About Screwtape


Screwtape is a loose collective of prosimians. We have backgrounds in investing, precious metals, science, IT, diplomacy, academia, detective-ing, journalism, think tanks and James Bond-y-ness (really). We come from three different continents. We agree on almost nothing, except for the primacy of:

  1. Facts
  2. Rationality
  3. Debate
  4. Prosimians

Screwtape has no advertisements, no click-thru fees, and no donate button. We run at a loss. We do this for the love of blogging and the sport of a good hunt for the truth. We are neither perma-bears nor perma-bulls. Our views will change in a second, if you show us the evidence.

This is not Zero Hedge. All contrary views are welcome. We love them. Just be polite.

Please comment on our articles if you enjoy reading them. They take quite a lot of thought and time to produce, and we welcome the feedback and the discussion.

Enjoy Screwtape!

Louis, Warren, GrundleMaster, Jeanne and Larry



Hall of Fame

With many contributing authors, Screwtape Files has built up a compendium of fun, evocative or controversial material. These tend to get buried over time, so we figured we would highlight (in third person) the ones we liked the best - in no particular order or classification, grouped by author. Every article listed here has a unique point of distinction but is presented with no particular agenda. The list may change as time progresses.

Louis Cypher
The Bill Murphy Wager Update, Sometimes the luminaries of the metals blogosphere get their predictions wrong but are not often called to account. Louis Cypher gets serious with Bill Murphy on the 90-day gold doubling discussion, braving the sticky consequences of the new wager terms and conditions. Metals comedy at its best.

Free Silver, Ever want to invest in silver on the cheap? See Gresham's law in action where Louis Cypher explains a practical way of fishing out coins with silver content, courtesy of the banks (suitable for American audiences). This article got many hits, and still does - it is almost as popular as Louis' other article 'Urban Mining and Refining for Gold', so this is a double-feature.

Grundlemaster Jenkins
On Gold's Intrinsic Value, Everyone talks about the gold price, but does gold by itself have any intrinsic value? The debate rages with some charts thrown in, Grundlemaster Jenkins attacks the issue head on. Enjoy the intelligent debate between Larry and GM in the comments section, this is a treat and covers every possible angle you thought possible on the topic.

Figured it out, At no other place can you get videos of Korean gymnasts mixed with commentary on the relationship between treasury yields and the gold price. Grundlemaster Jenkins investigates correlations using technical analysis.

Screwtape World News - Weekly Cheese Wrap, a once-off parody of King World News (KWN), complete with a selection of unbiased guest commentators and the inside story about movements in the cheese market. Jeanne D'Arc's unparalleled creative satire; top shelf metals-related entertainment.

Jeanne D'Arc
Dave the Dung Beetle, Jeanne D'Arc pens a touching allegory of a field creature who toils and slaves for what he knows to be true faithfully led by the unerring dung beetle leadership. Folk familiar with the silver blogs of 2011 will recognize actual quotes and allegories.

Good Versus Evil, As a bull market in 'evil empire' references develops in the silverogosphere, Jeanne D'Arc explores the question of how promoting the 'us vs. them' theme can be useful if you're spruiking silver, and asks the serious questions like whether the popular demonization of Blythe Masters was appropriate or even justified.

How the PM blogosphere behaves like a Cult, Jeanne D'Arc at her devilish best, takes the knife to the metals community at large, and itemizes the similarities. This post got us largely condemned by the metals sites - no surprise there, but ironically that only served to strengthen the argument.

Vainly Willing the Return of the 2011 Silver Bubble, Not scared to ruffle any feathers, Jeanne D'Arc puts the case forward for silver being a 'mania' in 2011, from the perspective of the social media frenzy at the time. This article can be considered the third installment in a series, building on a framework of earlier articles which include 'Silver and the bubble curve: where is the Smart Money heading?' and the 2011 investigation into SilverGoldSilver's talking cartoon bears: The Bear Necessities (of silver life). The case against Jeanne's bubble argument was taken up by Grundlemaster Jenkins link. The fourth and final item in this series took the form of 'On Keeping My Little Lemur Purse Firmly Closed' which outlined why gold was overpriced (prior to the price smash of 2013).

Warren James
BullionBars Database is a series of articles from Warren James telling individual stories from the data itself, shared it here publicly for anyone interested. You can contact me at bullionbars at hotmail dot com.


Bank of England Vault Floor Layout,Warren James draws a floor layout based on the new Virtual Tour Application, and uses the information to directly debunk Alisdair Macleod and Max Keiser's claims about the 1,300 tonnes of leased gold (sorry Alisdair).

Eric's Delivery, where we dissect Eric Sprott's spin and rhetoric surrounding the initial PSLV silver delivery, and compare it against practical logistics. Did his 3 month delivery process really represent market tightness, or was there a simpler explanation? Warren James investigates with computer graphics and finds a less-remarkable story.

Slow Loris Larry

The Relative Sizes of the LBMA OTC Market and the COMEX/GLOBEX Futures Exchange, Did you think Comex was the be-all and end-all of the silver story? Not so fast. The size of the LBMA market is the biggest, despite what you've heard. Slow Loris Larry puts the case forward.







Guest Writers
:

Lord Gordon William Humphreys Richardson ..., Who are the candidates for the identity of ANOTHER? Does it even matter? What is it about our psyche that compels some people to explore, and others not to? Robert LeRoy Parker's valiant article looks quickly at possible candidates.

Is Someone Paying Zero Hedge to Post Propaganda? a landmark post from contributing author ', earns the distinction of being the MOST VISITED POST on Screwtape Files (and attracting over 100 comments), Brian asks the hard questions about the PSLV premium and why Zero Hedge would bother publishing blatantly incorrect information. This post still continues to get hits every week, we suspect this is search engine optimization at work for ZH but we're all quite jealous that it is the all-time #1 with well over 20,000 page views at time of writing.

Other:

The 'Freegold Debate' series are three non-date blog pages of attempting to collate various points of view and vectors for discussion surrounding freegold theory, comments which popped up constantly under non-freegold related articles. Page 1 was a response to SRMI's desire to facilitate discussion, which continued into Page 2, the most recent being Page 3. The goal was always to distill the salient points and advance the discussion but the format failed because freegold is not one of our core topics, hence low levels of interest by our writers. The discussion can be viewed as a failed experiment, however there are a few gems in these pages. A continuation of the discussion would be best served on a blog separate to this one.










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