-- Posted 29 October, 2010 | | Discuss This Article - Comments:

The Wallace Street Journal

Wallace, Idaho – Two guys on our Christmas card list this year will be Ted Butler and Bill Murphy. Butler has been chasing the silver manipulation story since 1990; Murphy's Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) has been chasing the gold side of the manipulation story for just about as long.

It only took two decades, guys, but finally a regulator returned a phone call. Last week, CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton described “repeated” and “fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control” silver prices, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“I believe that there have been repeated attempts to influence prices in the silver markets,” Chilton, a Bush appointee reappointed by Obama, said. Chilton's remarks may be read in full here.

A day later, two traders, in separate lawsuits, alleged that HSBC and J.P. Morgan-Chase were the culprits. According to Forbes, quoting Murphy, who was citing CFTC reports, the two banksters together controlled 43 percent of the net short commercial position in gold and a staggering 68 percent of the short interest in silver last November. It's difficult not to infer a conspiracy here.

One of the traders filing suit alleges that the banksters colluded on the silver futures market and let each other know about large trades, placing "spoof" trading orders in order to suppress the price.

At this point these are allegations, but they should be taken seriously, considering their sources. Murphy and Butler were ridiculed for two decades for figuring out what, finally, regulators are waking up to: Something is rotten in Denmark.

More important even than the attention of regulators is that now the Wall Street media can no longer ignore the story. Quipped Murphy: “We've been quoted in Forbes. What's next? Field and Stream?” You won't hear about Chilton or the traders' lawsuits on CNBC or Bloomberg, just yet, but the fuse has been lit. This is a story that's just become too big to be busted.

The last week of October, 2010, may well be the watershed event for precious metals, and for the U.S. Federal Reserve Dollar. Should the short-side manipulation of silver and gold ever become understood by Joe Sixpack, the Fednote is toast and there will be no upside limit to genuine, precious metal money.

At Silver Summit 2009, we all laughed when Murphy donned a tin-foil hat. But those who've equated price-suppression conspiracy theorists like Murphy and Butler with the Black Helicopter crowd are in for a cruel reckoning. The ship has sailed, the train has left the station, the cow has done ate the cabbage. If there's any cheap silver or gold out there, get it now. It's plain clear the banksters wear no clothes, and even the Wall Street Journal can't ignore it.

David Bond, Publisher

Silverminers.com