Monday, July 29, 2013

Jacob G. Hornberger: THE FEDS VERSUS THE FOURTH AMENDMENT

http://fff.org/2013/07/29/the-feds-versus-the-fourth-amendment/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-feds-versus-the-fourth-amendment

Our American ancestors knew exactly what they were doing. When you see people like Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein, Peter King, Mike Rogers, and others who are coming to the defense of the massive, secret NSA surveillance scheme that is searching, gathering, and compiling personal information on millions of innocent Americans, you are seeing precisely the types of people that our ancestors knew would end up serving in the federal government and doing the types of things the Fourth Amendment expressly prohibits. You are also seeing precisely why our ancestors believed the Fourth Amendment was absolutely necessary to our freedom, privacy, and well-being.
Remember the wise and immortal words of Justice Louis Brandeis in his dissent in the case of Olmstead v. United States:
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

MARTIN ARMSTRONG'S LATEST BLOG POSTS

Proprietary Trading Is Ending – JP Morgan Withdraws from Commodities

jp-morgan Bldg
The banks are coming under tremendous pressure in respect to proprietary trading. The days of the merger of Commodity Trading that took over Saloman Brothers in 1981 by Philips Brothers (PhiBro) are coming to an end 31.4 years after they began. JP Morgan has announced it is exiting the commodity business which came 3 days after a Senate banking committee heard that the metals warehouses owned by Wall Street and other commodities traders were distorting markets. This of course is not true. They have alleged gold is suppress by them systemically and that they have been driving up the cost of aluminum cans for beer and soda. There have been arguments that allowing them to trade in physical markets was a risk to the financial system.
The real risk is market manipulation by proprietary trading. They target markets and attack them and move on to the next. They are not capable nor are they interested in unprofitable systemic manipulation to suppress anything for some agenda. They are all about the immediate profit – nothing else.
Proprietary Trading is the huge risk regardless of what the market may be. Banks should not be proprietary traders. The Fed has been informing the banks that they will NOT bail them out again regarding proprietary trading. The $700 billion bill they created the last time shows there is no risk management. They routinely blame “rouge” traders whenever they get caught with even $8 billion losses. In all honesty, if the banks are never held accountable and cannot control their own risk of their own traders, they cannot tare society apart pushing the losses on the people while keeping the profits.
It is time to end proprietary trading for bankers period.

Cyprus Bail-In 47.5%

Euro Sinking
The Cyprus Bail-In seems to be coming in as 47.5%. Keep in mind that the loss is due to the banks holding debt from Greece that the EU promised would never happen. The entire European Banking System is at tremendous risk. Aside from the issue of proprietary trading that went sour as in New York, here we also have the problem that the banks held as AAA reserves the bonds of sovereign member states. So here we have the faulty design of the Euro undermining the banking system on a grand systemic level. This has even put Switzerland at risk for they have a ton of euros they have been buying trying to keep the Swiss franc pegged to a sinking ship. Switzerland is getting trapped by the chaos of the EU and their attempt to issue new Eurobonds after the German elections will also fail. They are now going to have to redeem ALL outstanding euro debt of all sovereign member states to save Europe.
GoldmanSachs
The dollar is setting up to be the ONLY viable currency. We have the September debt ceiling battle ahead and Obama’s cry to increase taxes by $1.6 trillion. This is running the risk of massive deflation. The budget deficit is declining because the bailouts are done for now and the Fed is running around telling the bankers to re-calibrate their models and that they will NOT be bailing out proprietary trading next time around. Firms like Goldman Sachs will be forced to suffer their own losses for once. They will wine and cry behind the curtain that losses belong to the taxpayer and profits go to them. But this may fall on deaf ears this time around since it will coincide with the 2016 elections. We need to drive a stake in the heart of proprietary trading by banks once and for all. If they want to trade with other people’s money, convert to a hedge fund.
The deficits are moving lower and what will start to kick them higher will be the rise in interest rates. This is why the Fed is telling the bankers to wake up for there may not be the flight to quality that has been traditional up to this point.
Our models are still warning no HYPERINFLATION. Sorry! Find another bullshit sales pitch to fool the public. We are facing bail-ins in Europe on a grand scale, G20 hunt for every red penny, and Obama preaching more and more tax increases, with munis doing into default because they cannot pay the pensions and maintain current service levels. Everything around us is imploding and this is reflected in the massive decline in liquidity that is off by 50% from 2007 levels. This is how EVERY major economy has collapsed – complete implosion that destroys the economic foundation.
So while the politicians are in search of themselves out there, they have ignored the impact of their Marxist policies. They will not relent because to do so requires self-inspection and realization that the economic theories are dead wrong and are seriously overrated. Government in its all powerful Marxist mantle is the problem and it cannot see that the lights are fading. The Marxist haven is not all what it is cracked up to be. Economists and Politicians see themselves as the elite entitled by the divine hand of God to dictate how society should function. They never ask –What if we are wrong?
greece 2-20-13
They have no contingency plan but to buy tanks and bullets while trying to cut off all supplies to private gun ownership to prevent a revolution. What will happen when people who have worked all their lives under the promise they could retire as the public workers in Detroit? Everyone who has believed this nonsense of perpetual utopia will come crashing down from their shooting stars. This is what Homeland Security is all about – protecting government from the delusional people as we see government workers rioting in Greece.
What I am saying here is not popular or fashionable because people do not want to think of themselves as fools. But thinking perpetual benefits would always be there for public workers is a wrong assumption that no matter how long it has gone unquestioned does not make it right. Too many people remain confused that a nation is its government. People have been crowning themselves with titles and honors, but it does not elevate them in reality. One day the emperor is seen bare-ass naked. Government and society are two distinct entities. The people are not government and government cannot claim the mantle of the people while exploiting them to sustain its own power. The blue skies of Marxism are fading to dark grey and the lights that appeared on the horizon have been extinguished. I try to explain this is how all empires, nations, and city states have historically always failed (notHYPERINFLATION) in my own last breath hoping to avoid the darkness if only we could stop and look before we crash and burn. In this quest, I will fail for who am I to change the fate of humankind.

