In the four trading days following the election, approximately 6200 tonnes of gold (2,000,000 contracts) traded on Comex. That is equivalent to two years of global gold mining production…That hair-trigger trading reaction led to a price smash of 4.5% and turned the trading sentiment for gold from positive to negative almost overnight. The question is where did sellers come up with 6200 tonnes – a preposterously enormous and unprecedented quantity of gold – on a moment’s notice, in the wee hours following the surprising election outcome? – John Hathaway on King World News

Perhaps what’s most interesting about Hathaway’s comment above is that sometime in the last few years Hathaway’s viewpoint has shifted from denial that the gold market is manipulated to seemingly full acceptance of that obvious fact.

The official entities in the western hemisphere who operate to keep the price of gold artificially restrained, using paper gold based on the fact that most western buyers never care to take actual delivery, no longer make an effort to cover-up their manipulative activities. Anyone involved in trading and investing in the precious metals market who denies that the markets are rigged is likely in some way connected to or benefiting from the manipulation.

The same holds true for the stock market. Everyone has seen the statistics by now but just to mention the facts: until last Tuesday’s market drop, the S&P 500 had gone 109 days without a 1% correction. All of the previous periods that were longer than 109 days occurred before 1964 – when the U.S. was in its economic renaissance period – except one period in 1993.

The majority of the headline news reports this past week have focused on the lavish political stage show performances on Capitol Hill. It’s been a convenient distraction to divert attention away from the largely dismal economic reports. What’s more stunning than the childish verbal exchanges from alleged adults masquerading as responsible lawmakers is watching the stock market gyrate from hedge fund algorithm-driven volatility as the trading bots react to any headline connected to the ebb and flow of the healthcare bill drama. For some reason the hedge fund computers believe that the Trump healthcare legislation creates better earnings prospects than Obamacare for corporate America. After reading David Stockman’s assessment of the proposed Obamacare replacement bill, it’s not clear to me that the new legislation won’t be worse.

Just like the artificial paper markets in New York and London that are used to keep the price of gold and silver from rising, the western stock markets are prevented from falling by a web synthetic derivative securities and fraudulent financial reporting applications. Never before in history have stock market valuations been more disconnected from the underlying fundamental economic reality.

The U.S. Government will never stop issuing debt and it will never pay back the debt that it has issued.   In this regard, the U.S. financial and economic system has become an “act as if” system: Act as if it’s real even though we know it’s not. In today’s episode of the Shadow of Truth, we discuss the difference between fake markets and real gold and silver: