A gold bar that should have weighed 1,000 grams, weighed 2 grams too little. The owner had it cut in half to reveal that the certified, stamped bar with serial numbers had tungsten rods inserted all the way through it. Tungsten, has a density of 19.35 g/cm3, so is a near-perfect match for gold (19.32 g/cm3) and it sells for just one ten thousandth of the price.
The gold bar was cut in half to reveal the tungsten rods.
The problem of fake gold bars
By Felix SalmonMarch 25, 2012You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to find this worrying: a 1kg gold bar, certified as 99.98% pure by XRF (X-ray fluorescence) tests, turns out to have been drilled out and largely replaced with tungsten. This bar was discovered only because it was 2 grams lighter than it ought to have been: the forgers failed to add quite enough gold to the outside of the bar to make up for the weight lost when they replaced gold with tungsten. But if they’d gotten the weight right, it would probably still be circulating today.
[Reuters]
Is this a big issue? Who knows? Gold bars are rarely audited. Indeed even the most respectable bars in the world, the ones the People of the USA own at Fort Knox, haven’t been so much as independently counted, let alone properly audited or even checked for purity. That’s $300 billion dollars of assets no one appears to have audited since 1953. Remember gold is a relic from a bygone era. It is so irrelevant, that at Fort Knox, no one is even allowed to photograph it.
A gold bar of one kilo is worth about $50,000. Tungsten sells for roughly $400 per ton, or $50/kg for ferrotungsten. (No, those numbers don’t match, tungsten is either cheap or very cheap.) In any case, if a crook can replace half a 1kg gold bar with tungsten, they stand to make $20,000. If they do that with a 400 oz bar, “profit” comes in at around a third of a million dollars. For that kind of money I imagine quite a few people might think it was worth learning how to use a gold drill.
The different kind of “perfect” crime?
Is this a new kind of “perfect” crime, where the crime cheats the people, but helps the authorities who are supposed to be stopping it? As I explained in The Ground Zero of Global Corruption – it starts with The Currency – governments can’t print “gold”, but if the price of gold stays lower, then the value of government bonds and currency stays higher — and so ergo — it’s not such an awfully bad thing for most governments if some crooks are “printing gold” (which is effectively what these crooks are doing by creating 1.5 bars out of 1 bar). I’m not suggesting the governments are doing it, or knowingly supporting it, just that they don’t have much interest in catching these cheats.
If they did want to stop this, they could.
Indeed, just the rumors of fake gold bars adds to the risk for someone buying physical gold. Which might be the point.
The bar in the photo is in the UK, the business that cut it in half, emailed ABC Bullion and other dealers to warn them. I wanted to pass this on as just another example of how corruption is rife and neglect is spreading through the foundations of western wealth. There is a fundamental dishonesty at the core.
The small percentage of people with criminal intent will test every possible weak point in the system.
————————
UPDATE: Bron Suchecki writes in with information from the Perth Mint that suggests this type of fakery would be picked up if it were common (which is reassuring). The message then, is order your bars from reputable sources. From the comments below:
“XRF does not penetrate very far into the surface of a bar, so is only good for testing plated bars. The industry uses ultrasonic testing, see here http://www.lbma.org.uk/assets/lbmaars2009_14_genel_pamp_use_of_ultrasonic_analysis_for_the_quality_control1.pdf
That Rob Kirby article shouldn’t be given any credence – there is no substantiation or verifiable sources quoted – it is all speculation and conspiracy.
In my comments to this http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/03/25/the-problem-of-fake-gold-bars/ , which has also picked up on the ABC Bullion story, I make the point that the amount of turnover of bars in the industry makes any systematic fakery impossible:
“In the case of the professional market which deals in 400oz bars, yes many of these sit in central bank vaults but many others are held by private investors and these are traded. There has been no occurrences in my 18 years in the industry, and I haven’t heard of others, of fake 400oz gold bars. Any bar coming out of a LBMA accredited refinery can be trusted because the refinery cannot control or know where the bar will end up and during its life there is a good chance a bar will eventually be melted for use by a jeweller or other refiner and as such there is a high probability of being caught out.
In the retail market I’d guess that turnover is a lot higher, particularly as retail investors do tend to exhibit herding behaviour, which means when there is selling it usually overwhelms retail buyers at that point in time. The end result is that in a net selling situation dealers do not sit on gold due to the high holding costs vs low profit margins and uncertainty as to when buying demand will return, so they liquidate that net selling excess back to refiners, where it is melted. Thus there is a fair bit of turnover and again, a good chance of fakes being detected.”
Every non Perth Mint bar and coin we buy back is melted. We also melt a fair number of our own coins and bars if they are too old or damaged to enable resale.
In the 20 years our refinery manager has been working at the Mint, he has never seen a fake bar. Certainly crooks would not be stupid enough to try and pass off fakes directly to us, but if they were circulating then over time some unwitting third party to whom a fake was sold would eventually sell it back to us, or to a dealer, and thus we’d find out. The fact that this hasn’t happened lead me to believe that it doesn’t happen.
As per my post below, ultrasonic is the non destructive testing method and would easily show any insertions.”
There is a full post about this at The Perth Mint.
“GoldMoney also has a good video on the ultrasonic testing they perform on their bars. Interestingly, they only found ten bars out of 1,377 with “inconclusive scans were identified but assays of these bars confirmed they contained the gold content stamped on the bar.” [link] These bars are 400oz professional market bars and is yet more proof that fakes are not common.”
Jo Notes:
As the credibility of this rests rests on the source of the photographs, it’s notable that ABC Bullion are retailers of gold bars, so it’s not in their interests to spread false rumours. Evidently, they were convinced the source (which they do not name) was respectable. But then, it is –as far as we know — just one bar.
Title Edit: A few hours after posting I decided a better title than “corruption is everywhere” is “corruption knocks on every door”.
I could google this myself but is there another way apart from weight per unit volume or cutting apart bullion to assess purity?
42
Those reo bars should change the way it bends me thinks. I would expect this to show up as a different resonance. So if you do not want to turn them into bannanas and do not have a precision audio oscillator and oscilliscope laying about the place like I do. Then Sticky tape a PC headset mic to one end and the earphone to another. Then search the net for an audio sweep test program to download.
Also Winding a primary and secondary coil around them should show a different transformer efficiency due to the different magnetic properties during a similar sweep test. That is if a fridge magnet pendulum does not help.
http://www-d0.fnal.gov/hardware/cal/lvps_info/engineering/elementmagn.pdf
23
Gold expands with temperature about three times more than tungsten. You could try super-chilling the sample- if it contains a significant mass of tungsten there should be an unusual pattern of distortion.
23
Sorry to just add something re my other post (where is it by the way). XRF only acts on the surface layers.
33
The lower the frequency the deeper it will penetrate. A metal detector would respond differently to a fake also.
32
Untra sound will work cos you can see the barrier between the gold and the tungsten
50
This type of metal detector would produce an opposite change in tone for the bar containing Tungsten (or at least a noticabley different change). The oscillator frequency is shifted in a different direction for a diamagnetic material.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnQGQ58RCOA
But this seems like more fun if it would work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnbfGaqNvjU
While Leo G’s freezing is cool the diamanetic oscillator test could be easily automated with a tone detector causing a solenoid to kick a sus bar off a conveyor belt as thousands are passing. Fort knox tested in under a week!
32
So this has got me interested – does it look like the gold was drilled out before or after the registration of the bar?
Maybe some of the metallurgists can chime in on how the bar could have been drilled out and then topped off with gold to hide the tungsten?
Maybe everyone fortunate enough to have gold bars should be looking at cutting them in half to take a look?
It seems like a pretty logical step to take to a complete novice like me.
00
Madjak,
I am not sure that the markings to denote “certified” gold bars are that hard to copy. After all you just need to make a reverse impression and the make a mold and bingo you have a “stamp of authority”. It would not be hard then to melt the gold, insert the tungsten and then stamp the bar with the stamp you have made for yourself. As long as you are not too greedy and ensure that the weight is right, you could only tell by cutting open the bar.
The alternative it to drill out the holes and insert the tungsten rods as per this example, but you do need to add a little gold, presumably at the end you drilled from to cover your tracks.
Either way is plausible to me.
00
Truthseeker ,
As you suggest the markings would be very easy to copy , You could make a mould using 3120 RTV Red rubber which is quite heat resistant , I use it to cast 15mm lead miniature soldiers ( both custom made figures and discontinued ones to complete units etc. )all the fine detail shows up with little to give away that it`s not the original figure . A simple steel ladle welded up at home and a gas stove gets more than sufficient heat for the lead to have a decent pour and the moulds are good for anywhere from 400 to a couple of thousand pours if You`re patient and allow it to cure for a week before using . A tub of the stuff used to go for about $80 ten years ago and would have enough rtv in it to make 2-3 moulds for a gold bar that size
00
Casting marks instead of impressions made by impact would be fairly easy to see. The deformation made by hammering a mark into the gold is distinctive.
00
Umm, no “casting marks” , just a bit of sprue on the back to trim/file off if it`s a closed mould , and by the look of those ingots they`re an open mould pour anyway so that wouldn`t be an issue . RTV picks up the finest detail ,Once I had to use a sharp needle to hand cut a chainmail pattern into the tunic of a Thureophoroi as there were no chainmail equiped versions availible commercially . As it was a very painstaking process I did not want to repeat it so I made a mold and cast up 143 of `em . EVERY detail of my hand engraved chainmail showed up in the replicas . BTW ,just to give you an idea of the scale a human sized infantry figure is shorter than a 5c piece
00
Fake gold bars are quite rare – at the Perth Mint we haven’t seen anything for decades so I wouldn’t consider it a case of “corruption is rife”.
I’m personally quite suspicious of these sorts of stories http://goldchat.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/tungsten-bar-scam.html Question is who benefits?
Refinery/mint to scare people away from the secondary market and ebay?
ETF operators to scare people away from physical gold?
Central banks to scare people away from gold?
Producers of testing equipment?
Then again as gold becomes more popular, we should also expect gold to become popular with crooks as well, so it is probably just someone who doesn’t realise how hard it is to get this sort of stuff past those in the trade.
00
Bron, thanks for popping in. If you can tell us how the Perth Mint would catch bars like this, and whether they test every bar, and what kinds of irregularities they have found, I’d be happy to add a note to the post with links to more information. I for one, would like to know that there were not many of these bars in circulation.
My reference to corruption being rife was in the context of our broader western institutions rather than the gold bar trade per se. It’s an Enron, Lehman, high frequency trading, subprime mortgage, and expanding money base type of thing.
Jo
00
Every non Perth Mint bar and coin we buy back is melted. We also melt a fair number of our own coins and bars if they are too old or damaged to enable resale.
In the 20 years our refinery manager has been working at the Mint, he has never seen a fake bar. Certainly crooks would not be stupid enough to try and pass off fakes directly to us, but if they were circulating then over time some unwitting third party to whom a fake was sold would eventually sell it back to us, or to a dealer, and thus we’d find out. The fact that this hasn’t happened lead me to believe that it doesn’t happen.
As per my post below, ultrasonic is the non destructive testing method and would easily show any insertions.
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i.e. buy from the mint
00
Jo, from Wiki, it runs in the family. “Sharington” is sometimes written as “Sherrington”.
“By 1548, Sharington had begun to defraud the Bristol mint by making coins too light and also by minting more coins than had been ordered, keeping false records to fend off discovery. According to his later confession, he had been afraid that his minting activity would leave him out of pocket. As a result, Sharington became involved in a plot by Thomas, Lord Seymour, to launch an armed uprising, overthrow the government of Seymour’s brother Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, and capture the boy king Edward VI.[10] Sharington had sought the protection of Seymour in the event of the discovery that he was profiting dishonestly from his office at the mint, and Seymour persuaded Sharington to supply funds for his plot. He asked Sharington whether he could make £10,000, ” etc. Massive swindles, massive wealth. It’s even recorded in Hansard how the chief cleric of the time, Latimer, spoke for Sharington, who twice escaped death in the Tower. Seymour was beheaded, but only once.
Sharington’s method was simple.
He talked his way out of it in a charming way.
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Are you saying that there is nothing new to see here?
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The answer is C. This ties into the deliberate misrepresentation of the global tonnage of gold by the RBS.
There is ten times the value of paper silver than real silver. The ratio for gold is far worse. Remember, you must have your gold and silver professionally appraised and buried in your backyard to keep your wealth secure. I would also mention that your gold acquisitions should be done in small, anonymous cash purchases such as from pawn shops and other descrete sources. Also, I think rare gems are underrated, particularly rubys. Any rare gems used in electronic and laser technology are currently more valuable than their market price.
Don’t forget, be a good pirate and don’t tell our admiralty(courts) where your treasure is buried!
00
From comments, I gather a conductivity check or eddy current testing works. Others suggest an ultrasound.
See here for a report of a chinese example of a tungsten salting on a beg scale.
For discussion of drilling and testing techniques (there is serious debate) see the comments under Zerohedge.
indygo55 says: I agree Transformer. I too am a machinist and I work with Tungsten every day. The raw material is always mixed (ballmilled) with between 6 and 15% cobalt and pressed or extruded into a preformed shape using heavy presses. The preformed rod in this case is the consistamcy of hard chalk, you can snap it in your hand. But when you sinter the rod (high heat vacuum furness) it shrinks about 20% depending on the “grade” and becomes a grind ready rod of extremely high compressive strength, ready to be ground, in many cases, into a “solid carbide” drill or endmill with hardness second only to diamond. Indeed diamond wheels are used to finish grind them. But the whole thing is “powdered metallurgy”; the tungsten never actually melts. Its the cobalt that melts and is the “glue” that holds millions of tiny tungsten particles together.
Point is I think the presintered rod is the process here and the light weight may likely be due to the fact that it was only about 90% Tungsten and may offer another way to detect the forgery. Also Cobalt has it’s onw identlty issues which is another discussion.
defender says: I think that you are both wrong about this being drilled out. With the gold bar being that thin, and the tungsten rod so close to the surface, the gold should have very noticably swelled (deformed outward) where the holes were drilled. It would have taken a lot of pressure to return the bar to its origional shape, and that would have marred the surface. I don’t see evidence of either artifact, which makes me think that this bar was cast with the tungsten in it.
Tyrone says:There is a way to get the weight of the forged bar EXACTLY correct by adding precise amounts of a third metal which is heavier than both Tungsten and Gold. Suppose that one added Depleted Uranium to the mix in a precalculated weighed amount. The final weight of those bars could be exactly as if it were pure gold.
Indygo55 adds: You don’t seem to have any direct experience with machining. Gold is soft so a drill, properly selected will easily remove the material leaving no deformation at the surfact. I make tools that take a six hundred pound block of alumuinum down to wafer thin bulkheads for aircraft you can lift effortlessly by machining 90 percent of the material away. And ANY deformation is unacceptable. No, this was drilled matching a drill to readily available tungsten/cobalt preformed rods, that are cheap and available. I could do it in under an hour. Including the torching and remelting covering the ends. A simple hand buffing operation will hide any traces. I see how easy this is and this is scary.
10
That Rob Kirby article shouldn’t be given any credence – there is no substantiation or verifiable sources quoted – it is all speculation and conspiracy.
In my comments to this http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/03/25/the-problem-of-fake-gold-bars/ , which has also picked up on the ABC Bullion story, I make the point that the amount of turnover of bars in the industry makes any systematic fakery impossible:
“In the case of the professional market which deals in 400oz bars, yes many of these sit in central bank vaults but many others are held by private investors and these are traded. There has been no occurrences in my 18 years in the industry, and I haven’t heard of others, of fake 400oz gold bars. Any bar coming out of a LBMA accredited refinery can be trusted because the refinery cannot control or know where the bar will end up and during its life there is a good chance a bar will eventually be melted for use by a jeweller or other refiner and as such there is a high probability of being caught out.
In the retail market I’d guess that turnover is a lot higher, particularly as retail investors do tend to exhibit herding behaviour, which means when there is selling it usually overwhelms retail buyers at that point in time. The end result is that in a net selling situation dealers do not sit on gold due to the high holding costs vs low profit margins and uncertainty as to when buying demand will return, so they liquidate that net selling excess back to refiners, where it is melted. Thus there is a fair bit of turnover and again, a good chance of fakes being detected.”
00
Bron makes an excellent point. The turnover of gold can only be compared to the turnover of certain obligations of certain central banks…
00
One of my first jobs was to drill holes in gold bars. Fun! You’d put the drillings in a sample jar and send it off to the lab. Gold mine in Qld pre easy XRF days. We used to strip the CIL carbon and electrowin the gold onto steel wool, the smelt down the cathodes to doré and cast it.
