So how well has gold performed over the past 5 years?

Pretty good.

I still remember that top investors all saw gold as having no value.  Well it certainly never LOST value out performing all the other asset classes.   Maybe that's what they meant?

=)

G

DISASTER WATCH: Oh This VACANT SUMMER

It's like they're all on vacation and the pot was left on the stove and has gone dry... meltdown coming IMO

The market is losing its (partici)pants.  The masters of the equity universe are leaving the building.  Methinks they've gone too fr driving everyone from the game.

Is it too late for gold with big bad Bernake's helicopter without fuel?

G

More to come.

YIKES!—Bill Gross joins the 'Stocks are Dead' Club—is the end near?

As I said—YIKES!

G

After the the " Flash Crash", MF Global Theft, and today's recent market glitch. It's no surprise that many are abandoning the market in droves. We been witnessing this for years which is apparent by the anemic market volume. The below article is about Bill gross joining the stocks are dead club. There is very little confidence left or people with jobs to be participants, retail has been dead for years. All that there is now is institutions and hedgies with black box algo systems, so this is the new normal. Sad days indeed.

I personally have been still trying to find the bulls in this whacky market and ACI JAG are a few of recent, but as I told much of you over the years, take the profits out of the stocks and put them into something real. The financial cliff is approaching and I wouldn't want to be holding paper when it hits.

-by TheInvisibleHand
-----------------------------------

Bill Gross Is Latest to Join 'Stocks Are Dead' Club

By Jeff Cox | CNBC – Tue, Jul 31, 2012 1:11 PM EDT

Stocks will no longer generate the kinds of returns they've had over the past century, ending the "cult of equity" that has been Wall Street's mantra for generations, Bill Gross, managing director at bond giant Pimco, says in his monthly market analysis.

He also predicts the stock market's consistent annual return will be reduced to a "historical freak" that will never be repeated.

Read more here

Investing Legend Quits the Markets as it Continues to Destroy Itself

Nasty day today!

Clearly, the powers-that-be are losing it.  Legends are leaving not just electing to stand on the sidelines.

How soon will 'they' let gold run?  Are they ready yet?  It looks to me that we do not have long to wait.

Funny money is getting a 'black-humor' quality while gold remains cheap in the face of growing cracks in the monetary systems machines.

G

First article:

Investing Legend Louis Bacon Has Had Enough Of Algos And Central Planners, Calls It Quits

Markets are toast as Louis Bacon plans to give back 25% of his fund to investors as "liqudity and opportunities have become more constrained." As Bloomberg notes, Bacon is struggling to make money in his typically macroeconomic trend exploiting fund as "the risk on / risk off environment appears to be an abiding presence that has keep engagement low." Macro funds lost an average of 1.3 percent in the first six months of the year. Bacon, pointed out that "Markets are increasingly distorted by central banks’ attempts to squeeze drops of growth from an over-indebted private sector across much of the developed world." The U.S. markets are hindered by "a caustic political environment and an anti-business administration," he said.

U.S. banks have retreated from making markets in many securities because of the Dodd-Frank legislation, which limits them from trading for their own accounts. Bacon added that 'in some Kafkaesque absurdity,' the rule is "named after the two high protectors from regulatory oversight of perhaps the most egregious of U.S. financial miscreants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

Bacon pulls no punches as he goes after inept regulators in Europe and the US, and describes the state of affairs as "Disaster Economics, where assets are valued based on their ability to withstand a lurking disaster as opposed to...

Read full article in Zerohedge here. 


Second article:

Algorithm — The Madness in the Machine

 With this kind of brainlessness allowed in the markets it's no surprize that so many are out of the markets where the machines play!

Broken Market Chronicles: Algos Gone Autosell Wild - Video Explanation Of What Happened

Still scratching your head over what happened this morning (this would be everyone at the SEC but not their porn webstream vendors - even they by now realize just how broken the market is)? Don't be - courtesy of Dennis Dick and Premarket Info, here is a 20 minute video explanation parsing the tape and showing precisely what happened that impacted nearly 150 stocks.

Read more here

The Coming 'Great Gold Pivot' and the New Fiat System

Note: This has been extensively rewritten having distilled the essence of my thinking from the 'rant' of the previous version. —G
 

As I, like the rest of most of my friends, gape in fearful wonder at the financial drought and critical damage to the world's exchangeable currencies caused by the manipulative greed of those who own and operate it, I have cause to look deeper into the potential of little moves which may fell the monster.

I see a scenario emerging where the top 1% can be seen, through market behavior, manipulating the markets to retain (and increase) their wealth and power.  This is not unusual and were I in that position I would, if my existence revolved around wealth and power, be predisposed to do the same. 

Caught in this cycle of planetary change they probably see their danger.  With severely damaged economies shrinking the foundation and extendability of their ascendancy they must be seeing gold's historic behavior as a raft in the storm—like everyone else is.

Unlike everyone though they have benefited greatly from the fiat system which can be seen in the massive gap between their wealth and everyone else.  I believe they are in the process of positioning themselves to use gold and their trading power to use gold as a 'pivot' to migrate their wealth over the inflation abyss and into a revitalized fiat with shrunken debt. 

However, there may be blindness in the unbridled self-interest leaving them with limited vision and the danger of entitlement.  It is that group that has essentially generated the present condition.  I do not see an evil conspiracy rather a shared myopia of political and economic leadership caught in this clear cycle of planetary redefinition.

