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News on Precious Metals (2012)

News log

  • Silver: Another Decade Of 500% Returns Is Possible. Posted 12/30/2012. For the period 1990 to 2011: Coins & Medals (including ETF funding) increase 248%, Jewelry & Silverware increased 9%, Photography decreased 70%, and Industrial Demand increased 78% (from 257 million oz to 487 million oz). Total silver usage in 1990 was slightly over 700 million ounces and in 2011 almost 900 million ounces. The belief is that investment and industrial demand will be the two biggest drivers for silver. Silver demand for 2015 is expected to rise to about 1,180 million oz (according to Hecla Mining). The biggest increase in consumption of silver will come from Asia, Africe and emerging Europe.
  • The Three Legs of the Precious Metals Bull: Part I. Posted 12/27/2012. Part II. Three reasons why we know that gold and silver must outperform most/all other asset classes in our current circumstances: (1) Excessive money-printing, (2) Price suppression (through shorting paper), and (3) Demographics. On the first point, current Western money-printing grossly exceeds any other time in any modern, major Western economy, with the exception of Weimar Germany. Worse still, it continues to ramp-up at an exponential rate. And even worse, we have these rapacious banksters now openly using words like “unlimited” (Europe) and “open-ended” (the U.S.) to describe their suicidal money-printing. On demographics, China, India, and now Indonesia are buying gold and silver at ever increasing rates, especially as their per capita income continues to improve. For example, China's per capita income more than tripled from 2003 to 2011, while global mine-supply of both gold and silver only increased by approximately 20% in that time period. Meanwhile, global silver inventories have plummeted by as least 90% over the past 25 years while global stockpiles have declined by over 80% in the past 50 years. Most of silver used for industry is not recyclable since it is used in such tiny quantities, but ends up in landfills, gone forever. Another factor is that western investors are under invested in physical gold and silver.
  • 8 striking parallels between the US and the Roman Empire. Posted 12/28/2012. America has seen:
    1. Staggering Increase in the Cost of Elections, with Dubious Campaign Funding Sources.
    2. Politics as the Road to Personal Wealth: During the late Roman Republic period, one of the main roads to wealth was holding public office, and exploiting such positions to accumulate personal wealth.
    3. Continuous War: A national state of security arises, distracting attention from domestic challenges with foreign wars.
    4. Foreign Powers Lavish Money/Attention on the Republic’s Leaders
    5. Profits Made Overseas Shape the Republic’s Internal Policies
    6. Collapse of the Middle Class
    7. Gerrymandering: Rome’s late Republic used various methods to reduce the power of common citizens.
    8. Loss of the Spirit of Compromise
  • Savings Deposits Soar By Most Since Lehman And First Debt Ceiling Crisis. Posted 12/27/2012. By depositing money into banks, ordinary Americans (and companies) are providing even more dry powder for the banks to trade on a prop, discretionary basis, either as directly investable capital or as asset collateral. Should said deposits be pulled out of banks (and according to the WSJ there is about $1.5 trillion in deposits that may be impacted), the net result of such capital reallocation would be far more disastrous to stock markets than anything the fiscal cliff and/or debt ceiling theater could possibly do as it would mean unwinding an ungodly amount of trades that have had$1.5 trillion as real assets, with subsequent repo and re-repo leverage applied to them.
  • Harvey Organ: China is the Short Behind Gold & Silver Manipulation. Posted 12/28/2012.
  • The Coming Isolation of USDollar. Posted 12/27/2012. When the USDollar is no longer the global reserve currency, the Gold Standard will be right around the corner, if not already in the implementation stage.
  • Niall Ferguson: The Landscape of the Law. Presented 7/3/2012.
  • It’s Not a “Fiscal Cliff” … It’s the Descent Into Lawlessness. Posted 12/25/2012. Economist Marc Faber calls the U.S. a “failed state“. Indeed, we no longer have a free market economy … we have fascism, communist style socialism, kleptocracy, oligarchy or banana republic style corruption.
  • Eric Sprott: Why Are Investors Buying 50 Times More Physical Silver Than Gold? Posted 12/24/2012. The current availability ratio of physical silver to gold for investment purposes (i.e. minus industrial gold and silver demand) is approximately 3:1. So, why is it that investors are allocating their dollars to silver at a much higher ratio?
  • The Last Christmas in American? Posted 12/20/2012. The end of work and the end of mass affluence.
  • 2012: Calm Before the Storm. Posted 12/24/2012. Old lessons being relearned:
    1. Living within our means.
    2. Critical importance of sound money.
    3. Maintenance of money as a store of value.
    4. Moral decay that begins when we veer from the above tenets.
    5. Unavoidable final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion.
    6. Remember the central lessons of history that the problem is within our society.
    7. Inevitable roadmap toward financial repression and Statism.
  • Argentina: Troops deployed after looting at ski resort. Posted 12/21/2012.
