Is the War in Afghanistan Justified by 9/11?

The Terrorism Industry

Does Gold Still Glitter In This Economy?

By Franklin Sanders of The Moneychanger, Monday, May 24th, 2010:

"Bull markets climb a wall of worry," the market  proverb says, and it's true.  Somebody always stands by ready to tell you why this bull market has ended or can go no further.  After all, the bull wants to shake off as many riders as possible, & he doesn't play fair.

Lately the discovery glands of newspaper & internet gurus have been squirting overtime, filling their bloodstreams with visions of gold crashing.  One reader sent me an article that said gold was in danger of falling to "$450, its cost of production," which only proved that the author knoweth not sic 'em from come here. Industrial demand means very little to a silver &  gold bull market, because they are driven entirely by monetary demand, new demand hitting the market at the margin, the demand for silver and gold as money.

One specter the croakers like to conjure up is "deflation," by which they usually incorrectly mean "a fall in prices" rather than the correct meaning, "a decrease in the  money supply."  While there are strong forces driving prices down -- collapsing real estate bubbles, collapsing debt, collapsing consumer demand -- these are not deflation,  and deflation will not occur.  Here's a rough outline of what I think will happen.

Economic activity will continue to shrink as  more and more bad debt and bad investments made under the influence of the last 100 years' inflation continue to surface.  Even governments will default on their debt. Because they are locked into their stupid Keynesian paradigm, when consumers won't spend governments will step up to the plate as "spender of last resort."  There is no limit to how much they will spend, but the spending won't work today any better than it worked for Roosevelt in the 1930s.  To enable government spending,  central banks will create new money, a.k.a., "inflate."  They will continue creating money even if that creation causes a hyperinflation, because they are true believers in Keynesian orthodoxy, and because all politics today is built around the idea that government must manage the economy.  (You and I know that means "the people who own the government manage the economy for their own benefit.")  You see, the "Elite"  knows that we hoi polloi can't be left to run our own lives.  No telling what we would buy, sell, smoke, drink, or how many children we'd have without their benevolent dictatorship to guide us.  Shucks,  people might even drink raw milk!

Today's reality is that politics trumps reason, common sense, history, experience, morality, everything.  Ergo, all social & political forces are lined up solidly behind forcing silver & gold ever higher, at least for the next five years, maybe ten.  Ben Bernanke, Barack Obama,  and all their condign ilk in other governments are all laboring mightily for you, silver and gold investor!

Wherefore, when you hear or read jaundiced  jeremiads against silver & gold, remember the ancient market proverb,   "Bull markets climb a wall of worry."

What launched me upon this meditation?  Only that silver & gold  took a wound last week, and fell to the ground.  Out crawl the croakers from their lurking places to re-state theories old and new that "prove" the silver & gold bull isn't a bull at all, but an nine year, well, well, splutter, merely a nine-year run up.  You just have to toughen up  your eardrums to these arguments & keep your eyes on the primary trend.

 Patrick Heller of Coin Update News, May 25th, 2010:

The fear running through the Greek populace is that the nation’s government may default on some of its debts.  Since 1965, the Greek government has imposed restrictions on trading British Sovereign gold coins (gold content .2354 oz).  Despite those restrictions, the Bank of Greece reports that it is selling an average of more than 700 coins per day to worried Greeks.
In the first four months of 2010, the Greek central bank sold more than 50,000 sovereigns at its main downtown Athens office.  Bank officials estimate that at least 100,000 other coins changed hands on the black market.  The Bank of Greece has received as much as $409 per coin, which works out to a price of more than $1,700 per ounce of gold!  Prices paid on the black market are reckoned to be even higher.  A popular spot for street vendors to sell their coins is near the Athens Stock Exchange.  There the traders wait for citizens to bring payments received from unloading their paper assets like stocks and bonds.
The US government and some state governments such as California are in financial straits as bad as or even worse than Greece.  How long will it take before American buyers will have to wait in lines to pay outrageous premiums for what are now bullion-priced gold and silver coins?  More than one analyst thinks those days will come within a few months or sooner.

