Are We On The Verge Of Witnessing The Death Of The Paper Gold Scam?

Gold BarsThe legal claims on physical gold far exceed the amount of physical gold that the banks actually have by a very, very wide margin.  And right now the bankers are scared out of their wits because their warehouses are being drained of physical gold at a frightening rate.  So what happens when their physical gold is gone but they still have lots and lots of people with legal claims to gold?  When that moment arrives, it will represent the end of the paper gold scam.  Many believe that the recent takedown of the price of paper gold was a desperate attempt by the bankers to put off that day of reckoning, but it appears to have greatly backfired on them.  Instead of cooling off demand for precious metals, it has unleashed a massive “gold rush” all over the globe.  Meanwhile, word has been spreading among wealthy families in both North America and Europe that they had better grab their physical gold out of the banks while they still can.  This is creating havoc in the financial community, and at least one major international bank has already declared that it will only be settling those accounts in cash from now on.  The paper gold scam is starting to unravel, and by the time this is all over it is going to be a complete and total nightmare for global financial markets.

For years it has been widely known that the promises that banks have made regarding their gold far exceed their actual ability to deliver, but we have never reached a moment of such crisis before.

Posted below are quotes from people that know precious metals far better than I do.  What these experts are saying is more than a little bit disturbing…

CME President Terry Duffy: What’s interesting about gold, when we had that big break two weeks ago we saw all the gold stocks trade down significantly, we saw all the gold products trade down significantly, but one thing that did not trade down, was gold coins, tangible real gold. That’s going to show you, people don’t want certificates, they don’t want anything else. They want the real product.

Billionaire Eric Sprott: So we see all of these paper (trading) volumes going through that bear absolutely no relationship to what’s going on in the physical markets. As you know I have always been a proponent of the fact that supply in the gold market was way less than demand, and by a very large factor. I think demand exceeds supply by at least 60%. The central banks are surreptitiously supplying that gold, and ultimately they will be running on fumes.

When we hear about the LBMA not willing to deliver gold, and JP Morgan’s inventories at the COMEX have gone from 2.4 million (ounces) down to 160,000 ounces, it just makes you realize that all of this paper trading means nothing. It’s the real physical market that you have to rely on.

JS Kim: FACT #1: COMEX gold vaults were recently drained of 2 million ounces of physical gold in one quarter, the largest withdrawal of physical gold bullion from COMEX vaults in one quarter during this entire 12-year gold and silver bull. There has been speculation about the reasons that spurred these massive withdrawals of gold from COMEX vaults, but the most reasonable speculation is that no one trusts the bankers to hold on to their physical gold anymore, especially in light of Fact #2. Note below, that both registered AND eligible stocks of gold had heavily declined in recent months. Such an event signals a general distrust of the banking system from everyone holding gold in registered COMEX vaults.

FACT #2: One of the largest European banks, ABN Amro, defaulted on their gold contracts and informed their clients that they would only settle their gold bullion contracts in cash and not in physical. So much for the supposed legality of financial contracts as a “binding” contract. So whether Fact #1 caused Fact #2 or vice versa is irrelevant. What IS apparent is that the level of trust in bankers to safekeep physical gold and physical silver is disappearing, as it should be, and as it should have already been for years now. But truth always takes some time to catch up to banker spread lies and that is what is happening now. I have been warning people never to trust bankers in deals involving gold and silver for years now, as in this article I wrote nearly four years ago informing the public that the SLV and GLD are likely a banker invented scam as well.

FACT #3: Silver fraud whistleblower and London trader Andrew Maguire stated that the LBMA was having trouble settling gold contracts in bullion as well and stated that institutions that asked for physical settlement “were told they would be cash settled instead by a bullion bank.” In plain English, this is a default. So Andrew Maguire reported that the LBMA had already gone into default. In light of Fact #1 and Fact #2, the dominoes were starting to tumble and the house of cards that the bankers had built in gold and silver paper derivatives to deceive and hide the true fundamentals of the physical gold and physical markets from the entire world was rapidly starting to crumble. A financial earthquake of magnitude 2.5 was quickly threatening to evolve into one of the biggest financial earthquakes of all time in which the world’s confidence in all global fiat currencies would effectively have a well-deserved funeral.

