Economist Predicts that the Price of Gold & Silver will Drop this Year. Is he Correct?

[Aurave]

thats one reason i keep posting that the CFTC should raise the margins on crude oil from 6% to 75% and run the funds out of crude mkt , also make all contracts that are bought delivery only , if you buy a contract you must take delivery.

you would see crude at $50-60/ba very fast.

headge funds have trillions of dollars .

I don't think so. What you would see is liquidity in the futures market plummet, with producers and consumers finding it increasingly difficult to risk manage or hedge. Price volatility in commodities is generally known as an increasing linear function of scarcity; scarcity being defined as the inverse of inventory. A relatively illiquid futures market increases price volatility which wreaks havoc on inventory management. Futures markets for commodities play a very important and positive role in a free market especially in the realms of price discovery and price stability.

You would not see crude oil spot price drop in half from your proposals, what you would be more likely to see is massive price swings in short term periods as producers and consumers rush to lock in contracts knowing there was no guarantee of a strong secondary market after the break of any positive/negative news relevant to the market. Do not let yourself be misled into socialist type fallacies because of emotional reasons.