Trying to piece something together here, folks

A couple days ago, I made the assertion that gold prices are being manipulated.  I have no direct proof of that, but I recall reading something about how gold isn't being delivered on demand.  Well, it was something like that.  It refers to the futures market, which I am not familiar with at all.  What I understand about futures, is that a commodity is promised to be delivered at a certain date at a specific price.

So, what happens if that promise isn't kept?  What if it isn't just one instance, but a pattern of behavior that isn't being policed the way it should?  What does that mean?  How do these people accomplish that and not have the system crash?

In my search, I first went to Barnhardt's site and read up a couple of her essays.  One was about the MF Global mess, and the other was about how We are the Gold.   To paraphrase, she left the futures business she was in because it lost its integrity due to the handling of MF Global, and anyone who took part in the markets henceforth was going to be corrupted as well.  She didn't want to lose her integrity.  The essay linked above is why it was necessary for her to leave- the system had become corrupt.  The system is US, you see.  We are corrupt.  We allow it, we tolerate it, then we become it.

So, naturally, it should not be hard to see how the futures market would get turned into something else, which is a paper system, which replaced a physical system.  Indeed, I think this paper system is how gold pricing is being suppressed.  The paper system creates a supply of gold which doesn't exist.  The paper supply makes it appear that there's a gold glut, which depresses prices.  If the paper gold had to be redeemed in physical form, prices would skyrocket, because there's not enough gold to supply the demand claims.  Think bank run in which the bank doesn't have the cash to meet depositor's demands for their cash.

Gold prices are down from 1900 dollars the ounce to under 1100 now.  That's despite the fact that the government is still amassing greater and greater debt, and interest rates are still negative.  That fact may be perplexing until you realize that it can only be the case if the market has become rigged in order to prop up the current regime ( or state of affairs if you wish not to be political ) .

So, I'm thinking we could be entering the end game here.  The Fed Funds rate cannot stay near zero forever.  Eventually, it must go back up.  Once that happens, the usual thing occurs- a bubble pops, and a recession ensues.  That's assuming the rates stay high enough and long enough.  The Fed may lower rates again, but that solves nothing as the last several years has demonstrated.

That's because a negative interest rate cannot make the economy grow.  For that, you need capital formation and for that you need savings.  Savings won't occur if interest rates are negative.  Growth must stop, and will stop.  For all intents and purposes, it has stopped.

So, the Federal Reserve is trapped.  They cannot raise rates without endangering the faux recovery, but they cannot cut rates without destroying capital formation.  Indeed, one reason for the lackluster growth rate of this "recovery" is the probable lack of capital formation.

Poor economic policy is the problem.  Unless that is corrected, there won't be a solution.  What's behind the problem?  Corruption.  This may not be easy to solve, as Barnhardt points out- a morally degenerate people cannot be expected to clean themselves up without some revelation of some kind.  In this day, that doesn't appear likely.  Hillary is ahead in the polls for the Democrat nomination.  She doesn't look to be the kind that lead a morally degenerate people back to probity.