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Aaaand It's Gone: This Is Why You Always Demand Physical
We have said it over and over, we'll say it again. For all those who for one reason or another would like to boycott the broken markets, yet trade gold in paper form, please understand that all the invested capital is at risk of total loss and can and will be lost, commingled and rehypothecated, not necessarily in that order, with little to zero recourse and the residual claim on liquidating assets pushed to the very end of the queue. Because if Lehman, MF Global, Peregrine, and countless other examples were not enough, here comes Amber Gold: a gold-based investment ponzi scheme out of Poland, in which it is likely needless to say that the gullible investors never had actual possession of the gold. And when they tried, it was gone. All gone.
From the WSJ:
This week's collapse of a gold-derivatives business that Polish regulators say was a Ponzi scheme has hit tens of thousands of customers, shaken confidence in the effectiveness of the nation's financial regulation, and is roiling national politics in the European Union's largest emerging economy.
On Monday, the company, Amber Gold, Sp. z o.o., which sold a gold-indexed investment of its own design and offered higher interest rates than banks, said it was halting operations. It pledged eventually to repay about $24 million it said it owed to roughly 50,000 clients in Poland.
Amber Gold's 28-year-old founder, Marcin Plichta, who has publicly acknowledged past convictions for misappropriating funds, couldn't be reached to comment. Amber Gold representatives were also unreachable.
Despite three years of warnings by Poland's financial authorities that the company was operating without a license, it continued expanding and spent heavily on marketing. Among its businesses, the company launched a budget airline this year to compete with state-owned LOT Polish Airlines SA on domestic and European routes.
The airline, OLT Express, ceased flights last month and the gold fund unraveled this month after renewed government warnings prompted commercial banks to close Amber Gold's accounts. The company said "the liquidation process will be spread over time," without specifying when people might get their money back.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk referred to Amber Gold as "a scheme" and said he ordered his finance minister to convene top financial authorities—including the central bank and consumer protection office—to discuss the company's demise and the effect on customers. "All signs on heaven and earth suggest that people who put their trust in that company have been cheated," Mr. Tusk said. He said it is the duty of the state "to move fast enough to protect people from those schemes."
...
"I'm shocked at this point and I don't know what to do," said a woman in her 40s, who didn't give her name but said she was an Amber Gold client. "The boss of this company is a very wealthy man and I don't know who will have the authority to block his wealth so he doesn't escape."
Amber Gold has said it has $45 million in assets, including 100 kilograms of gold. For years it hasn't issued required financial statements, a lapse that draws a small penalty.
What can be said here: same sad story, different day. People preying on the "get rich quick" euphoria (we would call it laziness but the word is just slightly off color) of others, throwing in a symbol of stability (gold), and laundering proceeds to "baffle everyone with bullshit" all the while the regulators confirm that regulation is meaningless, by not doing their job (and in America would have likely been part of the ploy - apparently in Poland they are amateurs). Said prey also thought that if things turned sour they would be able to pull all their "gold" which just has to exist, because someone else has certainly checked, right, after all there are tens of thousands (of confused lambs part of this), ahead of everyone else.
Alas, as with every Ponzi, this "strategy" never works. It didn't work for the original Ponzi, it didn't work for Bernie Madoff, and it won't work for the global capital markets, which are increasingly perceived by everyone as merely the largest and most comprehensive thoroughly legitimized by their broke host governments and corrupt regulators Ponzi scheme ever conceived.
And so, as we said in the beginning, anyone who puts any amount of money in the market should expect to lose all of it. The US government and the Fed may believe that have eliminated risk but instead they have merely magnified it to a point when even a 10 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial average feels like the imminent advent of armageddon.
Want to play in a rigged, broken casino? Go ahead - and but don't expect to recovery anything.
For everyone else for whom preservation of capital is more important than gambling, buy precious metals. And get immediate delivery. Because holding a symbolic representation of a flight to safety "asset" via Cede & Co is simply said, idiotic.
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http://www.comparegoldandsilverprices.com/
http://comparesilverprices.com/
I've bought from several dealers off these sites. Very happy but tend to go with the low cost shippers. Do your own math!
http://comparesilverprices.com/
http://comparegoldprices.com/
I started with APMEX because they make it easy, they are often a bit high with the premiums, but they are reliable. It is a good place to start.
