Tuesday, November 30, 2010

THE AMERICAN RULING CLASS...A VIDEO/MOVIE 90 MINUTES

SCROLL DOWN BELOW THE COMMENTS TO SEE THE VIDEO

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26932.htm

This "astonishing," "coruscating" satire poses the question: Is it better to rule the world, or to save it?

In this first of its kind “dramatic-documentary-musical,” essayist Lewis Lapham and an all-star cast (including Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Altman, James Baker and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.) take two young Ivy-League graduates on a tour of the corridors of power. This “astonishing”, “coruscating” satire poses the question:  Is it better to rule the world, or to save it?

Appearing on the screen are a range of leaders and commentators from across the political spectrum, among them: the late Robert B. Altman, James A. Baker III, Bill Bradley, Harold Brown, Hodding Carter III, William T. Coleman, Jr., Walter Cronkite, Barbara Ehrenreich, Vartan Gregorian, Doug Henwood, Mike Medavoy, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., John Perkins, (a.k.a., the economic hit-man) Samuel Peabody, Pete Seeger, Lawrence H. Summers, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr., William Howard Taft IV, the late Kurt Vonnegut and Howard Zinn.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

DON'T FEEL 'OBLIGATED' TO GO BROKE FOR CHRISTMAS

GARY NORTH'S TIP OF THE WEEK
Gary North's Tip of the Week - November 27, 2010 Christmas Traps
=====================================================
  When I find a really good article, I pass it along.  I have
nothing to add to this one.  It is on how you can get sucked in
by the "Christmas Spirit" and wind up in trouble in January.

        http://www.garynorth.com/snip/1026.htm   

  The temptation to overspend is always part of Christmas.  Do
not succumb.  Black Friday is over.  I hope it was not Red Ink
Friday for you.  If it was, get a grip.
Gary "Less Is More" North

Next Up: a "Flat Tax" for the Rich...THEY WON'T STOP UNTIL THEY HAVE IT ALL!

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26914.htm

OR

http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson11252010.html

"Here’s how I think the plan is intended to work. Given the fact that voters have already rejected the flat tax in principle, it can only be introduced by fiatunder crisis conditions. Alan Simpson, President Obama’s designated co-chairman of the “Deficit Reduction Commission” (the euphemistic title  given to what is in reality a “Shift Taxes Off Wealth Onto Labor” commission) already has suggested that Republicans close down the government by refusing to increase the federal debt limit this spring. This would create a fiscal crisis and threat of government shutdown. It would be a fiscal 9/11, for the Republicans to trot out their “rescue plan” for the emergency breakdown of government.
The result would cap the tax shift off finance and wealth onto wage earners. Supported by Blue Dog Democrats, President Obama would shed crocodile tears and sign off on the most right-wing, oligarchic, anti-labor, anti-black and anti-minority, anti-industrial tax that anyone has yet been able to think up. The notorious Flat Tax would fall only on wage income (paid by employees and employers alike) and on consumer goods (the value-added tax, VAT), while exempting returns that accrue to the wealthy in the form of interest and dividend income, rent and capital gains."

Friday, November 26, 2010

The US of A Breaks the Soviet Record for length of war in Afghanistan

http://www.salon.com/news/afghanistan/?story=/opinion/greenwald/2010/11/26/afghanistan

OR

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26922.htm

"US presence in Afghanistan as long as Soviet slog The Soviet Union couldn't win in Afghanistan, and now the United States is about to have something in common with that futile campaign: nine years, 50 days.On Friday, the U.S.-led coalition will have been fighting in this South Asian country for as long as the Soviets did in their humbling attempt to build up a socialist state."

TO THINK ABOUT...

"It's unnatural and unhealthy for a nation to be engaged in global crusades for some principle or idea while neglecting the needs of its own people,"  Sen. J. William Fulbright

How to avoid both the naked body scanner and TSA gropes!

http://farmwars.info/?p=4672

"If everyone who flies takes Matt’s lead in this and follows his example, we can effect change. He made it through without being irradiated or sexually assaulted by TSA. Read the account, and listen to the recording to see how he accomplished this. Then think about what would happen if others started doing this, en masse."

