On The Lookout

Saturday, June 23, 2012 at 12:50 pm

I have a little time this fine Saturday morning so I thought I would share some observations with you.

First of all, we have to talk about the open interest changes on Thursday. You remember Thursday, don't you? The day of the big beatdown? As an aside, how many times has this now happened in 2012 alone? Anytime The Bernank steps in front of a mic, the metals get crushed. What was last week...about the 7th time this has happened this year alone? At any rate, from the Comex close of Wednesday to the Comex close of Thursday, gold was down $50.30 and silver was down $1.55. As Ruprecht would say: "That's a lot". Let's keep in mind a couple of things here:

Price declines when there are more sellers than buyers.
There are two kinds of selling pressure. Long liquidation and naked short selling.
When longs liquidate, they are closing an open position. This causes total open interest to decline.
When naked shorts are added, this is opening a new position. This causes total open interest to rise.
If you are to believe The Cartel Apologists and Disinformation Agents, then The Bullion Banks are simply benevolent market makers who add liquidity to the metals markets by taking the other side of these trades. They are the willing providers of paper metal when buyers initiate new longs AND they are the buyers on the other side of new, spec naked shorts.
(This is, of course, true and the CoT and Bank Participation Reports bear this out. The problem with The Apologists is that they stop right there and fail to consider/comprehend that The Bullion Banking Cartel may have more nefarious aims as they serve their Fed/ECB/BoE/BoJ/SNB masters.)
Since late February, The Cartels have been rapidly reducing their net short exposure in both gold and silver. For gold, The Cartel net short position has fallen from a ratio of 2.69:1 to a current (a/o last Tuesday) ratio of 2.08:1. That's a drop of 36%. In silver, the reduction is even more dramatic. On 2/24/12, The Cartel net short ratio was 2.32:1. As of last Tuesday, it now stands at 1.36:1. That's a drop of 73%.

So now, with these points in mind, let's assess the open interest changes from Thursday. For gold, while price was falling over $50, the total open interest change from Wednesday to Thursday was just 34 contracts. From this, what can we surmise? Clearly there were equal parts long liquidation and new shorting on Thursday. All of that selling pressure drove price down $50. The overall Cartel position was likely flat and the entire shift was within the "Large Spec" category where spec longs were dumped and spec shorts were added.

The $1.55 decline silver, on the other hand, was an entirely different event. While silver was falling, the total open interest grew by over 6,000 contracts and, at 127983, it stands at the highest level for all of 2012 and it's a level we haven't seen since last May! More on the implications of this in a minute but, first, what does this OI rise indicate?

Again, as pointed out above, a rising OI coupled with a falling price is an indicator of naked short selling. Having price fall 5% and OI rise 5% shows that the entire event was caused by new spec short selling, not long liquidation. How can I assume that it is the specs that are adding shorts and NOT The Silver Cartel? Re-read point #7 above. If this is the case, then Thursday put a significant dent in the remaining Cartel net short position.

As of last Tuesday, The Silver Cartel net short position was 16,954 contracts. They were short 64,401 and long 47,447. The difference is 16,954. (As an aside, per the latest Bank Participation Report, JPM was short 17,000 all by themselves. This means the rest of The Silver Cartel is already net flat.) So...IF Thursday's selloff was almost entirely caused by naked short selling and IF that short selling was coming almost entirely from the specs...the current net short position of The Silver Cartel may be as low as 11,000 contracts. Additionally, the balance MAY be JPM net short 16,000 and everyone else net long 5,000. Think about the implications of that for a moment.

Regardless, today the net short ratio of The Evil Empire in silver is at an historically low level. I have maintained for over a year now that the run-up in April of 2011 and the ensuing beatdown in the 14 months since has been a coordinated effort by The Silver Cartel to extricate themselves from their tenuous and extreme net short position. In late March of 2011, they were net short 55,000 contracts. Today, they are net short as few as 11,000 contracts. That's an 80% reduction and they are almost there, almost flat. The question of the day, and the ultimate subject of this post, becomes: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Can silver reverse and rally while JPM battles the rest of The Cartel?
Must silver decline further in order for The Cartel to move to net flat?
Can silver decline further in the face of tight supply and strong physical demand?

