Ordinarily, the summer is a slow period for the gold and silver markets.

Additionally, the summer is normally a period of low prices for gold and silver, and that is the case this summer. Both metals’ prices are significantly below what they were in March when gold topped $1,000 and silver $21. But, this is not a slow summer for gold and silver. Presently, there is more than normal interest in both metals.

One reason, undoubtedly, is the widespread fear that Bush administration has plans for military action against Iran. If so, that military action would most probably be bombings of Iran’s suspected nuclear facilities, which Iran asserts are for peaceful purposes but the Bush administration says hold the capabilities for advancing Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which is necessary for the building nuclear bombs.

However, there is speculation that covert operations inside Iran have already begun. Seymour Hersh, a regular contributor to The New Yorker on military and security matters, wrote for the weekly magazine a piece titled Preparing the Battlefield.

Additionally, Hersh was interviewed on CNN where he reasserted his position that covert operations inside Iran have begun. Hersh further asserts that the Bush administration is determined to see to it that before it leaves office, Iran has no nuclear capabilities.

What would be Iran’s most likely response if Bush bombs Iran? According to many military strategists, that would be the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 17 million barrels of oil flow daily. If you think that the price of gasoline is high now, try calculating the price if approximately 20% of the world’s daily consumption of oil no longer can make it to the market.

If the Bush administration takes military action against Iran, gold and silver prices will remain active this summer, very active. Actually, just the talk of the Bush administration attacking Iran will keep people interested in gold and silver this summer. Seasonally, the summer has been a favorable time to do some silver and gold investing. This summer looks better than past summers.

The breadth and scope of a bull market depends on the number of people following the market and able to participate. The more people following the market and able to participate, the greater the potential of the market to reach unbelievable heights, as did the great gold-silver bull market of the 1970s, which climaxed January 20, 1980, with gold hitting $850 and silver $50.

Today, with gold already having traded above $1,000 this year, $850 gold may not appear high, but for the 1970s $850 was astronomical. In 1973, when CMIGS was formed specifically to retail silver bullion to Americans, gold was trading below $100. (Silver was the product in 1973 because then it was illegal for Americans to own gold bullion. Americans effectively regained the “right” to own gold bullion January 1, 1975.)

Before gold made its 1970s’ move, a common question was, “How high do you think gold will go?” The standard answer was $300. Frankly, no one had any idea that gold would hit $850. For some unknown reason, $300 became the standard answer. But, as it turned out, $300 was far short of the top.

(Not all prognosticators failed to predict extremely high numbers for gold in the 1970s. The Aden sisters predicted $3,000 gold, but considering how far that prediction was off the mark, let’s say that few forecasters foresaw how high gold would eventually go.)

As for silver, there were not a lot of rash predictions. At the time, an abundance of silver lay in precious metals warehouses around the world. The U.S. Strategic Stockpile, for example, still held 139,000,000 ounces. The fear of sales from the Strategic Stockpile hampered predictions of high silver prices. In May 1973, Merrill Lynch published a “Situation Report” that predicted $2.75 - $3.00 silver “within the next 12months.” In that report, ML hedged its prediction by warning of “pending sales from the U.S. Stockpile assuming that they take place.”

In the 1970s’ gold-silver bull market, the sources of information about gold and silver were limited. If you wanted information about gold or silver, you’d head for the local library where you could spend hours trying to find relevant data. Further, you usually had to depend on Establishment publications.

Rarely does the Establishment present accurate, reliable facts, especially when it comes to investments. During my life, I’ve seen Establishment reports on subjects about which I knew something that were so far off that mark they were laughable. Often, Establishment reports are suspected “plants.” In my April 30 blog post, I questioned a Reuters’ article about silver.

With the advent of the Internet, however, things changed – and in a big way.

Today, the first resource for information on just about anything is the Internet. Plug gold into Google, and you get 886,000,000 pages to view, which are too many and too general. Change the search to gold coins, and your choices are reduced to 3,700,000, and you get more specific information. Still too many? Search for gold investments and get 400,000 hits. But, say you’ve heard that the Krugerrand is the best-known gold coin in the world and also carries the lowest premium of the modern gold bullion coins, then google Krugerrand and get 298,000 choices of pages to review. (By the way, if you search the Internet, there’s a 69% change you’re using Google, 17% chance it’s Yahoo!, with MSN, Ask and AOL fighting over the scraps.