Thursday, November 25, 2010

The Day The Dollar Died 7 minute video


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N8gJSMoOJc&feature=player_embedded
CREDIT TO CLYMER FOR THE LINK

Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion By Chris Hedges

November 23, 2010 "Truthdig" -- There is no hope left for achieving significant reform or restoring our democracy through established mechanisms of power. The electoral process has been hijacked by corporations. The judiciary has been corrupted and bought. The press shuts out the most important voices in the country and feeds us the banal and the absurd. Universities prostitute themselves for corporate dollars. Labor unions are marginal and ineffectual forces. The economy is in the hands of corporate swindlers and speculators. And the public, enchanted by electronic hallucinations, remains passive and supine. We have no tools left within the power structure in our fight to halt unchecked corporate pillage. 
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26898.htm

The Stench of American Hypocrisy, Part 2 By Paul Craig Roberts

Hypocrisy in America is now so commonplace it is no longer noticed.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26893.htm

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

OUR OWN GUV'MINT IS THE REAL TERRORIST

TSA Gestapo Empire By Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26902.htm

"Think about it. Would a terror organization capable of outwitting all 16 US intelligence agencies, all intelligence agencies of US allies including Israel’s Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD, air traffic control, the Pentagon, and airport security four times in one hour put its unrivaled prestige at risk with improbable shoe bombs, shampoo bombs, and underwear bombs? "

Watching the sheople being herded everywhere during this holiday, whether through airport screenings or being encouraged to prepare to rise early and camp out at stores for the big Black Friday Sales, shows how
very willing they all will be when told to line up for the box cars and cattle trucks to be carried off to the 'camps' for 'their own good' when the economy collapses and they are all begging for shelter and food from Big Brother.

ONCE A WAR CRIMINAL...ALWAYS A WAR CRIMINAL

Bush Lies - Not Just To Us, But To Himself
By Ray McGovern

Nowhere in his memoir, Decision Points, is Bush's bizarre relationship with truth so manifest as when he describes his dismay at learning that the intelligence community had redeemed itself for its lies about Iraq by preparing an honest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.  As the Bush-book makes abundantly clear, that NIE rammed an iron rod through the wheels of the juggernaut rolling toward war.
Nowhere is Bush's abiding conviction clearer, now as then, that his role as "decider" include the option to create his own reality.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26903.htm

AND THIS 'CHILLING' ANALYSIS OF BUSH DONE IN 2007 BY JUSTIN FRANK M.D.
(A PSYCHIATRIST)

"His pathology is a patchwork of false beliefs and incomplete information woven into what he asserts is the whole truth... He lies - not just to us, but to himself as well... What makes lying so easy for Bush is his contempt - for language, for law, and for anybody who dares question him.... So his words mean nothing. That is very important for people to understand." [See Consortiumnews.com's "Dangers of a Cornered Bush."]
http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2007/072707a.html

Sunday, November 21, 2010

FROM JSMINESET.COM 11/20/10

“Starting December 1 thru April 2011, approximately 4.6 million unemployed workers will begin rolling off of the Federal emergency unemployment compensation and extended benefits programs. If congress does not extend the program, instead of receiving up to 99 weeks of benefits, the unemployed will only be eligible for the standard 26 weeks of benefits. About 200,000 workers will fall out of the programs each week while new job growth will be lucky to exceed 100,000 per month. By the time all the Federal EUC/EB benefits expire, the total will amount to an annualized hit to personal income of $70 billion."

DO YOU THINK THIS WILL AFFECT YOU?

EITHER GUV'MINTS KEEP INFLATING THE MONEY SUPPLY UNTIL IT RESULTS IN
HYPER-INFLATION, WHICH WILL COLLAPSE THE ECONOMY AS ALL CONFIDENCE IN CURRENCIES IS LOST...

OR...

THEY STOP INFLATING THE MONEY SUPPLY AND THE ECONOMY COLLAPSES IMMEDIATELY AS ALL GUV'MINT PAYMENTS STOP AND ALL TAX REVENUES TO GUV'MINT RAPIDLY DECREASE TO ZERO.

EITHER WAY...WE'RE ALL IN FOR SOME VERY HORRIBLE AND DEADLY TIMES NOT FAR IN THE FUTURE.