I wish I had the answers but, obviously, I don't. I'm left to speculate and guess just like you are. One thing I do know, however, is this: Silver will reverse and it will then head much, much higher. For traders, the timing of this reversal is extremely important. For stackers, not so much. Any further dips in price should be greeted with joy as the opportunity to buy silver at these fiat price levels will not last much longer.

However, I recognize that even stackers watch the day-to-day price changes with great interest. With that in mind, take a good, long look at these charts of silver:

Look, I can assure you that silver is in very tight supply and it is increasingly difficult for Buyers of Size to get timely, price-efficient delivery. This condition of the physical market will make it very difficult for silver to break down through $26. Difficult, yes, but not impossible. On a very short-term basis, it's certainly possible for silver to be run through $26. There has to be a considerable amount of buy-stops under that level. "Harvesting" them alone could drop price below $25 and, after that, selling momentum could take price all the way to $22. Heck, maybe even $20.

I tell you this not because I expect this to happen. I tell you this so that you are mentally prepared. IF this happens, it will mark the end of silver manipulation, as we've known it. A brief drop into the lower 20s would allow The Cartel to finally move to a net flat or even net long position. From there, silver will rapidly recover and soar to new, all-time highs. Of this, I am 100% certain. Therefore, IF silver suddenly falls another 20%, do not freak out and panic sell your metal. This would be the biggest financial mistake you'll ever make.

Again, silver could and SHOULD hold the $26 floor simply because of the tight, physical marketplace. IF it doesn't, though, be prepared for the opportunity of a lifetime to buy silver at what will be an historic bottom. Price will not stay down for long, though, so you must be prepared to move quickly. Besides The Silver Cartel moving net neutral/long, there are several fundamental changes coming over the horizon for silver. Be strong and do not waver.

In this context, we should discuss gold, too. Any set of conditions that would allow for a raid in silver would likely cause a raid in gold, as well. Do the charts bear this out? Maybe. Take a look. Like $26 silver, you can rightly assume that there is an abundance of stops below $1525 gold. This has to have The Gold Cartel salivating. Can they pull it off in the face of extraordinarily strong, global demand for physical gold? Yes, they can but again, though, they won't be able to keep it down there long.

At it's last peak in August of 2011, note that gold broke out of it's primary channel and moved about $250 higher. Having broken down now and residing outside the channel, the risk remains that gold could fall $250 below the channel. This would take it to roughly $1400. Looking at the weekly chart, this would be a logical spot for support to appear, too. Again, I AM NOT SAYING that gold is going to fall to $1425. I am saying that it's a possibility and, if it does, this type of move would present to you an extraordinary and historic opportunity to BUY not sell. Just be mentally prepared, that's all.

Regardless of all this, it's going to be a great week around here. The new "podcast" site is finally set to open on Monday. Besides daily audio commentary from yours truly, the site will also include:

Member interaction with PM "gurus" (webinars, conference calls and chats)
In-depth interviews of industry leaders
Non-moderated (except in extreme circumstances), "blogspot-style" daily thread comments

And remember, the ultimate purpose of this new, "sister" site is to allow TFMR to stay completely as-is and grow at the same time. No fees. Never so many ads that you can't tell the content from the advertisements. A community where we all freely share and prepare.

I hope you have a great weekend. It's going to be a fun summer regardless of what the next few weeks may hold.

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Comments

47

Submitted by El Gordo on June 24, 2012 - 9:49am.

Ever hear of a firm called MF Global?

Sounds like MFing Global

Submitted by Turd Ferguson on June 24, 2012 - 9:49am.

MODERATOR

"The one thing that IS clear. There is a LOT of money missing from a lot of peoples accounts."

Response to: link to forum

@Patriot Family

Submitted by bam on June 24, 2012 - 9:50am.

>We decided to invest money in starting up a business selling supplies to preparedness minded people, but sometimes I wonder if we should be conserving the cash at this point. No reward without risk, though!

That is exactly the sort of thing you (and everyone else) SHOULD be doing. People get a little overzealous with the world-is-ending scenarios on here and they misjudge that the most likely scenario is the world will go on ticking, in some form or fashion, no matter what. Diversifying your income stream, especially with one that you are generating on your own (ie no 'counter party risk'), is an absolute MUST imo, if at all possible.

