Saturday, April 20, 2013

1981 Article: 7,000 Tons of Gold Bullion Removed from Fort Knox From 1973-74!

1981 Article: 7,000 Tons of Gold Bullion Removed from Fort Knox From 1973-74!
 (silverdoctors)

SD has discovered the manuscript of a 1981 article by The Globe which reported that 7,000 tons of gold bullion were removed from Fort Knox from $1973-74, and the only bullion that remained was from melted down gold coins & was of such poor quality (at least 10% copper) that it would not be accepted on the open market by any nation.

“300 truckloads of bullion were simply driven away.”



The American Gold Commission in Washington will this week begin an examination of Treasury documents to decide whether 7000 tons of gold, enough to fill 300 lorries, has been stolen from Fort Knox, the world’s biggest and most protected bullion store.

Economic Armageddon Is Imminent: George Soros Knows Something Dreadful Is Coming And Goldman Sachs Opened The Gates to Hell

Economic Armageddon Is Imminent

George Soros knows something dreadful is coming. The Rockefellers know something big and bad is about to happen. That something big is the imminent collapse of all fiat paper money currencies around the world. In their secret Bilderberg meetings, the globalists have positively planned the exact date of our financial demise. You can even bet the next “black whatever day” will coincide with an ironic date which will make the globalists chuckle at the planned inception of next false flag event.
..
Goldman Sachs Just Opened the Gates to Hell
Silver prices have dropped dramatically this past Monday. Panic selling dominated the market as investors and financial institutions could not dump their holdings of silver and gold fast enough. The market clearly shows signs of mass manipulation by the globalists. The best proof that the globalists are manipulating the price of gold comes from “Goldman Sachs (who) reportedly told their clients earlier this month that they recommend initiating a short COMEX gold position.”

Please remember that this is the same Goldman Sachs that shorted its stocks on 9/11. This is the same Goldman Sachs that placed put options on Transocean stock the morning of the Gulf oil explosion. This is the same Goldman Sachs that got caught shorting the housing market in advance of the housing bubble burst. Basically, when Goldman Sachs starts shorting anything, we should all become apprehensive; particularly if our individual investments are anywhere in the neighborhood of the commodities being impacted by shorting. When Goldman Sachs begins to short anything, it is time to take your money and run for the hills. That time would be now.
Why Would Goldman Sachs Dramatically Drive Down the Price of Gold?
Beside trading and bartering, if the dollar and the euro were to collapse tomorrow, what currency of exchange would the left standing? The obvious and simple answer would be primarily, gold, and secondarily, silver. Ask yourself this question, if you knew that paper monies all around the world were to collapse, what action would represent your best option? The obvious answer would be to dramatically drive down the price of gold and silver if one had the ability to do so, and then buy as much as gold as one possibly could. Goldman Sachs has the ability to do so by utilizing their ominous shorting strategy.

Boston Massacre: Up to 12 Dead, 60 Wounded

White House — Banker Connection Pre Gold Collapse

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but it is suspicious that on the Thursday before the Friday gold collapse there was an 11:00 AM meeting of all the major bankers at the White House. Coincidence? Perhaps, or perhaps not.

Full List of Bankers at White House Meeting Thursday

April 11, 2013, 10:57 AM
Here is the list of bank executives who will be attending, according to a White House official:
•             Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and CEO Goldman Sachs GS -1.42%
•             Jacques Brand, CEO Deutsche Bank DBK.XE -1.80% Americas
•             Michael Corbat, Chief Executive Officer Citigroup C -1.42%
•             Jamie Dimon, Chairman, CEO and President J.P. Morgan Chase JPM -0.32%
•             Sergio Ermotti, CEO UBS UBSN.VX -1.79%
•             James Gorman, Chairman and CEO Morgan Stanley MS -5.40%
•             Gerald Hassell, Chairman and CEO Bank of New York Mellon Corpo BK -1.80%ration
•             Jay Hooley, Chairman, President and CEO State Street Corpo STT -1.36%ration
•             Abby Johnson, President, Fidelity Financial Services, Fidelity Investments
•             Steve Kandarian, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO Metlife MET -2.26%
•             Brian Moynihan, President and CEO Bank of America BAC -2.22% Merrill Lynch
•             John Strangfeld, CEO, Prudential
•             John Stumpf, Chairman, President and CEO Wells Fargo WFC -0.79%
•             Jim Weddle, Managing Partner, Edward Jones
•             Bob Benmosche, President and CEO American International Group AIG -0.57%
   Zerohgedge: What Exactly Did Obama Say To Wall Street’s CEOs Last Thursday?
Correlation is not causation; but coincidence means you’re on the right path. Looking at the charts of Stocks, Commodities, and Precious Metals, we wonder just what it was that President Obama said at his 11am ET White House meeting last Thursday
Equity markets soared out of the gate on the 11th. Jobless claims beat expectations handily (shaking off the previous week’s concerns) and all was well in the world… until just after 11am ET (when the CEOs of Wall Street’s big banks – for no apparent reason – met with President Obama)… and this happened…


Gold also peaked at just after 11am ET…


Goldman Closes Gold Position, Says Time to Short

10 Apr 2013
Goldman Sachs downgraded its 2013 price target for gold and advised investors to short the precious metal, in a commodities report out on Wednesday.
“Despite resurgence in euro area risk aversion and disappointing U.S. economic data, gold prices are unchanged over the past month, highlighting how conviction in holding gold is quickly waning,” said Goldman Sachs analysts Damien Courvalin and Jeffrey Currie in the note.

Goldman Confirms Slowdown Accelerating

04/18/2013
Two weeks ago we showed the notable cyclical collapse in Goldman Sachs’ business cycle ‘Swirlogram’, due to a combination of downward revisions in over-adjusted data and actual economic decline. The latest ‘swirlogram’ shows that the situation has gone from bad to worse. While hope remains due to strength in AUD and CAD (commodity) currencies, Consumer confidence, global PMIs, and Industrial metals have all worsened significantly pushing the Global Leading Indicator momentum down notably. The next key indicators Goldman are watching are Belgian and Dutch manufacturing, Japanese Industrial Production Inventory/Sales, and Korean exports and they remain cautious of the increasing fiscal drag in the US.

How quickly we flopped from expansion to slowdown…



Farage – New Government Confiscation & Gold Turbulence

There is now a new German proposal on the table which says they will even confiscate a percentage of the value of your house.  We have not seen this sort of thing going on in Western Europe since the 1930s and 1940s when the Nazi regime did this to people they hated.  

