wren

Does anybody know to what extent gold (and silver) ETFs are bought on margin? Do you think many retail gold and silver investors borrow to buy bullion?

Moderation policy over at hpc seems a bit quirky. Early today I made a few comments on various threads (including gold comments) which got through moderation (I'm back on moderation after linking here). This one has not got through (yet at least). The wording was slightly better in the original which I didn't keep a copy of. It was in the "Gold bug, not gold thug" thread which DrBubb also posted on. Seemed a pretty innocuous post to me. Is it too close to the bone maybe? I'd be interested to hear whether you agree or disagree with that post.

Wow. He tries to talk about hedonic adjustment of the inflation numbers and the interviewer tells him to shut up "You're boring me and the nation"! But this is one of the main ways the CPI is faked. The other guy accuses him of conspiracy theory (great Newspeak that) but a proper explanation is boring!

Yes, in the European Union gold bullion is free of VAT, due to an EU law of Jan 1 2000. Gold bars and standard bullion coins certainly count as bullion. (Collectors' coins may not be depending on the price. I forget the details of the definition, something like if the price is no more than 50% more than the spot price of the gold content it counts as bullion.) In the EU silver is not in general free of VAT.

BV banks with Lloyds TSB in London. This is one of the safest and most boring banks in the UK. So if any banks survive in the UK this should be one of them. Failing that taking personal possession is the only way. I'm willing to go with BV.

Good stuff. "Let them go under" (Bear Stearns). I find he always comes across well in interviews.

This is how gold bears could end up.

High food inflation in America: NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/business...amp;oref=slogin

I've wondered about the new EU law of 2000. I think it could be that the elite rich wanted to make it a better investment for themselves, anticipating a long gold bull through which they could benefit most. I can't think of any other good reason. BTW the video link you gave is bad. It's got ... in the address. Try again.

Pluto points out that we are in the midst of global financial disaster. And yet I LOL. Cheers. We tried. Ana Vidovic is a talented classical guitarist (Slavic from the name, I don't know the nationality). But here she plays Asturias on YouTube:

This PO: I my innocence I answer:

Hahaa, that might be thanks to Steve, backing me up. When I tried to google "goldfinger gold thread" a few days ago it didn't work. However, I did find that if you google a certain phrase it went to that page. But even under that phrase google shortly adjusted to alternative pages here. If you don't believe me Google gold thread. wren.

Was just looking at the book recently, unfortunately I have not the time and energy for the whole book at the mo. I did read a bit where they upped the penalty to 25 years in irons. Nasty. Still didn't work.

Excellent. I see that's a mere hundred milliard marks (= 100 000 million marks, in American 100 billion). Did they ever get up to billions on the note? (would be trillions in American usage.) Nice rocket top right. And the theme tune is featured, which I guess will be still much needed in the coming year or two. For those unfamiliar with the tune here it is: I get knocked down, but I get up again - Chumbawumba (I didn't realise when I was new here that "GEI links" at the top of every page has masses of good stuff, mostly more useful than songs .)

ROFL You crease me up.

Yes, I suspect you are right and I had wondered the same. I should stop being lazy and try to check.

Very true, although I'm not a fan of the fiat currency systems as they stand. I make light on a thread such as this, which is some small source of optimism to me providing a welcome contrast to the rest. I'm more worried about peak oil than bullion or maintaining paper currencies. You might prefer for the time being not to tell him that the collective noun for them is a "wunch". But he might find it fun.

Morning, it's been a great day. This deserves a fanfare. Here's the New Zealand Army Band playing in Edinburgh (great performers and very humorous): (I only found this the other week, great fun.)

Now they've decided to delete the whole post! :angry: Bunch of clowns. Wouldn't surprise me if they are monitoring this thread hourly. I leave them to their path: Have you heard of this place DrBubb? :D (Not in reference to DrBubb, of course.)

They just deleted the link to DrBubb's site but left the rest of the post. So I can link to other forums and general bullion sites but not to here. You can see that the post was for general info as some people are asking questions and really need to spend time getting more background and this site is one worth mentioning along with the others. I did not make that post for the purpose of linking this site. :angry:

I just posted this over at hpc. I mentioned this site also which seems reasonable. I hope it doesn't get deleted.

Presumably you know the BV charts where you can switch between USD, GBP, EUR, JPY, AUD, CAD and CHF easily.http://www.bullionvault.com/gold-price-chart.do I like to compare the price in different currencies, as you can set the time period, eyeball the graph, and then switch currencies to get a swift eyeballed comparison. I don't know where their data feed comes from. JPY, AUD, CAD and CHF cannot be from their internal markets as those currencies are not used internally. I suspect the USD, EUR and GBP chart prices are not internal either. I guess the source is mentioned in their documentation somewhere.

Evening all. Some nice rockets today. Just to note that a new record price was not reached today in either EUR, JPY, CHF or even GBP (at least on the BV charts). Mania? What mania?

The CNN article is in essence anti-gold and pro-paper. Firstly it gives the impression that buying and keeping physical gold has high overheads, which isn't really true, and it makes no mention of allocated gold. Secondly, it plugs ETFs, i.e. paper gold. In fairness it does mention that investment in miners is convenient and can provide leverage if the price continues to go up. This sort of article is not ramping real gold. On the contrary it is herding what people might be interested into paper assets while seeming not to oppose gold as an investment. Real gold is anti-paper promises to pay, that's its main fundamental. So, the little professor's comments seem misguided to me. Perhaps his designs are similar to CNN's.

Welcome FLASH, glad you found us.