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"What is the likelihood of ‘tight monetary policies´ in the US? Zero! And what is the likelihood of a meaningful fiscal adjustment? Almost zero! On the other hand, what is the likelihood of precious metals appreciating further if the dollar declines more? Rather likely."
~ Marc Faber
I heard Buffet say just yesterday that "I would rather own all the farmland in the USA, than all the gold in the world." He is a fiat lover and will be wiped out once the SHTF!! Ultra rich have gone broke before throughout history and he will be no different.
Remembering the Alamo
Chuck Baldwin
March 6 marks the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo back in 1836. For more than 13 days, 186 brave and determined patriots withstood Santa Anna’s seasoned army of over 4,000 troops. To a man, the defenders of that mission fort knew they would never leave those ramparts alive. They had several opportunities to leave and live. Yet, they chose to fight and die. How foolish they must look to this generation of spoiled Americans.
It is difficult to recall that stouthearted men such as Davy Crockett (a nationally known frontiersman and former congressman), Will Travis (only 23 years old with a little baby at home), and Jim Bowie (a wealthy landowner with properties on both sides of the Rio Grande) really existed. These were real men with real dreams and real desires. Real blood flowed through their veins. They loved their families and enjoyed life as much as any of us do. There was something different about them, however. They possessed a commitment to liberty that transcended personal safety and comfort.
Liberty is an easy word to say, but it is a hard word to live up to. Freedom has little to do with financial gain or personal pleasure. Accompanying Freedom is her constant and unattractive companion, Responsibility. Neither is she an only child. Patriotism and Morality are her sisters. They are inseparable: destroy one and all will die.
Early in the siege, Travis wrote these words to the people of Texas: "Fellow Citizens & Compatriots: I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. . . . The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword . . . I have answered the demand with a cannon shot & our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. . . . VICTORY OR DEATH! P.S. The Lord is on our side. . . ."
As you read those words, remember that Travis and the others did not have the A.C.L.U., P.E.T.A., People for the un-American Way, and the National Education Association telling them how intolerant and narrow-minded their notions of honor and patriotism were. A hostile media did not constantly castigate them as a bunch of wild-eyed extremists. As schoolchildren, they were not taught that their forefathers were nothing more than racist jerks.
The brave men at the Alamo labored under the belief that America (and Texas) really was "the land of the free and the home of the brave." They believed God was on their side and that the freedom of future generations depended on their courage and resolve. They further believed their posterity would remember their sacrifice as an act of love and devotion. It all looks pale now.
By today’s standards, the gallant men of the Alamo appear rather foolish. After all, they had no chance of winning--none. However, the call for pragmatism and practicality was never sounded. Instead, they answered the clarion call, "Victory or death!"
Please try to remember the heroes of the Alamo as you watch our gutless political and religious leaders surrender to globalism, corporatism, and political correctness. Try to recall the time in this country when ordinary men and women had the courage of their convictions and were willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom and independence.
One thing is certain: those courageous champions at the Alamo did not die for a political party or for some "lesser of two evils" mantra. They fought and died for a principle, and that principle was liberty and independence. So did the men at Lexington and Concord. That is our heritage.
Today, however, our national leaders are in the process of turning America over to the very forces that the Alamo defenders gave their lives resisting. On second thought, do they look foolish, or do we?
This article covers every topic when it comes to silver:
http://silverbearcafe.com/private/02.11/silvershield.html
This article covers every topic when it comes to silver:
http://silverbearcafe.com/private/02.11/silvershield.html
Very true P.C. What people don't realize is that the prosperity and the convenience of our everyday life is an anomaly in history. Things will not be this easy forever!!
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/adjusted-monetary-base-goes-vertical
This is a long term chart:
Silver Default Looms?! (It's about time!)
Jason Hommel
I apologize in advance that this essay is entirely without humor, completely sober, and deadly serious.
As I write on Sunday evening, Feb. 20th, silver prices are up another 40 cents to $33.10, another 30 year high, going back to the previous high of $50 from Jan. 1980. In the last two trading days, last Thursday and Friday, silver prices increased about a dollar per day.
What's going on?
As I read on the blogs, about 53,000 silver contracts for 5000 oz. each are nearing the first delivery day on Feb. 28th. At that time, each contract must be fully funded to await delivery in the following 30 days, or sold before then. By the way, 53k x 5k = 265 million oz.
http://tfmetalsreport.blogspot.com/2011/02/wow.html
The crazy thing is that the four COMEX approved warehouses have only about 100 million oz. of silver in them. So, in essence, a default looms.
Will this be it? If so, what will happen?
Usually, all but a very few contracts roll over to the next months. The futures contract holders rarely stand for delivery, as in their view it is too difficult, and too costly; they are in this game for the leverage. They usually only put down 10% of the money, so that if silver gains another 10% in price, they double their investment quickly. And if silver moves down 10%, they lose everything!