And isn’t it ironic that in the middle of all of this we have the Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, actually saying to the EU, ‘You are now behaving like the Soviet used to.’”

IMF warns on risk of new credit bubbles

Extraordinarily loose monetary policy risks sparking credit bubbles which threaten to tip the world back into financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund warned yesterday.

Japan posts record annual trade deficit of $83.4 billion

Japan used to be an export economy. It is no longer. For the 8th month in a row, exports have been exceeded by imports. If continued, Japan will collapse.

11 Economic Crashes That Are Happening Right Now

The stock market is not crashing yet, but there are lots of other market crashes happening in the financial world right now.  Just like we saw back in 2008, it is taking stocks a little bit of extra time to catch up with economic reality.  But almost everywhere else you look, there are signs that a financial avalanche has begun.  Bitcoins are crashing, gold and silver are plunging, the price of oil and the overall demand for energy continue to decline, markets all over Europe are collapsing and consumer confidence in the United States just had the biggest miss relative to expectations that has ever been recorded.  In many ways, all of this is extremely reminiscent of 2008.  Other than the Bitcoin collapse, almost everything else that is happening now also happened back then.   So does that mean that a horrible stock market crash is coming as well?  Without a doubt, one is coming at some point.  The only question is whether it will be sooner or later.  Meanwhile, there are a whole lot of other economic crashes that deserve out attention at the moment.
The following are 11 economic crashes that are happening RIGHT NOW…


Jim Chanos Uses Gruesome Cartoon To Illustrate How China Is Generating Growth
China banker jumps to death in Beijing
Treasury’s Miller: No banks will be bailed out
A Scary Head-And-Shoulders Pattern Is Developing As The S&P 500 Broke Through Two key Price Levels To The Downside And Earning Reports Coming In WEAK!
McDonalds Hikes Japanese Burger Prices By 20%
Italy protest leader vows to export revolution to Europe
Several more Dow components report earnings Friday, providing a glimpse of how industrial and consumer companies fared in the squishy global economy last quarter.

There is a Run on Physical Gold and Silver, that’s why the Feds are Attacking It! This is the first time in human history in which all the world’s major currencies are collapsing together!!!

The reports of massive drainage of Gold and Silver inventories are pouring in from around the world. Now do you understand why the Feds are attacking it so desperately? They need to stop the run before it forces the Comex and others into default! They are totally desperate now!
Comex Gold:
Over the last 90 days without any announcement, stocks of gold held at Comex warehouses plunged by the largest figure ever on record during a single quarter since eligible record keeping began in 2001 (roughly the beginning of the bull market). See chart below…
http://bullmarketthinking.com/comex-gold-inventories-collapse-by-largest-amount-on-record/
Former US Treasury high official: “This sell off orquestrated by the FED”
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/04/04/the-assault-on-gold-paul-craig-roberts/
Comex Silver:
COMEX registered silver inventories have fallen off the proverbial cliff this week, as registered supplies have dropped a massive 10% in the last 48 hours!
Nearly 4 million ounces of physical metal has vaporized from COMEX vaults as the rush to physical intensifies in the wake of the Cyprus bail-in wealth confiscation as news has spread that nations the Western world over are preparing to shove the next banking crisis down the throats of depositors.
http://silverdoctors.com/comex-silver-inventories-fall-off-cliff-as-registered-silver-declines-by-10-in-48-hours/#more-24869
GLD:
GLD Holdings Plunge…
Gold has faced stiff headwinds lately as investors abandon alternative investments to chase record-high stock markets. Probably the most significant has been the major selling hammering the flagship GLD gold ETF. It has suffered such intense differential selling pressure that its custodians have been forced to dump enormous quantities of physical gold. What are the implications of this flood of new supply?
The amount of gold bullion GLD has hemorrhaged recently is amazing. To put it into perspective, earlier this week the rumor that embattled Cyprus may be forced to sell its official gold reserves made news. The Cypriot government owns 13.9 metric tons of gold. But on a single trading day alone in February’s gold capitulation, GLD had to sell 20.8 tonnes! The supply recently added by GLD dwarfs everything else.

http://news.goldseek.com/Zealllc/1365782977.php
Brinks, CNT, Delaware, HSBC, & Scotia:
Epic drainage of physical silver inventories continued Tuesday, as 17.3% of CNT’s physical silver inventories vaporized for the 2nd consecutive day, cutting CNT’s physical silver inventories by 1/3 in only 48 hours!
Brinks’, CNT, Delaware, HSBC, & Scotia (every vault except JPM) all saw significant physical withdrawals, as a massive 2.7 million ounces of physical metal fled COMEX depositories.
http://silverdoctors.com/30-of-cnt-silver-inventories-withdrawn-from-comex-vaults-in-2-days/
What makes this moment in history unique is that all past monetary regime collapses have happened regionally. This is the first time in human history in which all the world’s major currencies are collapsing together. Which is why he is so passionate about owning gold and silver.
In his opinion, we will soon witness the greatest transfer of wealth ever seen, as countries worldwide realize they need to revert to monetary systems backed by sound money (i.e., the precious metals). Those acquiring gold and silver beforehand will not only preserve their wealth as existing fiat currencies are extinguished, but will see staggering increases in their purchasing power.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-14/mike-maloney-todays-low-gold-silver-prices-are-not-realistic
The Stunning Roadmap to $500 Silver & $8,000 Gold
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/4/11_The_Stunning_Roadmap_to_$500_Silver_&_$8,000_Gold.html
Lots of anti gold propaganda ( Soros, Roubini, and much more)
http://www.gotgoldreport.com/2013/04/arrogant-gold-bears-press-in-the-market-and-in-print.html

Sky Pilot

“Contractors” at Boston Marathon Stood Near Bomb, Left Before Detonation

(Photos) Seen across street after blasts talking with FBI bomb squad. Who were they? What were they and the FBI doing? 

le-bilan-de-l-attentat-de-boston
 What appear to be private contractors, wearing unmarked, matching uniforms and operating an unmarked SUV affixed with communication equipment near the finish line of the Boston Marathon shortly after the bomb blasts – can be seen beforehand, standing and waiting just meters away from where the first bomb was detonated.
The contractor-types had moved away from the bomb’s location before it detonated, and could be seen just across the street using communication equipment and waiting for similar dressed and equipped individuals to show up after the blasts.
Image: An already widely distributed photo showing the contractor-types on the bottom left, just left of where the bomb was placed and detonated. The men are wearing matching, unmarked uniforms, large black bags, and appear to be waiting, separately, and “behind” the rest of the crowd. In the upper left corner, a wooden structure forming one half of a temporary photography “bridge” over the finish line can be seen and serves as a useful reference when establishing the contractor-types’ position in other photos.
….


