This blog tonight by John Galt…I want to scare the Hell out of you.

http://johngaltfla.com 

Just got done completing the wall to my back as I turn my attention to the Gauls inside the fort I am beseiging. Ripped a page out of Caesars book on this one today. Hell it worked for him in 53 B.C
But anyway,great stuff on Goldtent tonight Polly,you Fully Aurum,all of you having a go at it and having fun. But being serious at the same time.
Fully, Midas oh good old Midas with the truth backing up what we had put together…the metal is almost all GONE.

Green Gold?

Wal-Mart and Tiffany are trying to clean up the gold-mining industry. Not everyone is cheering them on.

By Marc Gunther, senior writer

September 3, 2008: 10:24 AM EDT

Located near Salt Lake City, the mile-deep Bingham Canyon open-pit mine has a better environmental record than most of its peers.

Guilt-free gold mining

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Pam Mortensen, Wal-Mart’s chief jewelry buyer, says 10% of the retailer’s gold will be responsibly produced by 2010.

Tiffany & Co. CEO Mike Kowalski has been outspoken about environmental issues in mining.

Freshly poured bars of gold at Bingham Canyon.

Gold gets tarnished

(Fortune Magazine) — The Bingham Canyon open-pit mine is the biggest hole dug by man anywhere in the world - about 2 1/2 miles long and nearly a mile deep, according to its owner, Kennecott Utah Copper. Miners have been digging copper, silver, and gold out of Bingham Canyon, just outside Salt Lake City, since 1906. These days huge trucks that cost up to $3 million each work around the clock, hauling about 450,000 tons of dirt out of the earth each day. More than 99% is waste. But by expending vast amounts of energy - the mine operates its own coal-fired power plant - Kennecott is able to extract an average of about 795 tons of copper, 12,000 troy ounces of silver, and 1,400 ounces of gold a day.

It’s the gold that Pam Mortensen has come here to see. Mortensen, 52, is in charge of buying fine jewelry for Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500). And recently she has moved the world’s largest retailer to the forefront of a loose alliance of businesses and environmental groups that have set out to clean up gold mining, one of the world’s dirtiest industries.

No one is more surprised by this development than Mortensen, who grew up in Wal-Mart’s hometown, Bentonville, Ark. When I ask her what she knew about mining before the company got onto its much-publicized sustainability kick a few years ago, she holds up her thumb and her forefinger to make a zero. “We were just buying pretty stuff from our suppliers,” she says.

Now she has bigger things in mind. Wal-Mart is pushing miners to adopt strict environmental and social standards, verified by independent third parties. Its allies in this campaign include Tiffany & Co. (TIF) and the Richline Group, the world’s biggest manufacturer of gold jewelry and a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, Fortune 500). The retail giant is also working with a good-cop, bad-cop duo of environmental groups based in Washington, D.C. Business-friendly Conservation International consults, for a fee, with both Wal-Mart and mining companies. And Earthworks, a watchdog group, is behind a hard-hitting five-year-old media and Internet campaign called “No Dirty Gold.” “The more you know, the less gold glows,” its commercials say.

That kind of talk unnerves jewelers and upsets the mining industry. But facts are facts. Mining enough gold to make a typical 18-carat wedding ring leaves behind 20 tons of waste. In the U.S., metal mining creates nearly 30% of all the toxic releases measured annually by the EPA, more than any other single industry. And in poor countries, where regulation is lax, the picture gets really ugly. Gold mines and their waste have poisoned rivers in Guyana, destroyed rain-forest land in Papua New Guinea, and forced the evacuation of villages in the Philippines. In West Africa, thousands of children dig for gold under harsh conditions. According to the UN, a fifth of the world’s supply is scratched out of the ground by desperately poor miners working for subsistence-level wages.

By contrast, Bingham Canyon employs union workers and boasts a safety record far better than its peers’. It doesn’t employ cyanide, which is commonly used to separate gold from rock, and hasn’t had a significant chemical spill in six years. And when Kennecott expanded the mine a decade ago and encroached on about 1,000 acres of wetlands, the company compensated by creating a 3,670-acre nature reserve near the Great Salt Lake. (Fortunately for the shareholders of Rio Tinto, Kennecott’s London-based parent, the company can afford to do things right - the mine made $1.6 billion in profit last year as prices for gold, silver, and copper all rose.) In an often messy business, you might say Bingham Canyon is the gold standard.

So it makes sense that Mortensen has come here to buy gold and silver for a new, eco-friendly line of jewelry dubbed “Love, Earth,” which went on sale at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club in July. The launch marks the first time a mass-market jeweler has been able to track its precious metals through the supply chain - no easy feat, as we’ll see.

