Gold Buyer's Checklist - 27th November 2009

A nine-point checklist for secure gold investment...

LOOKING TO buy gold today? Here's a nine-point check-list for secure gold investment presented to this week's Investor's Chronicle Gold Conference, hosted at the London Stock Exchange...

#1. Don't take it home, except maybe a few coins
History is littered with sad stories of people who bought gold (rightly) because they feared severe economic contraction in their home country, and then made the mistake of holding their gold at home. When they needed it they could not release its value because it had become contraband.

Think of Zimbabwe (now), Argentina (2001), Yugoslavia (1990s), Vietnam & Cambodia (1970s), Nazi Germany (1930s), the USA (1933), Russia (1917). Gold secures your wealth when it is held in a reliable country. This is unlikely to be your own country if you are wise to be buying gold.

2. Buy 'Good Delivery' fine bullion to save 6-10% over coins & small bars
The world's best gold (assayed at 99.5% or better, and traded 100% 'fine' – i.e. gross bar weight x assayed purity) has a rock-solid perpetual guarantee of its quality and is, surprisingly, also the cheapest. Good Delivery gold also sells for the highest prices. That's because Good Delivery bullion is the spot market standard and is massively more liquid than coin markets.

3. Use allocated storage at a commercial vault – not a bank
Persuading you to hold your gold 'unallocated' lets banks finance their own liquidity reserve with your gold. It is so attractive to banks that they significantly overcharge for the safer 'allocated' storage option. So don't use banks to store gold. Instead, use fully allocated and insured commercial vaults; they don't have a liquidity reserve requirement, and therefore have no motivation to overcharge for allocated.

The wholesale storage rate (including insurance) is about 0.1% per annum in a commercial vault. It will usually be many times that much in a bank. BullionVaultcharges 0.12% per annum, with a minimum of $4 per month.

4. Direct overseas ownership
Don't get caught out by a trust deed or vault in the wrong jurisdiction. Think about exchange controls. In a world of severe economic contraction, you would almost certainly still be able to travel (if you can afford to buy the ticket), enabling you to physically collect your gold and realize its value outside controls in your home jurisdiction. This is why direct overseas ownership often works better than ownership through a trust. An intermediating trust deed could result in the ownership of gold effectively being trapped in the country where the trust was set up.

5. Avoid certification. Insist on regular publication of bar lists & reconciliation
There are two big problems with gold certificates. Firstly they convert your gold into a security, i.e. the certificate becomes the thing you own, not the gold itself, putting the issuer between you and the gold, which means the problems of trusts apply again. Gold is a tangible good, so it does not need the complexity of being wrapped as a security. You can own the stuff itself, and involve no-one else in your title.

The second problem with certificates is that there's no way of knowing how many certificates have been issued, which is a threat to your unique ownership. Modern technology can help here, by allowing you internet access to view the register of all owners. BullionVault is the only custody service in the world which publishes – every day – bar lists reconciled to individual private holdings. You can see the public evidence of your holding, reconciled to the current bar list; our central register defines who owns what, and eliminates the possibility of double counting. But however you choose to buy gold, check your metal is separately identified on the reconciliation.

6. Make sure ownership records are independently audited
You want the auditor, and not the service provider, to vouch for how this thorough study reconciles your ownership records with the physical property. See that the bullion is checked and reported on annually by a qualified assayer.

7. Consider your crisis response
Could you effect a rapid location switch and/or international shipment? Currency crises blow up with alarming speed. Gold stored via a stock-exchange traded instrument (such as a Gold ETF) is not particularly mobile. There will usually be only one vault in one jurisdiction storing all the gold. The problem is that trading out of that jurisdiction requires a three-day stock exchange settlement period, after which your stockbroker will send your money to you, probably incurring another few days' delay.

You may well be safer if you can either instantly sell your gold and buy in another physical location, or ask for your gold to be shipped. Both of these are simple transactions on BullionVault. The first you can do on-line. The second takes advantage of the fact that BullionVault's vault operator routinely transports bullion from one international vault location to another. The shipment can be arranged without the bullion ever leaving the control of the commercial vault operator, which makes it much easier and cheaper to set up – fast.

8. Right to withdraw for personal possession
If you choose the cost-savings, liquidity and security of using safe custody, you must also retain the right to withdraw your property in full. All BullionVaultcustomers have the right to take possession of their gold. Each gram is physically present in the vault of their choice, available for withdrawal.

