Switzerland

"The future is unknown and we are not dealing with markets that are free markets anymore...now we have government interventions everywhere. [But] in the last say twelve months, I have observed an increasing number of academics who are questioning monetary policies. That's why I think they will take the gold away and go back to some gold standard by revaluing the gold say from now $1000/oz to say $10,000 dollars. An individual should definitely own some physical gold. The bigger question is where should he store it? because... the failure of monetary policies will not be admitted by the professors that are at central banks, they will then go and blame someone else for it and then an easy target would be to blame it on people that own physical gold because - they can argue - well these are the ones that do take money out of circulation and then the velocity of money goes down - we have to take it away from them... That has happened in 1933 in the US."

Aside from the socialist utopias of Greece and Venezuela, who else is on the default chopping block? The CDS heatmap below lays out all the countries which according to the market, are most likely to tell their creditors the money is gone... it's all gone.

The quest for perfection is man’s unattainable goal. Man can never be perfect if we are to believe the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Man is man’s wolf and all of that.

The SNB reported a record loss, but the real meaning and implication is not what most are claiming.  See why.

Earlier today, the SNB which is perhaps the most transparent hedge fund of all central banks and actually lays out its financial statements in a respectable manner every quarter, released its results for the second quarter (and first half) of 2015. The result: another absolutely epic loss, amounting to €50.1 billion ($51.8 billion) of which €47.2 billion on currency positions - a whopping 7% of Swiss GDP - meaning that in Q2 the SNB lost another €20 billion. This happened despite the SNB having invested 17%, or $94 billion, in foreign - mostly US -stocks.

How many more blind eyes can the press (or "we, the people") turn?

You do not start confiscating deposits at banks until the government itself is bankrupt and cannot foot the bill for a bailout.

The Centralized Powers have declared a War on Cash... and it is spreading throughout the globe.

Since yesterday there has been another of wave of negative, misleading and almost triumphalist commentary on gold most of which studiously ignores the clear evidence of manipulation of the price on Sunday night.

Many analysts believe the officially reported 1,660 tonnes to be an understatement given the enormous volumes of gold that have been passing through Hong Kong - and through Shanghai in more recent years - and the large amounts that have been produced and bought domestically.

It is important to remember that as we have long pointed out two other entities, besides the PBOC, have also been buying gold - the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) and the China Investment Corporation (CIC).

In what looked like another successful bid to manipulate the gold market lower, there was massive selling of gold futures contracts - some 700,000 ounces worth of gold futures in mere seconds. The equivalent of one-fifth of a whole day’s trade in a normal session, was sold in a concentrated manner in less than two minutes - pushing prices lower again.

The last time these criteria were met... stocks plunged over 90% over the next 24 months.

The latest ‘Global Precious Metal Roundtable’ was recorded Wednesday and featured Jordan Eliseo of ABC Bullion,  Bron Suchecki of the Perth Mint and Ron Stoeferle of Incrementum and Mark O’Byrne of GoldCore.

 This is the continuation of the trend of China positioning the yuan as global reserve currency ... The Chinese are pushing for full convertibility of the RMB and increasing their gold holdings will create confidence in the fledgling reserve currency and aid them in this regard.

‘Plan B’ Needed As Euro One Recession Away From Implosion - David McWilliams