A fog lifted from the silver market last week and we could see things clearly that we had only guessed at. A former commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Bart Chilton, sat for an interview with blogger Chris Marcus to discuss silver market shenanigans. Mr. Chilton was a commissioner from 2007 to 2014. The interview got interesting when he began to discuss the failure of Bear Stearns in 2008. They held a large short position in silver along with JPMorgan who took over Bear Stearns’ short position at the time.
Years ago, silver analyst Theodore Butler claimed that Bear Stearns’ failure in 2008 could have been caused by their huge short position in silver. He suggested that JPMorgan had taken over their short position and had continued to suppress the price of silver. Mr. Butler’s claim that JPMorgan was the big silver villain was widely ridiculed. Now we know he was right.
Bart Chilton goes on to say that JPM’s short position was then so large the CFTC granted them a special waiver with a requirement that they reduce their big short position. However, they never did comply with that request. Subsequently, the CFTC and the Justice Department began an investigation of the large short positions held by JPM and others. Mr. Chilton talks about the big shorts violating position limits. He also credits Ted Butler. Bart Chilton talks about violating important financial laws, manipulation and concentration. He claims that hundreds of meetings and briefings took place with many between the CFTC and the Justice Department to prepare legal action against the manipulators. However, after calling in forensic economists for advice they backed off. Mr. Chilton calls the evidence pretty damning and uses the term “horrid debacle.”
All this verifies that Ted Butler was responsible for uncovering a massive ongoing manipulation of the gold and silver market by JPMorgan. It means that his claims are true. It wasn’t China manipulating the market or the U.S. government. Nor was it discovered by any of the so-called whistleblowers who got their information from Mr. Butler’s articles. If you would like to read how Ted Butler interacted with Bart Chilton, go to the Investment Rarities website and find the Ted Butler archives. Go to the November 13, 2007 and November 20, 2007 articles. It makes you wonder if the government will ever move to rectify the silver scandal.
James Cook is the President of Investment Rarities
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