Band-Aid Solutions By Puru Saxena

GOOD ARTICLE EXPLAINING HOW THE CURRENT MASSIVE NATIONAL DEBT WAS CREATED.

http://dailyreckoning.com/band-aid-solutions/

Saturday, November 20, 2010

MARTIN ARMSTRONG SPEAKS THE TRUTH

http://www.martinarmstrong.org/files/The%20Rising%20Frustration%20with%20the%20Debt%20Crisis%2011-11-2010.pdf

GO RON PAUL!

"[W]e have to realize that the real problem is that the American people have been too submissive. We have been too submissive. It has been going on for a long time. ... [T]he bill that I have introduced ... is very simple. It is one paragraph long. It removes the immunity from anybody in the Federal government that does anything that you or I can't do.

If you can't grope another person and if you can't X-ray people and endanger them with possible X-rays, [and] you can't take nude photographs of individuals, why do we allow the government to do it? We would go to jail. He would be immediately arrested, if an individual citizen went up and did these things, and yet we just sit there and calmly say, 'oh, they are making us safe.'

And besides, the argument from the executive branch is that when you buy a ticket, you have sacrificed your rights and it is the duty of the government to make us safe. That isn't the case. You never have to sacrifice your rights. The duty of the government is to protect our rights, not to use them and do what they have been doing to us." - -- Ron Paul - (1935-) American physician, US Congressman (R-TX), US Presidential candidate - Source: Congressional Record, Nov. 17, 2010

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Jamie Dimon and Robert Rubin: Evasive on "Fraud as a Business Model"

Foreclosure fraud isn't about losing paperwork or having incorrect paperwork. It is about committing fraud and trying to manipulate the U.S. legal system. No one -- not even a bank -- can show up in court with phony evidence.

Banks that committed fraud on the court do not get a do-over. Even if they can show up later with correct documents, it does not erase the original crime of fraud on the court. Anyone who presented phony documents as evidence in court broke the law.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-tavakoli/jamie-dimon-and-robert-ru_b_782930.html

THE WRITERS ON THE DAILY SOAP OPERAS COULDN'T WRITE A BETTER SCRIPT THAN THIS HORSE SHIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/nyregion/19rangel.html?_r=1&hp

“I don’t know how much longer I have to live,” said Mr. Rangel, 80, his eyes watery and his voice quivering. But he said whatever time he has, he will spend it trying “to help people and thank God for what he’s given to me.”

AND ALL HE HAS TO DO IS STAND BEFORE HIS FELLOW CRIMINAL THIEVES AND BE 'REBUKED'?

GIVE ME A BREAK!

GIVE ME SOME REAL NEWS, LIKE HOW MUCH WILLS AND KATE WILL SPEND ON THEIR WEDDING CEREMONY. (yes, that's what the Brits call him...'Wills')

YOU KNOW, SOMETHING THAT REALLY MATTERS TO THE MILLIONS OF STARVING PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD

NOAM CHOMSKY 30 MINUTE VIDEO...THE MAN IS BRILLIANT!

JIM SINCLAIR COMMENTS ON THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE SITUATION

Posted: Nov 17 2010     By: Jim Sinclair      Post Edited: November 17, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Filed under: General Editorial
Dear CIGAs,
The unending criticism of the Fed’s action on QE must have its foundation in a belief that has been prolifically communicated to the public by all kinds of media.

THE MOPE:
1. The US Economy is improving and will continue to.
2. Balance sheets of US financial entities have improved greatly.

Therefore they cannot see why the Fed needs to try to stimulate anything.

THE TRUTH:
1. The answer is that the US Economic recovery is stalled. Anything going higher more slowly is starting down on the Economic Accelerator Factor.
The Economic Accelerator Factor (search for this term at JSMINESET.COM) is a law of economics denied now for 30 years.
The answer to number one is that the US economy is looking for a lower low on the next move.
2. The balance sheets of the US financial entities show an improvement based on a total FABRICATION. The FASB sold their soul to Wall Street by allowing the entities in question to make up valuation having nothing to do with true value. The fact that a bank holds a piece of junk to the end does not justify valuing junk at cost. That is moronic and destroys the purpose of accounting and auditing.
MOPE has convinced every Fed detractor that all is well. It isn’t.
Top Republicans and Tea Party members are afloat in public letters and complaints to the Fed, but inherent to the people, about the Fed. As well meaning as these people are, they have no idea what dislocation they will cause immediately.
QE is not right but it is the only tool left for the Fed.
The new bodies in the legislative will prevent any fiscal measures. The final hit of the fan will be the result of well meaning but economically ignorant people.
Assuming the new people prevail over the Fed, gold will go to unimaginable prices as Western society implodes.
One conclusion now is neither the right nor the left has a clue of how serious conditions are. As I have told you for years, there is no practical solution to what many administrations have done.  (GT sezWE ARE BANKRUPT, plain and simple, and the debts have to be paid back one way or another)

MOPE has backfired.

