Recently, I gave an inside look into the competitive and honest market in which precious metals dealers operate. It’s a market based on supply and demand for actual physical metal in the form of coins, bars, or rounds.

However, the futures market – where global spot silver and gold prices are set – is another story.

The supply and demand for actual physical bars is pretty much irrelevant when exchanging paper contracts.

The bullion banks can, and do, float vast quantities of paper ounces. On some days, the volume of paper traded exceeds the entire annual global mine production for the metal.

The number of actual bars on hand to underpin those contracts generally represents about 1% of the notional quantity involved. Often it is far less.

The contracts bankers write provide for “cash settlement.” That is a significant change relative to the bull market for gold and silver which ended in 1980. There is no chance of people like the famous Hunt brothers buying contracts and demanding they be settled with tangible bars.

Today, no one can prevent bankers from selling far more silver than they can actually deliver. When push comes to shove, the banks can just write a check instead.

Can the price of a contract which purports to represent actual silver, but which can be settled with dollars instead when demand gets too high, really be considered an honest price? Nope.

Given the bullion banks can never be forced to deliver actual metal, their only constraining factor is the risk associated with being caught on the wrong side of a market moving against their paper position.

They aren’t too worried about that. These bullion banks enjoy immense power over the markets. They can blunt any price increases by selling paper contracts to any and all buyers. Or, conversely, they can put a floor under price decreases by buying from anyone who wants to sell.

Couple that power with their penchant for rigging markets and cheating clients and it isn’t hard to explain what we have seen. The trading desks at these banks have an uncanny record of “success” and profits.