Is the government manipulating gold and silver prices?

[BobK71]

They must suppress the prices of gold and silver.  The political and financial elites of the richest countries of the world system, i.e. the US, Japan, euro zone, Britain, etc. who benefit the most from central planning of money and finance, can't afford to have gold and silver continuously go up.

If people saw gold and silver always going up, they would flee to the metals for store of value, and the entire asset-value-based system would either implode or at least be seriously constrained, so the elites couldn't collect nearly as much power and wealth by issuing paper assets.

After the collapse of all gold standards by 1971, the elites managed long-running periods when gold prices were either flat or going down, while paper money collected interest.  Only during the short periods when events forced them to lose control did gold go up significantly.  Over the long run, between $35/ounce in 1971 and $1200/ounce today, the dollar has lost more than 97% of its value against gold.

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[alani123]

What part of government is doing that and in what ways? I think that regulation is generally keeping the price of certain assets more stable since it's riskier to manipulate the price but I don't think that goverment agencies would have any interest to manipulate any asset directly.

[yayayo]

They must suppress the prices of gold and silver.  The political and financial elites of the richest countries of the world system, i.e. the US, Japan, euro zone, Britain, etc. who benefit the most from central planning of money and finance, can't afford to have gold and silver continuously go up.

If people saw gold and silver always going up, they would flee to the metals for store of value, and the entire asset-value-based system would either implode or at least be seriously constrained, so the elites couldn't collect nearly as much power and wealth by issuing paper assets.

After the collapse of all gold standards by 1971, the elites managed long-running periods when gold prices were either flat or going down, while paper money collected interest.  Only during the short periods when events forced them to lose control did gold go up significantly.  Over the long run, between $35/ounce in 1971 and $1200/ounce today, the dollar has lost more than 97% of its value against gold.

What you say is true, however just identifying a valid motivation for governments to suppress alternative currencies like precious metals does not serve as a proof that actual manipulation is happening. The manipulation debate is going on for years with goldbugs interpreting almost every single price slump as possible manipulation.

Before talking about "manipulation" taking place or not one has to define first, what "manipulation" really means. If you take a simplistic view you could say that any buy or sell order - no matter what quantity - is manipulation, because it has the potential to move the price in some direction...

I clearly see that precious metals are highly political commodities, proved by the fact that governments hoard them in their central banks. Because of this fact alone governments are market actors. But are they manipulators, simply because they are active in the market?

ya.ya.yo!

[vero]

What part of government is doing that and in what ways? I think that regulation is generally keeping the price of certain assets more stable since it's riskier to manipulate the price but I don't think that goverment agencies would have any interest to manipulate any asset directly.

i'm sure  all of these rumor created by the gold company to take advantage of the small percentage of people who fear huge losses that are willing to sell their gold at low prices. "this is old trick"

[BobK71]

What you say is true, however just identifying a valid motivation for governments to suppress alternative currencies like precious metals does not serve as a proof that actual manipulation is happening. The manipulation debate is going on for years with goldbugs interpreting almost every single price slump as possible manipulation.

Before talking about "manipulation" taking place or not one has to define first, what "manipulation" really means. If you take a simplistic view you could say that any buy or sell order - no matter what quantity - is manipulation, because it has the potential to move the price in some direction...

I clearly see that precious metals are highly political commodities, proved by the fact that governments hoard them in their central banks. Because of this fact alone governments are market actors. But are they manipulators, simply because they are active in the market?

ya.ya.yo!

I was also not prepared to believe in manipulation on the basis of motivation alone, even though I had my nagging suspicions.  But read books like "The Gold Cartel" or "The Gold War" and examine their evidence.

Shorting a huge amount of gold at 3AM while gold is rapidly going down is pretty clearly not an attempt to make money, even if that entity had made up its mind to offload or get into a position.

Looking at an even bigger picture, if the elites couldn't live without precious metal suppression for 300+ years (which was what the gold and silver standards essentially were,) we shouldn't expect them to do so during the last 40+ years.

[OROBTC]

...

There may be more than one kind of manipulation happening.  The overnight "raids" at 3:00 AM are often talked about in the goldbug community, but I am not knowledgeable enough to really comment on them.

The more subtle kinds (to keep gold out of the hands of citizens) ma be much harder to detect.  Light, or even heavy, propaganda might play a role -- the MainStream Media poo-poos gold holders for example.

But what seals the deal for me re value of gold is its 5000 years as mankind's choice for Store of Value.

"They" are not having much success suppressing that.

