30 July 2014 - Hold some gold. Better safe than sorry

30 July 2014 - Hold some gold. Better safe than sorry
30 July 2014 - Why Gold Attracts Conspiracy Theorists
30 July 2014 - Gold wins over realty as an investment option
30 July 2014 - 世界那么乱你有什么理由不买黄金？

Posted: 30 Jul 2014 05:47 PM PDT

From:http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/content/en//mineweb-gold-news?oid=248849&sn=Detail

Lawrence Williams Wednesday , 30 Jul 2014

LONDON (MINEWEB) -

The one sided drivel which passes for objective news reporting in the West never ceases to amaze me. On Ukraine, and in particular on the shooting down of Malaysian airlines flight MH17, the western media seem to promote one agenda, and one agenda only, without any recognition at all that there might be an alternative argument viewed from the 'other side'. Now whether it is proven that the anti-Russian rhetoric thus encompassed is correct or not surely a wholly impartial news organisation should at least recognise that there could perhaps be another side to the story. The whole affair smacks of the Weapons of Mass Destruction accusations against Iraq – the pretext which led to the Iraq War and which spawned so much killing of members of the armed forces, local police and huge numbers of civilians and has indirectly led to the far more worrying – to the West – takeover of large swathes of Iraq and Syria by ISIS. Perhaps the West should learn not interfere in other countries, however despicable their regimes may appear to be, without understanding the unintended consequences of so doing which are often – indeed usually it would seem – far worse for the local populace than the existing status quo.

On the shooting down of MH17 there have been all kinds of assumptions and accusations made without any detailed examination of the actual facts. One cannot see any logic at all in the accusation that Russia brought down the airliner. There could be a slight logic in Ukraine doing so in an attempt to put the blame on the separatists and polarise opinion given that it was Ukrainian air traffic control that sent the airliner on its fateful routing. The most likely scenario does indeed seem to be that the separatists did bring it down in error mistaking it for a Ukrainian military transport – although why that might be flying at 32,000 feet only a few miles from the Russian border seems a little strange. We need an impartial investigation to find out what actually happened but with so many parties involved, mostly with their own distinct political agendas, will we ever find out the real truth? Only what is fed to us by the various propaganda machines employed by the West and Russia as supposedly independent news media.

There does seem to be an agenda in the West to demonise Russia for opposing the so-called 'popular uprising' in Ukraine, which the Russians firmly believe (and I don't think there's any doubt about this as a strongly-held belief) that the 'uprising' was sponsored by the West, and the U.S. in particular, for the installation of a Western-friendly administration, and ultimately the expansion of NATO, towards yet another Russian border. Not surprisingly Russia views this as a serious military threat and feels it has given enough ground – probably too much ground in fact.

None of this seems to be even mentioned in western media reporting of the geopolitics involved. The Great Game as some would call it. This seems all very well to the bullying superpowers when interfering in nations which don't have the kind of clout to offer serious military resistance, but perhaps twisting the tail of the Russian bear in this manner starts to become seriously worrying in terms of potential NATO-Russian military confrontation towards which we seem to being driven by U.S. policy (primarily).

Meanwhile the West is stoking up financial sanctions against Russia despite these being potentially seriously destabilising for a number of fragile Western banks – in particular in France, Italy and the USA – which are heavily exposed to Russian financial institutions. And if Russia responds by cutting off oil and gas to Ukraine and much of Europe this could prompt another 'dark age' in the nations affected as power supplies are totally inadequate without the Russian fuel supplies.

As we have mentioned before we cannot see how this has had virtually no effect on the gold price given the latter's usual stimulation by serious geopolitical conflict – and this particular 'coflict' could become very serious indeed if the rhetoric from the U.S. and its European allies talks us into a corner from which there may be no return. One suspects there is little doubt that Russia has been helping the separatists in Ukraine, but then how often has the U.S. intervened in countries where it has felt its interests are threatened too? And regarding the shooting down of MH17 it was not too long ago that the U.S. shot down an Iranian civilian airliner killing nearly as many civilians, including children – an act for which the then U.S. President refused to apologise.