Commodity Online:

Gold and silver bullion sales at the United States Mint have reached record levels in May 2010.

Richard Russell of Dow Theory Letters, May 26th, 2010:

The world is rushing into dollars.  The world is clearly treating the US dollar as a "safe haven."   As my subscribers must know by now, I view all sovereign fiat currency as questionable.  As a matter of fact, I base the world disaster we're now going through on the widespread creation of fiat money [dollars, euro, yen, yang, pound, etc.].  Once bankers (the Fed) realized that they could control the money of nations, they realized that they could control nations.  In my own mind, I view central banks and fiat money as "against the gods."

Central banks create fiat money, denigrate gold, and try to convince the people that the money they print is wealth.  That's the great lie behind fiat money.  I see one facet of this bear market [stocks and bonds] as the beginning of the end of fiat money.  No man and no organization can create wealth with the click of a computer.  That's the great immoral fraud underlying this bear market.

Smart investors, investors who know and understand history, are well aware of the fraud of fiat money.  Which is why there is a bull market in intrinsic wealth today.  Art dealers are amazed at the prices being paid at auction for top-tier art.  Diamond dealers can't believe the prices being paid at auction for top-quality diamonds.  No-nothings can't understand why gold is selling at historic highs in terms of various fiat currencies.

I view the developing primary bear market as a great moral drama.  It's the market's answer to man's greed and his ability to brain-wash his fellow citizens.  The gigantic fiat house of cards is slowly coming undone.  Wealth is created by the sweat of man and the brain of man.  To create "wealth" by fiat money is fraudulent and against both man and the gods.  Great bear markets invariably uncover great crimes.  This primary bear market will be of historic proportions and earth-shaking proportions.

Marc Faber is bearish on everything, except "real money", gold and silver:

Was the Isreali Mossad Responsible for the 911 Attacks?

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iProducts

Steve Jobs and iRack

Loose Change Final Cut

Part 1 of 12


Make sure to check out the remaining 11 parts.

The 1099 Tsunami [by Gary North]

Earlier this year, some staffer in some office on Capitol Hill dutifully inserted a provision into the health insurance bill that will force businesses to file 1099 forms on every transaction with another business for over $600. Buy a $601 used car for your business? You must file a 1099. CNN Money describes this law.

The massive expansion of requirements for businesses to file 1099 tax forms that was hidden in the 2,409-page health reform bill took many by surprise when it came to light last month. But it's just one piece of a years-long legislative stealth campaign to create ways for the federal government to track down unreported income.
The result: A blizzard of new tax forms that the Internal Revenue Service will begin rolling out next year.

9/11 Blueprint for Truth (2008 Edition)

This video sets out, successfully in our opinion, to dismantle "popular theory" proposed by the 911 Commission that 19 Islamic Hijackers, flying in commercial jets, were the lone cause of the toppling of the WTC 1 and 2 building, and even including WTC 7, that was not even hit by a plane.

911 Mysteries

911 Mysteries

Pain and Suffering Along the Campaign Trail [by Butler Shaffer]

It was interesting watching last night’s reporting of election returns on MSNBC.  Chris “I’m-going-to-do-everything-I-can-to-make-this [Obama]-presidency-work” Matthews bore the kind of pained expression one might expect had someone come into the studio and strangled his pet cat while he was on the air.  

It may finally have sunk into the collective mindset of the MSNBC crowd that the main reason Obama was elected to the presidency was that he was not George W. Bush; that most Americans were not providing a mandate for a Neo-Bolshevist-Mercantilism.  With so many of the incumbent culprits — be they Republicans or Democrats — not even being able to get through their parties’ primaries, I suspect we may soon witness a torrent of quickly-called press conferences by incumbents still facing primaries.  

After decades of listening to candidates from both parties promising to “get the government off your backs,” Boobus may finally be waking up to the realization that the primaries — not the general elections — may be the most effective way of unloading these plutocratic mountebanks.

