Are Monetary Metals Futures Markets Legitimate Anymore?

Is there a worsening shortage of monetary metal in the financial markets?

The argument is heating up in the Internet section of the metals netherworld.

Dave Kranzler of Investment Research Dynamics elaborates today in commentary headlined "The Comex Is One Big Lie":

http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/the-comex-is-one-big-lie/

The TF Metals Report's Turd Ferguson replies directly to Jeff Christian of CPM Group and Bron Suchecki of the Perth Mint in commentary headlined "The Attack of the Apologists":

http://www.tfmetalsreport.com/blog/7144/attack-apologists

Of course there's always metal around, especially gold, which is produced mainly to be hoarded, unlike silver, most of which is consumed in manufacturing. So the question is really the price, the ratio of monetary metal's value to the value of currencies and other assets, that will draw metal into the market, and especially the price that will be permitted by governments that issue currencies whose own value is the reciprocal of the prices of the monetary metals.

That's why your secretary/treasurer increasingly is inclined to consider Comex gold futures market data meaningless, as Kranzler and Ferguson do -- because at a moment's notice central banks and governments always can inject metal or claims to metal into the system, through intermediaries. Metal available in the futures market system, about which data, reliable or not, is published, is not as important as metal available or claims to metal that can be injected into the system by government, about which no data is available.

That's also why GATA long has maintained that no analysis of the monetary metals market is worth much if it fails to address these questions:

-- Are central banks and governments in the gold, silver, and commodity markets surreptitiously or not?

-- If central banks and governments are in the gold, silver, and commodity markets surreptitiously, is it just for fun -- for example, to see which central bank's trading desk can make the most money by cheating the most investors -- or is it for policy purposes?

-- If central banks and governments are in the gold, silver, and commodity markets for policy purposes, are these the traditional purposes of defeating a potentially competitive world reserve currency, or have these purposes expanded?

-- If central banks and governments, creators of infinite money, are surreptitiously trading a market, how can it be considered a market at all, and how can any country or the world ever enjoy a market economy again?

Documentation confirming the surreptitious intervention in these markets by central banks and governments has been summarized at GATA's Internet site here:

http://www.gata.org/node/14839

It would be nice if those who assert the legitimacy of the markets would address this documentation. That they decline to do so is itself evidence that something is very wrong.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.