an educated man is unfit to be a slave
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Wow, open interest is still increasing on the $2.50 call option that expires on Jan. 16th.
Now 28,112 = 28,112,000 shares...
HL - out at $2.74 for a dime...
HL - Daytrade long at $2.64...
Exactly - 1 ounce of gold can literally coat thousands of coins, in fact if you ever see those vials of gold, they literally way nothing!!! Nothing at all, it won't even register on my authentic digital scale when I empty out 10 tubes! -LOL-!!!
Between the Obama coins or the gold-plated quarters... I'm not sure which is a worse investment!!!
***Marc Faber on 2008.12.29 about economy, inflation and deflation***
Key Quotes:
Is the S&P 500 going to close higher on December 31, 2009 then 2008... Faber's response... "...depends on money printing..."
"...If you are banking on some kind of money flowing and gaining to assets..."
"you should be into precious metals and assets that can not be increased at the same rate that money can be printed. In other words, you want to be in gold, silver, platinum, and also oil"
"Gold is one of the few assets that went up in 2008"
LINK >>>
***Illuminati part 1 - The Price of Gold***
Goes into what happened on 9/11 - How it relates to $ GOLD $
Goes into symbolism of our monetary system and who controls it...
For those who don't know, the Illuminati are the eye a-top the pyramid - Or at least they pretend to be - I have seen into their world and it is no conspiracy - to them it is a reality...
Watch the video - You'll catch some very interesting pieces of knowledge...
***Ron Paul Tupac Changes ( Promo for C4L)***
*Very touching video - watch it through, very well put together, just about brought a tear to my eye!!!*
~~~~~~~COMPX 12/30/2008~~~~~~~
Previous Close 1510.32 -19.92
1545 FinancialAdvisor
1487 SSKILLZ1
It could very well start crashing again, but if we start to rally now, then perhaps the real crash won't start until after an Obama pump is done, such as early February...
$ GOLD $ vs. TLT = Certainly looks to be turning the corner >>>
Money to come out of TLT (bonds) and flow into $ GOLD $ - What do you think guys?
***SIR EVELYN DE ROTHSCHILD - "GO BACK TO BASICS"***
This coming from a family member whose bloodline has amassed trillions due to the expansion of their banking empire! However he seems to come across as a humble old fella' in this CNBC snippet!
Well no one really gave me a detailed answer, but the market has certainly spoken today >>> +31.58% to $1.00 flat!
Resistance at 50 day moving average => $1.24 currently...
Certainly doesn't take much to move this stock...
I fully agree. CNBC is owned by GE. GE has a large hand in the financial markets with their privately-owned brethren AKA the 'Federal Reserve Bank.' As one of, if not the largest publicly-traded company in the United States, it's very wise of them to use their CNBC 'arm' to promote their financial agenda.
Unbeknown to the sheople, they operate under the guise of being a financial 'news' network...
And no, I didn't see the girl interrupt and say 'gold is worthless' - I've actually weened myself off of CNBC, only managing to watch it on rare occasions.
Youtube is a breadbasket of information, so any good clips such as my man Peter Schiff getting on their and exposing them to truth; I can easily catch without having to watch through all their political theatre.
On a side thought, this bashing of $ GOLD $ by the same network who is being sponsored by 'cash4gold' gimmicks - Wouldn't it be interesting if this was a sign that a Comex default of delivery is around the corner?
>>>
P.S. - Great day for HL bulls - Gaining 9.27%
Once we start hanging people for treason... that is the correct punishment... or would a public stoning be more appropriate?
I agree, that also seems to coincide with the old resistance and the top of the bullish pennant it broke. Although the $2.49-$2.55 gap could also act as support.
The root of all financial problems in our country and no one has any comments... last person was JFK to take aim at these guys as he had plans to restore real money into our system... we all know what happened shortly before his plan was about to hatch...
Nope, not even at Enterprise Value which is around $250/share. I expect it to go into the $100's some time in 2009. Also keep in mind book value is under $100.
Not a value play here even though some people seem to think so due to the big drop that has already occurred...
HL is the biggest gainer of all the HUI (AMEX Gold Bugs Index) components this morning... woo woo!
$2.63x$2.65 - gapping up so far in pre-market trading - over $2.49 high of the day/$2.48 close from Friday.
The Federal Reserve Abolition Act
The Federal Reserve Abolition Act
by Stephen Lendman
Wednesday Dec 24th, 2008 12:01 PM
Abolish the Fed
The Federal Reserve Abolition Act - by Stephen Lendman
On June 15, 2007, Ron Paul introduced HR 2755: Federal Reserve Abolition Act. There were no co-sponsors, no further action was taken, and the legislation was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services and effectively pigeonholed and ignored.
It's a bold and needed measure to "abolish the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks, to repeal the Federal Reserve Act, and for other purposes."
The bill provides for management of employees, assets and liabilities of the Board during a dissolution period, and more as follows:
-- it designates the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to liquidate Fed assets in an orderly and expeditious manner;
-- transfer them to the General Fund of the Treasury after satisfying all claims against the Board and any Federal reserve bank;
-- assume all outstanding Board and member bank liabilities and transfer them to the Secretary of the Treasury; and
-- after an 18-month period, submit a report to Congress "containing a detailed description of the actions taken to implement this Act and any actions or issues relating to such implementation that remain uncompleted or unresolved as of the date of the report."
On November 22, "End the Fed" protests were held in 39 or more cities nationwide (including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, DC), but you'd hardly know it for lack of coverage. Attendee demands were simple and emphatic:
-- end a private banking cartel's illegal monopoly control over the nation's money supply and price;
-- return that power to the US Treasury as the Constitution mandates;
-- end a fiat currency system backed by the waning full faith and credit of the government; and
-- return the country to a sound, hard currency monetary system.
"End the Fed! Sound Money for America!" is their slogan, and writer and US policy critic Webster Tarpley puts it well:
"....the privately owned central bank....has been looting and wrecking the US economy for almost a hundred years. We must end a system where unelected, unaccountable cliques of bankers and financiers loyal to names like Morgan, Rockefeller, and Mellon set interest rates and money supply behind closed doors, leading to de-industrialization, mass impoverishment, and a world economic and financial depression of incalculable severity."
In theory, the Fed was established to stabilize the economy, smooth out the business cycle, manage a healthy, sustainable growth rate, and maintain stable prices. In fact, it failed dismally. It contributed to 19 US recessions (including the Great Depression) and significantly to the following equity market declines that accompanied them as measured by the Dow or S & P 500 average - the S &P's inception was 1923; it became the S & P 500 in 1957:
-- 40.1% (Dow) from 1916 - 1917;
-- 46.6% (Dow) from 1919 - 1921;
-- the 1929 (Dow) crash in two stages - 47.9% in 1929 followed by a strong, temporary rebound; then - 86%; an 89% peak to trough total from October 1929 to July 1932;
-- 49.1% (Dow) from 1937 - 1938;
-- 40.4% (Dow) from 1939 - 1942;
-- 25.3% (S & P) from 1946 - 1947;
-- 19.8% (S & P) in 1957;
-- 26.8% (S & P) from 1961 - 1962;
-- 19.3% (S & P) in 1966;
-- 32.7% (S & P) from 1968 - 1970;
-- 45.1% (S & P) from 1973 - 1974;
-- 20.2% (S & P) from 1980 - 1982;
-- 32.9% (S & P) in 1987;
-- 19.2% (S & P) in 1990;
-- 18.8% (S & P) in 1998;
-- 49.1% (S & P) from 2000 - 2002; and
-- about 50% (S & P) and counting (excluding a bear market rebound) from October 2007.