Pentagon: Who We're At War With Is Classified

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/pentagon-war-classified_n_3659353.html

In a major national security speech this spring, President Obama said again and again that the U.S. is at war with “Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces.”
So who exactly are those associated forces? It’s a secret.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Obama Promises, Including Whistleblower Protections, Disappear From Website

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/obama-whistleblower-website_n_3658815.html

Amid the Obama administration's crackdown against whistleblowers, Change.gov, the 2008 website of the Obama transition team laying out the candidate's promises, has disappeared from the internet.
The Sunlight Foundation notes that it last could be viewed on June 8, which wastwo days after the first revelations from Edward Snowden (who had then not yet revealed himself) about the NSA's phone surveillance program. One of the promises Obama made on the website was on "whistleblower protections:"

Russia Prepares For War After Historic Obama-Bush-Clinton African Meet

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1693.htm

A truly grim Federal Security Services (FSB) report circulating in the Kremlin today is confirming that the 13 July snap military drills ordered by President Putin involving nearly 200,000 Russia troops was in “direct response” to information obtained from US fugitive Edward Snowden; information that further caused the historic meeting of three American Presidents in Africa during the past few weeks in their effort to hide the truth of our worlds nearing destruction.
According to this report, Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) tactical forces were able to extricate Snowden from Hong Kong on 23 June within hours of his planned assassination by a CIA “hit squad” sent by the Obama regime to silence this person who is now known as the most wanted man in the world.

The NSA's New Spy Facilities are 7 Times Bigger Than the Pentagon

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2013/07/nsas-big-dig/67406/

Farm Robots to Make Migrant Worker Vegetable Pickers Obsolete; Welcome the "Lettuce Bot", the "Grape Bot", the "Strawberry Bot"

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/07/farm-robots-to-make-migrant-worker.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MishsGlobalEconomicTrendAnalysis+%28Mish%27s+Global+Economic+Trend+Analysis%29

The migrant worker agricultural jobs that few legal US citizens are willing to do for the price farmers are willing to pay will vanish within a decade as robots will soon be able to perform even those tasks cheaper.

