Thai Guru's Gold und Silber ... (Informationen und Vermutungen)

I have repeated my angst/disgust and thoughts on this matter often, including my prediction that when this scandal breaks it will dwarf Watergate. Not only will the US financial and real estate market be in shambles, but it will make a mockery of US foreign policy as far as Africa and the poor in other continents are concerned.

This now takes us full circle to the proposed IMF gold sale plan to be presented next month. As you well know this plan is championed by Gold Cartel sycophant Gordon Brown of England and tolerated by South African traitor Trevor Manuel. As recently brought to your attention, even talk of these sales is affecting the price of gold and South Africa’s WORKERS. The devious Brown and Manuel continue to proceed even though today’s gold prices ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH OR HIGH ENOUGH to seriously help the economy and the poor of South Africa:

Bill,
Here is an excerpt regarding job losses in South Africa’s gold mining industry from January 2003 to June 2004 during which time the Rand price of gold lost 25%.

In a couple of years we will have a benchmark for how many jobs have been missing from the African Gold mining industry for decades as Central Banks leased out their gold to contain the price rise.

Regards,
Dave

" South Africa's fabled gold-mining industry lost 11,000 jobs from January 2003 to June 2004, in part because income from its dollar-denominated exports fell sharply. Botswana's budget tipped from a surplus to a $325 million deficit last year as its dollar income from diamond sales was diluted by a 10 percent rise in its currency, the pula.

All these nations, and nearby Namibia, share a common problem: their currencies are pegged one-to-one to South Africa's rand, which has recorded a big rise against the dollar (Botswana's pula is pegged to a basket of currencies dominated by the rand.) The euro has risen 52 percent against the dollar since February 2002, but the rand, driven by a boom in commodities like gold, has nearly doubled in value.

"The weak dollar is bad economic news for countries that are not on a dollar-parity system," said Anthony Twine, a senior economist at Econometrix, a Johannesburg consultant. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03…ldbusiness/12africa.html?

-END-

Each miner supports 10 to 12 others according to Bheki Sibiya, the chairman of South African Airways in 2001. This does not include the MANY thousands of black miners who cannot get work because of the low gold price.

GATA is fighting the good fight to make things right. We need your help and we need it now. Please respond to Ed Steer’s CALL TO ARMS. This is your opportunity to be a part of history. BE THERE to tell your kids and grandkids you knew what was going on and did something about it.

GATA BE IN IT TO WIN IT!

MIDAS

Appendix

Rich is SO RIGHT:

Bill,
Ed Steer's "Call to Arms" letter is concise, intelligent, and powerful. It is an outstanding expression of our plight. My own letter, which was referenced in Midas, was sent to a dozen companies weeks ago, and not one has responded with even a courtesy acknowledgement. It is a pathetic situation and our efforts through GATA could not be more betrayed and unappreciated. Perhaps employing Ed's excellent message will have a better outcome.

My personal disgust with the entire precious metals industry, as an investment vehicle, is at an all time high. In my own letter, I compared the precious metals sectors dismal share performance with other commodity shares, such as: oil, natural gas, iron ore, copper, uranium, and coal, as a means of indicating to these senior executives that eventually all investors will be forced to exit this industry, as a practical matter, in order to pursue better investments. Accordingly, even as a firm believer, it is becoming more and more difficult for me to justify my own long positions in this industry, which has been a mediocre performer for at least fifteen months. Contrarily, my other hard asset investments have surpassed expectations.

This comparative analogy of mine hoped to serve as both a wake-up call and encouragement to support GATA's Gold Rush 21. Unfortunately, it fell upon deaf ears. Clearly, these senior executives are content with dismal share performance and price fixing of their commodity, as long as they continue to reap the benefits of their generous salaries and other perks.

Their failure to respond by email with a simple courtesy acknowledgement is incredulous, and indicates to me that they are only concerned with the Wall Street, money manager types. They are content to remain tacit and allow GATA to do their heavy lifting. Accordingly, they do not deserve either the shareholders' loyalty or GATA's tireless efforts to correct this wrong, as there is nothing more pathetic then those who will not help themselves.