The two links above are very helpful once you get a little experience and confidence. They have steered me to Provident and Lear a couple of times and I have been satisfied with them as well. Lately JCS, apparently a mom and pop shop, have taken advantage of these live listings to keep themsleves visible. I have purchased from them three times so far and have no complaints.
PS, in all these cases "immediate delivery" means about two weeks after your check clears.
PS, don't try to buy it all at once unless you have a big pile of money to spend. Make regular purchases of a fixed dollar amount. I buy $500 in silver every month regardless of the current price. I simply look for who has the best deal at the time. I'm just lower middle class geek, but I feel much more secure in my future than many "wealthy" people I know.
Soros is one of the founding neo-feudal aristocrats of the New World Order. He knows that the Euro can never collapse because the only reason this crisis even exists is because he and his co-conspirators have engineered it.
The smart bet is to bet on the survival of the EU and Euro. Bet with Soros against human liberty. If you want to make money.
Your imagination has run away with you. Follow the yellow brick road...
We still waiting for JPM real total losses on its CIO unit
It's Poland. What else would you expect the outcome to be?
The best investment is a: Good Time.....
OK, so lets see.
Buy physical.....Check
Request immediate delivery.....Check
Do not store in a bank or safe deposit vault.....Check
Keep physical safe away from any govt. entity....Check
Do not buy ETFS or crap stocks (even AMZN, they made a whole penny last quarter) Oh OK.....Check
Donate to Zero Hedge to keep the truth coming......Check
Lack of volume on the fake Precious Metal ETFs designed to take your money says it all. Governments are complicit in the thieving and choose to do nothing about it. Vote all the slime out. Ron Paul is the only choice to save the Nation if it can still be saved.
NOPOMO
Sorry off topic a little but not really. Cant believe this hasn't made its way onto ZeroHedge yet. I think I am in love with this woman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwKGNO59pqA&feature=player_embedded#!
LOL...I think I am too...in a platonic, non-lesbian type of way...
Ann Barnhardt is a fire breathing Catholic fundamentalist who is obsessed with islamofascism, but she was also a successful commodity futures trader. She knows the financial system from the inside. In this video she is talking about her area of expertise. By way of comparison, I would dismiss anything Bono has to say about politics, but if he were giving a lecture on the workings of the pop music business I would be a fool not to listen to what he was saying.
I am an atheist who has a few Muslim friends--I also hate Bono--and I endorse this message.
Ann Barnhardt is a case study in the psychology of the Reformed(?) Sinner. Protestant renegade returning to the True Faith, and investment sharper discovering the virtues of economic rectitude. She hates the NFA for reasons both objective and...deeply...personal: @ http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/Arbitration.aspx?entityid=0282801&case=09ARB00009. If the link doesn't go thru, go to the NFA site and search the case#. Must really chafe her ass to be a little fish that got caught (fined $100,000, incl. $50,000 punitive), then watching the big fish like Corzine and Co. skate away. All this aside, Annie B. is indeed a toothsome morsel, looking very fine on her her latest vid, and I would be happy to perfect my acquaintance with her.
Ann Barnhardt needs a orgasm in the worst possible way.
Yeah, but you cannot argue with her financial position.
P.S. I would so like to do her.
And I and a few thousand other guys would like to give her one in the best possible way. Right now this (self-proclaimed) "36-year-old virgin" is either inflating prices in the local vibrator market, or banging the County Sheriff. Prolly the latter.
I prefer the original Bono:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzW_7ANnHZI
Nice passive aggressive attack.
Ann is not an Islamofacist. She is a Fundamental Christian against Mo's Islam belief that those who don't believe in Islam should be killed. BIG difference. She has said that people can have whatever religious beliefs that they choose. She believes in freedom of religion. She doesn't believe that Muslims should have any further rights than anyone else.
I can see why, the peaceful members of Islam have threatened her life repeatedly, to which her reply is, "Bring it Mother Fucker".
As for your atheism, who gives a shit. This is a free country, believe what you want to believe. I'm agnostic myself and don't give two shits if you were a Mormon, baptist, satanist or Islamist or goat fucker. I and the rest of the country, DON'T FUCKING CARE.
Then you insert a straw man, BONO. Who gives a shit? Has been washed up nobody gives a shit.
This is a financial site. What has your post done to maximize financial advice, information or tips. Nothing.
Go find somewhere else to spew your opinion. Ann's financial credentials and reputation belay your vomit.
Go yonder and spew your shit elsewhere.
