People, although not very rational, can be predicted to certain degrees, and sometimes we can be influenced with frightening ease. No, I'm not saying I'm good at influencing people--not like the media anyway. Movies, TV, Newspapers all gear people's thinking in so many distracting ways. Even my University of Colorado at Boulder education was a complete pro-government socalistic propaganda-trip!
When I began, I did not at first realize how much my personal studies of God and Money would overlap and explain each other, and be so antagonistic towards the establishment's views. The subjects of truth, contracts, law, nations, and taxes all flow with ease from both topics. So too, do gold, history, power, welfare, statists, and more.
I mention this all here in the beginning because I do not think I can talk about money without mentioning God.
After much geological studies on the Flood and Creation, I came to believe the Bible as the word of God, and I take it for it's literal, common meaning. From reading the gold forums, reading the news reports, and doing the simple math, I also believe that there is a world conspiracy to depress the price of Gold through shorting/leasing/oil trading. I also believe from the stated plans of media figures and world leaders, that we are heading quickly to world government. "Thousand points of light" "Nationalism is dying" "Global Economy" "New World Order" "too many international organizations to count", etc. The Bible seems as if it predicts both world government, and a depressed gold price in the last days.
The point of this essay is not to prove these assertions, I believe they are self evident to all who have time to study the issues. I merely present them to let you know my bias and perspective.
Gold bugs should have a lot in common with Biblical literalists; both are seekers of truth and honesty, and thus, see and reject governments as a source of salvation because of the excesses of fraud, waste, sloth, and tyranny. Truth and honesty are moral values that are eternal and self evident, yet, unfortunately, so unpopular. I think this is one of the reasons why I am drawn to reading the gold forums; the people here love truth and honesty, and it does my soul good to see it.
Although there are many reasons why a return to a 100% gold-based money system would be better for everyone, there are other reasons to hold gold--more than I will list here; such as obeying Biblical commands to not lend for the sake of an increase, staying away from fraud, & having honest weights and measures.
I believe the world is going to go through major upheavals with y2k, with a total collapse of our way of life as we know it, and a world government is soon to follow on the heels of chaos. This will not be the reign of Christ nor any sort of Golden Age, but rather, it will be the time of the AntiChrist.
Christ gives the last church in the beginning of Revelation (3:18) one final piece of advice before all the bad things begin to happen in the Great Tribulation that follows: "Buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou may be rich..."
This is advice and a warning.
Who writes the calls? Who makes it possible to buy an option? At the time you buy a call or option, the seller DOES NOT HAVE the actual physical commodity to deliver! Options don't cut it in a short squeeze. You need actual physical delivery. What is going to happen to the market when there are more people scrambling to get gold than there IS gold? Calls will go UNCOVERED. Orders UNFULFILLED. Bankruptcies. Broken Contracts. The decline and default of Big Banks, the United States government, and more.
That's what Alan Greenspan, is trying to prevent. And if the big banks default, and government collapses, what makes you think a tiny investor's contractural claim on an order of gold in the future will be honored?
Gold options are completely worthless in this market of manipulators. Do you think they will hand over their wealth to you as they bankrupt themselves?
No! In the coming wave of bankruptcies, those comitments will not be honored. The very definition of bankruptcy is the default of monetary contracts. Yes, the shorts will default to the banks, and the banks will default to you if you are holding calls and options.
And let's be optimistic, and assume you can receive a payment "settlement" in this weird thing called "cash." Do you know how many steps it takes before you can actually get a hold of your cash in case you want to use it in a time of financial crisis? First, you punch out your option, if you can. Then, you either go down to your brokerage house to get a check, which they may decide to delay for a day or two or even a week in a crisis. Then, you go down to a bank to cash the check in, and sometimes they put a "hold" on your money for up to three weeks... Wait, aren't these the very same institutions who will be bankrupt from a wild bull market in gold? And you should hope that if you are waiting three weeks to see your money that inflation is not running 1000% a day or worse as it has in the past when other fiat money systems were collapsing.
The failure of LTCM threatened the entire system!
Let me quote from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion;
"At the same time we must intensively patronise trade and industry, but, first and foremost, speculation, the part played by which is to provide a counterpoise to industry: the absence of speculative industry will multiply capital in private hands and will serve to restore agriculture by freeing the land from indebtedness to the land banks. What we want is that industry should drain off from the land both labour and capital and by means of speculation transfer into our hands all the money of the world, and thereby throw all the goyim into the ranks of the proletariat. Then the goyim will bow down before us, if for no other reason but to get the right to exist."