Though we may want to believe we are above natural law nothing could be further from the truth.  Human beings have never be separate from nature.  As such the larger movements of change are natural.  As with any cycle what was a the top will tend to be on the bottom.  The 'best' are predisposed to clutching to the view of their ascendancy of course.

The beginning of the 'Great Gold Pivot' can be seen in the trading behavior of gold.  Revealed in extended sideways trading gold-price manipulation, holding the price of gold and other precious metals in a range that benefits accumulation.  This I see as the transfer of wealth in preparation for the use of gold and other precious metals as the pivot. 

However, the pivot itself may be in great danger of falling flat with so much attention being given it. The spike may both look different this time especially if there is so little participation by the much much larger group of the relatively unwealthy and unpowerful.

Why?  Because the relatively unwealthy and unpowerful may be in the process of changing the game right under the feet of those who at present hold the board.

Historically the 'board' has consisted of a set of positions held by the 1% actively limiting participation of the 'great unwashed masses'.  But things are different now.  The board's positions are losing relevance to a world of people that communicates freely amongst themselves without effective censorship on the web.  But it is also knowledge and information that flow freely which greatly diminish the potency of the tools of the 1%.  Indeed this has also resulted in the machinations of the manipulators being unmasked more effectively and in real time which, coupled with the previous points, reveal the true shift in power away from the traditional powers.

Thus the stage is set for what may be both a diminished gold bull cycle and a new system of monetary exchange ripped from the grasp of divide-and-conquer's traditional masters

The core thread of the whole theme is exchangeable value and who controls it.  Gold has historically been the ultimate store of value because everyone thinks it is.  But the thinking is changing as the 'masses' perception of money's present masters' activity rises to general awareness.

It is very important to understand it is people who have always determined value.  But up to now that determination has been utterly manipulated.  

The idea of fiat currency is actually quite functional much more so than gold.  The only problem with the fiat system is that it has been controlled and manipuated by 'special' self-interest groups.  This is now revealed as problematic for emerging planetary society as it continues to move towards democratic management—political and otherwise.

Is there a system, a currency system that has the potential to cut the shackles of the powerful moneyed tribes?

Yes there is: Bitcoin

This or something similar is the little stone that could be the path of the changing economic reality.

Begin your research and add your mind to the change for the better which our world needs now.

G

PS  Here is a video, article and links for Bitcoin.

      Video: Bitcoin & The End of State-Controlled Money — http://t.co/E6LFeFi8

      Start looking into this and be prepared to be safe from the falling giants. —G

Is it really resource nationalism?

Resource nationalism is really economic nationalism.

Think about it.

The size and complexity of our economic and communications world has expanded exponentially but the economies in it have not and see the American version of the free market for what it is: greed and power.  And that's what they want too, the what-used-to-be the American Dream.

It should come of no surprise that they want what they see as theirs within the boarders of their country.   in order to be able to play well with others.

We are seeing is the emergence of new realities in markets and governments.

I feel sorry that companies are getting caught in the sea change that began at the turn of the century.

Don't get mad about it and realize that the big cop on the block, the USA, simply can't threaten, cajole or control this new world in the process of reordering itself.

Investors need to learn to see things as they are and seek insight into how to benefit from this.

It is my opinion that investors should be choosing jurisdictions that will protect their investments and flee those that do not.  It is that simple.  And their are a lot of options for them in stable jurisdictions.

The article below is from the local business paper in Vancouver, 'Business In Vancouver' about local companies in the mining and exploration business internationally.  It talks about how companies are trying to protect their "assets in foreign lands with legal agreements and key relationships".

But remember politics and corruption can trump any of these.

G

Rising tide of resource nationalism threatens Vancouver miners

by Jenny Wagler Tue Jul 24, 2012 12:01am PST
 
Companies protecting assets in foreign lands with legal agreements, key relationships

High commodity prices and a shaky world economy are intensifying Vancouver mining companies’ clashes with resource nationalism.

Two recent examples include Bolivia’s recent threats to nationalize South American Silver Corp.(TSX:SAC) and Rusoro Mining Ltd.’s(TSX-V:RML) July 18 announcement that it is filing for arbitration after Venezuela nationalized the company’s investments.

A Ernst & Young LLP’s recently releasedglobal survey identified resource nationalism as the top business threat facing mining companies for the second year running. In 2008, the risk ranked eighth on the survey.

Tom Whelan, leader of Ernst & Young’s national mining and metals practice, said the forces driving the trend aren’t hard to identify.

“Every government treasury around the world is under difficult circumstances, and if you look at [high] commodity prices and some of the earnings of the major mining companies … it’s easy to see why there’s a target,” he told Business in Vancouver.

Whelan said companies can protect their assets against the threat in a number of ways.

“It starts with building transparent relationships with the host government so that they understand the entire value of the project to the host government.”

He noted that companies should emphasize everything from tax dollars to infrastructure developments and jobs that projects bring.

Fred McMahon, the Fraser Institute’s vice-president of international policy research, said mining companies need to engage positively with local communities in a project area.

Beyond playing nice with governments and communities, however, companies are seeking legal mechanisms to protect their projects.

Chris Baldwin, a partner with Lawson Lundell LLP, noted that resource nationalism can span everything from tax increases to outright seizure of company assets. He said the key legal protection companies can obtain from a host government is a stability agreement.

Read more...

Redesigning Goldbggr

I am redesigning Goldbggr over the next few days.  Please excuse what I hope will be temporary awkwardness.
G