Image: After the explosion, two of the contractors seen by the wall next to the bomb, appear across the street, both using communication equipment. This photo too has been distributed and enlarged many times across the Internet. (click to enlarge)
….

Image: An unmarked SUV with a considerable amount of communication gear on the roof appears, surrounded by identically dressed men. The vehicle parks near the bleachers. (click to enlarge)
….

Image: Event staff and contractors both above and below the bleachers begin tearing up the skirting and appear to be looking for something or retrieving something while casualties are still being treated and evacuated across the street. (click to enlarge)
….
The men, numbering between 6-8 then begin tearing up the skirting around temporary bleachers erected for the event, opposite the explosion, before taping it off. Then, what appears to be an FBI bomb squad truck pulls up directly behind the contractor-types’ SUV, with a woman clearly wearing the letters F.B.I. on her tactical vest emerging and speaking with the contractor-types. Together they disappear from the scene, leaving their vehicles behind.
Image: What appears to be an FBI bomb squad truck pulls in, with a woman wearing what is clearly the letters F.B.I. on her vest. She talks with two contractors while it appears a third is partially in the truck’s right-hand side. Also note that the area contractors and event staff tore up, is now taped off. (click to enlarge)
….
Image: The FBI truck and contractor SUV sit seemingly abandoned – neither the FBI agent, nor the contractors can be seen. What they did, or where they went remains so far, unknown. (click to enlarge)
….
It should be noted, that with the exception of the contractor-types, all other responders at the scene, including the FBI agent, can be clearly identified, from police to the fire department, to medics and even individuals wearing vests with “B.A.A. Physician” written on them. It should also be noted that no other uniformed individuals can be seen standing near the bomb site aside from the contractor-types.
These men were unidentified, professional contractors apparently augmenting public servants at the Boston Marathon, present before and after the bomb blasts in the direct vicinity of the incident. After the blasts, whether it was their intended function or not, they appeared to be searching for something under the bleachers before being joined by what appears to be the FBI bomb squad. The FBI and the city of Boston has so far categorically failed to provide any information on these highly suspicious individuals.
Questions That Must be Answered 
Several questions must be answered by the FBI, leading the investigation on behalf of we, the American people. The first question is who these men were, with large, black bags in the direct vicinity of where a bomb would detonate, moving away before the blast, and appearing directly across the road afterward. Who hired them and what was their function? Why were they moving amongst the crowd in a semi-covert fashion when all other public servants present were wearing proper uniforms and clearly identified? Did police, firefighters, event organizers, and medics know these men were present and what they were doing?
Why did it appear that the FBI was fully aware of their presence, and in fact working with them, specifically with what looks like a bomb squad unit? Were these contractors specialists in explosives, and if so, what is the significance that at least two of them were spotted just meters from where the blast occurred?

Why These Questions Demand Answers
The checkered, frightening history (see: FBI’s History of Handing “Terror Suspects” Live Explosives) of the FBI’s involvement in fomenting false terror attacks, and even presiding over attacks that succeeded in maiming and killing innocent people, should call into question their presence or involvement at any public event, especially when seen associating with unidentified, semi-clandestine organizations that appear to be private contractors.
Private contractors as well, do not answer or work for the public, but rather the highest bidder. Private contractors, most notably Blackwater and its various incarnations have operated both domestically and abroad, committing obscene crimes and atrocities with seemingly absolute impunity. The term “defense contractor” is in fact a euphemism for mercenary, and has no place in a civilized, democratic world, no matter what their alleged mission statement may claim.
That both of these nefarious entities were present and cooperating in the direct vicinity of the Boston bombings, with at least two contractors standing just meters away from where the bomb actually went off, raises a number of possibilities and concerns. A drill may have been being conducted, though the FBI and city officials have denied this. Or, a threat may have been communicated to event organizers ahead of time, which prompted the inclusion of “auxiliary” security, though again, both the FBI and the city of Boston deny receiving any information prior to the bombings. Whichever contracting firm this may have been, may just have wanted to swindle Boston’s taxpayers for an easy payday, and coincidentally found itself in the middle of extraordinary circumstances.
However, alarming suspicion is raised when the FBI makes no mention of an organization it was clearly coordinating with, particularly in terms of bombs and explosives before and after the incident, considering the nature of the attack. When an already dubious organization attempts to obfuscate the facts of any given event, it is the right and responsibility of legitimate law enforcement, public representatives and the citizenry itself to demand and get answers. If we are not persistent, with the FBI’s bizarre behavior over the past few days, including inexplicably cancelled and suspiciously rushed press conferences, and now what appears to be a Hollywood ending for the case, we may never get those answers.
….
Note: Most images were taken from Flickr user HahaTango, the entire collection of 150 images from the Boston Marathon can be found here

 

