Beck has been targeted by a gauntlet of "boycotts" called by various Obami and fellow crawlers. Fox and Beck are doing a land-office business after everything thrown at them.
Weiner is using his power as a member of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection to target Goldline in particular, and gold retailers in general, for new legislation.
“Goldline rips off consumers, uses misleading and possibly illegal sales tactics, and deliberately manipulates public fears of an impending government takeover – this is a trifecta of terrible business practices,” said Weiner. He said a December report in POLITICO report prompted his scrutiny of Goldline.
“This industry goes beyond Goldline, but the Goldline circle has been particularly cynical in its cultivation of these conservative commentators,” he said. “There are two industries that are intertwined here in this cynical play: the media industry and the online gold industry, and there is a lot of blame to go around.”
What Weiner seems to resent is the marketing of precious metals as a hedge against inflation, which is all I've ever heard Beck represent he personally holds them to be during his commercials. Beck smells a rat.
“This is incredible. This is incredible,” he said. “This is again another arm of this administration coming out to try to shut me down,” he alleged, calling Weiner and the Obama administration “monsters” and the report a return to the “McCarthy era.”Actually, it's far worse. McCarthy did not target legal businesses.
Other conservative radio programs are sponsored by gold retailers, too. Mark Levin's is one.
Beck noted that Weiner's new press-boy is a Media Mutters alumni.
Levin, a rival radio host, in an email to POLITICO blasted Weiner as “a grandstanding leftist” and said of his report “there's nothing here but Weiner's self-serving assertions.”
Weiner claims that Goldline's prices are exorbitant as compared to the "melt value" of metallic gold of the same weight. What he does not say is that people may find some utility in purchasing small lots of gold on-line from an outfit they feel they can trust. Apparently, Weiner's "report" did not bother to look very deep.
“It feels like it’s politically motivated in that neither the Congressman nor anybody from his office ever contacted executives form [sic] the company to really ask the important questions that they need to ask to understand this business,” said Albarian [Goldline CEO], adding Weiner “doesn’t get” the gold retail business. The congressman’s report, Albarian asserted, seems driven by “our relationship with Glenn Beck, which we are very happy with.”Politico seemed far from neutral in its reportage on this:
Beck, who has taken to comparing the state of the U.S. economy to that of modern day Zimbabwe or pre-Hitler Germany, has been urging his devotees to invest in gold, and bragging about his own gold investments, since at least 2008.
Only if by INVESTING you mean taking a hedge position against inflation, and if by BRAGGING you mean relating that he holds gold for that purpose. If Politico writers listened, they'd have heard Beck say he DOES NOT suggest listeners buy gold for appreciation.
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If memory serves, Randi Rhodes also hawks either Goldline or ITM Trading. I can clearly remember her explaining how Bush's tax cuts pulled $300 billion out of the economy causing the financial crisis.
ReplyDeleteRandi who...????
ReplyDeleteI'm no economist (thank God) but here's the problem. As I recall, gold went to $900/oz in the 80's when Mr Malaise was driving the economy into the ground - for much the same reason it is now at $1300. It then started it's long, hard and steady plunge to $300 in '98. When (not if) the economy rebounds in the next years, guess what happens to gold? Demand down / supply up. Crash and burn. Buying any commodity at an all time high price is risky at very best.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, Rep Weenie and the government have absolutely no business telling people what they can buy or sell, how, when or for what price - with the obvious exception of fraud or misrepresentation. The gold venders did not create the fear, they just play on it.
A large chunk of FNC's daytime audience are retired folks who watched 40-50% of their life savings vaporize last year. Playing on that fear and anxiety to sell them a questionable commodity may be legal and profitable, but does not seem ethical. To that extent, Rep Weenie may have a point.
I think consumers should be smart, informed, and careful.
ReplyDeleteSo, is the best way to get people to those states the Federal freaking government?!?! HELL NO.
I personally would not DREAM of buying gold any way but at very near the commodity price, but I am hardly your average consumer.
Plus, any day...my transmogrification beam will convert lead to gold...and I'LL CONTROL THE WORLD...!!!!
If the last 30 years have taught me anything, it's that I need to buy gold when it hits bottom again. That's a good many years away, and I'll have the money if I buy the right stocks now while they are low.
ReplyDeleteI recommend buying "junk gold" at your local pawn shop IF you have the knowledge to pick out high gold-content items.
ReplyDeleteOther precious metals are often a good buy, as well, and offer NEARLY the same benefits (one they don't offer is being nearly universally recognized as good trade-goods).