9. Liquidity – look for 24/7 trading; don't rely on just one counterparty
Gold is not like a stock-market share. Most stocks only move when their local market is open. Gold moves all the time. Since price action occurs during Asian, European and American market hours, you should be able to act when the price moves, too. So you need a marketplace which stays open.

BullionVault is currently the only gold market in the world which is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. On BullionVault, users also quote their own prices. So there are thousands of counterparties free to quote to you, and to whom you can freely quote your own price.

One-counterparty systems, in contrast, force you to sell your gold back to the system operator. This eliminates competition and allows the provider to quote wide spreads. Whereas free competition on price massively reduces the cost of the spread.

Ready to Buy  Gold...?

Paul Tustain, 27 Nov '09

SOurce : goldnews.bullionvault.com/gold_buy_112720092

Zimbabwe - gold for bread

MDC activist Sam Chakaipa returns to his village in rural Zimbabwe to find his friends and neighbours starving to death, reduced to panning gold powder from the rivers to exchange for food at an exorbitant rate

To watch the video click here

Source :www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/feb/11/zimbabwe-gold-panning-starvation-food

rate of 80,000 - 100,000 ounces of gold per year

Timmins Gold Corp is strategically positioned for years of continuous growth as a gold production and development company. Focused solely in Mexico, Timmins Gold has now begun full scale gold production at its wholly owned San Francisco Gold Mine in Sonora, Mexico.The Mine is a past producing open pit heap leach operation from which Timmins Gold will be producing at a rate of 80,000 - 100,000 ounces of gold per year at a cash cost of approximately $412 per ounce.
On the exploration front, Timmins Gold is now focussed on drilling along strike to expand the reserves at the San Francisco Mine. In addition, Timmins Gold's portfolio consists of several other gold projects one of which is a 45,000 hectare property located contiguous to Goldcorp's Penasquito Gold Mine (17 million ounces) and near Canplats Camino Rojo Gold Project in Zacatecas. Timmins Gold also has over 70,000 hectares of claims in the highly prolific Northern Sonora Gold District.
Timmins Gold plans to grows the Company by expanding the current reserves and lifespan of the San Francisco Mine, advance its other exploration projects and to make strategic acquisitions.
The commencement of production combined with exploration potential positions Timmins Gold for strong growth and increased shareholder value. Timmins Gold trades on the TSX.V under the symbol TMM.

Source : www.timminsgold.com/s/home.asp

War of Nerves At S&P 1176.25

By: Rick Ackerman, Rick's Picks 

-- Posted Tuesday, 4 May 2010

Rick’s Picks

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

“Phenomenally accurate forecasts”

Hunting for relative bargains yesterday morning, we waited in vain for the index futures to come down below Friday’s levels. Alas, prices held relatively firm in the opening hour, eventually inducing yet another flight of fancy by the broad averages. By day’s end, the Dow was up 143 points, recouping most of Friday’s losses while adding further to the one-way tedium of this Mother of All Bear Rallies. To put Mama Bear in perspective, the weekly chart now reflects the possibility, if not yet the likelihood, of a 125-point upthrust in the S&P 500 mini-futures.  That’s 10 percent above yesterday’s settlement price, and although the move would qualify as parabolic if it happens soon enough, it would actually lag the rally to 12471 that we predicted here a while back for the Dow Industrials.

The weekly chart of the E-Mini S&Ps shows why the odds of a strong blast higher have increased lately. Using our proprietary method of analysis, the key price on the chart is 1176.75.  That number is a Hidden Pivot “midpoint”, and it is directly correlated to an important Hidden Pivot well above these levels at 1317.25.  Although the lower number was technically a resistance until recently, it became support when the June futures contract blew past it, topping last week at 1216.75.  

Very Cautiously Bullish

Ordinarily, we would assume the higher number (i.e., 1317.25) will be reached if its lower “sibling” is exceeded as decisively as has occurred here. But we are being extra cautious in our bullishness because the market looks especially vulnerable to a sudden, even spectacular, selloff.  There are a few reasons for this. For one, until last week stocks had risen for eight consecutive weeks on declining volume, implying, as our friend Chuck Cohen has noted, that investors are “supremely confident.”  We agree. We also think that a full-blown panic could be triggered at any time by Greece’s financial problems. Under the circumstances, we’ll go with the flow, which is higher, but we will also take care not to stray more than a step or two from a fire exit.