I feel sad for you that you have no one else to talk to.
He didn't say she was an islamofascist, he said she was obsessed with it.
They are not even remotely the same thing, which makes your response moronic.
The chick told everyone to get out of Dodge after MF Global..she quit her own desk. Now we see how correct she was, and will continue to be. Play the seg funds hedge game at your peril.
she had a video a while back . she had a copy of Quran with raw bacon slices as bookmarks and burned everry pages one by one
it may not be on her channel anymore but its been mirrored many time on youtube .
http://youtu.be/vRQ3X4N1vmc
The best investment is.... good karma.
t's why US T-bills are the safest possible place for your money..... you KNOW you'll get back what you're owed.
of course what you'll be aboe to buy with that money when you redeem it is another story... great scheme - get 2% interest over 10 years when real inflation is actually running at two, three, four times that
I'm not quite sure how this is any different then say having a huge "company", generate boat loads of hype , have an IPO or $32/share and watch the stock price wither as the owner counts his money.
Many of you are old (over 50), near death. You live in a shitty home made of wood that should have been razed a decade or two ago. Your property value is pathetically low, but you're dug into your shitty little rut and you fully intend to stay there, forever. So there you sit, like a hen on her eggs. Except your eggs are made of gold and silver.
So you live paranoid lives, immobilized by fear. Afraid to do much more than take your weekly trip to the local Wal-Mart lest the "Blue Helmets" come and take your guns and gold. The Doomer Boomer survivalist mentality is really quite pathetic to behold. Most of you are well past the point where your lives had any value anyway. Your dicks can't even get hard without pills.
Money should be enjoyed, not thrown in a hole under the crawl space of your shitty house while you live like a disabled pauper on social security checks. Some of you have "wealth" and can do more than sit around watching TV while still owning hundreds of ounces of gold. But many in the Doomer/Boomer survivalist subculture are nearly dirt poor, with barely 100 silver coins to their name.
Sell your house. Sell your guns. Sell your gold. Go live it up with whatever time you have left on this planet, because for many of you, it ain't much. Or give it to your children/grand children so they can live life, the thing you retreated from in fear years ago.
GET OFF MY LAWN!
Money should be enjoyed, not thrown in a hole...
Who lied to you and told you gold is money?
Besides which, "money" isn't the only measure of wealth in case you haven't learn the lesson yet junior. While it's true 70 - 80 orbits and it's time to return the library book, older folks aren't the only ones with a ticking clock. Our advantage is we'll actually get to spend a bit more time in pleasure than the ones behind because we get to go first, theoretically.
So, good luck on this rock when we're gone, do well with those behind you and hope they learn the 5th commandment better than you have.
jmo.
Taunting Father Time is one way to play it. I wouldn't suggest it but you go right ahead.
You don't know me. Go fuck yourself.
I'm putting my full faith and credit in the coming MASS ARRESTS... http://tinyurl.com/cd5cyjo/
I'd say that one aspect of frequently given advice on this topic at ZH is questionable, i.e. the need to hold the physical PMs oneself.
Of course the paper market is totally untrustworthy, but when physical PMs are purchased, allocated, stored and insured by a reputable (non-bank) company in Switzerland (for example), and audited independently, it is a very different situation. Can it be considered *perfectly* safe? No, but neither can holding PMs oneself.
Yeah for sure.
If I weigh the risk that the vault overnight opens all the security boxes and steal the contents, versus the risk of me being robbed in my home, the latter is more likely.
And if the choice was giving up my gold or having loved ones hurt by robbers, I would give up my gold instantly, no matter how well it was hidden.
So vault seems lower risk.
I am a big believer in a guard dog. Maybe two. Be home frequenty, and at different times if possible. Potential robbers will move on. There are easier targets.
(I realize that "frequently" and "at different times" is a confusing statement). Lets stick with frequently
Scotch.
Yeah, that's fine, I just don't personally want to live like that, and regardless I still think that after a holistic risk evaluation the vault seems safer. Unless a very sudden shift occurs, I think I'll sense any upcoming confiscation talk before the law is passed.
I.E. you'd rather live in paranoid fear, refusing to even leave the house, than keep your PMs/money in safe deposit boxes/banks and be able to travel, visit family/friends, and you know...LIVE LIFE. I do the exact opposite of you Doomer Boomers living your twilight years in your oversized coffins you call "investments" (your residence). I stay liquid and diversified world wide. This allows me to go where I want, when I want, and live life rather than having to be a paranoid, immobilized, hermit like you.