Concomitantly, my past formal complaints to Attorney General Elliott Spitzer, Governor Pataki, Senators' Clinton and Schumer, and the CFTC about naked shorting and price fixing on the COMEX, which were made through formal letters emailed about a year ago, were met with the same lack of response or stonewalling. Apparently, elected officials, regulatory authorities, and senior executives all share the same arrogant lack of accountability to the common shareholder.

Unfortunately, I believe that in this era of litigation, the only action these useless cowards will understand is a shareholders lawsuit. I believe there is a basis for such a course of action, because their continual failure to formally protest the blatant price fixing, which has been substantiated by GATA to an extremely high legal standard, makes them complicit through negligent retention. At some point there is an industry standard for expectations, which defines reasonable action versus negligence and whether prudent behavior was undertaken. Examples abound in which agricultural producers protested the imposition of government imposed tariffs by no longer producing under the existing price structure. Consequently, the prices skyrocketed in response to the diminished supply, and the tariffs were either lifted or the increased price was met. That standard is prevalent in a free market, free enterprise environment and represents anticipated cost reward behavior. The precious metals industry has been hit over the head with cold, hard, verifiable evidence, which substantiates that price fixing of their product exists; yet, they fail to act in a manner commensurate to a producer. Their inaction is contrary to usual free enterprise expectations. It is my premise that under such circumstances, these companies have an obligation to their shareholders to initiate at least a formal inquiry to the appropriate governing authority. Failing to do so, on behalf of shareholders grievances, should make them negligent. Negligence is the foundation for monetary damage awards. Their inept, impotence is an exact opposite to the tireless, extraordinary, efforts of GATA to end this fraud against shareholders.

Their continual inaction contradicts any minimal standard of due diligence and warrants legal retaliation by shareholders. A legal notice of intent will force them to respond, even if only through their legal counsel. If the Gold Rush 21 opportunity presently being offered is not responded to, and shareholders letters are continually ignored; then I believe our next course of action as shareholders must be in the courts.

Regards,
Rich Caccavale

MIDAS: Rich has it nailed. More on this tomorrow.

***

This article on a different industry in sub-Saharan Africa reveals the cost pressures on many of their industries due to the rise in the rand price. It will give you some idea what a number of the South African gold producers are going through. For South Africa’s own finance minister to acquiesce to The Gold Cartel ought to stir the ZULUS into a revolt.

Dollar's Fall Silences Africa's Garment Factories
Published: March 12, 2005

(Page 2 of 2)

In places like Lesotho, a nation of 1.8 million that is already wrestling with AIDS and drought, the news is perhaps most wrenching. Lesotho's garment industry - and therefore its manufacturing base - rests on the faltering premise that Americans will buy all the clothes that it can sew.

That premise originates in a law, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which Congress enacted in 2000 in an effort to help sub-Saharan nations lift themselves from poverty. Nations meeting the law's criteria, which range from political pluralism to support for free markets, are allowed to export any of 1,600 products to the United States duty-free.

With a progressive government and extremely low tax rates, Lesotho was one of the biggest winners: clothing exports to the United States ballooned to $500 million last year, from just $100 million in 2001 - nearly a third of all clothing exports by the 37 nations given duty-free status.

The textile boom was a salvation to Lesotho, which lost 60,000 jobs in the 1990's as South Africa reduced migrant labor at its gold and coal mines. Textile factory employment rose from 20,000 jobs before the law to more than 50,000 last year.

When the dollar was more robust, some companies from Taiwan built projects - modern, efficient factories and a mill to produce denim fabric - that is vital to the industry's long-term health. By late 2007, garment makers must make or buy their fabrics in sub-Saharan Africa or lose their right to ship goods duty-free to the United States.

