Here at Screwtape Files, we had a great discussion last week about whether the gold price would go below the three year trend line, and accordingly whether a sell-off would occur based on TA principles*. I’ve been watching the rise over the last few days with great interest to see whether the price will be ‘managed’ back up – a leading theory is that a high(er) price is needed to coax physical out of the market.
I find interesting the number of gold-friendly articles which have popped up recently. Like this one on Zero Hedge, or possibly this peice from the Spellman report. Now whether or not a gold standard is possible or not is irrelevant**, I'm more interested that the whole ‘gold standard’ idea seems to have had a recent ‘flush’ into the public consciousness. I wonder if one is not a consequence of the other – in other words if part of the gold price management is to do with media manipulation. Unfortunately, I don’t have any hard research on that idea, nor do I have the millions of dollars necessary to fund a study on it. That upsets me (the fact I don’t have a million dollars), but I do have a few anecdotal items which I want to present.
A few months ago I was looking at a SilverDoctors article. While the topic was in fact about Sprott and Silver, I noticed an odd little comment:
It looked like an ad. I confirmed it by spotting the identical comment pasted in the next article on the site. After that I got a bit carried away searching for other instances of it appearing over the web, since I reasoned this might be part of an online social media campaign, but no luck. But because the same text was injected twice into the comments stream of two different articles, it classifies as an advertisement. Importantly, whether the Sprott Money fund is ‘reputable and convenient’ is irrelevant, the fact remains that for a very tiny cost, those concepts were in front of eyeballs and that’s kind of all that matters.
Around the same timeframe, the internet was abuzz with stuff about the hacking group Anonymous, like this Zero Hedge article (which talks about the possibility of wiping Greek computers clean). That day, I was trying to troubleshoot my internet connection when I stumbled across a story which discusses the claim that Anonymous were going to take down the Internet root DNS servers for one hour. Well I use the internet for work and business (and my grandma used it for online poker before she was hauled away to a FEMA camp), I had just suffered from a day of outages so naturally I was outraged that this hacker group could stoop so low to actually intentionally cause internet problems. I let fly in the comments section with some really witty and biting, sarcastic remarks about these self-entitled script-kiddies.
Then two things happened. The first is I got scared shitless because suddenly my Google account bumped me out and I had to reset it. Quickly, I deleted my witty biting sarcastic remarks and spent the better part of an hour resetting all my other passwords feeling rather the opposite of witty and biting (but still sarcastic). The second occurred slowly, I came to the realisation I’d been taken hook line and sinker. Anonymous has an interesting problem - they are, by definition, anonymous. Sabotaging the group is as easy as posting a file which makes a deleterious claim about something, and then getting as many people as possible to facebook it and digg it (and various other internet-spawned verb violations). I venture this was done for the purpose of discrediting Anonymous or possibly drawing some of them out as I do recall some arrests made later that month. Like the Sprott advert, whatever the motivation, and whether or not the proposal was credible, the seed of an idea (Anonymous = Bad, plus negative emotional response) was planted and spread, for very little cost.
Robert David Graham discounts the possibility of a false-flag attack with his follow-up post, but for me the issue was settled on the original thread with this eloquence, which I take as being an authentic comment.
Anyway, my point here is that it’s cheap and effective to use digital and social media as a channel to influence mass perception. So the question is not – ‘have people been influenced?’ ... it's more like: ‘how frequently and to what extent (and in what arenas) does this manipulative activity occur?’.
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* Still too early to tell, but I hope GM will look at this again in the coming weeks.
* I am of the understanding that a modern 'classical gold standard' is impossible. However, reference point gold is a great alternative.
23 comments:
‘how frequently and to what extent (and in what arenas) does this manipulative activity occur'
Pretty well everywhere and at all times.
If I can I will find & post the links where the US Gov advertised tenders for multiple account identities as part of a social influence programme, and then a comment on a court case where the US Gov representative vowed their people would go online and seek out malcontents & prosimians, I seem to recall. Y'all have been warned.
