Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[CurbsideProphet]

APMEX was advertising a special on PAMP 1oz gold bars, $29.99 over spot.  The special ended a few hours ago so I thought I'd check in to see what the new rate is, it's $29.99 over spot 

I guess they have a lot of supply leftover.

ROFL. over supply?

Yup.  Gold bugs constantly harp about the divergence between paper gold and physical gold.  Well, right there you can buy all the physical gold you want for a very reasonable price over spot, but it doesn't really look like people are buying.  Maybe when it gets closer to $1000.

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[byronbb]

APMEX was advertising a special on PAMP 1oz gold bars, $29.99 over spot.  The special ended a few hours ago so I thought I'd check in to see what the new rate is, it's $29.99 over spot 

I guess they have a lot of supply leftover.

ROFL. over supply?

Yup.  Gold bugs constantly harp about the divergence between paper gold and physical gold.  Well, right there you can buy all the physical gold you want for a very reasonable price over spot, but it doesn't really look like people are buying.  Maybe when it gets closer to $1000.

Pawn Star guy says otherwise.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-28/even-pawn-star-knows-governments-can-screw-currency

[miscreanity]

I'm afraid it is the exact opposite and they are looking to GTFO while the getting is good. Who's to say they aren't distributing instead of accumulating? Ah yes, the hopes of deluded bulls.

Keep in mind that everything else is going down against the USD, and that will most likely continue taking Bitcoin down with it as people need to free up cash.

Pay attention, chodpaba...

The USD is not the primary concern among the savviest of HNW entities: it is the accelerating decay of our entire monetary system. They seek vehicles that will bridge the gap from the existing system to the next iteration. This is why many luxury assets have been rising.

As usage of the present system grinds down, wealth held within it will deteriorate at a blistering pace while the new system receives that outflow. Whatever forms the foundation of the new system will be fought over like a natural resource until transition volatility has subsided.

There is no universally-accepted asset capable of acting as the basis of a new monetary system other than gold. No paper contract, asset exchange, or altruistic dogma suffices. Nations have the same concerns an individual has: possession is 9/10ths. If an asset is within your dominion, it is yours.

China can physically relocate precious metals. It cannot do so with productive farmland located outside of its borders, or machinery used worldwide. Nations need a stable, immutable asset with no dependence upon foreign support.

While Bitcoin fits the bill, it is not pervasive enough yet. Gold is the transitional asset for at least the next few years, with other monetary metal playing lesser roles. By 2020 this may shift in favor of crypto.

Bitcoin is a new form of preservation, unproven to many but rapidly gaining acceptance and viewed as a place to park a small percentage of wealth.

Edit: fixed quote, added final statement.

[notme]

APMEX was advertising a special on PAMP 1oz gold bars, $29.99 over spot.  The special ended a few hours ago so I thought I'd check in to see what the new rate is, it's $29.99 over spot 

I guess they have a lot of supply leftover.

ROFL. over supply?

Yup.  Gold bugs constantly harp about the divergence between paper gold and physical gold.  Well, right there you can buy all the physical gold you want for a very reasonable price over spot, but it doesn't really look like people are buying.  Maybe when it gets closer to $1000.

Pawn Star guy says otherwise.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-28/even-pawn-star-knows-governments-can-screw-currency

Someone should tell him about the APMEX deal.

[CurbsideProphet]

APMEX was advertising a special on PAMP 1oz gold bars, $29.99 over spot.  The special ended a few hours ago so I thought I'd check in to see what the new rate is, it's $29.99 over spot 

I guess they have a lot of supply leftover.

ROFL. over supply?

Yup.  Gold bugs constantly harp about the divergence between paper gold and physical gold.  Well, right there you can buy all the physical gold you want for a very reasonable price over spot, but it doesn't really look like people are buying.  Maybe when it gets closer to $1000.

Pawn Star guy says otherwise.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-28/even-pawn-star-knows-governments-can-screw-currency

Someone should tell him about the APMEX deal.

Exactly.  I just checked and it's still going on and it's not like it's that incredible of a deal, you can probably find physical gold at $30 over spot from many dealers.

I watch the show, it's very entertaining but anyone who watches the show knows how big these guys are on PM's.  The father basically hordes silver.  In fact he even hordes pennies.  There was a show where he had these huge 5 gallon buckets full of pennies, so many that it was sagging the suspension in his car (he was hiding them in the trunk).

Guys in this business need to make a profit so maybe he is having a problem finding PMs at a price where he can make a profit but for the average person, you can easily find physical at prices very close to spot, as I have pointed out.

