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I just this article on TaxFreeGold(Chards) website, its a brief summary of the monetary history of Gold, the reasons why Gold is hitting new highs why they believe it could be going higher. There is nothing new in the the article and most of us here know all this stuff, but it could be useful information if your talking to someone new to the subject and trying to summarise the basic reasons for gold ownership. Highest Ever Gold Prices in 3 Currencies - Why & Where Next? http://www.taxfreegold.co.uk/highestevergo...ywherenext.html

Good idea, but two rules should apply. 1 You do not talk about fight club forum! 2 You do not talk about fight club forum!

Venezuela will slash value of currency, the bolivar Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has announced that the national currency, the bolivar, will be devalued for the first time since 2005, by at least 17%. The bolivar, whose rate is set by government decree, will be devalued from its current rate of 2.15 to the US dollar to 2.60 for "priority" imports. However, the bolivar will be worth 4.30 to the dollar, a 50% devaluation, for items considered non-essential. Mr Chavez was under pressure to devalue to boost revenue from oil exports. The country is currently facing 25% inflation, as well as reduced foreign earnings. However, the bolivar is far more devalued on the parallel, unofficial currency market where it trades at rates as high as six bolivars to a US dollar. Food and health care imports, and the public sector will be able to take advantage of the lower of the two official rates. However, cars, chemicals, petrochemical and electronics will be charged at the higher rate. President Chavez said that the two official rates would have the effect of "limiting imports that are not strictly necessary and stimulating export policy". http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8449721.stm

A poor man, as am I. And we will benefit all the more from keeping wealth outside the system. The gold price seems high compared to a couple of years ago, but you have to judge the risk for yourself and be prepared for any down moves and wild price swings. It was the same in 2007 when I first plunged into gold, having watched the market for a year and having missed out on a lot of gains, I was prepared to weather the falls without being shaken out, knowing that prices can move rapidly up and down as we have seen recently. I'm not sure how knowledgeable on the gold bullion market you are, so apoliges if this is already known to you, but for the benefit of any new readers, please be careful with second hand sovereigns unless you buy from BTNA members. Almost all sovs should be fine and tradable at their bullion value, but if sovs are damaged usually after being removed from jewellery then they may only get scrap value at around 75% of spot price. I recently witnessed a jeweller trading some sov in Chards and some of the sovs did not meet the bullion criteria so they gave them back to him. If a sov is damaged on one side it will be often used in a ring or chain where the damaged side is hidden. http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/bullionsovereigns.html http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/grading.html General info http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/information.html

I quite like this quote I copied from Steve Cook on HPC. I'm not going to argue the precise economics of the quote, I just like the general message it conveys.

From:

Welcome to the forum.

Has anyone got any charts that show the volumes of the recent gold moves?

Its OK we now have a thread where you can post all the evidence you have, if you would like to prove that Robert Fisk is operating as an intelligence asset. http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index.php?showtopic=7883

The Realist Bear reverse indicator is signaling on HPC also. Probably something about $300 gold or particle accelerators etc... http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...126541&st=0

Not quite sure which thread to put this video in, but it does mention the FEDs gold reserves. Rep. Alan Grayson: "Has the Federal Reserve Ever Tried to Manipulate the Stock Market?" From:

First time I bought a sovereign I was a little suspicious of them, but after spending a bit of time on Chards Gold Sovereigns website I found more than enough info to put my mind at rest. There is quite a bit of variety in the Obverse(heads) and the Reverses(shields/george&dragon) also the mint marks are worth exploring with a very good magnifying glass. It may be worth investing £20 in a 2009 copy of Spinks coin catalogue, its got much more detail for identifying Sovereign mintage as well as covering all the other coins produced in the UK. No need to get the 2009 edition, most of the interesting coinage was made during the empire. You can pick up a 2005-6 copy for £5-6. A good basic knowledge of sovereign designs, dates, mint marks, mintage will give an advantage if your ever offered some cheap sovereigns, you should be able to spot fakes from the real thing. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coins-England-Unit...5756&sr=8-3

I suppose where we are upto on those scales changes based on which sections of society that we are talking about. HPC certainly banned the open discussion on gold as do most of the mainstream media. Only a small percentage of people follow current events and very few of those people use the internet for news. Only a tiny fraction of understand enough about what's happening to be actively following the events on forums like HPC, and only a small number of us posting on forums understand gold. As far as the general public are concerned its still mostly ignorance about the role of gold as a safe haven and barometer for the economy/banking/trade imbalances. The mainstream media and the investment community, that relies the mainstream media, are still laughing about 'doom and gloomers, chicken littles,TFH , goldbugs' despite everything that has already happened. The elite bankers and politicians have always been fighting against the fiscal responsibility of gold, even if its mostly been a proxy war. When the general public are in the fight stage against gold, it will be because the bankers and politicians they trust will have destroyed their savings, their pensions and the wealth of their countries, and thats when things could get scary for those of us owning gold. edit http://mises.org/books/inflationinfrance.pdf ------------ Anyway on the plus side I learnt a new word today. ethnophaulism (plural ethnophaulisms) 1. Creating negative cognitive images of a different group, negative worth and/or caricatures (jokes having to do with someone's features). 2. Using derogatory or disparaging words.