Coming back to gold, Russia has been purchasing gold strongly in recent months. It purchased some 18.6 tonnes in June alone. It looks to be preparing itself for a period of financial attacks and sees gold as the best insurance against this. The West tends to see the effect of ever increasing sanctions on Russia as having the same kind of impact they would if they were applied to a Western nation, but this is not necessarily the case. The Russians have a history of surviving serious financial hardships and anything the West throws at it in terms of sanctions just won't anywhere near compare to those hardships still in recent memory – particularly when it has allies like China and most of the CIS states to help it out in trade terms.

If the West escalates sanctions further, at some stage Russia's President Putin will undoubtedly come up with serious retaliation. He has a strong-man image to live up to domestically and a desire for Russia to consolidate its place as one of the global superpowers. From the Russian viewpoint it has given in too much to the West in recent years. As we mentioned in a previous article, Ukraine is, in effect, Russia's Cuba. The point at which the bear cannot afford to be faced down and is likely to resist strongly either covertly, as it seems to be doing at present, or overtly if it feels it has little more to lose. It has been quite restrained so far, but cutting off gas supplies to the Ukraine, and thus to much of Europe, which relies on the same pipeline system, would rapidly bring the former to its knees and bring serious hardship to many Eurozone members. This gas supply cannot be quickly replaced from other sources if at all – indeed the fear of Russia cutting off supplies is why the sanctions to date have been pretty limited – but if they are taken to the next stage .....!

Russia obviously believes in gold – as seemingly does China, the other modern day superpower. Does the West believe in it any longer? It's hard to tell. On the face of things no. But who knows what is said behind closed doors except those directly involved – and they aren't saying. Thus it is still perhaps a good idea to hedge one's bets and hold some gold against yet another global financial crisis precipitated by tit for tat sanctions. Particularlywhen one is aware that today's fiat currencies have virtually no backing at all and could revert to the value of the paper on which they are printed. Let's hope it doesn't happen, but it may be better to be safe than sorry.

Source:http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/content/en//mineweb-gold-news?oid=248849&sn=Detail

30 July 2014 - Why Gold Attracts Conspiracy Theorists

Posted: 30 Jul 2014 05:44 PM PDT

From:http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/072414/why-gold-attracts-conspiracy-theorists.asp

By Elvis Picardo, CFA on July 24, 2014

Few things attract as many conspiracy theories and theorists as gold does. The most enduring conspiracy theory seems to be that central banks around the world are colluding to keep a lid on gold prices. The logic here presumably is that a spike in gold prices could be construed by market participants as a harbinger of inflation, and if it occurred, would force central banks to raise interest rates from their artificially low levels (2009 – circa 2014). Another sub-plot is that the biggest gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have a huge shortfall in the amount of gold they hold. Here are three reasons why the noble metal is a favorite subject for conspiracy theorists everywhere –

Enduring store of value: Despite its price fluctuations over the decades, gold has been an enduring store of value for centuries. It probably retains the same allure for present-day consumers in India and China – the world's biggest gold markets – as it did for citizens of the great empires millennia ago. Any item whose appeal has remained undiminished over thousands of years is bound to attract more than its fair share of controversy (and conspiracy).

Price fluctuations: Gold's price moves in recent years have only served to stoke the conspiracy fire. As an example, conspiracy theorists point to gold's steady decline in 2013 and 2014 – a time when record amounts of monetary stimulus were being pumped into the economies of the U.S., Europe and Japan – as proof that central banks were colluding to depress gold prices. It doesn't help that gold's bull run from 2001 onwards only commenced a year or two after central banks had concluded a program of heavy gold sales from their reserves.

Archaic price fixing system: The price of gold continues to be fixed by an archaic ritual that is almost a century old (see "The Insiders Who Fix Rates for Gold, Currencies and Libor"), involving a teleconference between the five banks involved in the gold fix and their customers. Some reputed researchers have concluded that the gold price-fixing process is rife with conflicts of interest and potential for abuse. In May 2014, an options trader at Barclays Plc became the first person to be fined for manipulating the fixing of gold prices by Britain's Financial Conduct Authority.

Change is already afoot with regard to the gold price fixing process. In July 2014, the four banks involved in the process (Deutsche Bank exited the group in 2014) said they would appoint an independent administrator to revamp the price-setting ritual. Whether that does anything to diminish the scale and scope of gold conspiracy theories remains to be seen.