  • The New Cold War Is Being Fought Over Gold & Silver. Posted 12/21/2012. The following effects and events affect the prices at every quarter:
    1. Lower Exploration
    2. Lower Discovery
    3. Lower Ore Grades
    4. Lower Prices
    5. Higher Energy Costs
    6. Higher Labor Costs
    7. Higher Taxes
    8. Higher Regulations
  • Maguire - Physical Silver Market Has Now Diverged To Extremes. Posted 12/20/2012. Silver at on point at the highs in Shanghai was trading at a $1.75 premium. That means a single contract was trading at an $8,694 premium to a Comex contract. That’s ludicrous. There are reasons why silver or gold may trade at a premium in Shanghai, but not to those kind of degrees. We’re now reaching extremes, the kind of extremes you rarely see. And the kind of extremes we saw, not even that high (in terms of premium), back in August when we bottomed.
  • Made for your consumption!. Posted 12/20/2012. Let me get this straight, the Fed announced QE 4EVA and the bank of Japan gets a mandate to print other countless trillions (because their people voted for it) and Gold goes down? Paper… good and Gold… bad. Period, end of story. The central banks absolutely must scare you out of Gold to “show” you that when you are scared, Gold is NOT the place to hide as a financial refugee. They must “show” you that their product that costs virtually zero to produce… has value. They must “show” you that their product is THE place to hide. They must “show” you through “proof” that black is white, up is down and that wrong is right.
  • Why Reported Inflation Seems Different Than Reality. Posted 12/19/2012. Shortly after Clinton entered the White House the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) altered the calculation of inflation by changing the weighting of goods in the CPI fixed basket. Then, over subsequent years, the method of weighting the underlying components was changed from a straight arithmetic weighting method to geometric. The primary result of the switch to a geometric weighting was a lower weighting to CPI components that were rising in price, and a higher weighting to those items dropping in price which led to lower reported inflation.
  • What causes hyperinflations and why we have not seen one yet: A forensic examination of dead currencies. Posted 12/18/2012. What causes hyperinflations? The answer is: Quasi-fiscal deficits! Why have we not seen hyperinflation yet? Because we have not had quasi-fiscal deficits! A quasi-fiscal deficit is the deficit of a central bank. From Germany to Argentina to Zimbabwe, the hyper or high inflationary processes have always been fueled by such deficits. Monetized fiscal deficits produce inflation. Quasi-fiscal deficits (by definition, they are monetized) produce hyperinflation. Interesting points:
    1. There is absolutely no historical evidence of a nation sustainably living under inflation that would have reached full employment. In fact, it is quite the opposite: Inflation breeds unemployment, which breeds shortages and further inflation. [Bernanke's efforts to reduce unemployment through money printing will in fact produce the opposite effect.]
    2. The truth is that inflation and financial repression are inseparable. They are different faces of the same coin, and as inflation develops, financial repression morphs into plain confiscation. As at December 2012, we have only had increasing financial repression, mostly in the form of price manipulation. Some of this manipulation is open, as with interest rates, and some of it is covered, as with gold, the consumer price index or the unemployment rate. But as the US fiscal deficits grows, the manipulation will be increasingly open and the fear of confiscation will be very tangible.
    3. "Fear of confiscation" leads to an en masse flight from the system. People will not only take their savings out of the system, but they will attempt to generate income outside of it. In the early stages, everyone seeks to stop investing and collect by any means whatever capital that can be recovered.
    4. The shrinkage of the system exacerbates the fall in tax revenue and the intervention of central banks, leading to the self fulfilling outcome of quasi-fiscal deficits. Production falls and the shortage of goods, together with the increase in the circulation of money, triggers high inflation.
    5. Hyperinflation is not just a run from a currency, but from the economic system entirely. Two possible effects: (a) food shortages as the increase in cost of production causes farmers to produce less food, and (b) real estate prices drop as the rights of debtors and tenants are favored over those of creditors and landlords.
  • Morgan Stanley Redeems Paulson Investments: Explanation For Recent Gold Liquidation? Posted 12/19/2012.
  • Is another California housing bubble possible? Median home price up 16 percent over year reflecting mix of sales while income growth is stagnant. Posted 12/19/2012.
  • Watching Your Money Disappear. Posted 12/19/2012. Excellent article giving the rationale and history behind fiat currencies and their inevitable collapse.
