I've heard (Jim) Dines speak a gazillion times at the various mining and gold shows. Dines sums it up pretty nicely by stating that politicians and governments literally steal money from savers when they get forced to print more money. They constantly spend more than they take in and a fair % of that overspending is done so that they can get re-elected. Remember the days of all of the “earmarks” appended to every bill in the Senate like “the bridge to nowhere”?

The price of gold is the only yardstick available to measure how much stealing is going on. It is thus critical for the politicians and central bankers to constantly manipulate the price of gold down so that they can continue the thievery. This manipulation is done through the COMEX and London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). The problem for the crooks is that we that are being stolen from have caught on to their criminal behavior and now realize that gold is about to explode in price as the victims are now investors and smart enough to demand delivery of their physical gold. The easy to manipulate “paper” price of gold cannot be allowed to diverge too far from the price of physical gold or the whole world will be able to detect the fraud. Gold is a tight market as most of the easy to find and cheap to produce gold has already been mined. Nowadays everybody is not only going deeper into the ground but the targeted material is of a lesser grade.

I think the one parameter to keep an eye on is to see how long it takes to get delivery of physical gold after being ordered. Once you notice this timeframe being stretched out then I think the market may take off. Silver is a little bit easier to follow in that its industrial users need to be supplied in a timely manner or things will get real obvious. This entire concept of living within your means seems so basic but when you’re spending somebody else’s money that can be readily printed then the basics get thrown out the window. Jim Rickards has always said that there are two ways that the government can steal money from savers. They are taxation and inflation. Interesting times!