The Fed is also directly responsible for monetary inflation and the decline in the US standard of living since its year end 1913 inception and especially since the 1970s. From the late 18th century to 1913, virtually no inflation existed under the gold standard except during times of war. Using government data, it now takes over $2000 to equal $100 of pre-Fed purchasing power. In other words, a 1913 dollar is worth about a nickel today.
At that time, a dollar was defined as 1/20 of an ounce of gold or about an ounce of silver. The Fed then changed the standard away from precious metals to the full faith and credit of the government. Ever since (except for periods such as the 1930s) inflation eroded the currency's value and (more than ever) continues to do it today.
It's why one analyst calls the dollar "nothing more than a popular symbol for the tangible substances it once represented - gold and silver." Its true value represents the world's waning confidence in America's ability to honor its debt obligations, and with good reason.
Under the Federal Reserve System (besides inflation), we've had rising consumer debt; record budget and trade deficits; a soaring national debt; a high level of personal and business bankruptcies; today, millions of home foreclosures; high unemployment; the loss of the nation's manufacturing base; growing millions in poverty; an unprecedented wealth gap between the rich and all others; and a hugely unstable economy now lurching into crisis mode.
In a November 24 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Hong Kong-based author and equity strategist Christopher Wood believes "The Fed Is Out of Ammunition." With trillions in personal wealth erased, "there is little doubt that we are witnessing a classic debt-deflation bust at work, characterized by falling prices, frozen credit markets and plummeting asset values."
He notes how "over-investment and over-speculation" on borrowed money got us here. Today, the Fed can control the supply of money but not its velocity or the rate it turns over. The current collapse set it in reverse with no signs of an impending turnaround.
Wood believes monetary and fiscal measures won't work. There are no easy solutions - "not as long as politicians and central bankers (won't) let financial institutions fail," and let market forces wash out excesses over time.
The Fed and Treasury will spend trillions of dollars to correct things, "but will merely compound (the problem) by adding debt to debt." The current crisis will end up "discrediting mechanical monetarism - and with it the fiat paper-money system....The catalyst will be foreign creditors fleeing the dollar for gold. That will in turn lead to global recognition of the need for a vastly more disciplined global financial system" with gold very likely playing a part.
Absent a hard money currency has led to the kind of monetary madness that Nouriel Roubini calls "crazy" policy actions - an explosion of quantitative easing in the trillions with no end of it in sight.
Roubini: "The Fed Funds rate has been abandoned...as we are already effectively at (zero interest rates) that signal a liquidity trap....Even (a sharp) fall in mortgage rates....will be of small comfort to debt burdened households as only those (that) qualify for refinancing will be able to" net out a "modest" monthly mortgage saving of about $150.
The Fed's "desperate policy actions....will eventually lead to much higher real interest rates on the public debt and weaken the US dollar (the result of a) tsunami of implicit and explicit public liabilities and monetary debt." It will get foreign investors to "ponder the long-term sustainability of the US domestic and external liabilities," and why not. They keep growing exponentially, and with nothing restraining a runaway Fed, dollar debasing may continue to the point where no one will want to hold them. It's gotten some analysts to recommend moving a portion of savings out of them into gold - the ultimate safe haven in times of crisis.
Abolish the Fed and Return the Nation's Money Creation Power to Congress Where It Belongs
Ron Paul has been in the vanguard of the Abolish the Fed movement, and on September 10, 2002 on the House floor said:
"Since the creation of the Federal Reserve, middle and working-class Americans have been victimized by a boom-and-bust monetary policy. In addition, most Americans have suffered a steadily eroding purchasing power because of the Federal Reserve's inflationary policies. This represents a real, if hidden, tax imposed on the American people...."
"It is time for the Congress to put the interests of the American people ahead of the special interests. Abolishing the Federal Reserve will allow Congress to reassert its constitutional authority over monetary policy."
"Abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to a constitutional system (as mandated) will enable America to return to the type of monetary system envisioned by our nation's founders: one where the value of money is consistent because it is tied to a commodity such as gold....I urge my colleagues (to co-sponsor) my legislation to abolish the Federal Reserve."
Paul introduced his legislation in the 106th, 107th, 108th, and 110th Congresses. Each time, it died in committee. On November 22, he attended the End the Fed rally in Houston and addressed the crowd.
He called the current economic crisis as bad or worse than in the 1930s and said: "we know who caused it. It was the Federal Reserve that gave us all this trouble." He explained that we had a "free ride for decades because we've had a system that was devised where the dollar could act as if it were gold."
Not after August 1971 when Nixon closed the gold window, ended the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement, and no longer let dollars be backed by gold or converted into it in international markets. A "new economic system" was created. It let us "spend beyond our means, live beyond our means, print money beyond our means," and it caused our current dilemma.
We created "an appearance of great wealth. But it was doomed to fail," and it became apparent in the past year: "the failure of the dollar reserve standard that was set up in August of 1971. It has ended. The only question" is what will replace it?
There's all kinds of talk, including setting up a new international fiat currency "with the loss of US sovereignty in total. We have to stop this move towards one world government and a one world currency." Otherwise our freedom and Constitution will be lost. When it was written, it contained prohibitions.
Article I, Section 8 gives Congress alone the right to coin (create) money and regulate the value thereof. The founders also wanted gold and silver to be legal tender, not fiat money, nor should there be a central bank. In 1935, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress cannot constitutionally delegate this power to another body. By creating the Federal Reserve System in 1913, Congress violated the Constitution it was sworn to uphold and defrauded the American public. Today's crisis is the fruit of its action, but watch out.
"The writing is on the wall, and the end of this system" approaches. "They cannot patch it up, they can't up it back together again. They know it and we know it. The only argument is what is it going to be replaced with?"
For now, "Central banks in the West especially have been dumping gold to artificially lower (its price) to pretend the dollar is of great value. They're still doing it, but they're running out of time (and) out of gold." It's shifting to stronger economic powers, ones who've been saving money, loaning it back to us, "and are ready to buy up America if we continue to do this. So it is a contest (between fiat) money and hard money, and that is such an important issue." It reflects what Daniel Webster once said:
"There can be no legal tender in this country....but gold and silver. This is a constitutional principle....of the very highest importance." Gold, however, wasn't the original monetary system standard. Silver was, the silver dollar, and only a constitutional amendment can change it.
Paper currency as well, whether backed by gold or not, wasn't the hard money authorized by the Constitution. Honest money is honest weights and measures of silver and gold. Federal Reserve Notes are paper fiat debt obligations. Fiat currency of any kind is a mechanism of wealth transference from the public to a privileged elite - through inflation and loss of purchasing power. It creates debt for the many and wealth for the few, especially when a private banking cartel controls it.
Our existing monetary system combines money, credit and debt into a dishonest system of empty promises in exchange for future ones. There is no eventual payment, only unfulfillable assurances to new generations that will be forced to pay for the debt now accumulated. It's a moneychangers dream - ever-expanding debt and a continuing interest rate stream, masquerading as wealth creation for the people. It's in fact a system of bondage and indebtedness benefitting the few at the expense of the many, a modern-day feudalism. It's how an elite 1% got to own 70% of the nation's wealth.
In the 1920s, Josiah Stamp, Bank of England president said:
"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with a flick of the pen (today a computer keyboard) they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."