UN urges full US torture investigation

 The United Nations has called on the United States to conduct a full investigation into torture under the administration of former US President George W. Bush.

The UN special rapporteur on torture, Juan Ernesto Mendez, urged Washington on Tuesday to prosecute offenders as well as senior officials who ordered the abuse of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/151336.html

HUNGER IN AMERICA

In a society which took seriously the value of human life and the future of its children, the spectacle of 50 million people at risk of hunger, including 17 million children, would be a social emergency. Given that the United States once boasted of its ability to feed the planet, the indifference to the growth of hunger at home is a national scandal.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26849.htm

BE SURE TO READ MANY OF THE COMMENTS AFTER THE ARTICLE

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

WE NOW LIVE IN A GIANT FISHBOWL OF PROPAGANDA FROM WHICH YOU CANNOT ESCAPE...SO, YOU MUST USE YOUR BRAINS TO REMAIN SANE

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." 
 Joseph Goebbels Head of NAZI Propaganda

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

THE COMPLETE SAN DIEGO VIDEO OF THE TSA 'FRISK' OF JOHN TYNER. "DON'T TOUCH MY JUNK"

PART ONE



PART TWO



PART THREE



HERE IS JOHN'S BLOG AND HIS VIDEOS AND DESCRIPTION OF THE EVENTS AS THEY TRANSPIRED.
http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/these-events-took-place-roughly-between.html

THIS WILL HAPPEN HERE AS SOON AS THE ECONOMY COLLAPSES AND DISEASE BEGINS TO SPREAD

Haiti cholera clashes: UN troops shoot man dead

Peacekeepers kill at least one person in clashes as Haitians blame epidemic on Nepalese force

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention found that the strain, which has infected more than 15,000 people and reached all 10 departments, resembled one from south Asia. Haiti's first epidemic in living memory began in the valley a week after the Nepalese arrived.

More Reasons to Hate the TSA



http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26843.htm

Everyone's written about this "don't touch my junk" story, but this new development is so sadly in line with my thesis about these things that it's almost a cliche. When i wrote about it over the week-end, I pointed out that this was the latest in a series of steps to a police state --- the building of a police bureaucracy, the intimidation and the incoherence of security theatre designed to confuse citizens and indoctrinate them to the idea that they should unquestioningly submit to absurd directives from authorities. It's how you control a populace.

Bush Can’t Travel Abroad Without Risking Arrest

November 16, 2010 "" --  George W. Bush better stay at home.
The confessed waterboarder is a marked man. If he travels abroad, other countries can—and should—nab him and try him for the crime of torture.
In his memoir and in last week’s NBC interview, Bush acknowledged ordering waterboarding.
He says the lawyers told him it wasn’t torture. But he got bad legal advice.

Attorney General Eric Holder has recognized waterboarding as torture. So has the State Department, as the great civil liberties
Bill Quigley points out at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Given that, Holder has an obligation to press charges against the former president. But neither Holder nor his boss has the guts to do that. And what a shame that is!
Prosecutors in other countries, however, may not be so spineless. “Under international law, anyone involved in torture must be brought to justice, and that does not exclude former President George W. Bush,” said Claudio Cordone, senior director of Amnesty International.
“If his admission is substantiated, the USA has the obligation to prosecute him,” Cordone said, adding ominously: “In the absence of a U.S. investigation, other states must step in and carry out such an investigation themselves.”
Under the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, countries that have ratified the accords have a binding obligation to exercise jurisdiction over those accused of grave breaches. (See “Stripping Rumsfeld and Bush of Impunity,”)
So if I were Bush (and what a horrifying thought that is!), I’d cancel those plans to visit Spain or Germany or any other country where some prosecutor, somewhere, respects international law.
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine

Blood on His Hands

IN 2003 WHEN BUSH WAS ABOUT TO GO TO WAR IN IRAQ,
GT CREATED THIS 'JOKE' AND SPREAD IT ON THE INTERNET:

IF YOU SHAVED GEORGE W. BUSH'S HEAD
AND DID NOT FIND 666,

YOU WOULD AT LEAST FIND
665 AND 3/4s

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26832.htm

 As George W. Bush hawks his memoir, Decision Points, he seems especially driven to justify his decision to invade and occupy Iraq. He emphasizes how sickened he was at learning that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, though not too sick to kid about it at the White House correspondents’ dinner.

While he refuses to say whether he would have ordered the invasion had he known the truth — and there’s good reason to suspect that he did know the truth — Bush insists that 25 million Iraqis are better off without Saddam in power.

Unfortunately, the deferential interviewers are unwilling to ask tough questions. (Why do former presidents, secretaries of state, and their ilk get this free pass?)

WHEN 'THE CROWD' STARTS LAUGHING AT YOU, YOUR EFFECTIVENESS IS CURTAILED AND YOUR NUMBER IS UP


The video was produced free of charge on a creative
Website, www.Xtranormal.com.  The site provides very simple
cartoon images.  You select from 28 different combinations
of talking creatures.  You type in a script.  The site's
software creates the cartoon.  You have just seen an
example.
The video gets to the point: Bernanke is an
inflationist.  It also makes the point that Goldman Sachs
gets rich from its relationship with the FED.  When a video
makes this connection, the FED is in trouble, because
Goldman Sachs has a bad press.  It is not merely guilt by
association.  It is more like "unindicted co-conspirator."

Monday, November 15, 2010

The Federal Reserve is Laundering Money

Exclusive Excerpt: America on Sale, From Matt Taibbi's 'Griftopia'

Our cash-strapped country is auctioning off its highways, ports and even parking meters, finding eager buyers in the Middle East


http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/222206

Matt Taibbi's unsparing and authoritative reporting on the financial crisis has produced a series of memorable Rolling Stone features. He showed us how Goldman Sachs, that "great vampire squid", played a central role in creating not only the housing bubble but four other big speculative booms that filled its coffers while wrecking the American economy. He explained how Wall Street banks cooked up schemes that helped decimate municipal budgets and cost countless jobs, and how Wall Street lobbying led to a financial reform bill that won't prevent another meltdown. Taibbi builds on that eye-opening work in his new book, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That is Breaking America, due out from Spiegel & Grau on November 2. In this exclusive excerpt, he describes how our cash-strapped country is auctioning off its highways, ports and even parking meters at fire sale prices — and finding eager buyers in the unregulated sovereign wealth funds of oil-rich Middle Eastern countries

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Matt Taibbi: Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners

Retired judges are rushing through complex cases to speed foreclosures in Florida

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/232611?RS_show_page=1

All told, some 820,000 Americans have already lost their homes this year, and another 1 million currently face foreclosure.

Throughout the mounting catastrophe, however, many Americans have been slow to comprehend the true nature of the mortgage disaster. They seemed to have grasped just two things about the crisis: One, a lot of people are getting their houses foreclosed on. Two, some of the banks doing the foreclosing seem to have misplaced their paperwork.

...in reality, it's the unpaid bills that are incidental and the lost paperwork that matters. It turns out that underneath that little iceberg tip of exposed evidence lies a fraud so gigantic that it literally cannot be contemplated by our leaders, for fear of admitting that our entire financial system is corrupted to its core — with our great banks and even our government coffers backed not by real wealth but by vast landfills of deceptively generated and essentially worthless mortgage-backed assets.

The scary actual U.S. government debt

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/neil-reynolds/the-scary-actual-us-government-debt/article1773879/

Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff says U.S. government debt is not $13.5-trillion (U.S.), which is 60 per cent of current gross domestic product, as global investors and American taxpayers think, but rather 14-fold higher: $200-trillion – 840 per cent of current GDP. “Let’s get real,” Prof. Kotlikoff says. “The U.S. is bankrupt.”

