Campaign: “Kill - and/or dramatically reverse - PM sentiment”
Target Audience: Anyone who has ever invested in precious metals or might consider investing in precious metals in the future.
Message: If you invest in precious metals you are dumb as a goat (and will lose large amounts of whatever wealth you might have possessed before making this stupid investment).
Goal/technique to achieve goal: Reinforce this message to target audience through consistent actions in paper market exchanges with support from frequent anti-precious metal stories produced and disseminated by mainsteam media.
***
In my media career, I’ve sold my share of newspaper ads. I once also spent two years selling radio commercials. In “ad rep training,” I was taught that the keys to effective advertising are consistency, frequency, reaching one’s target audience and having a compelling message.
It hit me recently that these same advertising fundamentals probably explain why precious metal prices are so low (and going lower), even when there are so many reasons that they should be much higher.
In a nutshell, those who want to suppress precious metal prices have achieved this goal by creating a “sentiment” that is so negative that gold and silver have effectively lost their “safe haven” reputations among would-be investors, especially those of us in Western countries.
One hell of a successful advertising campaign has created this intended result (atrocious sentiment).
Of course, “the powers that be” haven’t bought media time or media space to motivate consumers to take a desired action (or, in this case, to forego taking an undesired action - that action being buying gold or silver).
The people and organizations that have endeavored to suppress PM prices did it (largely) by executing trades on future exchanges.
Whenever prices threatened to get too high, TPTB took action to shoot these prices down.
High-frequency trading, “naked shorts,” achieving or exploiting a market “corner,” and possessing unlimited funds all helped achieve the goal of encouraging investors to sell not buy.
But, note, these actors have not just sporadically taken action. They have taken actions over and over again, repeatedly, through time - yesterday, today, tomorrow.
In other words, they consistently harpooned prices and they did/do this with recurring frequency.
Mother of All Branding Campaigns
This is Advertising 101. If you are a businessman who wants to increase market share, you don’t buy some commercials for only one week and then stop, you buy them for 12 months.
If you are an air conditioning and heating company, you never know when someone’s AC unit will break. Because of this, you buy an “ad schedule” that keeps you on the air (or in the paper) virtually non-stop.
By doing this, you create “top of mind awareness,” so when someone’s AC does break, this person will almost certainly think of your company when they pick up the phone. Or they will be more likely to have heard your commercial on the air at the moment a “triggering event” (AC breaks) occurs. This pleasant circumstance would be far less likely to exist if the company had taken an advertising hiatus.
If one has the budget, frequency and consistency work in advertising. Such high levels of advertising also allows a company to “brand” their product or message, which is really what TPTB are doing in their anti PM campaign. It’s the mother of all branding campaigns.
To break the spirit of precious metal investors, TPTB knows that they have to consistently smash prices. When prices go up a little, hit them. When everyone thinks they might go up or should go up, hit them.
The net result or consequence of such a consistent campaign is that virtually everyone in your “target audience” of potential PM investors becomes convinced that precious metals are the world’s worst investment. What this is, really, is a classic “fear” campaign.
Once thought of as a “safe haven” in times of inflation, unending money creation and ever-increasing national debt, precious metals are now thought of as an investment that will only go one direction in the future - down.
Due to the success of this campaign, “conventional wisdom” regarding precious metals has been turned on its head. Today, virtually nobody (in America at least) wants to acquire gold or silver even when practically every classic economic indicator says they should be doing just this.
Intuition and common economic sense has, amazingly, been trumped by “counter intuition.”
That is, when events continue to happen that should be positive for precious metals (perpetual money printing, rising consumer prices, ballooning debt and perpetual deficits), you can take this as a sure-fire sign that precious metal prices will .... go down.
Two-plus years of aggressive price raids have achieved this all-important psychological state. Why buy today, when the price is almost certainly going to be lower next week or next month?
People did buy - in record numbers in fact - in April after one of history’s most stunning (and still unexplained) price smash-downs. Surely, this is the bottom, investors thought.