That denim mill probably assures that Lesotho's blue-jeans makers, who turn out 26 million pairs a year, will survive in some form. But the dollar's slide has damped prospects for a knitted-fabric mill.

In Maputsoe, a dog-eared settlement of about 10,000, two of nine garment factories closed in December and January, leaving their workers stunned and, often, penniless.

Itumeleng Khasane was in her fourth month of sewing Old Navy T-shirts at TW Garments in Maputsoe when she went to collect her paycheck on Dec. 17 during the factory's Christmas break. At her last payday in mid-November, it was clear that the factory was struggling: she received only about $54, half the wages due for a month's work.

But when she arrived at the factory that day, she said recently, nobody was there. "We didn't get our money," she said. "We didn't get a salary; we didn't get a holiday bonus; we didn't get a termination payment."

More recently, Ms. Khasane was standing in a crowd of women, along with a few men, outside Johnson Work Wear, a uniform maker that hired a handful of workers in January. It was, they said, their only prospect for another job. Many had arrived at dawn, carrying umbrellas to ward off the midday sun.

At 21, with a seventh-grade education, Ms. Khasane had been the sole wage-earner for a family of five - two sisters, a brother and her jobless father. Her mother died in 2002 at age 38. The family gets by now on handouts.

The second Maputsoe factory, Vogue Landmark Garments, shut down even more unexpectedly; workers say there was no hint of financial problems until they returned after the holiday break on Jan. 12 and found the doors locked.

Masello Motsosi, a 27-year-old sewing machine repairman, was supporting his wife and two boys, his parents and his in-laws on his $135-a-month salary. He used his last savings in January to pay the boys' school fees. "Now, there's nothing," he said.

Lesotho garment factories have closed before, and been snapped up quickly by other producers. But with the American market increasingly unprofitable, few expect that to happen this time. Nor is it easy to diversify away from United States buyers: Canada and Australia, among others, offer American-style tariff breaks, but their markets are too small to replace American orders. And the Chinese, with lower shipping costs and quicker turnaround times, loom ever larger as a competitor.

In response, the nation's biggest garment makers are slashing costs - and praying for an exchange-rate turnaround. "Denim isn't profitable right now," said Oliver Li, the manager of the Global Textiles factory owned by the Nien Hsing Textile Company. It is one of three factories that still churn out up to 70,000 pairs of jeans daily.

"It's not only the appreciation of the rand, but other things like electricity and water," Mr. Li said. "They're all more expensive than before because we pay for them with our dollar income."

At its three factories in Maseru, the Taiwan-based Nien Hsing has dimmed lights, switched from cellphones to two-way radios for communications between plants and even told its staff to carpool to save gasoline.

Not long ago, Lesotho government officials and textile factory managers blitzed Congress, the White House, major retailers in New York and San Francisco and a trade show in Las Vegas with a well-honed argument: Lesotho may not always be cheapest, but it is dependable, honest and squeaky clean on human rights and sweatshop issues that have embarrassed American retailers like Nike in the past.

That, the nation's trade minister, Mpho Malie, says bluntly, may not always be true of certain competitors. "We're not only talking about the quality of garments, but also the quality of workers' conditions on the factory floors - labor issues, environmental issues," he said in an interview in his Maseru office. "Because in the future, a client will come to you and say, Where are you sourcing from, and what are you doing about the welfare of the people you are sourcing from?"

That argument seems to have won over some of the more socially conscious garment buyers in the United States, like Levi Strauss and Gap, which have maintained or increased their orders here.

Whether it will play with mainstream American retailers for whom price is the bottom line is more problematic. "As a country, we think that we are doing something right," Mr. Malie said. "We're saying that tomorrow, there will be questionable things about China - things that are not only a government question, but that your consumers in the long run are going to question."

He said that when the honeymoon with Chinese suppliers was over, "those questions will have to be answered."

Glaubt ihr das der Goldpreis bald wieder ein Tief nach unten haben wird so wie vor 6 wochen?

