bitbigt

Thanks!

I think this is wise and accommodating. Thank you

Keeping good long term relationships is difficult even when people meet face to face. Its even more challenging when interactions are only via the written word (I know this, as its a large part of my day job!). I think that is what's behind most tensions here at GEI. The onus must be on the 'leaders' to have thicker skin than a rhino, the forgiveness of Ghandi, and the generosity, patience and diplomacy of an angel. Dr B, you might like to try a bit harder to be this superhuman ...or to put that another way, the users are being honestly and understandably frustrated about a number of your decisions and the way you execute them. But who knows whether I or they would do any better than you at genuinely listenning and being smpathetic to the 'complainers' point of view. I know that you have previously deflected many of my own efforts to be constructively critical, which is why I also spent some time 'elsewhere'. But there's usually just too much good stuff at GEI to disregard it completely

=== moved to another thread ===

...hard to argue against that!

Perhaps Pixel8R should get a 1 banning credit Personally, I think bans are handed out far too readily. [wonder if I'll be banned for saying that?? ]

+1 (yes, I know I'm late. But I've been otherwise occupied, and wanted to support the many good and IMPORTANT points made here by CJ)

oh yes!

You were probably reported by a paper troll because your were getting too close to revealing him/her But these bans are becoming like ASBOs, some of us are feeling left out because we haven't yet had one

Yanks just getting down to business. Check out the action in oil and gold. This could be a very nasty afternoon. Glad I sold all my oil recently

Wow! And same happened to oil as well. Glad I sold ALL my oil ETF shares last Thursday [RH has nothing on me!!!!]

Gold up in all currencies. But also oil jumped similarly. It is strange because the rise started and ended so suddenly.

Me - once upon a time. But now I'm not so sure!!! Everyones paying off debt, to a massive extent, and that is extremely deflationary If QE were to push up the overall money supply dramatically, then I 'd expect near term inflation. But it isn't (QE is just compensating for the drop in money supply caused by debt repayments), so I don't. If countries other than US and UK get back into growth, then they'll push up commodity prices, and when you couple this with weaker USD and GBP then we'll get uncomfortable inflation. And that's what I do expect, but not for a few years yet. If government debt, and enduring QE policies, were to cause a complete loss of confidence in the USD (or GBP), then I'd expect a run on the currency and hyper-inflation. That could well happen, but of so (and if no plan B is pulled out of the hat) then it's still probably 10-20 years away. ...and gold could fall quite a lot before then! That's what I'da thunk anyway

No, they want the USD and the GBP to depreciate in a controlled manner. Both are about 25-30% down from their longer term levels, and I think there needs to be the same fall yet again over the next few years to give these nations a fighting chance of paying off their debt. Any short term bounce in the USD is a consequence of increasing risk aversion. Instead, the PPT probably wants gold to fall in value from its current levels. From USD 950 to USD 1050 the rise in gold was just a reflection of the falling dollar (as I kept pointing out, the same was happening for oil). But from USD 1050 to USD 1150 the rise in gold has been a genuine rise in PMs, whilst oil has been stable or falling. Today seems like a deliberate smack down in gold and oil, and not a rise in the dollar. If the dollar rises in parallel, that will just help the PPT in the attack on PoG.

I can imagine (50% confident) gold hitting a low of between GBP 500-600 over next 6-12 months. So 10-25% down from here. I am more confident (80%) that we've just seen a short term top. I made the rather strong prediction 2 weeks ago, when gold was at USD 1120 and GBP 675. The 6-7% further increase we've had since then really feels overdone to me (was that the commercial signal failure?). It seems that after Dubai and the options expiry, the PPT are now choosing today to start their fight back. They've even taken a big chunk out of the oil price early this morning. I suspect we'll see even stronger downward pressure when the Yanks wake up. Mrs BigT and I decided today, however, not to sell, but ride it out and buy more if/when we get down to sub-GBP 600 again.