But Mortensen has tougher tasks ahead. Though Wal-Mart is the No. 1 retailer of jewelry in the U.S., with $2.8 billion in jewelry sales last year, according to National Jeweler, it’s still a relatively small player in the world’s $80 billion global market for gold. And the world’s mining giants aren’t in the habit of having their behavior dictated to them by a retail chain, even a big one. Canada’s Barrick Gold (ABX), the world’s largest gold-mining company, has refused to directly join with the retailers or environmentalists to set standards, preferring to be represented by its industry group. The state-owned China National Gold Group, now a major producer, has likewise declined to participate. Wal-Mart and Tiffany may have figured out how to begin shielding themselves and their customers from the tarnish of dirty gold, but the struggle to clean up the business is just beginning.

Gulf oil production scrambling back

Oil companies send crews back to rigs to issue final damage assessments. Production could return to normal for most rigs by end of week.

By David Goldman, CNNMoney.com staff writer

Last Updated: September 3, 2008: 2:11 PM EDT

Gulf oil still ’shut in’

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — As oil companies sent crews back to their rigs to perform in-depth safety checks some operations see production beginning to come online as early as Wednesday.

95.8% of crude oil production and 91.6% of natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico remains shutdown, according to a report on the damage left in the wake of Hurricane Gustav by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service. That’s down from 100% of crude and 95.4% of gas production that was shut down as of early Wednesday morning.

Oil companies with infrastructure in the Gulf region such as Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA), Devon Energy Corporation (DVN, Fortune 500), Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500), and ConocoPhillips (COP, Fortune 500) all said they are in the process of returning workers to their offshore facilities Wednesday, but they cannot return their rigs to operability until safety checks are completed.

“Early assessments established we did indeed dodge a bullet on any major damage in the region,” said Robert Dodge, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute. “Now that they’re getting their personnel out there, the companies will need to take a look for damage deep down under water before they can return to operability.”

Devon, which maintains 25 manned production platforms and three drilling rigs in the Gulf, said it might be able to resume production in the area as early as Wednesday if the underwater pipelines, which cannot be visually inspected from the air, are deemed serviceable after an on-site inspection.

Powerful hurricanes can shift the seabed, damaging pipelines that deliver oil from the rigs to the onshore refineries, API said.

“We expect to begin producing a small amount of production today, and that will continue to improve throughout the week,” said Devon spokesman Chip Minty.

Devon said it did not have a timetable to return to full operability, as it has had difficulty transporting its workers to the rigs. Louisiana airports were hard-hit during the storm, and much of the power remains out. That has delayed helicopter transportation, which is necessary to return crews to the platforms.

Shell said most of its platform workers will return Wednesday with the remaining crews returning Thursday. The company expects production to be restored in three to five days, depending on when power and communications are restored to the rigs.

Power disruptions have affected 55% of all Louisiana customers, according to the Energy Department. That could delay the return to operations for many oil producers, as refineries and pumps for delivery pipelines rely on electricity to operate. The American Petroleum Institute said backup generators were available and could speed up the restoration process.

Exxon Mobil said Wednesday it is in the process of starting up the two refineries it shuttered for the storm, but the company could not yet offer a timetable on the return to operations.

Of the 32 Gulf coast refineries, 13 remained completely shut down Wednesday morning, and 10 were operating with reduced capacity, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The decline in refinery operations has resulted in about 5.6 million barrels per day in reduced gasoline output.

As a result of the the loss of Gulf production, oil refiner Citgo requested a 250,000 barrel loan from the 707 million barrel U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was approved by the Energy Department late Tuesday.

Though Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal requested that the Energy Department open up the SPR to all companies, the request was refused, and the government said it would deal with SPR loans on a company-by-company basis. Thus far, no other companies have requested an SPR loan, according to the Department of Energy.

Re: Adrian and GS covering of Gold shorts/adding Long positions.

This is great info but, the question remains,  could any of us have timed it any better with our studied charts?

Inside info Trumps all charts and most great wealth is, and always has been, built upon inside info.

Amazing, that after a complete smashing of  $Gold that Goldman can just WALTZ in and cover their shorts. IMO, they have inside info or, if not then, their traders should acknowledge Einstein as just another Putz.

RL on Richard Russell:

RUSSELL ASKS: “What does it all mean? “–

“The price of diamonds have gone through the roof. Now emeralds are following the lead of diamonds. What does it all mean? The high prices are being reflected in auction results in Asia and specifically Hong Kong (China). I think what’s happening is wealthy Asians (and Russians) want their money in spectacular tangibles, and rare gems fill the requirements (diamonds over 10 carats in size) are being swept off the market. All great stones are heading for the Hong Kong auctions.”

