Interesting........Gold is up 30% so far this year.

[Christians4LessGvt]

European Central Banks Halt Gold Sales

Monday, 27 Sep 2010

By: Jack Farchy, Financial Times  

Europe's central banks have all but halted sales of their gold reserves,
ending a run of large disposals each year for more than a decade.

The central banks of the euro zone plus Sweden and Switzerland are bound
by the Central Bank Gold Agreement, which caps their collective sales.

In the CBGA's year to September, which expired on Sunday, the signatories
sold 6.2 tons, down 96 per cent, according to provisional data.

The sales are the lowest since the agreement was signed in 1999 and well below
the peak of 497 tons in 2004-05.

The shift away from gold selling comes as European central banks reassess gold
amid the financial crisis and Europe?s sovereign debt crisis.

In the 1990s and 2000s, central banks swapped their non- yielding bullion for
sovereign debt, which gives a steady annual return. But now, central banks
and investors are seeking the security of gold.

The lack of heavy selling is important for gold prices both because a significant
source of supply has been withdrawn from the market, and because it has given
psychological support to the gold price. On Friday, bullion hit a record of $1,300
an ounce and another record today.

"Clearly now it's a different world; the mentality is completely different,"
said Jonathan Spall, director of precious metals sales at Barclays Capital.

European central banks are unlikely to sell much more gold in the new CBGA year,
according to a survey by the Financial Times.

Although many central banks declined to detail their sales plans, the responses of
some, along with numerous interviews with bankers and consultants, suggest it is
unlikely there will be a return to the trend of the past decade, when CBGA signatories
sold on average 388 tons a year.

The central banks of Sweden, Slovakia, Ireland and Slovenia said they had no plans
to sell, while Switzerland reiterated a previous statement to the same effect.

The CBGA was first signed after gold miners protested that central banks' rush to sell
was depressing prices.

In previous years signatories haggled for individual allowances to sell under the CBGA,
but the most recent renewal of the agreement in 2009 contained no such quotas,
according to Darko Bohnec, vice governor of Slovenia's central bank.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/39376353

[sirs]

"We have to pass it, to see what's in it"

One of the many slick tricks of the Obama administration was to insert a provision in the massive Obamacare legislation regulating people who sell gold. This had nothing to do with medical care but everything to do with sneaking in an extension of the government's power over gold, in a bill too big for most people to read.

Gold has long been a source of frustration for politicians who want to extend their power over the economy. First of all, the gold standard cramped their style because there is only so much money you can print when every dollar bill can be turned in to the government, to be exchanged for the equivalent amount of gold.

When the amount of money the government can print is limited by how much gold the government has, politicians cannot pay off a massive national debt by just printing more money and repaying the owners of government bonds with dollars that are cheaper than the dollars with which the bonds were bought. In other words, politicians cannot cheat people as easily.

That was just one of the ways that the gold standard cramped politicians' style-- and just one of the reasons they got rid of it. One of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first acts as president was to take the United States off the gold standard in 1933.

But, even with the gold standard gone, the ability of private individuals to buy gold reduces the ability of the government to steal the value of their money by printing more money.

Inflation is a quiet but effective way for the government to transfer resources from the people to itself, without raising taxes. A hundred dollar bill would buy less in 1998 than a $20 bill would buy in the 1960s. This means that anyone who kept his money in a safe over those years would have lost 80 percent of its value, because no safe can keep your money safe from politicians who control the printing presses.

That is why some people buy gold when they lose confidence in the government's managing of its money. Usually that is when inflation is either under way or looming on the horizon. When many people start transferring their wealth from dollars into gold, that restricts the ability of politicians to steal from them through inflation.

Even though there is currently very little inflation, purchases of gold have nevertheless skyrocketed. Ordinarily, most gold is bought for producing jewelry or for various industrial purposes, more so than as an investment. But, at times within the past two years, most gold has been bought by investors.

What that suggests is that increasing numbers of people don't trust this administration's economic policies, especially their huge and growing deficits, which add up to a record-breaking national debt.

When a national debt reaches an unsustainable amount, there is always a temptation to pay it off with inflated dollars. There is the same temptation when the Social Security system starts paying out more money to baby boom retirees than it is taking in from current workers.

Whether gold is a good investment for individuals, and whether the gold standard is the right system for a country, are much more complicated questions than can be answered here. But what is clear is that the Obama administration sees people's freedom to buy and sell gold as something that can limit what the government can do.