But here's the kicker. COMEX just raised margin requirements 50% on Friday, meaning that the longs had to put up something probably like 15% instead of the usual 10%. (I have no idea of the real figures, as I have never traded futures, I have never had a futures broker, and don't know where to go for that data.) This means that the longs were not scared out of their positions, as the silver price went up, not down, as the manipulators had intended.
What I do know is that usually, the majority of futures contracts stand about 3 months away from delivery. But not now.
Tonight, 53,000 contracts are looming for either close out, or they will stand for delivery. Out of about 150,000 to 200,000 contracts!
Harvey says 150,000 contracts in open interest. http://harveyorgan.blogspot.com/
321gold.com says 200,000 contracts in open interest. http://www.321gold.com/cot_silver.html
The current situation will be resolved in 8 days, and again, in another 30 days after that. Both deadlines are worth watching closely.
Either way, this situation presents several problems
Clearly, if the longs stand for delivery of 265 million oz., when there are only 100 million oz. in the warehouses, there will be a short squeeze, and the price can go ballistic to the upside, perhaps prices could go up by 5 times higher in a few days.
However the longs don't seem to realize that the shorts can cap the price by several other manipulative methods. They can deliver paper cash, or SLV shares as well. The shorts and COMEX can also limit total physical silver deliveries to as little as 1.5 million ounces to any individual, or 7.5 million ounces total, if my memory of the rules serves. If they do that, the shorts can delay a short squeeze at the COMEX.
But this would create another problem
A cash settlement, or settlement in SLV shares, or a limit on physical silver deliveries, would be recognized as a default, or a "failure to deliver".
If any such kind of default would take place, it could cause a run on any remaining silver at any other location, such as directly at the refineries, or bullion wholesalers, or bullion dealers like myself.
I hope no such default takes place, as I don't want to go out of business for a few days, or a few weeks, or a few months, while I wait for my suppliers to get re-stocked.
In any event, I think it's important to realize several fundamentals.
1. The dollar itself -- is fraud.
2. Silver futures contracts -- are fraud.
3. Fractional reserve banking -- is fraud.
4. Fractional reserve silver selling -- is fraud.
5. The nature of paper money and all frauds is that they tend to collapse rather suddenly, with little warning, especially when their ability to pay debts is called into question.
6. Argentina maintained a peg of their peso to the dollar, and it lasted until they could no longer make interest payments in dollars. Then, their peso collapsed in value nearly 75% overnight. Even Americans, with American dollars, in American banks (in Argentina) had their dollars forcibly converted into pesos, and their ability to withdraw money severely limited.
7. The same thing can happen to the dollar.
8. Silver prices must be seen to have the potential to explode by about a factor of 4-10, literally overnight. This means we might see silver prices at about $33/oz. on one day, and silver prices from $130 to $330/oz. the next day.
If that happens, I might close up the JH MINT for anywhere from an hour to a day or so, until I can guarantee a source of silver from my suppliers.
I will likely be able to remain in business though, because if there is a price quote, it means silver is available at such prices.
The most likely course is that the paper traders continue their game of "chicken". Both sides will swerve at the last moment and avoid a collision. Prices will likely go up to about $35 to maybe as high as $40 next month.
We will likely have another record sales of silver bars and coins.
The US mint will likely have another record of sales of 1 oz. American Eagle silver coins. They might run out for a week at a time, again.
We will likely have plenty of silver available at about 6% over spot, while all the physical silver ETF's trade at about a 8-12% premium over "spot" prices.
But then again, you never know. I can predict that the busses will likely run on time, and I will likely be right, until they don't. Better order silver now, while you still can.
My greatest fear is that silver will run out. When silver runs out, people will buy other things to protect the value of their dollars, such as food. If people start buying up food, in amounts of up to $100,000, food prices will soar, and that will cause food prices to exceed the values that most people can afford, and then, most people will begin to starve. The beauty of gold and silver is that you cannot eat them, and thus, there is no such thing as a price that is "too high" of a price for gold and silver. My wife and I stocked up on food this weekend at COSTCO. We spent only $700, the least we have spent in months. We filled up the back of our Ford Excursion. You can see what problems would be created if wealthy people begain to buy 50 to 100 truckloads of food at a time, in the event that silver became unavailable.
Silver Default Looms?! (It's about time!)
Jason Hommel
I apologize in advance that this essay is entirely without humor, completely sober, and deadly serious.
As I write on Sunday evening, Feb. 20th, silver prices are up another 40 cents to $33.10, another 30 year high, going back to the previous high of $50 from Jan. 1980. In the last two trading days, last Thursday and Friday, silver prices increased about a dollar per day.
What's going on?
As I read on the blogs, about 53,000 silver contracts for 5000 oz. each are nearing the first delivery day on Feb. 28th. At that time, each contract must be fully funded to await delivery in the following 30 days, or sold before then. By the way, 53k x 5k = 265 million oz.
http://tfmetalsreport.blogspot.com/2011/02/wow.html
The crazy thing is that the four COMEX approved warehouses have only about 100 million oz. of silver in them. So, in essence, a default looms.
Will this be it? If so, what will happen?