Watch and see, said the manipulators. We’re just getting started and we can wait you out. More price raids were forthcoming even as tapering never occurred and the economy never “turned the corner.”
Sales of gold coins and silver coins, at least in America, have dropped dramatically. Premiums, once sky high, are back to normal.
Helping the Campaign ...
So far at least the manipulators are winning the all-important psychology battle. When precious metals sentiment should be at record levels, it is instead as poor as its ever been.
Those who have orchestrated this campaign have received a giant assist from a press corps which has shown no interest in exploring the possibility of manipulation. Indeed, the press consistently and frequently publishes stories that disparage gold and silver.
The press also has served as an accomplice by reporting as fact several dubious economic statistics issued by the government. For example, conventional wisdom, achieved through consistent and frequent stories trumpeted by the mainstream media, tells us that inflation is “low” and “contained” and not an issue in the economy.
Those who believe otherwise - like John Williams at www.shadowstats.com - are rarely if ever given equal space to present an alternative view.
The message that inflation is considered a non-event is certainly helpful to those intent on suppressing precious metals prices.
Some reading this column will no doubt point out that the campaign I’m describing is really nothing more than a massive propaganda campaign.
It was Goebbels who popularized the saying that if you tell a lie often enough to the masses, they’ll eventually think it’s the truth. Which, sadly, appears to be the truth.
But be it propaganda, advertising or a coordinated scheme to suppress the price of precious metals, the key to success is acting in a certain way consistently over time.
In recent years, TPTB must have decided that precious metal prices had to be smashed to achieve their goal of protecting the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. This decision probably took place about the time gold approached the key $2000 price level.
TPTB no doubt appreciated that massive amounts of money would have to be created out of thin air in the years to come, something which would be problematic if gold and silver kept rising and became even more attractive as an investment or “insurance” option.
By hitting the paper market exchanges time and time again, the campaign’s creators knew that over time they could destroy positive sentiment about precious metals.
If they stuck to their plan (which they’ve done), they could, in fact, reverse sentiment. Plus, with the press and regulators on their team, their raids could become ever more brazen.
Give them a Clio!
If the effort to change the perception of precious metals had been an advertising campaign for some service company or a breakfast cereal, it would win all of the advertising awards and be a case study in college advertising classes.
In the time span of a couple years, precious metals have gone from being a sound investment vehicle with a bright future to being the leper of the investment world.
Just this week, at least two raids have taken place that made precious metal prices plummet even more - in the face of a government shutdown, a possible default of the U.S. government and a temporary muzzling of the “taper” talk.
Yes, these people are good at what they do. Very good. They created a plan (campaign) and, most importantly, stuck to it, ensuring its success.
They also, one suspects, might be afraid. If TPTB want to drive precious metal prices even lower, they must have their reasons. They must know something we don’t.
One also suspects that they may have become too confident in their “masters of the universe” powers and in their invulnerability. Even more cocky and ever-more disdainful of their “gold bug” nemesis, they might be in the process of over-playing their hand.
Maybe they are not aware that central planning by those who appear to have absolute power almost always fails in the end.
Markets can be artificially manipulated for a period of time, but supply and demand eventually prevail.
Then again, these are smart people. They probably know this. Their goal has simply been to kick the can down the road longer than anyone thought was possible.
Their campaign to impugn precious metals sentiment has gone a long way toward accomplishing this goal. As such, it has been wildly successful.
Consistency of action has been the key to this success. It would be inconsistent with their previous actions to expect them to stop this campaign any time soon.
After all, their goal - kill precious metal sentiment and keep people from considering precious metals as an investment alternative to fiat dollars - has not changed; nor is this goal likely to change any time soon.
When it comes to the nature of money, a few of us still believe that gold and silver are “the real things.” However, the advertising campaign to get the masses to think differently will no doubt continue.
***
Bill Rice, Jr. is managing editor of The Montgomery (AL) Independent. He can be reached by e-mail at: bill@montgomeryindependent.com
About the author
