Cheviot Sound Money Conference 2012 London

The penultimate talk was by Dave Morgan of Silver-investor.com. The thrust of David’s talk was looking at silver in the monetary sense, but reminding people of the tremendous industrial use that silver has. Whereas most of all the gold ever mined is still in use, Silver gets mined and is used up in industrial applications – of all the silver ever mined it’s thought that around 95% of it has been used up.

Finally there was a panel discussion which included the likes of Ben Davies from Hinde Capital and Max Keiser. The panel talked about their major concerns with the current inflationary monetary policies by the world’s central banks – and how this will feed through to price rises in the future unless policies are changed.

Max’s call for a ‘global insurrection against the banker occupation’ seemed rather prescient, with the protests in Egypt largely triggered by large food price increases thanks to Ben Bernake boosting the number one (and only) export of the US, inflation. But perhaps Dave Morgan best summed the day up “if you have all the gold in the world but aren’t free – its meaningless”. Reminding the audience that inventing in gold isn’t just about preserving wealth, it’s also about preserving freedom.

Up next was Chris Powell from GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee), the group who have been single handedly taking on gold price manipulation for over a decade. His entire speech can be read here. It is a documented jaunt over the past few decades about how our central banks have been taking a more active role in gold than you might think, and is certainly worth the read.

Appealing to the more sensitive side in all gold-bugs, Chris closed with a poem by Kipling titled “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” – a poem penned foretelling of the end of the British empire in 1919 :

“Then the gods of the market tumbled,
And their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled
And began to believe it was true
That all is not gold that glitters,
And two and two make four,
And the gods of the copybook headings
Limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future,
It was at the birth of man.
There are only four things certain
Since social progress began:
That the dog returns to his vomit
And the sow returns to her mire,
And the burnt fool’s bandaged finger
Goes wabbling back to the fire;
And that after this is accomplished,
And the brave new world begins,
When all men are paid for existing

And no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as water will wet us,
As surely as fire will burn,
The gods of the copybook headings
With terror and slaughter return.”


Hugo Salinas-Price from Mexico spoke next and opened up with the line “you know you’re in trouble when you’re taking monetary advise from a Mexican!”. Hugo’s talk was about his efforts back in Mexico to ‘re-monetise’ silver coins. His entire presentation can be read here.

Whilst the out-and-out free-market people in the crowd we’re a little skeptical about the idea of the government setting the price of silver, Hugo’s ideas are more how precious metals can be re-introduced under existing legal tender laws.

He hinted at the movement in Mexico was progressing well, and there is a real chance that Mexico adopts a version of his plan in the not too distant future. There is a presidential campaign in Mexico in 2012, watch this space for more news on Mexico’s possible re-moetisation of Silver.