Sure, you don't want to bet the farm, but another income stream is another leg under the table. Income is not going to stop (although the currency might change a bit). The world is not going to come to a complete halt. Their might be disruptions here and there, but human beings are remarkably adaptable.

And there is no life without risk.

More strange goings on.

Submitted by Number 47 on June 24, 2012 - 10:03am.

OK, this is getting weirder. These three posts are from this morning. Money appears to be vanishing left, right and centre. Even money that was there before the problem began.

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We're with RBS and everything seemed fine. I checked yesterday (Friday) and all was present and correct. Went to Tesco today to get the shopping and my card was refused I got home, went online and was told I was £145 OVER my OD limit and the two payments that had previously been showing a going INTO the account last week have mysteriously disappeared.

I thought it was supposed to be FIXED today? My account only BROKE today. Thanks NatWest/RBS, great job

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

mine did the same wages were paid in account friday, paid a few bills ,rent and transferred some to another account and had a look at lunchtime at now says £400 overdrawn wages have vanished of my statement , great when ive got bills going out and money going in within the next few days . the staff have been unhelpful .

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Wages eventually went into RBS account on Friday - 2 direct debits "might" have been paid. Used my card yesterday morning, then went to Tesco in the afternoon where is was declined. Checked my account online and my wages have disappeared and the last transaction date was the 19th, the money that was in the account on that date has also vanished!
When I phoned RBS they told me that it is EVERY customer who is affected, not just some as they would have you believe.
Be interesting to see if we get offered anything in the way of compensation - probably not though!

from the forum No.47 linked

Submitted by I Run Bartertown on June 24, 2012 - 10:05am.

@Turd et all,, RBS.

Submitted by maravich44 on June 24, 2012 - 10:23am.

..this has always felt to me like a combination of a practice run and a sign of desperation, these blokes are broke, MFing Global worked pretty well...

wet sunday

Submitted by treefrog on June 24, 2012 - 10:24am.

sitting here looking out at the rain. tropical storm debby is bringing up lots of moisture off of the gulf. good steady hard rain for an hour so far. not a lot of wind, just a LOT of rain. i like it - it's been dry here for a while. local forecasts are calling for four inches or more today. folks who bought cheap land in flood plains will likely find out why it was cheap.

Will banks admit they've been hacked?

Submitted by El Gordo on June 24, 2012 - 10:26am.

Do you think the bank's will ever admit that they've been hacked? And what if this is just a trial run and the big one has yet to wash ashore in North America? And what are they doing at the branches that are open today if they don't have any reliable records to operate with - maybe just accepting deposits? It's obvious to me that this is more than just a computer glitch.

Nat West

Submitted by The Green Manalishi on June 24, 2012 - 10:30am.

So far, my wife's account has been fine. Although it isn't her main account and we use it for managing a house we rent out. We are replacing the windows at the moment, and will need to pay the bill at the end of this week though - fingers crossed.

Just a little info

Submitted by Tube on June 24, 2012 - 10:32am.

Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi wins Egyptian election...

@Excalibur

Submitted by QE to infinity on June 24, 2012 - 10:33am.

Thanks very much, I'll wait for your PM.

I have seen the article about BNI bank, and was trying to scare my father about it :) Luckily he is not with BNI, but I think the writing is on the wall. He doesn't really need the money now, I just don't want him to lose it all one way or another, I think time is running out for bank depositors in Greece, Spain and Italy, at the very least.

He did take out a little bit (maybe 1000 euro) a couple of months ago, and the ATM limit was already reduced to only 200 euro per day then.

Just to make matters worse, I have also found out that he has a few more thousand euros in a Spanish bank, this is crazy. The only good news is that he is swearing he hasn't got any money in Greece :)

He has a bank account in Germany, so I am trying to get him to take his money out with ATM cards from Italy and Spain and put some of it into his German bank accounts, and transfer some to me, so I can convert it into gold and keep it for him, in case he really needs it sometime in the future. I had tried to convince him to buy some gold or silver himself, even a small amount, but it's useless. If I don't keep at him, he'll just leave it all in failed PIIGS, where it will all disappear eventually down a black hole...

The random nature...

