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September 5, 2008Does Not Compute!

Gold has gotten smashed, along with most other commodities. However, as discussed recently by the folks at US Global (below), individuals have been flocking to coin dealers to buy them up. Something is wrong with this picture? My guess is that many citizens are sensing that the current "paper" based price of gold makes no sense and are buying ahead of the curve.
Soaring Sales of American Eagle Coins Cleans out the Mint
American Eagle gold coins have been sold for more than two decades, and for the first time ever, there’s been a sellout.
A late-summer gold rush led the U.S. Mint to suspend sales of the 1-ounce coins, which were first struck in 1986. A big difference between then and now - the average price of gold in 1986 was under $400 an ounce, while this year the average has been above $900.
Typically, 12,000 of the coins are sold in an entire month, but in the first two weeks of August, investors snapped up 60,000 of them for their portfolios. The Mint halted sales on Aug. 15, resuming limited distribution a week later.
The American Eagle coin wasn’t alone in seeing greater demand. South Africa’s Krugerrand, the granddaddy of gold bullion coins, saw an unusually large order of 5,000 ounces from an unidentified buyer in Switzerland. The order cleaned out the Rand Refinery, the exclusive supplier of the gold coin blanks used to manufacture Krugerrands.
In the United States, there was a surge in retail buying, but why the sudden interest in hoarding gold coins? That’s tough to explain in this case: Such retail buying typically coincides with a peak in price, and in this case gold had just sold off almost $200.
A few theories are floating around. Perhaps a hedge fund was trying to tighten the physical market prior to India’s traditional gold-buying season, banking on a higher price this fall. Also, the buying overlapped with the conflict between Russia and Georgia, which also might have been a factor.
Although this is the first time the Mint has halted sales of American Eagles, there have been past shortages. But those shortages typically occurred when the price of gold was rising, and this time it was falling sharply. Those were different times, when there were fewer ways to gain exposure to gold.
Each 1-ounce American Eagle gold coin has a face value of $50, but its sale price is essentially the market price of gold plus a small premium.
Posted by Steve Henningsen
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August 27, 2008Once Again...!

Last year Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair said that she wasn't concerned with the current bank environment and that they were solvent. Now that a few banks have "failed" and been taken over by the FDIC, it seems she is worried about how much cash is in their cookie jar. See article.
As I've been saying since the beginning of the year, don't listen to what these government officials and corporate CEO's are saying, watch what they are doing.
There will be many more bank failures before this is over and yes dear taxpayer, we will be paying for the mess.
Posted by Steve Henningsen
August 26, 2008More Great Advice from Mr. Practical!

Over to Minyanville...
Great Market Power, No Market Knowledge
|  | |  |  | How politicians are running us into the ground. | |  | |  |
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As the US Presidential election becomes front-and-center news, I respectfully submit this thought.
Why do we give so much power to so few people who don’t really know what they're talking about? We now have a central government so vast that bureaucrats are making decisions markets should make.
One or 2 people can't know what millions do - no way no how. We let Barney Frank make mistakes for us just because he has so much power.
If you really listen to the candidates, they have no idea how an economy like ours actually works. Neither do their advisors.
But then, what business is it of theirs to know? Why is it the President’s job to get everyone a job? Last I remember, that's what the Soviet Premier was supposed to do.
A market economy works from the bottom up, where entrepreneurs find a need and fill it. They become experts at production, which creates income and wealth.
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A government responds only by taking money away from one group of people, who tend to know what to do with that money. They then give it to other people, who tend not to know what to do with that money. A government creates no wealth.
The more power you give to a central government, the less wealth (growth), and the more imbalances.
The biggest mistake we're making is to give so much power to Washington. Take away the power, eliminate all the special interests and you eliminate the government-created imbalances along with them.
Reagan began to hatch a plan to decentralize the government, to give more power back to local politics, where people could touch their own reality and have an effect. Much the way a market system is supposed to work.
Someone with a lot of power killed that plan (yes, people with more power than even the President). But again, without a base to funnel that power, those people are left powerless too.
I told Minyans a while ago that the cause of many of our problems was a government grown too big and too powerful. Shysters would never have been able to lend money to people that couldn’t afford to borrow it if our government hadn't advocated it.
Now the government's using the problem to get more power. I'm not advocating no regulation - but I do advocate good regulation, with only proper authority granted to enforce it.
But we are making a huge mistake long-term, which is getting more and more short-term. We're allowing the government to grossly distort our market economy.
Posted by Steve Henningsen
August 25, 2008Monday Giggle!


Posted by Steve Henningsen
August 20, 2008Spot On!

I don't normally agree with everything Pat Buchanon says, but his recent article was excellent and I thought SPOT ON. Read
here.
Posted by Steve Henningsen
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