00
XRF is stuill a purity, compositional, forensic etc check; it does not tell you what is in the middle of the bar. I like the sound of something electro magnetic, at least to just give you a broad statement like: “there is an anomaly”. you don’t have to be quantitative the purpose of detecting doctoring of this level.
00
In simpler terms than you might be seeking from this chemist, to excite fluorescence from gold, you need an X-ray tube whose metal target is higher in the periodic table than gold is. Otherwise, you have to move to another set of spectral lines, the most penetrating being K lines (not on for gold, which commonly uses a tungsten target in the XRF machine and tungesten sits below gold). If you could make an XRF tube with a uranium target you might scrape it in with K lines, but you’d be looking at only a few mm or even less at the most before the fluorescent radiation was absorbed on its way out. The signal would be dominated by the surface. You could try using a radioisotope source such as cobalt-57, but there are still severe absorption problems.
The solution might lie in using particle beams like neutrons to make radiographs, but that’s getting outside my field. You are talking very expensive machines – but then, it’s a very exprensive fraud if it is widespread.
In this particular case, the age-old method of density measurement by immersion in water and weighing the displaced water ought to be good enough if done with care. As the story says, that’s what gave this game away, the slight difference in density betwen W and Au. But then the smarties could add a bit of even heavier material than W to make the volume right for the weight.
The problem is that the fraud has the hallmarks of invention by a chemist and chemists are often smart people.
00
Geoff your first sentence is not true. All you need is to crank up the kV to exceed the excitation potential of the atom’s shell of interest. This would be about 70kV for gold K shell which would generally require a special generator and tube. Of course to be reasonably efficient one would require about 120kV (photons of the continuum would have 120keV maximum energy) to excite gold K lines but there is no reason one cannot do this with a tungsten tube. I have analysed Sn, Ta and Te using a Rh tube all on a K line, for example. Of course the characteristic radiation is on the high energy side of the tube lines on a high background.
The main issue would be absorbance of the W K radiation before it gets out. Assuming a µ/p of about 3cm2/g for 70keV in a gold matrix density 19g/cm3 it would give infinite thickness of about 300 to 400µm. The gold plating would have to be less than this for XRF it to work. L lines would be hopeless.
00
Richard, I was talking conventionally, not not about bremsstrahlung radiation, based upon analysis of many thousands of uranium samples using Co-57 and K alpha. Was trying to convey that conventional XRF would not work, not even for K let alone L.
00
Note to self… no Ebay gold bar purchases.
10
Apparently this has been going on for some time. Never understood the gold industry myself… we dig it out of the ground at 1 gram per tonne, concentrate, smelt and refine it to 99.99% purity and then stick it under the ground again. If aliens saw us doing this they could cite it as proof that we are stark raving mad.
00
The secret to the gold industry is knowing that the marginal utility of gold declines at a slower rate compared with all other commodities. Simply put, if there was 100years’ new mined supply of any other commodity above ground then it would be as near as dammit worthless.
00
Kudos for introducing the concept of marginal utility but I disagree that “if there was 100years’ new mined supply of any other commodity above ground then it would be as near as dammit worthless.”
If that were the case, then that other commodity would be gold, as no other commodity possesses the quality of gold, except gold.
A slowing declining marginal utility essentially means you cannot have enough of it, kind of like…. money.
00
slowly declining
00
I see your point but is was a hypothetical comment. Of course any circumstance that would lead to such a situation in an open market would mean that the commodity was seen as a form of money. However, if 90 years annual supply of copper was discovered (mined, refined and above ground) tomorrow it would devastate the copper market. This would, of course, have to be in Antarctica mined by the Germans that fled the 3rd Reich in 1945 which would naturally be the same Germans that made the base on the far side of the moon and who spurn open markets.
00
XRF does not penetrate very far into the surface of a bar, so is only good for testing plated bars. The industry uses ultrasonic testing, see here http://www.lbma.org.uk/assets/lbmaars2009_14_genel_pamp_use_of_ultrasonic_analysis_for_the_quality_control1.pdf
Cast bars have a unique finish due to the casting process – trying to plug the drill hole ends with melted gold and then seamlessly blend that into the exiting bar surface is very hard IMO.
00
The story is Fort Knox is full of this stuff.
00
the tungsten gold bar story surfaces now and then, but we are still told it is a conspiracy theory. too expensive to audit? think of all the money the pollies waste!
June 2011: CNN: Ron Paul worries Fort Knox gold is gone
Paul called a congressional hearing Thursday to grill federal officials about his bill to audit and inventory all of the gold reserves at Fort Knox, Ky., West Point, N.Y., and Denver, even though Treasury officials insist that the gold is audited annually and is all there…
In September, Treasury completed its latest audit, showing that U.S. gold reserves total 9,300 tons with a market value of $320 billion, (Treasury Inspector General Eric)Thorson said…
William Lacy Clay, a Democratic representative from Missouri, said that doing a complete audit as Paul is calling for is a waste of federal manpower and could cost tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Thorson reported that the U.S. Mint told him that moving, counting and testing the gold would cost around $60 million. Paul said he had heard from Treasury that it would only cost $15 million.
Part of the expense would be due to the bill’s requirement to “assay” all the gold, said Gary T. Engel, a director of Financial Management and Assurance at GAO. Assaying means drilling little holes in all the gold bars in order to test its purity. But that process is “basically destroying whatever that piece is.”…
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/24/news/economy/ron_paul_gold_audit/index.htm
June 2011: CNBC: Is Gold in Fort Knox Real? Ron Paul Wants to Know
One conspiracy theory says that no one has actually seen the gold since the 1930s. But in a letter to Paul in September, the Treasury Inspector General said he had “personally observed the gold reserves located in each of the deep storage compartments.”
As a postscript to the story, CNBC asked for a tour of Fort Knox to film the gold, since our only footage of Fort Knox is from 1974. An official at the Mint told us that not he was not aware that any member of Congress had toured the facility since that year. Fort Knox is “a closed facility,” the official said.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/43391588/Is_Gold_in_Fort_Knox_Real_Ron_Paul_Wants_to_Know
Republicans are determined to stop Ron Paul:
Youtube: Hidden Camera Catches Missouri GOP Admitting They Rigged…. *HQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5R7mRxmAVg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
An Update on the Georgia Caucus Scandal
http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/an-update-on-the-georgia-caucus-scandal/
00
If it was gone, provided no one knew, we could all live happily. Which makes it pretty much useless.
00
Your lack of curiosity… is the key to their success.
10
Spoken like a true Keynesian. I could use an analogy such as an airbag in a car but then I suspect that your are closer to the truth than you think. Gold in its role sitting in a vault IS fairly useless. When gold was exiled from the monetary system the Monetarists and Keynesians set in motion a system that was destined to end in disaster. Without gold there is no limit on how governments can manipulate interest rates and there IS a guarantee that debt will carry on accumulating until the day it all comes tumbling down. The gold in Fort Knox has played no meaningful role which is why we are in such a mess. This is not to say that it cannot in the future, however it has to be established that it is in fact there. Q: why no audit?
10
26 March: Daily Telegraph: Julia Gillard’s party is just about over as Labor routed in Queensland
by Gemma Jones and Phillip Hudson in Seoul
But Ms Gillard said there will be no changes to the carbon tax which begins in less than 100 days.
In her first comments since the state election wipeout for Labor, the PM took concerns about trust and broken promises head on, saying she always did what she believed was right for Australia’s future.
“My message to the Australian people is sometimes we have to do really hard things to shape the future and carbon pricing, a clean energy future, is part of that,” the PM said in the South Korean capital of Seoul where she is attending a nuclear security summit…
Ms Gillard said when she promised during the 2010 election campaign that there would be no carbon tax, she meant it. But she said the hung Parliament meant she faced a choice between going for clean energy future or doing nothing…
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/julia-gillards-party-is-just-about-over-as-labor-routed-in-queensland/story-e6freuy9-1226309738692
notice she doesn’t directly say the “monster raving loony Greens party” made her do it. that’s because something as huge as converting the world financial system to one based on a “carbon dioxide currency” could never be decided by people as irrelevant and as removed from reality as Bob Brown and his party are.
