Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

1- So slow? (note: ordered in stock PLATINUM merchandise for several grand) and they took 18 days to ship; which I feel is strange.

2- Failing to make more and more precious metal products? Which I feel is strange.

3- Orders over $300 -means of course almost any precious metal esp gold & silver - have to wait ON hold for over two weeks, why? Which I feel is strange.

4- Have run out of blanks on most precious metal products. Which I feel is strange.

5- Today in Coin World the mint is delaying production of their most popular coin ever - the SUPER high relief Saint Gaudens double-Eagles. (said Perth failed to send them the first 300,000 blanks. Which I feel is strange.

6- Whay are dragging their feet on so many issues in precious metals?
Which I feel is strange.

By strange I mean that all their SLOWING DOWN actions speak of something happening in precious metals. Back in real estate ibusiness in the 1970s the government did servela similar type actions to slow down the marketplace. Maybe I'm just strange.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, swims like a duck - then we're getting DUCKED!

:thumb.aspx::thumb.aspx::signs14::111::111::504:

I was saving for a number of those Saints; but now I thinking of getting on hand merchandise before they close the window completely.


S O R R Y B U N C H they sure don't want to GIVERMINT to the folks that work - only the Afirmative Action Freddie Freeloaders get a free lunch. AAFFGAFL!

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

Sounds pretty much like the Mint is experiencing the same things the rest of us out here in la-la land are......... small item production shortages. You can be sure that the Mint is having to pay through the nose for their stuff too, even on a competitive basis. If the private producers are able to make X number of dollars more by minting and selling their own wares, why would they settle for anything less from the Mint ? The Mint simply cannot compete with the private minters and sellers and still demand a decent profit on their finished coins.

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

...............


T

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

Today is the first day of US Treasury Bills sales to finance the coming deficits connected with the banking system bail outs. The rate paid for 4 week paper was zero percent. Thus people are looking for gold. Why not buy gold with a zero percent yield? In our opinion, it is at least as safe as T-bills with the same yield, and it has not been rallying like the US dollar has. In our opinion, professionals are buying gold, while the public buys T-Bills.

By the way, this is the first of a great many large auctions of US government securities. These auctions will increase the total amount of US government debt outstanding by about 22% or $2 trillion in the next 2 years. When this much new debt is floated, why will buyers not demand higher interest rates? If the US cannot tolerate higher rates due to their need to keep rates low for the bailout to proceed, then buyers will demand a currency discount to buy US bonds. In our opinion, the US dollar has seen or is very near its highs and major foreign currencies and gold are very near their lows.

Respectfully yours,
Monty Guild
www.GuildInvestment.com





Perhaps but the above does also kick in and when you are in the BUSINESS they do make it their business to figure things out first.

:Surrender::signs14::signs14::sleepy13::offtopic:

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

But, my dear friend - and you are too, their profit is "way way way" above the going prices with the premiums built in TOO. Problem is that they know the prices are way way way too low for the product(s) even with their tremendous premiums over and above spot.

Enough said.

:thumb.aspx::thumb.aspx::signs14::111::111::23_1_2 2::wink:

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

After reading this thread I checked my order status with the Mint and well wouldn't you know it the status has changed. It has changed from "in stock and reserved" to "on Hold".........HUH? never had that happen before. Kinda makes me wonder if they are going to "Hold" my money or credit me back.

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

I doubt there is anything conspiratorial going on. Just like any other govt agency - waste, incompetence, lack of respect for the public.

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

I agree with Ohio...

IMHO, mints worldwide not just the US were overwhelmed on all fronts with the "2008 Au/Ag/Pt rush! Okay that's the last excuse for them.

As most governments go... lack of planning, inefficiency, red tape, arrogance and I'll even add the "dislike" of PMs, has led to the debacle we as 'customers' are seeing.

All I can say is, I hope what some have posted here will not happen... the end of the US Mint:36_1_30:

And I thought that all PMs by law had to be mined and minted (including blanks) had to be from the US?

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

I think that used to be the case, but not for some time.

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

Prof. AE. Fekete thinks that the mint can't get any gold because of the backwardation -- people don't want to give their gold to the mint for paper in return.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article7639.html

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

Best part I think is the lack of blanks from the Perth Mint.