Welcome the "Lettuce Bot", the "Grape Bot", the "Strawberry Bot" 

Time reports Robots to Revolutionize Farming and Ease Labor 
Woes

Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/07/farm-robots-to-make-migrant-worker.html#JqTStIc666kB8zMs.99 

How The Establishment Will Attempt To Bring Down The Liberty Movement

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-26/guest-post-how-establishment-will-attempt-bring-down-liberty-movement

http://www.alt-market.com/articles/1601-how-the-establishment-will-attempt-to-bring-down-the-liberty-movement

How does one destroy an idea? Further, how does one destroy the truth?Corrupt governments have been struggling with this dilemma since men wore loincloths and worshiped fire. Fortunately for those of us in the “lower strata” of social organization, honorable ideas and indelible truths have a life of their own. Even when a culture as a whole remains oblivious and unguarded, the facts tend to rise to the surface one way or another. The reality which elitists at least partly understand, is that the truth cannot be destroyed, but it can be forgotten, at least for a time. This is a never-ending process...

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Goldman Sachs - Funding the New World Order

http://therebel.org/blogs-sorted-by-most-hits/667714-funding-the-new-world-order

Obama’s Willing Executioners of the Fourth Amendment

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35659.htm

It’s now painfully clear that the president has put out a contract on the Fourth Amendment. And at the Capitol, the hierarchies of both parties are stuffing it into the trunks of their limousines, so each provision can be neatly fitted with cement shoes and delivered to the bottom of the Potomac.

GLENN GREENWALD: Democratic establishment unmasked: prime defenders of NSA bulk spying

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/25/democratic-establi
shment-nsa

One of the worst myths Democratic partisans love to tell themselves - and everyone else - is that the GOP refuses to support President Obama no matter what he does. Like its close cousin - the massively deceitful inside-DC grievance that the two parties refuse to cooperate on anything - it's hard to overstate how false this Democratic myth is. When it comes to foreign policy, war, assassinations, drones, surveillance, secrecy, and civil liberties, President Obama's most stalwart, enthusiastic defenders are often found among the most radical precincts of the Republican Party.

Who Authorized Preparations for War with China?

http://yalejournal.org/2013/06/12/who-authorized-preparations-for-war-with-china/

Abstract—The Pentagon has concluded that the time has come to prepare for war with China, and in a manner well beyond crafting the sort of contingency plans that are expected for wide a range of possible confrontations. It is a momentous conclusion that will shape the United States’ defense systems, force posture, and overall strategy for dealing with the economically and militarily resurgent China. Thus far, however, the military’s assessment of and preparations for the threat posed by China have not received the high level of review from elected civilian officials that such developments require. The start of a second Obama administration provides an opportunity for civilian authorities to live up to their obligations in this matter and to conduct a proper review of the United States’ China strategy and the military’s role in it.

Marc Faber: "It's Gonna End One Day... Through War Or Financial Collapse"

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-26/marc-faber-its-gonna-end-one-day-through-war-or-financial-collapse

Given more than his normal 30-second soundbite on mainstream media, Marc Faber is able to discuss in considerably more detail his views on the massive growth in global financialization (when compared to real economies) noting that "one day, this financial bubble will have to adjust on the downside." This will occur via either an inflationary burst or a collapse of the system. Simply put, "it's gonna end one day," either through war or financial collapse, "it will be very painful." The Gloom, Boom, and Doom Report editor notes current asset valuations are driven by excess credit creation, printing money, and distorted market signals, and the unintended consequences of the effect on investor psychology are perfectly mis-timed. Faber concludes with a discussion of the inflationary impact of US monetary policy and where it is seen (and not seen) and the global social unrest implications of middle class discontent.

"Economics Cannot Trump Mathematics"

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-27/economics-cannot-trump-mathematics

It is nearly impossible to convince people that an economic ending is likely, perhaps inevitable. It is beyond anything they have seen or can imagine. We attribute that to anormalcy bias, an inherent weakness of experiential learners. For many, accepting something that has not occurred during their time on the planet is not possible. The laws of economics and mathematics may shape history but they are not controlled by history. The form of cataclysm and its timing is indeterminable. Political decisions continue to shape both. The madmen who are responsible for the coming disaster continue to behave as if they can manage to avoid it. Violating Einstein’s definition of insanity, they continue to apply the same poison that caused the problem. These fools believe they can manage complexities they do not understand. We are bigger fools for providing them the authority to indulge their hubris and wreak such damage. The political class in America, either via misguided economic policies or a deliberate attempt to hide the true condition of the country, has put us here. They will continue to employ whatever policies they believe will keep things going for a while longer. The tragic ending has been cast. Economics cannot trump mathematics.

FROM MARCH 16, 2013: The Internet is a surveillance state

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surveillance

The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time. 