00
spacer
00
http://euro-med.dk/?p=13504
10
Hardly. Debasing the coinage is the oldest trick in the book.
When it comes to credit though, things are a little different. As Keynes said;
00
JMD: Sure, but back in those days, the Rulers who issued the coins wouldv’e had a vested interest in tracking down anyone who debased the coins – obviously they wanted to keep that kind of debasement all to themselves. Now, thanks to fiat currencies, we have a bizarre situation where governments don’t necessarily want to catch the crooks.
Luckily, it seems that bullion dealers, and some Mints, have a very strong interest in keeping the market clean, so they do their own policing. Good to know.
Who is auditing Fort Knox?
10
Maybe, but I don’t see how it would affect the $ price of gold. Re. my reply to Richard’s great comment, gold is gold, its quality is constant, nothing can change this fact.
Who is auditing Fort Knox? I have read (www.metalaugmentor.com) that Fort Knox is audited. I think it is naive to think that at least some in the US Treasury do not understand the quality of gold. The question is not whether there is gold in Fort Knox but whether it now really belongs to someone else, like the Chinese or the Saudi’s.
01
.
If memory serves – and I’ll happily stand corrected – the Japanese have first dibs on the Fort Knox gold.
As I remember it was when the Japanese asked for settlement of their debt with the Yanks that Nixon repudiated the Gold Standard and the US dollar note became the instrument of international settlement instead.
Somewhere around 1971 maybe???
Since then we’ve really just been playing with over-valued Monopoly money, a situation that is even now in the process of correcting itself.
00
Yes. From Robert Landis, The Ascent of Hooey.
00
26 March: ABC: Gillian Bradford: Gillard defends her record after Queensland rout
TONY ABBOTT: We’ve now seen two cataclysmic results for the Labor Party and the carbon tax was a factor in both of them. We saw a 15 per cent swing against Labor in New South Wales, we’ve just seen a 16 per cent swing against Labor in Queensland; these are two of the most devastating electoral defeats in Australian history. And if the Prime Minister’s got wax in her ears, well, she’ll pay the consequences.
You’ve got to listen to the Australian people. You can’t run away from democracy. And I think the Prime Minister should be taking a long hard look at herself, her Government and her party as a result of the verdict of the people of Queensland…
**GILLIAN BRADFORD: This electoral shock though isn’t setting the Prime Minister on a new path. Given the long brutal road to get a carbon tax through the Parliament, anyone thinking she might now be wavering is mistaken.
JULIA GILLARD: Sometimes we have to do really hard things to shape the future. And carbon pricing, clean energy future was part of that; a really hard thing, but it’s going to give our nation a better future…
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3464055.htm
**”long brutal road” says Gillian! is that for ABC to say?
of course, Gillian wouldn’t have a job unless she portrayed the carbon dioxide tax as a fait accompli.
federal election now. my family voted informally in queensland, along with thousands of other people but, if the Coalition can bring about an early election, within the next 100 days, i might reverse a lifetime of voting Labor (with a brief detour to the Greens) and vote for them…provided, that is, Tony Abbott remains the leader.
how come, according to the MSM, Abbott is so unlikeable when almost everyone i know thinks he’s fine.
00
For an accurate do it yourself measurement of the volume of a gold bar, fill a container that is large enough for the gold bar with water. The container should have a spout where you can catch the displaced water into a high precision measuring beaker. Fill the container until water begins to drip from the spout. Place the measuring beaker so as to catch the water once you place the gold bar into the container. Read off the amount of water you have collected. Do the simple calculations to determine if the gold bar weighs as much as its volume should indicate.
No fancy machinery needed for a low volume (slow), do it yourself method of verification of your wealth.
00
.
Since gold and tungsten have the same specific gravity, this test (in conjunction with weighing of the sample for volume/mass comparison), would not disclose adulteration with tungsten.
10
There’s a lot more effort put into refining gold 99.99+% pure than there is for tungsten, which often occurs in dirty ores with other lighter metals that would lower its specific gravity unless they were metallurgically separated, not easy. Sure, it’s a good choice, but it’s not perfect.
BTW, conventional wisdom says that over 90 % of the gold ever mined can still be accounted for, because of its resitance to oxidation and to attack by almost all acids. Also, some say that all the gold so far mined and made into one lump would fit it a room some 30m x 30m x 20 m. Figures vary. But that helps explain its rarity and hence its price.
I’d be going for ultrasound. Pure gold bars have a certain feel and thud when knocked – I’m not sure those with W inserts would do the same. Gold from different mines also has different trace elements that can give a signature by multi-element methods like neutron activation. If you identify one dud, it would help in finding more quite quickly, like in a few days, if the original bars were from the same source. Not 100% definitive, but pretty good.
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26 March: SMH: AAP: Activist to sue Palmer over CIA claims
Lock the Gate Alliance president Drew Hutton says a notice of intention to pursue a defamation matter has been drafted and will be sent to Mr Palmer on Tuesday…
(Hutton) “Clive Palmer effectively admitted that he made these statements about myself and Greenpeace simply to help Campbell Newman win an election.
“I’m sorry, but after some consideration, I have decided I can’t take that lying down.”
Mr Hutton says he made the decision after discussions with a legal team assembled by political action group GetUp.
GetUp has previously indicated it would support Mr Hutton against the mining magnate.
National director Simon Sheikh said the defamation action would be significantly helped by Mr Palmer’s latest statements.
“Clive Palmer is the respondent and incredibly also the star witness for the plaintiff,” Mr Sheikh said in a statement.
“We don’t need to prove false statements were made.
“Mr Palmer appears to have done that for us today.”
Mr Sheikh says Mr Palmer had once listed litigation as one of his hobbies.
“It may be his hobby but right now he needs to call in the professionals because he is out of his depth,” he said.
Mr Sheikh questioned whether journalists would be able to trust anything Mr Palmer said again.
http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/activist-to-sue-palmer-over-cia-claims-20120326-1vusg.html
“whether journalists would be able to trust”??????? that’s the funniest thing i’ve read in ages. who the hell is GetUp? the same megalomania that Bob Brown displayed in his lunatic 3rd annual Green Oration.
remember this one, which the MSM lapped up?
6 March: SMH: Bridie Jabour & AAP: Support crumbles for Newman in Ashgrove
The ReachTEL automated poll of 742 voters has Ms Jones ahead of the Liberal National Party leader on a two-party preferred basis, 50.7 to 49.3 per cent…
http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/state-election-2012/support-crumbles-for-newman-in-ashgrove-20120306-1ufu0.html
the reality: Newman 51.90% Jones 37.14% with 81% counted
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/election2012/qld-election-results
GetUp, please GetOut. the MSM may love u, the CFMEU may have helped to fund u, even tho it meant alienating many of its members, but give thanx u don’t represent Australians in any way, shape or form.
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Drew Hutton’s brother was a driller during the 1980s working for a contractor to the resource sector.
00
27 March: Australian: Matthew Franklin: Federal Labor vote near Queensland lows: Newspoll
The latest Newspoll survey reveals that federal Labor’s primary support has dropped three percentage points to 28 per cent in the past fortnight just one point above the 26.9 per cent figure achieved in its devastating loss in Queensland…
However, it also found the Coalition extended its commanding two-party-preferred lead over Labor to 57 per cent against 43 per cent in the fortnight when the Prime Minister successfully pushed the mining tax through the Senate. Two weeks earlier, the Coalition led Labor by 53 per cent to 47 per cent…
If the latest Newspoll results were reflected on election day, Labor would be trounced, with its primary vote now 10 percentage points below the support it attracted in the 2010 election, in which it failed to secure a majority of seats in the House of Representatives…
The latest Newspoll found the Greens primary vote stood at 11 per cent down one point from the March 9-11 survey.
Despite Labor’s losses, Ms Gillard’s personal popularity increased, with voter satisfaction with her performance up three percentage points to 31 per cent as her dissatisfaction rating fell four points to 58 per cent.
Thirty-two per cent of voters were satisfied with Tony Abbott’s performance, unchanged from a fortnight earlier, and 58 per cent were dissatisfied.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/federal-labor-vote-near-queensland-lows-newspoll/story-fn59niix-1226310792897
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But, but, but… the Labor issues in Queensland were a state issue…
Kristina Keneally looked awful on Bolt last Sunday, trying to defend the rout as simply being a QLD problem. The parallels pointed out by Bolt and others, i.e. that the electorate does not like politicians that habitually lie, WILL come home to roost in the next Fed election.