Creating the Federal Reserve System to let bankers and not the government control the price and amount of fiat money debased the currency and is the root cause of today's financial problems. A return to honest gold and silver weights and measures is needed. The Constitution states that nothing but these metals are money and that paper bills of credit (like Federal Reserve notes) aren't allowed. Even ones backed by gold as the Constitution doesn't grant Congress the power to be bankers. It may only coin (create) and borrow money, not loan it out or give it away - and certainly not to bankers at the expense of the public interest.
Further, the Constitution contains no provision allowing Congress to enact legal tender laws. Article I, Section 10 forbids the individual states from making "anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender in payment of debts." However, US Code, 31 USC 5103, establishes US coins and currency, including Federal Reserve notes, as legal tender and has been used to debase the currency ever since - the way Gresham's Law works: bad (or debased) money drives out good (the kind with little difference between its nominal and commodity values).
For example, until 1964, US coins (except pennies and nickels) contained 90% silver. Starting in 1965, dimes and quarters were converted to their current nickel - copper composition. Half-dollars (now produced in limited quantities) had 90% silver. It then dropped to 40% in 1965 and by 1971 all US coins (except pennies and commemorative mintings) contained nickel and copper and no silver - a good example of debasing. As for paper currency, it's just paper.
Under a private banking cartel's control, it's been misused, stolen, and corrupted the way New York Times columnist Floyd Norris suggests in his November 24 article headlined: "Another Crisis, Another Guarantee." First the banks, then the auto companies, and who knows who's next in line for theirs. "As the nation's obligations rise into the trillions, at some point investors (and the public) may begin to question whether a government running huge deficits can also credibly promise that the dollar will not lose its value." How can there be any faith and credit left when it's vanishing and the Fed and Treasury operate like giant hedge funds.
It got UK-based Eclectica Asset Management chief investment officer, Hugh Hendry, concerned enough to say: "All (US) financials will be owned by the government in a year. I bet you. It's not good," but it's coming. US taxpayers will be "paying for this for a long time," and it's deeply concerning considering the amount of money creation - with no end in sight as problems keep mounting and limitless amounts keep being thrown at them.
On November 25 the Financial Times associate editor, Wolfgang Munchau, also worries about the Fed's "weapon of mass desperation" (so-called quantitative easing); focusing only on deflation and risking a currency crisis. He calls it a flawed, dangerous and shocking oversight - the possibility of "a mass flight out of dollar assets (at some point) and a large rise in US market interest rates, followed by a huge recession."
A Bloomberg.com November 24 headline highlights the problem: "US Pledges Top $7.7 trillion to Ease Frozen Credit," and it might as well have said there's plenty more where that came from if needed. With another $800 committed to two new loan programs the total reached $8.5 trillion, according to Bloomberg or nearly 60% of US 2007 GDP of $14 trillion, and the numbers keep rising exponentially because the problems continue to mount.
Bloomberg puts it in perspective saying "the (current) commitment dwarfs (TARP and puts) Federal Reserve lending last week (at) 1900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis," and with the added $800 billion it's about 2100 times pre-crisis levels.
In addition, the Fed refuses to identify recipients of about $2 trillion of emergency handouts or what troubled assets (if any) it's accepting as collateral. Call it lending or spending. They're public tax dollars being spread around like confetti and debasing it all as a result.
The Free Lakota Bank
On November 21, this writer discussed how Lakotahs are treated in an article titled "Fate of Lakotahs Highlights America's Failed Native American Policies." On November 24, the following press release and follow-up information announced:
"People of Lakota Launch Private Bank for Only Silver and Gold Currencies." All deposits are "liquid, meaning they can be withdrawn at any time in minted rounds. Some may confuse our economic system with isolationism....which it is not. Since we currently produce much more than we consume, we have the right to decide what medium of exchange to accept for our effort. And so we accept only value for value. Across our great land, over thousands of tribes and merchants participate in our system of trade. We invite others to trade with us and bring value back into our transactions."
This is the world's first non-reserve, non-fractional bank that accepts only silver and gold currencies for deposit. The Lakotas "invite people of any creed, faith or heritage to unite in an effort to reclaim control of wealth. It is our hope that other tribal nations and American citizens recognize the importance of silver and gold as currency and decide to mirror our system of honest trade."
The bank states that it issues, circulates and accepts for deposit "only AOCS - Approved silver and gold currencies." It calls paper not real money but "merely a promise to pay - a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Since we deal only in real money, we do not participate in any central bank looting schemes." When corruption is rewarded and "honesty becom(es) self-sacrifice....you may know that your society is doomed." Even as victims of adversity, Lakotas are working to prevent it.
End the Fed
Privatized money control is the single greatest threat to democratic freedom. As former lawyer, economist, academic, and Canadian prime minister (from 1935 - 1948) William Lyon Mackenzie King once said:
"Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile....Once a nation parts with control of its credit, it matters not who makes (its) laws....Usury once in control will wreck any nation," and indeed it has, far more now than ever.
It worried Thomas Jefferson enough to call banking institutions "more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies" at a much simpler time in our history. The right to create and control money belongs to the people through their elected representatives. For the past 95 years, powerful bankers accountable to no one have had it. They effectively run the country (and own it), and unless We the People change things, we'll continue to be victimized by economic tyranny and the eventual political kind that's coming.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen [at] sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions on world and national issues with distinguished guests. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11435
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
LINK: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/12/24/18556325.php
The Federal Reserve Abolition Act
The Federal Reserve Abolition Act
by Stephen Lendman
Wednesday Dec 24th, 2008 12:01 PM
Abolish the Fed
The Federal Reserve Abolition Act - by Stephen Lendman
On June 15, 2007, Ron Paul introduced HR 2755: Federal Reserve Abolition Act. There were no co-sponsors, no further action was taken, and the legislation was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services and effectively pigeonholed and ignored.
It's a bold and needed measure to "abolish the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks, to repeal the Federal Reserve Act, and for other purposes."
The bill provides for management of employees, assets and liabilities of the Board during a dissolution period, and more as follows:
-- it designates the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to liquidate Fed assets in an orderly and expeditious manner;
-- transfer them to the General Fund of the Treasury after satisfying all claims against the Board and any Federal reserve bank;
-- assume all outstanding Board and member bank liabilities and transfer them to the Secretary of the Treasury; and
-- after an 18-month period, submit a report to Congress "containing a detailed description of the actions taken to implement this Act and any actions or issues relating to such implementation that remain uncompleted or unresolved as of the date of the report."
On November 22, "End the Fed" protests were held in 39 or more cities nationwide (including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, DC), but you'd hardly know it for lack of coverage. Attendee demands were simple and emphatic:
-- end a private banking cartel's illegal monopoly control over the nation's money supply and price;
-- return that power to the US Treasury as the Constitution mandates;
-- end a fiat currency system backed by the waning full faith and credit of the government; and
-- return the country to a sound, hard currency monetary system.
"End the Fed! Sound Money for America!" is their slogan, and writer and US policy critic Webster Tarpley puts it well:
"....the privately owned central bank....has been looting and wrecking the US economy for almost a hundred years. We must end a system where unelected, unaccountable cliques of bankers and financiers loyal to names like Morgan, Rockefeller, and Mellon set interest rates and money supply behind closed doors, leading to de-industrialization, mass impoverishment, and a world economic and financial depression of incalculable severity."