  • Diplomat Admits China Is Accumulating Gold To Back The Yuan. Posted 12/19/2012. I was just speaking to a Chinese diplomat and I said to their diplomat, ‘Your two most important commodities are water and gold.’ And this diplomat said to me, ‘Yes, we need gold to back up the yuan.’ Well this diplomat realized very quickly they had made a terrible mistake in admitting that and began to back off and stated, ‘No, it’s not to back the yuan. It’s because of jewelry.’ Another comment: "Longer-term, no one is going to keep giving you something that is critical and rare in exchange for something you can just press a button and print. The Chinese obviously get this and they are hoarding these critical resources."
  • Whistleblower - $3.5 Billion Of Paper Used To Smash Gold Price. Posted 12/19/2012. Essentially what they (the Chinese) are trying to do is divest themselves of their dollars, euros, yen and any other fiat currency as fast as they can. They are not stupid, they are going to sit back and allow the governments to defend these (paper) currencies. So their bids are in the market and they are totally flexible at every discounted fix price. There does, however, reach a point where these leveraged paper sales simply run out. Physical allocations force the selling bullion banks to actually buy back some of these physical allocations. You just have to look at the current backwardation. It offers a good window into what is actually occurring right now.
  • America Learns the Hard Way: Guns, Global Warming & Printing Money. Posted 12/19/2012. Good history on how Japan was conned by America into its 1980s asset bubble (of real estate and stock prices). Basically, Japan was buying Reagan's quadrupling of debt from $1 trillion to $4 trillion from its US military buildup. Japan's 22-year deflationary cycle is now near collapse. The author predicting not more than 2-3 years before it happens.
  • This Country’s [Japan's] Endgame Starts Today. Posted 12/17/2012. In yesterday’s election, Shinzo Abe became Japan’s prime minister. He said his number one job is to put an end to the country’s eternal deflation problems. He wants to devalue the currency to create inflation of 3% and promote growth through exports. In other words, Mr. Abe wants the Bank of Japan (BOJ) to print money like never before.
  • Noting that markets have been destroyed, Chris Martenson earns his tinfoil hat. Posetd 12/15/2012.
  • GOLD – The Road Less Traveled. Posted 12/17/2012. Several points: (1) Gold and silver do not declare bankruptcy and have no counter-party risk. (2) Investment return since 1/1/200 of about 15% per year compounded for 13 years for both gold and silver (i.e. $285 to $1,750 for gold and $5.40 to $33.50 for silver). (3) Safety--cannot be printed, increased investment demand especially in the East, central banks net buyers, mining supply flat. (4) Future expectations of increased currency devaluation via money printing with fear of inflation and loss of confidence in world currencies.
  • Essays in Fragility: The Rise and Fall of Phantom Housing Collateral. Posted 12/13/2012. If mortgage debt has fallen 10%, and household income has also declined by about 10%, then what's changed? As a percentage of disposable income and GDP, mortgage debt is still at historic highs.
  • Cox and Archer: Why $16 Trillion Only Hints at the True U.S. Debt. Posted 11/26/2012. The actual liabilities of the federal government—including Social Security, Medicare, and federal employees' future retirement benefits—already exceed $86.8 trillion, or 550% of GDP. For the year ending Dec. 31, 2011, the annual accrued expense of Medicare and Social Security was $7 trillion. Why haven't Americans heard about the titanic $86.8 trillion liability from these programs? One reason: The actual figures do not appear in black and white on any balance sheet. But it is possible to discover them. When the accrued expenses of the government's entitlement programs are counted, it becomes clear that to collect enough tax revenue just to avoid going deeper into debt would require over $8 trillion in tax collections annually. That is the total of the average annual accrued liabilities of just the two largest entitlement programs, plus the annual cash deficit. If the government confiscated the entire adjusted gross income of these American taxpayers (i.e. $5.1 trillion from those making over $66K), plus all of the corporate taxable income in the year before the recession (i.e. $1.6 trillion in 2006), it wouldn't be nearly enough (i.e. total of taxpayers gross and corporate net would equal $6.7 trillion) to fund the over $8 trillion per year in the growth of U.S. liabilities.
  • Art Cashin Previews Our $202 Trillion Destiny. Posted 12/11/2012. In 1950 every retiree on social security was supported by 15 active workers. By the end of 2010 there were only 3.3 workers for each retiree. The government believes there will only be two per retiree by 2025. A Wall Street Journal editorial a couple weeks ago highlighted the fact the government is facing not a $16 trillion debt but an $87 trillion debt if you take into account the unfunded liabilities of social security, Medicare and Medicaid. If you fast forward 20 years until all the boomers are retired that soars to $202 trillion according to Boston University.
  • $165-an-ounce silver within three years predicts Charteris fund manager. Posted 11/13/2012. Silver is about to enter a sustained bull market that will take the price from the current level of $32 an ounce to $165 an ounce and we expect this price to be hit at the end of October 2015.
