GATA: Remember, only gold and silver markets are NOT rigged...

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Even though U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was quoted yesterday, as in the Bloomberg News story appended here, as saying that the U.S. government would use "'all the tools at our disposal' to protect the financial markets". ...

And even though the U.S. government and most Western central banks are now desperately and openly rigging the currency markets with their swap agreements and the stock markets with short sales regulations and government-brokered mergers. ...

And even though Western central banks have been openly selling, leasing, and swapping gold for years now, often at strategic moments. ...

Please remember that we have the solemn assurances of Kitco Senior Analyst Jon Nadler, Resource Investor's Tim Wood, CPM Group Managing Director Jeff Christian, market analyst Paul van Eeden, and a few other worthies that government is not -- repeat, NOT -- intervening in the gold and silver markets in ANY way. Gold and silver are merely incidental commodities -- NOT what they used to be, money, and not even potentially money -- and their prices are of no more interest to governments than the price of seaweed.

That is, when Secretary Paulson said he would protect the financial markets with "all the tools at our disposal," he meant "ALMOST all tools at our disposal," and would have said so if only Nadler, Wood, Christian, or van Eeden had been present to remind him.

And exactly what does Secretary Paulson mean to protect the financial markets against?

Why, THEMSELVES, of course -- the threat that an actual market price, rather than a government-approved price, might develop somewhere in the fantastic, overarching illusion that crony capitalism and central banking have made of what used to be markets. These days, if you want a market, you're stuck with Ebay -- at least until that too is nationalized.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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Paulson to Use 'All Tools' to Protect Financial Markets

By John Brinsley
Bloomberg News
Monday, September 29, 2008

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will use "all the tools at our disposal" to protect financial markets after the House of Representatives rejected his $700 billion rescue plan, his spokeswoman said.

"The secretary will be consulting with the president, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, and congressional leaders on next steps," Treasury spokeswoman Michele Davis said in a statement released in Washington. "In the meantime, we stand ready to work with fellow regulators and use all the tools at our disposal, as we have over the last several months, to protect our financial markets and our economy."

The House voted 228 to 205 against giving Paulson the authority to buy troubled assets from financial companies, in what would have been the biggest government intervention in the markets since the Great Depression. The Treasury chief on Sept. 23 warned it would be "a grave mistake" for Congress to curtail or delay the legislation.

U.S. stocks plummeted and Treasury bonds rose the most in two weeks after the House vote. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell as much as 8.3 percent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped as much as 735.8 points or 6.6 percent.

About an hour after the vote failed, Paulson arrived at the White House to talk with President George W. Bush, who had personally lobbied lawmakers to support the measure.

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