Put half your gold in Uruguay and half your gold in Singapore or maybe Austria if you're worried about China invading Singapore, then go live your life. Problem solved.
Simon? Is that you?
No way it's Simon. He'd never stash his money in only 2 places.
" Can it be considered *perfectly* safe? No, but neither can holding PMs oneself." you should have more faith in yourself
I'd suggest that you look up the definition of "perfect". Then, having digested that definition, if you have enough faith in yourself to believe that your PMs are perfectly safe, you should consult the same dictionary and look up the word "deluded".
Well, you come over to my house and try to steal my PM's, please. I am looking a poor cocksucker, like you, to test my state's "castle" laws. It should be an interesting show, .357 147 grain HP vs. your flabby ass.
Long junk silver... short paper precious metals.
Might or might not nest with the recommendation for 2012 which was long gold miners (doh!) and short treasuries (double doh!). stubbornly, i have no cashed on these stubborn theses. i will be vindicated as we the remainder of the year devolves into european insanity and american jackassery. And then around solstice this year, i'll issue 2013 guidance of --- long beans and bullets, short fiat
Hoarders have more fun ! Learn it, love it, live it ! If I didn't hoard I'd probably be just another jerk with a mediocre sense of humour ?
Yea, being trapped inside your shitty wooden home in some terrible part of America watching game shows on TV all day to "protect" the coins you buried under your crawl space sounds great.
Many in the survivalist/Doomer cult are clinically mentally ill by any reasonable standard.
Timmy, is that you? Get back out there and mow my lawn!
Carefull
While you think he is mowing your lawn he will be removing all your assets.
Once a thief always a thief
what you are suffering from, is called pm envy, similar to penis envy, but worse.
Psyman, you could have chosen a better username... You sir are a sociopath!
Here's another outstanding warrant on JPM and Poland's markets:
Still not a peep: JP Morgan Accused of Manipulation of Poland's Equity MarketsAmazing how these crimibankers can keep dodging, bobbing & weaving! - - 4 years!!
I read somewhere officials in HK were worried about the same type of problem so they investigated all the gold index funds listed in HK and closed four of them. I see GLD is still there as is another big one.
Do you know where Corzine is tonight?
Banking hubs such as HK, Switzerland and Singapore are much safer than most other options. A loss of confidence in companies operating in those countries would be devastating to their economies, so they tend to be more closely watched and strictly regulated.
Isn't corzine usually prescribed with tripped a fed?
Maybe not the time or place, but.....
What does NAACP stand for? Negroes are actually colored Polacks.
What do you call a group of Polish men walking around the desert with towels on their heads? Pak o Stanley's
Asshole..
Then comes the day with GLD reveals they don't actually have the gold... and during the trial they blame the customers, apologize, and are given a slap on the wrist with a penalty fine of 0.14% of transactions.
Poland.
In America.. first you get the gold. Then you get the power. Then you get the women.
Growing pains. A lot of the eastern Euro countries have poorly developed bankruptcy laws. They're still figuring out what works as far as insolvency goes. Their rules are in many ways extremely harsh on individual debtors (the real reason for relatively low consumer debt levels over there) but also create fraudulent conveyance opportunities on the corporate side. It wouldn't be too surprising if that 28 year old CEO took steps to move cash away from the reach of authorities.
Probably a good time to highlight that the American bankruptcy code is a pretty good legislative achievement. The rest of the world (including Poland) would be wise to learn from it. It's a shame that the dimwits in charge didn't trust it more during this depression.
Your the best Tyler. Way to call the the DTCC fraud known as Cede & Co. What a frickin name! They are literally rubbing our face in it.
The Tower of Power owns it all.
Ahhhh .. it's all coming back to me....
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/enter-cede-co-ii-fed-now-backstopping-25-trillion-dtcc-cleared-credit-default-swaps
I never tire of Stan's nievete, nor his questioning of the authority of his father. However, he obviously needs to stick to his guns in the face of coercion, and resist putting any more capital at risk. May a hand of the gods touch upon his, and those of his ilk, head with wisdom and fortitude.
so why does Max Keiser have such a boner for GoldMoney then?
At least this sends a warning to everyone here that unless you have phsyical ownership, you are lending it out. Not that this site hasnt beaten this issue to death already but it always helps to have current example in the markets. You have to feel bad for those people who lost money.