Submitted by cpnscarlet on June 24, 2012 - 10:41am.

of the RBS problems may indicate a very devious computer virus that is slowly working its way through the system. In some cases, it may be blocked based on firewalls and secure protocols, and in other places it gets through. It can also be a case where code cracking is working faster than in other places. I'm no IT expert, but I know digital protocols.

FWIW.

PS - Thanks for the food prep info. Although I have a good deal of dehydrated vegies and fruits stocked, I am amazed more and more of how well canned meats last.

@Number 47

Submitted by QE to infinity on June 24, 2012 - 10:56am.

It's still possible to get free banking with Bank of Ireland but you have to jump through hoops, and, of course, I don't know how long it will last.

It might also be possible to have some savings, as opposed to current, accounts with an ATM card (but probably not a debit or laser card, and no chequebook, but maybe with direct debits).

In addition to individual bank problems, the whole Visa and Mastercard systems can do go down from time to time, though it usually lasts a few hours not days. For this reason I try to have at least two cards - one Visa and one Mastercard - to reduce the likelihood of being stranded somewhere, as well as some cash.

@El Gordo

Submitted by QE to infinity on June 24, 2012 - 11:08am.

Do you think the bank's will ever admit that they've been hacked?

Only when they are forced to it, they'll be lying and covering up as long as they can.

I'd say this is a good warning bell to prepare as best we can. Stack some cash, food, essentials, get back up cards and accounts, invest in PMs sooner rather than later. Not much use PMs going down, if you can't buy them then, because you have been locked out of your bank accounts...

If you have a business, especially one heavily reliant on online payments, this is much tougher. I also feel very sorry for those trying to complete on a house purchase and being caught up in it, as it's practically impossible to reduce the risk in this situation.

I'd take RBS as a template for what might happen more often

Submitted by exiledbear on June 24, 2012 - 11:14am.

Maybe they're not going to do an Argentina, but a rolling outage/theft of banks from now on?

All I gotta say is, have a stash of something that's OUTSIDE THEIR SYSTEM.

Nat West = Coincidence?

Submitted by John Galt on June 24, 2012 - 11:23am.

What an amazing forum this is. People from all over the world inputting news and ideas, and providing information that many of us would not glean from mainstream media.

It is only because of TFMR that I've even heard of the Nat West debacle going on. There are many theories as to why this mess is happening: simple computer glitch; Stuxnet-type assault; ratings downgrade; margin call or other liquidity issues; MFG event; beta test by TPTB for an upcoming bigger bank holiday event, etc.

But one thing is absolutely certain: regardless of what is causing this event there are many millions of people being affected, and many millions more (banking with other entities) who are waking up to the implications of "what if this happened to me"?

If and when this mess gets sorted out (and regardless of what is causing it) I would expect that there are many who will start/accelerate their prepping now by pulling out of the banking matrix and becoming less dependent on the system as they believe they know it.

Perhaps on a macro level this is a form of cosmic or Divine message to all of us to GTFO out of the Matrix - NOW!!!

While all of this could also simply be dismissed as coincidence, it is Albert Einstein who once said that "Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."

- (Co)incidentally, I stumbled across the Einstein quote a couple days ago, and was at the forefront of my thoughts when I saw another poster (either here or elsewhere) subsequently use the exact same quote either in this forum, or another one. That coincidence, in turn, has prompted this comment.

BIS Report ~Just Released & Worth Paying Attention To

Submitted by DrkPurpleHaze on June 24, 2012 - 11:24am.

BIS Annual Report 2011/2012

24 June 2012

The global economy has yet to overcome the legacies of the financial crisis to achieve balanced, self-sustaining growth. In different ways, vicious cycles are hindering the transition for both the advanced and emerging market economies.

After reviewing the past year's economic developments (Chapter II), the 82nd Annual Report addresses fundamental aspects of these vicious cycles: unfinished structural adjustments (Chapter III), risks in the current stances of monetary (Chapter IV) and fiscal policy (Chapter V), and the ongoing challenges of financial reform (Chapter VI). Chapter I underscores the themes and policy conclusions of the latter four chapters, and in a special section examines them in the context of problems in Europe's currency union.

