It is abundantly clear that a handful of the most powerful western Central Banks have lead a massive raid on gold using every dirty trick in the book to slow the inevitable march of non-debt encumbered money from appearing to be inevitable, which of course it is, regardless of their increasingly blatant, illegal and DESPERATE operations to manage their intractable systemic problems of opaque, dishonest and indebted policies of a system which can not function without ever increasing debt, a function largely born of removing any substantial backing to paper money and moving from a system of value based on productivity to one of value based only on debt.

One could argue why they would do this. Perhaps they realize they need QE immediately and they want to give the impression that we are entering a period of steep deflation to gain cover. How can you do QE when gold is signaling hyperinflation? Obviously the broader public doesn't realize and the mainstream media don't realize that gold will be even stronger if the US defaults on its debt obligations, which would then make US treasuries plummet and take the dollar with it. For those that don't think that could happen merely consider what happens to the debt service payments if we move to near interest rates to say 5% interest payments on $15 Trillion or $750 Billion. Hmm, that could take a byte out of the budget expenditures. How about at an interest rate of 10%? It doesn't take much in the way of credit down grades or expanding debt as a result of a slowing GDP and dropping tax revenues to make the US look like Greece II x 10,000

All the so called "austerity" measures will never be enough in either Europe or the US to achieve the required twin goals of GDP growth and deficit reduction because the fundamental operative premise of an economic system in which currency and GDP growth are based on ever expanding credit, i.e. debt and that is for multiple reasons. The first is that within any eco-system there are constraints to growth which is a function of energy, natural resources, size of the population and so forth. Due to the natural dynamics of a system based on consumption, debt and expansion, it is clear that within the constraints of the Earth eco-sphere and that the current system has reached a maximum in which this can continue. For the near term, the only way to prevent a sharp bounce off of this system before a better system of currency and economic activity based on natural constraints and a new paradigm of value outside of just jobs and growth and greed, in order to prevent market, social and other disorder, that thee is a need to provide further monetization and unconventional means of stimulus.

What I find strange is that if the fear is of mass deflation that these western banks want to pain a picture of deflation and thus accelerate the problem through attacking gold. I think it is probably because I over estimate the intelligence of the "central planners" and the inefficiency of a system which relies on them.

What is evident to me is that the consumer economy is highly dependent on government spending, government employees and that austerity is going to cause two things, a contracting GDP, lower tax revenues and an expanding budget.

All this taken together means one of two things:

1. The Central Planners devalue the currency in order to make the debt repayable at lowered debt levels via expanding the value of assets that are now deeply depressed like houses and thus inflate our way out of depression.

2. Allow deflation to take hold, allow all the global sovereign debt to default, go through massive social, market and economic upheaval,
probably world war and the complete devaluation of all currencies as the bonds that support them will be equally worthless.

My guess remains that option one is more preferable to the still Bank run world. Unfortunately, for the moment, the ECB doesn't have the ability to monetize the way the Fed does.

For some reason the Fed and other largest Western European banks and likely Japan want to paint a picture of deflation by attacking gold. I would think that in order to avoid the impression that deflation, default and depression are coming they would instead be buying gold.

Perhaps market chaos, social revolution, the failure of the existing financial systems and the like are their motive because what they really want is to start a war, kill off a large portion of the population and crank up the military industrial complex? I don't think so.

The clear signs that gold was under a coordinated attack are as follows:

1. A continuing series of large margin hikes on gold and silver through the US metals futures exchange COMEX.
2. The focus on taking silver down. Silver is the most efficient price lever on gold due its smaller market cap.
3. That it clear that the COMEX margin hikes were leaked to key major, and the largest metals derivatives players (guess who).
4. The proximity in time to the Fed meeting, G20 pronouncements to support banks and the massive drop in silver prices just prior to the margin hikes.

It is clear that this was a well orchestrated take down in gold and silver executed with extreme precision and the tactics that the folks at GATA have been analyzing and detailing through years of research. Ultimately, no matter how much they try, this tactic can succeed very little in the future as the East knows that the US debt situation is just as bad as the Greek debt situation and that the US debt is even less repayable at the current currency values than that of Greece. It is precisely for this reason that nations are calling their gold back from the vaults of the biggest manipulative gold banks and exchanges to their home lands, and China is setting up the Pan Asian Gold Exchange.

Either way, deflationary depression or long term monetization and more gradual inflation, real money, hard cold cash holds value and the current system of debt based currency and economic activity will ultimately erode the value of fiat currencies.

So, while the futures paper markets can be manipulated a while longer until China and other nations can get honest exchanges set up (Pan Asian Exchange is coming on as we speak), this game will soon be at an end. I'll be buying as much physical silver and gold as I can as this raid comes to an end.

Silver is now in full backwardization thanks to the completely false price readings that the manipulators are painting with their their corrupt futures markets. Keep in mind, there is only about 1/10th as much available above ground bullion as there was in 2008 and demand is far higher than it was then. The central banks long ago sold off their silver bullion and mining supply is level and will drop sharply as mining for industrial metals like copper drops as it is largely mined as a byproduct of mining other metals.

There is more I could say and will say. For the long term buy and hold crowd to which I belong, do not let them shake your faith in honest money, gold and silver and do not believe the charts these master thieves are trying to paint for their own ill conceived machinations.

Gold and silver represent honest money, honest dealing and moral integrity. These central planners and their very greedy short sighted banking buddies have no intent or even concept of the words "transparency," "integrity," "honesty," and ethical and moral behavior. They are concerns only with short term gain and passing the buck. Pun intended.

Hang tough. I am, even if through sometimes sleepless night. I will not sell to facilitate this robbery for the short term gain of thieves in suites. Gold and silver will hold value centuries after all fiat currencies and corrupt governments have fallen and I intend to pass that on to my children and theirs too.

Duffminster