Ich gehe davon aus, dass wir uns trotz der erfreulichen Entwicklung der letzten 2 Wochen immer noch in einer Kosolidierungsphase befinden die bis Ende April bzw. Ende Mai ausgestanden sein sollte. Diese Annahme schließt einen möglichen Rücksetzer beim Gold Bugs-Index (HUI) bis an die 200 und evtl. sogar darunter ein.

Nach Beendigung der Konsolidierung sollte die Hausse der Gold-Aktien dann ab Mai/Juni wieder an Dynamik gewinnen.
Meine unmassgeliche Prognose lautet, dass der HUI spätestens im Verlauf der Sommermonate ein neues Allzeithoch markiert und nach Durchbruch des charttechnischen Widerstandes bei 257 Punkten in der zweiten Jahreshälfte die 300er-Marke ins Visier nimmt. Ich denke, dass die nächsten zwei Monate eine letzte Gelegenheit darstellen sich auf aktuellem Niveau nochmals relativ günstig einzudecken bzw. den einen oder anderen Wert nachzukaufen.

Eine schöne Arbeitswoche wünsche ich allen.

March 14 – Gold $440.40 down $5.10 – Silver $7.36 down 15 cents

GATA On A Roll – Why It Is So Important To You And Other Gold Investors

Don't duck the most difficult problems. That just insures that the hardest part will be left when you're most tired. Get the big one done - it's downhill from then on ... Norman Vincent Peale
GO GATA!!!
There is so much happening out there in terms of our gold world it is hard to know where to start. Might as well begin by commenting on the same crap The Gold Cartel is throwing our way and repeat myself in the process – which is what I do over and over because the cabal keeps repeating their same manipulation modus operandi.

As brought to your attention a zillion times, The Gold Cartel caps gold on dollar weakness. In doing so they recruit other bullion banks on their side on the way up as these banks want to trade with the US Government and their surrogate trading partners in The Gold Cartel.

Later on in gold rallies, the bullion banks in the cabal KNOW what is coming and when their counter-attack against gold is going to kick in. Take last night for example. Gold immediately opened up $1 lower in Access trading even though the dollar was slightly lower. The dollar then rose and gold dropped another dollar. By this morning gold was $3 to $4 lower and it was downhill from there. Not even the faintest hint of a rally all session long. This confirmed the suspicious trading in the senior gold shares on Thursday and Friday. Time and time again they WEAKEN in noticeable fashion (during gold strength) a day or two before The Gold Cartel mauls the bullion price. This is nothing less than a criminal operation. You have a Mafia stealing your money in plain view of the regulators who do zip to go after them. Let’s hear it for American democracy again, which has transformed itself into an Orwellian democracy – one for the elitists and major bullion banks, not one for you and me and the unknowing American public.

Let me bring Rhody up here to explain (in different fashion) what The Gold Cartel is doing. He is right on:

'Morning guys:
This is an interesting synopsis of the present and past gold situation.

If you look at the RSI graphs, you can see that gold is already overbought, but at a lower price level than the last cycle. The central bank/CARTEL capping is working. They have not turned off the bull, but the potential exists. We are now in a race. Either they turn back gold before the US dollar collapses or not. I don't think they will, but FOREX 80 is very strong support.

I did a little figuring with the support line on the gold price (the heavy blue line below). It has been rock steady support. Since it is linear, it is rising at the rate of $42 per year, and this is dead simple to calculate, even with my miniscule intellect. This rise is linear, and the inflation shrink inflicted on your wealth is exponential. This is not good. Bear with me on this. If you bought gold at the beginning of the graph around Aug 2002 at $300 per ounce (because you are astute and always buy at the 200 day moving average) you would have made $42 by Aug 2003, a profit of 14%. One year later, you still make $42 but its on gold that is now priced at $342 so the gain in holding gold over paper is

12%. One year later, the base price has risen to $384 and holding gold has earned you 11%. One more year has passed and gold should be $426 this August and your rate of return is now about 10%. Do I detect a trend of diminishing returns?????? At this rate, in three more years, gold will be yielding 7% and that's about the present inflation rate. After that, gold becomes a loser relative to inflation or relative to other vehicles that are rising faster than inflation, like copper.