Jim Sinclair: I think the reality is the supply situation is extremely volatile at this point, and even discussing it is like rubbing a raw nerve to the people who are in charge. The amount of discussion on the subject of warehouse supply, supply that is represented by the gold leases, indicated to the central planners that the demand for physical was going to continue to effect the exchanges.

Although they did not expect any grandstand delivery, the mere continued draining of physical inventories was threatening the very functioning of the paper exchange. That threatening of the paper exchange and its ability to continue functioning is really taking off the blinders and revealing the truth behind the critical question, ‘Where is the gold?’

The question now is, ‘Where has the gold gone?’ Who has all of this gold? Because of the nature of gold leasing, all of this gold has been purchased and it has gone somewhere. The reality of the empty vaults reveal that the gold has gone missing.

Ronald Stoeferle: We’re seeing this rush to physical gold not only in the retail market, but also for the institutional players…[it’s] just overwhelming…I [estimate] a 130-to-1 [ratio of paper to physical gold]…and I think in the last week we were really close to [triggering] a default of the paper market.

Gerhard Schubert, head of Precious Metals at Emirates NBD: I have not seen in my 35 years in precious metals such a determined and strong global physical demand for gold. The UAE physical markets have been cleared out by buyers from all walks of life. The premiums, which have been asked for and which have been paid have been the cornerstone of the gold price recovery. It is very rare that physical markets can have a serious impact on market prices, which are normally driven solely by derivatives and futures contracts…

I did speak during the week with several refineries in the world, of course including the UAE refineries, and the waiting period for 995 kilo bars is easily 2-3 weeks and goes into June in some cases. A large portion of the 995 kilo bars in the UAE goes normally into the Indian market, but a lot of the available 995 kilo bars are destined for Turkey, at this time. We heard that premiums paid in Turkey have reached anything between US $ 20 and US $ 35 per ounce.

James Turk: Another indication of the demand for large bars is the huge drawdown in the gold stock in COMEX warehouses. It is noteworthy that COMEX reports show the drawdown is largely the result of dealers removing their inventory, their working stock. When that happens, you know the availability of supply is constrained.

What all of this means, Eric, is one thing. If the central planners want to keep the precious metals at these low prices, to meet the demand for physical metal they will need to empty more metal from central bank vaults, or borrow metal from the ETFs as some have suggested is happening. Otherwise, the central planners will have to step back and stop their intervention, thereby letting the price of gold and silver rise so that demand tapers off, bringing demand and supply of physical metal back toward some kind of balance.

We’ve seen this same situation several times over the last twelve years. It is what I have been calling a “managed retreat.” Despite the current weakness, I firmly believe we have again entered a critical period where the central planners will need to retreat once again in order to let the gold and silver prices climb higher.

The Golden Truth: And then I get a call from a close friend in NYC last Friday.   His career has been in private wealth management in the private bank department of the Too Big To Fail banks.  He’s been looking for work and chats with old colleagues all the time.  He called my Friday and told me he just got off the phone with a very high level private banker from a big Euro-based TBTF bullion bank, but who was at JP Morgan until about six months ago.

This guy told my friend that there is a scramble by many very wealthy European families/entities to get their 400 oz bars out of the big bank vaults. He knows this personally, for a fact.  He said the private banker community is small over there and the big wealthy families all talk to each other and act on the same rumors/sentiment.  The Bundesbank/Fed and the ABN/Amro situations triggered this move.  He knows for a fact JPM tried to calm fears about 3 months ago by sending a letter to it’s very wealthy clients assuring them their bars were safe, in allocated accounts.  He said right now those same families are walking into the big banks like JPM and demanding delivery of their bars or threatening to take their $100’s of millions in investment portfolios to competitors.  His wording was “these people are putting a gun to the heads of private banks and demanding their gold.”

I know this information is good because I know my friend’s background and when he tells me his source is plugged in, the guy is plugged in. Not only that, my friend’s source said that there’s no doubt that someone like a John Paulson, not necessarily specifically him, but entities like him or it may include him, have held a gun to GLD and demanded delivery of physical in exchange for their shares.