In theory, the Fed was established to stabilize the economy, smooth out the business cycle, manage a healthy, sustainable growth rate, and maintain stable prices. In fact, it failed dismally. It contributed to 19 US recessions (including the Great Depression) and significantly to the following equity market declines that accompanied them as measured by the Dow or S & P 500 average - the S &P's inception was 1923; it became the S & P 500 in 1957:
-- 40.1% (Dow) from 1916 - 1917;
-- 46.6% (Dow) from 1919 - 1921;
-- the 1929 (Dow) crash in two stages - 47.9% in 1929 followed by a strong, temporary rebound; then - 86%; an 89% peak to trough total from October 1929 to July 1932;
-- 49.1% (Dow) from 1937 - 1938;
-- 40.4% (Dow) from 1939 - 1942;
-- 25.3% (S & P) from 1946 - 1947;
-- 19.8% (S & P) in 1957;
-- 26.8% (S & P) from 1961 - 1962;
-- 19.3% (S & P) in 1966;
-- 32.7% (S & P) from 1968 - 1970;
-- 45.1% (S & P) from 1973 - 1974;
-- 20.2% (S & P) from 1980 - 1982;
-- 32.9% (S & P) in 1987;
-- 19.2% (S & P) in 1990;
-- 18.8% (S & P) in 1998;
-- 49.1% (S & P) from 2000 - 2002; and
-- about 50% (S & P) and counting (excluding a bear market rebound) from October 2007.
The Fed is also directly responsible for monetary inflation and the decline in the US standard of living since its year end 1913 inception and especially since the 1970s. From the late 18th century to 1913, virtually no inflation existed under the gold standard except during times of war. Using government data, it now takes over $2000 to equal $100 of pre-Fed purchasing power. In other words, a 1913 dollar is worth about a nickel today.
At that time, a dollar was defined as 1/20 of an ounce of gold or about an ounce of silver. The Fed then changed the standard away from precious metals to the full faith and credit of the government. Ever since (except for periods such as the 1930s) inflation eroded the currency's value and (more than ever) continues to do it today.
It's why one analyst calls the dollar "nothing more than a popular symbol for the tangible substances it once represented - gold and silver." Its true value represents the world's waning confidence in America's ability to honor its debt obligations, and with good reason.
Under the Federal Reserve System (besides inflation), we've had rising consumer debt; record budget and trade deficits; a soaring national debt; a high level of personal and business bankruptcies; today, millions of home foreclosures; high unemployment; the loss of the nation's manufacturing base; growing millions in poverty; an unprecedented wealth gap between the rich and all others; and a hugely unstable economy now lurching into crisis mode.
In a November 24 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Hong Kong-based author and equity strategist Christopher Wood believes "The Fed Is Out of Ammunition." With trillions in personal wealth erased, "there is little doubt that we are witnessing a classic debt-deflation bust at work, characterized by falling prices, frozen credit markets and plummeting asset values."
He notes how "over-investment and over-speculation" on borrowed money got us here. Today, the Fed can control the supply of money but not its velocity or the rate it turns over. The current collapse set it in reverse with no signs of an impending turnaround.
Wood believes monetary and fiscal measures won't work. There are no easy solutions - "not as long as politicians and central bankers (won't) let financial institutions fail," and let market forces wash out excesses over time.
The Fed and Treasury will spend trillions of dollars to correct things, "but will merely compound (the problem) by adding debt to debt." The current crisis will end up "discrediting mechanical monetarism - and with it the fiat paper-money system....The catalyst will be foreign creditors fleeing the dollar for gold. That will in turn lead to global recognition of the need for a vastly more disciplined global financial system" with gold very likely playing a part.
Absent a hard money currency has led to the kind of monetary madness that Nouriel Roubini calls "crazy" policy actions - an explosion of quantitative easing in the trillions with no end of it in sight.
Roubini: "The Fed Funds rate has been abandoned...as we are already effectively at (zero interest rates) that signal a liquidity trap....Even (a sharp) fall in mortgage rates....will be of small comfort to debt burdened households as only those (that) qualify for refinancing will be able to" net out a "modest" monthly mortgage saving of about $150.
The Fed's "desperate policy actions....will eventually lead to much higher real interest rates on the public debt and weaken the US dollar (the result of a) tsunami of implicit and explicit public liabilities and monetary debt." It will get foreign investors to "ponder the long-term sustainability of the US domestic and external liabilities," and why not. They keep growing exponentially, and with nothing restraining a runaway Fed, dollar debasing may continue to the point where no one will want to hold them. It's gotten some analysts to recommend moving a portion of savings out of them into gold - the ultimate safe haven in times of crisis.
Abolish the Fed and Return the Nation's Money Creation Power to Congress Where It Belongs
Ron Paul has been in the vanguard of the Abolish the Fed movement, and on September 10, 2002 on the House floor said:
"Since the creation of the Federal Reserve, middle and working-class Americans have been victimized by a boom-and-bust monetary policy. In addition, most Americans have suffered a steadily eroding purchasing power because of the Federal Reserve's inflationary policies. This represents a real, if hidden, tax imposed on the American people...."
"It is time for the Congress to put the interests of the American people ahead of the special interests. Abolishing the Federal Reserve will allow Congress to reassert its constitutional authority over monetary policy."
"Abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to a constitutional system (as mandated) will enable America to return to the type of monetary system envisioned by our nation's founders: one where the value of money is consistent because it is tied to a commodity such as gold....I urge my colleagues (to co-sponsor) my legislation to abolish the Federal Reserve."
Paul introduced his legislation in the 106th, 107th, 108th, and 110th Congresses. Each time, it died in committee. On November 22, he attended the End the Fed rally in Houston and addressed the crowd.
He called the current economic crisis as bad or worse than in the 1930s and said: "we know who caused it. It was the Federal Reserve that gave us all this trouble." He explained that we had a "free ride for decades because we've had a system that was devised where the dollar could act as if it were gold."
Not after August 1971 when Nixon closed the gold window, ended the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement, and no longer let dollars be backed by gold or converted into it in international markets. A "new economic system" was created. It let us "spend beyond our means, live beyond our means, print money beyond our means," and it caused our current dilemma.
We created "an appearance of great wealth. But it was doomed to fail," and it became apparent in the past year: "the failure of the dollar reserve standard that was set up in August of 1971. It has ended. The only question" is what will replace it?
There's all kinds of talk, including setting up a new international fiat currency "with the loss of US sovereignty in total. We have to stop this move towards one world government and a one world currency." Otherwise our freedom and Constitution will be lost. When it was written, it contained prohibitions.
Article I, Section 8 gives Congress alone the right to coin (create) money and regulate the value thereof. The founders also wanted gold and silver to be legal tender, not fiat money, nor should there be a central bank. In 1935, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress cannot constitutionally delegate this power to another body. By creating the Federal Reserve System in 1913, Congress violated the Constitution it was sworn to uphold and defrauded the American public. Today's crisis is the fruit of its action, but watch out.
"The writing is on the wall, and the end of this system" approaches. "They cannot patch it up, they can't up it back together again. They know it and we know it. The only argument is what is it going to be replaced with?"
For now, "Central banks in the West especially have been dumping gold to artificially lower (its price) to pretend the dollar is of great value. They're still doing it, but they're running out of time (and) out of gold." It's shifting to stronger economic powers, ones who've been saving money, loaning it back to us, "and are ready to buy up America if we continue to do this. So it is a contest (between fiat) money and hard money, and that is such an important issue." It reflects what Daniel Webster once said:
"There can be no legal tender in this country....but gold and silver. This is a constitutional principle....of the very highest importance." Gold, however, wasn't the original monetary system standard. Silver was, the silver dollar, and only a constitutional amendment can change it.