PLEASE HELP TOM KEEP HIS VERY VALUABLE WEBSITE GOING. I GET MUCH OF MY INFO FROM HIS SITE. GIVE ANYTHING YOU CAN.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/index.html

Now More Than Ever
If Information Clearing House Is Important To You, I Need Your Help
Information Clearing House depends on readers to help offset the cost of website hosting, Bandwidth usage, editorial and other expenses.I Need Your Help To Keep It Going

I would appreciate your providing whatever you can- $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100- To Use your debit/credit card or check click here:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/support.htm

or if you prefer to send a check or money order, Information Clearing House, PO Box 365 Imperial Beach, CA 91933. USA.

Your assistance is greatly appreciated.
Low income readers: DON'T send money, just encourage others to subscribe.http://informationclearinghouse.info/subscribe.htm

To all who have assisted in the past. Thank you. Your help is greatly appreciated. Peace and Joy. Tom Feeley

Saturday, November 13, 2010

U.S. Presidents and Those Who Kill for Them by Laurence M. Vance

But what kind of a man would kill someone he didn’t know, who had never harmed or threatened him, his family, his friends, or anyone he knew for someone he didn’t know, who didn’t know him, and had never been harmed or threatened by the person he wanted killed?
And even worse, who would do such a thing at a moment’s notice, without giving it a second thought, laugh while he did it, brag about it afterward, and then expect to be lauded as a hero?
It pains me to say that the answer is a soldier in the U.S. military.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance207.html

LONG, BUT VERY WORTH READING.
YOU WILL LEARN LOTS.

IT'S TIME TO RECONSIDER ALL THIS PRAISE HEAPED UPON VETERANS

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26795.htm

Thank a Vet?

By Laurence M. Vance

November 11, 2010 "
Lew Rockwell" - - We’ve all seen the bumper stickers: "My son is in the Air Force," "If You Can Read This in English, Thank a Marine," "Proud Vietnam Veteran," "Fly Navy," and of course, "Thank a Vet."

Why should we?

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS: America’s Devolution Into Dictatorship

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26796.htm

This Justice (sic) Department, which routinely frames and railroads the innocent, argued in Federal Court on November 8 that the US government, if approved by the president, could murder anyone it wishes, citizens or noncitizens, at will.

TO THINK ABOUT...

"A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy." -Aldous Huxley -
 
"The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them." -Gene Roddenberry
  
"There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience. "-Hartley Shawcross 
 
"Then it must also be admitted, my friend, that men who are harmed become more unjust. "-Plato

Thursday, November 4, 2010

TO THINK ABOUT...

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."  Marie Curie
 
"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."  Henri Nouwen
 
"We do not know what awaits each of us after death, but we know that we will die. Clearly it must be possible to live ethically -with a genuine concern for the happiness of other sentient beings- without presuming to know things about which we are patently ignorant. Consider it: every person you have ever met, every person you will pass in the street today, is going to die. Living long enough, each will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime?"  Sam Harris

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Bank Failures in Slow Motion

http://mises.org/daily/4787

Every Friday evening a few more banks are closed — seized by the various state banking regulators and handed over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) for liquidation. This all happens rather quietly, barely making the news. We're told these bank failures are no big deal. No reason to panic. The names of the banks change over the weekend and many customers don't notice the difference.

THE UTILITY OF GOLD BY CIGA PEDRO COURTESY OF JSMINESET.COM

Posted: Oct 31 2010     By: Jim Sinclair      Post Edited: October 31, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Filed under: General Editorial
Courtesy of CIGA Pedro
Dear CIGAs,
A popular argument against the utility of Gold at times of crisis is regularly offered up through the rather facile statement that it can’t be eaten. This is then given as reason why, in times of great crisis Gold will not “perform” the way food stocks and other inferior alternatives will. Even the Financial Times’ excellent journalist, Gillian Tett recently sang this refrain. It’s becoming a tiresome argument, and it needs to be deconstructed.

It is welcome that people are beginning to see the dichotomy between paper and hard assets. The predominant paper asset is (un-backed, fiat) currency. Hard assets, of course, are many and varied.

But if people believe that wealth preservation can be reduced to a simple juxtaposition between paper representations of wealth and tangible wealth, they are misguided. That is only a partial explanation. There are other issues. One of them is the issue of portability.