Interesting to see the usual jokey comments like "bury it in your garden/under your mattress" along with the other predictable phrases such as tinfoil hatters, shot guns and beans, mad max etc... You could almost make a game of anti gold-bug bingo. The phrase 'goldbug' is a label and like all labels, it allows the person labeling to make out that differences are fundamentally at odds with those from the majority, a process called Antilocution or 'othering' as in other than us, not the same, different, abnormal, weirdo, nutjob, to be avoided. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win " M.K Gandhi They can't ignore us anymore, though I think in general we are still in the laughing phase at the moment, with just a few very vocal critics up for a fight.

I found this on GHPC, its a summary of Allsops auction research report. http://www.rapidinfo.uk.com/Issues/6/6-distressed.html

I agree, this $1000 level reminds me of the way gold traded around the $700 barrier for over a year (when we all used to argue with numpties on the HPC gold thread). Small movements back and fourth from $650 to $700. $700 was a bit of a psychological barrier, I remember I used to buy the dips and resented paying when the price hit $700. If anything serious happens like a spike in the price of oil due to a hurricane in the gulf, geo-political tensions in the middle east, major terrorist attack, further financial panics etc.. then it could easily push gold up to goldfingers $1400 target, before possibly falling back to $1000 as a new support level. The important thing is that its positive news that we are seeing gold hold in the four digit range, at a time when there is a media led green-shoots environment with the official figures all signaling low inflation, at a time when central bank monetary inflation is being looked upon as a wise move whilst consumer credit is deflating.

Gold back up into the four digits tonight at $1002. Probably go back to triple digits tomorrow when the US markets open. I wonder if this pattern will continue all week. In other news, to be filed under 'No shit Sherlock' Market crisis 'will happen again' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8244600.stm

This is the definitive version, by which all other versions pale into insignificance. From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvQwXOCKNLY

I expect gold to go a lot higher over the next decade for a whole host of reasons, mostly due to the geo-political fall out that will emerge from the economic crisis and the shift in power from the west to the east. There wasn't really a recovery from the great depression, the economic crisis transformed into a geo-political crisis. Advocates of Nationalism, Fascism and Communism found people desperate enough to follow extreme solutions to the problems causes by the depression. Trade wars and long term disputes over land, borders, resources and trade routes turned the geo-political crisis into a world wide war. The same pattern of geo-political crisis and war/revolution follow most major economic crashes, even if it takes a decade or more for things to reach boiling point. This economic crisis is not going to resolve itself peacefully, and when we throw peak oil and climate change into the mix things could get very ugly. (I accept that peak oil and climate change are disputed by many)

Economic crash in Oregon boomtown http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8239227.stm Bend, Oregon was a 21st century American boomtown. It is a beautiful place, in the high desert of central Oregon, amid mountains. The sunshine is warm, the air crisp and filled with the scent of bitterbrush and pine. Its people are gracious, their gorgeous surroundings imbuing them with a certain American languidness. All these attributes were - in the minds of the city's ambitious planners and businessmen - what would bring the retirees and tourists flocking to Bend. To accommodate them, a boom in housing began. Boom and bust The population of Bend quadrupled in under 20 years - from 20,000 to 80,000. Between 2001 and 2005, the median value of a home in Bend rose by 80%. By 2005, work was getting underway on 700 new homes each month. Some of the developments are stunning: houses filled with mountain light clinging to craggy hillsides. More than 17% of the workforce was employed in construction - far higher than the national average. In what had once been an isolated lumber and mill town, high-end restaurants and brewhouses opened. Shops selling expensive bric-a-brac bloomed. Massage therapists and hairdressers proliferated. Downtown Bend looks like a shrine to post-millenial bijou: pricey shoes, scented candles, fancy coffee. There is even a shop specialising in beachwear - despite Bend's location in the high desert. But when the US slumped, Bend crashed. The value of a home fell 40% in under two years. And unemployment nearly quadrupled from around 4% two years ago to 15% in the summer of 2009. "Everything that Bend produced relied on the credit market", says Carolyn Eagan, an economist with the Oregon Department of Employment. "Construction materials, doors and fittings, recreational vehicles: everything depended on people being able to consume more than they could use." Now the credit has dried up, and the building of Bend has stopped. The town is dotted with developments that got underway, and then ground to a halt. They are desolate expanses of weeds, dust and discarded construction materials. Homeless shelter In downtown Bend, we met Dan Hardt. Mr Hardt used to employ 20 people hanging drywall in Bend's new homes. He owned three houses of his own, and a boat. He used to go on elk-hunting trips. Now it is gone - all of it. "When the building stopped, the lifestyle went very fast," he told us. "It's a lifestyle I don't see coming back." Dan now lives at the Bethlehem Inn, a motel converted to an emergency homeless shelter. "Those who were living at the at the top of the heap and who have fallen to the bottom, they don't know where to go for help, they don't know how to get that help. There's anger and frustration and a sense of entitlement," says Corky Senecal, who heads emergency housing services for Neighbor Impact, and has 30 years experience of providing services for the poor. "The middle class is where it's really been decimated," she says. When you lose your job in America, you will receive financial aid from the government. But it is limited. Typically, an unemployed worker in Bend will get state benefits for a period of six months to a year. After that, as many in Bend are discovering, you are on your own.