Usually, all but a very few contracts roll over to the next months. The futures contract holders rarely stand for delivery, as in their view it is too difficult, and too costly; they are in this game for the leverage. They usually only put down 10% of the money, so that if silver gains another 10% in price, they double their investment quickly. And if silver moves down 10%, they lose everything!
But here's the kicker. COMEX just raised margin requirements 50% on Friday, meaning that the longs had to put up something probably like 15% instead of the usual 10%. (I have no idea of the real figures, as I have never traded futures, I have never had a futures broker, and don't know where to go for that data.) This means that the longs were not scared out of their positions, as the silver price went up, not down, as the manipulators had intended.
What I do know is that usually, the majority of futures contracts stand about 3 months away from delivery. But not now.
Tonight, 53,000 contracts are looming for either close out, or they will stand for delivery. Out of about 150,000 to 200,000 contracts!
Harvey says 150,000 contracts in open interest. http://harveyorgan.blogspot.com/
321gold.com says 200,000 contracts in open interest. http://www.321gold.com/cot_silver.html
The current situation will be resolved in 8 days, and again, in another 30 days after that. Both deadlines are worth watching closely.
Either way, this situation presents several problems
Clearly, if the longs stand for delivery of 265 million oz., when there are only 100 million oz. in the warehouses, there will be a short squeeze, and the price can go ballistic to the upside, perhaps prices could go up by 5 times higher in a few days.
However the longs don't seem to realize that the shorts can cap the price by several other manipulative methods. They can deliver paper cash, or SLV shares as well. The shorts and COMEX can also limit total physical silver deliveries to as little as 1.5 million ounces to any individual, or 7.5 million ounces total, if my memory of the rules serves. If they do that, the shorts can delay a short squeeze at the COMEX.
But this would create another problem
A cash settlement, or settlement in SLV shares, or a limit on physical silver deliveries, would be recognized as a default, or a "failure to deliver".
If any such kind of default would take place, it could cause a run on any remaining silver at any other location, such as directly at the refineries, or bullion wholesalers, or bullion dealers like myself.
I hope no such default takes place, as I don't want to go out of business for a few days, or a few weeks, or a few months, while I wait for my suppliers to get re-stocked.
In any event, I think it's important to realize several fundamentals.
1. The dollar itself -- is fraud.
2. Silver futures contracts -- are fraud.
3. Fractional reserve banking -- is fraud.
4. Fractional reserve silver selling -- is fraud.
5. The nature of paper money and all frauds is that they tend to collapse rather suddenly, with little warning, especially when their ability to pay debts is called into question.
6. Argentina maintained a peg of their peso to the dollar, and it lasted until they could no longer make interest payments in dollars. Then, their peso collapsed in value nearly 75% overnight. Even Americans, with American dollars, in American banks (in Argentina) had their dollars forcibly converted into pesos, and their ability to withdraw money severely limited.
7. The same thing can happen to the dollar.
8. Silver prices must be seen to have the potential to explode by about a factor of 4-10, literally overnight. This means we might see silver prices at about $33/oz. on one day, and silver prices from $130 to $330/oz. the next day.
If that happens, I might close up the JH MINT for anywhere from an hour to a day or so, until I can guarantee a source of silver from my suppliers.
I will likely be able to remain in business though, because if there is a price quote, it means silver is available at such prices.
The most likely course is that the paper traders continue their game of "chicken". Both sides will swerve at the last moment and avoid a collision. Prices will likely go up to about $35 to maybe as high as $40 next month.
We will likely have another record sales of silver bars and coins.
The US mint will likely have another record of sales of 1 oz. American Eagle silver coins. They might run out for a week at a time, again.
We will likely have plenty of silver available at about 6% over spot, while all the physical silver ETF's trade at about a 8-12% premium over "spot" prices.
But then again, you never know. I can predict that the busses will likely run on time, and I will likely be right, until they don't. Better order silver now, while you still can.
My greatest fear is that silver will run out. When silver runs out, people will buy other things to protect the value of their dollars, such as food. If people start buying up food, in amounts of up to $100,000, food prices will soar, and that will cause food prices to exceed the values that most people can afford, and then, most people will begin to starve. The beauty of gold and silver is that you cannot eat them, and thus, there is no such thing as a price that is "too high" of a price for gold and silver. My wife and I stocked up on food this weekend at COSTCO. We spent only $700, the least we have spent in months. We filled up the back of our Ford Excursion. You can see what problems would be created if wealthy people begain to buy 50 to 100 truckloads of food at a time, in the event that silver became unavailable.
The one good thing to come out of the FDR administration was the Glass/Steagal Act. It was repealed in 1999 (I believe that was the year). That has help create this mess and gives the banksters even more of an advantage. Flood the world with debt, hope for the best, and enjoy the ride while it lasts...
I agree, I don't have a debt card and never pay any interest to the banks, however, I do have a 15 year home loan. That's it!! I also have my checking account with a local credit union.