Why a Dollar & Euro Collapse Is Guaranteed


Nevada buses hundreds of mentally ill patients to cities around country

Over the past five years, Nevada's primary state psychiatric hospital has put hundreds of mentally ill patients on Greyhound buses and sent them to cities and towns across America.
Since July 2008, Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas has transported more than 1,500 patients to other cities via Greyhound bus, sending at least one person to every state in the continental United States, according to a Bee review of bus receipts kept by Nevada's mental health division.
About a third of those patients were dispatched to California, including more than 200 to Los Angeles County, about 70 to San Diego County and 19 to the city of Sacramento.
In recent years, as Nevada has slashed funding for mental health services, the number of mentally ill patients being bused out of southern Nevada has steadily risen, growing 66 percent from 2009 to 2012. During that same period, the hospital has dispersed those patients to an ever-increasing number of states.
By last year, Rawson-Neal bused out patients at a pace of well over one per day, shipping nearly 400 patients to a total of 176 cities and 45 states across the nation.
Nevada's approach to dispatching mentally ill patients has come under scrutiny since one of its clients turned up suicidal and confused at a Sacramento homeless services complex. James Flavy Coy Brown, who is 48 and suffers from a variety of mood disorders including schizophrenia, was discharged in February from Rawson-Neal to a Greyhound bus for Sacramento, a place he had never visited and where he knew no one.
The hospital sent him on the 15-hour bus ride without making arrangements for his treatment or housing in California; he arrived in Sacramento out of medication and without identification or access to his Social Security payments. He wound up in the UC Davis Medical Center's emergency room, where he lingered for three days until social workers were able to find him temporary housing.
Nevada mental health officials have acknowledged making mistakes in Brown's case, but have made no apologies for their policy of busing patients out of state. Las Vegas is an international destination and patients who become ill while in the city have a right to return home if they desire, the state's health officer, Dr. Tracey Green, told Nevada lawmakers during a hearing last month.
She and others insist that the vast majority of patients they are discharging to the Main Street bus station are mentally stable and have family members, treatment programs or both waiting for them at the end of their rides.
That was not true in Brown's case. His papers from Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services read: "Discharge to Greyhound bus station by taxi with 3 day supply of medication" and provided a vague suggestion for further treatment: "Follow up with medical doctor in California." Brown said staff at Rawson-Neal advised him to call 911 when he arrived in Sacramento.
Nevada Health and Human Services Director Michael Willden told lawmakers last month that while health officials "blew it" in their handling of Brown, an internal investigation found no pattern of misconduct.
But an investigation by the Nevada State Health Division documented several other instances from a small sampling of cases in February in which the state hospital violated written rules for safely discharging mentally ill patients.
Other apparent violations surfaced during The Bee's investigation.
At least two patients from the Nevada system arrived in San Francisco during the past year "without a plan, without a relative," said Jo Robinson, director of that city's Behavioral Health Services department.
"We're fine with taking people if they call and we make arrangements and make sure that everything is OK for the individual," Robinson said. "But a bus ticket with no contact, no clinic receptor, anything, it's really not appropriate."
Robinson said she viewed the practice as "patient dumping," and has reported it to federal authorities. "It's offensive to me that they would show this lack of care for a client," she said.

Practice called risky

Nevada mental health officials did not respond to repeated requests for phone interviews for this story, nor would they address a list of emailed questions about the origins of the busing policy and the safety protocols in place.Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services, the agency that oversees Rawson-Neal, maintains detailed written policies for transporting patients "to their home communities," with the stated goal of providing more appropriate care by the most economical means possible.
The policy includes a special section on "Travel Nourishment Protocol," specifying the number of bottles of Ensure nutritional supplement the patient should receive for the bus trip – essentially six per day.
Staff members are supposed to fill out a "Client Transportation Request" form, which includes questions about whether the patient is willing to go, whether housing or shelter has been verified, and the cost of the trip.
The written policy calls for staff to confirm that a patient has housing or shelter available "and a support system to meet client at destination." They are to provide information about "mental health services available in the home community."
Interviews with health officials in California and numerous other states indicate Nevada's practices are unusual. None of the 10 state mental health agencies contacted by The Bee said that placing a psychiatric patient on a bus without support would be permissible. And none recalled being contacted by Rawson-Neal to make arrangements for a patient coming from Nevada.
In California, where most public mental health treatment is overseen at the county level, agencies contacted by The Bee said they rarely bus patients and that Nevada's practices seem out of step with the standard of care.
Several described the practice as risky, even if patients have someone waiting for them at the end of their journeys.
"Putting someone whose mental illness makes them unable to care for themselves alone on a bus for a long period of time could be absolutely disastrous," said Dorian Kittrell, executive director of the Sacramento County Mental Health Treatment Center.
Patients could suffer relapses during their trips and potentially harm themselves or other people, said Kittrell and others. They could become lost to the streets or commit crimes that land them in jail.
"The risk is just too great," said Dr. Marye Thomas, chief of behavioral health for Alameda County.
Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services has had an ongoing contract with Greyhound since July 2009, said bus company spokesman Timothy Stokes.
Stokes said he was unaware of any serious incidents involving mentally ill patients from Nevada. He said Greyhound has contracts with "a number" of hospitals around the country, but declined to identify them.
"We take it on good faith that the organization is going to make certain that patients are not a risk to themselves or others," he said.
Still, officials in several of California's largest counties said they rarely, if ever, bus patients out of state.
"We don't do it, we never will do it, and we haven't done it in recent memory, meaning at least 20 years," said David Wert, public information officer for San Bernardino County. Rawson-Neal has bused more than 40 patients to that county since July 2008.
Los Angeles County officials said they have not bused a single patient out of state during the past year, and when they have done so in the past they have supplied chaperones. In the past five years, L.A. County has received 213 people from the Nevada hospital, according to The Bee's review, more than any place in the country.
Likewise, in Riverside County, sending patients out of state "happens very infrequently upon request of the family," said Jerry Wengerd, head of the county's Department of Mental Health. "A staff member accompanies the client and it is usually by air." Nevada bused 20 patients to Riverside in the period reviewed.
Sacramento County bought bus tickets for five patients during the past year, Kittrell said. In all cases, he said, facility staff confirmed before patients departed that a family member or friend would meet them at their destinations, and provided referrals for treatment.
Organizations that advocate for mentally ill people said Nevada's busing numbers seem unjustifiably high.
DJ Jaffe, executive director of Mental Illness Policy Org., a nonprofit think tank, said his group often hears anecdotally about patients being "dumped" from one county to another.
"Discharging severely mentally ill patients inappropriately is policy in this country," Jaffe said. "But getting rid of them altogether by busing them out of state is, I think, rare. I am shocked by these figures. It seems to be almost routine in Nevada."
After California, Arizona has received the most patients by bus from Nevada, at more than 100 over the five years.
But Cory Nelson, acting deputy director for the Arizona Department of Health, cautioned against drawing conclusions about Nevada's practices based solely on number of bus tickets issued. In many cases, Nelson said, relatives could have agreed to house patients or made treatment arrangements before the clients left Las Vegas.
In rare cases, Nelson said, a hospital can find itself in a Catch-22 situation when a patient no longer needs to be in a hospital but refuses to cooperate with a discharge plan. "It kind of leaves a hospital in a tough situation," he said.
Still, the sheer number of patients bused from the Nevada hospital "does seem pretty high," he said.

