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Filed Pursuant To Rule 433 |
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Registration No. 333-167132 |
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June 23, 2010 |
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Interview of George Milling- |
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Stanley by Ron Insana on |
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June 22, 2010 |
Interview with George Milling-Stanley of the World Gold Council
MR. RON INSANA: And welcome back to the Insana Quotient. Im Ron Insana here on IQ Radio. Gold
has retreated from record highs of last week, yesterday plunging some $25 an ounce. It is
weaker again this morning. This comes amid a variety of conversations being had around gold.
Whether in fact it is the currency by which we should live our lives. Whether in fact its
forecasting inflation and deflation, a combination of both or neither. Theres been a spirited
debate about gold and its run-up from its 2002 lows at around $270 an ounce all the way up to
$1260 an ounce, thereabouts. And all the way from its run-up in 1971 when President Nixon
closed the gold window in August of that year when it was pegged at $35 an ounce, to its
recent price which is about 35 times what it was some 40 years ago.
Joining us now to talk about all of thisboth the philosophical aspects of gold and the real
aspects of gold, is George Milling-Stanley, Managing Director of Government Affairs at the World
Gold Council. He was on the trading desk at Lehman Bros. for many years and worked at Consolidated
Gold Fields which, at the time in London was the second-largest mining company in the world. George
has chatted with me, I think, all the way back to my days at Financial News Network. George, good
to have you on the program. Thanks for joining us today.
MR. GEORGE MILLING-STANLEY: Thanks for inviting me, Ron. Nice to be back.
MR. INSANA: Lets start first, if you dont mind, before we get into kind of thewhats going on
with gold itselfwe have
been engaged in a, a rather spirited debate, if you will, with Both Congressman Ron Paul and many
of his followers who advocate a hard money standard centered on gold. This, of course, is an
argument for effectively as long as there has been civilization with money in it. When it comes
down to the gold standard or imposing gold as a currency, whether its to back paper money or to
use as a media of exchange itself, wherewhere do you come down on this argument?
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: Well, you talk about imposing, Ron. I think that, that governments that try
to impose things on their people generally get their comeuppance at some point. I think that,
that people will choose the currencies that they want to use, and that that will change from
time to time. For a long time people wanted to use gold as a currency, and then, and then, as
you talk about the end of the Bretton Woods system next, and closing the gold window, and so
forth, gold kind of dropped out in favor as money.
I dont know that were actually going to go back to a gold standard. I think that that would imply
a level of economic discipline that most governments would be unwilling to accept for themselves
and would be unwilling to, tojust to try to live by. But I think that more and more peopleprivate
individuals are turning to gold as a form of wealth protection. And I think that now that weve
seen the end of two decades of central banks being net sellers of a substantial quantity of gold to
the private sector, were seeing governments and central banks return to the protection of gold
affords as well.
So its the peoples choice, if you like, that, that more people will be looking at gold at its
monetary form. But I dont think that were going to go back to a full-scale gold standard. It
would imply a level of economic discipline even more than the IMF ever tried to impose on a
country, and that caused plenty of problems.
MR. INSANA: Yeah. And explain why thats true. I mean, Ive been arguing that gold standards are
inherently deflationary to a certain extent insofar as they limit the expansion of money and
credit under most circumstances. And if you want to increase money and credit you have to
increase the supply of gold. Why would a gold standard be more austere than, than other types
of, of monetary systems?
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: I think its simple. That effectively the gold standard would, would outlaw
Keynesianism. Theres no way, for example, that in the recent crisis governments
printed money, governments came up with quantitative easing and so forth in order to do this. And
thosethose actions have inflationary consequences down the road. But they certainly did something
to try to stem the, the tide of economic chaos that was descending on us starting in, in 2007.
