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GATA isn't talented enough to make Dennis Gartman care

Section: Daily Dispatches

11:20a ET Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Commodity letter writer Dennis Gartman (http://www.thegartmanletter.com/) today acknowledges that the gold market well may be manipulated by governments but asserts that he doesn't care. He also completely misconstrues GATA's position and urges us to give up on the manipulation issue.

Gartman writes:

"Concerning gold, we've angered the 'bugs' once again by selling gold against purchases of crude oil and equities, fearing that gold looked 'vulnerable' and noting that the gold/crude oil ratio looked even more so. We are amused and bemused by the vehemence and vitriol that the 'bugs' bring forth when we turn even modestly bearish of gold, and in this instance we are bearish of gold 'relative' to crude and equities, not relative to the U.S. dollar -- and that is a major distinction.

... Dispatch continues below ...



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"Do we believe that gold is manipulated by the governments, or, more importantly, do we even care? We've no doubt but that the governments of the G-7 'act' at times in the gold market, just as we've no doubt that they 'act' at times in the equity futures markets. That bothers us not a whit for they are simply makers of price and our duty is to discern trends and to trade according to those trends.

"Whether this is massive or even modest 'manipulation' is not worthy of our time, nor that of the 'bugs,' for the price is the price is the price, as Gertrude Stein might have said were she alive today and trading gold. The price is what the price is and we chose not to argue with it, or waste mental capital arguing for or against it.

"There are men such as Peter Grandich and Chris Powell -- truly wise men; brilliant men; decent men; men we like and admire -- who argue about gold being manipulated and try to defend their long gold position as their position deteriorates against them and they take us to task for fearing that gold looks vulnerable. Would that they used their wisdom in other manners; the world would be so much better for that effort."

But of course Gartman is welcome to trade as he thinks best; GATA has never complained about that. We may disagree on price predictions but we're not in the price prediction business. Nor is GATA's purpose to rationalize a deteriorating long position in gold.

Further, GATA has never criticized Gartman for observing that "gold looks vulnerable." Hell, our very purpose has been to proclaim the vulnerability of gold to central bank intervention, especially surreptitious intervention. And the purpose of our complaint about that intervention is not to defend gold particularly but rather to defend free and transparent markets, limited government, fair dealing among nations, and individual liberty, and to oppose tyranny and imperialism.

Can Gartman really not understand those things? And if he does understand them, can he really be indifferent to them? If he really is indifferent, he deserves the rebuke Lincoln gave to those who professed indifference to another form of tyranny, slavery -- "a policy of 'don't care' on a question about which all true men do care."

Your secretary/treasurer will have to cordially decline Gartman's personal compliment, as wisdom, brilliance, and decency are irrelevant here, as well as doubtfully attributed; the issue is anything but personal. Besides, it may be progress for our side when Gartman and other thoroughly respectable and mainstream financial market writers move from a position of ridiculing complaints about gold market manipulation to a position of mere indifference. This may be a sign that GATA has presented the proof and really can't be argued with:

http://www.gata.org/taxonomy/term/21

But getting to such a point has been hard enough. If, when coming to our issue, people don't already care to some extent about free and transparent markets, limited government, fair dealing among nations, individual liberty, tyranny, and imperialism, we don't have the talent to make them care.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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