'A tsunami situation'

Several people interviewed said the numbers might be explained in part by the unusual nature of Las Vegas."As the whole country no doubt knows, Vegas is a pretty unique place," said Dr. Lorin Scher, an emergency room psychiatrist with UC Davis Health System.
The city's entertainment and casino culture draws people from all over the world, Scher noted, including the mentally ill.
"Many bipolar patients impulsively fly across the country to Vegas during their manic phases and go on gambling binges," he said. "Vegas probably attracts more wandering schizophrenic people" who are attracted to the warm weather, lights and action, he added.
"I am by no means defending their practices," he said. "It certainly gives cause for concern. But it's one possible explanation."
Stuart Ghertner, former director of Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services, cited other possible reasons.
He said Rawson-Neal has been under siege for years because of state budget cuts, a steady increase in poor people needing mental health services in the Las Vegas area and a revolving door of administrators.
He noted the city had a disproportionate number of people displaced by the housing and mortgage meltdown of a few years ago.
"The casino boom was over, people were losing their jobs and their homes. They were stressed and they wound up in a mental health crisis," Ghertner said.
Between 2009 and 2012, Nevada slashed spending on mental health services by 28 percent to address budget deficits, according to data collected by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Even before those cuts, Nevada fell well below the national average in spending on mental health services: In 2009, it spent $64 per capita on such services compared with a national average of about $123, according to the study.
"You're looking at a tsunami situation," said Ghertner, a psychologist who resigned last year after five years as agency director. "There is more pressure to turn patients over faster, and fewer programs (in which) to place them. Perhaps busing them became the easier solution."
It also is cheaper, he noted. Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services spent a total of $205,000 putting patients on Greyhound buses during the past five years, according to The Bee analysis. The state hospital admits about 4,000 patients a year to its inpatient unit, and inpatient care runs around $500 per day per client, Ghertner said.
He said he was aware during his tenure that Rawson-Neal was busing patients out of state but that he thought the practice was rare.
At the time, "I had 800 employees and a $106 million budget," he said. Ghertner regularly reviewed numbers pertaining to admissions, length of stay and other issues at the hospital, but patient busing was never on his radar, he said.
"I'm embarrassed to say that this practice was going on to this degree under my leadership," he said. "I had no idea. It just never came up."
Ghertner said the state mental hospital has been under stress since it opened in 2006, turning over five hospital directors since that time. That instability has taken a toll, he said.
"This busing issue is a symptom that reflects that the care there is not quality care," he said. "Things clearly are being missed."
Willden, Nevada's Health and Human Services director, said during last month's legislative hearing that policies have been tightened and disciplinary actions taken to ensure that patients are discharged only after the hospital confirms care and treatment at their planned destinations. The hospital administrator, Chelsea Szklany, now must approve all bus discharges ordered by medical staff, he said.
"Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services is committed to providing quality mental health services to its patients," said spokeswoman Mary Woods in an emailed statement.
But investigations continue into the agency's practices.
Rawson-Neal could lose vital federal funding pending an ongoing probe by the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. California state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has written a letter expressing outrage to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.
The hospital's discharge practices also have prompted a call for action by a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Commissioner David Kladney called for a broad investigation by Nevada's governor and Legislature.
"As a Nevadan, I am ashamed that my state is failing in its duty toward the neediest residents," Kladney said. Nevada, he said, appears to be "simply hoping that other states will shoulder the responsibility."
Call The Bee's Cynthia Hubert, (916) 321-1082. Follow her on Twitter @cynthia_hubert. Bee researcher Pete Basofin contributed to this report.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/14/5340078/nevada-buses-hundreds-of-mentally.html#storylink=cpy

Banker Jumps to Death in Beijing's Finance Street

State-owned investment company China Jianyin Investment Securities Co. said the chairman passed away for health problems

(Beijing) – In an apparent suicide, a high-level executive of a state-owned investment company leapt to his death in downtown Beijing.
Wang Shiqiang, 60-year-old chairman of the board of supervisors for China Jianyin Investment Securities Co., appeared to have jumped to his death on the afternoon of April 16 from the top of the office tower that houses China Jianyin.
In an issued statement, China Jianyin said the suicide was due to personal issues in Wang's life, refuting online speculation that the death was tied to heavy losses incurred by gold investments. It is yet unclear how much risk exposure China Jianyin has to gold futures.
The company published an obituary on its website two days later which said Wang "passed away from health problems."
Wang joined China Jianyin in 2006, having worked for three years at the China Banking Regulatory Commission. Prior to that, he served in various positions within the central bank between 1977 and 2003.
China Jianyin was founded in September 2004 with registered capital of 20.7 billion yuan. The company was originally tasked with taking over policy lending from China Construction Bank during the bank's restructuring for a public listing.
It began pursuing a wider range of financial services with the State Council's approval in 2008, and became an investment platform of China Investment Corp., a sovereign wealth fund.
By the end of 2012, China Jianyin developed into a conglomerate with businesses ranging from financial consulting to commercial property development. Its assets totaled 76 billion yuan.

US households are tapped out on debt: While US households are forced to eat austerity measures financial institutions load up on debt and purchase assets at rock bottom prices.

US households are tapped out with debt.  Debt matters.  Contrary to what is being spouted out over the airwaves having too much debt does cause problems.  American households tipped over this point when total household debt reached annual GDP.  This is a critical juncture and results in massive deleveraging.  There doesn’t seem to be answer or really a major priority in trying to figure out ways of maintaining a strong middle class in the US.  It is almost assumed that this is now a lost cause.  Fewer in the middle and more in the low wage system that is being developed.  Half of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck with 1 out of 3 having no savings at all.  Another 47 million Americans are struggling on food stamps.  Yet we are supposed to believe that this is a recovery.  We recently found out that a large jump in the economy has come from housing.  Yet curiously, the large purchasing power has come from financial institutions crowding out regular Americans.  There is such a thing as too much debt.  US households have reached that point.

