With a glower of contempt toward the bankers, gold remains easily aloft above $1000, developing thrust for the next big move. We wrote here a while back that blast-off from $1000 would follow the realization that G-20 can do nothing to restore stability to the world’s tottering financial system. Now, the question is whether anything at all will be “realized” in the wake of the Pittsburgh meeting. We hesitate to call it a summit because the event seems to have slipped off the news media’s radar. Unable to recall the actual dates of the session, we searched Google’s news pages in vain for this information. Tellingly, there was only a sidebar from the New York Times about how the meeting would probably be a net positive for Pittsburgh’s economy.
Fortunately for Pittsburgh, G-20 scouts have been in the city for weeks, wallowing in expense-account lunches and dinners well ahead of the actual event. “Since early August, journalists, dignitaries and safety officials have been visiting our city, eating at our restaurants, shopping in our stores and staying in our hotels,” said the town’s young mayor, Luke Ravenstahl, 29. “That’s just the short-term gain. In the long-term, you really can’t put a dollar value on the amount of free marketing we’ve received worldwide.” We have family ties to Pittsburgh ourselves and harbor a hope that some South Korean or Japanese mogul takes a shine to the Pirates baseball team, since Mark Cuban seems unwilling to come to their rescue. The Bucs could use a benefactor with deep pockets and a desire to strengthen the team’s sorry excuse for a bullpen.
Chinese Blockbuster
However, we somehow doubt that that will be the news that emerges from the G-20 Septemberfest. More likely is that we will get a statement from the U.S. that America is committed to laying the foundation for a long and stable period of global economic growth. (Whether we will simultaneously rescind the ruinous tariff just levied against Chinese tires remains open to speculation.) In reality, about the only thing we can conceive of that would lend real importance to G-20 would be an explosive rally in gold. That would at least remind the attendees that market forces are about to drown them all if they are unable to come up with a convincing stall tactic. And what would that be? How about China announcing that they are going to implement metal backing for the yuan? Now that would be a shocker! Rude, too – akin to telling your host that you’ll bring your own toilet paper to the next meeting. A big rally in gold would also force the news media to make sense of it all. Sure, the rally would be a turd in the punch bowl. But it’s not as though the story could simply be ignored. Unfortunately, however, gold is still too much a creature of official manipulation to pull such a stunt. Not now, but maybe next year.
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Mayor Luke Ravenstahl can talk about the supposed gains to Pgh, but those on the ground know better.
Huge areas of the city were shut down affecting workers and medical care – even ambulances were re-routed (and re-routing in Pgh is difficult). Downtown employees were actually told to stay home from work! Students/faculty at Pitt and CMU were also disrupted and harassed by storm troopers.
Pgh got the G-20 because other cities weren’t so stupid to foot the bills. Big loss to taxpayers and a huge inconvenience.
Next time the G-20 should go where they may be better tolerated – like the desert or just take over a cruise ship for a week.