Regarding the Bundesbank/Fed situation, recall that the Bundesbank asked to have some portion of its gold sitting – supposedly – in the NY Fed vault in NYC sent back Germany. The total amount is 1800 tonnes.  After behind the scenes negotiations, the Fed agreed to ship 300 tonnes back over seven years.  To this day, the time required for that shipment has never been explained.  Venezuela demanded the return of its 200 tonnes held in London, NYC and Switzerland and received it all within about four months.

And regarding the ABN/Amro situation.  ABN/Amro offered a gold investment account product that offered physical delivery of the gold in the investment account when the investor cashes out.  About a week before the gold price smash, ABN sent a letter to its clients informing that the physical delivery of the bullion was no longer available and that all accounts would be settled with cash at redemption.

I believe it was these two events that triggered the big scramble for physical gold by wealthy families/entities who were suspicious of the integrity of their bank vault custodial arrangement anyway.

*****

So what does all of this mean?

It means that we are entering a period when there will be unprecedented volatility for precious metals.  There will be tremendous ups and downs as this crisis plays out and the bankers try to keep the paper gold scam from completely unraveling.

Meanwhile, nations such as China continue to stockpile gold as if the end of the world was coming.

According to Zero Hedge, Chinese gold imports set a brand new all-time record high in March…

Quite the contrary: as export data released by the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department overnight showed, Chinese gold imports in March exploded to an all time record high of 223.5 tons.

And the number for April is expected to be even higher.

Does China know something that the rest of us do not?

We are also seeing a rapid decoupling between spot prices and physical prices.  In fact, it is quickly getting to the point where the spot price of gold and the spot price of silver are becoming irrelevant.

For example, demand for silver coins has become so intense that some dealers are charging premiums of up to 30 percent over spot price for silver eagles.

That would have been regarded as insane a few years ago, but people are now willing to pay these kinds of premiums.  People are recognizing the importance of actually having physical gold and silver in their possession and they are willing to pay a significant premium in order to get it.

We are moving into uncharted territory.  The paper gold scam is rapidly coming to an end.  In the long-term, this will greatly benefit those that are holding significant amounts of physical gold and silver.

The Beginning Of The End by Michael Snyder

UNPRECEDENTED Shortages Of Ammo, Physical Gold And Physical Silver

Panic Button By John On FlickrAll over the United States we are witnessing unprecedented shortages of ammunition, physical gold and physical silver.  Recent events have helped fuel a “buying frenzy” that threatens to spiral out of control.  Gun shops all over the nation are reporting that they have never seen it this bad, and in many cases any ammo that they are able to get is being sold even before it hits the shelves.  The ammo shortage has already become so severe that police departments all over America are saying that they are being told that it is going to take six months to a year to get their orders.  In fact, many police departments have begun to trade and barter with one another to get the ammo that they need.  Meanwhile, the takedown of paper gold and paper silver has unleashed an avalanche of “panic buying” of physical gold and physical silver all over the planet.  In the United States, some dealers are charging premiums of more than 25 percent over the spot price for gold and silver and they are getting it.  People are paying these prices even though they are being told that delivery will not happen for a month or two in many cases.  Some dealers are feverishly taking as many orders as they can, and they are just hoping that they will be able to get the physical gold and silver to eventually fill those orders.  Personally, I have never seen anything like this.  If things are this tight now, what is going to happen when the next major financial crisis strikes and people really begin to panic?

The shortages and rationing of ammunition at gun shops all over America just seem to keep getting worse.  The following is from an article by a gun owner down in Texas named Brad Meyer

If you’d like to see a normally sullen sales clerk chortle with derisive pleasure, just walk into just about any gun range, sporting goods store or mass merchandiser and try and buy a couple boxes of .22 ammunition.

Gun enthusiasts are up in arms about a nationwide shortage of ammunition. Handgun ammo in general is particularly difficult to find – and when you do find it, there are restrictions on the amount you can buy and how much you’re going to be paying for it.

While the list of hard to find ammo is long, .22 long rifle and 9mm handgun ammunition are particularly difficult to find in quantity. And the few places that have it are charging a premium rate and usually limiting purchases to one box, per person, per day.

Many gun owners try to find ammunition by going on the Internet, but things have gotten so tight that now any ammo that becomes available online is often gone within seconds

There are websites where people across the country post links to where ammunition is available – and it sells out within seconds. Not minutes or hours – seconds.

Unfortunately, all of this demand is also driving up prices.  Just check out what Meyer says is happening to the price of standard .22 ammo…

The demand is driving up the cost of ammunition. Six months ago, standard .22 ammo – the most common type of bullet produced in the world – could be had in bulk for around five cents apiece. It is now going for 50 cents or more on some websites – and people are paying it.

But this shortage is not just affecting private citizens.  According to Newmax, police departments all over the nation are dealing with ammo shortages unlike anything that they have ever seen before…

Sheriff Anthony DeMeo of Nye County, Nev., was told his department’s regular order of 50,000 rounds could take up to a year to arrive.

“This is the first time ever I’ve heard that there’s a problem with a law-enforcement agency getting ammo for their agency,” DeMeo told The Las Vegas Sun.

These departments are not alone. Law enforcement agencies in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia are among many that are having to limit how much they give their officers due to the shortage.

Could you imagine waiting for “up to a year” to get more ammunition?

A recent article posted on CNSNews.com had some more examples of police departments that are reporting that there is a massive wait to get more ammo…

Chief Pryor of Rollingwood, Texas says of the shortage:

“We started making phone calls and realized there is a waiting list up to a year.  We have to limit the amount of times we go and train because we want to keep an adequate stock.”

“Nobody can get us ammunition at this point,” says Sgt. Jason LaCross of the Bozeman, Montana police department.

LaCross says that manufacturers are so far behind that they won’t even give him a quote for an order.

“We have no estimated time on when it will even be available,” LaCross says.

This is insane.

What in the world could be causing such an ammo crunch?

Well, certainly the demand for guns and ammo has been trending up in recent years – especially since Barack Obama was elected.

But that doesn’t fully account for the shortages that we are witnessing at the moment.

So what is going on?

Well, some people believe that the federal government is responsible.  It has been reported that they have signed contracts to purchase “up to” 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition.  According to Forbes, this amount of ammunition would be enough to fight a “hot war” in America for 20 years

The Denver Post, on February 15th, ran an Associated Press article entitled Homeland Security aims to buy 1.6b rounds of ammo, so far to little notice.  It confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security has issued an open purchase order for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition.  As reported elsewhere, some of this purchase order is for hollow-point rounds, forbidden by international law for use in war, along with a frightening amount specialized for snipers. Also reported elsewhere, at the height of the Iraq War the Army was expending less than 6 million rounds a month.  Therefore 1.6 billion rounds would be enough to sustain a hot war for 20+ years.  In America.

Could this be a way that the Obama administration is trying to restrict the amount of ammo that gets into the hands of private citizens?

That is what some people are suggesting.

According to talk radio show host Michael Savage, the ammo contracts that the federal government has signed give them priority over all other purchasers…

What Homeland Security is doing here is they’re issuing a contract to buy up to that amount of ammo if they want it…

It’s a way to control the amount of market that’s available on the commercial market at any time.

If they go to the ammo manufacturers and say give me 50 million rounds, give me another 30 million rounds… if they periodically do this in increments, they’re going to control how much ammo is available on the commercial market.

As part of their contract it stipulates in there that when the government calls and says give us another quantity, that everything they make has to go to the government priority one before any of it goes to the commercial market.

So, if  they get nervous, all they have to do is use that contract that they have in place… and they just say ‘give us some more.’

So whenever the government wants to tighten the supply of ammunition, all they have to do is invoke their contracts and order more for themselves.

Meanwhile, Obama appears to be doing other things to restrict the amount of ammo that gets into the hands of private gun owners.

For example, there are reports that the Obama administration plans to use executive orders to greatly restrict the importation of ammo from overseas.

So if anything, the shortage of ammunition is only going to get worse, not better.

Meanwhile, the “panic buying” of physical gold and physical silver that we have seen lately has really run down inventories.

According to Reuters, demand has become so intense that the U.S. Mint has suspended sales of gold coins for the first time since 2009…

The U.S. Mint said it has suspended sales of its one-tenth ounce American Eagle gold bullion coins as surging demand after bullion’s plunge to two-year lows depleted the government’s inventory. This marks the first time it has stopped selling gold product since November 2009, dealers said.

