sinbob- I agree with you on pretty much everything but predicting the timing. As you know, I don't consider myself a gold bug, but I'm well aware of the market manipulations. I wouldn't underestimate the power behind these goings on- they may well be able to keep this going a lot longer than anybody thinks. I've been seeing predictions of gold and silver going sky high, of silver "running out", of imminent defaults and skyrocketing prices etc., for many years. Yes, at some point it will all come falling down, but maybe not for a while. For one thing, the gold and silver markets simply aren't that big- and there is some pretty major funding behind the manipulations. They may well consider it well worth the "relatively" small amount of money it takes to keep the charade going. Nevertheless, we don't need all of that to happen for SFMI to become a cash cow. $1200 gold and $18 silver will do just fine. And if SFMI does what they implied they might do, which is to hold back some of the gold and silver for a while to wait for higher prices, well that will suit me just fine too.