Reaching peak debt
It is clear that US households hit a tipping point in total debt accumulated:
household debt to gdp
No one has a hard and fast rule on what constitutes too much debt but obviously in the US, that was the point at which total household debt reached annual GDP.  The financial crisis took off after this point.  The major reason the figure above has retraced is because of foreclosures.  The biggest item of debt for Americans is with mortgage debt so having that taken off via foreclosure is an easy way to get rid of this line item.  Over 5 million homes have been lost through foreclosure and countless bankruptcies have occurred as well.  Yet other areas of debt like student loan debt are moving up in their unrelenting progression upwards.
Part of the painful austerity has brought household debt back into more historical standards:
household debt
While households are dealing with this challenging landscape, they are now having to compete with financial institutions that are heavily connected and are leveraging the low interest rates provided by the Federal Reserve.  While households are more cautious with debt either because they are limited to what they can borrow or are pulling back forced by stagnant income, the overall market in debt is moving in one clear and unmistakable path:
total debt market owed
This easy money environment has allowed banks to essentially become the housing market on both fronts.  First, the Fed is the only big player buying up mortgage backed securities.  Who else in the open market will buy a 30 year mortgage at 3 percent?  No one outside of the Fed.  Of course, banks lend out this money creating it out of thin air.  Larger banks borrow this money and use maximum leverage to now crowd out regular home buyers.  This is where we have big hedge funds buying up foreclosures and turning them into rentals and hiking up prices.  Given that household incomes are now back to levels last seen in 1995 adjusting for inflation, any little rise in prices is going to hurt.
All of these actions have taken their toll on the US dollar over time:
us dollar
While there is this race to the low wage bottom, there is an issue when certain debt privileges are extended to large financial institutions and regular Americans are locked out.  The Fed balance sheet is now at $3.3 trillion and they continue leverage up while US households pull back.  Who are we really bailing out here?

Child Poverty in America among the Highest in the Developed World

A recent report by the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) details the growing levels of poverty facing children in the major capitalist countries.
Compiled with information taken in the final two years of last decade (2009-2010), the report reveals a staggering level of child poverty in the “developed” world, with the standards of living in the United States, which has the highest gross domestic product, ranking near the bottom on all metrics.
Entitled “Child Well-Being in Rich Countries,” the study measures living conditions faced by children in major capitalist countries of North America, Europe, Oceania, and parts of Asia. The countries are ranked by several criteria: material well-being, education, health and safety, behaviors and risks, and housing and environment.
Roughly one in seven children within the United States currently lives in poverty. According to the overall metric, the US ranks 26 out of 29, behind Greece and just above Lithuania, Latvia and Romania. On the education metric, it comes in 27, while on the material well-being metric it comes in at 26.
The report notes that the United States, which has the world’s highest gross domestic product, has remained at the bottom of the list throughout the past decade.
In the areas of material well-being, the report focuses on individual countries’ poverty rates and the relative gap between the median income and children classified as poor. In the United States, the average child in poverty was an estimated 36 percent below the official poverty line, ranking with nations such as Italy and Greece.
The official poverty line is taken to be 50 percent of the median income level of any particular country. This is itself absurdly low, with many families above the poverty line still living in extremely difficult circumstances.
The report briefly outlines the importance of child well-being, stating that “failure to protect and promote the well-being of children is associated with increased risk across a wide range of later-life outcomes… From impaired cognitive development to lower levels of school achievement, from reduced skills and expectations to lower productivity and earnings.”
Of particular note is the infant mortality rate, included in the “health and safety” section of the report. The findings single out the United States, Great Britain and Canada, three of the world’s wealthiest nations, all of which fall into the lowest rankings for preventing infant deaths. Results were similar in remaining categories, with the United States possessing homicide rates of nearly eight deaths per 100,000 individuals, higher than Libya in 2008 (the last year in which statistics are available).
The nations with the highest levels of childhood well-being were concentrated within Nordic countries and Western Europe, which still retain relatively more developed social reforms, though these are under relentless attack. Finland had less than 5 percent child poverty.
The majority of the findings are constructed from data collected in 2009-2010, the most recent period available for all relevant criteria. Noting the apparent inadequacy of this due to the economic crisis’ continuing impact, the report mentions that such information would prove difficult to come by “in the best of times,” adding that the past few years have been “far from the best of times.”
Poverty has soared in Europe since the data in this report was recorded. The past three years have seen a series of ever more brutal austerity measure as a condition for bank bailouts organized by the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.
According to the assessment of education in the most developed countries, including the percentage of youth enrolled in preschool, the US is again one of only several countries whose child population falls below 80 percent in this category.
In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama touted an initiative toward the expansion of the Federal Head Start program, stating his intention to make “high-quality preschool available to every child in America.” This is empty demagogy. In fact, the Obama administration is presiding over an historic attack on public education, with hundreds of schools shut down and hundreds of thousands of teachers laid off over the past four years.
The conditions of young people in the United States is a devastating indictment of American capitalism and the two big business parties. Over the past four decades, social inequality has soared to levels not seen since before the Great Depression of the 1930s. The rise of a financial aristocracy has been accompanied by a relentless attack on jobs, wages and social programs. The United States in turn has become a model for ruling classes all over the world.
Since the onset of the world economic crisis in 2008, the attack on the working class has only intensified. Trillions of dollars have been handed to the banks, while the Obama administration is now spearheading a drive to slash hundreds of billions from core social programs, including Social Security and Medicare. The consequences for child poverty and many other metrics of social inequality and distress are not hard to predict.

US Mint’s Sales of Gold Coins Soar After Futures Prices Plunge

The U.S. Mint in April has sold 153,000 ounces of American Eagle gold coins, the highest in almost three years, after futures prices started the week by plunging the most since 1980.
Sales have more than doubled from March and surged sevenfold from a year earlier, data on the Mint’s website showed. The amount for all of May 2010 was 190,000 ounce.
This week, retail sales and jewelry demand soared in India, the world’s top gold buyer, and China, the second-biggest, after futures in New York slumped into a bear market, touching the lowest in more than two years. Coin sales also surged in Australia.

Editor's Note: Get David Skarica's Gold Stock Adviser — Click Here Now!
“Sales for coins have jumped this week,” Raymond Nessim, the chief executive officer of New York-based MTB Inc., a dealer authorized to purchase coins directly from the U.S. Mint, said in a telephone interview. “The price drop has definitely given a big push to sales.”
The China Gold Association said that retail sales soared on April 15 and April 16, and the All India Gems & Jewellery Trade Federation said that demand climbed to the highest this year. Sales surged from Australia’s Perth Mint, which refines almost all of the nation’s bullion, Treasurer Nigel Moffatt said. He didn’t provide precise figures.
On the Comex in New York, gold futures for June delivery rose 0.7 percent to settle at $1,392.50 an ounce Thursday. On April 16, the metal touched $1,321.50, the lowest since January 2011. The price has tumbled 17 percent this year.
“The volume of business that we’re putting through is way in excess of double what we did last week,” Moffatt said in a telephone interview. “There have been people running through the gate.”