Gee, would not want to buy American. Lets have another of our production markets on hold due to foreign interests.:10_1_19:

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

After 12-19 the "Last Chance Sale" at the US Mint ends - and Frankly, (honestly) I hope it's not the last chance you can buy precious metals from the US Mint.

Article BELOW about Gold & such. :thumb.aspx:

Best wishes,

HS

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++=

Public Article - 06 April 2006



Comments On Gold Confiscation And ETFs

I have gotten a flurry of emails on and off about confiscation of gold and or silver bullion.

The position of the Prudent Squirrel Newsletter is to be in physical assets in your possession, not much in electronic/stock accounts. The philosophy also includes a paid off house, and other real assets in your possession. The premise is that physical possession is key when markets are crashing/illiquid, and if you have possession, you don't have to worry as much about getting your hands on your money by having to sell it into a crashing/illiquid market. You don't have to worry about frozen accounts in a banking/financial crisis- you already have your hands on it. To me, possession is not only '9 tenths of the law', it is the best protection period.

Now about confiscation. The US had gold confiscation in the 1930's in the Great Depression. We had gold and silver coin currency in circulation, ie a gold dollar. The US instituted mandatory conversion of gold dollars into fiat dollars, ie they wanted all the gold coin USD currency back in the hands of the US government. Ultimately, they only got a relatively small fraction of it back. The rest was hoarded here and abroad.

Safe deposit boxes were also attached by the US government, and citizens were allowed to keep about 100$ of gold coin, the rest was confiscated (converted into paper dollars) by the US government. This is a scary proposition. When depositors went in to open their boxes, they were not permitted to do this in privacy, but in the attendance of a government agent, who would buy any gold from you with US dollar paper money.

At that time, one of the motivations for collecting the gold coin was that the US wanted to deficit spend during the depression to stimulate the economy and do government hiring programs that proliferated under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Many of our highways today, bridges and infrastructure, and the Hoover Dam, were built with deficit spending. Also the massive Tennessee Valley Authority.

When we had gold coin, that restricted the government's ability to deficit spend, so that was one major reason why the gold US coin was confiscated by law. They were also afraid of gold hoarding, ie flight out of the US currency, and so gold bullion was also confiscated.

There is one major difference between today and then, that is: we do not have gold US coin currency now. In other words, one of the prime motivations to confiscate gold in the 1930's is not now at work today ( to get back the US gold coin in circulation). The other risk, however, that of flight out of the US dollar into gold hoarding, still remains in effect.

To get around flight out of the US dollar, the major issue to the US government would have to focus on is the currency markets because they have the size and liquidity to do the job. The US government would probably institute foreign exchange restrictions, ie, freezing the conversion of electronic accounts into other currencies, IE if they are already denominated in US dollars, then they would probably be forced to stay in US dollars.

The amount of gold bullion available is a very very small fraction of the total assets available to change US dollars into. Foreign currencies would be the prime objective for converting out of the US dollar, and gold would be a very small part of this equation.

Therefore, I do not see gold being the main target of foreign exchange restrictions as it was in the 1930's. However, the US can indeed confiscate anything they feel threatens the stability of the US dollar with laws already on the books.

Electronic gold accounts would be a major target of these foreign exchange restrictions however. These are liquid alternatives to USD accounts, but again, the size of these things is literally a drop in the ocean of USD accounts world wide. One of the largest gold ETFs has about $6 billion in gold. By comparison, there are probably a total of well over $50 trillion dollars in USD denominated markets like the US stock market, plus all the insurance and financial instrument accounts that are like quasi cash. Lots of money market funds, bond funds, stock accounts, derivative accounts, being denominated and more or less convertible into US dollars upon their sale, would have to be converted into FOREX markets to deal with the size and volume. These have enough liquidity to handle the trillions of dollars that would seek haven from any USD crisis. (I am including gold ETFs and so on in Forex because gold is money).

The only real way that US dollars could be washed in a currency crisis would have to be into other foreign currencies that have the size and liquidity to be able to handle the volume of US money that would seek haven. The gold stocks, the gold ETFs and gold bullion are a very very minute fraction of the market size and liquidity that would have to be available. For this reason I do not foresee gold being the number one target of the US government in a currency crisis. Foreign currency exchange would be the main and first target.

To make a comparison of the relative liquidity of gold alternatives to foreign currencies I will make a basic calculation relative to bullion. If gold ETFs have at present several hundred tons of gold, the largest has $6 billion dollars worth now, and if there is only one trillion dollars seeking haven out of the USD into that ETF, that gold ETF would have to obtain about 200 times the gold they have to convert $ 1 trillion into gold. This is not going to be possible.