As you were...it's only furners:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks
This reads like two separate articles 'Siamesed' into one. I like the part about slimey Sprott a lot , not too interested in the Anonymous self-publistics,
I was listening to James Turk earlier.
There is something very untrustworthy about him (and Mike Maloney too).
Why does the smug Turk keep wittering on about socialism?
"..a leading theory is that a high(er) price is needed to coax physical out of the market."
It's a theory all right, but is it a leading one? I'm only aware of one place where this theory- which, to be more accurate, states that a vastly higher price is needed to coax physical in sufficient quantities out of hiding in order to facilitate global trade-is espoused. This relatively humble, albeit excellent, blog is hardly mainstream, and so I am having trouble thinking of the "freegold thesis" as being a leading theory.
Having said that I have no difficulty thinking of it as very worthy, but that's another matter.
What are the other competing theories about how gold, physical gold that is, is behaving, and why?
Thank you for the feedback folks.
@S Roche, thanks for the link. Ouch. I had only previously seen the wired article which describes similar.
@lords, thank-you yes this is a chimera article, with the aim of showing that metals are not uniquely targeted (and an entertaining story about how I ran like a little girl once I thought I'd been hacked). I had more content but most of the chaff was gone before I hit publish, since Jeanne has really raised the bar for quality around here. The SilverDoctor's site is home to the highest intensity of sprott-friendly comments, from the same thread ... truly vomit-worthy ... if these are real commenters then it's doubly sad.
"If Eric Sprott is acting, then I approve of his show." -- Anonymous
"Only listen to Bulter, Sprott (Embry) and Turk... these guys get it" -- Anonymous
@Edwardo, you're quite right about the Freegold thesis not being particularly mainstream (I have given up hinting to FOFOA that he should write a book). Your question is incredibly pertinent ... I think the 2nd best is from the people who match the curve of the gold price with the curve of US Government debt and call a correlation. Other's include the elloit wavists and bull market folk, but they are only really looking at price. I don't include the 'to-the-moon' folks, since their 100-1 paper to physical concept has holes like swiss cheese. I think a list of theories would make an interesting summary article, and I will scribble down some notes.
p.s. regarding Mike Maloney, yes I don't like him either, which is funny since it was his book which had a large influence on my silver purchasing. His promise to 'help people get out at the top' tells me all I need to know ... i.e. what about the (non-Maloney-coached) poor bastards who buy into the euphoria right at the top?
So you think that two lame and obvious ads by Sprott + some false flag attack against anonymous are evidence that the USG is spreading articles hinting at a gold standard, just so that they can manage the price up?
I personally wouldn't trust USG's micromanagement skills to win at Civilization on chieftain level.
I can see Sprott paying some pimply teenagers to write lame ads on a forum, but I think he is much smarter and interesting than that (if not above it on moral grounds).
Why would the USG pay some stooge to write articles suggesting gold standard? Why not suggest it directly? What if the stooge leaked that they had been paid to write those articles? Do they live in a secret bunker with their fingerprints sanded off?
Oh that’s right, if they suggest it directly, the price will go up too fast, so their only allowed two pro-gold articles per week, as laid out by President Nixon.
PS Great ad hominem attacks on Mike Maloney everyone, keep up the good work.
Yours sincerely
Pimply faced teenage stooge of Sprott, Maloney, Blythe Masters and the Illuminati.
@Beer Holiday, you're missing the point. Perhaps I can be a little clearer instead of tiptoeing around the issue like I have:
Sprott's dirty little social media drum beating campaign is endemic, it's completely saturated the precious metals news and is not at all balanced. Quite frankly, it digusts me, because I know that mums & dads seeking refuge from exploding costs of living, will lap this stuff up like puppy dogs (because it's very accessible and findable), while all the while some bastard is waiting in the wings to scalp the 30% PSLV premium (or whatever).