The real danger is that a desperate Dullard pushes through as much policy as she can in the interim causing untold damage to the economy. This is partly why I didn’t mind Rudd as much … at least he didn’t manage to get anything of significance through Parliament.
On a side note I see Assange is talking about running for the Senate.
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Not quite related, but here is great news:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/baillieu-to-dump-carbon-target/story-e6frg6xf-1226310726110
Victoria is going to dump it’s 20% renewable by 2020 target legislation.
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Check out poor Graham Richardson in The Oz:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/federal-labor-must-heed-alarm-bells/story-e6frgd0x-1226310693114
(Google the title if behind paywall).
He is really, really miffed with the Labor Party:
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It’s obvious that Graham Richardson, free of the need to toe the party line, can write what is really true.
But he fails to make the further step and realise that he, more than anyone else, is responsible for the rot that has set it.
The minute he bowed to the Greens demands for preference deals, he started the inexorable process of a minor party eating a major party from within. Now the Labor party jumps to the Greens tune, and wonder why they lose millions of voters in the process.
I sincerely hope that Julia Gillard and the Labor party stay the course. I hope they take their stupid carbon tax, in all it’s meaningless complexity, to the next election and have them try and argue it’s a good policy.
For 18 months now we’ve been hearing how that, as soon as people get a bit of that welfare and largesse, they’ll change their mind about the magic pudding tax. Maybe some will. Most will just use the money to plug the holes in their budget which have already been caused by green madness like solar and wind. When electricity seriously jumps in price, a generator closes down, rolling blackouts occur, then people will realise what madness lies at the end of the Green road.
Richardson nails it when he says that – stuff global warming – the electorate wants the heater on. The greens and their hangers-on go apoplectic when they hear this attitude, but with a billion chinese and a billion indians with the same attitude – it’s hard to argue that an Australian family in the suburbs struggling under the cost of living increases of the last 5 years should be the ones to bear the brunt of the ill-fated movement to ‘save the planet’. The longer the idiots persist with this, the worse the outcome will be for them when the backlash comes home to strike.
The QLD polls were miles off the mark – the swing was much bigger than expected. The ABC election computer, normally spot on, kept coming up with odd results, as though it couldn’t compute the extreme numbers being given to it. What was seen on the weekend was something outside of normal electoral behaviour. The Federal polls are within a couple of percentage points of the QLD polls.
Add in a nasty attack on Tony Abbott and his family, and if Tony keeps it above board like Campbell did, it’s not outside the possibility to return a Federal swing of +10% or more. When they hold the parliament on a 0.2% margin, it really is a possibility to end up with a QLD/NSW result Federally.
People are angry out there, and the piddling carbon tax welfare payments will just make them more so, not less so. This ‘things will be better when we get in the Carbon Tax and Mining Tax’ line they’re all running is so naive, so stupid, so bizarre I can’t actually believe they really think it’s going to work. Yet, week after week after week, they’re following the strategy of 1) attack Tony Abbot and 2) pretend things will be better when people start paying some more taxes.
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http://www.goldmoney.com/video/gold-testing-short-video.html
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/tungsten-filled-1-kilo-gold-bar-found-uk
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China has now decided to limit the Tungsten supply. Maybe they’ve been using too much in these fake gold bars!
http://www.chron.com/business/press-releases/article/Scarcity-Makes-Tungsten-Stocks-Winners-According-3423205.php
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The oldest con in the world. It’s where the expression “goldbricking” (which means something different nowadays) originally came from.
Pointman
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I seem to recollect a story about a Greek king, who was given what was supposed to be a solid gold object but he was suspicious. He gave it to his wise man at court to test (without destroying it) if it was pure gold or not. Anyway, the wise man came up with the concept of each element having a specific density. Can’t remember any of the names involved or whether it was solid gold or not. Anyone?
Pointman
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Archimedes figured this out.
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[…] cored with five tungsten rods, including Zero Hedge, Reuters, Screwtape Files, Bullion Baron, and Jo Nova.The ABC Bullion blog was based on an email from MKS/PAMP sent to their distributors about a fake […]
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It seems the Romans reduced the gold content of coins right down to nearly brass over the centuries. It’s no sign of social progress that gold has increasing value even if there was no fiat standard being one lesson. Any monetary standard can be abused and devalued.
I have to think of the production efforts involved with this single bar there are certainly plenty of fake bars out there. Who would just make one fake bar? Plenty of owners will make little effort to research it as well.
Stories like this could dampen the retail gold market in particular, I’m not sure how big the impact would be on general prices.
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Great article.
I think we will see more and more of this type of fraud.
By from dealers, and only dealers, that has to be the rule:-)
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Archimedes figured out this scam thousands of years ago!
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C’mon! you all have to know this is just another effect of global Greenness! All those damn curly light bulbs don’t have tungsten filaments. The Tungsten Cartel HAD to create a market for all that unused tungsten.
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All done with tungsten drill bits too! Do they make tungsten sarc buttons?
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🙂 Siliggy, I think sarc buttons made out of Wolfram would probably be less prone to sticking.
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You had me Mark i did not know what wolfram was. So i searched it and found this semi paywalled info search thingy. With charts to help you figure out when a word was popular.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=diamagnetism
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OT.
Drew Hutton this morning says that Clive Palmer has defamed him by accusing him of being an agent of a foreign power and of treason.
The UN is a foreign power and Australia by treaty is subject to it. Section 44 of the Constitution renders all those subject to a foreign power as being incapable of sitting in Parliament.
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Typo alert! Tungsten has an SG of 19.25 g/cm3, not 19.35. And gold is 19.30.
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I spend about 20 years in the jewelry industry and used to purchase raw gold and sell back scrap to a local refiner on a regular basis.
I am have no personal knowledge of something like this happening, but I do know that my local refiner had concerns of this type of situation.
If someone brought my local refiner a bar from a source the refiner was unfamiliar with or had other than a spotless reputation, that bar got drilled before purchase.
The people recommending only purchasing bars by a known maker are spot on. Yeah, you can save a couple of buck buying an off brand, but there is also increased risk.
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Lots of interesting and a few funny comments about Wungsten which was known as Wolfram.
Tend to think that those dealing with gold on a daily basis would have their ways of dealing with conterfeit material.
The main “cheating” method was to plate lead but Archimedes found a fix because of the density issue. Apart from colour, Lead in other respects is very similar to gold to touch, bend, tap and score (hardness).
Tungsten is going to be very rigid and unlike the plastic nature of pure gold so it will give a different “ring” when tapped.
I wish I had a bar or two to run some tests on.
🙂
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Completely off topic but Tony i got a live one here
How do you think i should proceed?
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.
Crakar
Just ask them who’s gonna clean the mirrors?
http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/brightsource-to-build-500-megawatts-of-solar-thermal-power-in-mojave-desert.html
It gets pretty dusty at both Port Augusta and Broken Hill, so to maintain any kind of efficiency they will probably need doing at least once a week.
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memoryvault,
you raise a pertinent thing here.
It’s not a case of cleaning the mirrors. It’s a case of keeping them perfectly pristine all the time, and it’s a case similar in nature to painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge, continuous, and never ending.
The same applies for Solar PV as well, as those panels also must be kept pristine. The slightest film of dust and it’s similar to a cloud flitting across the face of the Sun. They lose up to one third of their generating capacity immediately, and it takes a while to build back up to maximum after the cloud passes.
Any film of dust degrades the capacity, and does so considerably.
I note that the Moree Solar PV plant based one of its concerns on water consumption, and as part of the Impact statement, they say that they will only be washing these panels TWICE A YEAR.
That’s an easy thing for me to say, as it could be perceived as my making it up to support my own viewpoint, but this is actually written down at their site at the following link.
MOREE SOLAR FARM
Be careful, as it’s a 120 or so page pdf document, so when you arrive at the site, this information is written relatively close to the top of the document on page xii under the heading Water.
See how information is disseminated so it looks so good, and when it’s actually explained, something entirely different is the fact of the matter.
Also, perish the thought of just one violent hail storm, now we know that we are in for more extreme weather conditions, especially for those fragile mirrors they use for CS.
Tony.
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crakar24,
if it’s BZE, as I can see from the ‘footer’ my advice would be to keep away from commenting.
