1:38p ET Thursday, February 22, 2001 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: GATA Chairman Bill Murphy has allowed me to share with you the following alert he dispatched today to his subscribers at www.LeMetropoleCafe.com. CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. * * * By Bill Murphy www.LeMetropoleCafe.com February 22, 2001 Rumors are flying in the gold world that an announcement of some kind will be made soon regarding the gold market. Of most importance is that gold lease rates, especially the short rates, have begun to rise dramatically. The one-month lease rate has risen from 0.7% to 1.75 percent over the past month and is starting to spike up. The short-term rate has also inverted over the longer rates, which is an aberration. There is much to digest in all of this. First, I am told that the lendable gold outside of the big central banks has been exhausted. That makes sense, as we have noted that in recent months the gold cartel has called on Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Uruguay to lend their gold. We are also hearing that it is the large central banks holding down gold now even though they have been told that this does does serious damage to poor gold- producing countries. But there appears to be a severe shortage of physical gold. Word has it that the Bank of England is very slow in settling its gold transactions and that this is causing great nervousness in the physical market. Two sources have told me that they are hearing that there will be some kind of new Washington Agreement type of announcement by the agreement's 15 signatories to the effect that they are further reducing their lending. That would be a bombshell. As I reported in last night's "Midas" commentary, Frank Veneroso thinks the gold loans could be as high as 17,000 tonnes, more than three times the acknowledged figure, and that the yearly supply/demand deficit is running around 2,000 tonnes. In other words, no matter what the central banks do, they are going to run out of gold in the near future unless the price rises dramatically to slow down demand. There is something else. As the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee has reported often, the Bush administration and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill have stated publicly that they are for free markets and against market interventions, which eventually backfire. O'Neill just came back from the G-10 economic summit. He and the Treasury Department must respond by March 15 in U.S. District Court in Boston to the Howe/GATA lawsuit about rigging of the gold market. It is likely that O'Neill told the G-10 conference that the United States will no longer support rigging he gold market as did Clinton, Rubin, and Summers. That would fit in with everything else we know since the Bush administration took over. Real economic data is being reported now instead of phony numbers. The action of the stock market is totally different. The Clinton scandals never end. But the biggest one of all is what the Clinton administration did to gold to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor African gold-producing countries. The U.S. policy toward gold under Clinton contributed to death and economic devastation in those countries. I just received the following from South Africa about speculation in that country. "Via a chain of contacts, I was informed that there exists some evidence that your quickly arranged visit to the South African Reserve Bank just before you left South Africa was not intended to offer you an opportunity to sell them on GATA but to find out quickly exactly what GATA knew. Some officials you spoke to in Cape Town were concerned that GATA had more facts than was suspected -- by the Hannibal Lecters of this world?? -- and that it was important to find out what these were so that countermeasures could be taken." Well, if that was the case, the Reserve Bank of South Africa did learn that GATA and Reg Howe have this thing nailed and that the cabal has been found out. It was the most complete and best presentation I ever gave. If they did not know before, they know now that the jig is up for the gold cartel. And finally, what better time than to dump a new scandal on the Clinton administration? What else is new? Gold is higher on the day and has made a succession of new highs. That is a change in the trading pattern of recent weeks and months. Some exciting times could be upon us. -END- ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">eGroups is now Yahoo! Groups Click here for more details </FONT><A HREF="http://us.click.yahoo.com/kWP7PD/pYNCAA/4ihDAA/WyOVlB/TM"><B>Click Here!</B></A> ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