What I am saying with all this blather is that unless the capping by the central bank/CARTEL ends, and gold turns exponential like inflation, gold will not be carrying out its traditional function as an inflation hedge in just three more years. If you look at this from the point of view of the central banks, if they thought selling gold at $400 was cheap in 2004 relative to the price of oil and most other commodities, how are they going to feel about flogging gold at $550 in three years with oil at $100 and copper at $2.50?

Right now, with oil at $55, gold should be a minimum of $825. With oil at $100, gold should be a minimum of $1500 per ounce, yet that's where I expect oil will be unless we have a deflationary collapse. So is gold indicating a deflationary collapse, or is gold the victim of the most blatant market manipulation the world has ever seen?
Regards, Rhody.

Here's the Economic Reality Link:

http://er.unixgeeks.org/index.cgi/2005/03/12#ent1-cylinders

***

Remember, a Gold Cartel rule is the greater the reasons for the price of gold to fly, the greater the intensity of the price-capping. With the CRB going berserk, The Gold Cartel has prevented gold from "joining the party" to keep the world’s major inflation barometer in check – to calm down talk of the real US inflation.

On that note, I scoured the internet for a valid reason for the surge in the dollar today. Aha, in addition to calming markets down, according to a fellow Café member The Working Group on Financial markets, in conjunction with The Gold Cartel, is probably thinking ahead:

Bill,
Of all the annoying cabal rituals you so deftly document today's " pre-emptive gold bash ahead of the scary economic numbers" is one ritual I can't wait to end. With tomorrow's Treasury Department release of international capital flows and Wednesday's fourth-quarter current-account gap numbers it is imperative that when gold rallies it be from much lower levels. I expect both numbers to be VERY dollar bearish. The ferocity of the gold attack usually seems correlated to the bearishness of the data release. Judging by today I'd say these will be some ugly numbers.
James

The gold open interest rose a whopping 14,016 contracts to 317,078 which represents funds pouring in on the buy side and The Gold Cartel stuffing the advance. On that kind of massive buying, gold should have risen $10 to $15 an ounce and rallied like other commodities did on Friday. From Friday’s MIDAS:

"…The Gold Cartel went on another one of their patented price-capping routines for the rest of the day. As is almost AWAYS the case, gold made its highs early and then was held in lock down. Because of all the fund buying in gold, the bums had their hands full containing the surge. Volume was VERY heavy. John Brimelow told me late this afternoon the estimated volume was a huge 80,000 contracts, 18,000 of it coming in the last half-hour alone. 50,000 of the volume came after gold shot up $4 to $5. That will give you some idea of the firepower the corrupt ones threw at gold to keep its advance modest. To aid them their mission, these creeps then went after the gold shares and silver to calm things down. Have you ever seen such a consistent market farce in all your life?"

Contrast the action of rigged gold to free market soybeans. On Friday, while gold was capped, Beans soared 22 cents. Today, after bearish rain news from South America, March beans fell a piddly 2 ¾ cents, despite the rising dollar. Compare that action to the cabal controlled gold market on the Comex. Take oil for that matter. It rallied from nearly a buck in the tank to close 52 cents higher at $54.95 per barrel.

Silver continues to flail around. Its open interest gained 2,058 contracts to 104,232.

The euro gold price was last seen at 329.67.

For years MIDAS has said the key to the gold price will be for The Gold Cartel to be exposed and destroyed. Until then gold will never do what it should. The proof of that is now in the pudding – the pudding between how far gold has fallen behind the CRB.

Ok, enough of the lament and grumbling. The big news is GATA is on some roll. Following the impressive GCC gold report emanating from Dubai which states GATA is correct, India’s The Financial Express in New Delhi and Mumbai covered GATA’s CRB/gold press release.

