The widespread loss of trust that is currently occurring does not have many benefits. It would be much better if the important institutions were trustworthy, competent and efficiently managed. But to fix them it is first necessary to recognize the problems.

People who spent all their time marginalizing gold fanatics as crazies and conspiracy theorists are beginning to find themselves on the sidelines.

Suddenly, it is logical for large sectors of Americans to question whether long-held assumptions are true. It is the people who implicitly trust what they have been told by bureaucrats and bankers who look a little foolish.

The veil is being pulled back. Gold and silver investors should be prepared for some interesting revelations and, perhaps, changes in the metals markets.

They should also beware of "experts" who still cling to conventional wisdom. Now is the time to ask questions, not to blindly trust.

The following assumptions are absurd. Those who advocate them are, at best, naïve, or perhaps have some interest in preserving the status quo.

FOOLISH ASSUMPTION No. 1: There are no problems with decades-old audits of U.S. gold reserves, including the Fort Knox bars, and it is unreasonable to ask for a new audit that also examines the encumbrances .

The best reason for a comprehensive audit of U.S. gold is that the bureaucrats desperately want to avoid it and are resisting all efforts to have a new inventory and analysis of each and every bullion.

There are three possibilities with respect to U.S. gold reserves. The worst possibility is that some of the gold is missing.

Another possibility is that U.S. gold has been leased or otherwise encumbered and is no longer 100% available to the U.S. Treasury.

The best case scenario is that the gold is all there and unencumbered, but much of it is in the form of molten gold bullion (at 90% purity), which is illiquid (as the bullion markets require much higher purity).

Anyone who still trusts what officials have told them and ridicules the idea of a comprehensive audit, in this day and age, is a moron. It is time to examine gold with a magnifying glass. Audits are never just one thing anyway.

DUMB ASSUMPTION No. 2: Price manipulation is not a problem in the metals markets.

Recently, several major bullion banks, including JPMorgan Chase, pleaded guilty to widespread price manipulation. The Department of Justice stopped them, although the CFTC did not.

There are thousands of documents, chat logs and voice recordings that show traders conspiring with their peers at other banks to manipulate prices and harm their own customers.

That was the moment when it became completely untenable for anyone to claim that the gold and silver markets are free and fair. The "conspiracy theory" is now officially a conspiratorial reality.

A valid question to examine is whether the manipulation that occurs is merely situational or systemic, and who is involved.

Moreover, it is more than a little naïve to believe that federal regulators and committed Justice Department officials were willing or able to root out this corruption among the world's most powerful and well-connected banks.

A more informed view is that it can be difficult to get a fair deal when playing in the highly leveraged casino that is the futures market.

DUMB ASSUMPTION N° 3: The Federal Reserve must maintain its independence .

Americans have been told for more than 100 years that it is vital that our central bank operate on its own. We must somehow trust that Federal Reserve officials have the best interests of Americans in mind.

This despite clear evidence that the Fed's real mandate is to take care of the Wall Street banks that literally own the Fed. This includes the massive bank bailouts of 2008, which benefited executives who demonstrated terrible judgment and in some cases perpetrated fraud.

It is highly questionable to insist that it is sensible to have an "independent" (read: unaccountable) Federal Reserve. Those who claim that the central bank's token efforts at transparency are adequate are either not serious or not honest. They should read Ron Paul's "End the Fed."

The truth is that the Fed is a black box funneling trillions of dollars. Who still thinks it's a good idea?

Clint Siegner, Money Metals