William Robert
January 10th, 2004, 03:31 PM
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%....%20Carlson.htm
The Pharisee's Role In Gold And The Dollar Crash
By Charles E. Carlson
Al-Jazeerah, 12/30/03
Since Day 911, the US dollar has fallen over 40% as compared to the Euro, the European currency “basket.” About half of that drop occurred since May 2, 2003, when hostilities in Iraq were reported to have ended.
This means that had you or I been in the know we could have earned about 10 years of savings account interest in only six months, without buying a thing. We could have asked our respective bankers to convert our dollar savings accounts into Euros with a simple bookkeeping entry. Yes, there would have been a little red tape, but the international money dealers and bankers do this all the time for their own accounts. Perhaps we need to know what they know?
The mysterious Euro is not the only measure of the dollar’s collapse. There is hardly a currency that has not gone up against the dollar, including the South African Rand, which has more than doubled! Stories of the falling dollar are whispered in hushed tones but do not often make it into the US press, or when it does the explanation is usually murky.
Few Americans as yet give any real meaning to the fall of the dollar or related it to the rise in gold prices. But it is not a coincidence, and there is reason to believe the trend has not run its course.
If you were to ask your local bank VP to explain the relationship between gold and the dollar, you could expect a long and confusing answer, ending with something like this: "Nobody knows what will happen in the final analysis." Your banker’s MBA or PHD degree does not equip him to understand anything as basic as what makes gold and the dollar go up and down.
But the big usury-bankers (internationalists with license to print diluted money out of thin air) who own and run the Federal Reserve anti-bank and its clone anti-banks in world financial centers understand gold very well. You, too, can understand it and so can your l3-year old, if he is bright and willing. Here are a few questions:
What do serial wars have to do with gold and the dollar? How is our currency diluted? What does the Federal Reserve System (FED) do? Why didn’t CNN or 60 Minutes explain this? Who owns the gold?
This, Part I of GOLD: A REDISCOVERED INVESTMENT explained why logical thinking persons might buy gold now and why it made less sense to do so in past decades.
A queasy stock market (especially the speculative NASDAC), continuing Wall Street scandal, inflationary loss of buying power and general fears about all kinds of violence are among the “gut feel” elements that have awakened the slumbering interest in gold ownership.
But there is also a more basic reason. Recent low world interest rates favor gold investment. According to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA ) say other King Midas investors are believed to have soaked up as much as half of the known world supply, accumulated over 5000 years of mining. Among the new huge accumulators of gold are the billion Chinese who are becoming consumers and savvy savers. Several veteran gold experts, who claim to study the figures from morning till night, state that hoarders are fast overrunning the historical supply.
WHTT is inclined to believe them for two good reasons: low interest rates make gold purchases appear logical and the cost of serial wars makes it all too obvious that the dollar is being destroyed by dilution in front of our eyes.
The figures for gold sales by central banks--the world's largest holders--are well-hidden by these huge hoarders and impossible to verify, because the hoarders are not obliged to tell anyone more than they choose. Determining who owns the supply of gold accumulated over 5000 years of history is not the precise science some tell us it is. The availability of inflated currencies to buy gold is much more critical than the central bank’s supplies or any government statistics.
Consumption for jewelry and investment by individuals is thought to have exceeded new production of gold for each of the last several years. The new production and current consumption figures are documented by industry sources such as mining companies who brag about their production and generally tell the truth, and most new gold comes from a handful of big producers. New production is dwarfed by one month’s U.S. federal deficit, which is headed for 500 billion dollars this year alone. To put it another way, there is not much gold compared to the money supply. It is a pea compared to an orange.
There are natural gold consumers that buy as a method of savings… they have no other choice. Gaza City in occupied Palestine is a very poor place where this writer visited. When you bank in Gaza City, you might wonder if your bank will be there the next morning, and because Gaza Arabs are literal prisoners of the State of Israel, they are forced to use Israeli currency.
My Arab friend took me to the gold market in Gaza City, and there I stayed for a few hours, talking to two of the businessmen who make their living converting Shekels--the money used in Gaza--into 22 and 24 karat gold jewelry for people who are fortunate enough to accumulate paper money. Gaza craftsmen pound the near pure gold into bracelets, necklaces and other jewelry, and because there are few jobs in Gaza, their labor is very cheap. Gaza gold jewelry sells at only a small premium over its gold value.
One of the gold buyers was a well-dressed young Arab businessman in a western suit and tie. His wife wore traditional Muslim attire, covering all but her face. They sat next to me in the small stall where the gold trader kept his inventory on hooks in a little bay window off his cubicle that was just large enough that his right arm could reach all of its corners. There was just room for four of us to sit on the L-shaped wooden bench. I waited while he did business.
The parties negotiate quietly for a few minutes, the buyer discussing the several handcrafted bracelets with his wife. He quietly settled on three bracelets, each about a half ounce, which he paid for with thousand Shekel notes. The young Arab businessman slipped the purchased bracelets onto the arm of his lady where they disappeared under the black sleeve of her garment. They departed, having converted fast-decaying and hated Shekels to wealth that they could carry and that would not decay. The lady looked pleased; there is not much wealth in Gaza, and the family’s savings account on her arm is safe against dilution; it is portable wealth that requires no banker and that “moths cannot eat.”
A steady stream of buyers moved through the Gaza gold market. Ordinary people buy gold in Gaza, if they are lucky enough to have any paper money to exchange for it.
to be continued...
