As you can see from the first chart below, the number of potential claims per deliverable ounce on the Comex has risen to a new record high of 121 to 1.

That can be corrected by higher prices for bullion that will prompt more legitimate sellers of actual bullion to take their stored gold and put it in the 'registered' for delivery category.

Or the trading desks of the banks and funds can continue to pummel the price with paper short selling, in the hopes of knocking down the open interest and the longs.

In the short term a fraud is relatively easy to sustain if you can compromise the 'cops on the beat' and you have powerful friends in the game with you.

In the longer term all such schemes collapse. But con men and other criminal sorts are rarely thinking about the longer term consequences.

And it is the character of our time that those who say they are all for reform and vigilantly seek out injustice in their own small area will so often not only ignore, but join in on the taunts and misery of others less fortunate, who are suffering their own injustices from the same perpetrators. It is all too easy to do if you act out of the self-interest, with your mind, and not for what is right out of a principled stand for what is just, with your heart.

Have a pleasant evening.