GATA’s Bill Murphy, Chris Powell interviewed

By Kevin Michael Grace

Fresh from a packed presentation on “GATA’s Tremendous Year in 2011,” Chairman Bill Murphy and Secretary-Treasurer Chris Powell of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee came over to the Resource Clips booth to have some pictures taken and answer some questions.

Murphy told us that that he’s known Joe Martin, “who runs these conferences and does such a great job,” since 1997. “Then we formed GATA in 1999, and we’ve been coming to the Cambridge House conferences here in Vancouver and elsewhere since then, and they’re terrific.”

Murphy says that in the 13 years since GATA’s formation, “Our credibility has really surged, because we know what’s happening and why.” Powell adds, “My sense is that most people seriously involved in the gold market either know that central banks are interfering surreptitiously or have strong suspicions that they are. We’re not considered men from Mars anymore, tinfoil-hat wearers. As we’ve seen from essays in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal and other publications, ‘financial repression’ is now a commonly used phrase. It means central banks intervening in markets. I don’t think it’s been used explicitly in connection with the gold market yet, but I consider this a very big step in the perception of GATA’s position.”

Murphy cites chapter and verse regarding the media repression of GATA. “I was on CNBC in February 1999, and I’ve been banned ever since,” he says. Powell then points out this ban does not extend across the Atlantic, “You have been on CNBC Europe since then.” Murphy then expresses astonishment at the continuing mainstream media freeze-out in America. “No one has been more right on the gold market than us, and no one has explained it better. We’ve had four international conferences, including a sold-out conference last year at the Savoy Hotel in London. We’ve had whistleblower events, and Reuters and Bloomberg were there, and they wouldn’t even mention our name.”

Despite the hostility of the elite US media, GATA’s message continues to gain ever more adherents. In this sense, GATA resembles Ron Paul’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. According to Murphy, “We’re antiestablishment, as he is, and he just doesn’t get covered like the other candidates. He’s willing to tell it the way it is, and we’re the same way.

Murphy reveals that GATA and Ron Paul are more than casually acquainted. “He’s the only presidential candidate who knows who we are! We’ve met with him several times. He’s asked our opinions and had us assist him in his work against the Fed. Just like Ron Paul, we’re taking on the most powerful people in the world, and the mainstream media doesn’t want to hear about it, because, as Chris says, that’s where they get their money from.”

Powell adds, “I suspect that our constituency, at least the people who are on our email list, are probably pretty solidly conservative politically, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Were not a gold-standard organization; we’re a government transparency and free-market organization. I was involved in the campaigns against the Vietnam War, and I campaigned for Senator Eugene McCarthy. I’m pretty liberal on a number of things, libertarian on some, conservative on others. But I think that in a democracy, people of all political orientations would want to be able to know what their government is doing, how it intervenes in markets and how the central bank is running the currency. We believe that you can draw your own conclusions only when you know what’s really happening.”