I may very well try a 1 mile run tomorrow. Soon will have Sinbad with me. We will catch up to wineny soee and eeos .

Hi Bill, I wrote to you a few times before and shook your hands a the Cambridge Conf. in Vancouver. I am a devoted reader of your comments and has been for the past 8 years.

I am the president of 2 jr Companies, one of them has the largest land position in the Oriente in southeastern Ecuador where Aurelian made their big gold discovery. We are looking to raise $3M for the IPO to get public. We have been ready for the past 45 days but the disruption in the US and gold market has made it exretmely difficult for us to raise any money. Can you imagine that ? We control over 835 km2 of land around Aurelian’s Fruta del Norte, which is said to be the largest gold discovery in the past 20 years, gold is trading at 950$ per oz and we cant raise money to explore ??? It is beyond comprehension….. If you know of anyone that can help us let me know, we are ready to donate a % of people directed to us to GATA and take those people for a site visit..

Keep up the good work…
Regards,

Guy Bedard, P.Eng.
President
Escondoro Resources Ltd

website www.escondororesources.com/
gbedard@plexmar.com

had 1.45 oz of Au and 40 oz of Ag.  Said someone came in Monday and wiped out the Au.  Very little Ag coming in the door.

Come on down to our “GATA goes to Washington” conference and pick Adrian’s brain. You might want to do the same with GATA’s Ed Steer, who called the current US real estate debacle better than anyone I know. Ed told us US real estate was going in the dumpster BIG TIME a year ago January, when most were tepid about what was coming.

From copper to silver…

I talked to a dealer yesterday and an investment advisor at a small town local Bank of Nova Scotia branch about the silver shortage situation.

First the dealer: he stated that he has talked to the local (Ontario, Canada) J/M refinery and the refiner is sending all product south. I presume to keep the COMEX vaults supplied - something that I assumed and is now confirmed. As the article attached states, there is little or no silver in Canada from coast to coast. The dealer did mention that he had some available and that there was a dealer in Montreal who had some ten ounce bars. The latter were for sale for $38 per ounce. I have been saying for a week that the dealer price for silver has separated from the physical price, and that the majority are ignoring the take-down price insult of last week.

Second, I asked the BNS investment advisor about certificates. I stated that there was a shortage of silver at ScotiaMocatta and wondered if banks were still selling silver certificates? She said, “Yeah, but we’ll sell you as many as you like!” Made quite the funny out of the whole thing. I then asked her if she was aware that it may not be as funny as she thought in that: “given a shortage, are you aware that storage is also charged on these “accounts”. Her smile instantly disappeared and her eyes widened. She said she would check SM to verify that they had silver,….

The point is that the Commercials know damned well that this day was coming and that the strategic way to handle it was to keep COMEX stocked at all cost. The cost apparently is the risk of class action law suits over that storage issue (remember the Morgan Stanley lawsuit?) - and worse as per Ted Butler’s view of this odious affair , and a strategic decision to “cut the losses” (smile) about the concerns of the investing public. This makes sense because “they” certainly can’t do anything about the supply for investment but to paper down the price out of COMEX etc. This is about ALL THAT IS LEFT FOR THEM as an option - and is quite predictable even.

The second thing that this accomplishes (obviously) is that industrial demand can be somewhat met for the few months that this buys them. (Remember that COMEX silver is available in industrial sized 1000 ounces that are NOT liquid.) They can also, by means of management policy changes, make it as difficult as necessary to get this metal out of the vaults,,,,and it is a tidy mound all in one pile whereby if the government has to step in and declare an emergency moratorium on sales (confiscation in the cards?), it can do so with ease. This, of course, would hugely insult those members of public that use the COMEX warehouse vaults for personal storage,,,, But heck, 90% of the public invests in paper silver (and that’s a LOT of silver certificates in there) and the outrage would be about the same. This is THE endgame folks!
Galearis (L.)

Barrick’s Jamie Sokalsky is a liar, or Barrick has covered 9.5 million ounces of hedges lately and it will be announced. Somehow I doubt that..,..

Bill:
Be advised:

We now have HARDCOPY in the Financial Times

Wed. March page (6)

Half page article:

Barrick’s CFO Jamie Sokalsky clearly stated that, “Barrick has now closed out all their Hedge Positions.”

With their collection of INSIDE INFORMATION:

He also claims victory in hedging OIL and CURRENCIES!