Sarah Palin, please shut up.

Meltup

PIIGS Win. Bankers Win. Voters Lose. [by Gary North]

Bankers trust governments. They trusted the Greek government to meet its next interest payment on May 19. On April 23, the Greeks began playing the Hank Paulson card. The banks saw the possibility of a default. Bank shares started falling. So, bankers got to work. They, too, played the Paulson card. The S&P downgrades added credibility to the scenario. There was a threat of a systemic breakdown.
The bankers' solution is the tried and true strategy of moral hazard, described by Walter Bageot in the late 19th century. The banks are bailed out by politicians and central banks. Losses are transferred to the taxpayers by way of bailouts and currency depreciation. The day of reckoning is postponed.
For the first time in Western history since the late nineteenth century, a few million voters are beginning to catch on. They don't understand fractional reserve banking, but they understand when politicians raise the national debt to bail out people who cannot pay their interest on time.
Voters in Germany resisted. This accomplished nothing. As they were going to the polls, Merkel was selling them out to the PIIGS and the banks that trusted the PIIGS, especially French banks, which own a third of Greek debt.
It is beginning to dawn on a minority of voters that the political game is rigged in favor of big banks. It has taken a century for this to begin to register. This is a threat to Establishments everywhere. This was the #1 secret that the Establishments have attempted to conceal.

John Williams: Believe Him or Not [by Chris Thompson]

According to Williams, the picture of our national economic health is seriously distorted in three key areas: unemployment, inflation, and gross domestic product. The real numbers today, he argues, look like the 1930s. Although economists didn't start rigorously measuring numbers like unemployment until 1940, the best estimate of non-farm unemployment during the Depression puts the peak at 34 percent. "We're not there at this point," Williams said. "But we're as bad as we've been post-World War II." But you wouldn't know that, he adds, from the official statistics.

Hyperinflation Nation

Gold soars to record high

By Annalyn Censky, staff reporter May 11, 2010: 3:29 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Gold settled at a new all-time high Tuesday, after building upward momentum during a volatile day for the stock market.
What prices are doing: Gold for June delivery rose $19.50, or about 1.62%, to $1,220.30 an ounce, surpassing its all-time high.

Gold posted its last record high on another volatile trading day, Dec. 3, 2009, when it settled at $1,218.30 an ounce.
What's moving the market: Gold rallied 2% when the Dow plunged nearly 1,000 points on Thursday, with the precious metal closing that day at $1,197.30.
Uneasiness about a volatile stock market boosts the appeal of safer investments like gold. Although the stock market has since recouped much of Thursday's losses, many investors remain nervous about the European debt crisis, despite the nearly $1 trillion euro zone bailout that was unveiled this weekend.
What analysts are saying: "The finances of governments around the world are in such sad shape that investors are looking for a currency that is solid and they know will retain its value," said Joe Foster, a portfolio manager with Van Eck International Investors Gold Fund.
Some investors fear Europe's rescue package will speed up inflation in the region and weaken the euro as a reserve currency, said Jeffrey Nichols, managing director of American Precious Metals Advisors and a senior economic advisor to precious metals dealer Rosalind Capital. That will continue to drive investors toward safe-haven commodities like gold, he said. 

Sunday's Coming

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Quote for May 10th, 2010

"Inflation has now been institutionalized at a fairly constant 5% per year. This has been scientifically determined to be the optimum level for generating the most revenue without causing public alarm. A 5% devaluation applies, not only to the money earned this year, but also to all that is left over from previous years. At the end of the first year, a dollar is worth 95 cents. At the end of the second year, the 95 cents is reduced again by 5%, leaving its worth at 90 cents, and so on. By the time a person has worked 20 years, the government will have confiscated 64% of every dollar he saved over those years. By the time he has worked 45 years, the hidden tax will be 90%. The government will take virtually everything a person saves over a lifetime."

– G. Edward Griffin