Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Sentiment couldn't be worse in the monetary metals sector right now. The good news and the bad news are that sentiment doesn't matter.

Of course Mark Hulbert at MarketWatch thinks it matters, as he makes a business out of gauging the sentiment of financial letter writers, and he even calculates that sentiment for gold is good among those writers and constitutes a contrarian indicator, signifying that the metals will continue to fall, though of course those writers themselves are trying to be contrarian to market sentiment:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-investors-foolishly-think-the-yell...

And an anonymous blogger who says he attended GATA's presentation at the New Orleans Investment conference last month writes that GATA Chairman Bill Murphy and your secretary/treasurer "both came across to me as defeated" and "have mentally lost the righteous battle they have been fighting for 15-plus years," which he construes as another "bottom indicator" for gold:

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1447166425.php

The guy is entitled to his impressions, and Murphy and your secretary/treasurer did argue in New Orleans that central banks are rigging markets, including the monetary metals markets, more ferociously and obviously than ever. After all, just a few days earlier an Austrian central banker had said as much himself --

http://www.gata.org/node/15878

-- and Sprott Asset Management's John Embry expressed the same thought tonight:

http://www.gata.org/node/15929

But "defeated"? Murphy and your secretary/treasurer would not have bothered going to New Orleans if we thought that. We still have enough to eat and drink at home. Nor would your secretary/treasurer, considering GATA defeated, be tapping this out on the keyboard so late at night when he could be watching old episodes of "Hill Street Blues" on TV.

* * *

GATA's friend J.S. sounds close to defeated tonight anyway. He writes:

"Is there a point where even the noble gentlemen at GATA surrender to the inevitable and just capitulate, or can you ride out your principles to absolute ruin?

"Believe me, I'm on your side in all this, but there hasn't been any single event -- aside from the anomalous exchange-traded fund paper chase of 2010-11 -- where we've seen any of the analysis from our side come to fruition. Ironically I would contend that the monetary metals are the worst investment precisely because they are the best investment. By this I mean they remain too much of a threat to the real beneficiaries of this country ever to be allowed to flourish.

"I think it's apparent to all at this point that we live in a command-and-control economy and the people who are so heavily invested in the current paradigm will not hesitate to undertake the most nefarious and draconian measures to ensure that King Dollar is never dethroned. Besides, if the dollar was ever dethroned, I think we would have greater problems to contend with than the fair-market value of the monetary metals. It seems that the better the news for gold, the lower it goes.

"So here we are after another five years with nothing to show for our efforts. Market manipulation has been explained to me a thousand ways but what good is analysis based on economic fundamentals if it never yields a positive outcome? I keep joking with friends and colleagues that when I'm finally ruined by holding out to the inevitable climax for the metals I will become the most erudite homeless person in the world.

"Our blind faith in gold and silver has reached such proportions that it would make even the most zealous evangelical preacher envious, as the 'gold rapture' never seems to arrive. Like many others I was extremely confident about why gold and silver were the right choices, but now we are finding ourselves in for a rude awakening as we begin wondering how we will survive.

"I have nothing but praise for GATA's efforts to bring the truth to light. But in the current political environment of warrantless wiretaps, too big to fail, undeclared wars, falsified economic statistics, whistle blowers treated like villains, and candidates who will never sincerely address the country's real problems, we must ask: How did we manage to kid ourselves into thinking that doing the economically sound thing would ever succeed?

"My thanks to GATA for your efforts. Now if you'll excuse me I have to ramble on over to Wal-mart to see if they're still hiring."

* * *

Yes, our little nonprofit educational and civil rights organization may need a bit more time to overthrow all the central banks -- the creators of infinite money, the wielders of infinite power in secret -- and thereby establish free and transparent markets and restore limited and accountable government in the civilized world. If mere sentiment made any difference in the face of that power, we in GATA might almost write despairing farewell notes and shoot ourselves tonight so that we could become the decisive contrarian indicators and thereby assure the success of our cause.

But our liquidation would not change central banking's interests and objectives, which would remain the destruction of markets and the oppression of humanity.

While your secretary/treasurer would be surprised if the central banks can push gold much lower -- after all, the mining industry already has been destroyed -- they would not have to push gold down more to expropriate it outright or to expropriate the industry that mines it or to tax capital gains on gold at 100 percent.

But one can oppose the totalitarianism of central banking without necessarily investing in any particular way. Our cause does not require the financial ruin of its participants.

For those who want to stay invested in the monetary metals, mining entrepreneur Jim Sinclair offers some encouragement tonight on the eve of his seminar in Los Angeles:

http://www.jsmineset.com/2015/11/10/los-angeles-qa-session-announced/

As for your secretary/treasurer, he will offer hope only in the most general terms.

A little dialogue from "Casablanca" may be instructive, an exchange between the cynical but still vaguely idealistic nightclub owner Rick Blaine and the heroic if rather humorless anti-Nazi resistance leader Victor Laszlo:

BLAINE: Don't you sometimes wonder if it's worth all this? I mean, what you're fighting for?

LASZLO: We might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing, we'll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die.

Getting more cosmic, there's always the Old Testament, where 1st Samuel recounts an improbable victory for the hugely overmatched side --

So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him. But there was no sword in the hand of David.

And of course Isaiah says "they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength," which your secretary/treasurer construes to mean that those who are doing the right thing always have at least an outside chance of divine favor.

The lights are still on and the Internet connection still works, so in the hope that we are doing the right thing we'll press on in the morning.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
CPowell@GATA.org

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 -- Published: Thursday, 12 November 2015 | E-Mail  | Print  | Source: GoldSeek.com

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