Full text

214 pages, 6.428 kb, PDF

Overview of the economic chapters

82nd Annual Report by chapter

	Title	Languages
	Table of contents, letter of transmittal	EN
I.	Breaking the vicious cycles
	Abstract	EN
	Full text	EN
II.	The year in retrospect
	Abstract	EN
	Full text	EN
III.	Rebalancing growth
	Abstract	EN
	Full text	EN
IV.	The limits of monetary policy
	Abstract	EN
	Full text	EN
V.	Restoring fiscal sustainability
	Abstract	EN
	Full text	EN
VI.	Post-crisis evolution of the banking sector
	Abstract	EN
	Full text	EN
	The BIS: mission, activities, governance and financial results	EN

http://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar2012e.htm

HAY-HAY Katie Rose

Submitted by NW VIEW on June 24, 2012 - 11:25am.

We traveled along I-90 last week and the farmers were baling new crops of alfalfa everywhere and the plastic barns were filled with hay. It may be a good time to drive over to Ellensburg.

@ bronsuchecki

Submitted by murphy on June 24, 2012 - 11:28am.

I am trying to wrap my head around the back in forth regarding silvers buying of size. I believe you are associated with the Perth Mint if memory serves.

Bron wrote:

Can you direct that intermediary to us because we'd like some business - very quiet down here in Perth , so much so we have occasionally been shipping silver to London rather than from London, which is the normal direction when we're busy.

Tabberto replied:

I might be able to help with this, am in the loop, what sort of size can you fill immediately for delivery?

Can you really fill an order for 5m oz, with likelihood of same again quickly? when talking about size, this is the ballpark TF is talking about I think.

Bron replied:

Exactly how do you proposed to deliver seven sea containers of silver "immediately"? :) I would also note that one would not want to buy that sort of quantity immediately either as you wont get a good price.

As I said in my response, we haven't been shipping in from London recently so I don't know the state of that market, but SLV has allocated those sort of quantities in the past so I would be surprised if we can't source it from London and our other contacts if required. It would be ex-London of course.

I certainly have no knowledge how "buyers of size" take possession from the SLV inventory. I took your initial request to say that you were looking for customers to sell weight to from Perth. When Tabberto stepped up, it seems that, that is not the way you want to deliver the product. How do you normally get the product to London if not by boat. Why? Also, I understand a big offer on weight would raise the demand and therefore the price, some. But isn't the offer price the price?

RBS, NatWest etc. SORRY BUT NFWAY

Submitted by 57Goldtop on June 24, 2012 - 11:31am.

OK, I simply don't believe this can possibly be an IT accident. And let's be clear, we're talking software. So with apologies, this piece is about enterprise IT practices.

For at least 20 years, all major financial institutions have used Change Management procedures that include a backout plan with software assets (i.e. the 'old' version of the code) and step by step procedures. There is a cutoff time: "If the change is not verified to be stable in production by 3:30 am, stop the implementation and invoke this backout procedure which includes immediate escalation to Management and the sorry SOB who prepared the change. If the backout and resumption cannot be assured by start-of-business, escalate to SENIOR Management and Corporate Communications. Invoke the appropriate DRP, BRP, etc."

When combined with data backups (near-real-time/incremental, daily, weekly, monthly, onsite/offsite, etc.) and a variety of accounting reconciliation steps, this would have been caught, backed out, and restored before business opened the next day and customers would have never known. Had IT's availability stats been impacted in ANY WAY, some person or people would face serious and often irreparable career damage.

If it was somehow related to an Operating System issue, multiple this sensitivity to backout rigor by 100. That mainframe's running quite an O/S and it is very modern!

The IT staff would have had a review of their Quality Assurance and Change Management procedures before end of day. This was absolutely standard long before the introduction of Sarbanes-Oxley (which merely made long-standard practice a costly pain in the bank's arse and allowed the big consulting organizations to rape the system for more billions).

The massive number of systems in a bank's IT empire are so interrelated that they have to start and end any nightly batch processing in very narrow time frames in a prescribed sequence. Something like, first we process the inter-bank transfers coming in by midnight, then we distribute to the Checking and Savings accounts by 1am, then we take payments from those accounts for Loans and Mortgages by 2am, then we update the feeds going to the credit bureaus by 3am, etc.

