I was taken aback by the bullishness in the lead story on the Nightly Business Report last night as, apparently, the network hadn’t gotten the memo from central banks and economists that the barbarous relic was a barbarous relic once again, that is, after the price had tumbled almost $400 an ounce as of yesterday morning from its early-September high.

Watch the full episode. See more Nightly Business Report.

Admittedly, Joe Foster of Van Eck Global is just talking the firm’s book, but it seems odd to hear anyone say on network television in the U.S. that, with the gold price at $1,600 an ounce, you should be a buyer.

Normally, I’m not a big believer in conspiracy theories, but recent events really have me scratching my head.

Last week, equity markets sold off and, as has often been the case in recent years, futures traders sold winning positions in precious metals to cover margin calls as a result of losses elsewhere.

There’s nothing new about that.

But, on Friday, with the plummeting gold price already down more than $200 from its early-September high and with the price of silver in a virtual free fall as traders suddenly realize that, at times like this, it’s much more of an industrial metal than a monetary one, CME Group decided announce a new round of margin rate hikes – some 21 percent for gold and 16 percent for silver.

This was followed by a similar move by the Shanghai metals exchange on Monday morning amid word that officials are about to quadruple the capacity of the EFSF (European Financial Stability Fund) from about 440 billion euros to over 2 trillion euros.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but it’s easy to think that the timing of those margin rate hikes was more than just a coincidence.

Read the rest of this article at Seeking Alpha.

Barron’s economics editor Gene Epstein talks about the recent sell-off in both gold and silver and wonders about what might lie ahead for the metals.

For someone who has been somewhat dismissive of the commodities boom in recent years (see Who’s Behind the Commodities Boom? from early-2008), this is a rather bullish outlook.

The market carnage in recent days has been something to behold and, as the debate continues about the degree the Fed’s “significant downside risk” view of the world the other day is to blame, that uncharacteristically sour view of things certainly didn’t help.

Anyone thinking that gold is a safe haven like U.S. Treasuries or the U.S. dollar has been reminded that it is surely not. At times like this, the yellow metal is sold along with everything else, reviving long before other asset classes, but only after policy makers start talking about how much money they’re going to print up for the greater good.

At least that was the lesson of 2008, which, given how conditions have deteriorated in recent days, would be the appropriate comparison. Sadly, it appears that the question of whether 2011 will “rhyme” with 2008 or 2010 is now being answered.

But, in the mean time, lower prices are available for investors seeking to trade in some of their increasingly shaky paper money for something more substantial.