They are relentless in pursuing THEIR view only, will ignore any of the relevant questions you ask, deflect away from any points that you make, attack you personally, and just love using the term ‘peer reviewed’.
What I would note here is that they speak of replacing Playford B (240MW) with 2 Plants. Each Concentrating Solar (CS) plant will be 250MW, but if it has Molten Salt Diversion will only generate 50MW and will only do this (on a year round average) at a CF of 60 to 65% (theoretical) hence for less than 16 hours a day.
There will be days it can generate the full 50MW for the full 24 hours, but they will be few.
The time taken to construct these 2 plants would be ten years from the thought bubble, and current cost would be around $1.4 Billion per Plant.There will be Federal and State subsidies, both at the construction phase, and then for the cost of the electricity being sold to the grid providers.
However, mention any of that and BZE will not address it, will ignore any questions, and ask you for (peer reviewed) references, and note the plural references.
Close down Playford B???
That will not be happening any time in the near future.
Short response. Do not engage.
Tony.
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crakar24,
further to this, don’t bother linking to actual sites for any of the Plants themselves.
The reply you will get is that any non renewable site is a pack of lies, while the renewable sites they link to are as pure as the driven snow.
Tony.
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Tony,
Thank you for your quick response and valuable information, i read all the info you post about power generation but i just wanted to get a refresher before i went in swinging so thanks again for the info mate.
By the way it was not from the BZE site but the author had garnered all his info from there, i am sure it would suprise……..no sadden you if i told you where this person works. Let me put it this way the recruitment standards have fallen a long way since you were in the RAAF.
Thanks again Tony.
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crakar24,
I know that this is not specifically about the main topic at hand here, but this is of interest.
If you are tempted to add a comment, go about in a different manner.
I’ve actually done this myself.
Twice now, I have used my normal screen name and supplied relevant information, and in fact one of the ‘chiefs’ at BZE came in and flamed me, never answered the pertinent questions, eg, actual power supplied, is it the full Nameplate Power all the time, the cost (especially the cost) and how soon it will actually be operational. This guy changed the subject and went off at a tangent on matters not specifically related to the original comment, and then attempted to bury it by directly ‘having a go’ at me, and swamping the Post with comments of his own.
On a more recent occasion, I used my christian name only, so that could not be traced back to my screen name. Then, instead of offering information, I just politely asked questions, expressing some interest.
In that manner, they then have to specifically go and find the information themselves.
Typical questions might be:
Could this new plant completely replace the existing supplier of the power.
Does this plant supply all its power all the time.
What is the cost.
How long would it be before it was up and running.
If they get back with a further comment, don’t reply. Just leave it with the questions asked.
I’ve found that (twice now) the ‘big guns’ have not come in to add anything, because it is more innocuous inquiry than direct information.
If the original commenter does get back, you will be positively amazed at what they have to say.
You see, they have no idea about it at all other than the ‘blurb’ at the site proposal, nearly all of which is clever spin, carefully disguising the truth in plain sight, because the average reader has no idea what is actually being said.
In reality, it’s frightening what people do actually get suckered into believing.
If Concentrating Solar was so good, it would be in the process of being ramped up, like Wind is ramping up in the U.S.
In the last 4 years, the amount of CS power plants constructed in the U.S. has not even delivered enough power in total to equal the output of a plant equivalent in power delivery for consumption equal to 15% of the output from ONE large scale coal fired plant.
Tony.
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THE MSM CONTINUING TO IGNORE ALL THE FACTS ABOUT THE QLD ELECTION, EVEN THO THE LATEST NEWSPOLL SHOWS FEDERAL LABOR HEADING FOR A DEFEAT AS COMPREHENSIVE AS QUEENSLANDS:
26 March: ABC: ALP lost Qld on the carbon tax: (Barnaby) Joyce
BARNABY JOYCE: Well, you know, put your best foot forward in whichever forum that you’ve been given, Emma. And I’ve tried to do that over the last six or so years in federal politics. I think I’ve moved the agenda on a number of issues such as the ETS and people have seen that.
We continue to move it on the carbon tax and the people of Queensland have endorsed the position merely a day or so ago that whoopy policies will get you cast into political on oblivion. And …
EMMA ALBERICI: Hold on a minute, the carbon tax isn’t a policy of state Queensland.
BARNABY JOYCE: Ah, hang on a minute, Emma Alberici, we’ve already seen that even the premier’s – the former premier’s husband was crucial in the administration of that and we saw that that …
EMMA ALBERICI: But this wasn’t a policy of state Labor in Queensland. That’s a federal policy. You’re muddying the waters a little, aren’t you?
BARNABY JOYCE: No, I’m not, Emma, because every one of those Labor candidates who lost their seat at the election had underneath their name the word – the acronym ALP – Australian Labor Party. Not the Queensland Labor Party; Australian Labor Party. And the premiere policy of the Australian Labor Party …
EMMA ALBERICI: Well the guys who won had – on the flip side of that, the guys who won had LNP under their names. It’s got nothing to do with you then.
BARNABY JOYCE: Well, and – well I’m in the LNP, Emma, so of course it’s got something to do with me.
But if they believe in it – and if you look at the exit polls, Emma, we had them going out saying they were worried about the cost of living. What’s going to drive up the cost of living? The carbon tax. And then it was about trust. What’s the biggest issue about trust? Well, Julia Gillard saying there wasn’t going to be a carbon tax. What was issue number three? Well, it was the carbon tax.
So it was the carbon tax, the carbon tax and the carbon tax. And so these are the issues – because the ladies like yourself in the western suburbs of Brisbane who want the right to have that $20 left in their wallet and not stolen off them because of some insane idea that somebody can change the temperature of the globe voiced that opinion…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-26/barnaby-joyce-dissects-queensland-election/3914060?section=qld
24 February: Joint Doorstop Interview with Mr Campbell Newman, Brisbane
CAMPBELL NEWMAN: Today though, we’re here to once again comment, both of us here, about the pervasive and negative impacts of a carbon tax on Queensland. It’s twelve months today that Julia Gillard and her colleagues, with the Greens, went out into the courtyard at Parliament House and showed that they had misled, in fact lied to the people of Australia. The carbon tax is bad for Queensland. It’s bad for jobs. Frankly, if the carbon tax is introduced it will make it even harder for us to achieve our four per cent target. But that’s why I’m here today, to say that we will fight every single day, if we’re elected, as the Government of Queensland, to fight against this tax; that even if the tax is introduced, we will work with Tony Abbott and state premiers to fight the tax still.
We hope that Queenslanders will see the opportunity in this election campaign, but particularly on the 24th of March, to send a signal to Labor – who are so caught up in their own activities and their battles at the moment – send a signal to Canberra, to Labor that you don’t want the carbon tax and that’s why people have on the 24th of March an opportunity to actually send that signal to vote against a carbon tax.
I’m also making a very important announcement today. Should we become the Government of Queensland, we’re making a commitment for openness and transparency about the impact of this pervasive and inappropriate tax by requiring the electricity retailers to publish the cost of the carbon tax on the family’s electricity bill. It’s very important that people should see what the cost is because that’s the way that Queensland families will be able to know whether or not they are actually being properly compensated by federal Labor. We believe that the costs are around $300 per annum extra on the family bill and we know in Queensland, thanks to Anna Bligh and Labor, that electricity bills have gone up a huge amount in recent years along with rego, along with the new lot of tax on the family home and also, of course, water bills. So today, a very important announcement about transparency and openness; today, a very important recommitment to fight against the carbon tax and again, I am urging Queenslanders on the 24th of March, say no to the carbon tax. Vote this tired, 20 year Labor government who support a carbon tax out of office and send a message to federal Labor.
TONY ABBOTT: Now, as Campbell has said, this is the first anniversary of the great carbon tax betrayal.It’sthe first anniversary of the day when Bob Brown took over the Prime Ministerial courtyard in Canberra with Julia Gillard and said look, there would be a carbon tax under the government that he and Julia Gillard lead. Now, Julia Gillard’s pre-election commitment, “no carbon tax under the government I lead” will haunt her to her political grave. Not only did she betray Kevin Rudd over the Prime Ministership, not only did she betray Andrew Wilkie over poker machines but, very importantly, she has betrayed the Australian people over the carbon tax. It’s a bad tax based on a lie and every day it stays in place it will hurt jobs and it will hurt families.