Yes, real-time processing has reduced batch processing and reconciliation and spread it out over more of the day, but there is still a ton of overnight complexity. Consequently, each system has an incredibly narrow 'change window' for software changes that starts after its piece in the above sequence is verified to be complete. And sorry but outsourcing doesn't fundamentally change any of this other than the economic model. Nor does the fact that it's European, because their big IT practices are comparatively good.

if your eyes glazed over with the IT stuff, start reading again here...

The story being fed to us by the bank and the media is bullshit. When combined with the timing of the crisis and RBS' downgrade, it's total effing bullshit.

Nope, this is either fraud (covering a series of margin calls with 47's money) or cyber attack. If the latter, my gut tells me false-flag cyber attack because the timing's far too convenient.

I am in no way defending the banksters or bad IT people, but most of the people running technology in these companies are seriously talented professionals who are victims of this financial mess just like us Turdites.

So if everything gets 'fixed' and the wee IT glitch is overcome, I'm calling it fraud.

If the PTB leak 'cyber attack' rumors, I'm calling it a false-flag.

As of right now, I'm calling it a load of hogwash.

[Almost went all Andy Hoffman on y'all. Protect yourself and DO IT NOW!] lol

Muslim brotherhood won electionn

Submitted by kingboo on June 24, 2012 - 11:32am.

This is gonna be interesting

Nat West

Submitted by murphy on June 24, 2012 - 11:36am.

I'm sticking with my wild ass guess that they need to borrow money. Just like MFG they will return 50% in a few weeks, another 25% in a few months and the balance in a year or so.

But, then again wtfdik? I just read the stuff a Turd writes on a mac.

digital money

Submitted by Magpie on June 24, 2012 - 11:39am.

Roughly two years ago I was listening to a local AM radio show. They had an IT expert, who also had a Masters in Economics, as their guest. She had stopped using her debit card for purchases due to the ease of thieves to use skimmers to capture information from the card. She paid her bills electronically as soon as her pay was deposited, and then went to her branch, wrote a check for cash for most of the balance.....just leaving enough to keep her account open. Her concern.....the collapse of the banking system itself, or its ability to process transactions. She said it was a pain, but she felt it was the only way to protect herself from losing her money. She changed the way we bank.

cpn

Submitted by DrkPurpleHaze on June 24, 2012 - 11:40am.

I think you might have something there. It's definitely a possibility.

The U.S.& EU are about to impose SWIFT action and a embargo upon Iran and whomever else doesn't comply shortly and we have an active and fully acknowledged cyber/financial/currency war going on (doesn't feel like a war does it?) so something along those lines seems plausible.

It could very well be a legitimate RBS computer system issue or it could be something else entirely because of what you mentioned above. If so, it has to start somewhere and in some small or large measurable way so that whomever is doing it (if a hacked & attacked computer system actually did happen) can see and gauge it's efficacy. Testing 1...2...3...?

I don't think any of that is far-fetched because it's been reported or believed to be that we or whomever from the West are doing the same types of things (albeit different and not well publicized) to the other side. Tit for tat seems pretty logical actually considering the 'other side' has promised some punitive retaliation for our cyber incursions and embargoes.

I believe RBS could be either a innocent and massive system meltdown, a short squeeze on that bank or a hacked invasion into the banking computer system. None of those is a good thing.

Coming to a bank near you?

Hacking is a diversion

Submitted by realitybiter on June 24, 2012 - 11:46am.

What if the US is hacking its own banks? What if TPTB realize that they are weeks away from getting the capital kimono ripped away, so instead of waiting they create a diversion.

"O, we have been hacked!" Terrorists did it! We are shutting down the banks and will re-open when safety can be restored. Nothing to see here.

At the same time chaos ensues. The devaluation is now blamed on the chaos that the self-inflicted hacking created. Foreign debts are null and void. Pension funds conveniently got hacked, too....Big jubilee. And the Senators go back to there previous romantic tryst with Dimon, and the sheeple can eat the scraps.

Just sayin'

There is likely no more secure network in the world than the banks. If they got hacked en masse it is because they did it themselves.

The Big Long

Submitted by realitybiter on June 24, 2012 - 11:50am.

