The sell-off today in the gold and silver market was unadulterated, blatant price manipulation confined to just the CME paper gold trading arena using Comex paper gold contracts.
The leading economic story remains inflation. Whenever money is created literally out of thin air in enough quantity, inflation is the result.
Rather than owning up to the fact that too much fiat currency has been created, the Fed is doing what the Fed has done historically when the economic data gets ugly. The Fed’s playbook is to either change the way the data is reported or just quit reporting the data altogether.
The Fed is painted into the proverbial corner; keep printing and the outcome is stagflation or begin to tighten monetary policy and risk a deflationary collapse.
Private central banks are pursuing policies that make the wealthy even wealthier while lower-income and middle-income workers see a greater percentage of their paychecks going to cover the cost-of-living essentials.
Stocks look even more extended this week. Gold and silver are beginning to look more bullish and despite a bad week for US Treasuries, we remain technically bullish on the long bond for now.
The current economic policies being pursued will likely result in the realization of Thomas Jefferson’s warning to us more than 200 years ago.
Massive new money creation being distributed as helicopter money to the masses is creating a banana republic look in the United States.
When looking at the economy and the markets, the current climate is just flat-out nonsensical.
When looking at the financial and economic news and attempting to find one word to describe what I am observing - surreal is the word that comes to mind.