The content and authorship on the articles about gold are irrelevant, it's the TIMING which I'm interested in - the promotion and visibility of whatever idea happens to suit the people who run the show.
I'm fully aware that the common concensus at FOFOA is that the collective intelligence of the US government is close to non-existent, but I can't accept that thesis. Someone is pulling the levers, someone is doing it rather expertly ... someone has human mass psychology figured out so well that I bet they can even side-step the hyperinflation issue, simply on MOPE alone. I can't possibly comprehend the full scale of what they are doing, but I can perhaps see some of the nuts and bolts.
As for Mike Maloney, I wish I had never read his fucking book - it's led me to some financial decisions that I regret.
Right. Now I feel a bit better.
p.s. great reference to Sid Meiers Civilization - love that game, especially the original. :)
p.p.s. the issue about whether the USG has intelligence enough to avert their currency troubles. I think the matter is far from settled. I think many pundits in the precious metals space have really underestimated their capacities. We need more open discussion about this, because it's a key point in everything that's going on.
Thanks, that's a lot clearer, and really interesting.
Interesting that you talk about mass human psychology, that is what I meant when I said that Sprott is smarted than just in you face advertising. I think he has an amazing insight into the psychology of PM investing, and you and others (Kid Dynamite especially) have done a great job of providing evidence that he has manipulated the PM publishing world, forums, alternative media etc.
I can’t see how that kind of micromanagement would be feasible or particularly useful to the USG. I don’t think governments are stupid, or should be underestimated, but I don’t think western governments can micromanage to save themselves.
I would contrast the USG with China, where the state has much tighter control on the media, and where the MSM is pro-gold. It’s easy to construct arguments as to why their government would support that. Interesting, it seems their MSM is somewhat anti-silver
In the US, I don’t see those signs at all. The MSM is and was gold negative. The arguments for why the USG would be pro citizen gold ownership are hard to make (I find) in the face of the USD reserve currency, Bernake’s constant strong anti gold stance, etc .
And they seem to do doing some strange things with those levers, encouraging Iran barter oil, making PM ownership less attractive on home soil e.g the goldmoney card episode etc.
PS Sorry to here about your Mike Maloney experience, I just enjoy his videos occasionally, and he does present well. I do however have some silver paper weights for my own mistakes :-)
Forgot to mention all the Brie I bought too, right at the top.
@Beer Holiday, thanks for the detailed reply, it's a good one.
re: micromanagement - I'm not sure it's necessary for them to migromanage, all they have to do is set the boundaries for group movement and mass human momentum should do the rest. Did you know that a human crowd forms convection currents? If you're trying to get out of a crowded stadium after the match, keep to the side (instead of the middle), you'll move faster! It's testable and quite weird, all wrapped up in fluid mechanics.
The scope for price management includes all the hedge fund decision making and robot traders too - so long as they see headlines predicting $10,000/oz they will buy the rumour based on what they think everyone else will do ... individual trader sentiment or conviction is not needed.
My suspicion of the US Government, is posited by motive and opportunity. They really need to keep the wheels of society turning so they can sponge off the productivity (motive). Thanks to the same exorbitant privilege they are enjoying, access to the finest minds research groups and supercomputers, is a matter of clicking the print button (opportunity). Even a small business will triage threats and make contingency plans, so I have a hard time thinking that the currency problems haven't been looked at in great detail. Even FOFOA's best writing is available publicly, for them to use as modelling inputs. But these movements can also occur at a 'superorganism' level as well, and I imagine there have been various false starts as well (no underground bunkers required:). Do you remember the new 100-dollar bill that Bix Weir wrote about? Why haven't these been deployed yet? Under what expectations were they printed? (Btw, these would make excelent Freegold-era notes).