IT MUST BE NICE.
jose

Why Ron Paul Scares the GOP

Thursday, Mar. 20, 2008 By MICHAEL GRUNWALD

Ron Paul

There used to be an organization for people who believed in a truly limited government — limited taxes, limited spending, limited interference in individual lives and limited intervention in foreign affairs. That organization was known as the Republican Party. But the only one of those beliefs that still motivates the G.O.P. establishment is limited taxes. In 2008, people who still hold all of them joined the Ron Paul Revolution.

www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1724358,00.html

Iceland contagion may spread far and wide

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor

Last Updated: 1:47am GMT 27/03/2008

Have your say Read comments

As Iceland goes, so go the Baltics, the Balkans, Hungary, Turkey, and perhaps South Africa. All are living far beyond their means, plugging the gaping holes in their accounts with fickle flows of foreign finance. All have let credit grow far above the safe “speed limit”, some exceeding 50pc a year

For Iceland, the high-wire act of the last five years may have finally reached its limits. The central bank was forced to raise interest rates to 15pc this week in an emergency move to halt the collapse of krona, which has fallen 18pc since mid-March…

-END-

Will the US be the next Iceland?

Bill,
www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/03/27/cnmerv227.xml

Mervyn King, Governor of the BOE, gave testimony before the Treasury Select Committee. One interesting quote is as follows:

QUOTE

He added that this crisis should be a lesson to the over-confident bankers. “There was a lot of hubris in financial markets,” he said. “The financial crisis did not come from bad loans in Latin America or Asia, but from the heart of the financial sector here and in the US.

“One of the lessons of this crisis is that providers of mortgage finance had underestimated the risks, and hence the true cost, of securitisation.”

END

The reason that risk was underestimated is that the Gold Cartel disconnected the financial alarm system. When gold is so low in price and interest rates are low how can there be any risk?? In fact Greenspan himself assured us that the financial wizards had invented a financial instrument called a “derivative” that allowed every body to offset risk to someone else (just don’t ask who is actually underwriting the hedge!). The instruments were so good and efficient that unlike any other financial market they apparently worked best when there was absolutely no regulation!!!

Some one should have run some anti-Greenspan ads on TV with the Gekko from the Geico advertisments…just 15 minutes can save $15 trillion! The Goldilocks era was just an illusion from ingesting financial steroids and finding a way to avoid the doping test. Now the nasty side effects from taking steroids are going to be revealed. Yet the Maestro also told us what the antidote is in his 1966 article titled ‘Gold and Economic Freedom”!
Cheers
Adrian

CARTEL CAPITULATION

On jsmineset today there were wishes for JS’s birthday, but the well-wisher had the good discretion to not discuss the recipient’s age, which of course raises the curiosity  of just how many years experience JS has under his belt - since we all respect and rely upon his information so much.

ment17’s posting  at 05:33 on March 19, referred to JS “with his 55 years of monetary experience”.    In the link below, if you scroll down to paragraph 8 under the heading ‘Training’ , Mr. Sinclair says “I was in a trading department when I was 12 years old”.

Now if I get out my calculator, 12 years plus ment17’s  stated 55 years experience would put JS at 67.  Of course, statistically  ment17’s  estimate of March 19 could have a margin of error of plus or minus 10 percent 19 times out of 20.  

Anyway, I am certainly impressed with the wisdom that Mr. Sinclair has to offer for free, at an age somewhere in the 60’s.  Thank you Mr. Sinclair - your help is appreciated. Equiz.

http://tinyurl.com/2qe5ks

…….They used to make them out of Equisetum Paper….now just any old pulp will do….hehe

….I tried to cell your cell # yesterday….was not in order….will try again tomorrow..

……..best to Farmgal…Fully Loaded

GO GATA!

A remarkable day for our camp when all was said and done.

Gold shot up $5 in early Access Markets following yesterday’s Comex close. It was downhill from there on in during the Comex trading hours. Tomorrow is First Notice Day for the April contact and specs were in a liquidating mood, which took gold down $10 at one point.

It quietly fought its way back. However, the star of the day was Silver The Mule. At one point it took out $18 per ounce to the downside, but it quietly fought its way back too. Then, with about 10 minutes to go during the Comex trading hours, it EXPLODED, rocketing 20 cents in minutes. Yeah baby! It was one of the most exciting silver closes I have seen in 9 years and bodes for MUCH higher prices in the days ahead. The likelihood of a violent and stunning short squeeze is now high, maybe even probable with all the anecdotal talk surfacing all over the place about silver shortages. After all these years the silver price managers might be close to getting their butts handed to them. If so, and they are trampled on the floor, I shall be sure to kick them for good measure. NO MERCY … not for these arrogant bums.

The silver open interest went up a piddly 12 contracts to 149,930. Still, this is noteworthy because silver rallied 62 cents yesterday WITHOUT a hoard of specs taking the price up. The higher the price advances without funds piling in, the higher the price will go when they do. And, as I keep pounding the table on, these new buyers won’t have numerous commercial shorts selling to them as in the past. They have run for the hills in the first silver Commercial Signal Failure.

