The following is Joel Skousen's take on this subject:

RESURRECTION TIME FOR GOLD--BUT MOSTLY FOR INSIDERS After years of central bank gold sales, artificially driving down the price of gold, the establisment has suddenly switched strategies and is allowing the price to rise. This deserves some analysis since none of this has happened by accident and is still the subject of heavy manipulation. I will give a very brief analysis at this time, and hope to have a more complete picture later on this year. I am indebted to my good friend, Steve Tomczak for doing the extensive research and analysis on this. The big players in this manipulation of gold have been US and European central banks, Russia, Middle Eastern Oil countries, the IMF, bullion banks/brokers, and the big mining companies. Its much more complex than I have room to explain, but here is a capsule version:

US and European central banks, in collusion with Russia (for unknown secret promises--probably future cash and loans to the elite), began dumping gold on the market several years ago in order to drive the price down. This, we now believe, was intended to negatively impact the gold mining industry and put them in distress. Geo-politically, it also destabilized several African nations who were highly dependent upon gold production and sales in order to finance internal military and economic stability. But unknown to the general public, a huge market developed among insiders to short the gold market and make millions of dollars as the price went down. Giant hedge funds, all closely connected with the PTB, also got into gold short contracts in order to profit from what they knew was a guaranteed downward direction of gold prices. Because of the phenomenol profits in gold short contracts, central banks and bullion banks (who broker and store the physical metal for producers) began leasing out the physical gold to insiders, as well, who then would sell at a markup, counting on their ability to buy back the physical gold later, at cheaper prices, when demanded for repayment. This only works as a profitable strategy as gold is going down. If gold rises, they have to buy it back at a higher price, which is disasterous financially. Gold market watchers began to observe last year that the total amount of gold leases and short contracts (a difficult quantity to ascertain without insider connections) actually exceeded the total supply by many fold. So it became obvious that whenever the price started to rise, those insiders shorting gold and leasing gold were going to be unable to recover. When the price of gold started to rise dramatically (biggest one day rise in history) following the announcement of European banks and IMF to stop gold sales for the next five years, I knew that this was the death knell for those insiders shorting gold. The central banks have also agreed not to increase their gold lending arrangements and derivative operations above current levels for the next five years. Never before in history have the big boys been told what they were going to do in advance. Their openly giving out the five year date guaranteed a bull market in gold. It wasnt meant to benefit those who would now buy gold, but rather to destroy those who had been induced to short the market. Not only would the price of gold rise, but there wasnt enough gold available at any price for them to pay off their contracts.

Steve and I went back and forth for days trying to figure out why the establishment would let their buddies (whoever they were, and who had been encouraged to short the market) get caught in a no win situation. Steve may have found a major part of the answer in analyzing WHO the actual players were who were shorting the gold market. By and large, it was the big mining companies themselves, coupled with hedge funds connected to mining interests. Apparently, the big mines were induced by bullion bankers to enter into the hedging game (shorting the market, and selling future production forward) as a means of surviving the downward market in gold. Little did the big mines know that they were being set up for bankrupcy by these insider bullion banks/brokers when the price of gold would finally rise. Since the number of short contracts outstrips even the mines production, there is no way the mines can pay back the gold that shorted. Rather than be able to take advantage of the increasing price to recover (as the public thinks), the mines are now in BIG trouble. Steves analysis is that the PTB have set them up intentionally so as to be able to buy them out and control the worlds biggest gold mines. If this is true, it is a very important prelude to depression and war. When the insiders go out to control most of the worlds gold, you can bet that the inflation of paper currencies is not far off.

-- Farmbeet (farmbeet@buygold.corn), October 14, 1999

Answers

Hmmmmm. Makes good sense to me....

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), October 14, 1999.

Have you noticed that it seems like whether or not the price is headed up or down, all lines seem to intersect at about 1 PM NY time each day?

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), October 14, 1999.