Mass Detention Camp Discovered for DNC Protestors in Denver

From YouTube video of the local CBS affiliate in Denver:

Denver officials weren’t planning to reveal details about where activists would be detained in the event of mass arrests during the Democratic National Convention until after the event had started, but those plans were quickly dashed this week when CBS 4News reporter Rick Sallinger not only revealed that protesters would be locked up in a city-owned warehouse, but he also obtained clear video footage inside the facility, a building that includes barbed wire-topped cages and signs warning of stun-gun use.

Silver Headin’ for $4,000/oz?

More Ted Butler insights from his latest column (excerpt follows). Ted says (and I agree) Izzy’s Dec 2007 column triggered the run on Silver Eagles.

If there is one thing upon which I have agreed with my good friend and mentor, Izzy, it is the coming shortage of silver. This has been an issue on which we have agreed for more than 20 years. But it is only recently that I have come to appreciate his true take on what shortage will mean to the price of silver.

By way of review, the silver retail investment shortage emerged some six months ago, shortly after Izzy’s article extolling the advantage of buying US Silver Eagles. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that his article jump started the huge demand for Silver Eagles and as a result the US Mint could not keep up with demand. They still can’t.

Already, the Mint has sold more Silver Eagles in the first seven and a half months of this year than it sold in any full year in the 22 year history of the Eagle program. I believe the demand for Silver Eagles subsequently generated sales for all retail silver investment products. Those not able to buy Eagles bought other forms that were available, until demand exceeded supply for other silver products.

Now many may doubt that a retired grandfather could write a single article that could launch a shortage of retail silver for the very first time in history, but I know better. I know that is exactly what happened. And the reason I know it is because I knew that was Izzy’s intent beforehand. Everything he wrote about the benefits of owning silver was the gospel truth. But, he also intended and set out to highlight just how tight silver supply had become by forcing the Mint into a position where they could not meet demand. He knew that the Mint couldn’t hide a shortage of Silver Eagles. There’s no way that someone sets out to accomplish such a specific objective and then achieves it by accident.

The reason I am recounting Izzy’s remarkable accomplishment is to give you a sense of the true meaning of his thoughts on the coming silver shortage. Even I raise my eyes when he offers his seemingly outrageous price projections, although I know better to dismiss anything he says. But there is something unique in his experience and background that gives him a perspective unlike most.

Izzy has experienced the kind of shortages of basic goods only witnessed during war. He was present during communist take over in his native Romania. He has related to me how people would pay any price for a loaf of bread, a chicken, even a tool. You and I can’t conceive of such shortages because we have never experienced them first hand.

Perhaps you can mentally transport yourself to imagine such shortages, where price becomes secondary to availability. If so, you may get a brief glimpse of Izzy’s vision and “crazy” price targets for silver in a time of true shortage. If this persistent and growing retail shortage of silver develops into a true full-blown wholesale and industrial shortage (as I believe we may already be in), we will not be able to judge what price is truly crazy. Those most likely to gauge price correctly in a shortage may only be those who have been there and done that.

Izzy doesn’t name a price target in recent columns. He says only,”Mr. Butler has a modest view on future prices, and my opinion is more extreme. I can see very high prices. If I tell you the price you will need a seatbelt, not to fall from your chair.”

I did find this from Izzy in another column from Feb 2008:

At some point, in 15 to 20 years, silver prices will be 5 times higher than gold prices. If my calculation is correct, a dollar invested in silver will do many times better than gold. In real estate value, I think 1,000 ounces of silver will buy a 3-bedroom apartment in Manhattan in Trump Towers.I am a different thinker, and some gold investors don’t like my opinion, but that is their problem. 

In other words, Izzy’s saying silver could be at least $4,000 an ounce. At that rate a single 100 oz bar could pay off your house.

◊◊◊◊ Now: Gold @ $812.80, Silver @ $13.18, USDX @ 76.85 ◊◊◊◊

Why Silver Plummeted

Ted Butler offers insight into the recent engineered silver/gold smackdown in his latest column (excerpt follows):

I am not writing this article in anger. I understand how many could feel angry, particularly if leveraged silver or gold positions were liquidated as a result of this sell-off. Not only does this episode confirm that these markets have been manipulated, it also strengthens my conviction that the termination of this manipulation is a certainty. The commercials know better than anyone how the markets function mechanically. They know when the markets are least liquid and when many traders are absent. The most illiquid time is around 8 PM EST. On Thursday evening, right at that time, the price of silver suddenly plummeted by almost $1.50. It had never before fell by that amount so quickly in any overnight session.

So, how did the concentrated shorts pull that off? They waited until the most opportune time and threw in some relatively small, but aggressively placed sell orders. These sell orders caused the price to fall, touching off further sell orders from under-margined longs, which further caused prices to fall. The analogy I like to use is that it is similar to rolling a small snowball down a hill and watching it pick up size and momentum. As the sell orders began to snowball more and more, guess who was buying after prices dropped? Correct, the concentrated shorts.

How is it possible that the commercials could buy back short positions on thousands of contracts at times of steep sell-offs, without triggering a rise in price? There is only one possible and plausible explanation – through discipline and collusion. The commercials know the price levels that tech funds and other large speculators are likely to sell at on the way down. In addition, some of those large commercials do the clearing for these speculative traders. In that position, they know the finances of the large long silver traders better than anyone. The commercials know, in advance, the sell points and vulnerability levels of the longs as well as the longs themselves. So all the commercials have to do is trigger low enough prices at illiquid times in the market to manufacture an avalanche of selling. Then they sit back with low priced buy orders and wait for the desperate sellers to come to them. Previously, I have referred to the behavior of the commercials as a wolf pack. It is shocking that the regulators can permit this.

Ted continues with comments about the retail silver shortage:

The growing and persistent retail silver investment shortage is becoming increasingly obvious. What is happening is nothing short of astounding.

For the first time in our lifetime, there is not enough silver to go around. Just about everywhere you look, dealers are sold out or low on inventories, throughout the entire supply chain. Delays in deliveries, the clearest definition of a commodity shortage, are commonplace. This is unprecedented. That this is occurring precisely at the same time of a sharp sell-off in the price of silver, should make your head spin.

The most basic law of supply and demand dictates that low and falling prices must be an indication of growing supplies or falling demand. I would suggest that you consider the only plausible explanation to silver investment shortages amid plummeting prices. That explanation is that there must be something wrong with the price of silver, not with supply or demand. After all, the actual supply or demand can’t possibly be “wrong.” They are what they are. Only the price could possibly be wrong. To be exact, the price of silver is manipulated, something that I have maintained for more than two decades. The growing retail silver shortage confirms this manipulation.

◊◊◊◊ Now: Gold @ $812.80, Silver @ $13.26, USDX @ 76.80 ◊◊◊◊