Take that input with today’s close and you have a recipe for FIREWORKS! Silver has $25 written all over it.

Now this little piece for our silver shortage puzzle…

Hi Bill
Thank you,and other contributors to MIDAS for this great site. I keeps me sane in all this crazy time! I am one of your longstanding subscribers, a lay investor working full-time in the UK.

One of the things I learnt the hard way- not believing you at first - was NOT TO TRADE PMs and PM shares. I lost a lot of money by trying to trade the shares. I both lost out on their moves up, after I had dumped them, as well as making all the other mistakes a novice makes. I would like newer cafe members to HEAR me on this.

More on silver coins:

I phoned a UK coin dealer called Chards yesterday, and the day before.

1. On Tuesday, they were available as usual and could answer my questions right away. They even had silver maples left!

2. However, yesterday Wednesday, when I called back - GET THIS: it took them FOUR HOURS TO CHECK AVAILABILTY OF THE COINS I WANTED. AND THE SILVER MAPLES HAD GONE. AND most of the SILVER PANDAS they had the day before had also gone.

They told me “today is our busiest day in 40 YEARS”! They had no idea why!

I didn’t tell them WHY they were so busy , but got me some silver bargains instead, whilst they still had them.

I still got all my shares, and keep adding to physical gold / silver.

All the best
Lilly (London)
email@lillystuart.plus.com

The gold open interest fell 23,013 contracts to 429,180, as numerous specs decided to get out of longs, rather than roll over into June. Commercials continued to cover while the going is good.

Gold and silver were due for a rest on their vibrant comeback trail. Mission accomplished. Both appear ready to rumble…

3/27/2008 8:51:53 AM Eldorado Gold Corp. (EGO, ELD.TO), a producer of gold primarily in Turkey and China, on Thursday announced record earnings for fiscal 2007, benefiting from production from two new mines and 27% costs cuts. Earnings and revenues came in below the Street estimate.

Net income posted by the Vancouver, Canada-based company for fiscal 2007 surged to US $35.42 million or US $0.10 per share from US $3.30 million or US $0.01 per share in the previous year. On average, six analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial expected the company to earn $0.15 per share for the year. For fiscal 2005, the company reported a net loss of US $49.1 million or US $0.17 per share. The company attributed the substantial growth in earnings to higher gold prices, increased gold production from new mines and lower average production costs.

Total revenues that include sales, interest and other income more than doubled to US $188.7 million from US $84.69 million in the prior year. Interest and other income amounted to $9.4 million for the quarter. The Street estimated revenues of $189.00 million for the year.

In 2007, Eldorado Gold produced 281,135 ounces of gold a 107% increase over 2006 production of 135,653 ounces of gold and a 337% increase over 2005 production of 64,298 ounces of gold. The company sold 266,012 ounces of gold for US $179.3 million at an average realized selling price of US $674 per ounce during fiscal 2007, compared to fiscal 2006 sales of 127,552 ounces of gold for US $77.6 million at an average realized selling price of US $609 per ounce and with 2005 gold sales of 66,804 ounces for US $29.7 million at an average realized price of US $444 per ounce.

In 2007, resources increased to 10.4 million ounces of measured and indicated and 3.7 million ounces of inferred, an increase of 33% from 2006. Proven and Probable reserves increased to 7.7 million ounces, an increase of 13% from 2006. Proven and Probable iron ore reserves are 9.3 million tonnes 61% Fe.

Eldorado pointed out that it is in a strong financial position and at December 31, 2007 it held US $46.0 million in unrestricted cash and short-term deposits and US $74.0 million in a restricted account held against long-term debt of US $65.1 million, bank indebtedness of US $8.5 million in environmental and electricity deposits with the Turkish authorities. The company said it remains hedge free.

EGO closed Wednesday’s trading at $6.79, down $0.11 on a volume of 2.73 million shares. On TSX, the shares closed at C$6.92, down $0.10 on a volume of 4.99 million shares.

No mention of the fact that  JPM CEO Jamie Dimon also sits on the board of directors at the New York Fed Reserve.  How far congressman Dodd will take this obvious conflict of interest remains to be seen.

How much did you have to pay, if you don’t mind me asking?

I deal with a rather large dealer near the Wisconsin-Illinois border…. I am scarfing up their last 45 silver eages, and last ten 10-oz bars… that’s it for them in the relatively small … save for 100 oz bars which they seem to have yet…  

One dollar over spot for silver eagles is a good price. I know of one dealer here in town who will pay that for them.