[bryant.coleman]

They must suppress the prices of gold and silver.  The political and financial elites of the richest countries of the world system, i.e. the US, Japan, euro zone, Britain, etc. who benefit the most from central planning of money and finance, can't afford to have gold and silver continuously go up.

Earlier, it was easy for the western nations (+ Japan) to suppress the prices of gold. But that is no longer the case. Other nations such as China and Russia have become major players, and these nations are hoarding vast amounts of gold. Russia has dumped tens of billions of USD worth of US treasury bonds last year. They used these funds to buy gold bullion bars.

[BobK71]

I think it was a few years ago that a trader working in one of the major investment banks decided to turn coat.  He compiled detailed evidence to prove and show how silver was being suppressed by a group in that bank.  He submitted his case to the CFTC which promptly decided to ignore it.

[BobK71]

Earlier, it was easy for the western nations (+ Japan) to suppress the prices of gold. But that is no longer the case. Other nations such as China and Russia have become major players, and these nations are hoarding vast amounts of gold. Russia has dumped tens of billions of USD worth of US treasury bonds last year. They used these funds to buy gold bullion bars.

The elites of all countries benefit from the state-money system (but in different ways.)  Most developing countries prop up their own issuance of money and debt by some kind of pegging to reserve currencies.  So dollars play the role of gold for most countries.  The US benefits from being able to "print gold," and the developing countries benefit (temporarily) from stabilizing their system while they "create wealth" out of thin air by printing money and debt.

There may be disagreements and negotiations between the US and other countries, and reserves, and even gold buying, may occasionally be used as bargaining chips, but all elites have a strong incentive to keep this system stable.  Gold buying is generally slow, so as not to rock the boat.

Russia might have thumbed its nose at the US, somewhat, by buying gold faster, but, it just happened, oil prices collapsed and all the irritants of the US (Russia, Venezuela, ISIS) got hurt, hard.  (The instigator of the drop was a best friend of the US, the House of Saud -- I didn't say Saudi Arabia because it would be a stretch to say that country is a US ally, given its involvement in 9/11.)

[virtualkeybuyer]

No it is not the governments that manipulate the price of silver and god but it is because of demand and supply that the price is increasing and decreasing, if the demand is increased the price is increased and when the demand is decreased the price is decreased.

[expert4knowledge]

No it is not the governments that manipulate the price of silver and god but it is because of demand and supply that the price is increasing and decreasing, if the demand is increased the price is increased and when the demand is decreased the price is decreased.

Governments may  manipulate price of silver and gold but the level that this manipulation can have effect is not clear.

[Pab]

Mike Maloney on Youtube has made the point that the price of physical gold and silver is kept low intentionally by the government and traders using leverage on their investments. Is this the case with the current gold and silver market, or is this just bull?

 Virtual Gold market trading is manipulated by big banks and traders.it has been discovered ,main bank responsible for that fraud is Deutche .Bank.To avoid hard penalty DB agree to colaborate .It mans DB will sing who else are doing that

[Indrawan77]

There is a possibilities that the government control it, because the inflation rate of in a country is also affected by the price of fiat and fiat also affected gold price, so government control the price so inflation rate is not up too high

[BobK71]

There is a possibilities that the government control it, because the inflation rate of in a country is also affected by the price of fiat and fiat also affected gold price, so government control the price so inflation rate is not up too high

This may be the main moral justification for govt. manipulation -- if people lose faith in fiat money, capital might flee in both directions, into precious metals, but also into goods, services, equities, real estate, etc., so inflation also goes up.

Long-term, though, gold suppression (just as under the gold standard) causes capital to move from gold to fiat money, and from there it tends to leak into goods, services, bank deposits, and riskier assets (indeed this is the desired result of the elites, and also the case historically.)  Thus the suppression of gold causes long-term inflation, but it does benefit the elites.

[mindrust]

Probably yes.

If gold and silver prices go up, that makes usd/eur weaker. On the other hand, China is in the game now and if China decides to give more support to gold and dump its FIAT, that move probably start wwiii.

[knowhow]

I dont know if they can manipulate those ,gold and silver has a lot interest over the last years,they influence the market with their decisions but they being able to manipulate its another question,but its possible.Who hold the biggest reserves in gold,countries,soo i wouldnt be surprised at all if they were playing with the price all days.

[HeroCat]

Governments can not manipulate with gold or silver, because they do not have them. Goverments have state money in the bank, and that's all. Many banks have gold deposits, may be banks do something with gold, I do not know. 

[martha5dool]

yes i think so that government manipulating gold and silver prices