With respect to the 1176.75 pivot, it will continue to hold the key to our outlook for the summer and beyond. A breach of the support this week would be warning of possible trouble, and a Friday close below 1171.00 would make us even more nervous. Alternatively, the bullish case would become irresistible if the futures rally above 1216.75, pull back, and then complete another rally leg equal to the first. We’ll be closely tracking these potential scenarios, as well as myriad other possibilities, in the days ahead. If you’d like to stay closely on top of this situation as it develops, you can sign up for my newsletter and receive one of my forecasts free each day; or consider taking a risk-free trial of the full service, which includes all of my forecasts and access to my chat 24/7 room.

***

Information and commentary contained herein comes from sources believed to be reliable, but this cannot be guaranteed. Past performance should not be construed as an indicator of future results, so let the buyer beware. There is a substantial risk of loss in futures and option trading, and even experts can, and sometimes do, lose their proverbial shirts.  Rick's Picks does not provide investment advice to individuals, nor act as an investment advisor, nor individually advocate the purchase or sale of any security or investment. From time to time, its editor may hold positions in issues referred to in this service, and he may alter or augment them at any time. Investments recommended herein should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor, and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company. Rick's Picks reserves the right to use e-mail endorsements and/or profit claims from its subscribers for marketing purposes. All names will be kept anonymous and only subscribers’ initials will be used unless express written permission has been granted to the contrary. All Contents © 2009, Rick Ackerman. All Rights Reserved. www.rickackerman.com

Source : 

news.goldseek.com/RickAckerman/1272952860.php

America at the Crossroads and the War on Gold

- Posted Tuesday, 4 May 2010 

Every so often a philosophical dilemma becomes real. So it is today. For two thousand years, the message of Christ Jesus influenced and informed the West, if not in deed, then in word. Today, that is no longer so. Today, godless capitalism is threatening to supplant the two millennia reign of Christ’s message of brotherly love—if not in word, then, certainly, in deed.

In times of great change, art reflects social and philosophical undercurrents. The movie, Avatar, is an example of this phenomenon as was the movie, Wall Street, in 1987. Gordon Gekko, Oliver Stone’s protagonist in Wall Streetprobably didn’t read much; but, if he did, a book such as A Utopia of Greed: Ayn Rand's Moral Defense of Capitalism could have been on his reading list.

One of Gordon Gekko’s more memorable lines is Greed, for want of a better word, is good. Greed is good is also one of Ayn Rand’s fundamental beliefs; and, if Karl Marx is the father of godless communism, Ayn Rand, America’s premier doyenne of selfishness, is the patron saint of its antagonist, godless capitalism.

Alisa Rosenbaum was born in Russia in 1905 where she would later change her name to Ayn Rand. In her youth, she would become an atheist, a belief she would hold for the rest of her life. No other self-proclaimed atheist would achieve such a large following—except perhaps Karl Marx; additionally, no other writer would be as responsible for giving philosophical cover to the selfishness and greed that would later characterize American-style “laissez-faire” capitalism.

Ayn Rand saw selfishness and greed as virtues; and, to their later disgrace, so, too, did many others.

 

Ba’al: the Golden Calf of Capitalism Grows Up

When Ayn Rand died in 1982, a six foot floral wreath in the shape of a US dollar was laid by her casket; a symbol that was to be ironically appropriate as Ayn Rand’s death would precede the demise of the US dollar by only a few short decades.

Nothing exemplified the effect that Ayn Rand’s philosophy would have onAmerica as much as the movie, Wall Street. Released in 1987, it reflected the values that would be responsible for America’s moral decline over the next 30 years. This 45 second clip from Wall Street is chillingly revelatory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7upG01-XWbY

In September 2010, Oliver Stone’s sequel to Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps, is scheduled for release with an older but still unrepentant Gordon Gekko. After the 1980s, greed did not go away in America—it flourished.

AYN RAND, GOLDMAN SACHS & GOD

Nowhere was Ayn Rand’s influence felt more than on Wall Street. The selfishness and greed that Ayn Rand exalted found a natural home among Wall Street banks, especially Goldman Sachs where Senior Partner Gus Levy succinctly summed up Goldman’s strategy as long term greed. It was a mission statement Ayn Rand could be proud of.

