There are actually TWO Barnhardt Axioms.  The second Barnhardt Axiom is:
Seeking and/or holding office, especially national-level office, is today, in and of itself, proof that a given person is psychologically and morally unfit to hold public office.

The first, older Barnhardt Axiom is:
If you can’t stand in front of something and physically defend it with a firearm, then you don’t own it, and probably never did.

The fifth largest Commodity trading company (not a brokerage firm per se, but specializing in trading commodities in both the physical and on paper) just announced that they are ceasing ALL gold trading activity.  Why?  Because the PHYSICAL GOLD that is allegedly stored and/or backing the paper markets ISN’T THERE, everyone knows it, and they want out before the manure impacts the rapidly spinning airfoils.

This is called a “mokita”, from a language in Papua New Guinea, meaning “a truth everybody knows but nobody speaks”.

Yup.  I’ve been saying this for years.  COMEX warehouse receipts are a joke, as are ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds).  I wonder what the factor is on “owners” of each serial number?  Kyle Bass was beyond smart to get his physical gold out of COMEX years ago – essentially cashing out of the Ponzi super-early, before it collapsed, which is the one and only viable strategy when one finds oneself unwittingly in a Ponzi – as Bass did with regards to COMEX.

Last month DeutscheBank also announced that it would cease all physical precious metals trading.  Yup.  The jig is up, methinks.  The metal simply isn’t there, and these people are getting out not out of a profound sense of moral responsibility, but rather like vermin exiting a sinking ship.  How does one defend oneself when after taking delivery of a certain bar, or even just owning on paper, and fifty other claimants show up, each carrying a warehouse receipt with exactly the same serial number?  Or when you are notified that your gold stored in your safe deposit box is ACTUALLY someone else’s property.  The article linked above rightly draws the link between the situation with the metals markets and the situation in the American real estate market wherein fraudulent robosigning, bundling and derivatizing of mortgages leaves actual ownership title to the physical houses up for grabs.  Nobody actually knows who owns what any longer.  And, as we have discussed at length recently, when the Rule of Law breaks down and there is no Equal Protection thereunder, the biggest thug wins.

Yeah, the only way to win in that mess is to not play.  Take your ball and go home.   If you still have one.