what happens when gold stays below $1,200? , page-4

Good call Mike.

IMO the issue is that the commodity price which miners have to accept is determined by the paper market which is 20x the size of the physical market.

Miners will be subject to the whims of trading jocks that push the price around like monopoly money whilst they incur real world costs to get the stuff out of the ground.

This will only change when participants stand for delivery and there is an insufficient supply available to satisfy those physical demands.

.. Oh, but then they change the rules. For example ABN Amro no longer delivering on clients physical demands but paying in 'money'.

I don't know why miners stand for this in their industry.

The big miners - and there aren't many of them; NEM, NCM, Barrick, et al - should form a supply cartel and dictate where the gold is supplied to and influence the availability of their product much as OPEC does and the big iron ore miners did in 2010-11 when they denied the spot market any product [source: Charlie Aitkien Bell Potter].

Until the miners get some form of price setting control instead of being price takers they will always remain vulnerable.

Cheers
John