So, I’m delighted that Campbell has made the announcement that he has today…
http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/InterviewTranscripts/tabid/85/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8603/Joint-Doorstop-Interview-with-Mr-Campbell-Newman-Brisbane.aspx
4.30PM: Sky News exit polls show voters were most concerned about the Cost of Living (69 per cent), followed by Delivery of State Services (63 per cent), Carbon Tax (44 per cent) Mining Tax (35 per cent), and Campbell Newman’s business dealings (17 per cent).
http://m.news.com.au/VIC/fi989622.htm
the MSM and Fed Labor pretend the CAGW scam hasn’t yet affected the COST OF LIVING or DELIVERY OF SERVICES. shows what a dreamland they live in.
the renewable energy targets on power companies, the subsidies and extravagant feed-in tariffs on solar, the cost of the pink batts fiasco, the mothballed desal plant on the Gold Coast, the severity of the Brisbane flood due to the CAGW policies on water, the possibility of a class action lawsuit due to the flooding, the rise in the bulk water price – ALL OF THESE ARE A RESULT OF THE CAGW SCAM.
16 March: EMMA’s HILARIOUS INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL MANN
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-15/climate-scientist-slams-orchestrated-assault-on/3892958
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27 March: Daily Telegraph: Phil Jacob: Westpac bank passes the carbon buck
With less than 100 days until the introduction of the controversial tax, Westpac yesterday released a report it hopes will place the emphasis on reducing carbon emissions on the suppliers it deals with.
Westpac emissions and environment executive director Emma Herd said the bank had been building a response to carbon pricing in Australia for years. “When we meet with suppliers or potential suppliers, it’s standard to ask about the product, the price, the quality. But we also look at sustainability,” she said.
“We’re reducing our carbon emissions. With our suppliers we’re asking what they can do for us to help us reduce our own.”…
Treasurer Wayne Swan’s office declined to comment, instead referring to the Clean Energy Future factsheet.
“There may be some indirect cost impacts on small businesses, such as higher electricity bills, as a result of bigger companies passing on the costs of the carbon price. But these costs are projected to be modest,” it states.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/westpac-bank-passes-the-carbon-buck/story-e6freuy9-1226310648288
THE NOTORIOUSLY DECEPTIVE EMMA HERD:
Nov 2011: SMH: Elizabeth Knight: It’s time to make best of a carbon tax
Westpac’s director of emissions and environment, Emma Herd, describes carbon as a bit like a currency. Each country has a different carbon currency and Australia will soon join the ranks. Most can also trade in the international carbon currency, the CER…
http://www.smh.com.au/business/its-time-to-make-best-of-a-carbon-tax-20111108-1n5he.html?skin=text-only
no way Emma. it’s not “a bit like a currency”, it’s “a lot like a scam”.
00
O/T:
MWP shown to have not been localised just to the Northern hemisphere
Who Wulda thunkit? Really? Shicking
Not
This week Rocks!
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the definitive AP spin, already in newspapers right across the US, and soon to be in a newspaper near u, on what is the biggest scam in the financial world – derivatives:
27 March: Washington Post: AP: A bipartisan House agrees to relax rules on complex financial instruments called derivatives
To the chagrin of consumer groups, the House gave overwhelming bipartisan approval Monday to two bills easing requirements that President Barack Obama’s overhaul of financial regulations impose on some exotic financial instruments blamed for helping trigger the 2008 financial crisis.
Lawmakers of both parties said they were relaxing rules that would otherwise inhibit the ability of companies to manage the risks of prices and investments, ultimately reducing their profitability and job creation. Consumer groups said legislators were bowing to the interests of their corporate and finance-world contributors and taking steps that might prove harmful to the public.
The instruments are called derivatives, assets tied to the value of commodities like petroleum or fluctuating economic variables like interest rates.
One measure, approved 357-36, would exempt some derivative trades between related companies from rules including requirements that they set aside money to cover possible losses…
The other bill passed 370-24 and would provide similar exemptions to companies called end-users that directly use the commodity tied to the derivative. For example, airlines sometimes purchase derivatives tied to the cost of jet fuel as a hedge against price increases…
Consumer advocates said the two bills could lead to abuses. For example, the bill addressing transactions between related companies refers to swaps between “affiliates.” Marcus Stanley, policy director for Americans for Financial Reform, said he worried that corporate lawyers would try broadening the use of that term to include more and more companies.
“It’s ridiculous to put this broad exemption into statute,” Stanley said…
By voice vote, the House also approved a third bill that would give financial institutions regulated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau the same privacy protections they get from other regulators. The bill would require that sensitive legal information firms provided to the bureau be kept secret.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/bipartisan-house-moves-toward-easing-rules-on-complex-financial-instruments-called-derivatives/2012/03/26/gIQAz7gZcS_story.html
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Caroline manages to write the entire article without using the word “derivatives”:
22 March: Marketwatch: Caroline Henshaw: Australia’s NAB de-risks toxic mortgage assets
SYDNEY -(MarketWatch)- National Australia Bank has moved to de-risk its toxic mortgage assets the day after a court ordered shareholders to front 6.2 million Australian dollars ($6.5 million) as security against the lender’s legal costs in a class action over those financial instruments.
NAB has “taken action to remove the economic risk” of its remaining two synthetic collateralized debt obligations, or SCDOs, which the bank said in a stock-exchange filing have a combined face value of A$600 million. The step has led to a A$1.5 billion reduction in its risk-weighted assets, NAB said…
The Victorian Supreme Court Wednesday ordered shareholders suing NAB for A$450 million to put up the security as a guarantee that they would be able to pay the bank’s legal costs were the ruling to go against them.
NAB had asked shareholders, who are being represented by law-firm Maurice Blackburn, to pay a higher A$11 million, saying the lender expected to spend more than A$20 million on legal costs before the case goes to trial.
The plaintiffs, however, challenged that figure as “extraordinary in size and unprecedented in Australian legal history,” according to the text of the ruling by Justice Jennifer Davies.
Principal for the plaintiffs from Maurice Blackburn, Jacob Varghese, said the award had still set a “dangerous precedent” for other cases against large corporations where shareholders may lack the funds to pursue their case…
Around 250 shareholders, including several institutional investors, lodged the class action against NAB in 2010 over losses they claim were incurred as a result of the bank’s failure to disclose its exposure to risky U.S. subprime mortgages…
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/australias-nab-de-risks-toxic-mortgage-assets-2012-03-22
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[Hmmm.. Dark side of the force I sense hmmm…Off topic and very weird.] YODA
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[Hmmm.. Dark side of the force I sense hmmm…Off topic and very weird.] YODA
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[Hmmm.. Dark side of the force I sense hmmm…Off topic and very weird.] YODA
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Spambot much?
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Nah – far too intelligent.
My first guess would be a recently unemployed QLD Labor backbencher looking for a new life.
They tend to be like that for a few weeks until they re-acclimatise to the real world.
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Intelligent former ALP backbencher
Wow, now that would be an interesting combination! I might even pay attention to such a thing!
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Don’t be ridiculous.
I meant a spambot was far too intelligent to have made the comments.
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I wonder about people who use this screen name with something added to it, in this case the Q.
Have they actually read the book, and if so do they ‘get it’, and then why would they even consider using the name, because those who have read it and ‘got it’ just laugh at them for using the name, and they can’t see why.
Probably say that there was too many pages, or the text was too small, or there were too many big words.
Probably thinks Poor Fellow My Country was a song by Bing Crosby.
Tony.
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John Galt (2 May 1779 – 11 April 1839) was a Scottish novelist, entrepreneur, and political and social commenter. Because he was the first novelist to deal with issues of the industrial revolution, he has been called the first political novelist in the English language.
The city of Galt, Ontario was named after John Galt, but was absorbed into Cambridge, Ontario in 1973.
His works are available on Project Gutenburg.
Source: Wikipedia, but it has a sufficient bibliography for me to trust the entry.
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What about….
…aint galt no sunshine when it rains…
🙂
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27 March: Brisbane Times: AAP: Paul Osborne: Newman urges PM to ditch carbon tax
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been told to “think again” about Labor’s incoming carbon tax after the Queensland ALP was demolished by voters at the state election.
New Queensland Premier and Liberal National Party (LNP) leader Campbell Newman issued the warning on Tuesday after a new opinion poll showed federal Labor had fallen further into the electoral doldrums.