The only way to be long in Gold is to actually take physical posession of the stuff, and not let go no matter how low the price falls. After all, why should you care if the price falls if you are only investing extra money, and you actually have the physical stuff? Calls and options unexercised because of market manipulation and a depressed gold price... you have just been robbed. Calls and options exercised after a bull market in gold that bankrupts the big boys? Good luck! You have absolutely nothing when they manipulate the market against you and you are in options; whether the market drops slightly or swings violently upwards. But when you have the real metal, they can manipulate the market all they like, and all your gold is still in your hands, unchanged.
IN FACT, THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF ALL FIAT MONEY SYSTEMS, AND ALL TAXATION SCHEMES, AND ALL INVESTMENT PLANS, IS NOTHING LESS THAN TO PHYSICALLY REMOVE THE ACTUAL PHYSICAL GOLD FROM THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE. THE ONLY WAY TO FIGHT FIAT MONEY, IS TO TAKE POSESSION OF GOLD AND SILVER PERSONALLY.
And when the pay day comes in for the yellow metal, it'll go to those who heeded the words, "buy gold tried in the fire" that is, the stuff that lasts, not the paper, not the electronic promises to pay.
There is an incredibly large option position in Gold in December '99 at around $400, but I have not read much about it since I first heard about thist on Gary North's website. I think it's supposed to be over ten times as much as normal or something.
If gold moves up in a crazy way, there's no way option contracts will be honored. Just my opinion, backed by my study of world events, my understanding of bankruptcy law, the stated intent of the authors of the "protocols", and my interpretation of Scripture.
OK, I know many people on this forum have lost money in gold options before, it's hard not to have done so in the last 20 years. But that is no excuse to try to use options to regain what was lost in the past. Don't throw good money after bad. Stop playing the shell game that's rigged against you. You'd be better of going to Vegas!
Now, here's where I begin to speculate a bit more.
If the Rapture happens this fall and/or winter, and y2k chaos hits extremely hard as I think it will, national governments will either collapse or start martial law.
After a monetary collapse, and actual physical metal is determined to have all the value in the world, maybe being valued up to 100 times it's current value, posessors of silver and/or gold will have a sudden newfound wealth. Unfortunately, any government that still exists, or any government to come will have an incredible interest in those metals, and their goal will be, as always, to get the gold.
Either they rob, kill, or imprision you. After all, the last time gold was this cheap, it was illegal to own it, both domestically, and internationally from the U.S. point of view. That's right, using inflation adjusted dollars, it was 1972 that last time gold was valued this low, not 1979, and gold was illegal to hold in the U.S. between 1933 and 1974.
The world government that rises from the chaos is not going to have a friendly gold standard. Well, they might have a gold standard at first, but it won't be friendly to the seekers of truth. The AntiChrist to come will control the gold, and he will cause all, both rich and poor, to accept his new money system, a mark in the right hand or forehead, without which no one can buy or sell. (Rev. 13)
Perhaps at *that* time those who have hoarded up wealth for the last days will cast their gold and silver in the streets because it will be worthless.
[Ezek 7:19] "They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity."
Or perhaps, people will do this to save their lives because if they are caught with the precious metals it might spell a death sentence. Or perhaps this will be God's method to proclaim one last final worldwide declaration of the truth for the whole world to see what they are choosing, the rejection of all things honest and true, gold and silver, and the acceptance of the ultmate evil; voluntary enslavement to the master of fiat money instead of being a slave to God.
My conclusion? Friends, buy gold and silver--the actual physical metals with your excess investment dollars--those you have left over after you have fully prepared for both y2k and/or three and a half to seven years of tribulation. (Food preparations are not expensive--a year's supply of wheat or pasta costs a mere$250.) Perhaps holding the actual physical metals will bring great riches to those who hold them, and perhaps holding gold and silver coin will enable you to testify against the world when the time comes, but the riches will be temporary, like all earthly things. And so, do not put your ultimate faith in anything other than God if you value the truth that honest money of gold and silver represent.
And when you invest what you don't need, think carefully about your investment choice. Sometimes there are people who have not yet met their basic food needs, and it's good to know that an alternative place to store your wealth, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where theives do not break in and steal, is in heaven.