I do wish to note a couple of things however.
First - We are watching the inevitable effects of the experiment in socialism when it reaches its logical conclusion. When generations are either taught or have it implied to them that they can allow their governments to run up ruinous levels of debt and yet suffer no consequences whatsoever, they have little to no incentive to throw out the political leaders who hold the actual purse strings. The cradle to grave policies of the nanny state are not sustainable over the long haul. The reason is clear - politicians make promises to pay that they cannot keep. Eventually there is not enough money to cover the promises and the government is forced to borrow to the point that it can no longer afford to pay the rate of interest that creditors demand to compensate them for the risk.
We all know that the proposal to confiscate up to 9.9% of the savings accounts of those who have worked hard to amass that money is nothing more than government sanctioned THEFT. Spare us the insults of calling it a "tax" and thereby seeking to justify this reprehensible policy. People use banks because of one reason and one reason only - TRUST. Take that away and you have destroyed the foundation of the banking system.
Put yourself in the place of an average European citizen who is watching this debacle unfold before their eyes. Would you feel the least bit secure if you had now been awakened to the fact that your government's leaders had spent the nation into bankruptcy and were suggesting that as part of the solution to their folly that those same fools who ran up the debt in the first place now be permitted to raid your personal savings account to somehow solve a problem of their creation? What would you do in their situation? I tell you what I would do; I would immediately begin transferring money out of banks in any of those nations which had been on the receiving end of bailouts from the ECB and the IMF. I would move that money into gold and would not think twice about doing it. If those deposits are no longer sacred, then what is to prevent futures politicans from raiding them whensoever they please?
Once again we have collusion between the financial elites that run the monetary system and the big banks. I have nothing but scorn and contempt for these large banks who gorged themselves on various government bonds and are now in the position of watching their balance sheets go to hell in a handbasket as the value of those bonds plummet. What really makes my blood boil however is that these banks have adopted a mentality that they can go running and screaming like spoiled children to their respective political leaders to use the PUBLIC's MONEY to save them from their own damned stupidity and greed.
Excuse me, but I was once naively of the opinion that the banks existed to make loans to the public. Apparently that is no longer the case - now the banks exist in order to see money taken from their depositors to save their own rear ends for buying debt that no one in their right mind would have purchased.
I do wish to add however, that even though I am disgusted at this unholy alliance between the big banks and the monetary masters, the people in these respective nations do bear some culpability in this matter; they are not without any blame whatsoever. Last time I checked these people vote and they voted to put enough politicians in power to continue spending. As long as the people keep putting the same kind of irresponsible, short-sighted lackeys into positions of power, why should they expect these leaders to change their ways. Those who would ruin their own nations for the sake of short-term political gain deserve to be unceremoniously thrown out of office.
By the way, America, are you watching what is happening here because we are following in the same trajectory as many of these Euro Zone nations.
On gold - the flight to safe haven was on display today with that buying strong enough to propel gold through the psychological $1600 level. Watching it soar throught that level overnight during the Asian session was noteworthy because at one point, a wave of fierce selling came out of nowhere and took the price all the way back down to below its Friday settlement price. The dip did not last long - if you blinked you missed it - but it was very obvious that someone was trying to cap the price and prevent the metal from moving even higher.
All day long the move higher was being resisted by a strong overhead seller. My guess is that this is not hedge fund selling but rather selling originating from the official sector. I also noted today that the Euro, which was slammed down in Asia at one point today moved all the way back up to above the 1.30 level. The manner in which it did so looked very peculiar to me.
I hate to say that the ECB was involved when I have no proof of this but it was very odd to see anyone at all anxious to buy that currency for any reason today given the ramifications of the Cyprus mess. Maybe, just maybe, the monetary masters were out in full force today attemping to prevent a meltdown of their dearly beloved Euro. I simply have no other explanation for the midday move higher in the Euro off its worst levels.
I want to add here that their best efforts notwithstadning EURO GOLD soared higher adding 1.5% today. It is near 1237 euros as I write this. As a matter of fact, gold took off today in terms of all the major currencies again. This is continued evidence to me that gold is getting some serious attention by those who are growing increasingly disconcerted with the policies of the Western Central Banks and their respective finance ministers/leaders.
The chart below notes that various levels that have technical significance for gold. It will take a push through $1620 to really begin a short covering process in earnest. I noted in my KWN Weekly Metals Wrap interview that the hedge fund short position was the largest on record. Some of that began to come off today. There still remains a large number of those shorts however.
Ideally, gold will stay ABOVE $1600 but at the very least, it should remain above $1585 or so to suggest that it has entered yet again into a new and higher trading range.
Once again the useless gold mining shares did nothing to aid the upward progess of the actual metal as they were weak all day long and ended closing down on their lows. No wonder no one wants to own the damned things. As far as providing any decent returns on investment, they suck. What else can I say...
Currency traders had best prepare to go another week without much sleep. Sigh... maybe we can get some ingenius inventor to come up with a pill that provides the human body with the same benefits of getting a decent 7 - 8 hours worth of sleep in a night. I know I will be the first in line to sign up for that...