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© Copyright 2013 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved.

Dr. William Black, The US Banking System is Absolutely Primed for the Next Meltdown


ACLU: Detroit Police Dumping Homeless Outside City


DETROIT (WWJ/AP) – The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan says Detroit police are removing homeless people from the popular Greektown entertainment district downtown and dropping them off miles away — sometimes outside the city.
Following a year-long investigation, the ACLU filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department and sent a letter to Detroit police demanding an end to what they call a “disturbing practice.”
“DPD’s practice of essentially kidnapping homeless people and abandoning them miles away from the neighborhoods they know – with no means for a safe return — is inhumane, callous and illegal,” said Sarah Mehta, ACLU of Michigan staff attorney. “The city’s desire to hide painful reminders of our economic struggles cannot justify discriminating against the poor, banishing them from their city, and endangering their lives. A person who has lost his home has not lost his right to be treated with dignity.”
The organization says it started receiving complaints last year and that the homeless are told they are not welcome in Greektown, which is popular with visitors to Detroit.  The people are then forced in to vans, driven away and then deserted.
Mehta told WWJ Newsradio 950 that what police are doing is not just illegal, but inhumane.
“They’re being approached and harassed by police, not necessarily for anything they’re doing, but just because of the way that they look,” Mehta said. “Often they’re being dropped off late at night in neighborhoods that they don’t know. Police often take any money they have out of their pockets and force them to walk back to Detroit, with no guarantee of any safety.”
Detroit Police Chief Chester Logan said he will look into it.
“At the present time, the Detroit Police Department has not received a copy of the complaint that has been filed,” said Logan, in a statement. “Therefore, it would be inappropriate to provide further comment without reviewing the specific allegations.”
The ACLU listed the stories of five people who said they were doing nothing illegal when they were “taken for a ride” by Detroit police. (Read about them here).
“One of the warming centers drew our attention to it,”  ACLU spokeswoman Rana Elmir told the Associated Press. ”We then spoke to the impacted individuals. There are many more stories.”
Andrew Sheehan, 37, said it has happened to him at least four times since December 2011.

USDA Refuses to Release Food Stamp Profits Details

Unlike those in charge of other federal programs that spend billions of taxpayer dollars each year helping Americans, officials overseeing food stamps have refused to release details on who benefits financially from this assistance.

Currently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) does not make public how much money individual retailers make from food stamps, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Nor does the USDA disclose which products are purchased with SNAP dollars or how much is spent on each product.

In 2011, Tulsa World found that nearly half ($506 million out of $1.2 billion) of all food stamp expenditures between July 2009 and March 2011 went to Walmart Stores, according to data supplied by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.

The Association of Health Care Journalists and six other media and open-government groups asked Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a letter to change the USDA’s policy regarding food stamps information.

“We have yet to hear a good reason for this secrecy,” the letter states. “And we believe it is simply wrong to withhold basic information about a multibillion-dollar program from the people who pay for it.”

The coalition argues that more transparency could demonstrate which businesses benefit from SNAP and inform public policy debates about obesity and its causes.

They also note that Medicare and Medicaid reveal plenty about their costly programs, and that the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families discloses where recipients used their EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) cards to withdraw cash assistance.
-Noel Brinkerhoff

Bangladeshis get bullets for asking for unpaid wages in Greece


Source: Arab News
ATHENS: Greek police were hunting three foremen yesterday who were suspected of shooting and wounding more than 20 migrant workers at a strawberry farm.
The supervisors were believed to have opened fire on Wednesday at a crowd of about 200 mostly Bangladeshi immigrants who were demanding wages that had not been paid, police said. The wounded were taken to hospital but none of the injuries was serious.
Anti-foreigner sentiment has been rising in Greece, where one in four workers is unemployed after five years of recession.
Police said they had arrested the owner of the farm, in the southwestern town of Manolada, and were still hunting the foremen.
One of the immigrants involved in the protests told Greek Skai TV that they had been promised wages of 22 euros ($ 28.70) a day.
“They keep telling us that we will get paid in a month, and this has been going on for more than a year,” said the worker, who was not identified. “We don’t talk about it because we are afraid that we will be killed or kicked out.”
Greece is a gateway for mostly Asian and African migrants trying to enter the European Union through its porous sea and land borders.
Most of those who find work in Greece are employed illegally; more than 40 percent of Greece’s informal workers are migrants.
The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, said after visiting Greece this year that he was seriously concerned about a rise in racist violence and urged authorities to get tougher.
Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou yesterday condemned what he called an “inhuman attack.”
“This unprecedented and shameful act is foreign to Greek ethics,” he said.

America Alarm: State of US infrastructure now national security issue


GOV’T OUTRAGE: Immigration Bill Gives New Legals $3,000 Hiring Edge over Americans, Legalizes Relatives and Previously Deported… More Than 101 Million Working Age Americans Do Not Have A Job And Now They Want To Legalize 50 Million Foreigners?

Under the immigration reform bill, some employers would have an incentive of up to $3,000 per year to hire a newly legalized immigrant over a U.S. citizen.
In avoiding one controversy — the cost of providing millions of newly legalized immigrants with ObamaCare subsidies — the Senate “Gang of Eight” may have risked walking into another.
http://news.investors.com/041713-652257-immigration-reform-meets-obamacare-employer-mandate.htm#ixzz2QrGFhTuQ

Immigration Bill ‘Worse Than We Thought,’ Legalizes Relatives and Previously Deported