I suppose the million-dollar-question is whether or not we are waiting for a hyperinflation which will never come. They already control what's in people's pockets, so influencing the ideas in people's heads is a natural step towards ensuring continuation of the status quo i.e. so long as the ROW are willing then there is no real reason why this arrangement of production and consumption (and waste) can't continue into perpetuity, and any currency issues can be dealt with by changing the rules and the goalposts mid-game. For the few who aren't susceptible to the Derren-Brown mind tricks, you can always force them at gunpoint. I largely suspect the discussion on politics and the human element is the missing piece of the puzzle - for example FOFOA expected inflation to start showing up within a 2-3 years of the initial base money increase. I know I am grizzling about water bill increases and such, but it's not exactly a hyperinflationary environment.
Finally I do agree with you on Sprott's advanced marketing abilities, quite a persuasive guy. Mike Maloney is clever too, but to be honest if I had bought Class III Milk futures (cheese trading on the CME) instead of silver, I would have been much better off :)
Terribly sorry to hear about your grandma. I do hope they allow visiting hours. Gratefully I haven't had to deal with such a traumatic event at the hands of FEMA, yet. None the less Anonymous is only good at evoking "a" response. It is only good or bad depending on your perception. The internet is now the final frontier, the last, old Wild West and it is easy to totally immerse yourself out there despite all the various forms of grammar abuse. Please be careful.
Hell Warren, its like you read my mind with that last comment.
I was thinking of this Derren Brown clip when i was working my way through the comments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvK0CG_S-gU&feature=showob
go straight to 9 mins 45 secs.
TPTB have a lot more resourses than Derren.
Regards
Ozzy
Warren, e-wavers and "bull market folk", as you aptly describe the vast majority of those who envisage a prospectively much higher fiat denominated price for gold, are, essentially, one and the same. If E-wavers, for example, were operating with an understanding of gold wherein the yellow metal was on the cusp of emerging as "the" global store of value concomitant with an end to the paper gold markets and dollar hegemony, they would have very different dollar denominated ultimate targets for the price of gold. As it is, their upper numbers tend to be laughably low which reflects a mindset that merely sees the yellow metal as embodying a mania phase. Perhaps they will be correct, and "gold" will, in the end, perform merely as yet another proverbial tulip or internet share circa 1999, but I don't cotton to that view. As a final note, the fact that PM shares have not, in the main, performed anything like they should have with respect to mania assets should be a strong clue that the gold game has changed fundamentally.
Inter alia, technical analysis of all stripes, whether it is E-wave, DeMark, Cycle Analysis, TTheory, you name it, has become almost entirely unreliable in a world where management and/or manipulation of anything related to the financial markets is now commonplace. This state of affairs, among other things, should be a tip off to anyone concerned that we are in the midst of a game changing epochal shift with respect to "the money game."
Regarding the following notion:
"They already control what's in people's pockets, so influencing the ideas in people's heads is a natural step towards ensuring continuation of the status quo i.e. so long as the ROW are willing then there is no real reason why this arrangement of production and consumption (and waste) can't continue into perpetuity"
I'm afraid that not even the U.S. government believes this basis the most recent Executive Order from POTUS wherein the order reads (as much as anything can be said to be read) as a contingency plan for Hyper-inflation. The ROW is most definitely not willing to up with put our continued exorbitant privilege, so, if we haven't yet seen certain necessities become entirely too expensive, just chalk that up to timing not an incorrect call about the ultimate arrival of hyperinflation.
@Edwardo, agreed. The POTUS executive order (and FOFOA's interpretation of it) is cause for concern. Add in a few other anecdotal things like the recent order of 450 million hollow point bullets, and the trains carrying countless amounts of armoured personnel carriers (not tanks), and that's enough to draw a few conclusions about preparation for such an event. (those are just a few dots that I can connect to support your argument). But being prepared for all scenarios is just part of threat management, hopefully it doesn't mean that alternate solutions are not being pursued. I suppose I have hope that the superorganism (as FOFOA describes it) is able to find the path of least resistance (and least pain) as it ambles along.