Do you see things playing out like this:
That's why central banks always fail and why this one needs to come down as well. That's also why our Founders put in our Constitution to not let anyone else other than Congress coin money!! TOO LATE NOW
Things are getting very ugly in the world; what will history make of the times we live in today? I pray we never see this in our country:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/graphic-video-army-shooting-peaceful-bahrain-protestors
authored by Chindit 13 off of ZH: very insightful
While violence may not be the answer, the only other seeming alternative is quiet acceptance. That acceptance comes in the form of blogging and commenting and voting, which in the end are merely a form of catharsis.
I enjoy this site for its intellectual stimulation and I am continually impressed with the energy and passion Tyler et al bring to it. What they are doing is astonishing, but in the end I cannot help but think it is the equivalent of a grad student working feverishly on his or her doctoral thesis.
Two years into this financial debacle and the only thing that has changed is that the ones most responsible and closest to the problem have benefitted the most; in fact many have done far better than they would have had we not had this crisis. Bankers have been well paid for messing up, and have been allowed to keep everything they "earned" that actually turned out to have been false profits.
Punished have been the savers and the debt free, or at least the financially responsible. Rewarded have been the spendthrifts, the heavily indebted, the incompetent, the corrupt, and those who threw gas on the fire.
How many arrests have we seen? Is there not a single act that should at least merit a real investigation, save for some Russian immigrant's purloining of source code that "has the potential to manipulate markets in an unfair way", but which is supposedly the legal property of a firm We the People are required to save at any and all cost?
New regulation was gutted and emasculated, all at the behest of lobbyists. Accounting rules have been altered so as to make accounting meaningless other than to be used as a means to hide, rather than reveal truths. Senior government officials have blocked the release of pertinent shareholder information and have altered the pecking order in the bankruptcy laws that used to be at the heart of the capitalist system. An accountable-to-no-one Central Bank has taken on untold burdens for the US Taxpayer that not even this supposed democracy's elected officials are privy to know, much less the citizens. Efforts to uncover what we will be taxed to pay for---directly or via orchestrated inflation---are forever held up in the courts. Records relating to the most significant taxpayer bill to date have been marked "Secret for Reasons of National Security" and locked away until 2018.
Democracy is the answer? As in 99% of the American people being against TARP? There is far more chance of real democracy on American Idol.
Have any rules been changed in a way to obviate the possibility of a similar debacle recurring in the future? Is "the System" safer or less safe than it was in 2006? The fact is that anything that might have immunized the system in any way from the disease that afflicted it has been carefully and painstakingly removed, so that in all future instances---WHEN they occur---the burden will again fall on the innocent. We have almost constitutionalized Too Big to Fail and Moral Hazard. We have certainly funded it.
We have come as close to Taxation without Representation as we were in 1775, yet we are told to work within a system that has most assuredly failed us and is far too broken to offer a real solution.
So we write. We blog. We call attention to a sleeping SEC and FINRA and Justice Department. We call and write our Congresspeople, just as some of us did BEFORE the collapse. We are ignored now as we were ignored then. I'll make a bet and say we will be ignored tomorrow, too, no matter how many great articles we write, no matter how loud a second rate cable TV station allows us to scream, no matter how often we protest, and no matter whom we choose to vote for.
We live in a system fine tuned to ignore us, but which allows us an outlet or two from which we can let off steam. We are patronized by those who have the audacity to say they are doing things we could not possibly understand but which are for our own good, because the system---whose system?---was just so close to collapse.
We are treated as children and fools. And we are fools if we think that anything we do can make this system change. Our vote is a drug that is useless, because the cancer has metasticized beyond the point of cure.
Like many here I will not go quietly into the night. I will not go down without a battle. I will vote for anyone who has not been a part of this charade, and demand to know the leanings of anyone seeking office who wants my vote. I will (have) pull my wealth away from those who abused the trust of the people and who used my money only to enrich themselves. I will not suffer the fools who have bought the party line and are naive enough to believe our elected officials are working in the interests of the majority.
In the end, though, I hold out little hope. If there is a real solution, other than passion and energy, I have not found it.
Today in Athens maybe someone thought they found another solution. Probably there are people within the US who will try the same solution. I do not condone it, but I understand the frustration. I feel it myself from time to time. I fear that whatever self restraint I may possess---and I do not know how deep it goes---may not be possessed by all of my fellow citizens.
There is a breaking point, and we may well be there. Those who caused the problem and those who have benefitted from the inequitable solution are just as blind and deaf and self-serving as they were in 2002-2007, yet I fear they may have remained so a day too long.
Those who have control and authority have very little time left to act. They have very little time left to show contrition, to share the burden, to make the system more fair, to make the system more transparent and accountable, and to make the system less vulnerable to a repeat. Or they can continue to obstruct, to hide, to transfer wealth from the innocent to the guilty and/or powerful, and loot all they want believing they can get away a day ahead of the coming maelstrom. Maybe this small and violent act today is a clarion call. Maybe it is a harbinger of things to come.
Whatever it is, it is ignored at EVERYONE's peril.
