This is interesting. Holding Au and Ag is the only way to go.

Mesquite

Read it here; more from the CTFC meeting.

mhammerman

Yes, this is information that we knew but the article ties it together nicely. When a slv certificate can be issued to replace any physical claim one may have had with one of these entities then you have no choice but to realize this is all a big ponzi but we knew that. We also knew that the 1:100 ratio of physical v.s. the paper backing was pretty well known.

I postulated recently that slv and gld funds may be more valuable in the market place than physical because of the liquidity and large pool of players. Physical may be old fashioned when you can have a digital fund that you can get the digits into your account with a few flicks on the key board. It may also be more secure to have digital gold in a secure account...no storage, no insurance required, not likely that anyone will steal it and it's so modern.

There are a number of good reasons to not hold physical. It's kind of like the fractional reserve banking situation though as it used to be $1 in the safe for every $10 loaned then it ratchetted up to where now if you even have $1 in cash, you can have thousands of dollars worth of loans on that dollar. Doubtful that gold will be any different in the long run and we are probably in the early days of fractional reserve gold. It's almost like if you have any physical, you can have a fund worth millions of dollars and it can all be based on the fact that there are some placer flakes in a vial in the safe to back up the fund and of course, your SEC filings are up to date. Maybe laughable but not so unbelievable a scenario.

Will your physical ever reflect the true value of 100% physical...hummmm, hard to say. Will there ever be a physical run on the COMEX or SLV or will anyone ever call the short hand of JPM...doubtful. Meanwhile, sovereign govts are buying physical bars and stashing them in a safe, cash for gold boxes are spring up like junior miners or daffodils in the spring and the public is slowly being divested of any physical they may have while the Chinese are buying PM mines and grabbing the production for their coffers. It almost looks like a bait and switch game being played on an international field. It seems to be a grand game; first you move all the players into a digital arena while you slowly pull all the metal out of the hands of the private physical holders. The game seems pretty above board to those that are watching but then what happens when there is no more physical for the cash for gold guys or what happens when the fractional gold funds are well beyond the 1:100 ratio and the only significant holders of metal are the govts? As a follow up question...how long will the process take before the casual physical market is depleated. Does the fact that the US Mint not producing unc PM for the public mean anything? Does the fact that players are being moved into digital so the gov can tax and keep track of the activity mean anything while they let the fractional fund players run wild through the marketplace? There are so many questions. Me, I don't trust anything but physical in my posession...you can throw a mud pie between two slices of banana leaves and call it a ham sammich but it ain't no ham sammich.

Got Cash?

derryb

Just think, if everyone took possession the music would stop and a whole lot of people wouldn't have a seat! A whole lot more than most people realize. According to the testimony, something like 100 times the amount of actual physical. And if someone's admitting to X100 you can bet it's really like X1,000.

Oh me, so many gold owners and only so much gold! Like Buffet said, you will see the naked swimmers when the tide goes out. I've got on my bathing suit and a real comfy chair up front for the show.