Paper currency as well, whether backed by gold or not, wasn't the hard money authorized by the Constitution. Honest money is honest weights and measures of silver and gold. Federal Reserve Notes are paper fiat debt obligations. Fiat currency of any kind is a mechanism of wealth transference from the public to a privileged elite - through inflation and loss of purchasing power. It creates debt for the many and wealth for the few, especially when a private banking cartel controls it.
Our existing monetary system combines money, credit and debt into a dishonest system of empty promises in exchange for future ones. There is no eventual payment, only unfulfillable assurances to new generations that will be forced to pay for the debt now accumulated. It's a moneychangers dream - ever-expanding debt and a continuing interest rate stream, masquerading as wealth creation for the people. It's in fact a system of bondage and indebtedness benefitting the few at the expense of the many, a modern-day feudalism. It's how an elite 1% got to own 70% of the nation's wealth.
In the 1920s, Josiah Stamp, Bank of England president said:
"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with a flick of the pen (today a computer keyboard) they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."
Creating the Federal Reserve System to let bankers and not the government control the price and amount of fiat money debased the currency and is the root cause of today's financial problems. A return to honest gold and silver weights and measures is needed. The Constitution states that nothing but these metals are money and that paper bills of credit (like Federal Reserve notes) aren't allowed. Even ones backed by gold as the Constitution doesn't grant Congress the power to be bankers. It may only coin (create) and borrow money, not loan it out or give it away - and certainly not to bankers at the expense of the public interest.
Further, the Constitution contains no provision allowing Congress to enact legal tender laws. Article I, Section 10 forbids the individual states from making "anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender in payment of debts." However, US Code, 31 USC 5103, establishes US coins and currency, including Federal Reserve notes, as legal tender and has been used to debase the currency ever since - the way Gresham's Law works: bad (or debased) money drives out good (the kind with little difference between its nominal and commodity values).
For example, until 1964, US coins (except pennies and nickels) contained 90% silver. Starting in 1965, dimes and quarters were converted to their current nickel - copper composition. Half-dollars (now produced in limited quantities) had 90% silver. It then dropped to 40% in 1965 and by 1971 all US coins (except pennies and commemorative mintings) contained nickel and copper and no silver - a good example of debasing. As for paper currency, it's just paper.
Under a private banking cartel's control, it's been misused, stolen, and corrupted the way New York Times columnist Floyd Norris suggests in his November 24 article headlined: "Another Crisis, Another Guarantee." First the banks, then the auto companies, and who knows who's next in line for theirs. "As the nation's obligations rise into the trillions, at some point investors (and the public) may begin to question whether a government running huge deficits can also credibly promise that the dollar will not lose its value." How can there be any faith and credit left when it's vanishing and the Fed and Treasury operate like giant hedge funds.
It got UK-based Eclectica Asset Management chief investment officer, Hugh Hendry, concerned enough to say: "All (US) financials will be owned by the government in a year. I bet you. It's not good," but it's coming. US taxpayers will be "paying for this for a long time," and it's deeply concerning considering the amount of money creation - with no end in sight as problems keep mounting and limitless amounts keep being thrown at them.
On November 25 the Financial Times associate editor, Wolfgang Munchau, also worries about the Fed's "weapon of mass desperation" (so-called quantitative easing); focusing only on deflation and risking a currency crisis. He calls it a flawed, dangerous and shocking oversight - the possibility of "a mass flight out of dollar assets (at some point) and a large rise in US market interest rates, followed by a huge recession."
A Bloomberg.com November 24 headline highlights the problem: "US Pledges Top $7.7 trillion to Ease Frozen Credit," and it might as well have said there's plenty more where that came from if needed. With another $800 committed to two new loan programs the total reached $8.5 trillion, according to Bloomberg or nearly 60% of US 2007 GDP of $14 trillion, and the numbers keep rising exponentially because the problems continue to mount.
Bloomberg puts it in perspective saying "the (current) commitment dwarfs (TARP and puts) Federal Reserve lending last week (at) 1900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis," and with the added $800 billion it's about 2100 times pre-crisis levels.
In addition, the Fed refuses to identify recipients of about $2 trillion of emergency handouts or what troubled assets (if any) it's accepting as collateral. Call it lending or spending. They're public tax dollars being spread around like confetti and debasing it all as a result.
The Free Lakota Bank
On November 21, this writer discussed how Lakotahs are treated in an article titled "Fate of Lakotahs Highlights America's Failed Native American Policies." On November 24, the following press release and follow-up information announced:
"People of Lakota Launch Private Bank for Only Silver and Gold Currencies." All deposits are "liquid, meaning they can be withdrawn at any time in minted rounds. Some may confuse our economic system with isolationism....which it is not. Since we currently produce much more than we consume, we have the right to decide what medium of exchange to accept for our effort. And so we accept only value for value. Across our great land, over thousands of tribes and merchants participate in our system of trade. We invite others to trade with us and bring value back into our transactions."
This is the world's first non-reserve, non-fractional bank that accepts only silver and gold currencies for deposit. The Lakotas "invite people of any creed, faith or heritage to unite in an effort to reclaim control of wealth. It is our hope that other tribal nations and American citizens recognize the importance of silver and gold as currency and decide to mirror our system of honest trade."
The bank states that it issues, circulates and accepts for deposit "only AOCS - Approved silver and gold currencies." It calls paper not real money but "merely a promise to pay - a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Since we deal only in real money, we do not participate in any central bank looting schemes." When corruption is rewarded and "honesty becom(es) self-sacrifice....you may know that your society is doomed." Even as victims of adversity, Lakotas are working to prevent it.
End the Fed
Privatized money control is the single greatest threat to democratic freedom. As former lawyer, economist, academic, and Canadian prime minister (from 1935 - 1948) William Lyon Mackenzie King once said:
"Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile....Once a nation parts with control of its credit, it matters not who makes (its) laws....Usury once in control will wreck any nation," and indeed it has, far more now than ever.
It worried Thomas Jefferson enough to call banking institutions "more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies" at a much simpler time in our history. The right to create and control money belongs to the people through their elected representatives. For the past 95 years, powerful bankers accountable to no one have had it. They effectively run the country (and own it), and unless We the People change things, we'll continue to be victimized by economic tyranny and the eventual political kind that's coming.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen [at] sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions on world and national issues with distinguished guests. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11435
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
LINK: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/12/24/18556325.php
International Forecaster December 2008 (#7) - Gold, Silver, Economy + More
International Forecaster December 2008 (#7) - Gold, Silver, Economy + More
By: Bob Chapman, The International Forecaster
-- Posted Sunday, 28 December 2008
The following are some snippets from the most recent issue of the International Forecaster. For the full 22 page issue, please see subscription information below.
US MARKETS
Dwarfing the Madoff Ponzi scheme, which in the end may turn out to be, at least in part, a scam to feign investment losses for purposes of ripping off insurance companies with invalid claims for fraud while bilking taxpayers out their hard-earned money with deceitful requests for government bailouts and tax breaks, is the Social Security Ponzi scheme. While the Madoff Ponzi scheme, so-called, may be measured in the tens of billions, the Social Security Ponzi scheme can be measured in the tens of trillions, making it a thousand times worse. The Social Security system is truly a Ponzi scheme in the classic sense, where the first contributors to the fund are paid benefits mainly out of the funds received from the contributions of later participants.