[miscreanity]

I do quite see what you are saying. It is the flatness of a universal medium of exchange that is going away. I have to laugh at New Austrians who try to characterize barter as a flatting of exchange—there is nothing flat about it.

Yes, demand is as fickle as fashion. I have no doubt gold will fall out of favour in time; when the uniformity you describe has returned.

Because, if borders are anything, they are money making machines.

Well said. Perhaps Bitcoin holders will see free zones spring up that encourage crypto use and effect better exchange value.

[vokain]

Well said. Perhaps Bitcoin holders will see free zones spring up that encourage crypto use and effect better exchange value.

http://www.nhforliberty.com/ron-helwig-discusses-shire-silver-and-bitcoin-at-2013-nh-liberty-forum/

This guy, Ron Helwig, really gets it. I'm glad he's a part of the Free State Project, something I am seriously considering in the future, maybe even as just as a first home.

"And of course, we do accept bitcoins for the Shire Silver, and we've gotten several orders for that. So people who are a little unsure about bitcoins can easily convert them to sound money by buying some Shire Silver!"

"So how do you answer the question that Bitcoin is sound money?"

"Actually, if you think about it, it probably is, to extent that, getting into the whole semantic argument, 'let's be a pure Austrian', all that stuff. Bitcoin either proves via Mises's regression theorem by having an actual value in its utility as a means of exchange, or it disproves Mises' theorem, in which case, is to me, a moot point. But the fact that it's mathematically limited to the 21 million bitcoins, means its essentially sound by mathematics, as opposed to silver and gold, it's sound by physics.  Physics limits the amount of gold and silver available, mathematics limits the amount of bitcoins available."

[cypherdoc]

APMEX was advertising a special on PAMP 1oz gold bars, $29.99 over spot.  The special ended a few hours ago so I thought I'd check in to see what the new rate is, it's $29.99 over spot 

I guess they have a lot of supply leftover.

ROFL. over supply?

Yup.  Gold bugs constantly harp about the divergence between paper gold and physical gold.  Well, right there you can buy all the physical gold you want for a very reasonable price over spot, but it doesn't really look like people are buying.  Maybe when it gets closer to $1000.

i keep offering to sell the rest of my gold coins to miscreanity for the bargain physical price of $2800/oz but he keeps refusing.  even though he knows it's going to $30,000/oz.

[cypherdoc]

Gold is a barbaric relic, deal with it.

it's "barbarous" relic.

unless you're calling miscreanity a barbarian. 

[N12]

Gold is a barbaric relic, deal with it.

it's "barbarous" relic.

unless you're calling miscreanity a barbarian. 

Seems to be the same meaning.

Gold collapsing. Bitcoin collapsing.

[tvbcof]

...
Gold collapsing. Bitcoin collapsing.

Difference is Gold/Silver are probably near the bottom of their down-leg, though I would not rule out another 25% while  Bitcoin probably has another halving, and possibly two before complete loss of hope.  Both are probably several years away from the point where I would ideally like to withdraw some value.  Hopefully my fiat supply (won't end up funding a bail-in, and) will last that long, and I am already resolved to defer some toy purchases to stretch this out.

These are just my non-professional guesstimates though, and I'm always happy to be wrong.  As always, significant external events could intervene with any natural cycle...and very well may in this case.

I will say that if I happened to know I needed the money I had in Bitcoin over the next year or two, I would be taking at least some of it now to avoid doing so at fire-sale prices.  Actually, I would have been doing so a month or two ago.  As it is, I see a reasonable likelihood of yet another significant leg up hopefully well into the four-figures.  It's just that it might take some number of years.

[thefiniteidea]

How can I value gold when I don't even know how much there is in the world held by who

Gold has a proof problem the Bitcoin does not.

There is all the bitcoin that disappears due to neglect... whether or not you consider that to ever have existed in the first place, I suppose would be irrelevant.

-apathetic. 

[jubalix]

How can I value gold when I don't even know how much there is in the world held by who

Gold has a proof problem the Bitcoin does not.

There is all the bitcoin that disappears due to neglect... whether or not you consider that to ever have existed in the first place, I suppose would be irrelevant.

-apathetic. 

how does that even hurt in fact it makes the remainder more valuable

[molecular]

How can I value gold when I don't even know how much there is in the world held by who

Gold has a proof problem the Bitcoin does not.

There is all the bitcoin that disappears due to neglect... whether or not you consider that to ever have existed in the first place, I suppose would be irrelevant.

-apathetic. 

how does that even hurt in fact it makes the remainder more valuable

wont anyone think of the poor neglected bitcoins?!?

[miscreanity]

Great charts in this article from Tocqueville's Hathaway.

