Richard Russell has made his subscribers fortunes. One of the best values anywhere in the financial world at only a $300 subscription to get his DAILY report for a year. HERE to subscribe. Amongst his achievements Richard was in cash before the 2008/2009 Crash and he has been Bullish Gold since below $300

Ed Note: Richard Russell is bullish Silver and holds one of the largest single positions he has held since the 1950’s in the precious metals.

Russell Comment — Now it can be told. It started with billionaire fund manager John Paulsen. He had an idea that the wild speculation in homes was putting the price of homes into the bubbly stratosphere, and that the whole home-structure was due to collapse. Paulsen went to a few firms including Goldman and asked them to structure mortgage packages that would include some of the poorest quality mortgages. Paulsen’s plan — bet against these vehicles and these items and hope that he would be correct — that the housing boom would go into free-fall. This is exactly what happened, and Paulsen and his investors pocketed billions in profits.

Bear Sterns turned down a deal with Paulsen. But Goldman and Deutsche Bank went along with Paulsen. Goldman, knowing the mortgage packages they had created were toxic, sold these deals to investors without telling them about Paulsen and his thesis that these mortgage packages were created to fail. What’s worse, Goldman even sold these toxic packages short. Goldman sold the product to their customers and at the same time shorted the products.

But what about the agencies that were supposed to grade these packages? They were as asleep as was the SEC on the Madoff case. The toxic packages got a AAA classification from the rating agencies. All in all, a disgusting case of collusion and incompetence by Wall Street and the rating agencies and stupidity on the part of the buyers of these toxic packages.

The fact is that Paulsen had been searching for bubbles in the economy, and he correctly zeroed in on real estate and specifically home mortgages. But Paulsen never sold his toxic packages to investors, Goldman did. Which is why the SEC has focused its fraud accusations on Goldman and left Paulsen alone.

Paulsen & Co. earned $15 billion betting against the housing market in 2007. Paulsen, 54 years old, personally made nearly $4 billion that year. Today Paulsen’s hedge fund has $32 billion in assets, making it one the world’s largest hedge funds. Of interest is that Paulsen’s most recent big investment is in gold and gold stocks and exchange traded funds tied to gold.

I ask myself, what is Paulsen thinking as he takes a large position in gold and gold shares? Paulsen must be thinking that the dollar is in a bubble. Furthermore the ultimate “safe bet” against the dollar is gold. Normally, the bet against the dollar would be to load up on the euro, but the Greek fiasco eliminates a big bet on the euro.