Rigging South Africa into the grave.
The 2008 market crash destroyed a lot of lives.
Since then the prices of gold and platinum have fallen dramatically.Investors, mining houses, miners and the country as a whole have suffered great losses. Let me list the ways:
Mines have barely been able to cover their costs.
Miners have suffered from low wages.Some mines have had to close.
This has led to social and political unrest in the country.
South Africa's GDP has suffered as a consequence.
I have been watching this dance for the last three years'. In the morning when the Asian markets have been open, the prices have risen. As soon as the London and the New York markets have opened, there has been a more and more obvious smashing of the price. It has become so obvious that only a fool could possibly deny that the market is rigged.
Low and behold in Bloomberg 26/11 the headline reads:
HSBC, Goldman Rigged Metals’ Prices for Years, Suit Says
Anyone who has been following the totally corrupt Western banking system in the last four years is already fully aware that HSBC and Goldman Sachs are basically financial terrorists. Drug money laundering, Libor rigging, currency manipulation... the list goes on and on.
In this instance they are being sued in a New York court for manipulating prices for the precious metals platinum and palladium for the last eight years.And as we know, both these industries have a very large role to play in South Africa.
What was truly shocking about this article was the second paragraph:
" Standard Bank Group Ltd. and a metals unit of BASF SE (BAS), the world’s largest chemical company, were also sued. The four companies used inside information about client purchases and sale orders to profit from price movements for the metals used in products ranging from jewelry to cars, according to a complaint filed yesterday in Manhattan federal court."
And as we read further down it says:
"Standard Bank’s Johannesburg-based spokesman Ross Linstrom declined to comment today when contacted by e-mail. BASF’s London-based metals unit couldn’t be reached for comment. ...
four companies participated in twice-daily conference calls to set global price benchmarks for platinum and palladium, which also affected derivative products based on the precious metals.
“This unlawful behavior allowed defendants to reap substantial profits, while non-insiders, which include plaintiffs and members of the class, were injured,” lawyers for New York-based Modern Settings said in the filing."
Well there you have it South Africa. We have been robbed by one of our own.
This law suit whatever the outcome, can never make up for everything this country has lost in the last eight years.What mining houses, miners, investors, the country as a whole has lost in income.
The next time the IMF and LaGarde wag their finger at us and tell us we need to increase our GDP, refer them to Standard Bank and Ross Linstrom.
The biggest loss is the confidence that we once had in our own banking system. And the trust we, as a country, have placed in them. The trust we placed in Standard Bank.
As a people, and as a country, we have been betrayed.