At http://www.thebulliondesk.com:

Central bank intervention keeps gold prices lower: GATA

http://www.financialexpress.co…tory.php?content_id=85174

-END-

Then we have coverage on GATA supporter Hugo Salinas Price’s effort to remonetize silver in Mexico, followed by Peter Brimelow’s article in Dow Jones’s Market Watch.

These were the top two features on Kitco’s Latest Gold News for much of the morning:

Mexico Mulls Silver Lining Against Currency Crash - Reuters, Mar 14, 2005 07:23

Will gold sector miss the party? - MarketWatch, Mar 14, 2005 07:36

Peter's article was also one of the features all day at http://www.thebulliondesk.com.

Peter Brimelow (Market Watch) brought Frank Veneroso’s admonishment of GFMS and the World Gold Council to the attention of the mainstream investment world. We hope to be able to bring Frank’s full report to your attention ASAP. Both the World Gold Council and GFMS have some serious answering to do.

I cannot stress how important it is that GATA, and what we have uncovered, receive as much exposure as possible. WHY:

*When the investment world realizes GFMS and the WGC have been perpetuating a fraud concerning world gold demand is concerned, the shrewd ones in that world will want to know what is going on. They will find out these mainstream gold institutions deliberately understated demand to hide the amount of gold loans/swaps leaving the vaults of various central banks (accommodated by the cabal’s bullion banks like Morgan and Goldman) in order to manipulate/suppress the bullion price.

That is step one. Step two is they will then eventually realize (after reviewing the work of the GATA camp) that more than half the central bank gold is now gone – used up in The Gold Cartel’s scheme to keep the price down. Once the investment world realizes this, they will know the scheme CANNOT be maintained due to the true demand for gold around the world and inability of The Gold Cartel to hold down the price due to a dwindling supply.

As this becomes more and more understood, the price of gold will not just rise, it will go BERSERK, as investors around the world will all want in – especially with commodity prices on a tear and the dollar a "dead man walking."

The John Brimelow Report

C Bank seller? India buyer. GLD strange

Monday, March 14, 2005

Indian ex-duty premiums: AM $6.90, PM $7.01, with world gold at $443.80 and $442.80. Very ample for legal imports. These premiums probably understate the strength of the Indian bid to the world gold market during the course of their day. The Reserve Bank intervened aggressively towards the close, bringing the rupee well off its intra-day peak - notwithstanding which it finished at an import-facilitating 5-week high. Anyone wishing to force gold down is going to have to contend with strong buying from the world’s largest importer.

Despite a weakening yen (which normally bolsters appetite for yen gold futures) TOCOM, on finding world gold $4 or so higher than its Friday close, sold. Volume jumped 124% to equal 27,182 Comex lots, with the active contract closing at a 3 month high, up 12 yen. But open interest fell the equivalent of 3,039 Comex lots (9.45 tonnes) to equal only 95,904 Comex. Mitsubishi’s data implies the Public cut 13.4 tonnes from its long. World gold went out $2.10 below the NY close. Japan is no help to gold at present. Shanghai, on the other hand, is showing a slight premium.

NY on Friday traded 102,964 contracts, 29% more than the estimate; open interest rose 14,017 lots – a startling 46.6 tonnes for a gold price rise of $3.40.

Friday’s NY action is best summarized by Mitsui-London:

"The opening of New York markets on Friday appeared weak, and as a result, initiated selling right on the open. However, the Trade Balance numbers were reported worse than expected…Metals markets were caught short, and forced to cover. Very aggressive fund buying on the Comex pushed Gold up to a high of 447.00 bid"

Mitsui-London adds

"fund buying in gold became quite strong - with guesstimates of one fund buying anywhere from 8-15k lots."