[BILL-IT MEANS THAT INVESTORS KNOW GOLD IS RIGGED AND THEY WANT TO PROTECT THEIR WEALTH IN A FREE MKT–LIKE PRECIOUS STONES

***

Bill,
In the September 2 session on the TOCOM Goldman Sachs COVERED an absolutely stunning 1,612 short contracts AND ADDED 351 LONG CONTRACTS to bring their long position to 1,049 contracts (a 50% increase in one session!!!!) and their net short position to 2,537 contracts (a 44% reduction in one session!!!). This is a NEW RECORD LOW for their net short position but beats the previous low by 1,963 contracts! This has absolutely astonishing implications for the gold market. GS is running for the hills. Clearly the gold market is headed MUCH higher.

Cheers
Adrian

I just looked at my calendar and realise that if it’s going to be in the 30’s I might be pushing it a bit. Better leave it for my children to handle.

Seriously though, I have always planned to to get out before the parabolia begins.  I know the stress would get to me, always thinking the big downturn could happen at any time.  I suspect most of the people at the end would be inexperienced speculators out for a quick buck.  With a sprinkling  of those who really know what they are doing.  If you’re one of the latter, you’d be OK.

Was invited for a private tour of the BNS vault

Hi Bill,
Waited for 2 months for a tour of the Bank of Nova Scotia vault. Just came back and I was amazed at what I saw.

Given the amount of paper certificates out there I expected to see rooms filled with silver.

Silver:

They only have 60x 1000 oz bars as their working supply.
They have zero 100 oz.
They have zero 10 oz.
They have zero silver maples, silver eagles, zero 1 oz rounds.
They have 1x 5 Oz silver bar.

They have 10 million Oz in custody for Sprott and Butterfield.

I asked where is the silver that is backing the scotiabank certificates? The vault manager said New York I guess.

I asked have you ever had inventory this low. They said, been here since 1985, never seen anything like this, we used to have shelves full of small oz silver.

He said waiting for 3 months for 100 oz, 5 oz and 1 oz but cant get any supply.

They have allocated silver and gold as well in large safety deposit shelves but wasn’t able to count that.

Used to be under impression that gold and silver certificates are allocated because they have an exact quantity of metal to the decimal point. Now I know otherwise the metal is NOT there, though they claim it is in NY.

Gold

They have 210x 400 Oz bars
They have 2800x 400 Oz bars in custody for I shares
They seem to have ~4000 maples, ~500 eagles coins, 10×1 kg bars, 10x 1 kg gold in small nugget form for jewellers

I asked where is the gold that is backing the certificates. The vault manager said, the BNS vault in NYC is 5x larger than this one so it is likely housed there.

All the best

Lenny Organ

Actually, I think both of you are right. I agree with TQ that charts do show things that might be acknowledged later as news, after the price has already moved. It’s the old “somebody always knows something” concept, where the stock price moves before the reason becomes common knowledge to the general public. In that sense TQ “doesn’t need the news.” The chart is not looking in the rearview mirror, it is showing market sentiment and activity that has happened/is happening, and it is even predictive . . . up to a point. It’s the “up to a point” caveat where I start to side with FGC’s view. IMO, a chart is sort of like Newton’s law that “a body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.” The chart is all well and good until some outside force unexpectedly enters the scene and changes the pattern. Suddenly a trendline is broken to the downside, or what appears to be a head and shoulders pattern forming doesn’t happen and the stock breaks out instead, a stock gaps down at the open on unexpected bad news, etc. etc. That’s why I don’t place complete trust in charts to the exclusion of fundamentals. Traders sometimes have to turn on a dime because the unexpected intervenes. And let’s face it, even the best TA people don’t all draw charts the same way or arrive at the same conclusions. 

Some of us are in Newton’s Law mode. We figure there’s a bull market going on and until it’s not going on anymore we’re just going to “stay in motion.” Grant you, that upward climb toward the end of the bull cycle is not without some roller coaster dips and a few inverted loops, lol.  

…or maybe by then we will all just use mental mail….just have to think it and we can tune in

too late …damn door never had a chance..I saw cretins and that was the last straw

….wanna be the first to try a filling lefthanded..?….we have an operning tomorrow for you…1/2 price too

Rub-a-dub-dub, three women in a tub..er, lifeboat.   Welcome aboard, lassie, I couldn’t want for better company.  I’ll be packing in the chocolate for the emotional fix, eh?  Resistance is futile.

Moggy