MARTIN ARMSTRONG'S LATEST BLOG POSTS

US Promises Snowden No Death Sentence or Torture

Snowden Edward
Let me make something very clear. The USA routinely tortures people. The press simply will not report it as such because they are controlled. If they report anything the government does not like, the journalist is targeted by the IRS and any individual that does not do as Washington demands. I personally met people from newspapers who explained the process. A person imprisoned from the NY Post explained the government calls and says they would “appreciate” a favor. You deny it at your own peril.
I met from Guatemala BYRON BERGANZA who was sentenced as a drug king-pin to 262 months in prison. They kidnapped him from a party they set up in Ecuador because Guatemala would not extradite him. They claimed he knew all the Colombian drug lords and demanded his cooperation. He declined. His daughter and grandchild traveled to New York City to visit him monthly while being held pretrial. Annoyed at his refusal to give them what they though he knew, they released a false story in the Spanish Press claiming he had evidence on all the Colombian drug lords. They killed his daughter and his 5 year-old grandson and never blinked an eye. Neither the court nor the prosecutors ever acknowledged any responsibility for the murder of his family.
There is no federal judge that will ever chastise any government prosecutor and courts will never rule against the government. When a district court judge tries to uphold the constitution, the court of appeals quickly reverses them as they recently did upholding indefinite imprisonment with no lawyers, human rights, or constitutional rights. If any foreign land treated an American they way they run the courts in the USA, they would be the first arguing others do not respect human rights when the USA is the largest violator of those principles. Why did Homeland Security by hollow point bullets that are illegal in war for domestic use? Why does the USA have more people in prison that Russia, China, and Europe combined yet only 4% are in prison for violent crimes. Innocence Project has freed over hundreds of people on DNA evidence proving they were wrongly convicted.
Henry PatrickPromises that if Snowden returns he will not be sentenced to death or tortured are bullshit. By they time they get finished with him he will pray for the death penalty. They will mentally torture and abuse him and his family until he dies. There is no court in the land that will ever entertain any claims of abuse. There is nothing left in the United States and this widespread surveillance is just an example that we have no rights whatsoever and no judge will defend the constitution when they are former prosecutors hand picked by the White House. Snowden better resolve himself that to live and protect his family, never return to the United States – it is over. He is a hero to libertarians – a traitor to anyone who works in Congress or the bureaucracy for daring to tell the truth about what they are doing behind the curtain. And then these people have the audacity to ask people to die for the constitution in battle. They have disgraced the countless people who have died in all conflicts and wars for their political agenda. My own family have served in every war since the Revolution. They have no respect for anything or anyone but their own unbridled power. Patrick Henry said it best when the king had oppressed Americans dismissing all rights as they are doing now – “Give me Liberty or give me Death”.  They have disgraced what those words once meant all to maintain power.

GARY NORTH: Blind Men's Bluff: Why the Surveillance State Is Doomed

http://www.garynorth.com/public/11315.cfm

The surveillance state is now unstoppable politically. Legally, there is no possibility that it will be rolled back. It is now the non-law of the land. Wyden thinks the voters may roll it back. They won't. It is unstoppable politically.
But this does not mean that it is inherently unstoppable. On the contrary, it is eminently stoppable. It will be stopped. Economics will stop it.

SENATOR RON WYDEN SPEECH: Remarks As Prepared for Delivery for the Center for American Progress Event on NSA Surveillance

http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/7232013WydenCAPspeech.pdf

GARY NORTH:

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon is by far the most outspoken foe in Congress of the NSA and the domestic surveillance state that was created by Woodrow Wilson in 1917, accelerated by Harry Truman, and made exponential by the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001.

He delivered a remarkable speech on July 23 at a meeting held by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. This is a standard Democratic Party Beltway organization: pro-union, pro-global warming, pro-green, pro-big government. But on civil liberties, it is on the side of rolling back the federal government in general and the NSA in particular.
Wyden's speech was a summary of how the NSA has provided incorrect information to Congress and the public. He did not say "lies," but this is what he clearly meant. He admitted that Snowden -- unnamed -- blew the whistle on the NSA. Snowden provided evidence of the extent of the data collection, which the NSA's director had categorically denied to Congress had been going on. Wyden's speech is the best summary I have read on the extent of the NSA's systematic deception of Congress.