I dont think that being on the gold standard would have prevented the crisis, but it would
certainly have prevented the cure for the crisis. So I think its that kind of discipline that Im
talking about. It would be a simple one for one relationship between gold and currency issue, and
its just basically mechanistic. And I just dont think that, that governments like that. They like
the flexibility that being able to inflate when they choose to in order to try to get out of a
problem, and then hopefully, to, to sterilize that inflation reaction when were off the crisis,
which is the next step that governments should be taking.
MR. INSANA: Yes, were talking to George Milling-Stanley, an expert on gold with the World Gold
Council. And let me ask you about that, George. I mean, do you findand part of the argument
thats been going back and forth is Ive been mislabeled as a Keynesian for my view on, on the
governments required flexibility to deal with crisesdo you think it is appropriate for the
governmentsany government to have that type of flexibility during periods of deflation,
recession, even depression?
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: I think that it certainly helped us to get out of the Great Depression. The
freedom that, that Franklin Roosevelt took for himself in the 1930s helped us to get out of
the Great Depression. The flexibility that governments in Europe and in this country were able
to make use of in the most recent crisis I think wereI think we would be in a much worse
crisis if governments did not have that flexibility.
I kind of like the idea of discipline, but I think that you need to be able to relax it from time
to time. As I say, the gold standard was, was quite simply too simple, too mechanistic. I think it,
it was a level of discipline, and thats a good thing, but there are times when you actually want
less of a discipline.
MR. INSANA: Is there any kind of discipline we can impose? And again, as Congressman Paul
argued, I mean, I think he is in favor of the abolition of the Federal Reserve, or certainly
neutralizing it to a great extent. Isnt its strong independenceFederal Reserve or Central
Bank, more
generically, kind of the modern equivalent of a gold standard?
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: I dont know that I would go so far as to say that, no. I dont think that
theres theI dont think theres any central bank out there that, that tries to have that
same level of discipline. But I think that, that the modern world has replaced the discipline
of the gold standard which replaced the chaos that came before it has replaced it with
something which it believes is more sophisticated. I think the jurys still out as far as
thats concerned, but, but as I said, I think that the last couple of big crises I can think
of in this century and the previous one would have lasted a whole lot longer if governments
had not had the flexibility and if there had not been pretty strong central banks.
The key, of course, is mopping up after youve gotten out of this.
MR. INSANA: Yeah.
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: You had a lot of inflation in the 1970s. I remember inflation in Britain,
where I was living at the time, of 20%, 25% a year for several years in a row in the 1970s.
And it took Paul Volcker and interest rates in the high teens in the early 1980s to get us out
of that. We need central bankers of the caliber of Paul Volcker. I think then things are
pretty much in safe hands. There have been one or two other Federal Reserve chairmen of, of
recent memory who havent quite had the safe hands that Volcker has. But Im not going to
mention any names, Ron.
MR. INSANA: Do you think Ben Bernanke is the quality of Paul Volcker?
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: You can mention names, but I said I wasnt going to.
MR. INSANA: Were going to take a break. When we come back were going to talk more
specifically about the rally that has lifted gold to new nominal highs. $1260 an ounce most
recently. But to take out the inflation adjusted high for gold that was scored in 1980 which
was then $800 an ounce well have to a little bit higher. Were going to talk about the rally
in gold and how far it might go with precious metals expert George Milling-Stanley of the
World Gold Council when the Insana Quotient continues in just a few moments.
This morning gold indicated it opened a little bit lower after a $25 slide yesterday. Were coming
back with more on the yellow metal. The barbarous relic, if you will, when we return.
And welcome back to the Insana Quotient. Im Ron Insana here on IQ Radio. We are talking about all
that glitters, which may or may not be gold, and George Milling-Stanley rejoins now, a Managing
Director of Government Affairs at the World Gold Council. And George, we had a more philosophical
conversation in the first potion of our chat about gold, but lets talk hard numbers, if you will.
Gold has enjoyed a rally from its lows, both in 1998 and 2002 of around $270 an ounce up to
recently $1260. It fell about $25 yesterday; its a little bit weaker this morning. People have put
all kinds of arguments around why gold has gone up. The threat of future inflation, the threat of
deflation, the collapse of paper money as something desirable to hold. The recycling of, of Chinese
reserves. Which, in your estimation, is the most accurate explanation of why gold is doing what
its doing lately?