At the same time, precious metals dealers all over the country are scrambling to meet the voracious demand that they have been seeing this month.  The following is an excerpt from a letter that the CEO of Texas Precious Metals recently sent out to his customers…

The physical silver market is, in a word, ugly. There is no telling at this point when mint inventories will return to normal, but you can be sure it will not happen within the next 8 weeks. Most dealers, at this point, are selling their current customer demand forward, meaning they are selling product they do not presently have, expecting to pull from future mint allocations. Consequently, future allocations will face pressure from today’s demand. It is not my intent here to comment on the business practices of other companies, but I will say that no one can possibly predict future allocations at the time. The US mint, for example, releases its allocations weekly, and until then, dealers have no insight into allocation levels. Last week, we turned away business in excess of 100,000 ozs of silver because of stock depletion. However, we stand by the notion that it is better to lose a sale than lose a customer by delaying delivery two months (or more).

A similar thing is happening over in Asia.  According to the Financial Times, soaring demand has caused a shortage of gold at the Hong Kong Gold & Silver Exchange Society…

Haywood Cheung, president of the Hong Kong Gold & Silver Exchange Society, said the exchange had effectively run out of most of its holdings as members looked to meet a shortfall in supply amid rampant retail demand for gold products.

“In terms of volume, I haven’t seen this gold rush for over 20 years,” he told the Financial Times on Monday, adding that the exchange only had around twenty 1kg bars, and 100 five-tael bars left in its inventory. “Older members who have been in the business for 50 years haven’t seen such a thing.”

But most disturbing of all is what Jim Sinclair told King World News recently.  Apparently his friend went to get his gold out of a Swiss bank the other day and they refused to give it to him…

A person that I know with significant deposits in one of the primary Swiss banks, in allocated gold, wanted to take out his gold and was just refused on the basis of directives from the central bank….

They told him the amount was in excess of 200,000 Swiss francs and the central bank had instructed them not to do it because it has to do with anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering precautions.

I really wonder whether those are precautions or whether the gold simply isn’t there. Now you tell me that a London delivery has basically failed. It has to raise our suspicions that the lack of physical gold behind the paper gold is literally so severe that we are coming to understand that it is in fact not there.

The gold that people think is stored is not stored, and the inventory of the warehouses for exchanges may not be holding deliverable gold. There has always been speculation about whether or not the physical gold the US claims to store is in fact in those vaults.

The greatest train robbery in history might be all of the gold, and it would only be something like we have described above that would happen right before gold makes historic highs.

There simply is no gold behind the paper. One example is AMRO, a second is your example with Maguire, and a third is my dear friend who was refused his gold on the basis that its value was too high. Remember this friend of mine had his gold in an allocated account in storage at a major Swiss bank. I repeat, there is no gold.

So are we going to see more of this?

Will it soon become evident that there is simply not enough physical gold to cover all of the promises that the banks have made?

Jim Sinclair sure seems to think so.

In another interview, John Embry expressed similar sentiments to King World News…

This gets back to the tip of the iceberg when the Dutch Bank ABN AMRO came out and literally said that if you have allocated gold with us, you can’t have it.

That, to me, is a default, and it gets back to what Jim Sinclair related when one of his friends went to a Swiss bank and couldn’t get his allocated gold.  I mean that’s preposterous.  If it’s allocated it should be there, but it’s clearly not there.  I think this is the beginning of the end of the massive Ponzi scheme in paper gold.  I have been talking about this for some time, and it will have an enormous impact on future gold and silver prices.

When it becomes widely known that all of the people who think they own gold in fact don’t own gold, that it’s been hypothecated and re-hypothecated so many times that there are 100 claims for every single ounce of physical gold, that is when the prices of gold and silver will really go berserk to the upside, and at that point the shorts will have serious problems.”

If those that helped engineer the recent takedown of paper gold and silver were hoping to scare people away from physical gold and silver, then they failed miserably.  For even more on this, please see my recent article entitled “10 Signs The Takedown Of Paper Gold Has Unleashed An Unprecedented Global Run On Physical Gold And Silver“.

All of this is just another example why I encourage people to get prepared while times are still relatively good.