Friday, July 26, 2013

DAN NORCINI: Gold showing more signs of Resiliency

Friday, July 26, 2013

Gold showing more signs of Resiliency


Gold was under pressure for most of the session today as the weakness in crude oil and most of the commodity sector - some of which was related to news out of China that their authorities were forcing curtailed manufacturing production - tended to undercut any inflation fears.

After the close of the pit session when the only thing that was open was the screen trade, the metal slowly garnered additional strength and began pushing higher. As I type this, it is now $4.00 higher on the day, a push of some $11 off the pit session close.

That, plus the fact that the HUI managed to claw its way back higher also towards the end of the session, is certainly constructive price action as it takes away any downside momentum edge that the bears had worked so hard to obtain here on Friday. It does seem that the usual Friday selling is appearing but enough players are willing to wait for this selling to make its appearance and then move in and ambush the shorts. That is certainly a change of pace from what we have been accustomed to seeing.

I am of the view that it is going to be difficult for the gold bears to take the metal down and keep it down UNLESS THE DOLLAR COOPERATES with them by moving higher once again. Today, was another day that saw a strong wave of dollar selling - this time accompanied by lower interest rates in the US Treasury market. 

At this moment, for whatever reason, the Dollar seems to be running out of friends. Keep in mind that the recent strength in the Dollar was due to a couple of factors.

First was the rising US stock market in a low interest rate environment. Foreign money has been flooding into the US in search of yield and the US markets were the best game in town as far as many were concerned. All that foreign currency must be exchanged for US Dollars with which stocks can be bought and that has contributed to upward pressure on the greenback.

Second was the rising interest rate environment here in the US. Again, in a global economy in which many investors are starving for yield, the thinking has been that out of all the major economies globally, the US was perhaps the only one in which interest rates could be expected to move higher. The others were stagnant. That translates to more foreign inflows and more currency exchanges this time to be used to purchase US debt.

This week something seemed to change in that regards. My own suspicions are that traders are coming back to focusing on the upcoming circus of watching the US argue whether it should increase the size of its national debt faster or slower. Notice, I am not even talking about trying to reduce the damned thing.

This same impasse is what we went through late last year when the government was running up against the federal debt limit. Here we are right back there once again. I believe this is spooking those who might otherwise want to buy Dollars to invest in US Dollar based assets. 

As long as this sentiment continues, and the Dollar moves lower, gold will garner dip buying support. If the Dollar were to somehow re-embark on its upward journey, gold would see more selling pressure.


As you can see on the gold chart, the price is oscillating around the zone created by the 40 day and 50 day moving averages. Bulls cannot take it out of the top of that zone yet but neither can the bears break it down. However, with the 10 day moving average turning higher and the 20 day as well, the technical momentum is beginning to shift more firmly in favor of the bulls. 

Next week will be important then. If the bears cannot break it down early in the week, there is a good chance that the metal is going to break overhead resistance as some of these more stubborn shorts are going to begin looking to exit. We have already seen quite a bit of hedge fund short covering in this market based on the recent COT reports but there is still a fairly large contingent of them hanging in there and selling into rallies.  That crowd is a pure technical analysis based one and if their computerized black boxes tell them to start buying, that is exactly what they are going to do.

I would say that as long as this week's low near $1297 does not give way, the bulls have short term control of the market. 

I also want to note here that gold is back to knocking on the door of that very same level from which it plummeted $180 back in June when Chairman Bernanke started pretending he was suddenly a hawk and was boldly proclaiming his Tapering talk. Of course we all are keenly aware of his morphing back into the supreme dove of the Fed with his now famous "for the foreseeable future" comments in regards to the length of the current bond buying program.

Either way, the $1360 level is that level from which gold collapsed and here it is, a month or so later, and gold is right back up there as if nothing happened. That is why this upcoming week's Fed watch will be a key for this market. 

One last thing to watch for next week, and I stated this in an earlier post, is the delivery process for the August gold contract and its subsequent price action. We will be watching to see whether it runs higher in price than the deferred contracts but even more importantly, whether the front of the board takes on a backwardation structure or not. If it does, $1350 should give way easily to confirm that and then $1360. If not, then we can put that to rest for a while again.