  • Break-even Gold Now at $1,300+. Posted 12/11/2012. If we take the total net income of the top 5 gold miners Q3 2012, we get $1.9 billion or 39% less than the same quarter in 2011. If we take that net income and divide it by the total amount of gold produced by the group (i.e. 5.45 million ounces) we get $348.65 net income profit per ounce. If we take the average price of gold currently (i.e. $1,700/oz), we can see that break-even is somewhere at $1,350 when we add in everything.
  • Vatican Calls for the Establishment of World Government and a New World Order. Posted 12/6/2012.
  • The United States: 5% of the World’s Population, 25% of its Prisoners. Posted 12/10/2012.
  • Is Real Food Expensive in America? Posted 12/6/2012. A counterpoint to real (healthy) food being too expensive. Of course, the article does not mention inflation affecting even real food.
  • China plans to double gold consumption in three years, how high will gold prices go now? Posted 12/6/2012. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that it expected Gold consumption in the country would be running at more than double national gold production by the end of 2015, more than double Chinese gold consumption forecast for 2012. The impact of Chinese demand for an additional 500 tons of gold per annum on the gold market will be enormous. This is more than all the gold bought by the global central banks last year.
  • When Prices Have No Meaning. Posted 12/5/2012. Pricing any tangible asset in Monopoly Money is meaningless, since Monopoly Money can be printed at essentially zero cost. In the same way, as the U.S. dollar is being printed in near infinite amounts (well over a trillion dollars a year) and at zero cost (i.e. just a keystroke away), it is (as a matter of arithmetic) already worthless. The paradox here is that as our financial system spirals relentlessly toward some form of hyperinflationary point-of-no-return; as the prices of assets become steadily more nominal, arbitrary, and unreal; manipulation of markets (and asset prices) becomes steadily easier rather than more difficult.
  • Immutable Golden Laws. Posted 11/27/2012. Subtitles include:
    • Gold Standard Recall. (The law:) The Gold Standard will return from a sheer standpoint of value, stability, and resistance to storms based in failed bond auctions, debt writedowns, and insolvency consequences. Only a hard asset backed new currency can replace a fiat paper currency reserve.
    • Central Bank Extremes. (The law:) The Gold Bull continues unbounded with the Zero Percent Interest Policy (ZIRP) as its primary cylinder, while the artificial 0% distorts all financial markets, all assets, and all value. The Gold Bull will continue until the USGovt debt default, and until the USDollar retirement.
      • The bond monetization known as Quantitative Easing (QE) powers the upward move in the cost structure for the global economy. The result is a shrinking profit margins imposed on the entire economies, felt in job cuts and reduced budgets for expansion, even maintenance.
      • The combination of ZIRP & QE lead to capital destruction and systemic breakdown. Observe the fast falling Money Velocity while money supply grows at a staggering pace.
    • Entrenched Disorder. (The law:) The anti-Gold system continues to attempt to reinforce itself until its final implosion. Criminal means and false accounting backed by media propaganda are their tools that reinforce the current power structure. It will yield to foreign designed trade settlement systems, to the forced Gold Standard return, and to vast liquidation.
    • Metals Pulled Apart. (The law:) Gold Bullion diverges into official voided supply, matched by huge syndicate supply. The visible vault storage with public accounting will eventually show nothing present, while the private syndicate vault storage will be hidden from view.
    • Gold Migration. (The law:) With Gold goes the geopolitical power. As huge amounts of Gold are shipped Eastward, with huge tonnage leaving London for points East like China, so goes the important shift in geopolitical power. A Paradigm Shift is in progress, at work.

    Gold (Imminent) Breakout In All Currencies. The arrival of the Gold Standard as the solution is being slowly manifested in the form of a gold-core trade settlement system, which will drive a global Gold Standard. The new system will dictate bank reserves practices, and render the USTBond as a rejected toxic paper relic.

  • US Debt: Why America May Need a Bailout by the IMF. Posted 12/5/2012. US debt is increasing 21 times faster than increases in GDP. The Fed will try to 'inflate their way out', raising prices over a period of years rather than defaulting outright, so that most people won't know what hits them. However, just because the feds want moderately higher rates of consumer price inflation doesn't mean they'll get them. But there's another problem. Federal benefits are indexed for inflation. The feds don't get as much gain as you might think - at least not from moderately higher rates of inflation. Hyperinflation, on the other hand, pays off quickly. Benefits are adjusted, but not fast enough to protect the old folks. Bondholders can be ripped off easily too. A few percentage points of increase in the CPI and trillions of dollars worth of US financial obligations disappear.
  • Do You Live In A Death Spiral State?. Posted 11/25/2012. California is ranked #3 with 139 takers to 100 makers.