A Reader's Letter To Ben Bernanke
Dear Ben:
I don’t know if you read ZH. I bet you do. It would be disappointing to learn that you didn’t read some of the leading edge financial blogs. But if not, I bet at least one of your staffers does. If you’re any kind of manager, they won’t be afraid to bring this to your attention. Or perhaps Ron Paul’s staffers can shoot a copy over to your office. It’s a simple petition, really, in the traditional sense. I hope you will consider it.
I understand the conclusion you came to in 2008 and early 2009 after a career spent studying the Great Depression, and I also understand that you feel justified in using whatever channels are available to you as proxy helicopters to drop cash. And it works. You’ve essentially manipulated the US and world markets as though they were remote control funny-cars, bent to whatever short-term route you desire, though we have yet to see what the second and third-order effects are. I mean, beyond food riots, destabilization of the Middle East, gas prices that American citizens won’t ultimately be able to afford, agriculture prices that will play havoc with corporate margins and retail food prices, the US dollar losing its reserve-currency status… things like that.
Having managed money for a while, with all the implicit strategic and tactical decisions, I also understand thesis drift – where you make a decision based on a set of factors, but then continue the policy, or hold the position, based on new reasoning (excuses) that were not part of the original thought process, even after those factors change. An easy example is when a portfolio manager buys a position based on a chart, then, when the chart breaks and he has a small loss, convinces himself that there are other, fundamental factors (it’s cheap now), which support holding the position until it gets back to even. This usually leads to a larger loss. It’s not the sort of lesson you learn in a classroom.
And so it is with you. I understand how it started – the raw panic that you must have felt over some of those weekends in 2008, after belatedly becoming aware that most of the financial system teetered precariously above a fragile foundation of leverage, artifice, obfuscation, and outright fraud - and how emergency conditions justified extreme action in 2008, as distasteful as it must have been for an economist to allocate the capital of honest savers to those that had, in fact, proved to have been the biggest destroyers of capital. I even understand, though I disagree with, the reasoning beyond your latest tactical success / potential strategic disaster – QE-FOREVER.
And now, on the horizon, I see the thesis drift coming: ‘How,’ you ask yourself, ‘will the US possibly roll all these treasuries, to support the ridiculous politicians’ deficit spending, without me in there as an unnatural source of demand? And, if I don’t keep interfering, day by day and auction by auction, MY GOD, what will happen to the value of the enormous, leveraged debt portfolio that the Fed just purchased at a generational top tick, when the auctions struggle and rates begin to take the fast train up? WHAT HAVE I DONE??’ Late at night, when it’s just you, the ceiling, and the ghosts of the Princeton lunchroom, you must worry: ‘At a 5% 10 year, I’ll have one of the largest paper losses in the history of global finance, and, my own obfuscation aside, sooner or later people will clue in, realize they never pulled a lever for my manifesto, and put my head on a stick!’
But here’s the thing, Ben: the deficit spending that you pay lip service to arguing against, which your current policies support, AND THEREFORE FACILITATE, is a real problem. It’s out of control. There is no solution in sight. And, most importantly, there is no URGENCY for a solution to a problem that is, ultimately, existential in terms of capitalism and free markets because the market has stopped giving us any signal other than the delusion you wish to transmit. The barbarian hordes are on the hill above us, looking down and licking their lips, but you’ve put a mirage of QE –colored camouflage serenity in front of them, so that Americans can look past the spiked battle hammers and chain mail of the aggressor, and the rumblings from the beasts, seeing, instead, great payment terms on a new ninety eight inch flat-screen television. YOU are helping to paper over a problem which needs, instead, to be viewed in stark relief.
The danger needs to be FELT, Ben. It needs to have the same urgency as was owed that 353 plane radar cluster off the coast of Hawaii on December 7, 1941. Markets need to be telling us there is a problem, but, because of you, they can’t. Harnessed to your purpose, they’ve stopped serving the ones that they were meant for, allowing one of the most misguided policy trajectories in the history of mankind, to appear benign and without effect. YOU are forestalling a crisis with a thin veneer of paper-mache over an enormous hole in the path to a secure future, and allowing our elected leaders, who have failed in either understanding or effectively communicating the problems, to diddle and prevaricate. And, ultimately, your fix is not sustainable either, so what will you have saved us from, when it’s finally too late, and the engine’s still coughing, and we’re contemplating the trees instead of the runway?
As a highly regarded economist you must understand that recessions have a cyclical purpose. The lows in the business cycle force capital out of poor decisions and into better uses. The lulls are what convince people that risk is real, and that it must, therefore, be accounted for, even when things feel good. The lows are what teach us that 50x leverage is not a good policy - not when you’re an investment bank, not when you’re a hedge fund, not when you’re The Fed. Not EVER! The lows are when failed policies, and failed policy-makers, are seen for what they are. Families adjust, companies adjust, leadership adjusts, and, ultimately, nations adjust. What, do you think, would have been the result of papering over the policies of a Carter or a Nixon? What if we had just shot enough money into the system that they could destroy our economy, or the lawful fabric of our democracy, without being able to see and respond to the critical warnings that free markets give? The result, Ben, would have been no solution. No re-examination of our democratic principles. No Volcker. No Reagan. No fresh image of the city on the hill. Perhaps no post-cold-war boom.