Source:http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/072414/why-gold-attracts-conspiracy-theorists.asp

30 July 2014 - Gold wins over realty as an investment option

Posted: 30 Jul 2014 05:41 PM PDT

From:http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-gold-wins-over-realty-as-an-investment-option/20140730.htm?#1

July 30, 2014 10:08 IST

India's affection for gold has only been growing across rural and urban areas.

When compared with real estate, the yellow metal is still clearly perceived as a safer bet, a recent National Sample Survey Office survey revealed.

The share of expenditure on gold has risen sharply in both rural and urban parts of the country between 2004-05 and 2011-12, the survey shows.

On the other hand, the spending trend on real estate in this duration has revealed that the proportionate share of expenditure on residential buildings was down by almost half.

In rural parts, a person who used to spend 13.8 per cent of his total durable goods expenditure on gold in 2004-05 shelled out 23.6 per cent in 2011-12.

A similar trend was visible in the spending patterns of their urban counterparts.

An urban citizen spent 19.9 per cent of his/her total durable goods spending on gold in 2011-12, steeply up from 11.5 per cent in 2004-05.

This data was captured by NSSO's 68th Round, titled 'Household consumption of various goods and services in India', released recently.

On residential buildings, people in rural areas diverted 18.1 per cent of their total spending on durable goods in 2011-12, steeply down from 33.4 per cent in 2004-05.

In urban areas, 11.4 per cent of this expenditure was on housing, compared to 20.9 per cent in 2004-05.

In 2004-05, among the durable goods, the share of spending on buying a house was the highest but this was replaced by gold in rural parts, and motor cars and jeeps in cities in 2011-12.

Analysts note the phase between 2004-05 and 2011-12 was a 'gold boom' for the country and, hence, people chose to invest in gold.

"Till last year, the preference of Indian households has been to invest in gold as a saving option. As the cost of buying a property is high, people tend to spend less on it," said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at CARE Ratings.

In rural parts, Sabnavis explained, there was a lack of investment options and, hence, the proportionate share of expenditure on gold went up.

"Whereas in urban areas, inflation was one reason which led people to choose physical savings rather than the financial ones," he added.

Analysts say gold is a commodity which Indians prefer to buy even with a small investment surplus.

"Real estate involves big money.

"In villages, during the harvest, if the crop is good and there is an investment surplus with farmers, they buy gold as people also have the tendency to utilise this yellow metal during occasions like marriage," said Devendra Pant, chief economist, India Ratings.

Abheek Barua, chief economist at HDFC Bank, said the perception that gold will give a good investment return propelled people to go for the yellow metal.

This could be gauged by looking at how the prices of both real estate and gold went up during this period.

India Bullion and Jewellers Association data showed between 2004-05 and 2011-12, the annual price for gold surged by a little more than 300 per cent.

Real estate prices went up only by 20-50 per cent in various metro cities, data available with real estate analyst firm Propequity for 2008-2012 showed.

However, Barua said the trend has started reversing in the present scenario.

"Till 2012-13, gold was on a continuous bull-run and people caught on to that.

"In this phase, wealth investors advised households to go for gold, rather than equity bonds and other options.

"But the trend has started reversing from 2013-14 as gold prices crashed and it has taken a big hit on gold investment," he argued.

Source:http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-gold-wins-over-realty-as-an-investment-option/20140730.htm?#1

30 July 2014 - 世界那么乱你有什么理由不买黄金？

Posted: 30 Jul 2014 05:39 PM PDT

From:http://gold.hexun.com/2014-07-30/167105315.html

2014-07-30 07:24:56 来源：FX168

正所谓"乱世黄金"，每当全球经济出现崩溃或是时局动荡之时，黄金作为典型的避险资产，其价格总会水涨船高。如果你此前不持有黄金的理由是源于天下太平，那么请小心了，因为当前世界远不像你想象的那样安全，风险可谓无处不在。

仅就本周来看，目前全球就存在着八大地缘政治风险:

1.以色列对加沙地带持续的军事行动已经进行了三周，导致数千人死亡，同时死亡人数还在持续上升。