On Friday, it will be recalled, gold traded sideways from 11 AM, trading an estimated 50,000 contracts, 63% of the day’s total – so 64,000 lots if actuality paced the estimate. It seems superfluous to observe that for a short seller to sell like this on a Friday afternoon, especially considering the concomitant behavior of the dollar and the CRB index, would have been an act of super natural courage. Such a party would surely have scaled up, as would a commercially motivated long. Those who suspect a Central Bank manager is active in gold can add Friday March 11 to their evidence collection.

There has been a good deal of discussion on this subject lately, which is summarized in the MarketWatch article constituting the second attachment.

As expected, the CFTC data showed a large increase in the spec long. UBS comments:

"In the week to 8 March …Net long positions increased by 1.9 million ounces to 14.3Moz as 1.24 Moz of new longs were added and 630koz of shorts were covered….. We estimate that the net long position now stands at about 16 million ounces…this is still 7-8 million ounces below the all time highs of last year…"

UBS raises the possibility that the presence of the ETFs may detract from the relevance of the previous high, having siphoned off some buying power. On reflection, this argument is unpersuasive. The type of operator with the stomach for the volatility of futures would probably find the lack of leverage of the ETFs boring. Where there may perhaps have been leakage is from large-cap gold equities.

GLD, according to its website, managed to add zero ounces to its holdings on Friday despite trading 2.7 Mm shares, an incredible 6 business days of no change. It would be nice if those concerned offered an explanation.

JB

CARTEL CAPITULATION WATCH

The DOW gained 30 to 10,804, while the DOG rose 9 to 2051. All is well on their planet. The mirage lives.

The dollar only rose .46 to 81.88. The March euro only fell .66 to 133.89.

Economic news:

But, there is no inflation:

09:56 Kuwait's oil minister expects oil $50-$55/barrel for rest of year -- Bloomberg
Minister believes oil may surpass $60/barrel. Firm expects rising demand to support oil prices and expects OPEC to add 1M bpd capacity. April WTI crude closed the overnight session at $54.25.
* * * * *

13:12 Japanese steelmakers to get 10-20% price increases for steel plate and sheet, reports Nikkei
Current prices are likely to be revised in April. Steelmakers have raised prices to automakers by 5-10% over the past 2 years. Latest increases will raise prices to levels seen prior to the nearly 30% reduction that took place after NSANY began cutting costs in 1999.
* * * * *

The CRB took a break for a change, yet lost only 1.37 to 317.24.

Insider selling of US stock picks up steam:

NEW YORK, March 14 (Reuters) - Sales of company stocks by U.S. executives last month reached the third-highest level for February in nine years, sending a bearish signal for stock investors, a survey said.

Insider sales in February surpassed January's, as expected. Insiders were lined up to sell stocks after the end of restrictions tied to the fourth-quarter earnings season, according to the survey by Thomson Financial.

More than 145.6 million shares were sold for a total of $4.8 billion, the third-highest level for February since 1996...

-END-

The latest on the Gold Cartel’s AIG:

AIG's Greenberg May Step Down as CEO, WSJ Reports

March 14 (Bloomberg) -- American International Group Inc.'s Maurice ``Hank'' Greenberg, who has run the world's largest insurer for almost four decades, may step down amid probes of potential earnings manipulation and bid-rigging, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

AIG's board may replace its 79-year-old chief executive officer with Co-Chief Operating Officer Martin Sullivan, 50, the Journal said earlier today, citing unidentified people. AIG spokesman Chris Winans declined to comment except to say ``the board has taken no action.'' Sullivan didn't return a phone call and Greenberg couldn't be reached for comment.

``With all the regulatory issues it's facing, anyone's tenure would be under threat,'' said Simon Clinch, who oversees about $1.3 billion of U.S. stock investments at Aberdeen Asset Management Plc in London. Aberdeen owns about 300,000 AIG shares.

The change in power would come about a month after New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer subpoenaed Greenberg amid an industrywide investigation of bid-rigging and insurance used to smooth earnings. Shares are down almost 12 percent since AIG disclosed subpoenas from Spitzer and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Feb. 14.