The inevitable history of nations is that they fail, but not always due to the ill-intentioned acts of a despot or conquering army. They can also fail amidst the well-meaning attempts of empathetic illusionists and well meaning technocrats, who have everyone’s best interests at heart, but must bend the rules of logic and law this one time, and then another, due to circumstances that only they can see clearly enough; circumstances that must be dealt with through policy and procedure that no citizenry, given full understanding of its complexities or ultimate effects, would accept.
Things aren’t working, Ben. In your mind, what’s evidently called for is extra-normal production from the machine that you know how to operate. But that’s not really what we need. What we need is for failing policies to fail. We need blathering idiots to be voted out of office. We need America to wake up to the unfolding tragedy in front of them and feel the raw desperation that is a necessary precursor to change - not the shallow, manipulative change of a narcissistic wordsmith, but the deep fundamental change that requires fear as a catalyst, and that sets up generations of capitalist and democratic success. We need Americans to look up on the hill and say, MY GOD, I think that creature with horns on his helmet has a sword, and he’s pointing it at my children. Maybe I should confront him.
But first, Ben, you have to move the mirage. And get out of the line of fire.
Replace the Federal Reserve Altogether A Good Idea
Bob Chapman
Rather than have designation to what the Fed is doing we believe to a great extent the term quantitative easing will fade from the major media and Fed announcements, probably to be replaced by a term such as accommodation. As time passes more and more professionals and investors will realize that this massive creation of money and credit is destroying the capital structure and the dollar. Other countries are emulating the Fed in various ways and degrees and that is why the USDX, the dollar index versus six major currencies has not plunged as it should have. It is lower, but it is not a true reflection of what is really in progress. Gold has spent the last 2-1/2 years directly competing with the dollar for supremacy as the world’s reserve currency and hands down the dollar has lost in an accelerating flight to quality to gold and silver. Over the past ten years versus nine other major currencies the dollar’s loss in value over each of those years has averaged 15-1/4% and versus silver 20-3/8%. If you widen the spectrum to 50 currencies, the currencies value versus gold and silver have had an even greater fall. The longer the Fed, and other central banks continue to work this charade, the worse the final outcome is going to be. Every step that has been taken since 2000 to extend the problems rather than solve the problems has been futile and makes the final deflationary depression more gruesome.
The Fed has done a dreadful job, as has other central bankers and the public has become aware of that over the past few years. In the US polls they show 70% of the public wants the Fed replaced. This is significant because understanding what the Fed does is not easy for most people. We have been trying to expose the Fed Ponzi scheme for more than 50 years with only limited success. Then about 15 years ago along came talk radio and the Internet and they both opened the information spigot, allowing the average person to understand what the Fed was all about.
During this learning process people are outraged at what the Fed have been doing for many years. The owners of the Fed are always in possession of inside information because they create such information, thus, in an ongoing basis they can never be losers. As a trader for 25 years we know you cannot have three months of trading without a daily loss and produce unbelievable profits without this information. These banks and brokerage houses simply cannot lose and you get to pay the bill one way or another. People now understand and that is one of the prime reasons Rep. Ron Paul just won 30% of a Republican-conservative straw pool. Romney in 2nd place pulled 24%, one of the main elements of Mr. Paul’s platform is to end the Fed, so that had to be a strong element in his victory.
The elitists own the media and the Fed, so it seldom gets any bad press. They also own 95% of Congress and the court system. Taking down the Fed will also destroy the power of these elitists to control America and end the move by these people to create a corporatist fascist government. The Fed is on the way out. It is now only a question of when. Elitists are already planning an alternative, but they won’t be successful. Throughout America the Fed, bankers and Wall Street are held in contempt and by changing the name of the game is not going to fool anyone.
The choices open to the Fed since June of 2003 have been limited. After that date there was no turning back. The die has been cast for a last all out policy of creating a world government. The Fed and others knew there would be no return. It was either victory or a disastrous defeat and exposure, which is something the cabal can ill afford. There is absolutely no way out of the trap they are in. They have extended the time line by expanding money and credit, swaps and quantitative easing. First, temporarily bailing out Wall Street and now they are doing the same for the US Treasury. They are being copied by the UK, Europe, China and many other countries worldwide, all of which are destined to meet the same ignoble end.
In essence the Fed has lost control because the only option it has is to create money and credit, which in the final analysis is self-defeating. The only way out is to classically purge the system, but if the Fed and the elitists do that, they are taking the problem to the very end, hoping for the best. This is not 1348 and the collapse of the Lombard System or the collapse of the Hanseatic League in the 1600s. Today there is the Internet and talk radio, which is projecting the truth worldwide. Why do you think we are seeing demonstrations, which we believe will spread worldwide including the US, UK, Europe and China and many other countries. The major changes have only just begun.