According to Internet World Stats, some 1.4 billion persons are connected to the Internet and, therefore, have instant information about investing in silver or gold. Further, because of the Internet, potential investors wanting gold investment information are not limited to the publications that libraries choose to house, which are almost exclusively Establishment publications.

For example, the World Gold Council’s website, www.gold.org, contains a plethora of data about gold, everything from its history, to production and usage, to who owns it. Want to know how much gold the world’s central banks claim to hold? That data is found there.

Like to know more about silver? Visit www.silverinstitute.org, the website of The Silver Institute, a nonprofit association that “serves as the industry’s voice in increasing public understanding of the many uses and values of silver.”

Want to learn what a 34-year veteran of the gold-silver bullion industry has to say about buying gold and silver? Visit www.cmi-gold-silver.com. Our website has been declared by some visitors to be best on the Internet for basic information about what form of gold or silver to buy.

Although I’ve chosen only three resource sites, there are literally thousands of sources of information on the Internet about gold and silver, which means that 1.4 billion potential investors have easy access to information about gold and silver. Because of the Internet, this gold-silver bull market has the potential to dwarf the bull market of the 1970s.

Among gold and silver investors there is a common cry to get rid of the Fed and return to the gold standard. However, with the Establishment having controlled our schools and universities for decades, the masses are duped into believing that the money and banking are much too complicated to be understood by anyone but those educated at our “more esteemed” universities.

Without a doubt, the masses believe that the arcane workings of the Fed and our monetary system are to be left to “the better educated,” to those who have “made a life of studying economics” and even have doctorates from Yale or Harvard. If you doubt this, try criticizing the concept of central banking (The Fed is our central bank.) in front of anyone with a college degree.

You may run across someone who is quick to criticize the Fed’s actions. “The Fed should lower (or raise) the discount rate,” is a likely comment. Those who really want to show their knowledge of our banking system may lay something like this on you: “The Fed should cut the minimum reserve requirements on CDs.” Better yet, you may get, “The Fed needs to raise the margin requirements on stock loans to cool stock market speculation.” Now you know you have a college graduate who sat through a couple of finance classes. This person has been completely indoctrinated into the world of central banking and government control of money. He (or she) is your average college graduate, and that is how the fraud of the Federal Reserve System is perpetuated. But, don’t even begin to try to get the average college graduate to discuss dumping the Fed and going back to the gold standard.

Fortunately, calls for dumping the Fed and returning to the gold standard come not just from “gold bugs” but also from economists who truly have made the study of economics lifetime endeavors. One such economist was the late, great Murray N. Rothbard.

Murray N. Rothbard was a scholar extraordinaire who made major contributions to economics, history, political philosophy, and legal theory. He developed and extended the Austrian economics of the legendary Ludwig von Mises and established himself as the principal Austrian theorist in the latter half of the twentieth century. Rothbard applied Austrian analysis to historical topics such as the Great Depression of 1929 and the history of American banking. Oh, yes, Rothbard received a PhD from Columbia University in 1956.

In 1995, Rothbard wrote a piece titled Taking Money Back, which was printed in the September and October issues of The Freeman. Taking Money Back outlined Rothbard’s reasoning and steps for dismantling the Fed and returning to the gold standard.

Lew Rockwell recently chose Taking Money Back as the lead article for his website, which has become one of – if not the most – popular free market, Libertarian websites on the Internet. Read Taking Money Back and learn that a truly learned man has called from dismantling the Fed and returning to the gold standard.

If you are interested in furthering your knowledge and understanding of money (and the flaws of our monetary system), start with a couple of Rothbard’s books. Excellent choices would be What Has Government Done to our Money?, The Case for the 100% Gold Dollar and The Case Against the Fed. All can be ordered from mises.org. If you want to learn the real cause of the Great Depression, order a copy of Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression.

These books will make you uneasy about the current financial state of affairs, but they will make you much more comfortable about investing in silver and gold.