It is incorrect, however, to attribute Wall Street’s greed solely to Ayn Rand. Greed and selfishness existed long before she posited the two vices as virtues, just as free markets existed long before capitalism was illegitimately birthed in a manger of paper money at the Bank of England in 1694.

Ayn Rand’s writings are nonetheless responsible for giving greed and selfishness the sheen of respectability they previously lacked, especially among the bespoke jackals that serve our currencies back to us in the form of loans.

In defense of today’s bankers, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein recently stated, We are doing God’s work; and, so, they are, if capitalism’s culling of the trusting, vulnerable and less fortunate is included in Blankfein’s novel definition of God’s calling.

[I] managed to sell a few [worthless] abacus bonds to widows and orphans that I ran into at the airport.. not feeling too guilty about this, the real purpose of my job is to make capital markets more efficient.       email, 6/13/2007, Fabrice Tourre, vice-president Goldman Sachs

If it is God for whom Blankfein toils—at enormous compensation, i.e. $68 million in 2007—it is not the God of the New Testament where Christ Jesus admonishes us to be our brother’s keeper. It is the Hindu God, Shiva, the destroyer and transformer for whom Blankfein puts in overtime; and in that capacity he has done yeoman’s work for which he is to be congratulated.

Goldman Sachs, more than any other bank, under Blankfein’s leadership has played a central role in destroying capitalism, i.e. economies based on bankers’debt-based capital, a parasitoidal system bankers designed to indebt productivity and commerce for profit until society collapses.

PAPER MONEY – GOLD = PAPER

SHIVA’S DANCE OF CAPITAL DESTRUCTION

While Lloyd Blankfein’s contribution to capitalism’s demise should not be minimized, capitalism’s current problems actually began in 1971 when gold, one of the four essential ingredients in the bankers’ brew of debt-based money, was eliminated from the classic formula that had served bankers and governments so well for so long.

Capitalism’s recipe insures government’s infinite growth as government access to central bank credit is unlimited and bankers will profit from loaning paper money into perpetuity.

When gold was removed from paper money in 1971, this simple yet powerful recipe for capitalism’s success was fundamentally altered and so, too, would be capitalism. It would only be a matter of time until capitalism sans gold would falter.

Lloyd Blankfein, Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers and Alan Greenspan et. al.,individually and collectively, would only hasten the process. Lord Shiva’s dance of capital destruction was already underway; because without gold, the illusion of paper money as money is only an illusion. Without gold, paper currencies are only coupons with expiration dates written in invisible ink

To call capitalism a monetary system is a misnomer. It’s a financial shakedown, a scheme whereby bankers profit by inserting debt into every aspect of human activity. Eventually, everyone becomes indebted beyond their capacity to repay and the system collapses.

The bankers’ indebting of others eventually will end in their own demise, with governments, businesses, and consumers drowning in debt and banks insolvent. Capitalism is an economic parasitoid, a parasitic system where parasite and host both expire.

A parasitoid is an organism that spends a significant portion of its life history attached to or within a single host organism, which it ultimately kills (and often consumes) in the process. Thus they are similar to typical parasites except in the certain fate of the host.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid 

As with all life-forms, parasitoids will do everything to insure their survival while blind to the fact it is their actions that will destroy them. Until its self-inflicted end, capitalism will struggle to survive and expand—and a part of that struggle is the bankers’ war on gold.

THE WAR ON GOLD

The IMF.. explicitly states in its Articles of Agreement that member countries are prohibited from tying their currencies to gold.

Gold Wars, Ferdinand Lips, The Foundation for the Advancement of Monetary Education, New York

In 2001, Ferdinand Lips published Gold Wars, his book that describes the bankers’ ongoing war on gold. That Lips, a Swiss banker, would write such a book is to our benefit as the Swiss have a unique, historical, and deep respect for the monetary metal.

Curiously, Lips had earlier been an agent for the infamous Rothschild banking family. In 1968 he was co-founder and Managing Director of Rothschild Bank AG Zurich. As such, Lips had an insight into the world of gold that few had and some believe it would later cost him his life.

One story in Gold Wars is of particular interest as it involves John Exter, the extraordinary central banker (formerly vice-president in charge of international banking and gold and silver operations at the New York Federal Reserve), and Paul Volker, later Fed chairman and erroneously believed by many to be a hero.

Exter’s story shows Volker in entirely different light, not as a hero but as the one responsible for the removal of gold from the monetary system. Volker, according to Exter, played a central role in the decision to do so.

In Gold Wars (pp.76-77) John Exter tells Ferdinand Lips how the decision to demonetize gold was made: On August 10, 1971, a group of bankers, economists and monetary experts held an informal meeting..to discuss the monetary crisis. Around 3 o’clock in the afternoon, a big car rolled up with Paul Volker in it. He was then Under-secretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs.

We discussed various possible solutions. As you would expect, I was for tight money – raising interest rates – but that was overwhelmingly rejected…As for raising the gold price, as I suggested, Volker said it made sense, but he didn’t think he could get it through Congress.

At one point, Volker turned to me and asked what I would do. I told him that since he wouldn’t raise interest rates and wouldn’t raise the price of gold, he only had one option..he’d have to close the Gold Window…Five days later Nixon closed the Gold Window.

The final link between the dollar and gold was broken. The dollar became nothing more than a fiat currency and the Fed [and especially the banks] were then free to continue monetary expansion at will. The result..was a massive explosion of debt

Paul Volker, then, is the one who eliminated gold from capitalism’s 300 year-old recipe for power and wealth. Karl Marx was right when he predicted that capitalism would destroy itself. We just didn’t know it would be Paul Volker who would pull the plug.

THE SLEDGEHAMMER THAT BROKE THE CAMEL’S BACK

The explosion of debt allowed by Volker’s removal of gold in 1971 has now reached extraordinary levels. In 1971, US debt was $436 billion. Today, US government obligations exceed one hundred trillion dollars. Tethering the dollar to gold was the one constraint on US spending. Volker eliminated that constraint thus enabling the US to indebt itself ad infinitum—and it did.

Debt, the inevitable effluvia of credit, is Shiva’s final shiv in capitalism’s back. But it is not the indebtedness of those the bankers indebted that are now causing capitalism’s final paroxysms. It’s the debts of the banker’s themselves.

When US banking and financial interests repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, it reopened the doors to another depression, doors that had been sealed since the 1930s. Prior to its repeal in 1999, Congressman John Dingall (D-Mich) whose father helped write Glass-Steagall in 1933 warned:

What we are creating now is a group of institutions which are too big to fail... Taxpayers are going to be called upon to cure the failures we are creating tonight, and it is going to cost a lot of money, and it is coming.

Congressman Dingall’s warnings were ignored by both republicans and democrats. The republican-sponsored bill to repeal Glass-Steagall was passed overwhelmingly in the House by both parties (362-57) and in the Senate (90-8) effectively enslaving America’s future generations, gratis of a $300 million lobbying effort by banks and insurance companies.

The beauty of paper money is that it buys real power

Once again, both republicans and democrats sold out the nation’s future and allowed banks to bet the savings of America, this time with obscene leverage of 40:1 and more. Not surprisingly when the banks bet the house and lost, the house collapsed.

Politicians can’t be bought. They can only be leased.

When bankers couldn’t cover their losses, governments came to their rescue and indemnified them with taxpayer money. But the trillions of dollars spent to rescue banks and restart capitalism’s broken engine is not being levied on the banks. It’s being levied on those who saved them. The current upsurge in sovereign debt is the cost of the bankers’ crisis subsumed into national ledgers.

Recently, President Barack Obama went to Wall Street to ask for help in reforming the financial system. Asking Wall Street’s help with financial reform is akin to Neville Chamberlain asking Hitler to assist in redrawing Europe’s borders. The current effort is designed not to fix the system, but to continue it.

Avarice is never appeased. Greed is never satisfied and the fires that Ayn Rand inflamed will not subside until the house that fanned them and gave them shelter burns to the ground. The bankers have come too far to go back. There is only the road ahead—and it’s a cliff.

SHIVA’S COMING MAKEOVER

I end my articles with the words: buy gold, buy silver, have faith. Of the three, I believe faith to be the most important, the most valuable and the least understood. A strong and unwavering belief in an intellectual construct is not faith, though many believe it to be.

Faith is a knowing that we are one with our Source, despite all appearances to the contrary. Finding faith in a tautological matrix that creates its own reflection is not easy. Faith exists despite the world of appearances; despitemaya; despite—and not because of—human ignorance.

In March 2007, I delivered my paper predicting a severe economic collapse to Marshall Thurber’s Positive Deviant Network (the PDN) and the reaction was disbelief and anger except for the very few already invested in gold.

In 2008, one year later, after $6 trillion of worth had been stripped from global markets, the Positive Deviant Network was more predisposed to hear what I had to say. That February, I gave a talk to the PDN on what I believed to be the real reasons for the crisis. My talk, America at the Crossroads, can now be viewed on YouTube in four parts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xjKnATlxMY.

At its birth, America embodied the highest hopes of mankind but is now a tragic caricature of those great ideals. As it enters the 21^st century, America finds itself bankrupt morally as well as financially. Its ideals stood the test of time but America did not.

Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson warned America about the dangers of private bankers and standing, i.e. permanent, armies. Fifty years ago, President Eisenhower warned America about the dangers posed by the emerging military-industrial complex; and ten years ago, Congressman Dingall warnedAmerica about the danger of repealing Glass-Steagall.

America was warned and America didn’t listen. Now, the price must be paid. Shiva’s dance of destruction and transformation is underway. The destruction comes first, the transformation comes next—but only if America first changes its ways.

It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way
Democracy is coming... to the USA

Leonard Cohen, 1984

Leonard Cohen’s simply-stated truth—that the heart has got to open in a fundamental way—is the crucial prerequisite for America’s transformation. During America’s drive for self-aggrandizement, world dominion, corporate profits and billion-dollar bonuses, America lost its way—and lost touch with its heart in the process.

America is at a crossroads. It has already chosen. It’d best do so again.

What’s the difference between a pendulum and a wrecking ball?

Sometimes nothing

Buy gold, buy silver, have faith.

Darryl Robert Schoon

www.survivethecrisis.com

www.drschoon.com

Blog www.posdev.net/pdn/index.php?option=com_myblog&blogger=drs&Itemid=81

-- Posted Tuesday, 4 May 2010 |
Source :news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1272953460.php

Greek Money Mystery - 3rd May 2010

How Greek savers are choosing to flee the worst currency crisis in three decades...

THERE IS NO last mover advantage in fleeing a debt default. Not least when it's so clearly flagged in advance.

So whether or not the Greek government has to restructure its finances – screwing one set of creditors or another – you can't blame Greek savers for moving a chunk of their money out of the country since New Year.

Holders of Eurozone bonds fearing a little inflationary "solution" might like to take note. But where to go instead? Let's see where Greek savers have gone.

Did the €10.6 billion in cash pulled from Greek bank accounts by private individuals and private businesses during the first quarter simply vanish into wallets and purses? Perhaps, but non-Greek branches of Greek banks is a better guess. Because, all told, Greek-bank liabilities as reported by the European Central Bank rose to a new record in March.

Non-Greek banks altogether were a likely choice too, as were non-Euro currencies. Overall, total Eurozone banking deposits crept 0.02% lower during the first quarter, as the ECB's chart of M3 year-on-year money supply growth shows below.

And certainly, a little of the money leaving Greece came here to BullionVault, where it was swapped for Physical Gold.

Euro transfers from Greek bank accounts more than doubled at BullionVault in Jan-Mar., reaching their best quarterly level since the global flight into gold at the end of 2008. Daily traffic from Greek I.P. addresses has also doubled from the start of this year, hitting over 300 visits per day.

Note, we are talking about very small sums here, especially as part of that €10.6bn exit. But it's a straw in the wind, perhaps. And seeing how – on 2009's full-year data from the World Gold Council – European gold demand overtook total demand from both US and Middle Eastern households, jumping by 21% in tonnage terms to stand in third place only to India and China, it might not be the last either.

Currency crises typically prove good for gold prices, if only because it rises in terms of the sunken money. And the world hasn't seen a reserve currency hit quite this much trouble since US Treasuries became "certificates of confiscation" in the late '70s.

Want to buy and own the most secure Gold at the very lowest costs...?

Adrian Ash, 03 May '10

Source :goldnews.bullionvault.com/greek_money_050320102