Andy Hoffman: Central Banks Have Confused Investors About the Value of Gold

Introduction: Andrew (“Andy”) Hoffman, CFA joined Miles Franklin, one of America’s oldest, largest bullion dealers, in October 2011 and serves as Marketing Director. For a decade, he was a US-based buy-side and sell-side analyst, most notably as an II-ranked oil service analyst at Salomon Smith Barney from 1999 through 2005. Since 2002, his focus has been entirely on precious metals, and since 2006 has written free missives regarding gold, silver and macroeconomics. Prior to joining the company he spent five years working as an investor relations officer or consultant to numerous junior mining companies. Andy’s articles can be found on the Miles Franklin Blog, at http://www.milesfranklin.com.
Daily Bell: What a month for gold. What’s going on?
Andy Hoffman: Remember, all markets are now manipulated on a 24/7 basis. It is the only way TPTB have been able to maintain their fiat Ponzi scheme this long, by “painting” markets like stocks and precious metals to tell the story they want told. Of course, not all markets – like crude oil and Treasuries – are not cooperating. Nor, for that matter, the physical gold and silver markets, which tell a dramatically different story than the suppressed paper markets. This particular month, the paper-based raids were more aggressive, as TPTB were terrified the Swiss referendum would be passed, forcing the SNB to buy 1,500 tonnes of gold.
Daily Bell: The Swiss gold referendum was soundly defeated. What happened?
Andy Hoffman: In a nutshell, even the “world’s smartest 0.1%” regarding the value of gold have been brainwashed by central bankers and market manipulation into believing the referendum was a bad idea. Heck, these were the same people that allowed constitutional gold backing to be surreptitiously removed, enabling the SNB to sell 1,500 tonnes of their gold at less than $400 per ounce and subsequently, to peg the Franc to the dying Euro in 2011, preceding an historic 16% plunge that is on the verge of getting much worse. The reason given was to improve Switzerland’s competitiveness, but Swiss GDP growth has averaged a paltry 0.4%/quarter since its cost of living is so high, they had a referendum this year about raising the minimum wage to $25/hour! In other words, TPTB still have the Swiss duped – which I assure you, they’ll understand more clearly sooner rather than later.

This post was published at The Daily Bell on December 07, 2014.