Indeed, freedom in general cramps the government's style. Those on the left may not be against freedom in general. But, at every turn, they find the freedoms granted by the Constitution of the United States hampering the left's agenda of imposing their superior wisdom and virtue on the rest of us.

The desire to restrain or control the buying and selling of gold is just one of the many signs of the inherent conflict between the freedom of the individual and the left's attempts to control our lives.

Sneaking a provision on gold purchases and sales into massive legislation that is supposedly about medical care is just one of the many cynical tricks used to circumvent the public's right to know how they are being governed. The Constitution begins, "We the people" but, to the left, both the people and the Constitution are just things to circumvent in order to carry out their agenda.


Politics Versus Gold

[Christians4LessGvt]

Gold ? A Matter of Math

On the rising price of gold, the numbers tell the story:

1) Historically, the supply of gold expands at an annual rate of about 2%

2) Demand for gold also grows at an annual rate of 2%

3) World population growth is 1.3% annually

4) Gold reserves are depleting at 6% annually

5) Gold is the historic "currency" of choice.

While supply (1) may currently be meeting demand (2), global population growth (3)
and depleting reserves (4) will continue to put upward pressure on the price of gold.
The fact that gold is priced in weakening dollars simply exacerbates the perception
of increasing value. In spite of short-term volatility, the long-term trend for gold is up.

[sirs]

And all the while, under this Obomination of an administration, the government slips in even more regulatory control of an area that normally diminishes their control, when inflation rises.  Pretty slick.  Have you heard any campaign messages from any Dems touting this achievement??

[Xavier_Onassis]

Anyone can buy or sell all the gold they want. You clowns are delusional.

[sirs]

Did anyone claim you couldn't??  Looks like the delusional one here is you

[BT]

Sowell says the government snuck in legislation to regulate the people who sell gold. What he didn't see fit to do was to explain what those regulations were and how those regulations would curtail freedom.

[Xavier_Onassis]

After bitching and stewing, pissing and moaning about how the evil Obama has deprived someone of the right to buy and sell gold, based on a rumor by that hack "Uncle Tom" Sowell, now you tell me that I am delusional for saying it is all bullshit and that no one has been deprived of any right.

Continue your inane discussion. BT seems to be the only sane person, besides me, posting about this.

[Christians4LessGvt]

BT seems to be the only sane person, besides me, posting about this.

The picture below shows the reminder note I placed on my computer
monitor that shows I bought Gold at $875 and it now sits at over $1300.
So "only sane person" wise-guy what was your buy-in price?

[sirs]

I do believe the point Bt & our last vestage of liberal insanity were missing, was the point Sowell was making.....that of still MORE Government regulations, buried in a piece of a 2000+ piece of legislation that apparently no legislator has had time to read, regarding an issue that has nothing to do with the legislation in question, but prescious plenty to do with the one area the Government has little currency control over.

So, anyone want to actually address that point, being made, vs the misidrected effort in trying to claim some overt restriction in buying/selling

[Xavier_Onassis]

The delusion is that somehow the government has prevented people from buying gold. This is totally false, and so far none of you, nor your idol Sowell has actually posted a thing about the ostensible legislation, which does not seem to have passed. All we know is that Sowell (not a source I consider credible) said something about some law that has something to do with gold. So whucking fut!

The delusion had nothing about buying gold. So far as your keen sense of financial acumen, I merely have this to say: every pig finds an acorn sometimes. Good for you. I have bought and sold GLD a couple of times, making about 5% in four to six weeks each time. I own funds that trade in it as well.

[sirs]

The delusion is claiming something that never was (such as "the government has prevented people from buying gold")

[BT]

http://www.pppnet.org/pdf/crs._1099.pdf

Learn something.

[Christians4LessGvt]

http://www.pppnet.org/pdf/crs._1099.pdf
Learn something.

BT....I am hearing lots about this already.
This is going to be a FRIGGIN NIGHTMARE for business if this stands.
Costs costs costs costs costs....which will all be passed on to "soccer Moms"
by a guy that have NEVER been in business as much as running a hot dog stand!
Already 239 House Democrats voted for repeal of this non-sense
Everyday I find it even more incredible he ever got elected.

[BT]

Yeah it's a piece of crappy legislation.

It would be interesting to find out who was responsible for inserting it in the bill.

Was it prompted by calls from the GOP to come up with ways to fund the bill?

Who knows.