Interest rates worldwide are creeping up in the real market. In the US despite efforts to suppress real interest rates the Fed is slowly loosing control. On the short end rates have doubled and using the 10-year T-note the yield has risen over five months from 2.20% to a high of 3.75%. That doesn’t in any way denote control and shows us that over time higher rates will unfold. That means the real estate problem can only worsen with lower prices and sales indefinitely. Worse yet, the inventory held by banks will grow and grow either taking them down or resulting in home nationalization. In the meantime worldwide price inflation, a result of QE1, envelops the globe. Wait until the affects of QE2 hit a year from now. Our question is when will QE3 begin? We will guess at early next year.
We are headed toward 14% inflation this year, which is currently close to 7%. That means 2012 could send the economy into hyperinflation. As we said long ago the Fed will end up buying almost all of the Treasury and Agency bonds, which will create losses of well over $1 trillion, as rates rise. Monetization will be in full swing. The banking system is headed for renewed insolvency, as is the Fed. The effects of quantitative easing will unfortunately become manifest. Wall Street and Washington will continue to lie about it, but the Internet and talk radio will tell the public the truth. Again, your only hedge against the effects of these oncoming events to to own gold and silver related assets, such as shares and coins. All the clever deceptions are not going to work. The US, UK, European and other economies are going to come apart at the seams.
The economists behind the scenes and Front man Bernanke are not dumb or clueless; they know exactly what they are doing. Their tactics and policies are designed only to prolong the system to keep it from total collapse. On one end we see the administration desiring higher taxes for the middle class and the wealthy on the other we see endless extended unemployment benefits and food stamps. These experts have put America into a death spiral from which there is no return, and they know that. The only question is when will they finally pull the plug and what will be the final outcome?
This demoralizing economic and financial picture is accompanied by unbridled fraud, theft and criminality on Wall Street. Massive naked short selling that the SEC absolutely refuses to do anything about. Insider trading prosecutions, none of which touches the Illuminist inner sanctum. A CFTC that also refuses to stop and discipline the major firms, such as JPM, HSBC, GS and Citi for cornering the gold and silver markets. Flash trading, better known as front-running, proceeds apace with no interference from the SEC. We have a government that has killed free markets under the Executive Order called, “The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets.” Then we have black box manipulation used to take markets up and down as Wall Street pleases.
The foregoing is not a happy story, but it is the reality of our times. It will eventually bring down our present financial system. When the end comes it will be violent and very damaging. Your only respite will be gold and silver related assets, something Americans are yet to discover.
Replace the Federal Reserve Altogether A Good Idea
Bob Chapman
Rather than have designation to what the Fed is doing we believe to a great extent the term quantitative easing will fade from the major media and Fed announcements, probably to be replaced by a term such as accommodation. As time passes more and more professionals and investors will realize that this massive creation of money and credit is destroying the capital structure and the dollar. Other countries are emulating the Fed in various ways and degrees and that is why the USDX, the dollar index versus six major currencies has not plunged as it should have. It is lower, but it is not a true reflection of what is really in progress. Gold has spent the last 2-1/2 years directly competing with the dollar for supremacy as the world’s reserve currency and hands down the dollar has lost in an accelerating flight to quality to gold and silver. Over the past ten years versus nine other major currencies the dollar’s loss in value over each of those years has averaged 15-1/4% and versus silver 20-3/8%. If you widen the spectrum to 50 currencies, the currencies value versus gold and silver have had an even greater fall. The longer the Fed, and other central banks continue to work this charade, the worse the final outcome is going to be. Every step that has been taken since 2000 to extend the problems rather than solve the problems has been futile and makes the final deflationary depression more gruesome.
The Fed has done a dreadful job, as has other central bankers and the public has become aware of that over the past few years. In the US polls they show 70% of the public wants the Fed replaced. This is significant because understanding what the Fed does is not easy for most people. We have been trying to expose the Fed Ponzi scheme for more than 50 years with only limited success. Then about 15 years ago along came talk radio and the Internet and they both opened the information spigot, allowing the average person to understand what the Fed was all about.
During this learning process people are outraged at what the Fed have been doing for many years. The owners of the Fed are always in possession of inside information because they create such information, thus, in an ongoing basis they can never be losers. As a trader for 25 years we know you cannot have three months of trading without a daily loss and produce unbelievable profits without this information. These banks and brokerage houses simply cannot lose and you get to pay the bill one way or another. People now understand and that is one of the prime reasons Rep. Ron Paul just won 30% of a Republican-conservative straw pool. Romney in 2nd place pulled 24%, one of the main elements of Mr. Paul’s platform is to end the Fed, so that had to be a strong element in his victory.
The elitists own the media and the Fed, so it seldom gets any bad press. They also own 95% of Congress and the court system. Taking down the Fed will also destroy the power of these elitists to control America and end the move by these people to create a corporatist fascist government. The Fed is on the way out. It is now only a question of when. Elitists are already planning an alternative, but they won’t be successful. Throughout America the Fed, bankers and Wall Street are held in contempt and by changing the name of the game is not going to fool anyone.