In my view, the exorbitant privilege is still tied up in politcal and human considerations, it is a shame that FOFOA does not explore this aspect. For 40 years, the world has kowtowed to the USA, what difference will another 10 or 20 years make? Anyway, I suppose it's worth saying I am not trying to combat the hyperinflation thesis (I would fail that argument), but to explore the curious behind-the-scenes activities that might be being used as the rules change, those same rule changes which should keep the power in the hands of the people in power, and the little guys kept in their place: working for the big guys.
I found another way to express it:
If you ran your best economic models over many years with different inputs and every time the computer spat out the result, it showed a 20% chance of hyperinflation within an x timeframe, then preparations have to be made at the highest levels right? To combat that 20% chance. i.e. preparation is not the same as a guaranteed outcome.
In my experience, life often has a lot of grey areas. Depending on our orientation it may seem black and white but there is always a broad spectrum to deal with rather than absolutes.
In any case, the 450M bullets purchase (by the Department of Homeland Security) is an interesting one, since they can't exactly turn around and explain that it's in preparation for possible hyperinflation riots. That in itself might trigger something.
In my view, these things are all worth exploring - it's like watching the magicians hands to try figure out what he's doing instead of where the magician is pointing to distract. In my mind, it's a magic trick in itself that the financial system has not already imploded. I wonder how many tricks they have up their sleeve :)
And once again, just to iterate my stance - I'm not arguing that hyperinflation won't happen, I'm just interested in what they would be doing behind the scenes to counter the obvious mess. God help us all if zero efforts to fix, and zero preparations are being made.
Re DHS ammunition: it's hollow point .40 cal...nice. Not for target practice.
Initial contract for 12 months with 4 x 1 yr options to total 450 million rounds by 2017. What are the population projections for then? DHS: we've got you covered...all of you!
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/atk-secures-40-caliber-ammunition-contract-with-department-of-homeland-security-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-dhs-ice-2012-03-12
"For 40 years, the world has kowtowed to the USA, what difference will another 10 or 20 years make?"
Looking at it like that..What difference would another 40 -50 years make? Maybe your succumbing to a bit of normalcy bias?
Things are worse in America than they have ever been.The Great Depression was bad but the country was still a huge producer in the world at that time.
I think nearly all the mind tricks have been played at this point.Force is all thats left.
You cannot carry on for another 10 or 20 years useing force against the rest of the world AND your own people.Too much like hard work.Easier to let things'play out'and try and compete on a level playing field afterwards in a FG world.
All those bullets are to protect important infastrusture and TPTB during the mindless, unproductive, American zombie'play time'.
Another 10 or 20 years?Cant see it.Like FOFOA says, the $ system has come to the end of its time line.
Now will TPTB create a fals flag incedent in order to blame the chaos on another group?Maybe.
It will probably be easier to controle the masses that way, than to say ,"sorry folks, the Government has totally f*#ked up and made a mess of it all.Now can you trust us and do as we say".
Regards
Ozzy
@Ozzy, re: '... succumbing to a bit of normalcy bias?'
Yes, guilty as charged. Before I was born, America had already terminated the gold window and my entire life I have known nothing but the IMF$ system and the power of the US dollar and the American military. After reading (and understanding) FOFOA's work I have a greater appreciation for the theft and mismanagement created by the current dysfunctional system. There is certainly still something in my head which doesn't mind having my productivity stolen so long as it means we can still have beer and use the internet to look at funny cat pictures. Funny old world but I suspect we will see many millions fight to keep the prison around them intact (matrix-style).
I like your interpretation of the bullets usage, makes perfect sense. Thought of another one this afternoon as I was mulling the topic - the beneficiaries are all the arms industry people, so even a chance of hyperinflation (+effects) could call for a jolly good pork-barrel contract or two.
Thanks everyone for your contributions, I have really appreciated the opportunity to talk about this aspect of the hyperinflation component. I fully intend to bookmark this post of mine and revisit it in another 10 years (assuming that is possible) and add some more retrospective reflections.
I have a lot to say re: this post, but finals call and I am not able to devote the time to it.