Yesterday, gold fell $26.70 in the cash market for a 3% decline. Silver suffered a 3.35% fall. The declines added to gold’s and silver’s losses since the middle of March, when they hit decades-high prices. (Actually, gold hit a record high, but silver is still far short of its 1980 high of $50.) Gold’s mid-March through June 10 decline: $134.50 for a 13.4% drop. Silver slipped $4 for a slightly larger decline of 19.3%.

Silver suffers bigger declines in falling markets but enjoys bigger gains in rising markets, which is to say that silver is more volatile than gold.

Big declines are enough to send new gold/silver investors back to the stock market. However, veterans of the precious metals markets know that large, sharp movements, up and down, often come on meaningless news. Since the first of the month, there has been talk of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s frequent comments about a “strong dollar.”

Such talk is utterly ridiculous in the face of the U.S. fiscal policy of massive deficit spending and interest rates that are artificially depressed by the Fed. Still, what flies in the mainstream media affects gold and silver prices.

Veteran precious metals investors also know that gold and silver prices are seasonally low during the summer months. So, with gold and silver having suffered significant losses since their March highs, the worst may be behind us.

Still, with 2-1/2 months to go before summer ends, gold and silver could see additional sharp moves to the downside. And, they may see sharp upside moves, such as today. As this is written, gold is up $10 and silver $.20.

Investors thinking of adding to their gold and silver positions should take advantage of the traditional summer price weaknesses. Remember also: unless you are the luckiest person in the world, no matter when you buy gold or silver prices will go lower before they go higher.

I tell clients that investing in gold and silver is akin to playing football. If you’re not prepared to get knocked down, don’t play. Prices will fluctuate lower before they go higher. You just have to pick an entry level and buy. A year from now you’ll be happy you did; two years from now you’ll be delighted. This is a big gold/silver bull market, and it has a long way to go.

Perhaps the fundamental fear behind every gold investment is that the paper money being gotten rid of could become worthless. In theory (probably in actuality), that fear rests with any currency not redeemable in gold or silver, which means all the world’s currencies. No world currency, not even the fabled Swiss franc can be redeemed for gold or silver at the Swiss National Bank, which is Switzerland’s central bank, the equivalent of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.

The destruction of paper money usually comes about after the abandonment of the gold standard and the institution of fiat money, which is money by governmental decree. The dollar is money by decree, “all debts, public and private.” However, in many cases, one fiat currency is introduced to replace another fiat currency. Brazil is famous for doing that.

Before moving on to the problems faced by the Zimbabwean gold miners, I should note that since the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944, no country has been on the gold standard. The Bretton Woods Agreement established a gold exchange standard, under which the world’s currencies were redeemable in dollars, which were redeemable in gold. Although under the Agreement, currencies’ values were fixed relative to gold, central banks that were presented their nations’ currencies for redemption actually gave the redeemer dollars.

Zimbabwe is an economic cesspool, with government regulations of nearly every facet of economic activity. One control in Zimbabwe is that all mined gold is to be sold to the Zimbabwean central bank, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).

According to one source, gold miners are meant to be paid 35% of their production at the highly overvalued local currency and the remainder in US dollars. The RBZ pays partially in U.S. dollars because the gold mining companies need to buy equipment in foreign markets to keep operating. There is no market for Zimbabwean dollars outside Zimbabwe. Outside Zimbabwe, Zim dollars are paper.

While the official policy is for the RBZ to pay partially in U.S. dollars, the RBZ now has no U.S. dollars, or any other foreign currencies, and the gold mining companies are receiving only Zim dollars. Because Zim dollars cannot be spent outside Zimbabwe, the mining companies are unable to replace worn out equipment.

As a result, “Zimbabwe’s once proud and big gold sector could be set for a further decline,” says Tawanda Karombo, posting an article from Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe produced seven tons of gold last year compared to 11 tons in 2006, their lowest level in 90 years.

Although Zimbabwe’s gold production has never rivaled that of neighbor South Africa, for nearly a hundred years it has been a solid gold producer. Now, Zimbabwe’s gold production looks set to grind to a halt, which will be positive for gold investing.