Once disaster strikes, it may be too late to get the things that you need.

Right now there are a whole lot of people out there wishing that they had stocked up on ammo when it was much cheaper and much more readily available.

We are moving into a time when everything that can be shaken will be shaken.  Use the stability provided by the false bubble of economic hope that we are experiencing right now as an opportunity to get prepared.  The next major wave of the economic collapse is rapidly approaching and time is running out.

 

10 Signs The Takedown Of Paper Gold Has Unleashed An Unprecedented Global Run On Physical Gold And Silver

A Global Run On Physical Gold And Silver Has BegunThe crash of the price of paper gold on Monday has unleashed an unprecedented global frenzy to buy physical gold and silver.  All over the planet, people are recognizing that this is a unique opportunity to be able to acquire large amounts of gold and silver at a bargain price.  So precious metals dealers now find themselves being overwhelmed with orders in the United States, in Canada, in Europe and over in Asia.  Will this massive run on physical gold and silver soon lead to widespread shortages of those metals?  Instead of frightening people away from gold and silver, the takedown of paper gold seems to have had just the opposite effect.  People just can’t seem to get enough physical gold and silver right now.  Those that wish that they had gotten into gold when it was less than $1400 an ounce are able to do so now, and it is absolutely insane that silver is sitting at about $23 an ounce.  If the big banks continue to play games with the price of gold, we are going to see existing supplies of physical gold and silver dry up very quickly.  And once reports of physical shortages of gold and silver become widespread, it is going to absolutely rock the financial world.  But this is what happens when you manipulate free markets – it often has unintended consequences far beyond anything that you ever imagined.

The following are 10 signs that the takedown of paper gold has unleashed an unprecedented global run on physical gold and silver…

#1 According to Zero Hedge, the U.S. Mint set a new all-time record for the number of gold ounces sold on Wednesday…

According to today’s data from the US Mint, a record 63,500 ounces, or a whopping 2 tons, of gold were reported sold on April 17th alone, bringing the total sales for the month to a whopping 147,000 ounces or more than the previous two months combined with just half of the month gone.

#2 Precious metals dealers all over the United States are having a really hard time keeping up with demand right now.  According to Chris Martenson, many are warning customers to expect waiting times of five to six weeks at this point…

In the U.S., all of the dealers I talk to are reporting huge demand and brisk buying. Silver in any form is quite hard to come by unless you want to pay premiums of 20%+ per ounce above spot price. Delivery times are 5 to 6 weeks out now that’s an unusual situation.  If this recent slam was designed to scare people away from gold, it did not have that desired outcome; in fact, just the opposite.

#3 Individual dealers all over the country are confirming that we are seeing a voracious appetite for precious metals at the moment.  For example, the following is what a spokesperson for JM Bullion had to say…

We still have certain things in stock, like 10 oz bars, while others, like Silver Eagles, are a bit of revolving inventory.

The shipments are going out as soon as inventory comes in.

Our main challenge right now is actually getting the silver into the boxes and shipped out – we have been experiencing astounding volume.

This appears to be a widespread phenomenon.  Just check out what other dealers are reporting

“There has been a marked increase in demand since the plunge,” said Mark O’Byrne, executive director at Dublin-based investment and bullion specialist GoldCore, referring to the drop in gold prices seen Friday and Monday. Gold futures lost more than $200 an ounce, or over 13%, on those two days. They were at $1,392 an ounce, moving higher ahead of the close on Thursday.

GoldCore has seen more buying than selling on Wednesday and Thursday, with buy orders “lumpier and from high net worth clients, and with most of the selling in small orders of less than 50 ounces, said O’Byrne.

On Wednesday, David Beahm, executive vice president at Blanchard & Co., said his precious-metals investment firm has seen “2008-like demand” for gold since Monday.

#4 Large international banks are also experiencing tremendous demand for physical gold and silver by customers right now.  The following is what Keith Barron told King World News about what he is hearing…

At the Bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto the gold window has been absolutely swamped. I have confirmed there were people lined up in droves recently for multiple-hours at a time to buy gold and silver bars and coins….

I then confirmed with UBS today in Zurich, Switzerland, that they are experiencing exactly the same thing. They told me people are waiting in long lines for bullion related bars and coins. The physical market is incredibly tight, and there is a huge buying opportunity right here.