But from a strictly contrarian/intellectual POV, is it possible that the DHS's order is mostly a bailout of particular armament industries necessary to the survival of the extension of the IMF$ a little longer. We've seen huge bailouts going to Banks, Real Estate, Construction, Airlines, Pharmaceuticals (think about the A-H1N1 scare-mongering in 2009. All of these were bailouts. I'm guessing HP bullets are probably quite expensive, and that could be why they were chosen.
I'm not saying there isn't an abundance of circumstantial evidence and policies being passed/enacted that aren't creating a police state, merely that this meme may be a part of a psywar on those of us who are after the truth, and fear is one of the best tools used to achieve the suspension of good reasoned analysis. Then again, many in Nazi Germany could have (and did) made such arguments for what was happening then.
@Edward London, yes, the armament-industry-bailout idea is a valid one. re: reverse psychology psywar, possibly, but, hopefully not. If they have mastered those levels of psychological warfare then we are truly screwed.
...
Before anyone thinks that I've defeated my own investigation with an admission of normalcy bias, I just want to point out that I am in fact more intrested in exploring the human condition around the topic of hyperinflation, searching for clues which the pure monetary theorists may have missed.
I was fascinated a long time ago by the Isaac Asmiov 'Foundation Series' novels, which was an amazing (fiction) about mathematical societal modelling in a future society. One of the keys elements is that as groups become larger they become easier to predict, but also there will always be a slight deviation to the prediction as random elements creep into the model (i.e. there is no set path - it evolves).
But it's interesting how interpreting the world around us (and understanding others' interpretations of the world) invariably comes down to bias, and the elimination or examination of. I can see this in the Crhis Martenson comments thread, in an internal discussion our team is having with Kid Dynamite right now, and Martin Armstrong's battle over his Wikipedia profile page. It seems not possible for humans to eliminate bias completely, so the next best thing is to have a solid understanding of how your bias affects you, and additionally how it also affects others.
So to jam all of those three concepts together (and in conclusion), the world around us is a much more complicated thing, a thick mat of human culture littered with agendas, ideas and activities. The correct 'universal interpretation' will be some complex that it may not be recognisable, despite being able to recognise components of it. That doesn't mean we should give up searching, but does add some description to what we are looking for. And again, the prize for whoever figures out how everything works: untold riches, women and wine :)
Warren, I do hope you're right about their psywar not being that developed on us, but two quotes have really stuck with me these past 15+ years:
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) owns everyone of significance in the major media.
-William Colby, former Director of the CIA
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."
- William Casey, Director CIA (Quote from internal staff meeting notes 1981)
I'm not sure if they've mastered it or not, but they sure knew a technology like the internet was a possibility then, and I'm sure they've gamed for it.
Finally, one of the software programs used to carry out this psywar is known as HB Gary. They use the delphi technique all across the internet to give the impression that everyone has the same basic 3-4 opinions:
-http://hbgary.com/active-defense - 500 nodes to flood any forum/comment section.
I guess we'll see how this one plays out. But again, I hope you're right.
To be honest ,i change my mind that much nowerdays, i think i probably get through at least 3-4 basic opinions a week.
So heres thursdays opinion.
I m thinking most people are so easily led and stupid that i kind of hope there is a PTB, CIA ish mastermind behind what goes on.
BTW, if the CIA is steering the sheeple through controle of the media, where do you think they want us to go?Where are they leading us?
If it was you in controle, what would you choose?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb3JI8F9LQQ&feature=bf_prev&list=PL6A1FD147A45EF50D
Regards
Ozzy
@Ozzy, scary video - yet fun at the same time to explore the societal and political issues which will manifest themselves before things get out of hand. Similar to what is sort of being presented here by me. Still thinking it through. Cheers :)
Jim Sinclair had some interesting things to say about hyperinflation [link]. It goes along the lines of what we're talking about here.
(link is courtesy from comments on Turd's site)
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