The man who led the LNP to a stunning majority at Saturday’s election said the carbon tax was extremely unpopular with Queenslanders and implied that the antipathy was reflected across the country…
“They proceed with this at their peril,” he told Fairfax radio.
“They really do need to look at what has happened up here.
“On the carbon tax, I strongly recommend that they think again.”
The $23 per tonne tax on the carbon emissions of the nation’s big polluters comes into force on July 1 and consumers and business are worried about the flow-on impacts, especially for electricity prices, as those emitters feed the cost through…
Mr Newman again raised concerns about whether the federal tax was constitutional.
“You cannot place a tax on the states – there is an argument that putting a tax on the electricity generators in Queensland is a tax on the Queensland state government,” he said…
http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-national/newman-urges-pm-to-ditch-carbon-tax-20120327-1vvki.html
apart from the fact any compensation being offered won’t even cover costs already incurred due to CAGW policies already implemented, there is danger looming. this kind of analysis should have been done by the MSM, but here it is at an Online Uni, for what it is worth, with references:
SMC University: Luke Kirke: Carbon Derivatives and their Application within an Australian Context
(Pages 13 to 17)The Australian Context
http://www.smcuniversity.com/item/carbon-derivatives-and-their-application-within-an-australian-context.html
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Princeton physicist, Will Happer, at Wall St Journal:
26 March: Global Warming Models Are Wrong Again
The observed response of the climate to more CO2 is not in good agreement with predictions.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304636404577291352882984274.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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Ouch!
I see Campbell Newman has asked Anna Bligh’s husband Greg Withers to stay on.
However, he has asked Withers to completely dismantle the Queensland Office Of Climate Change he has headed up since being appointed by his wife four years back.
Once the whole Department, and everything associated with it has been dismantled, Newman says Withers still has a job, if he wishes.
Withers recently renewed his contract in December, and if he goes, he will be eligible for a payout of $600,000.
Huh! Nice work if you can get it.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/campbell-newman-assures-job-for-anna-blighs-husband-greg-withers-asking-him-to-undo-work-of-past-four-years/story-fnbt5t29-1226311500919
Tony.
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Thinking a little further on this, one side of the political fence would see this as vindictive, and the other as magnanimous, but it actually seems pretty clever really.
This Department of Climate Change is costing the
Governmentpeople of Queensland around $280 Million, so dismantling it in toto will result in the Departmental savings the Premier promised.Also it keeps a Labor apparatchik in work while he, as head of Department dismantles it, and then when finished he still has a job in place if he so wishes, and I can’t really see him wanting to stay on.
If he’s sacked, then the Government has gone back on its contract and Withers is eligible for the 600 large payout.
If he stays, it could be seen as betraying the ’cause’.
If he resigns, then he probably would not be eligible for the payout.
If nothing, the new Premier puts careful thought into his actions.
Tony.
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Tony,
This is a Masterstroke!
I cant wait to see what the ALP/Green Spindoctors say about this!
Perhaps the best news since sat. election is this;
`he has asked Withers to completely dismantle the Queensland Office Of Climate Change he has headed up since being appointed by his wife four years back.`
Talking about getting on with the job!
Well it`s been 48 hours and by jingo`s he`s getting on with the job alright!!
Glad I voted for the right person!
Watch the ABC go off about this….
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Who is this Withers bloke? Lets see…
If he took the job of Head of Climate Change Department and he believes in AGW, then the bloke is a MORON.
If he took the job but does NOT believe in AGW, then he is a crony for accepting the job from the Mrs.
Either way, this bloke relied on his Mrs for a job, so he is a skirt.
Come to think of it, he’d get along well with the Prime Ministers girlfriend Tim the hairdresser.
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Anyone know of a lab where I can get a mix of about 25 grams of gold (12 carat approx) with synthetic tooth enamel, separated into gold alloy, e.g. getting rid of the enamel? The first stages of a fire assay ought to do it. I’m out of touch with who does fire assays these days. It would have to be a freebie or low cost because I can’t eat solid food too well any more. No teeth.
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I would imagine you could achieve the required temperatures in a decent pottery kiln (one capable of glazing).
You would just need a suitable crucible.
See if you have a local pottery club, or even some high schools have them in the Art Department.
The only actual assay labs I know of are attached to working refineries, and they’re not too open to doing “freebies”.
Or even to having visitors.
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This is GOLD when Juliar is in KOREA!
QUESTION: Ms Yoon asked her an on-topic question about racial discrimination faced by her relatives and friends in Australia?
ANSWER: Ms Gillard “we do stand resolutely with you on security challenges“, leaving the student bewildered, and a little upset.
QUESTION: Mr Yun had asked Ms Gillard what she thought about the matter closest to his heart: the plight of 100,000 North Korean refugees who have crossed the border into China, many of whom are repatriated and shot.
ANSWER: Ms Gillard told him that Australia shares South Korea’s concerns about security. Then she gave a long answer to another question that was not asked to explain that she had entered politics because of her values and beliefs.
Does the PM listen to voters, Koreans, advisors, the public, anyone????? NO, NO, NO!
Why is this person even in Korea???
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No Dave,
The question is why should she bother coming back?
If she just travelled a couple of hundred kilometres north she would find the politics much more to her liking.
I’m sure she would be welcomed with open arms.
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Dave
Question:
Answer:
So she can take notes on what a low carbon emissions economy looks like (North Korea).
Apparently Bob Brown has really been spruiking the benefits, so she thought she’d better take a look
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What a waste of time and money.
She could have just gone to Yuendumu.
I understand they trashed the electricity diesel generator about a year ago.
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…oh dear!
I am so embarassed, it hurts being an Australian!
God, does Windsor or Oakeshott have a soul?
And what about the G/G?
We need help, someone put up the Batlight!
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I see President Obama is continuing the ‘apology’ campaign.
Whilst in South Korea, he has apologised to them for CBS stopping production of MASH in 1983.
Nyuk nyuk nyuk!
Tony.
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Oh noes, the Batlight is powered by a bat-munching windmill!!!
Watch out Batman – it’s a trap !!!
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SPLOOOOOSH
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Too late.
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Actually the real reason why she is in Korea is to explain to the other 51 delegates how we are going on stopping the spread of nuclear materials into the hands of terrorists.
She kicked off her speech by explaining why we sell uranium to a nuclear armed country that refuses to sign the NNPT as a way of stopping the spraed of nuclear materials, her speech continued with a detailed explanation that our actions have caused an inflaming of the already tension filled relations with their neighbour who just happens to also be a nuclear armed country that refuses to sign the NNPT. She then concluded her speech by explaining that our actions will most likely force Pakistan to source un tracked sources of uranium so that they can enrich it (just like India could with our uranium) in an effort to keep up with their enemies and therefore our actions will reduce the amount of nuclear material spreading around the world and into the hands of terrorists.
Good God she will need a front loading Ariston just to get the high spin rates required to bullshit her way out of this one.
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Thanks for a great article.
I guess dealers have to melt gold-bars they have purchased before they make payment to be absolute sure the bars are really gold all the way through.
Or they have to buy some rather expensive gear to test it out.
Thanks.
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A bit of a search finds Chinese companies willing to make fake gold plated tungsten coins and bars, e.g.
http://www.tungsten-alloy.com/en/alloy11.htm
This site used to have pages dedicated to fake coins and bars, but the links are now broken…
I suspect that there are more fakes out there than the dealers are willing to admit. There is too much money to be made by selling to people on ebay etc. for there not to be.
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Even Wiki has a reference to the Chinese made gold plated tungsten:
Convenient for China since they also produce 83% of world tungsten.
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And here is an article from the FT reporting on more sophisticated fakes turning up in Hong Kong, including some that involved a sophisticated alloy.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/67dc062c-fe45-11df-abac-00144feab49a.html#axzz1qJjPoI50
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Only fools buy gold now.
It stands to reason that you, for most people, buy gold when the big players buy gold in a frenzy. Then, as the poor sod you are, you sit on it. You don’t go buying gold when it’s obvious it’ll cost you your whole family if your investment fail, like at the end of a recession.
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Jo,
Unless the image of the cutr bar is a lousy photograph, the very colour of the bar (greenish) is a giveaway.
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any gross contaminant displayed visually on the outside would be easily detected by standard methods. If the outer layer is gold then the hue is an effect of the image capture.
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