% of China’s annual gold production. © Reuters WU YUJIAN, WU HONGYURAN, BAI YUJIE and HAN WEI, Caixin June 29, 2020 15:27 JST More than a dozen Chinese financial institutions, mainly trust companies, loaned 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) over the past five years to Wuhan Kingold Jewelry Inc. with pure gold as collateral and insurance...

More than a dozen Chinese financial institutions, mainly trust companies, loaned 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) over the past five years to Wuhan Kingold Jewelry Inc. with pure gold as collateral and insurance policies to cover any losses. Kingold is the largest privately owned gold processor in central China's Hubei province. Its shares are listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York. The company is led by Chairman Jia Zhihong, an intimidating ex-military man who is the controlling shareholder. What could go wrong? Well, plenty, as at least some of 83 tons of gold bars used as collateral turned...

The Iranian rial fell to a new low against the US dollar on the unofficial market on Saturday and has now seen its value fall by almost half in 2020 as the economy comes under pressure from the coronavirus pandemic and US sanctions. The dollar was offered for as much as 255,300 rials, up from 242,500 on Friday, according to foreign exchange site Bonbast.com. The economic daily Donya-e-Eqtesad’s website gave the dollar rate as 252,300, compared with 241,300 on Friday. The currency has lost nearly 48% of its value in 2020, more than half of that in the past month,...

Money supply has a mixed history. Originally, wealth was measured in precious metals of gold, silver, or copper. Exodus 25:3 "And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and copper." Items of gold, silver, or copper had to be weighed. A "shekel" was a fixed unit of weight. Shekels were placed on one side of a scale and on the other side were placed the items of gold, silver, or copper to be weighed. The Bible admonished not cheat, Deuteronomy 25:13 "Do not have two differing weights in your bag -- one heavy, one...

According to the U.S. Treasury, as of February 29, 2020, there was $16.9 trillion in marketable U.S. Treasury securities outstanding. Of that amount, at the end of February, the Federal Reserve held $2.47 trillion or 14.6 percent – making it, by far, the largest single holder of U.S. Treasuries anywhere in the world. ...But exactly how can a so-called “free market” function smoothly if the country’s own central bank is cornering the market. Salomon Brothers paid a $290 million fine and came close to getting slapped with criminal charges by the U.S. Department of Justice in 1992 for manipulating prices...

The decade that just ended saw a period of uninterrupted economic growth. In the decade to come, we'll pay for squandering it. Since the so-called Great Recession officially ended in the third quarter of 2009, the United States has enjoyed 42 consecutive quarters of solid if unspectacular economic growth. That's the longest run of uninterrupted growth since government economists began tracking the business cycle in the 1850s, far outpacing the average economic expansion of 18 months. Employment has increased by 12 percent, the jobless rate reached record lows, and America's gross domestic product (GDP) has increased by more than 25...

A bill filed in advance of the next legislative session would make gold and silver legal tender again in the state of South Carolina. State Representative Stewart O. Jones submitted legislation that would restore gold and silver to their status as legal tender in his state. In an op-ed written in October, Representative Jones set out the sound economic principles that support his proposed statute: To understand the full extent of the debt and the destruction of the dollar, it’s essential to realize that paper money has a history of being printed as bills of credit to finance runaway government....

COLUMBIA, S.C. (Nov. 22, 2019) – A bill prefiled in the South Carolina House would make gold and silver coins legal tender in the state. Passage of this bill would take a step toward creating currency competition in South Carolina and undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money. Rep. Stewart Jones filed House Bill 4678 (H.4678) on Nov. 20. Under the proposed law, “gold and silver coins minted foreign or domestic shall be legal tender in the State of South Carolina under the laws of this State. No person or other entity may compel another person or other entity to...

America needs a bold agenda to solidify the current economic expansion and return hard-earned money to taxpayers. That runs counter to the consensus of those on the left, who want large increases in federal spending and dramatic tax increases to pay for them. Their plans are so expansive that it will require both middle-class payroll tax hikes and broad new taxes on American savers, investors, and employers. Opposing that growth-killing agenda isn’t enough. Conservatives need to draw a stark contrast and push for a second round of tax relief that will let workers keep more of their money, make it...

"You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin!" —President Jackson, explaining his unwillingness to allow the Second Bank of the United States to continue, in a quote that could easily describe President Trump's mindset with respect to today's Federal Reserve Big-League Betrayal: Assisted by President Wilson, a Banking Cartel Ascends to PowerIn 1913, President Wilson signed the Federal...

Google’s announcement that it has achieved “quantum supremacy” with a 53-qubit quantum computer greases the skids for all cryptocurrency and military secrets protected by cryptography to be breakable in a stunning new development that will change the world. The Big Tech corporation’s new quantum processor took a mere 200 seconds to complete a computing task that would normally require 10,000 years on a supercomputer. The 53-qubit quantum computer can break any 53-bit cryptography in seconds, meaning Bitcoin’s 256-bit encryption is vulnerable once Google scales its quantum computing to 256 qubits, something their own scientists say will be possible by 2022....

According to a report in the Financial Times, a team of researchers from Google led by John Martinis have demonstrated quantum supremacy for the first time. This is the point at which a quantum computer is shown to be capable of performing a task that’s beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional supercomputer. The claim appeared in a paper that was posted on a NASA website, but the publication was then taken down. Google did not respond to a request for comment from MIT Technology Review.

Google researchers have reportedly achieved “quantum supremacy” The news: According to a report in the Financial Times, a team of researchers from Google led by John Martinis have demonstrated quantum supremacy for the first time. This is the point at which a quantum computer is shown to be capable of performing a task that’s beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional supercomputer. The claim appeared in a paper that was posted on a NASA website, but the publication was then taken down. Google did not respond to a request for comment from MIT Technology Review.Why NASA? Google struck...

Three years ago today, the IMF added China’s yuan to the basket of currencies underpinning its Special Drawing Rights (SDR)—its proprietary reserve accounting unit and means of extending credit to countries in need. At the time, the IMF touted it as “an important milestone in the integration of the Chinese economy into the global financial system.” Many investors took a less benign view, seeing the IMF’s move as threatening to end the dollar’s status as the world’s leading reserve currency—sending interest rates spiking and rendering US debt unaffordable. That was always a false fear, in our view, as the...

* Total US debt including all forms of government, state, local, financial and entitlement liabilities comes close to 2,000% of GDP, according to AB Bernstein. * The biggest potential load comes from entitlements, but is being pressured from rising levels of federal government debt as well. * The warnings about potential debt hazards come as the total federal debt outstanding has surged to $22.5 trillion. * A debt reform advocate says now is the time for the U.S. to tackle the issue, before recession hits. Total potential debt for the U.S. by one all-encompassing measure is running close to 2,000%...

Iran's president sent a bill to parliament Wednesday that would cut four zeroes from the value of the Islamic Republic's sanctions-battered currency, the rial, as tensions remain high between Tehran and Washington. By sending the bill to lawmakers, President Hassan Rouhani's government shows it is serious about an idea discussed for some time in Iran, where people discuss monetary transactions in both rials and informally, but more commonly, in tomans. A toman is worth 10 rials. If passed by parliament and approved by lawmakers, Iran's Central Bank would in effect devalue the rial and rename it as toman. The bank...