GATA | THE GATA DISPATCH: MineWeb's Lawrence Williams: It would be surprising if gold market wasn't manipulated

MineWeb's Lawrence Williams: It would be surprising if gold market wasn't manipulated

Submitted by cpowell on 05:51AM ET Thursday, July 19, 2012. Section: Daily Dispatches

Reflecting on the latest report on the gold market by Erste Bank analyst Ronald Stoeferle 
(http://www.gata.org/node/11564), MineWeb's Lawrence Williams inclines even more toward the likelihood that the gold and silver markets are manipulated. Williams writes:

"There are so many hugely interested parties in precious metals price movements -- from both financial and political ends -- that it would actually be remarkable if there was no manipulation or intervention in the gold and silver markets in particular. Indeed, many of the manipulators, or interventionists, would just not see it as such but as a normal part of their day-to-day business.

"The world is at last becoming aware that everything is almost certainly manipulated in some way or another -- particularly by governments and the major financial institutions, which have the political and financial clout to carry this out, to meet their own agendas. But what is acceptable manipulation and what is not?"

 Williams' question has an answer. 

First, market manipulation by private entities is, in most modern economies, against the law, like anti-trust law, though the law may not be much enforced anymore as the West sinks haplessly into corruption and demoralization.

Second, market manipulation by governments is at least morally wrong if it is undertaken in secret to deceive market participants, and in some circumstances freedom-of-information law may be brought to bear against it, as GATA has done:

http://www.gata.org/node/9917

But mere musing is no substitute for journalism. As GATA has compiled and published much official documentation of central bank manipulation of the gold market --
http://www.gata.org/taxonomy/term/21 --

-- the question is really just how far the manipulation extends, and manipulation can be confirmed, reconfirmed, and explored by any news organization willing to put some specific questions about gold to central banks.

Indeed, yesterday your secretary/treasurer was contacted by someone who identified himself as a writer for Seeking Alpha undertaking an essay meant to be critical of GATA and asking a dozen questions about GATA and its work. Your secretary/treasurer answered them cordially enough but added that the writer might perform a better service in regard to gold market manipulation if he could put even half as many questions to central banks themselves, as they have far more information about gold than GATA does, even as they refuse to provide much of it. Your secretary/treasurer offered to supply the writer with questions that most likely would elicit from central banks some very telling refusals to answer. We'll see if he's interested. But for the moment it seems that journalists find GATA far more accessible and accountable than central banks. Even the most respected financial journalists seem to assume that the unaccountability of central banks is to be taken for granted.
Williams' commentary is headlined "It's a Fine Line Between Gold Manipulation and Intervention" and it's posted at MineWeb here:
http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page33?oid=155397&sn=Deta...
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.