Happy Easter to All

With all the markets closed, this is going to be a very short report.

The first order of business is the Commitment of Traders Report for positions held at the end of trading on Tuesday, March 30th. This report was issued yesterday afternoon. In silver, I was hoping for an improvement... but that didn't happen, as the U.S. bullion banks increased their net short position, this time by a smallish 619 contracts. The '4 or less' bullion banks are short 240 million ounces of silver... and the '8 or less' trader are short about 310 million ounces.

In percentage terms, the '4 or less' traders hold around 53% of the entire Comex short position in silver... and the '8 or less' traders [which includes the '4 or less'] are short about 69% of the entire Comex silver market.

Gold, on the other hand, was entirely different. The U.S. bullion banks decreased their net short position by a chunky 16,132 contracts. They did this by buying 10,968 long positions and covering 5,164 short positions. This ratio of changes in longs to changes in shorts proves to me that the bullion banks have been trying to cover their tracks quietly by going mostly long rather than always covering their short positions... as this method doesn't change daily open interest figures as much. The only time we see what they've been up to, is this once a week snapshot when they can't hide their previous week's activities any longer. Don't ever accuse 'da boyz' of being stupid. When you're a criminal organization this size... the bullion banks have the brightest MBA's and computer systems you can buy, working on their behalf.

As of last Tuesday, the '4 or less' bullion banks are short 16.6 million ounces of gold... and the '8 or less' bullion banks are short 20.9 million ounces of gold. The Commercial net short position sits at 20.8 million ounces... so this means that the '8 or less' bullion banks hold a hair over 100% of the entire net short position between them. And if you think that's a lot, let me point out that in silver, the '8 or less' bullion banks are short 134% of the Commercial net short position. How's that for concentration and price control???

The next order of business is Thursday's open interest numbers which were posted at the CME's website yesterday morning. They were, in a word, depressing. On gold's big price gain, open interest was up a very large 14,982 contracts... and silver o.i. was up a monstrous 3,843 contracts on its almost 50 cent gain... so there was no short covering involved at all. The bullion banks were out there in full force... selling short against all the spec longs that were pouring into the market. This is not a good sign... and we'll just have to wait and see what happens next week.

Here's the Ted Butler interview with Eric King of King World News. As always, I urge you to stop reading my commentary at this point and listen carefully to what Ted has to say. The link is here.

I only have one story for you this weekend... but it's a big one... as Matt Taibbi from rollingstone.com is on the rampage again. His story about Goldman Sachs... "The Great Vampire Squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smelled like money"... is already a cult classic.

In this commentary, he takes on even bigger prey... this time it's JPMorgan and its rape of Jefferson County, Alabama. This is, hands down, the most vicious article on JP Morgan Chase I have ever read... and what Taibbi says is probably not the worst you'll ever hear about them as time goes on.

To give you some idea of the size of JPMorgan's financial footprint, here's a graph that I borrowed from an essay by Reggie Middleton that's posted over at safehaven.com. When you're this big, you can rip anyone's face off... and that's exactly what the big Wall Street firms and banks do for a living. If you have any doubts about this, try Frank Partnoy's 1997 book "F.I.A.S.C.O: Blood in the Water on Wall Street".

Anyway, along with being the biggest short in the gold and silver market, they are the Fed's bank... and they pretty much do as they please with the government's blessing. With the U.S. trying to run a "Full Spectral Dominance" world empire... this is just the way things work. This is a reasonably long read... 6 pages... so you'll need at least a half an hour to do it justice. The headline reads "Looting Main Street: How the nations' biggest banks are ripping off American cities with the same predatory deals that brought down Greece." I thank reader Scott Pluschau for sending it to me earlier this week... and the link is here.

The whole of mankind's progress has had to be achieved against the resistance and opposition of the state and its power of coercion. - Ludwig von Mises

Today's blast from the past is in four parts. It's Sergi Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto #2, Opus 18. The pianist is Alexis Weissenberg... and it looks like the Berlin Philharmonic... all under the baton of the late, great Herbert von Karajan.

After the spectacular failure of his first symphony, Rachmaninov need therapy to get him out of his depression that followed. A result of these therapeutic sessions was the composition of his second piano concerto... which went on to be one of the most well known and beloved piano concertos ever written... which is played in concert halls the world over on a regular basis.

Works of this size don't fit into one segment over at youtube.com... so here it is in four part... Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Enjoy!

I hope the rest of your weekend goes well... and I'll see you on Tuesday.