Silver Stock Report
by Jason Hommel, February 14, 2008
On this Valentine’s day, let us remember and pay a tribute to all people who love the Government, and while we are at it, let’s pay tribute to the Government itself by buying a T-Bill!
Thank goodness most of America and the rest of the world still loves the Federal Government of the United States and the Federal Reserve enough to continue to hold about $30 trillion worth of bonds that are paying, on average, about 5% while inflation is about 17%.
Such Fed-loving bond holders clearly approve of all the spending habits of the United States government, by their actions of holding bonds, and willingness to lose 12% of their capital per year, and must fully approve of the institution known as the Federal Reserve.
Surely, their willingness to sustain a guaranteed loss of 12% of their capital each year shows their utmost support of the government and Federal Reserve.
Bondholders’ loyal support is all the more evident given the clear alternative of owning gold, which has risen for 7 years in a row, and 36% this last year. Let us also not forget their staunch and fervent willingness to overlook silver, which has risen in price for 5 years in a row, and which went up 24% in the last year.
Clearly, the people’s willingness to sustain such losses, and avoid such gains in the precious metals, goes to show the unwavering support of the actions of the Federal government, the approval of all Federal tax rates, the war on Iraq, and continual rejection of that antiquated document known as the Constitution.
For how else could the U.S. government pay for all that it does not take in through taxes, except through the willingness of the people and other nations to finance the deficit spending?
The U.S. government should also thank the Chinese central bank, the Japanese central bank, and all other central banks that hold U.S. treasury obligations, for their similar commitment of monetary support for all U.S. policy decisions. We can forget what other nations say when they criticize, because we all know that actions speak louder than words, and by their actions of holding U.S. Treasury bonds, they clearly support the U.S. government’s actions.
Clearly, the people who have held silver from $5/oz. to $17/oz. don’t know what they are doing. They sit around wearing tin foil hats, and discuss conspiracy theories. Surely, the bulk of them never went to college, nor could they find any real jobs, which is why they sit on silver. Yes, they must also hate mankind for failing to invest in real businesses that could create jobs and more tax revenues; and instead, they hoard their wealth to themselves like greedy misers.
Yes, silver investors must be fools for holding real silver. It’s just so economically backwards to invest in physical silver, when you could, instead, buy paper futures contracts which promise to deliver silver in the future at some fixed time and price, which allows potential silver investors to make so much more money by putting down only a fraction of the amount to control so much more silver, and earn so much more money using the wonders of modern finance to leverage the gains. Surely, there is no risk involved in going long futures contracts in a consistently rising market of silver prices, and certainly no risk of a delivery default, as the markets are regulated by consumer watchdog organizations like the Federal Government’s Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
There has never been a delivery default in the past in silver at the NYMEX, and so, there clearly could never be on in the future either, despite the fact that the silver market has the highest concentrated short position, higher than in any other commodity.
Also, the integrity of the silver futures market is beyond reproach, because they have measures in place to limit delivery of physical silver to no more than 1.5 million ounces of silver in any single delivery month, which will prevent any major market defaults or disruptions to trading activity by paper longs who foolishly insist upon excessive delivery of the real product.
Further, as each individual trader is limited to holding no more than 1500 futures contracts in silver, which is 7.5 million ounces, the market regulators are poised to prevent any manipulation of the silver prices by any foolish and unpatriotic billionaires who attempt to corner the market in silver.
Finally, if any trader tries to buy more than 150 contracts in silver, their identity must be made known, so that the world’s most trusted and respected government can determine who is foolishly trying to corner the silver market.
Of course, what fool would do the foolish work of buying unleveraged silver and doing the heavy lifting, and risky and expensive storing of silver, when they can contract out that “dirty work” by buying the silver exchange traded fund, (ETF), SLV instead, so much more easily by pushing a few buttons on a keyboard by using any standard online brokerage account? There’s certainly no risk of broker failure, or the ETF sponsor failure, or custodian failure, or sub custodian failure, not in silver. And while the silver EFT charges a fee for their services of lifting, storing, and securing people’s silver for them, they certainly earn their keep by keeping full control of that silver within the major banking system.
Finally, if anyone were so foolish as to be disloyal to the current empire and actually try to buy real silver, they will likely be stonewalled by all the loyal major brokerage houses, who will convince them of the futility of trying to buy silver. After all, the customer can be told that the spread between the bid and ask prices is too wide to be safe, let alone make a profit, and the commissions are too high for the customer, and too low for the broker to even bother with. Besides, customers can always be scared away from silver by mentioning mysterious and unquoted “assay” fees, and “shipping” fees, and “handling” fees. And if they can’t be convinced by their full service broker, to avoid buying silver, then the brokerage house can sell them silver certificates, or “unallocated” or even “allocated” silver, in addition to charging them storage fees!
And, of course, you can no longer get silver from any bank, not since silver ceased from being circulating coinage years ago.
True, there are U.S. Silver eagles, but they only mint about 10 million ounces per year of those, which is negligible in terms of modern finance; so if anyone tried to corner that market, the U.S. government would be well on to such unpatriotic trickery.
And yes, there is that somewhat unregulated network of coin shops around the nation, but that rag tag group of misfits couldn’t finance their way out of a paper bag to support a run on silver. Besides, that group proves its usefulness to the establishment by buying more silver from the public than they sell to the public, and dumping the excess back to the refineries to be wisely used by industry, so there’s no danger of a paper monetary collapse being fomented among that “outlet” of silver and gold.
Yes, the U.S. financial system is perfectly fine. There is no risk of financial collapse, nor any need to worry about any dollar decline, since the people trust the U.S. more than any other system, and any other thing. Besides, any significant dollar decline would make U.S. exports cheaper, which would be a great boost to the U.S. economy, which would, in turn attract further investment into the freest and most prosperous nation on earth, which, of course, would support the dollar, and thus keep anything bad from ever happening.
Yes, that’s why I’m unemployable. I’m just not good enough at lying to write such nonsense to support the nonsense of the current empire.
Mostly Insincerely (but if you know how to read between the lines, you know that I’m very sincere about all of the facts mentioned above),
Jason Hommel