In times of economic disaster you can stock-pile food, yes, but what happens if you have to abandon your dwelling due to security issues. What happens if your “home garden” and livestock have to be defended? It is not a nice thought. In preparation for possible dislocations it is unwise to think that you may be able to remain in one place. This is one of the undervalued aspects of Gold. You can pack it up in a small case. Your wealth is mobile. At today’s prices, half a million (USD equivalent) is easily portable. In a years’ time a million or two may be just as easy to cart off in your hand. Things like paintings (especially miniatures) and gems perform a similar function. During a serious crisis like social-breakdown or war, it is not reasonable to assume you will be able to take all of your canned goods, water-filters, generators et al with you, in a vehicle that needs constant refuelling and repair… you’re going to have to be lean, mean and fast on your “feet”. Not weighed down by encumbrances. Ever wonder why people escaping Nazi Germany chose diamonds? Maximum wealth with smallest possible mass and weight. Quite simply, these “you can’t eat Gold” theories, that supposedly undercut Gold’s value, do not hold water.

When people live in crisis situations, one usually finds not that goods aren’t available – but that they are expensive. Fantastic food, caviar champagne and other “accoutrements” were available all over the Soviet Union (Mostly in hard-currency “bereoska”); a bottle of whiskey could even be found in remote American barracks during World War II – but the price, then, depending on location, was about a crisp $100 bill. (Then! … Not now.) Hoarding resets prices when demand goes up and supply crashes. Gold, a hoarded, not consumed, vehicle, performs perfectly in an environment when sought after goods are being restricted from the market and more so if paper currencies are under attack.

Let’s take the consumable issue one step further. If you buy a one lot of European barge delivered (ARA) gasoil, you can, theoretically, take delivery. But how, exactly does a non-configured layman deal with that reality? With great difficulty is the answer. Leaving aside the configuration issues of delivery (which are significant if you’re not a professional oil product transport or storage entity), are you going to transfer it and then store it on your own while meeting legal safety and environmental requirements so that you don’t (literally) blow up the neighbourhood? That’s unlikely. Your parcel will likely become distressed and no one is going to even pick up the telephone to talk to you about how to get rid of your 100 tons of gasoil. Moreover, the owner of the much larger parcel your piece is consigned within will demand that you meet all sorts of other regulations to siphon off your little piece. (Doesn’t this sound a little like sawing off your corner of that 400oz. London Good Delivery bar you were told by some Gold pool was “yours”?). It’s no different in coffee, cocoa and sugar, the grains and other “softs”. You’ll never be able to store in proper condition, and even if you did, deterioration would set in after a few weeks/months. So you’d have to unload it quick, which defeats the whole purpose for which you took delivery. Commodity professionals have noses like bloodhounds for distressed parcels – so you will have your financial eyes gouged out when trying to get rid of your inventory. In something less than a perfect environmental regime, your physical will become worthless and you’ll probably have to pay to get rid of it.

What should additionally be evident from the above is the inherent price potential for physical Gold if delivery demands rise. Not many people are going to know what to do with a one lot of gasoil, coffee, wheat, etc., if they want it delivered. But one hell of a lot of people know EXACTLY what to do with a 100oz bar of Gold. Namely: Hold on to it – i.e. store it. This is what gives the possibility for a delivery squeeze in Gold such massive price outcomes – delivery and storage does not rely solely in the realm of the professional. The amount of people who could demand delivery of paper contracts, and feasibly take delivery is potentially massive. Of course, by the time such demands become manifest, it is unlikely paper claims will be honored. Just the scent of a delivery squeeze (as we learned from the Hunt Brothers experience) can cause mayhem.

Lastly – for the “you can’t eat Gold” crowd – how the logistics of an economic implosion play out vis a vis Gold are already evident in Zimbabwe. The forlorn and starving, including the elderly and sick, spend much of their day panning rivers and streams to amass the miniscule amounts of raw, unrefined, Gold, which is the only thing the hoarders will accept in exchange for the foodstuffs necessary to stay alive. For those who would like a real-life, current example of the “You can’t eat Gold” theory in practice, go to You Tube and search under: “Gold for Bread – Zimbabwe”, for a very harsh dose of reality (the video is not suitable for children and the faint of heart – it is, however, reality).
CIGA Pedro