Some pretty big news broke last week that seems to have gone under the radar of mainstream media.
After a civil lawsuit was brought against Deutsche Bank with regard to them manipulating the price of silver, a ton of evidence to back that claim has built up over the years and the bank finally admitted, in a court of law, that it had indeed rigged the price of silver.
There’s huge significance in this silver fix as it suggests that the price of gold has been similarly manipulated, as many have suspected over the years.
What Is The London Silver Fix?
Every day, during a conference call (originally, all the participants gathered together in a room) at midday, London time, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Bank of Nova Scotia decided on the spot price of silver for that day. To decide on the price, they considered the bids and offer for silver being made by themselves – and their clients – and declared the price “fixed” when supply and demand were equal at a certain price.
Why Is The Silver Fix A Problem?
These banks essentially have and use insider information on the price of silver. If someone has a pretty good idea if the price of silver is going up or down that day, they can place a bet on the price movement and virtually guarantee profits as a result.
What Does Deutsche Bank’s Admission Mean?
This is only a civil case and Deutsche Bank have agreed to a settlement and to spill the beans on the other conspiratorial banks. Not until a criminal prosecution is brought against the bank will it actually be held accountable for its fraudulent deeds and for cheating customers. They’ll get away with a financial slap on the wrist and it’ll be back to business as usual.
Even when banks have been found guilty of criminal behavior, they get a small fine that’s pennies on the dollar of the profits they’ve made from their criminal acts. Iceland is still the only country in the world that has jailed bankers for fraud following the 2007/8 financial crash.
While fines are a fraction of profits and there’s no threat of jail time for criminal bankers, this will remain a profitable business model for banks and there will be no incentive for them to change their behavior.
The articles below also confirm the market manipulation that Deutche Bank and others were a party to:
Wow, I knew it was happening some how but seeing that they admit to manipulating the silver market is huge! Guess it’s time to buy more silver!
Yeah, I think it might be, Jaron. The price of silver and gold are both sharply up today. Silver’s now $16.90 per ounce (it was $16.70 when I wrote the post today), so it’s up about 4% already today. Gold is up 1.6% today. If you look the the Gold and Silver charts, they look almost identical. Silver tends to lag behind price changes in gold, but right now, the price changes appear to be happening in tandem. I don’t know if the price rise has anything to do with the Deutsche Bank revelation though.
Daryl.