The Pharisee's Role In Gold And The Dollar Crash
By Charles E. Carlson
Al-Jazeerah, 12/30/03
Since Day 911, the US dollar has fallen over 40% as compared to the Euro, the European currency “basket.” About half of that drop occurred since May 2, 2003, when hostilities in Iraq were reported to have ended.
This means that had you or I been in the know we could have earned about 10 years of savings account interest in only six months, without buying a thing. We could have asked our respective bankers to convert our dollar savings accounts into Euros with a simple bookkeeping entry. Yes, there would have been a little red tape, but the international money dealers and bankers do this all the time for their own accounts. Perhaps we need to know what they know?
The mysterious Euro is not the only measure of the dollar’s collapse. There is hardly a currency that has not gone up against the dollar, including the South African Rand, which has more than doubled! Stories of the falling dollar are whispered in hushed tones but do not often make it into the US press, or when it does the explanation is usually murky.
Few Americans as yet give any real meaning to the fall of the dollar or related it to the rise in gold prices. But it is not a coincidence, and there is reason to believe the trend has not run its course.
If you were to ask your local bank VP to explain the relationship between gold and the dollar, you could expect a long and confusing answer, ending with something like this: "Nobody knows what will happen in the final analysis." Your banker’s MBA or PHD degree does not equip him to understand anything as basic as what makes gold and the dollar go up and down.
But the big usury-bankers (internationalists with license to print diluted money out of thin air) who own and run the Federal Reserve anti-bank and its clone anti-banks in world financial centers understand gold very well. You, too, can understand it and so can your l3-year old, if he is bright and willing. Here are a few questions:
What do serial wars have to do with gold and the dollar? How is our currency diluted? What does the Federal Reserve System (FED) do? Why didn’t CNN or 60 Minutes explain this? Who owns the gold?
This, Part I of GOLD: A REDISCOVERED INVESTMENT explained why logical thinking persons might buy gold now and why it made less sense to do so in past decades.
A queasy stock market (especially the speculative NASDAC), continuing Wall Street scandal, inflationary loss of buying power and general fears about all kinds of violence are among the “gut feel” elements that have awakened the slumbering interest in gold ownership.
But there is also a more basic reason. Recent low world interest rates favor gold investment. According to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA ) say other King Midas investors are believed to have soaked up as much as half of the known world supply, accumulated over 5000 years of mining. Among the new huge accumulators of gold are the billion Chinese who are becoming consumers and savvy savers. Several veteran gold experts, who claim to study the figures from morning till night, state that hoarders are fast overrunning the historical supply.
WHTT is inclined to believe them for two good reasons: low interest rates make gold purchases appear logical and the cost of serial wars makes it all too obvious that the dollar is being destroyed by dilution in front of our eyes.
The figures for gold sales by central banks--the world's largest holders--are well-hidden by these huge hoarders and impossible to verify, because the hoarders are not obliged to tell anyone more than they choose. Determining who owns the supply of gold accumulated over 5000 years of history is not the precise science some tell us it is. The availability of inflated currencies to buy gold is much more critical than the central bank’s supplies or any government statistics.
Consumption for jewelry and investment by individuals is thought to have exceeded new production of gold for each of the last several years. The new production and current consumption figures are documented by industry sources such as mining companies who brag about their production and generally tell the truth, and most new gold comes from a handful of big producers. New production is dwarfed by one month’s U.S. federal deficit, which is headed for 500 billion dollars this year alone. To put it another way, there is not much gold compared to the money supply. It is a pea compared to an orange.
There are natural gold consumers that buy as a method of savings… they have no other choice. Gaza City in occupied Palestine is a very poor place where this writer visited. When you bank in Gaza City, you might wonder if your bank will be there the next morning, and because Gaza Arabs are literal prisoners of the State of Israel, they are forced to use Israeli currency.
My Arab friend took me to the gold market in Gaza City, and there I stayed for a few hours, talking to two of the businessmen who make their living converting Shekels--the money used in Gaza--into 22 and 24 karat gold jewelry for people who are fortunate enough to accumulate paper money. Gaza craftsmen pound the near pure gold into bracelets, necklaces and other jewelry, and because there are few jobs in Gaza, their labor is very cheap. Gaza gold jewelry sells at only a small premium over its gold value.
One of the gold buyers was a well-dressed young Arab businessman in a western suit and tie. His wife wore traditional Muslim attire, covering all but her face. They sat next to me in the small stall where the gold trader kept his inventory on hooks in a little bay window off his cubicle that was just large enough that his right arm could reach all of its corners. There was just room for four of us to sit on the L-shaped wooden bench. I waited while he did business.
The parties negotiate quietly for a few minutes, the buyer discussing the several handcrafted bracelets with his wife. He quietly settled on three bracelets, each about a half ounce, which he paid for with thousand Shekel notes. The young Arab businessman slipped the purchased bracelets onto the arm of his lady where they disappeared under the black sleeve of her garment. They departed, having converted fast-decaying and hated Shekels to wealth that they could carry and that would not decay. The lady looked pleased; there is not much wealth in Gaza, and the family’s savings account on her arm is safe against dilution; it is portable wealth that requires no banker and that “moths cannot eat.”
A steady stream of buyers moved through the Gaza gold market. Ordinary people buy gold in Gaza, if they are lucky enough to have any paper money to exchange for it.
to be continued...