The Social Security system we are familiar with was originally enacted in 1935 by an incredibly corrupt Congress (much like the current one), and signed into law by FDR, a corrupt and ardent Illuminist who did as he was told to do by his Illuminist Puppet Masters (principally John Rockefeller, Jr. and J P Morgan, Jr.). At that time, the Social Security system was known as the Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program. The OASDI was not implemented until 1937 due to Constitutional challenges, but suffice it to say, the Illuminist puppets in the Supreme Court of that day, who were every bit as corrupt as FDR and the Congress, made sure the Socialist agenda went forward.
The Ponzi aspects of this Social Security scam were enhanced by one of the main conspirators in this scheme, the Federal Reserve. Shortly after the Social Security system was implemented in 1937, our central bank inflated our currency by increasing the supply of money and credit in order to boost prices and incomes and take us out of depression. This process accelerated in 1941 in order to fund the war effort as WWII got underway following the 911 event of that time, namely, the attack on Pearl Harbor, which our government knew was coming way before it happened, but then turned a blind eye to the upcoming attack so we could be dragged kicking and screaming into the next Illuminist war for profit. Incomes and prices rose as Americans went to work to power the war effort, thus causing incoming Social Security contributions to burgeon, while simultaneously debasing the value of the benefits being distributed, thus further enabling the Ponzi scheme to be perpetuated.
Note how in 1933, just prior to the enactment of the OASDI in 1935, bankster-buddy FDR took us off the gold standard domestically, leaving only dollars and dollar-denominated accounts held by foreigners backed by gold. That meant we had a domestic fiat currency, which allowed the Fed to do as it pleased with the supply of money and credit in the US, and as you may have guessed, the Fed chose to increase the supply quite dramatically to fund WWII so the military-industrial complex could grow filthy rich. This tied in perfectly with the Social Security Ponzi scheme as we became an economic powerhouse in the aftermath of WWII, with a peak in the late 1960s, by filling the Social Security fund with fresh infusions of inflated cash to keep the Ponzi scheme going, while debasing the fixed benefits being paid out to retirees.
Next came the Vietnam War, and more debt, especially to foreign nations, and more inflation from an increase in the supply of money and credit to fund the latest war for profit. This brought about the final debasement of our currency after the London Gold Pool failed to cap the price of gold, resulting in a bank holiday in Britain during the Johnson Administration. President Nixon, also an ardent Illuminist, at the request of his Puppet Masters, in order to stop the outflow of our national gold to foreigners due to war debt and to enhance the Fed's ability to increase money and credit to fund Johnson's Great Society welfare programs, took us completely off the gold standard in 1971. As a result, inflation went out of control as our currency became purely fiat in nature, with double-digit inflation peaking in the early 1980s. Once again, the resulting inflation furthered the Social Security Ponzi scheme, which was an integral part of Johnson's Great Society program.
In order to placate complaints about the effects of inflation on the purchasing power of benefits, which grew quite pronounced with the passage of time, an attempt was made to counteract the impact of inflation by providing for cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) based on official inflation rates. Not to be daunted, the elitists made sure that the Bureau of Lying (Labor) Statistics (BLS), which they totally control with their puppets at the BLS, put out greatly understated official inflation statistics, usually at one half to one third of actual inflation, a process known as hedonics, which they use to screw Social Security recipients out of their proper COLA increases. As you can see, Inflation is the best tool available to perpetuate the Social Security Ponzi scheme, by burgeoning incoming money at the full rate of inflation while benefits are increased by only a fraction of the actual rate of inflation. This has changed recently, because wages have stagnated, and this has put stupendous pressure on our already bankrupt Social Security system, a huge, gargantuan Ponzi scheme that is about to unravel.
Make no mistake about it; this was an Illuminist scheme to impoverish the middle class, not to provide for people's security. Ask Social Security recipients how many of them feel secure based on the miniscule benefits they are receiving. This was a Communistic spreading of wealth from the middle class to the poor, not from the wealthy to the poor, since FICA contributions have always been cut off at a level of income associated with the middle class, leaving the wealthy free of FICA liability on most of their income because Social Security benefits are capped, presumably making FICA deductions, above the designated maximum level of income, unfair. In the end, the poor are still poor, the middle class has now joined the ranks of the poor, and the wealthy are now fabulously wealthy, which results are characteristic of any Communistic or Fascistic form of governance. Between the Social Security system, the Income Tax system and the Federal Reserve System, they will spend, tax and inflate, respectively, the American sheople into oblivion.
Their Communistic, Fascistic mantra has been: Give us your money and we will take care of you from the cradle to the grave. They will take care of you all right -- in a Halliburton-built, slave-labor internment camp, complete with disinformation centers where they will brainwash your children to make them into good, quiet, dumb, cooperative sheople-serfs. This mantra has in fact been used to help fund all their plans for world government by extorting a myriad of taxes out of you, and one of the main taxes which has been used to fund their plans has been the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), which funds their Social Security Ponzi scheme, which, as a result, has actually become a Ponzi scheme within a Ponzi scheme.
So how has our Social Security system become a Ponzi scheme within a Ponzi scheme? We'll tell you how. Our reprobates and sociopaths in Congress have regularly, over many decades, overspent money to fund their pork projects and social welfare programs to win votes, and to grease the wheels of the Illuminist wars for profit which power the military-industrial complex. This has resulted in massive budgetary current account deficits.
Adding to our woes are the trade deficits, which we have to fund by borrowing from foreign nations, thus increasing our national debt. These trade deficits have been caused by the gutting of our manufacturing sector through free trade, globalization, off-shoring, outsourcing, and both legal and illegal immigration. Illegal currency manipulations by exporting nations like China, Japan, Russia and EU nations have also contributed to the trade imbalance by giving these nations unfair trade advantages via debasement of their currencies, which makes their exports cheaper in our country, and which makes our exports more expensive in their countries. These nations also provide subsidies to their domestic industries, thus decreasing their cost of goods and increasing their bottom lines. All these currency manipulations and subsidies make a mockery out of the concept of free trade. We need fair trade, not free trade.
And now we have trillions in bailout money being given to the so-called too-big-to-fail banks and transnational conglomerates to make sure that their executives keep getting their salaries, bonuses, dividends, stock options and golden parachutes while we get hyper-inflated into oblivion by throwing good money after bad.
Now mind you, these are the same executives who, on orders from their Illuminist masters, have burned their once prosperous companies to the ground to screw non-insider shareholders and bondholders, to bust unions, to ship our good-paying jobs and our once huge manufacturing infrastructure overseas where they can take advantage of slave labor, to repudiate their obligations under pension plans, to cut off employee benefits, to hamstring our economy, to consolidate with and to eliminate their competition and to ultimately become nationalized by our government to form a fascist police state while we undergo hyper-stagflation, recession and then depression from the deleterious effects of all the bailout money being bandied about like booze at a wild party.
What has happened to our once dynamic auto industry is a perfect example of this intentional waylaying of some of our major corporations in the manufacturing sector while the insolvency of our major investment banks, commercial banks and insurance companies are a perfect example of this procedure in the financial sector. The ultimate objective behind this intentional decimation of our leading companies and destruction of our economy is to bring us to our knees so we will accept a corporatist, fascist, feudal, Orwellian police state in lieu of our Constitutional republic.