The mining shares are tracking the movement in gold quite closely this time around. The HUI is not breaking down but is holding steady and is trying to build up some steam to see if it can press higher. The key to a trending move in the HUI lies above the 290 level. Until then the shares are moving higher off a bottom that appears to be very solid and progressing into a range or consolidative type trade. I am sure that those long term holders of the shares are relieved to see some of their net worth recovering!

Paul Craig Roberts: The Two Faux Democracies Threaten Life On Earth

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35660.htm

Because the American press is a corrupt government propaganda ministry, the American people have no idea that neoconized Washington is planning nuclear war. 

Polls from all over the world consistently show that Israel and the US are regarded as the two greatest threats to peace and to life on earth. Yet, these two utterly lawless governments prance around pretending to be the “world’s greatest democracies.” Neither government accepts any accountability whatsoever to international law, to human rights, to the Geneva Conventions, or to their own statutory law. The US and Israel are rogue governments, throwbacks to the Hitler and Stalin era. 

For the past 68 years, most military aggression can be sourced to the US and Israel. Yet, these two originators of wars pretend to be the victims of aggression. It is Israel that has a nuclear arsenal that is illegal, unacknowledged, and unaccountable. It is Washington that has drafted a war plan based on nuclear first strike. The rest of the world is correct to view these two rogue unaccountable governments as direct threats to life on earth.

Robert J. Burrowes: WHY VIOLENCE?

http://dkeenan.com/RJB-WhyViolence.pdf

THIS IS A POWERFUL EXPLANATION OF HOW VIOLENCE IS CREATED AND PERPETUATED IN SOCIETY.

YOU SHOULD DOWNLOAD IT AND SAVE IT IN YOUR DOCUMENTS FOLDER THEN SCROLL THROUGH IT TO SEE WHAT IS THERE.

READ THOSE PARTS THAT INTEREST YOU. YOU WILL SEE THE
ORGANIZATION OF IT EVEN THOUGH YOU READ IT IN SECTIONS.

IT WILL GIVE YOU A GOOD UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR FEARS AND HOW, AND WHY, YOU DEAL WITH VIOLENCE THE WAY YOU DO.

WE ARE ALL VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE FROM OUR BIRTH FORWARD.
UNDERSTANDING THAT, AND HOW WE HAVE CHOSEN TO DEAL WITH IT, IS IMPORTANT TO CREATING A FULFILLING LIFE.

ALSO SEE ROBERT BURROWES BLOG: 

http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com/

DAN NORCINI: August Gold Par with October Gold

Friday, July 26, 2013


August Gold Par with October Gold 

In continuing to monitor the gold spreads, I wanted to note that the August gold contract, which will be heading into delivery next week, has moved to now trading at par with the October gold contract based on the current sets of bids and offers. It is still discounted to the most active December however as well as the February 2014 and June 2014 contracts.

Here are the current sets of bids at this moment:

August 2013        $1321.30
October 2013       $1321.30
December 2013    $1321.60
February 2013      $1322.60
June 2014            $1324.70

Hopefully those who have more time on their hands than I do can monitor the delivery process more closely than I will be able to do and keep us posted on how that goes next week.

Price still needs to push through $1350 to get anything more exciting going. I cannot overemphasize this strongly enough. PRICE MUST CONFIRM ANY TALK OF SUPPLY TIGHTNESS.

The HUI is weaker today also and is not providing any support for the metal at this point in the trading game.

Next week traders will be focusing on the Fed once again.

News out of China derailed silver and especially copper today. It seems the authorities there are ordering factories to Cease and Desist overproducing. That is being interpreted by traders as meaning a further slowdown in growth for the biggest base metals user on the planet. The HSBC manufacturing purchaser managers index hit an eleven month low over there this week.

I have no idea what is going on with the Yen today. I can tell you that there is increasing talk about the upcoming US budget battle once again. Here we go with the now "normal" battle between those who believe the US is spending too much money that it does not have  (count me in on this group ) and those who think it needs to spend more and raise taxes again.

By the way, did any of you who follow golf see that Phil Mickelson, who played perhaps the best round of golf of his entire career at last weekend's British Open in Muirfield, will end up paying nearly 61% of all this earnings out in the form of taxes!  Something is horribly wrong when the state takes that kind of money from anyone. I have long said that if the tithe, (10%) was good enough for the Almighty to extract from His ancient people, then it should be good enough for puny, mortal man to extract. Apparently the state puts itself above God but then again, what else is new about that?