by George Washington
Washington’s
Blog

The ·Fix·
Is In?

There is increasing
evidence that the gold market is manipulated. The amount of
physical bullion may be greatly
over-stated, and gold may be manipulated in the same
way that Libor rates are:

The Telegraph
noted
Monday:

The
Libor scandal could be repeated in a number of other “self-certifying”
markets where prices are determined, he said.

“Self-certification
is clearly open to abuse, so this could occur elsewhere,” he said.

A Financial
Services Authority inquiry into Libor should be extended
to other self-certifying markets, he said. The Treasury
said last night that the review, led by Martin Wheatley, was free
to examine markets other than Libor.

***

Some
markets in gold and oil are also based on self-certification.

Mainstream
commentators are starting to publicly discuss manipulation in the
precious metals markets. See this,
this
and this.

Avery Goldman
noted
last year:

On March
15, 2011, the Commodity Exchange (COMEX) and the New York Mercantile
Exchange (NYMEX) advised the CFTC that they had approved
J.P. Morgan’s application to become a licensed vault facility,
using a “self-certification” process. The newly
licensed vault, located at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, NY, NY, is
ready to roll as both “weighmaster” and depository,
for delivery of gold, silver, platinum and palladium contracts,
as of March 17, 2011, two
days later.”

ETFs, bullion
banks, storage facilities and other holders of gold that are “self-certifying”
– without any checks by third party auditors – have
been caught misreporting and raiding even allocated
precious metals accounts, and using the loot to speculate or pay
off other debts.

Read
the rest of the article

March
15, 2013

George
Washington blogs at Washington’s
Blog.

Copyright
© 2013 Washington’s
Blog