Due to all these deficits and psychotic overspending on moronic bailouts, in order to help plug the gaps, our morons and village idiots in Congress invade the Social Security reserves, handing back a worthless IOU that will never be repaid. So they are using current Social Security benefits to fund both current and past deficits in the general budget, thus creating a Ponzi scheme within a Ponzi scheme. They have promised you security in return for the tax contributions they have extorted from you to help fund your retirement and the retirements of others in the system, and have then turned around and spent your hard-earned money on their projects to implement world government, leaving the Social Security fund totally bankrupt. So not only are they robbing Peter to pay Paul, they are using the funds robbed from Peter to pay Judas as well.
Now let's examine why the Social Security Ponzi scheme is about to unravel. The first reason is the use of Social Security reserves to help fund the general budget, which by and large is used to fund the Illuminist scheme for world government. This money will never be repaid. Where could such gargantuan repayments possibly come from, the printing press? Well, if that's the plan, get ready for a reenactment of the Weimar Republic, or if you prefer, put on your Mugabe costume and get ready to have a Zimbabwe experience you'll never forget. This bankrupting of the system has been intentional. The old and poor are now at the mercy of the Illuminati, while the rest of us slave away to keep our heads above water and to keep the Social Security Ponzi system from collapsing and impoverishing our parents.
The next reason is that the Social Security system is not just a pension system; it is an insurance and social welfare system, meaning that benefits are often payable to those who have contributed little or nothing to the system. This is a thinly disguised form of Communism. You are supposed to reap what you sow. They should have had segregated accounts, and let voluntary contributions to charitable organizations, churches and hospitals take care of the poor and the sick as was done in the past. Without taxes dragging us down, we could all take care of the poor quite well, thank you. Instead, we now have an ingrained welfare mentality in a large cross section of our population. Fraud and abuse is out of control.
LINK: http://news.goldseek.com/InternationalForecaster/1230482774.php
A Memorable Delivery Experience
A Memorable Delivery Experience
Thursday, December 4, 2008
For those who remember, I wrote a letter asking about taking delivery from the COMEX. Well I would like to tell you about a very educational experience.
Recently, we took a delivery from the COMEX. The process was a bit cumbersome but very enlightening. First, I would like to say that the process of dealing with the custodians was very professional. However, let me begin my story of amazement.
The silver and gold were to be prepared and packaged for shipment by the existing custodian. As I understand it, this was part of the delivery out fee. We will get back to the packaging later.
The metal was arranged for a pick up and delivery using a very well known armored carrier. Initially, everything was going as planned. After the metal was gathered from various custodians, it was on its way to one of our facilities. We were in contact with the armored carrier who laid out a time frame of when to expect arrival of the armored truck. We were told that shipment arrivals usually occur in the morning and with plenty of notice.
This is when the story gets interesting.
Three days after the shipment leaves New York, I get a call at 4:50 pm from one of our vault managers. He mentioned if the armored carrier ever called with a delivery time. I told him the armored carrier was supposed to call us with an estimated time of arrival. Our vault manger paused and said, “I have a big armored truck sitting outside.” He mentioned to me later that the truck was fairly weighed down in the back with the headlights shooting up in the air. Anyone in the armored transportation business would say at this point we have a problem. An unscheduled delivery, 10 minutes before the vault is locked down, darkness setting in, and a truck with an obviously big payload sounds like a setting for a Jessie James novel.
But wait it gets better.
The packaging which the COMEX custodian charged for consisted of pallets of silver with metal bands over the bars. The gold bars were in a simple cardboard box. There was no shrink wrap over the pallets or secured container holding the gold bars. It seemed like a $10 glass bowl bought on the internet was better prepared for shipment than this extremely valuable cargo.
Somehow during the transportation, the bands on the pallets holding the silver bars broke and some of the bars were scattered in the armored truck. To make matters worse there was no invoice providing an itemized list of bars and their serial numbers. In fact on the invoice, the delivery date was to be two days later.
Typically, this is a point when you get someone in charge on the phone. Well, that is what we did. We contacted the carrier’s regional transportation official. We told him in most cases a delivery like this is usually not accepted due to risk and liability. After a few words the carrier’s manager said if you do not take delivery we will send the metal back to our regional office, load it on a trailer, and send it back to New York.
When you are talking several tons of metal, you think twice about moving this around. After we inspected the metal for damage and counted the bars, we accepted the shipment.
Please understand taking delivery from the COMEX entails some risk. But for many proponents of gold and silver to simply say “have the metal shipped to a business, store it at home, or do not let a third party handle or store your metal,” investors might consider this experience. When you have armed guards show up at your doorstep with a shipment, they are trained to carry out a certain function. They are not there to greet you with a smile like a mailman or newspaper delivery boy.
Our armored facility is very well equipped to handle deliveries whether scheduled or unscheduled. Fortunately, the experience of our management team turned a potentially costly situation into safe and secure delivery.
Do not let this story dissuade you from taking delivery off the COMEX. The above story is not your typical delivery and most armored carriers provide a very secure environment for its cargo and the items held in their vault. For us the process is routine. Our facility can support you in preparing the three items requested by the COMEX custodian for delivery, arranging for a pick up and transportation, and securing valuable assets in a fully insured/segregated facility.
Bob Coleman
profitsplus@cableone.net
http://profitspluscapital.blogspot.com/
LINK: http://profitspluscapital.blogspot.com/2008/12/memorable-delivery-experience.html
***HL $2.48 - CHART***
Bullish Flag ->
HL Chart -
- Bullish Pennant -
Happy Holidays Bob,
Feel free to add me as a co-moderator here and I can add a chart or two in the information-box.
Peace...
Upbeat isn't the word, seeing the manipulators lose control, the same manipulators who've written nearly 25,000 naked call options at the $2.50 exercise price has me giddy like a school girl going to her first prom...
Those same options expire in 3 weeks...
25,000 naked call options = 25,000,000 shares...
That's plenty of cash, don't forget that the assets in the ground aren't counted on the balance sheet! $GOLD will be back at $1,000 the ounce in no time and the recent panic to as low as $.99/share will have been seen as the buying opportunity of a lifetime as shares rise to $10.00 and beyond...
*Not to mention, the assets that do count on the book give HL a book value over $4/share...
Lovin' the large short position here heading into the new year!!! And better yet, they had the nerve to increase their positions month over month in December.
;-D
$GOLD just $110/ounce away from the magic $1,000 ounce mark... +$20.50 in just the first hour and a half of asian markets trading...
***$GOLD $889.20 (+20.50) - ASIAN-MARKET BULLS RUNNING RAMPANT!***
*$ILVER +.23 to $10.89, USD Index losing ground -.25 to 80.72...
I thought we were making predictions for December 31, 2009?
If it's for June 30, 2009 - I'll need to make some changes...
Hi Tom - Besides the 79 million in cash on the balance sheet from the most recent quarter. Hecla recently raised cash from a stock offering, adding roughly another 21 million dollars.
They also deferred the January 1, 2009 dividend on the preferred stock since the share price fell under the minimal level to issue the dividend.
It's in the best interest of institutional investors in this stock, which is roughly 60% of the outstanding 'publicly' traded shares to now maintain a share price of at least $2.45 given the latest stock offering to keep the options/warrants in the money.
It's in the best interest of the preferred stock holders to maintain a share price over $3.40 to be eligible for future dividends.
There's a lot of 'smart money' involved here. If you're concern is the company becoming insolvent, put it aside, there's absolutely no chance of that happening in the foreseeable future.
Check out JBL QuickTrade - had some good news last week -
Profitable company in the solar power industry -
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=JBL
$6.32 ->
***MVO - $7.27 - Stock which has oil interest in the United States of America, interesting decimation to 52-week to all-time lows:
Precious metals to see sharp price declines in h1
*A bearish view on precious metals such as silver and gold...