They look good, but ultimately for most of us on here we can only judge from an investment point of view, and with that in mind, the deciding factor is going to be the price. Most investors tend to get the best prices deals on large silver bars, but large silver bars are not divisible in a practical way. I suppose once an individual has purchased a full box then it would not be practical to sell, say 5 coins from of the box, because then you would be left with an uncompleted box. There are two basic types of PM buyers, one is the investor and the other is the collector(numismatician), I sort of consider myself a hybrid of the two. When I first became interested in buying bullion as an investor I was slightly paranoid about being ripped off, because I had no idea how to tell a real coin/bar from a fake one. From an investors point of view, the most important issue was not what the cheapest price I could get a coin for, it was the cheapest price that I could get a 'real coin' for, and I was willing to pay a higher premium for the genuine article. My own strategy was to buy at least one of each major gold/silver bullion coin, then I would have an original coin that I could compare other coins purchased cheaply from less trustworthy sources, like Ebay. I think that unless you have the right market contacts to be able to ensure a competitive price, big investors may choose to go for large bars or companies like Gold Money. If you cannot compete on price, you could target new investors who would like to have at least 1-10 of each of the major coins. A wealthy investor could easily afford a full box of 100, though perhaps you could also target less wealthy investors by selling a box with just one of the main bullion coins in each of the ten compartments, giving them more of an incentive to build up the box, coin by coin, until it is a complete box of 100 containing 10 of each bullion coin. You could also have a two way trade where you could buy back your own complete boxes and pass them onto a new customer for a small commission. From the perceptive of a coin collector, there are also other non bullion (exonumia) coin that can be collected, better known as silver rounds. There are collections of commemorative coins for Olympics, Royals, WWF etc... Completing a collection would be a good hobby for a numismatician, and a complete box could potentially be worth a premium price. It could become a bit like trying to complete those Panini football sticker albums in school (got, got, got, got, got.. not got! , I'll trade you five Phill Nevill's for a John Terry!) http://www.24carat.co.uk/coinsbytheme.html I own silver and gold bullion coins mostly for investment purposes, as I believe that my wealth is more secure in the metals at this moment in time. At some-point I will see a new investment opportunity and I will sell the majority of my bullion, but I will always keep a small percentage of my wealth in the metals as a hedge. It would be good to have a box to keep at least one of each main gold/silver coin, or if wealthy enough, ten of each.

I use the acrylic coin capsules made by lighthouse, different sizes are available for each coin. http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trk...-All-Categories

Sugar price reaches 28-year high 19:42 GMT, Monday, 10 August 2009 20:42 UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8193390.stm Deflation? Edit: Sorry this probably isn't the best thread for this story, but I couldn't find the right one and I didn't want to start a new one for a single issue story. Still, I think rising commodity prices are always relevant for gold, and the gold thread is sort of a thread for open discussion of a number of issues.

I'd like a pint with CGNAO, he could probably turn some water into wine.

She wants to turn one of the bedrooms into a 'shoe room' and has plans to rent out the other rooms should she have difficulties affording the mortgage over the next few years. The problem is that Manchester is full of properties to rent and rooms in shared houses, so thats unlikely to be a reliable source of income. So she has a mortgage 50 percent larger than she needed in-order to put shoes in one room and to impress her friends with a house larger than most average families need to live in. The far better solution as nicejim has mentioned would have been to buy a smaller house and have less debt to service over the term of the mortgage. The other disturbing aspects to this deal is that she borrowed 5k more than was necessary inorder to renovate the house to 'add value'. The house did not need any work and it was in a perfectly presentable conditon, the 5k would have been far better spent lowing the value of the debt. 5k over the complete term of the mortgage must work out at over 15k, thats one hell of a way to 'add value' The concept of 'adding value' by borrowing money to spend on decoration is a hangover from the housing boom as idiots grasped for a simplistic explanation as to why their properties had gone up in value, not taking the time and effort to understand the credit markets effect on land prices. Its simply not necessary to 'add value' unless you are a professional property developer and are planning to sell. The big picture is that ultimately the house may seem like a bargain compared to peak prices, prices that only existed temporarily due to insane credit conditions, but even at this price she is unlikely to be able to afford the mortgage payments over the long term. Therefore this is a risky mortgage and houses-prices will not be supported long term by these kind of lending standards.