The PM trade has a lot of similarities to the CDS trade that Burry put on in 2005 or 6. He went through huge agony keeping that trade on so that it could eventually get to fruition and reap several hundred percent gains. His clients hated him. He was wrong a lot before he was right a lot. He contends that the other side of the trade tried to force him out by squeezing the price against him. Hmmmm.

(even after he made is clients piles of money they pulled their money....they couldn't stand the anxiety and temporary losses....today he only manages his own money -in farmland and gold, btw)

(if you haven't seen the Burry commencement video at UCLA check it out)

Burry is a really interesting personal story. Do some video searches and you will find more than enough.

The Taibi and Yves video is worth watching, too. Jesse has it: http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2012/06/bill-moyers-with-matt-taibbi-and-yves.html

Q: What value is it to have anyone testify in front of the Senate or Congress if they aren't sworn in? Bachus is obviously crooked. Whatever happened to "I've nothing to hide"?

It seems so much like 2007, only this time subprime mortgage debt is sovereign debt. I think your PMs are gonna do just fine. Like subprime and the CDS' attached to it, the EE will try to talk it down, misprice it, whatever it takes - to deny what is inevitable.

My big question is this: When this era of big banking fails and banks go back to being simple utilities, what will the economy look like? How many companies thrive on the back of this distorted banking system? What percentage of server sales will get wiped out? Cisco sells nearly a quarter of its switches and routers to the govt.....what percentage to the finance industry? I think the entire economy is going to take a big hit as this process unwinds back to a sustainable system....

It is all quite crazy.

volatility

Submitted by SilverWealth on June 24, 2012 - 11:50am.

a consideration completely forgotten in this debate is that when you hold metals as security against calamity it is a commodity and it is much,much more volatile in its fluctuations in price than the Dollar. PM salesmen will use arguments like 'fiat is going to zero' and 'I'd rather own something substantial' etc. to support the feeling that metals are safe. Or the tried and true 'run on the Banks' movie.

But on closer examination anyone overweighting in metals to preserve wealth is going to experience huge downdrafts in purchasing power before the final deluge whenever that may be. Therefore that person is speculating. You simply cannot compare any downdraft in the dollar seen thus far with the downdrafts that have already occured in silver and gold.

imo the price of metals will get even more volatile and should gold go to 12 or 1300 it can easily then shoot straight up to 2300 after wiping out much of the gold community at the bottom in a war of attrition and despair. It remains a speculation. Those who bought gold at 900 have seen their gains erode by 50% now. If gold were to go 200 points lower, many of those people will get scared and sell to preserve profits. We are not yet at a point where there us any disgust with the Dollar. This is the whole problem. Until the dollar is turned on, people will continue to overtly or subliminally value their wealth in dollar signs imo. And guessing as to when the dollar falls under attack is pure 100% speculation and falls under the category labeled 'see Lindsey Williams'.

Ulsterbank now backtracking.

Submitted by Number 47 on June 24, 2012 - 11:53am.

From RTE

Ulster Bank has said that the original deadline of tomorrow for the restoration of normal service will not be met.

The bank has said it has fixed the original technical issue but that it is having difficulties clearing the backlog in unprocessed transactions.

It is the fifth day of this disruption to Ulster Bank services, a small number of ATM and online services have also been interrupted according to the bank.

A small number! Not from what I am reading. Now saying it could be mid-week before normal service resumes.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to believe this is an IT mess. Unprocessed transactions are now the only issue according to their statement, how exactly does this explain the missing funds that people had before this started?

@57Goldtop...+1..

Submitted by maravich44 on June 24, 2012 - 11:54am.

...damn, takes me back to the schooldays when my answer was "I was going to say what he just said" This shit ain't no accident and it is right in our face, bold and desperate,which in an odd way gives me hope. This town is wearing "Tatters"...

@ realitybiter - Bingo!

Submitted by John Galt on June 24, 2012 - 12:00pm.

A false flag "hack" to take down the banking system would be my best guess too.

The system is already in collapse, so the easiest way to divert attention and relieve savers of their assets would be to pin the blame on some external entity i.e. Iranian terrorists holed up in a cave using IPads to hack in and collapse the banking system of the Western world.

Heck, if you can convince the majority that some garbage can fires could take down WTC-7, then this sales job will be a piece of cake.

That said, maybe Nat West is the start of a growing contagion, or a beta test for the one to come.