A big sell-off in gold is likely in the new year. (REUTERS)
Precious metals to see sharp price declines in h1
By Pradeep Unni on Sunday, December 28, 2008
The year 2008 would go down in history as one of the worst in financial terms after causing the worst economic crisis that swallowed several investment banks and many other financial institutions. Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs ceased to exist as investment banks in this 12-month time frame or more specifically these and many more disappeared in the less than six months. That was not all, an entire nation (Iceland) turned bankrupt in the same year.
Many economies officially entered into recession in 2008 while others like the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States are in the brink of recession. Singapore and Japan are also officially in recession. Japan's government approved a ¥88.5 trillion (Dh3.6trn) budget – its biggest ever – to cover a ¥12trn fiscal stimulus programme. The UK's economy is likely to shrink by 2.5 per cent in 2009 – a significantly worse year than any experienced either in the early 1990s or the 1970s. UK's Office for National Statistics announced that the economy shrank by 0.6 per cent in the third quarter, notching down its previous estimate from 0.5 per cent. Although the UK will not be technically in recession until the fourth-quarter figures, to be published next month, it is likely that that the slump would deepen in the coming months. US GDP, the broadest measure of economic health, declined at an annual rate of 0.5 per cent in the July-September quarter, while corporate profits fell 1.2 per cent. It is quite likely that US GDP could plunge to as large as six per cent in the October-December quarter, which would make it the largest decline since a 6.4 per cent drop in the first quarter of 1982. Eurozone economy, too, is in chaos with the possibility of it GDP falling as much as one per cent in 2009.
In Russia, a central bank source confirmed the rouble had been devalued for the seventh time in a month and a deputy interior minister said the country faced an increasing number of unrest due to crisis measures. Poland's central bank said it was likely to cut rates further in 2009 because economic growth could be more than halved. Central bank chiefs across the globe acted in tandem to avert a global crisis and initiated a slew of measures including deep rate cuts, bail-outs, pumping of excess liquidity and also lot of confidence talks on the economy and financial systems. However, many of these attempts failed have to a lasting impression as bad news continued to trickle in non-stop. The race to zero inflation, zero rates have already developed in many nations and the US has already slashed its rates to virtually zero per cent. Many nations across the globe are steadily inching closer to that level. Beyond zero per cent rates, central banks resort to quantitative easing – a term coined by the Bank of Japan in 2001 when interest rates were already at zero and the central bank stopped targeting the overnight call rate and turned to targeting a current account level.
Under the context of a global recession in 2009, it becomes pivotal to analyse what will be the fate of commodities in 2009. How will key commodities – like gold, silver, platinum and oil – fare in 2009?
With respect to precious metals, we would have to witness sharp price declines in the first half of 2009, with a slight chance of recovery in second half of the year. Gold is ideally an inflation hedge and reflects defects in economy quite vividly, but as deflation sets in (zero per cent interest rates), gold's role would steadily get eroded, meaning a severe price drop would be a necessity to trigger pent-up demand. What we currently see is probably a bear in the disguise of bull and as the New Year begins and trading activity resumes, bearish signals may get vivid again. Technically, too, good charts continue to show extreme weakness and any intermittent gains, however, are unlikely to hold. In the near term, a swift sell-off to $800-$770 or lower is most likely as most momentum indicators continue to slide back from the overbought zones.
A key aspect visible in charts is the formation of the "Doji" pattern in yearly charts. The 'Doji' pattern in candlestick charts are ideally seen as trend-reversal signals. The same pattern was formed in 2001, after which gold rallied to $1,030 from $278. So will 2009 signal a big sell-off in gold?
Silver prices might reflect the trend in gold and slide lower, owing to lower demand and industrial recession. However, since silver is widely used in many industries from mobile phones to medicinal applications, the depth of slide in prices may be of lesser intensity. This might prevent a massive drop in demand. Once silver scythes the key support at $9/oz, selling might gather momentum. Platinum, on the other hand, would have to wait until the auto industry revives. A key demand for platinum group of metals (PGM) is as auto-catalysts in cars. Quite recently platinum was quoted lower than gold and that hints at the impact of recession on PGM.
Oil prices are a different class altogether – in the sense that they are governed by a host of factors including global demand, speculative fund investments, Opec production cuts, dollar weakness and supply constraints. The market is still very much demand driven and that is probably the reason steep production cuts earlier this month by Opec was completely ignored by the market. Demand has been vanishing across all key oil-consuming regions, and thus a strong rebound in prices in first half 2009 seems quite unlikely. But with a strong group like the Opec controlling more than 40 per cent of the global oil production, price floor may be near. Outside the Opec, nations are less organised and any severe drop in prices could reduce the production as it would turn economically unfeasible to extract oil. Outlook wise, the medium-term trend continues to point south and short rebound cannot be ascertained as key trend reversal. Technically oil needs to break and hold above $42.50 for any swift rally to $47-54. But such rallies are unlikely to sustain in longer time frame. Oil has the potential to drop lower $30 and but a drop below this zone may trigger fresh buying.
The author is Senior Research Analyst at Richcomm Global Services DMCC
LINK: http://www.business24-7.ae/articles/2008/12/pages/12282008_8d38ad48b7ef4941b62fb0b83021ace3.aspx
New York gold futures rise sharply after Christmas
New York gold futures rise sharply after Christmas
www.chinaview.cn
2008-12-27 07:35:01
CHICAGO, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- Gold market in New York Friday saw a brisk move to the upside in a post-holiday trade.
Gold futures for February delivery gained 23.20 U.S. dollars, or 2.7 percent, to 871.20 dollars an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Bullish outside market influences helped gold recover from an early price dip. Crude oil futures rose more than 6 percent in New York, as the United Arab Emirates said it would reduce output to comply with OPEC's supply curbs.
A weak dollar and ultra low Treasury yields have attracted investors to gold as a store of value, after the Fed cut prime interest rate to near zero. Chart based buying provided further support to gold as the market pushed through some critical price levels.
Mounting tensions in the Middle East and South Asia also helped boost the appeal of gold as a safe haven.
LINK: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/27/content_10565417.htm
Hi zab, what do you think about the HL chart, it broke to the upside out of a pennant on Friday. Waiting for the volume and price to confirm over the $2.50 (options) resistance level.
Dow - 6,877.54
Gold - 1,462.50
Oil - 72.97
Just throwing out some numbers... out of curiosity, what do you use to determine the closing price of Gold and Oil each day?
CEF - It's go-time here folks - get your popcorn ready...
HUGE BREAKOUT P&F
$$$
GOLD
$$$
http://www.the-privateer.com/chart/gold-pf.html
***$GOLD - ALL SIGNS ARE BULLISH!***
*Commercials running rampant, once recently saw 2 different ones in a row about buying $GOLD... between you mailing them your "used or unwanted jewelry" to them opening up shops, even stores in the mall or in convenient areas for gullible people to just sell them their gold at rock-bottom prices!
*What does this tell us? Most of the time, money is being made when they try to sell US something, now they want to buy something from us!?
***Extremely bullish!!!***
*Also a huge P&F chart breakout this week, I'm looking for $2,000 the ounce+++ on the next longer-term wave up which was confirmed on this week's breakout!>>>
http://www.the-privateer.com/chart/gold-pf.html
Get your popcorn ready folks!
$ SILVER $ will follow it's brethren higher as well!
The current technical set-up calls for a major breakout towards new-highs! Elliot wavers will love this one...