Given the fact that there is far less that 100,000 tons of gold in foreign and US central banks, even if they were to sell all of it to support the US dollar, they would never come close to achieving this. There is just not enough metal to make it possible, and in a crashing US dollar market, by far most people/entities would be forced into the other alternative of another more solid foreign currency.

If we were to consider the actual gold bullion in the hands of private individuals, that gold would just become unavailable for any USD price until the USD either stabilized or crashed into nothingness. As a matter of fact, I believe that gold bullion in general will become unavailable for any USD price in the event of a real serious USD crisis.

What is my point? Gold bullion is not going to be a feasible alternative to flight out of the US dollar because there is not enough of it to make a market. It will all just become 'not for sale'. The other main alternative would have to be other decent foreign currencies to flee into, because of the size and liquidity required. The US would have to institute currency exchange restrictions like Argentina did a few years ago, where they prevented people from taking out pesos (allowed a very low monthly withdrawal), and froze bank accounts.

Now, it is possible that the US would seek to get the gold bullion from the citizenry, but that would not be the major source of pressure on the USD in a real crisis, that would come from the FOREX markets and the US would have to freeze all US dollar denominated accounts to deal with that. Gold would be a very small secondary issue, and would not be the first that had to be dealt with. I do believe however, that larger gold depositories would be subject to freezes/attachments. Also, I do not foresee that having these depositories out of the country is going to do much. The US, Japan, and Britain are very closely aligned monetarily, and will cooperate in a real USD crisis and lock up large gold depositories under their jurisdictions.

It is my opinion that a few hundred or few thousand ounces in one's personal possession will be a very small issue to the US government, particularly since it will not be necessary to call in gold coin US currency since we abandoned this long ago.

There is another issue. Since gold is non traceable, it is possible that the US government would seek its control for security issues. In fact, there are stories out that some large gold ETFs are vehicles of choice for non legal money. That is not the ETF's fault, but it does put a spotlight on them in this regard. It may be possible that transacting in gold bullion would be too dangerous in a security alerted world. In that case, gold would have to just be kept for a later time, and not spent.

Christopher Laird
Editor-in Chief
The PrudentSquirrel Newsletter
www.PrudentSquirrel.com
E-Mail: Chris Laird


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Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

Okay...

If the US stops minting PMs wouldn't that be a form of confiscation? And wouldn't it take an Act of Congress or at the least a Presidential mandate since Reagan authorized the Au/Ag Bullion Program?

And again, the Perth Mint? Why isn't the mint producing or at the least a US entity producing the blanks for the US Mint, when was this change made?
Next thing I know the printing of FRNs will be outsourced to Mexico... or maybe that’s the Amero?

:10_1_19:

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

Please do NOT get the U S A COUNTRY confused with the government - they are different. Sadly.

Also remember LIBERTY dies one New US Congressional Bill signed or one US Supreme Court decision at a time.

One herein at 85 years of age - could easily say, "You'll never KNOW the freedom I had."

I can say at 64, "You never know the freedom I used to know."

Most of all that is happening can be summed up with:

"All republics and or kingships break into democracies - which vote themselves too many tax breaks - and then it goes into CHAOS (see Athens right now as a small example) which brings in a very strong leader - called a dictator."

AKA Napoleon or Hitler type.

:signs14::signs14:

The good news is that the chinese handwritten sign, I believe, for crisis - is the same one as FANTASTICAL OPPORTUNITY.

Look for the FANTASTICAL FUTURE of personal positive - it helps with the "human nature side" of NEGATIVITY. :signs14::yes::yes::banana:bancha:banana:bancha

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

"The United States Mint is an Equal Opportunity Employer."

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

Somewhat related is my email with the Canadian Mint. I knew they did not sell MapleLeafs to the public, but now I cannot find any reference to bullion on the site, just the consumer trinket products.

My reply:

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

Re: Question about the US Mint "why are they..."
 

We 'talked' it up :banghead:

http://www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/...ArticleId=5873

Although I believe private companies are more efficient, this is one industry that should be left in the hands of gov'ts.

It is the gov'ts that should use ISO9000/6-Sigma etc. to be more efficient... but only in my dreams:sarcasm: