Month: May 2021

Pending “Basel III” regulations emanating from the Bank for International Settlements could destroy the clearing and settlement system for “unallocated” – that is, “paper” or imaginary – gold and silver, the London Bullion Market Association and the World Gold Council warned the Bank of England this week.

In a 58-page protest submitted to the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority, the LBMA and the World Gold Council complained that the “Net Stable Funding Ratio” provision of the Basel III regulations would require the London bullion banks to hold funds offsetting 85 percent of the value of the unallocated gold they hold for customers, and the banks could not afford this.

Most precious metals held by the LBMA’s trade-processing banks, operating as the London Precious Metals Clearing Ltd., are “unallocated” metal, the protest says.

According to the protest, the new rules will have a “damaging effect” on the precious metals clearing and settlement system, “potentially undermining the system completely.”

The protest continues: “The required stable funding for short-term assets would significantly increase costs for London Precious Metals Clearing Ltd. clearing banks to the point that some would be forced to exit the clearing and settlement system, which may even be at risk of collapsing completely.”

The protest acknowledges that LBMA-member banks obtain gold loans from central banks and re-lend the metal “to support the liquidity of the market,” the longstanding euphemism for central bank intervention to suppress monetary metals prices and support government currencies and bonds.

The LBMA and World Gold Council protest is dated May 4 and is posted at the LBMA’s internet site here.

In an interview posted last Friday, London metals trader Andrew Maguire called the LBMA-WGC protest a surprising confession of weakness.

Maguire construes the Basel III regulations as an attack on the “paper gold” mechanism of gold price suppression, a trigger for an upward revaluation of gold, and thus an attack against the domination of the currency markets by the U.S. dollar.

Maguire’s interview is posted at YouTube here.

Gold demand in the technology sector was up 11% year-on-year, coming in at 81.2 tons in the first quarter of 2021. According to the World Gold Council, the strong growth was partially due to comparison with relatively weak tech demand in the first quarter of 2020, as governments began shutting down economies in response to […]

The post Blog first appeared on SchiffGold.

America’s labor market is a mess and riddled with incongruency. On the one hand, businesses can’t find workers. Help wanted signs hang in windows across the country. A McDonald’s franchisee in Tampa is offering bonuses just for showing up for an interview. Meanwhile, unemployment just ticked up to 6.1%. In what kind of world does […]

The post Blog first appeared on SchiffGold.

Though we’ve seen this trick countless times over the years, it never gets less frustrating…  by Craig Hemke via Sprott Money News Though we’ve seen this trick countless times over […]

Now, panic sets in… by Robert Wheeler via The Organic Prepper The United States is currently in a state of emergency…again. This time, it is due to an alleged massive […]

Some of the smartest people out there are starting to worry about hyperinfation and our mad Max future… Lynette Zang with Sean on SGTreport Some of the smartest people out […]

The move is a big deal, as gold has finally broken above the key resistance level. What’s important here is… by Arkadiusz Sieron of Sunshine Profits Gold jumped above $1,800, […]

For those of us who understand monetary history, and especially for precious metals investors, what happens next is… by Claudio Grass via Claudiograss.ch I have long thought about and written […]