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: Well, its a whole bunch of factors. It usually is in, in the market. I
wouldnt want to isolate any one. I think that internal market dynamics, the balance between
supply and demand has been growing increasingly favorable for gold because gold has this
built-in compensation mechanism. When the economy around the world is in bad shape and people
have less money to spend on jewelry they want to buy more gold for investment purposes. So you
have that kind of a compensation.
And mine production is not going up because for the 20-year bear market between 1980 and 2000
mining companies couldnt afford to look for new gold mines. And were now spending money on
exploration again, but not finding them at the rate that people would like. So thats the first
one. That the internal market dynamics are healthy.
The dollar has been in secular decline, not going down every year, but I think that the long-term
trend is for continuing decline in the dollar. You mentioned inflation. I think that the threat of
future inflation is a good reason why people are buying gold today. The smart people buy it before
they need it. You buy your insurance policy before you need it.
I think that the performance of alternative investment assets, I mean, alternatives to goldequity
markets basically spent most of the past decade recovering to where they were
in 2000. They managed it by, by 2007 and then got mugged by what used to be called the subprime
mortgage crisis before it morphed into a full-blown sovereign debt crisis that we have on our hands
right now.
Another reason I think gold has been going up is that geopolitical tensions have been getting
steadily worse over the past decade and not better. And unfortunately, perhaps, but thatsthat
tends to be when gold does best, at times of both political and economic turmoil.
Another thingagain, you alluded to thisI think theres a growing sense among investors around the
world, a growing appreciation for the long-term strategic benefits that an appropriate allocation
to gold within the context of a balanced portfolio can give investors. People like that kind of
protection.
The smart people, in terms of, of buying gold as an insurance policy, as I say, are the ones who
buy it before they need it. And weve seen a good deal of people buying in advance of what they
expect to be bad times. Whether its rising inflation, whether its the threat of potential
deflation before we get to the inflation thats inevitably coming and so forth. Its a whole bunch
of different reasons
MR. INSANA: Yeah.
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: why golds been going up.
MR. INSANA: Now, let me ask you, I mean, with respect to, to the rally, you know, people have
gotten extraordinarily excited about it with gold hitting $1260 but it has yet to take out its
inflation-adjusted high which I believe is somewhere around $2100 an ounce. Before this bull
market in gold is over, do you think that that or any other round number might be taken out as
part of this ongoing move?
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: Well, looking at that inflation adjustment, I think its kind of aI would
not be inclined to measure gold from where it was for a nano-second in January of 1980 which
was up around the $850 level. I actually prefer to look, for exampleI think its a much more
meaningful comparison to look at the average gold price for 1979, 80 and 81, say, to pick
three years out of the air, and then adjust that for inflation, and youre not far away from
where we are today. Youre somewhere around the $1200, $1300 per ounce mark.
I dont think that means that this rally is necessarily over. I cited seven or eight reasons why I
think the rally has, had been in place. And I think if you look at most of those, theyre probably
looking stronger now than they were when the rally began in 2000. So my sense is that, that this
bull market is probably safe for some time to come. But I wouldnt stick with that, that odd
comparison of what happened for a nano-second back in30 years ago.
MR. INSANA: Okay. All right. So now as a prudent investor, I mean, you know, there are people who
have rushed into gold, and I know you helped design the ETF that, that has gold as an
underlying asset, the GLD, correct?
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: Mm-hm. Thats correct.
MR. INSANA: With respect to that, I mean, is that the best way for individual investors to, to
play gold or should they get involved in futures, options or actually buying the bullion
outright?