  • Gold Supply Crunch Coming? Posted 12/3/2012. A number of issues will make supply very tight in the future, especially among retailers, not the least of which is China's hoarding it's own gold mining, buying gold in the open market, and buying up gold mines around the world.
  • Economic Analysis: Schiff vs. Bernanke. Posted 12/3/2012. According to Schiff there can be no comparison between the bank panics and collapses of 1873-1907 and the Great Depression of 1929 – 1939. If roughly 500 banks failed in 1893, then 744 banks failed during the first 10 months of 1930. But here is the difference: In 1893 the bank failures ended because the government didn’t intervene, while in 1929 the government intervened and the crisis continued until 9,000 banks had failed. According to Schiff, everything Bernanke had to say was “pure fantasy.” The people responsible for engineering the country’s economic recovery don’t know what they’re doing. “The economy is struggling under the weight of all this government and central banking,” said Schiff. “The real crisis, the real day of reckoning is not in our past. It’s in our future.”
  • Economic Deception & Taxes by Daniel Amerman, CFA. Posted 11/25/2012. Seven layers: (1) The Placid & Deeply Misleading Surface (i.e. either a short or deep recession), (2) The Trillion Dollar Swap (i.e. private sector collapse, offset by public sector spending through money printing), (3) A 28% Reduction (i.e. the real reduction in private sector wealth creation, not the 8% advertised), (4) The Math Trap That Consumes Taxpayers & The Markets (i.e. a 28% decline cannot be offset by a 28% gain. It requires a 40% gain to get back to even), (5) Raising The Taxes By 40% & The True Nature Of The Fiscal Cliff (i.e. the government will be back to raise taxes again and again), (6) The 2012 US Elections & Spending (i.e. People who have neither the knowledge nor concern about economic factors will continue to vote to defend what they see as their rights to their income and lifestyle), and (7) Deceptions & Investments (i.e. if politicians have the choice between facing unpopular and unpleasant truths, or creating pleasant deceptions, they will consistently choose pleasant deceptions). "To even partially meet those promises will require a major redistribution of wealth. Which from a political perspective, as the false narrative behind the Fiscal Cliff demonstrates, must be done in a increasingly deceptive manner. Now let me suggest that for those who do not invest in anticipation of that process, that it will be their wealth that will be redistributed. And just as most voters won't understand why the lifestyle they voted for themselves never turns out to be as good as what they thought they voted for, much of the redistribution of wealth from investors and their retirement accounts will be done in a manner that is sufficiently complex to assure that most people will not understand what is happening."
  • 10 Reasons The U.S. Is No Longer The Land Of The Free. Posted 1/15/2012. (1) Assassination of U.S. citizens, (2) Indefinite detention, (3) Arbitrary justice, (4) Warrantless searches, (5) Secret evidence, (6) War crimes, (7) Secret court, (8) Immunity from judicial review, (9) Continual monitoring of citizens, and (10) Extraordinary renditions.
  • Kyle Bass On The End Of The Debt Super-Cycle. Posted 11/20/2012. He expects Japan to reach critical mass (my words) in possibly 12 months.
  • Central Banks’ Gold Likely Gone-Eric Sprott. Posted 11/19/2012. Mexico has 10% of its gold. Germany has one-third of its gold. India has 60% of its gold. Also, liquidations of major institutions are not allowed, since it could bring the whole system down. Thus, everything is being papered over. At some point this will fail.
  • Silver’s Smoking Guns, Part II: Investment Paradox. Posted 11/18/2012. Going back to the 1990’s; silver has never been so under-priced in all of history. Since silver was first discovered in the New World 600 years ago; it has never been so under-produced. Yet despite these literally unparalleled parameters, silver has never been so under-owned by investors in all of history.
  • Very few people understand this trend. Posted 11/16/2012. There are only a few people who get it: the era of cheap food is over.
  • The Nearly-Free University. Posted 11/15/2012. The entire education industry on the U.S. is based on an inflexible, increasingly marginal-return "factory model." The Nearly-Free University would be available anywhere there is an Internet connection and other people willing to self-organize and collaborate. In many cases, if space is required, it could be shared. Vast campuses are no longer needed.
  • The Anatomy Of A Breakdown. Posted 11/13/2012. Four phases: (1) The Warning, (2) Shock and Awe (1-2 Days), (3) The Breakdown (3-7 Days), and (4) Recovery (8-30+ Days). The basic 10 preparedness items: (1) Food and alternative ways to cook food, (2) Water, (3) Fuel for generators, cooking stoves and mantels, charcoal for outdoor grills, (4) Batteries, (5) Generator, (6) Emergency lighting, (7) Ice, (8) Medical supply, (9) Baby formula, and (10) Sanitation supplies. Also see: 52 Weeks to Preparedness: An Introduction to Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Planning.
