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This was my post to your post that just got moderated - but it got rejected - so I'm putting it as a reply to this post instead. This was it:

Hi adwebster - thanks for your article postings - very interesting stuff as always.

You can't go too hard on us sceptics who don't quite buy into the conspiracy theory talk. Part of the problem of the discussion is that it IS very difficult to confirm for ourselves what is going on out there. Much of the evidence provided is anecdotal - or based on interpretation of particular events or statements. Now irrespective of whether the analysis is correct or not - it's the sort of evidence which is likely to generate disagreement. (Now I do accept that much of the evidence is significant and substantive as well - but I'll speak to this below)

Since it is very difficult for us to confirm for ourselves the hard evidence - there's a certain pragmatic necessity in us defaulting to the more parsimonious theory. Because in general - conspiracy theories aren't the simplest explanation of what is going on. This doesn't in any way make us right - but it is a natural response to a fuzzy situation.

Also - for my part, I feel that the extent to which I've had the time to look at the data - there have been other explanations that I've been willing to accept. In other cases I find the conspiracy interpretation to be flat out wrong.

I'll give you an example of the latter - one was a document where the federal reserve chairman - or maybe it was the reserve bank governer? You'd remember this case better than I - I'm sure. BUt anyway - it was a case where it was believed by the gold bugs where the chairman admitted that reserve banks actively intervene to sell gold and depress the price.

So I went and found the document (it was you who first alerted me to it) and read through it. And to me it was clear that the governer (chairman?) was not admitting this at all. What he was saying was the reserve bank had the necessary reserves of gold to sell should there be artificial ramping of the price. He was clearly saying - in my mind at least - not that they were working to depress the price against rising - but to intervene to prevent someone else from intervening - so to speak. This intent - as stated - is completely different to just deciding to depress the price and keep it artificially low. If someone was ramping and pushing the price up artificially - I'd expect someone to step in and stop it - just as we expect someone to regulate against the presumed artificiality of the depressing of the price.

Now I'm not using this example to prove that the conspiracy theory is false - you've got a whole bunch of other examples and I don't claim to be able to refute or adequately explain even a majority of them. But I do think the example I cite above is an example of a carelessness and over eagerness of the conspiracy theorists to see it the way that they want to see it.

Unfortunately when examples are posted of a much more susbtantive nature - like the short positions of big three banks for instance - I have to apply my scepticism even here. For in reality I don't know anything for myself about why these banks have these short positions. I've never been able to find any analysis about it except from the conspiracy people. So I don't know how to interpret it for myself. To be sure this is my own failing - but I'd correct it if I knew how. But given that my only lens onto this material is that from the conspiracy theorist and given that I've seen cases where for me it's been clear that the lens has been distorted - I have to withhold judgement even from such a case as this where for you its as clear as day.

This is why I try to read as much Nadler as I can - because I'm looking for the alternative view and I want to balance them against one another. (Unfortunately Nadler does tend to just poo poo the conspiracy theorists without doing a lot of work to refure them). Unfortunately it's hard to find substantive analysis of the opposite position because it's only the conspiracy theorists that seem sufficiently interested to write that much about it. For every one else - gold is just another commodity.

Any - I'm just trying to get across how difficult it can be for an outsider to find a clear way into the conspiracy view. So don't be too harsh on us. For myself - I'll keep working on it... but for the moment I'm investing on the inflation fundamentals and keepign the conspiracy issue in the 'don't know' pile.