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: Well, I always say, Ron, theres really no bad way to gain exposure to
movements in the gold price. For many, many years people tried to do this by buying gold
mining stocks, and I think the gold mining stocks are a perfectly good investment if thats
what you choose to want to be in. What we did was wewhen we were deciding that we needed to
do something to try to help investment in gold, back 10 years or so ago, we talked to people
who did not invest in gold, and asked them why. We figured those were the people we could
learn from. And overwhelmingly people told us they thought that the reason why they had not
invested in gold was because they found it cumbersome and costly and complicated.
So we asked them, if we were able to overcome those problemsand it was a big if at that pointwhat
kind of investment would they like? And they said something that was secure, something that was
transparent, traded on our recognized stock exchange, andbut fully backed by allocated gold
bullion, which is why we came up with the exchange traded fund. And theres no question that that
met a need. Theres now $80 billion worth of gold stashed away in vaults, backing the various
different gold ETFs around the world.
So it clearly met an investor need and it brought the possibility of gold investment to a whole new
universe of investors. It took the friction out of it for a lot of people who had experienced as a
difficult investment.
MR. INSANA: Well, if I may, George, and were talking to George Milling-Stanley whos the
Managing Director of Government Affairs at the World Gold Councilwith respect to the
development of exchange traded funds, or ETFs as they are more commonly known, there are
people who worry that this has become a crowded trade. Whether its in, in a gold ETF or, you
know, any other commodity-based ETF, but the demand for the paper version of the hard asset is
such that its created distortions in the underlying market itself. Somein a certain manner
in the way futures at one point in their early development did with respect to the stock
market. Is it possible that theres some artificial demand for gold with the creation of these
new instruments?
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: I dont think its artificial demand. No, I thinkas I said, I think the
instruments were created to meet a need and I think theres no question in my mind that they
have actually met that need. What you really want to look at is whats happened with gold ETFs
in the context of the total of gold demand. The, the first one of these was launched in 2003
in Australia and in that timein the seven years since then, collectively, all of the
gold-backed exchange traded funds in the world have accounted for somewhere around 6% of total
gold demand. So I dont think that the ETF tail is wagging the gold market dog, if thats
whatif thats what your friends are suggesting there.
To my mind, theres nothing artificial about this demand at all. I think that there was pent-up
demand because people did not find an appropriate instrument available to them in the market. Now
that that appropriate instrument is available, then people have been enthusiastically buying. The
good news, I think, from what we know about, investors in GLDI cant speak for the other ETFs, but
what we know about investors in GLD is that they tend to be long-term buy and hold investors and
thats why weve seen a lot more creation activity rather than redemption activity in there.
MR. INSANA: What about the hedge funds who have quantitative programs that actually move in and
out of these ETFs rather briskly? Have you seen a lot of action in that regard that may jiggle
the price from time to time?
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: I think the hedge funds move in and out of the futures and options markets
more than they do in and out of ETFs. I mean, ETFs are an easily tradable vehicle for them,
thats true, but the hedge funds have always felt comfortable working in and out of the, the
futures markets as
well. So basically hedge funds take advantage of any market that there is around there to do the
strategies that they want to do. Whether you like them or not, theyre there. Theyre a reality.
MR. INSANA: I happen to love them, but, you know. no doubt. What about the other precious
metals? You know, silvers been a bit of a laggard here on a relative basis. Palladium and
platinum are, are really under-discussed, at the very least. Do they share the same dynamics
as gold or no?
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: Let me go out on a limb, Ron, and say that gold is unique. I think its the
only real precious metal there is. The other metals that you citedthe platinum group metals
and silver are consumer primarily in industrial applications of one kind or another. Most of
the platinum produced every year goes up the tailpipes of automobiles. Which means that they
are dynamic and their price performance tends to be governed by level of economic activity in
the industrialized world. And that is obviously, not a particularly favorable scenario for
them right now
MR. INSANA: Right.
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: although there are some signs of recovery.
MR. INSANA: All right.
MR. MILLING-STANLEY: Gold is governed by completely different things.
MR. INSANA: George, as always, a pleasure, thanks for joining us. George Milling-Stanley of the
World Gold Council.
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