The damage in gold will not be long-term because physical supply is already drying up. Asian countries have been aggressively buying gold. This really is an unprecedented opportunity for investors. This takedown in the metals has created incredible demand for both gold and silver, and anyone who wants to unload dollars or euros and put them into gold because they don’t trust the currency, now is the time to do it.

#5 The demand for physical gold and silver is heating up over in Europe as well.  For example, the following is from an emergency message posted on the website of a precious metals dealer in the UK…

Due to the unprecedented demand triggered by the recent fall in the Gold Price we are currently not able to guarantee Next Day Delivery of orders.

We anticipate that all orders will be delivered within 7 days of receipt by us.

Whilst we appreciate that these delays are frustrating for our customers we would like to stress that all accepted orders are guaranteed at the order price and will be dispatched as soon as possible.

It is necessary for all of our staff to be utilised in fulfilling orders and we ask for your cooperation by not calling us to query delivery times. If you do need to contact us, please do so by e-mail and we will endeavour to respond within 48hrs.

#6 On the other side of the globe, demand for precious metals is skyrocketing as well.  According to Bloomberg, people are “running through the gate” to get gold in Australia…

Gold sales from Australia’s Perth Mint, which refines nearly all of the nation’s bullion, surged after prices plunged, adding to signs that the metal’s slump to a two-year low is spurring increased demand.

“The volume of business that we’re putting through is way in excess of double what we did last week,” Treasurer Nigel Moffatt said by phone, without giving precise figures. “There’s been people running through the gate.”

#7 Reuters is reporting that customers are waiting for up to three hours to buy gold in Japan…

A week ago, as the yen-denominated price neared a new peak, jewelry stores and gold merchants across Japan saw long lines of mostly older Japanese looking to cash in on unwanted jewelry and other items that they had held for years.

But on Tuesday, buyers outnumbered sellers by a wide margin. At Ginza Tanaka, the headquarters shop of Tanaka Holdings, gold buyers waited for as long as three hours for a chance to complete a transaction.

#8 According to a Chinese article quoted by the Blaze, there is a mad rush to buy gold in China right now…

People have to rush to buy gold … gold bullion out of stock yesterday, investors yesterday to spend as much as 600 million yuan to buy 20 kilograms of gold bars

The mad pursuit gold insufficiency is not just a game for the rich. Yesterday, the Yangcheng Evening News reporter learned from the East flowers to Bay store, many growers, pork traffickers, fishmonger recently put down his job went straight to the mall to buy gold.

#9 According to Reuters, dealers in Singapore are having significant trouble finding enough of a supply to keep up with the intense demand for gold that has erupted this week…

“People are actually buying everything, gold bars, gold coins. People are rushing to get a hand on it. We have a problem meeting the demand because we are unable to get new supply,” said Brian Lan, managing director of GoldSilver Central Pte Ltd in Singapore.

#10 Bloomberg is reporting that over in India people are “flocking to stores” to purchase gold jewelry and coins…

Gold buyers in India, the world’s biggest consumer, are flocking to stores to buy jewelry and coins, betting a selloff that plunged bullion to a two-year low may be overdone.

“My daughter is just six months old, but I think it is never too early to buy gold,” said Sharmila Shirodkar, a 28- year-old housewife, while displaying a new pair of earrings she bought from a store in Mumbai’s Zaveri Bazaar. “I had been asking my husband every day if prices will go down more. I couldn’t wait anymore.”

If the big banks were trying to scare people away from gold and silver by crashing paper prices for those metals then they have utterly failed.

Instead of being frightened away, the global appetite for physical gold and silver is now more voracious than ever.

If the prices for gold and silver stay this low, we are eventually going to start seeing some very serious shortages in the marketplace.

And once reports of shortages of the actual physical metals become widely circulated, it will cause an “adjustment” in the marketplace that will shock everyone.

So hold on to your hats.  We are entering a period of time when there will be unprecedented volatility for the prices of precious metals.  It will be quite a roller coaster ride, but if you can handle the ups and downs it will be worth it in the end.

They Have Unleashed A Frenzy To Get Gold And Silver