  • Will Texas Nullify Both NDAA and TSA?. Posted 11/13/2012.
  • AGENDA: Grinding America Down (Full Movie). Roots to Communism in all Liberal thinking.
  • (YouTube) Is a college degree worth the cost? You decide. Posted 11/13/2012. Graduates with degrees in mathematics, robotics, neuroscience, engineering, accounting, business administration, economics, biology, communications, graphic design, marketing, and linguistics. All working at a night club to make ends meet.
  • 8 Middle-Class Tax Breaks on the Chopping Block. Posted 11/12/2012. (1) Capital Gains, (2) Payroll Tax Relief, (3) Child Tax Credits, (4) Medicare Surcharge Tax, (5) Earned Income Tax Credit, (6) Alternative Minimum Tax, (7) College Tuition Credits, and (8) Estate Tax.
  • Is Democracy Possible in a Corrupt Society? Posted 11/11/2012. If the citizenry cannot dislodge a parasitic, predatory financial Aristocracy via elections, then "democracy" is merely a public-relations facade, a simulacra designed to create the illusion that the citizenry "have a voice" when in fact they are debt-serfs in a neofeudal State.
  • China to overtake India in overall gold demand: GFMS. Posted 11/9/2012. China's gold demand is expected to grow 1 percent this year to a record of around 860 tonnes, the global head of metals at consultancy Thomson Reuters GFMS said on Thursday, with both jewellery and investment sales rising.
  • Highly Recommended Reading: A New Kind of Freedom. Posted 11/8/2012.
  • Argentines Protest in Huge Anti-Government March. Posted 11/8/2012. Argentina is falling apart fast. Angered by rising inflation, violent crime and high-profile corruption, and afraid President Cristina Fernandez will try to hold onto power indefinitely by ending constitutional term limits, the protesters marched on the iconic obelisk in Buenos Aires chanting: "We're not afraid."
  • Nullification The Rightful Remedy. Posted 6/25/2012. States are rebelling from federal government as seen on election day. It'll be interesting to see how the federal government will handle this.
  • Breaking => The Audacity Of States: Nine States Voting on Nullification Measures!. Posted 11/4/2012.
  • Renminbi Relentlessly Replacing Dollar As Reserve Currency. Posted 11/3/2012. Readers need to fully grasp the three trends which are all rapidly/simultaneously destroying the value of the U.S. dollar: (a) Exponentially increasing U.S. deficits are requiring exponentially increasing money-printing as all this new dollar-denominated debt is issued. This alone must result in hyperinflation, the only question being when, (b) The switch from the dollar to the renminbi must result (sooner or later) in a panic-flight out of the dollar – and also U.S. hyperinflation, (c) Gratuitous money-printing from the Federal Reserve to the Wall Street crime syndicate now exceeds $1 trillion per year in 0% “loans” and simple hand-outs.
  • Pierre Lassonde at Denver Gold – 21 Minute Video. Posted 9/16/2012. Go directly to the video here. He thinks the commodity super-cycle has at least 5-10 years left, and would bet “a lot of money” that the Dow:Gold Ratio reaches 2:1 over the next 10 years, implying a 4 fold increase in the gold price from today’s levels in relation to the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
  • There will be Panic into Gold: Doug Casey. Posted 10/29/2012. Also discusses college education.
  • Mike Maloney's Dire 2005 Warnings Come True - Silver Summit Presentation. Posted 10/30/2012.
  • Population Growth as Propaganda: The Greens and the Reds. Posted 5/31/2011.
  • Anticipating the Devolution of Big Government. Posted 10/29/2012. Headings: (a) Massive Borrowing, (b) Institutionalized Mal-Investment, (c) Erosion of Trust in Government, (d) Diminishing Returns on Public Debt, (e) The Hidden Tax of Inflation and the Institutionalization of Falsification, (f) Self-Reinforcing Feedback Loops of Self-Interest. Further discussion (on paid side): (1) The U.S. is less prepared for contraction than the U.S.S.R. was, (2) The pressure to print money and the spectre of runaway inflation, (3) What we must learn from the Japan example (the U.S. is unlikely to tread a similar path), (3) Why you must expect and prepare for the rules to change.
  • The Great Gold Scam. Posted 10/29/2012. Currently, global mine supply is roughly 2,800 tonnes of gold per year. However, of that annual total 2,000 tonnes is already committed to the wholesalers who supply the global jewelry industry. With demand for gold by investors surging; more than 1,500 tonnes per year is siphoned out of the gold market by investors. As of 2012, the world’s central banks are now massive, net buyers of gold; on pace to add more gold to their reserves than any other year in history. GFMS Ltd (formerly Gold Fields Mineral Services), the quasi-official record-keeper for the gold industry estimates that total purchases will approach 500 tons this year alone. This begs an obvious question. Where is all this gold coming from? It’s not coming from the gold miners.