CNS News quotes Rep. Lamar Smith from Texas [emphasis added]:
“It’s hard to believe, but the Senate immigration bill is worse than we thought. Despite assurances, the border is not secured before almost everyone in the country illegally is given amnesty.  The bill guarantees there will be a rush across the border to take advantage of massive amnesty.”
Rep. Smith says the Senate immigration bill shreds current immigration laws:
“And the Senate proposal offers amnesty to far more illegal immigrants than we thought.  In addition to most of the 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country, the bill offers to legalize the relatives of illegal immigrants outside the U.S. and even others who have already been deported back home. So current immigration laws are shredded. (Read More)
http://lonelyconservative.com/2013/04/gop-rep-immigration-bill-even-worse-than-expected/
More Than 101 Million Working Age Americans Do Not Have A Job And Now They Want To Legalize 30 Million Foreigners? WTF!?
The jobs recovery is a complete and total myth.  The percentage of the working age population in the United States that had a job in March 2013 was exactly the same as it was all the way back in March 2010.  In addition, as you will see below, there are now more than 101 million working age Americans that do not have a job.  But even though the employment level in the United States has consistently remained very low over the past three years, the Obama administration keeps telling us that unemployment is actually going down.
In fact, they tell us that the unemployment rate has declined from a peak of 10.0% all the way down to 7.6%.  And they tell us that in March the unemployment rate fell by 0.1% even though only 88,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy.  But it takes at least 125,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with population growth.  So how in the world are they coming up with these numbers?  Well, the reality is that the entire decline in the unemployment rate over the past three years can be accounted for by the reduction in size of the labor force.
In other words, the Obama administration is getting unemployment to go down by pretending that millions upon millions of unemployed Americans simply do not want jobs anymore.  We saw this once again in March.  According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 600,000 Americans dropped out of the labor market during that month alone.  That pushed the labor force participation rate down  to 63.3%, which is the lowest it has been in more than 30 years.  So please don’t believe the hype.  The sad truth is that there has been no jobs recovery whatsoever.

If things were getting better, there would not be more than 101 million working age Americans without a job.
So exactly where does that statistic come from?  Well, the following explains where I got that number…
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 11,742,000 working age Americans that are officially unemployed.
In addition, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that there are 89,967,000 working age Americans that are “not in the labor force”.  That is a new all-time record, and that number increased by a whopping 663,000 during the month of March alone.
When you add 11,742,000 working age Americans that are officially unemployed to the 89,967,000 working age Americans that are “not in the labor force”, you come up with a grand total of 101,709,000 working age Americans that do not have a job….
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/more-than-101-million-working-age-americans-do-not-have-a-job

Republican group says 9 million to 50 million illegal immigrants live in United States
A Texas group urging congressional action on immigration also says the number of illegal U.S. residents might vary more than five-fold.
The Texas Federation of Republican Women, which describes itself as the state’s most powerful women’s political group, said in its Jan. 17, 2013, resolution: “Within the United States, there currently reside between nine (9) and fifty (50) million undocumented residents from all cultural and socio-economic backgrounds and nationalities.”
That’s some range. The 9 million figure undershoots a widely bandied estimate of 11 million, most recently included in December 2012 news accounts from USA Today and the Associated Press. The 50 million figure seems off the charts.
And the full statement indicates that 3 percent to 16 percent of more than 315 million U.S. residents are here illegally.
To our inquiries, a federation spokeswoman, Laura Sorrell of Austin, said the group drew its figures from different sources. She said by email that the group had no source to provide for the 9 million figure, while the 50 million figure was provided by a former fellow with Rice University’s James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy, Joan Neuhaus Schaan.
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2013/feb/01/texas-federation-republican-women/republican-group-says-9-million-50-million-illegal/

Investors “Could Sell into Strength” as Gold Climbs Back Above $1400

London Gold Market Report
from Ben Traynor, BullionVault
Friday 19 April 2013, 08:00 EST

Investors “Could Sell into Strength” as Gold Climbs Back Above $1400

WHOLESALE gold prices rallied above $1400 an ounce Friday morning, with analysts continuing to point to strong demand for physical bullion following gold’s sharpest weekly price fall in over four years.

“Expect the market to sell into strength,” warns bullion bank Scotia Mocatta, whose technical analysts see support for gold at $1309 an ounce, the February 2011 low.

Gold in Sterling meantime climbed to around £920 an ounce, erasing around half of its losses from Monday, as did gold in Euros which ended Friday morning in London around €1080.

Based on London Fix prices, gold in Dollars looked set for weekly drop of 8.4% by lunchtime in London, the biggest weekly drop since October 2008.

“We believe that despite the current turbulence, the long-term fundamentals of the gold market remain intact,” says Marcus Grubb, managing director, investment, at the World Gold Council.

“Physical gold demand in India, China and Dubai is incredible because of the price fall.”

In India, traditionally the world’s biggest source of gold demand, imports could rise to more than 180 tonnes over the course of the second quarter, a 20% jump on Q1, Bombay Bullion Association president Mohit Kamboj said Thursday.

“There is very good demand and the footfall [at stores selling gold] has increased multi-fold following weakness in gold price,” he said.

Earlier in the week dealers in Hong Kong and elsewhere reported premiums opening up on physical gold as a result of increased demand and supply backlogs, while demand for physical gold among investors using the internet has also surged.

Japan’s biggest online broker Dot Commodity saw trading volumes for gold jump fourfold on Tuesday compared to a day earlier, it reported in a press release, while traffic to BullionVault, the world’s biggest physical gold market online, was its highest since September 2011, when gold set its all-time record high.

Looking ahead to next week, of 34 gold analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, 15 said they expected gold to go up next week, 14 said they see it going down and five declared themselves neutral, the news agency reports today.

Silver meantime climbed as high as $23.90 an ounce this morning, before easing back, while other commodities also ticked higher after sharp falls earlier in the week that saw oil extend its losses for April.

On a weekly basis, silver recorded a weekly loss of 13.6% at Friday lunchtime’sLondon Fix.

“Commodities have been sending [a negative] signal on growth for a while,” says Mohamed El-Erian, co-chief investment officer of Pimco, which manages $2trillion of assets, “and now [it is] even louder.”

“Gold and silver, the front-runners since 2009, are likely over the next few years to be among the weakest of all the commodities,” says a note from Barclays, which has cut its average per ounce gold price forecasts to $1483 for 2013 and $1450 for 2014, down from $1647 and $1600 respectively.

“We see the outlook in the near term as fragile…gold will need to find support from the physical market in the near term, but investor interest continuing to unravel poses the largest downside risk for prices.”

Though they remained down on the week, European stock markets ticked higher this morning following gains in Asia, despite losses on US markets yesterday.

“In the short term, US stocks will unlikely see a major correction given solid economic growth and attractive valuations,” says a note from Citi.

“Challenges in the second half may include sluggish growth in Europe, bond buying slowdown by the Federal Reserve and budget negotiations in the US.”

Editor of Gold News, the analysis and investment research site from world-leading gold ownership service BullionVault, Ben Traynor was formerly editor of the Fleet Street Letter, the UK’s longest-running investment letter. A Cambridge economics graduate, he is a professional writer and editor with a specialist interest in monetary economics. Ben can be found on Google+

(c) BullionVault 2013

Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.