An icon of the insurance industry, Greenberg made more than $50 billion in acquisitions to reach 50 million customers in 130 countries. He attained one of the property and casualty industry's highest profit margins, made AIG the largest foreign life insurer in China, and diversified into airplane leasing and consumer loans….

-END-

Your fellow Café member tells it the way it is on this one:

Bill, as you probably already know, the board at AIG has asked Hank Greenburg to resign because of all the investigations. It looks to me as if it's another slap on the wrist for criminal activity by Elliot Spitzer without any prosecution or admission of wrong doing. The collusion between AIG and the other 8 or less manipulators to defraud investors out of tens of billions of dollars over the years will no doubt continue for a while longer, but it is very unsettling to me that the attorney general is covering up this crime (bigger than Enron or Worldcom) and for political reasons refuses to prosecute and is therefore enabling the fraud to continue. Doesn't this make Spitzer a co-conspirator in the same way the driver of the getaway car is just as guilty as the bank robber? While Spitzer is somewhat of a hero to many small investors, his refusal to expose and prosecute the crime makes him equally guilty since the crimes could not continue if not for his help. Can the attorney general be prosecuted? Gene C

Speaking of which – good news for the Gold Cartel and their gold share manipulation program:

STOCKGATE TODAY
An online newspaper reporting the issues of Securities Fraud
SEC’s Donaldson to Senate on Naked Shorting "Shorting Selling is not Illegal" – March 10, 2005
David Patch

For those fighting the uphill battle of abusive naked shorting the March 9th Senate Hearing with Chairman Donaldson was at least amusing to watch.

http://www.investigatethesec.com/DP110305.htm

-END-

More food for thought on oil, the euro, trade and its implications:

Good evening Bill,
We know that the US was quite upset with Iraq some years ago whewn Hussein decided to price their oil in euros and not dollars.

The fact that countries other than the US have to buy dollars in order to pay for their oil helps to set a floor for the dollar - a somewhat wobbly floor recently, but the situation would have been a lot worse if a good portion of the oil from OPEC was priced in euros, not in dollars.

In today's Midas your report:

Rome, March 11, IRNA -- Iran and Italy signed an economic cooperation protocol worth three billion euros here Thursday night, based on which the Italian government is urged to provide Tehran with industrial machinery upon request, in return for Iranian oil. -END-

At first glance this agreement would seem to be one of barter trade: Iran sends oil to Italy - to the tune of 3 billion euros, not peanuts at all - and on request Italy will send industrial machinery to Iran. Not a mention of dollars or even of the pricing of oil in euros.

This could be something very interesting in itself, but just think of the implications if a few more sizable deals like this go through.

Have a good week
daan

Warnings on the fate of the dollar are mounting:

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03102005.html

"The dollar's value and status as reserve currency cannot forever stand the trade and budget deficits that are now part and parcel of America's economic policy. Unless there are major changes soon, America's economic future is a third world work force with a banana democracy's worthless currency." Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

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This FT piece received much play yesterday:

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/5b00c…d9-9d6e-00000e2511c8.html

Growing fears credit boom may implode
By Dan Roberts and David Wighton in New York and Peter Thal Larsen in London
Published: March 13 2005 21:42 | Last updated: March 13 2005 21:42

Bankruptcy advisers are hiring extra staff amid fears that an end to the global credit boom could spark a surge in business failures in the US and Europe.

Unusually loose lending conditions have encouraged record borrowing by speculative-grade companies, with leveraged buy-outs and debt refinancing on both sides of the Atlantic generating more than $100bn of deals in the past eight months.

But last week's fall in the price of US Treasury bonds, coinciding with signs that bankers are struggling to complete riskier corporate bond issues, has added to a sense of nervousness in some quarters.

Although corporate default rates remain low, some fear the legacy of recent private equity buy-outs and hedge fund investments in distressed debt will be a swath of over-leveraged companies ill-equipped to survive in less benign conditions...

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