  • Could U.S. Become the New Saudi of Oil? Posted 10/29/2012. This year production has grown to an average of 6.2 mbpd through June. The EIA projects that production of U.S. crude oil (using the proper definition) will rise to 6.7 mbpd by 2020 and begin a gradual decline thereafter. But it is worth keeping in mind that U.S. consumption of finished petroleum products this year has averaged 14.1 mbpd.
  • Weakness Begets More Weakness. Posted 10/29/2012. Weakness begets weakness, until something dramatic reverses the trend’s course. The 99% are firmly stuck in a declining trend, and we do not see it reversing any time soon.
  • Self Sufficiency: A Local Solution To A Global Problem. Posted 10/29/2012. The goal of the "New Theory" is to have people return to the countryside from the cities and develop their communities in a self-reliant manner. It is, in other words, Agenda 21 in reverse. Under the "New Theory," demonstration stations all across Thailand have been created promoting education in matters of agriculture and self-sufficient living. Socialism, on the other hand, is not about growing your own garden, using technology to enhance your independence or solving your problems with your own resources. It is about taking from the collective storehouses of the state, and when you are again hungry, taking again.
  • Vatican calls for “one world currency” system. Posted 11/7/2011. See the document: TOWARDS REFORMING THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL AND MONETARY SYSTEMS IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBAL PUBLIC AUTHORITY
  • 43 TRILLION dollar suit against U.S. govt. officials and major banks! Accuses of stealing from U.S. people and money laundering. Screenshots of CNBC running it. Posted 10/26/2012.
  • China knows that gold is rigged. Posted 10/24/2012. It should come as little surprise then that recently China has been buying gold like there is no tomorrow. Gold imports through Hong Kong in only the first eight months of this year (at 512 tons year-to-date 2012) already have surpassed the entire official European Central Bank gold reserves.
  • Sprott's Charles Oliver Sees Momentum Building for Gold and Silver. Posted 10/24/2012. Also recommends several mining stocks.
  • Central Banks Game Plan: One World Currency. Posted 10/24/2012. The Single Global Currency Association has several reports that examine this issue in more depth. When the great world financial collapse intentionally triggered happens, the central bankers will unveil their end game currency swap. Understand they will never forgive existing obligations or absolve the debt burden that they decadently extracted from humanity. The enemy of mankind is not Adam Smith capitalism, but the Rothschild banking system.
  • We Have Been Warned! – Part 2. Posted 10/23/2012. Excellent summary from various commentators including: Peter Schiff, Daniel Amerman, Bill Gross, Steve Saville, Charles Hugh Smith, etc.
  • Across Corn Belt, Farmland Prices Keep Soaring. Posted 10/23/2012. A former John Deere dealer bought the 80-acre farm plot at a stunning price of $10,600 per acre. Mr. Huntrods had thought it would fetch less than $9,500 per acre.
  • Jim Rickards - Currency Wars Simulation. Posted 10/20/2012. Older video on how the dollar collapse might happen.
  • Japanese Government Demands BOJ Do QE 9 One Month After Failed QE 8. Posted 10/22/2012. (1) Govt. is asking Bank of Japan to increase its asset-purchase program by 20t yen, Sankei reports, citing an unnamed government official. (2) Program would be increased to 100t yen from current 80t yen: Sankei. (3) Increased fund likely to be used to purchase long-term JGBs, ETFs and J-Reits: Sankei. (4) BOJ is expected to lower economic growth, inflation forecasts in an economic report due Oct. 30: Sankei.
  • Why Money Is Now Pouring Into Hard Assets All Over The World. Posted 10/20/2012. Money supply growth should never eclipse labor force + productivity growth. When inflation rises faster than GDP, malinvestments are created and asset bubbles form. That is especially true today as we see a tremendously-dangerous bubble being created in all the bond markets of the developed world. But what is also true is that government debt, that is being systematically monetized by central banks, is slowly destroying any confidence left in fiat currencies. As more and more credibility is lost in paper money, GDP growth will continue to decrease in real terms. As long as governments continue to produce massive annual deficits that are purchased by their central banks, the global economy will continue to stagnate and inflation will increase. What is also true, is that equity markets tend to rise over time in nominal terms because excess money supply lowers the value of currencies and raises stock prices. However, the increase in equity values seldom keeps pace with the rate of inflation. To accomplish the goal of achieving a real rate of return on investments, after taxes and inflation are considered, history proves that can only be supplied by owning hard assets.