The ECBs HFT EUR bot just got switched on, Algos are all over the futures pre Euro open.
It's funny because George Soros and Paulson just added even more GLD.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-14/paulson-soros-add-to-gold-hoard...
It's MF Global - Polish edition without the political connections/get out of jail free cards.
In these markets you're no longer a "customer" or "client" but a mark.
Mark: Slang, n. (1) an individual easy to disrespect and or violate, usually do to cowardice or the desire to avoid conflict. (2) a person prone or soon to be the victim of a crime, especially a crime involving robbery and/or violence. Standard, n, v. (1)something appearing distinctly on a surface, as a dot. (2)a sign used in measuring, writing, etc. (3)an object of derision or scorn.
Agree with all of the above.
HOWEVER, You CAN lose all your money in physical gold too. If you store it at home you can lose it to theft and the insurers will not offer you home insurance to cover gold in the hundreds of thousands of dollars stored at home. In some countries insurers will also not offer insurance for gold stored in a bank locker. Owning physical gold without insurance is a risky business. There is also a certain irony here in that if you lose your gold to theft, you replace the price risk on the asset with a credit risk on the insurer (payment takes time).
There is, therefore, no such thing as a zero risk investment and the only way to make sure you do not lose all your money is by diversifying your portfolio to some extent (farmland is a good diversified asset, for example). BUT, owning physical the "right way" is the lowest risk investment there is and it IS safer than owning cash in a bank account.
4:05PM now here in Taiwan. Just noticed the (paper) gold price in USD has plunged from @$1603 to @$1590 in MINUTES.
But the dollar index has hardly changed. Is this European opening? They must be buying EURO and selling gold. God knows why...
Must we forever be hostage to this criminal paper game?
Someone please tell me WHY paper BETS on the "gold price" - in which no metal ever changes hands and none or very little is put up as backing at all - are ALLOWED to comprise a price-setting mechanism for REAL METAL???
I expect that, at some point, the MINERS themselves will start demanding higher prices for their product.
I blame you for the spam below. Also, I agree about the miners and just had the same thought, as Sprott had mentioned and suggested months back, but as some have pointed out the price of mining has gone up and the margins are getting tight. I am a bit surprised they haven't already withheld product but then again they are in the business of selling.
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How can something that was never there be gone?
No one knows who owns what when it comes to gold, which means no one knows what the supply of gold is. How can you get a price if you don't know how much supply there is.
Well, the price of gold now depends on the price of the euro vs. the US$.
What's so bad about it? People need pain, otherwise the learning effect goes to zero!
Anyone else notice Mrs Farnickle jumped the que? That's what you get...
Where does it say they did not have the gold? It just said they are closed down by the authorities, because they did not get a license from them.
I hope we are not supposed to rely on a bussiness being licensed by the crooks that steal 80% of my income? Or trust the word from presidents and politicians as truth?
Could still very well be that the politicians ran out of money as they usually do and decided to raid the gold and spin the story.
yeah, in many respects, we don't really ever know the real truth about most of these things. MF Global, etc.
Paper gold is sometimes worth the paper its written on. I think Tyler has posted in the past about the actual physical holdings behind many of the big gold ETF's being suspect as well.
I don't know how much $480.00 is to most people is in Poland, but 24 million divided by 50 thousand clients equals an average of a $480.00 loss. Beside the point I know.
Question;
ANd I am quite serious
The Sprott Physical old Trust, is that also an "imaginary" construct as well, that one, seems hard to believe that is is not physical in teh same way ?/
TC
I strongly suspect the Sprott Physical gold and silver trust accounts are valid, and hold the real, physical precious metal they claim.
However, 100% of my assets are in physical gold burried where nobody, nohow, ever will find - accidentally or purposefully. So yeah, while I believe Sprott is probably 99.99% safe... that's not the same as being the only one on earth who knows where to find it.
If you have ANY doubt whatsoever, get and hold your own real, physical gold, silver, platinum, etc.
And BTW, one danger with Sprott is very real, even if his outfit is 100% honest and legit. That is the fact he will hand all your precious metal to the government if the government so demands. He will NOT stand on your side in such a confrontation, even though his responsibility is to YOU.
LET'S GO PHYSICAL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWz9VN40nCA
BUT NOT AT THE BANKSTERS SILLY! Bank of America drills open customer safe deposit box and removes contents