The choices open to the Fed since June of 2003 have been limited. After that date there was no turning back. The die has been cast for a last all out policy of creating a world government. The Fed and others knew there would be no return. It was either victory or a disastrous defeat and exposure, which is something the cabal can ill afford. There is absolutely no way out of the trap they are in. They have extended the time line by expanding money and credit, swaps and quantitative easing. First, temporarily bailing out Wall Street and now they are doing the same for the US Treasury. They are being copied by the UK, Europe, China and many other countries worldwide, all of which are destined to meet the same ignoble end.
In essence the Fed has lost control because the only option it has is to create money and credit, which in the final analysis is self-defeating. The only way out is to classically purge the system, but if the Fed and the elitists do that, they are taking the problem to the very end, hoping for the best. This is not 1348 and the collapse of the Lombard System or the collapse of the Hanseatic League in the 1600s. Today there is the Internet and talk radio, which is projecting the truth worldwide. Why do you think we are seeing demonstrations, which we believe will spread worldwide including the US, UK, Europe and China and many other countries. The major changes have only just begun.
Interest rates worldwide are creeping up in the real market. In the US despite efforts to suppress real interest rates the Fed is slowly loosing control. On the short end rates have doubled and using the 10-year T-note the yield has risen over five months from 2.20% to a high of 3.75%. That doesn’t in any way denote control and shows us that over time higher rates will unfold. That means the real estate problem can only worsen with lower prices and sales indefinitely. Worse yet, the inventory held by banks will grow and grow either taking them down or resulting in home nationalization. In the meantime worldwide price inflation, a result of QE1, envelops the globe. Wait until the affects of QE2 hit a year from now. Our question is when will QE3 begin? We will guess at early next year.
We are headed toward 14% inflation this year, which is currently close to 7%. That means 2012 could send the economy into hyperinflation. As we said long ago the Fed will end up buying almost all of the Treasury and Agency bonds, which will create losses of well over $1 trillion, as rates rise. Monetization will be in full swing. The banking system is headed for renewed insolvency, as is the Fed. The effects of quantitative easing will unfortunately become manifest. Wall Street and Washington will continue to lie about it, but the Internet and talk radio will tell the public the truth. Again, your only hedge against the effects of these oncoming events to to own gold and silver related assets, such as shares and coins. All the clever deceptions are not going to work. The US, UK, European and other economies are going to come apart at the seams.
The economists behind the scenes and Front man Bernanke are not dumb or clueless; they know exactly what they are doing. Their tactics and policies are designed only to prolong the system to keep it from total collapse. On one end we see the administration desiring higher taxes for the middle class and the wealthy on the other we see endless extended unemployment benefits and food stamps. These experts have put America into a death spiral from which there is no return, and they know that. The only question is when will they finally pull the plug and what will be the final outcome?
This demoralizing economic and financial picture is accompanied by unbridled fraud, theft and criminality on Wall Street. Massive naked short selling that the SEC absolutely refuses to do anything about. Insider trading prosecutions, none of which touches the Illuminist inner sanctum. A CFTC that also refuses to stop and discipline the major firms, such as JPM, HSBC, GS and Citi for cornering the gold and silver markets. Flash trading, better known as front-running, proceeds apace with no interference from the SEC. We have a government that has killed free markets under the Executive Order called, “The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets.” Then we have black box manipulation used to take markets up and down as Wall Street pleases.
The foregoing is not a happy story, but it is the reality of our times. It will eventually bring down our present financial system. When the end comes it will be violent and very damaging. Your only respite will be gold and silver related assets, something Americans are yet to discover.
Hi Joe, use this link to make your chart. Then at the bottom of that chart you will see the "Share" tab. Once that is clicked, then you will see the InvestorsHub link. Click that link and then copy and paste the tag here on IHub.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$SILVER&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p76883292019
I hope it's as simple as the a dow/gold ratio of 1:1 and the gold/silver ratio of 15:1, all happen at the same time. Then I will know when to sell. Plus, 500oz. of silver will by a house!!!
Next stop will be $35.00
What do you think of them protesting in the streets ticket??
Call them on the phone. They will be willing to work with you!!
So what is a wise man such as yourself doing to prepare for the different world to come???
Thanks Norton, I just found this board today!!!
DTGoody, someone I am close to cashed in their 401k a few years back and I convinced him/her to buy silver with the money they would be paying in taxes. I said if the IRS catches on, which is likely, then you will be ahead because silver will appreciate by the time the tax man comes a knockin'. Silver rose 50% and the tax man wanted his money but no interest or penalties were payed because they played the ignorance card. I suggesting paying them in monthly installments or with a 0% credit card if possible!! God Bless...
OT: Hi Norton1973, I am not a premium member on Ihub but I wanted to know if you could post this link on the DINAR board which I have been following for quite some time. This seems to be possibly huge news if its true!!! Not spam...