Again, we update the list showing the five highest spot future Gold closing prices of 2003 so far. Here is the list from last week - to September 5:
Here is that list brought up to the close on September 12:
As you know, the spot future Comex Gold price hit a new 2003 high this week. As you almost certainly also know, it didn't hold it, falling $US 3.90 on Friday, September 12 to end the week at $US 375.90 - a fall from the previous Friday of $US 1.80.
Significant highs in any market are hard to crack. Gold's previous 2003 high - before this week - was $US 379.00 set more than seven months ago on February 4 - see the list above. That high was set a day or two before Secretary of State Powell made a speech to the UN and it became certain that the US would attack Iraq, UN resolution or no UN resolution. Now, Gold is challenging its highs again just as it becomes equally certain that the US has presented themselves with a bill which they cannot afford and so are going back to the UN to get the rest of the world to pitch in.
How certain is it? Well, on September 12, President Bush gave a speech to US soldiers returning from Iraq. Amongst other things, he had this to say: "Terrorists in Iraq have attacked representatives of the civilised world.". He added that it was necessary for the rest of the world to back up the US in Iraq in the: "Fight between civilisation and chaos".
The public motto of the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) used to be (maybe it still is, but we can't find any mention of it on their website): "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization". The IRS is, of course, a division of the US Treasury. Back in the mid 1995-96 when The Privateer first put our website online, the logo at the website of the US Treasury used to be four gold coins. That was pretty quickly changed. Now, it's a pretty picture of the Treasury building.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that President Bush is forever talking about defending "freedom" while his Administration works night and day to snuff it out inside the US. Sometimes "I told you so's" do have their place, and we refer here to the Gold Commentary we wrote on September 14, 2001 - three days after the terrorist attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. Using this outrage as their "stalking horse", the Bush Administration has been on an unending crusade to crush the freedoms of AMERICANS ever since.
As we said, this should come as no surprise. A government intent on expanding its power needs the MEANS with which to do so. These means are supplied by the Treasury (working with the Fed) and the IRS. Both these government institutions have been attacking American freedoms for decades, and doing it all under the pathetic guise of protecting and advancing "civilisation". Somebody in Mr Bush's staff must have noticed this, so now the President has jumped on the bandwagon. He too is now offering a "choice" between "civilisation and chaos".
Let us be very clear here. Civilisation is NEVER the creation of government. The more civilised a nation is, the more likely it is to have a government confined to its proper and vital sphere, the preservation, protection, and defence of the rights and freedoms of individuals. Civilised individuals create a Magna Carta or a Constitution of the United States of America. Uncivilised, or barbaric, individuals create a Communist Manifesto or a Mein Kampf or a "Patriot Act". Given the acts of the Bush Administration (supinely rubber stamped by Congress) since 9/11, to equate the US government as a beacon to CIVILISED men is a travesty. No less (or more) a travesty than the IRS stating that exercising the FIRST claim on the property of a productive citizen is a civilised activity or the Treasury's claim that the act of creating "money" out of thin air is "civilised" while the honesty and integrity symbolised by a GOLD COIN circulating as money is not.
Here's another one: "Gold is a barbarous relic". Yes, that was none other than John Maynard Keynes. Have you ever noticed that throughout history, when barbarity takes over, Gold vanishes as a circulating medium of exchange? Mr Keynes made this statement in the 1930s, the decade of the "big lie". Judging the success of this method by what he saw going on all around him, Mr Keynes decided that he could play too.
It is an act of breathtaking effrontery for President Bush to hold up the actions of his Administration as an exemplar of "civilisation"!? Of course, this is not what he intends to accomplish. Mr Bush is cashing in on the imperishable vision of what America once was, a FREE and therefore CIVILISED country. He would have us believe that it still is a free country.
The great tragedy of the United States, because it is more prevalent in the US than anywhere else, is the fact that too many Americans do NOT differentiate between America and the federal government in Washington DC. America does not interfere in the internal workings of other nations, Washington does. America does not demand that its Dollar be held by the rest of the world as "reserves" behind their own monetary systems, Washington does. America is not a superpower dictating to the rest of the world, Washington is. America has not caused a situation in which its enemies seethe for revenge and its friends look on with sadness and growing delusion, Washington has.
Today, there is no civilised nation on earth because there is no nation whose citizens are not controlled by their government. In a civilised nation, it is the other way around. The degree to which a government can control its citizens is directly proportional to the degree to which the government controls the economic interaction between them. When the government has FIRST CLAIM to what its citizens earn, when the government has a legal monopoly over what its citizens use as a medium of exchange, and when the government can at whim add to the amount of "money" in circulation after having blocked off all avenues of escape from it, any nation is embarked on the road from civilisation to barbarism.
In this context, the importance of Gold cannot be overestimated. The "price" of Gold circulating as money is "paid" by those who strive to gain political power inside a nation. With Gold freely circulating as money, the means with which to gain and consolidate their power are simply not available. When Gold is removed from circulation as money, its "price" becomes incalculable. That price is paid by every once free citizen of the nation. It is the price of what could have been if there had been no interference with their living an unfettered existance.
Regimentation is not "civilisation", freedom is not "chaos". Washington knows this, it is time more Americans learned it. Perhaps they are, Mr Bush's "approval" ratings are now back down to their levels before 9/11. There are MANY fine Americans posting devastating, inspiring, and deadly critques of present American "policy" on the internet. And the US Dollar Gold price hit a new high this week, its highest level in nearly seven years.
The price of Gold will continue to rise as the risk of holding paper denominated assets becomes harder and harder to ignore. It will go up a lot at the point where the disgraceful twisting of the meaning of words perpetrated by US politicians becomes impossible to further ignore. The price that must be paid for civilisation - and freedom - is eternal vigilance. Barring that, one must fall back on the words of Pete Townshend - "Don't get fooled again!". Civilisation depends on it.