Bix Weir

OPEN LETTER TO THE CFTC

July 8, 2010

U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission

3 Lafayette Centre

1155 21st St. NW

Washington, DC 20581

Re: CFTC Hearing and the Wall of Silence

Dear Commissioners :

Over the past few years I have engaged in correspondence with staff at the CFTC to learn about how your organization does its job in enforcing commodity trading rules as well as provide you with feedback as to why 99% of metal market participants believe that the CFTC is not doing its job. Since the public hearings on metal concentration limits on March 25, 2010, I have been truly astounded by the LACK of acknowledgment, LACK of follow up and LACK of action from the CFTC and Commissioners given what was openly discussed and revealed during the course of this historic meeting.

Here is what your takeaway SHOULD have been from the meeting on metal concentration limits:

1) There is a huge problem with concentration and manipulation in the COMEX metals market whereas the markets for gold and silver are controlled by a handful of large commercial traders to the detriment of all other participants. The problem is so big that the true market prices of gold and silver are currently UNKNOWN and until the large concentrated players are removed the market will stay dysfunctional as to price discovery.

2) GATA presented significant evidence gleaned from public records that there is indeed a group interested in suppressing the price of monetary metals and have, in fact, acted in these markets to suppress prices. This information can be found at www.GATA.org and should be used as evidence in your prosecution of the manipulators.

3) There was a genuine whistle blower revealed to the world that the CFTC knew about and was working with during the last large silver take down. JP Morgan was identified as the market rigger prior to the day the silver market rigging began and the operation took place EXACTLY as the whistle blower had predicted. JP Morgan was also the suspected culprit in the 2009 take down of silver from over $20 to under $9 which prompted the 3rd (and currently active)investigation into silver manipulation. Relevant to these issues JP Morgan is the "Custodian" in iShares Silver (SLV) which boasts a very dubious Prospectus for holding a large amount of physical silver in Trust for SLV investors. This silver is NOT the property of JP Morgan nor should it be considered the physical silver justification for the gigantic COMEX silver short position as incorrectly claimed by David Kass of the CFTC in my correspondence with him:

"If, in the future, any of the silver held by the Trust were to meet the location, brand, size, and quality standards of the NYMEX silver futures contract, it could be deliverable on that contract."

http://www.roadtoroota.com/public/133.cfm

The obvious conflicts are numerous including:

- Dual claimed ownership of physical silver by both JPM and SLV shareholders.

- SLV Prospectus provides no assurances on location, brand, size, or quality standards.

- SLV Short positions provide for additional multiple ownership claims on silver inventories.

- There are NO STRICT AUDIT requirements on physical silver held by SLV.

- Authorized participants have gold/silver leasing operations so multiple claims on the silver is likely.

Investors in SLV are innocent victims of this physical silver Ponzi Scheme and the CFTC's lack of action in this area has helped legitimize the silver manipulation scam.

4) 99% of the over 3,000 comments posted on the CFTC's website were in favor of strong position limits and angry about the obvious manipulative actions by the large players. The commissioners owe it to the public to read ALL the comments and act accordingly:http://www.cftc.gov/LawRegulation/FederalRegister/CommentFiles/10-005.html

5) In a direct contradiction to the previous CFTC conclusions on investigations into silver manipulation, the London Bullion Market (LBMA) was exposed as being a PAPER SILVER MARKET and NOT PHYSICAL OR CASH MARKET with over 100x more paper silver traded than physical silver. Clearly the LBMA does not reflect the physical supply/demand dynamics of silver. One of the main reasons why no action was taken in past CFTC investigations was that the COMEX silver shorts were hedged by physical silver on the LBMA. Here are direct quotes from the conclusions of your 2nd investigation:

http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/public/@newsroom/documents/file/silverfuturesmarketreport0508.pdf

"The LBMA is the world's largest market for trading physical silver. It is a very liquid market, backed with large silver bullion stocks. Its price is considered to be the benchmark price for trading physical silver."

"Staff in 2004 also examined the relationship between NYMEX silver futures prices and cash market silver prices to determine whether NYMEX prices appeared to be unusually or significantly out of line with cash prices. The analysis showed that, during the period 2000 through mid-2004, the average price of silver on NYMEX was essentially equal to prices on the London Bullion Market (LBMA) and the U.S. cash market (Bloomberg composite)."

"In August 2007, NYMEX contacted several of the largest short silver futures traders requesting specific information regarding their activity in the silver cash and OTC markets. The exchange found that these firms generally held significant forward purchase and sales agreements that, overall, left the firms with a net long silver exposure. The short futures positions on NYMEX were approximately offset by their long cash exposure. This means that, contrary to the silver commentators' allegations, the largest net short traders in the NYMEX silver futures markets are not "naked" shorts, as the firms' overall exposure in the silver markets (considering their futures, cash and OTC positions) is approximately neutral."

Now that we KNOW that the LBMA does NOT reflect the cash physical silver market, the past conclusions of the CFTC are 100% false and all the silver short positions that were justified with LBMA longs have proven to be nothing more than paper shorts backed by paper silver…NOT PHYSICAL SILVER.

All five of these revelations should have been immediately acted upon by your staff as the manipulation of gold and silver is a CRIME IN PROGRESS.

It has been 3½ months since the public hearings and still the CFTC has neither acted upon the evidence presented or warned the innocent investors (those who are not connected to the market manipulators) to stay away from the gold and silver markets. By not publicly acting or commenting on these points the CFTC has given the vast majority of silver and gold investors a false confidence that the metal markets are safe to trade in and not manipulated.

Very soon the Financial Reform Bill will be signed into law. This bill gives the CFTC expanded authority as well as a mandate to set position limits. This Bill should give you enough power to STOP the current market manipulations in gold and silver. Once this is complete, the CFTC must admit to the world that "YES, IT'S TRUE! There has been a long term manipulation of gold and silver and those who perpetrated this scam will be held accountable."

On March 9 2010, I sent you a letter suggesting a New Regulatory Framework for the gold and silver markets. In this letter I outlined 17 different items that if implemented would free our markets from manipulation. That letter can be found here:

http://www.roadtoroota.com/public/207.cfm

This is the only road forward to free our markets from the grip of manipulation.

I hope you choose the Right Road.

Bix Weir www.RoadtoRoota.com

Direct email: Ggensler@cftc.gov Mdunn@cftc.gov Bchilton@cftc.gov Jsommers@cftc.gov Somalia@cftc.gov