Some Monday Observations...

First, the run on bullion last week in the U.S. was bona fide.  We were trying to buy some sealed mint boxes of 1 oz. silver eagles today. One national dealer had 4 boxes only and wanted spot + $2.69. Tulving, APMEX and CNI are cleaned out. Tulving told me they didn't know when their next order from the Mint would be in and would not sell any with an "expected delivery" date. This is what was interesting: CNI also would not sell sealed mint boxes with an "as of" ticket AND they told me that the Mint has become very unreliable in terms of sticking to an announced delivery date. This is the first time I can recall that sealed mint boxes were not available on an "expected delivery" date basis. Sealed boxes of silver maple leafs are still available, but what makes the silver eagle situation interesting is that the U.S. Mint is legally obligated to produce enough silver eagles to meet demand.  January set a record for silver eagle sales in the U.S. and we still have a very small percentage of the population buying bullion. Imagine what this will be like when a much higher percentage of the population decides that holding U.S.dollars is too risky.

Second, in the irony of all ironies, the Mortgage Bankers Association just unloaded it's headquarters, which it purchased less than two years ago, for a whopping 48% loss.  Here's the link to the story which I sourced from http://www.bankimplode.com/: LINK.   I don't want to be labelled as a grave-dancer, but that story makes me laugh.

Third, the delinquency rate of Prime Jumbo mortgages inreased for the 32nd straight month to just under 10%.  This would be the category of mortgage that was used to finance McMansions bought by white collar social climbers who didn't have enough for a down payment large enough to make the monthly payment manageable and who likely have lost their job or have income tied directly to the bubble areas of the economy (think real estate brokers, high end car salesmen, stockbrokers, mortgage bankers, etc).  Here's a link to the article:  Housing Situation Getting Worse.

Finally, I'm starting to see a lot more commentary which points out how absurd it is that the financial media in this country insists on reporting about how bad the sovereign troubles are in Europe, when in reality the situation in the U.S. is worse than in Europe, with several large States on the brink of bankruptcy.  Case in point, Greece has about $408 billion of outstanding debt, of which roughly $152 billion is external. California has around $540 billion in total debt, including general obigation bonds, municipal bonds and special project/funding facilities.  Add to that the $21 billion projected budget deficit for this year plus the fact that California is currently borrowing heavily from the Treasury to pay unemployment claims and essentially California is completely bankrupt.

The point is that, despite what you hear in the news, the economic conditions in this country continue to deteriorate.  I mean, what's the message being signalled by the fact that the Mortgage Bankers Association, of all entities, has decided to sell its building rather than wait for the market to improve?  Obviously insiders do not believe in the "improving economy" theme or the "real estate is at a bottom" theme that is being propagated by the propaganda machine in this country.  And, as suggested by the run on gold and silver bullion last week, increasingly people are starting to understand the Truth and are expressing this understanding by exchanging "full faith and credit of the U.S. Govt. notes" (i.e. dollars) for gold and silver, otherwise known as "real money" for the better part of 5000 years.