Especially important is the chart of premiums:


Keep in mind those are wholesale premiums. That will accelerate very quickly as physical shortages become more apparent, starting with Asia and India.

[tvbcof]

...
Keep in mind those are wholesale premiums. That will accelerate very quickly as physical shortages become more apparent, starting with Asia and India.

That makes sense, since the Indian government is actively strangling gold imports.

India currently does pretty much what the West tells them to unless they REALLY have no realistic alternative (e.g., getting oil from Iran.)  I don't doubt that they would stab their people in the back when it comes to allowing their citizens to protect themselves at the expense of Western financial interests.

My read over the last few years has been that, if anything, China is encouraging their plebs to accumulate...though admittedly I end up reading mostly pro-gold stuff.  I suspect that the Govt knows that they can appropriate some percentage of the holdings of their subjects if/when it makes sense to do so.

Perhaps by 'strangling' you mean the the govt's are accumulating all available gold for their strategic reserves?

[tvbcof]

...
Perhaps by 'strangling' you mean the the govt's are accumulating all available gold for their strategic reserves?

Nope. India's gold reserves have remained essentially flat.

They bought a bunch from the IMF a while ago as I recall.  I don't remember exactly when, and of course I have no idea if they managed to take delivery.  I would not be one bit surprised if they got the shaft unless they were willing to be content moving some paper around describing ownership of phyzzz in London.  In any event it's not like anyone is under an obligation to divulge exactly what they are doing.  IIRC, China's holding like doubled over one night.  I don't treat any statement from any government as gospel for this sort of thing personally.

Seems that in ~chodpaba's world, though, what happened with gold several years ago is meaningless now that in a giant and sudden shift everyone is rejecting gold as a representation of value...for the first time in about 5000 years.  I'll buy into that in a heartbeat as soon as I hear credible stories of cost effective nuclear transmutation.

[vokain]

...
Perhaps by 'strangling' you mean the the govt's are accumulating all available gold for their strategic reserves?

Nope. India's gold reserves have remained essentially flat.

They bought a bunch from the IMF a while ago as I recall.  I don't remember exactly when, and of course I have no idea if they managed to take delivery.  I would not be one bit surprised if they got the shaft unless they were willing to be content moving some paper around describing ownership of phyzzz in London.  In any event it's not like anyone is under an obligation to divulge exactly what they are doing.  IIRC, China's holding like doubled over one night.  I don't treat any statement from any government as gospel for this sort of thing personally.

Seems that in ~chodpaba's world, though, what happened with gold several years ago is meaningless now that in a giant and sudden shift everyone is rejecting gold as a representation of value...for the first time in about 5000 years.  I'll buy into that in a heartbeat as soon as I hear credible stories of cost effective nuclear transmutation.

When was the last time we did something that we had not done in the last 5000 tears? 

utilize electron potential
tcp/ip
bitcoin

[tvbcof]

...
Perhaps by 'strangling' you mean the the govt's are accumulating all available gold for their strategic reserves?

Nope. India's gold reserves have remained essentially flat.

They bought a bunch from the IMF a while ago as I recall.  I don't remember exactly when, and of course I have no idea if they managed to take delivery.  I would not be one bit surprised if they got the shaft unless they were willing to be content moving some paper around describing ownership of phyzzz in London.  In any event it's not like anyone is under an obligation to divulge exactly what they are doing.  IIRC, China's holding like doubled over one night.  I don't treat any statement from any government as gospel for this sort of thing personally.

Seems that in ~chodpaba's world, though, what happened with gold several years ago is meaningless now that in a giant and sudden shift everyone is rejecting gold as a representation of value...for the first time in about 5000 years.  I'll buy into that in a heartbeat as soon as I hear credible stories of cost effective nuclear transmutation.

When was the last time we did something that we had not done in the last 5000 tears? 

We do new things all the time.  A better question was when was the last time a bedrock and universal behavior such as storing wealth in PMs stood for such a length of time just vanished?  It takes some rhetoric to argue that gold is a forgotten relic when there is so much effort on the parts of central banks keep it in their vaults (or pretend to anyway.)

I actually mostly respond here to say that I had not exposed myself to Sprott's latest KWN interview when I penned about India several posts back, and I believe I can honestly say that my musings about the posture of the Indian government were almost exclusively my own thesis.  Then I listen to Eric Sprott and he says almost the exact same thing.  Had he not said it first, I would have been suspicious that the guy reads this forum.

[miscreanity]

yes. china is promoting the sale of gold to the people. something i find very odd but maybe it was cuz they just needed the cash.

In order to accumulate as much gold as possible in as short a time as possible, enlisting the citizenry this way is no different than 20th century war propaganda.

Death by 1,000 cuts.