Truth is Sometimes Stranger than Fiction

Sometimes in life, the truth is indeed stranger than fiction! I think we have found a case where this appears to be evident! In the last few weeks now, LOTS of news and information has come out about gold, silver, position limits, supposedly empty vaults, ridiculous amounts of leverage to paper over the physical price of both precious metals, etc. al, and honestly, it’s really a bombardment of info even for information junkies like me!

A whistleblower came forward and someone tried to “silence” him with a felony hit and run murder hit job! Evidence was ignored and buried and a cover up is being attempted! I would say things are getting VERY interesting in the gold and silver investing arena lately!

My goal with this new post is to make you aware of what other “news” has just come out most recently and try and help you sort through the “facts” of this he said/she said situation we appear to be in. Things continue to amplify towards a crescendo/resolution.

I was going to write something immediately after the release of the Harvey and Lenny Organ GATA interview on King World News, which you MUST listen to, but it is really a good thing I decided to wait until now to write something!

Over the weekend, Jeff Christian of CPM Group, who testified at the CFTC meetings on precious metals at the end of March here in DC, and who’s testimony has been very controversial, decided to give another interview on Jim Paplava’s Financial Sense Newshour to restate/correct his testimony and his position after his testimony became the most controversial testimony and his “100:1 leverage” comments went viral online and in the investing/precious metals blogosphere and on Youtube. 

Here’s a link to that interview in MP3 form. You will need to move ahead quite a bit in the hour long segment if you want to skip ahead to the 2 pertinent interviews I am going to be talking about. Another precious metals expert was also on immediately after Christian…

Jeff Christian of CPM Group and Nick Barisheff (Metals) President & CEO Bullion Management Group Inc interviews

 Ok, so let’s try and sort through all of this information, (and there’s a lot of information to sort through), to try and figure out if we can read between the lines of what Christian was trying to do by going on Financial Sense Newshour and rebutt all of us investing and precious metal hacks and our supposedly incorrect and misconstrued interpretation of his testimony.

After first listening to Christian’s rebuttal interview on Financial Sense, I was somewhat confused. It sounded like he was trying to change what he said on his testimony. But, after a few hours of thinking and reflecting more about exactly what he said I came up with a few new conculsions. Those conclusions, and these are solely my own opinions, are:

1. He doesn’t give a damn whatsoever about anyone on Main St other than his family and close friends. If you listen to him closely, he hints multiple times that the people who listened to his testimony in DC at the CFTC hearings got it ALL WRONG and he thinks we completely and intentionally misinterpreted/misconstrued what he said! He makes it like he’s the world’s best expert in an exlcusive club only a hand picked amount of people are allowed into!
2. His buddies are the bullion traders and bankers at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc. He defends his buddies vehemently saying there is no possible way they would take the risk of such a stupid trade with so much leverage without covering themselves (cough cough hello subprime loans, exotic mortgages, CDOs, CMOs, credit default swaps, excessive leverage cough cough)
3. He completely discredits GATA (borderline slander) and insinuates that they are all a bunch of crazy people who have wasted the last decade of their lives and  have no idea whatsoever what the real truth about the gold and silver markets really is! He also insinuates that any of us who believe anything of what GATA says is true need to have our heads examined besides being wrong because we don’t know what he knows! Isn’t this a convenient excuse??

After listening to Mr. Christian’s interview, I conclude that he is not one of us Main Streeters! He thinks of himself as a Wall St elite privy to the truth about what really goes on behind the scenes and us morons/common folks/peasants/peons have no clue whatsoever what is really happening! Let’s just say I lost a lot of respect for him after listening to this interview and I’d be glad to say this to his face or on the phone!

He also insinuates that the people who do think they have an idea of what is going on in gold and silver, really have no idea whatsoever! He miraculously reaches this conclusion without addressing any of the supply/demand fundamental questions about silver as well as cleverly dancing around other issues in the precious metals markets.

Also, and this was my favorite part of the interview, besides having no rebuttal whatsoever for GATA having fact after fact after fact about the proven market manipulation in both the gold and silver precious metal markets, he says that a concentrated position is natural and is allowed and encouraged in other commodities in the commodities markets and that Warren Buffett tried to bust the silver market a decade ago by taking delivery and it only changed the price a few dollars.

But, I also know he intentionally left out a few things about Warren Buffett’s attempt at making a killing in silver and I will help fill in the blanks for all of you! Here we go:

If you pay close attention to this and really know the facts about the silver markets, you will realize that Christian says Buffett had to wait more than 3 months for his 100million+ oz delivery of silver. He says how that’s no big deal! There’s just one BIG, no HUGE  problem with what he is saying…. and that’s that the COMEX and LBMA both claim to have that much silver and then some readily available in their vaults already for IMMEDIATE delivery!!! Yes, that means that that silver, as soon as someone wants it and pays for it is ready to go in good delivery, 1,000oz bar form right away. NOT months from availability of delivery!

WHOOPS!

Does something sound fishy to you too??

That ladies and gentleman is a default whether they admit it or not because they say their silver and gold reserves are something much, much larger than they really are and ready for immediately delivery, but their reserves are obviously overstated! The question I want to know is, how much are they really overstated by?

In other words, what order of magnitude of a lie are we talking about here? Are we talking about a fib or about a Lehman Brothers type of overstating lie??

I think Mr. Christian is a smart guy, but I think he is being anything but honest and is downright disingenuinous. He is hoping there are not many of us out there besides GATA who the mainstream media and the banks have done a wonderful job of convincing people they are crazy that really know a lot of the facts and can call his a$$ out for twisting the facts however he wants to twist them!

He thinks he is smarter and better than us. I got news for him. He’s not.

Considering he worked a long time for Goldman Sachs and is probably acting the same way he was when he worked for them (sense of entitlement and better than others and he is doing God’s work by making money) I would be very careful in the future listening to anything this man says, trusting him or acting on any “opinions or advice” he gives out in public regarding the precious metals! It is impossible to tell what all of his real motives are, but it is very easy to tell where his loyalties lie!

That’s with his Wall St banker friends at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley who all think they are better and smarter than we are and they are entitled to steal our money any way they can for as long as they can until we finally say enough is enough! 

In conclusion, I hope listening to Mr. Christian’s interview does not sway you if you were thinking of investing in silver. I hope I have laid out a good enough argument to convine you why you should be careful listening to him… I am of the opinion that silver is still an amazing investment and nothing Mr. Christian said has changed that!