  • Global Food Reserves Have Reached Their Lowest Level In Almost 40 Years. Posted 10/16/2012. World grain reserves are so dangerously low that severe weather in the United States or other food-exporting countries could trigger a major hunger crisis next year, the United Nations has warned. Also see: UN warns of looming worldwide food crisis in 2013.
  • Doomsday Cycle targets America next. Commentary: Warning: Money + politics = ticking time bomb. Posted 10/16/2012. Warning bells, alarms scream louder. But our banks and politicians can’t hear, are deaf, in denial. Won’t take action ... not until it is too late.
  • Sweden Not a Socialist Standard-Bearer At All. Posted 6/8/2012. Lots of deregulation going on these last several years, from electricity, nuclear power, telecommunications, postal services, public transportation, health care, and a voucher system for education.
  • Socialism is a failure. The great myth about government is that it is efficient. Government may be efficient at running a war (i.e. control the economy for a single overriding objective), but inefficient at running a diverse economy--i.e. central economy planning. The major growth of government has been in the redistributive area--taking from some and giving to others. It is an egalitarian view--i.e. that all people should be treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights or as a social philosophy advocating the removal of economic inequalities among people or the decentralization of power. The greatest source of inequality has been the special privileges granted by government.
  • Milton Friedman - Persuasion vs Coercion. Posted 1/7/2011. Most people would rather have their own mind made up for them.
  • Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released... and here is the chart to prove it. Posted 10/13/2012.
  • An Anarchist, Economic Collapse & 7 billion Chimpanzees. Posted 10/13/2012. Excellent Doug Casey speech on his form of thinking and way of handling money. He defines "stupid" as those who have "an unwitting tendency to self-destruct." Most people are ignorant and apathetic (the "I don't know and I don't care" types). Two types of people who desire change in society: those who use persuasion (i.e. religious types) and those who use coercion (i.e. the governmental types).
  • Unsustainable. Posted 10/11/2012. The bubble economy that we are living in right now is unsustainable because of: (1) the trade deficit, (2) the national debt, (3), entitlements, (4) total debt, and (5) money printing.
  • "The Fed's sole purpose: keeping the banks afloat" – G. Edward Griffin. Posted 10/10/2012.
  • Global Debt Over $200 Trillion, Gold Demand Surges. Posted 10/8/2012. Right now the US deficit is running at roughly $1.5 trillion per year. In a couple of years time, we will have $20 trillion, at least, of US debt. US tax revenue is now around $2.3 trillion. If you examine $20 trillion of debt, and factor in a dramatic increase in interest rates in coming years, as money is printed and inflation enters the picture, an interest rate of 12% is very likely. Take 12% of $20 trillion and you get $2.4 trillion per year just in interest. That figure is more than the current tax revenue of $2.3 trillion. So the US will reach a point, in the not too distant future, where the total debt servicing will be equal to the total tax revenue. That is of course unsustainable.
  • The Inflation Rate Is A Lie Too. Posted 10/7/2012. The official inflation rate is around 2 percent, when in reality the inflation rate is around 8-9 percent.
  • The Positive Power of Crisis. Posted 10/4/2012. Only in crisis do human beings actually change anything.
  • Inflation Is The Plan. Posted 9/25/2012. Dr. Robert P. Murphy explains that price inflation is the *plan*, not a regrettable byproduct, of QE3. He quotes from economists Scott Sumner and Paul Krugman. It's intended purpose is to force people to spend more.
  • The Islands That Launched a Thousand Ships. Posted 10/1/2012. The disputed islands between Japan and China is because there is a tremendous amount of Oil believed to be in the area.
  • Today the Fed Unofficially Announced QE4. Posted 10/1/2012. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans is Bernanke’s right hand man, and the ‘Chief Architect’ of QE3. This was QE3’s plan, to buy $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities every month, until the unemployment rate magically declines. He (Charles Evans) said that the Fed should continue buying at least $45 billion more of long-term Treasuries, even after Operation Twist ends in January. (Remember), Charles Evans will be a voting member in the FOMC next year. Here is the most salient point, he did not indicate that these new and additional purchases, which will start in January, would be sterilized. Now, QE3, the $40 billion (each month), is not sterilized, so the additional $45 billion (each month) starting in January would be the replacement of Operation Twist (sterilized); thus, this will be an unsterilized, open-ended, double-down version of QE3, This is huge news. It is not an official announcement. Bernanke has not sanctioned this move, but your readers should understand that Charles Evans isn’t a nobody. He is the Federal Reserve President from Chicago. He is the architect behind QE3. The Fed did exactly what he spelled out QE3 would be. He has clearly laid out what he wants QE4 to be already, and this is what I think is going to happen in January, and it will have huge ramifications to (investors) portfolios.
  • The Global Spring. Posted 9/28/2012. Global unrest springing up in China, Europe, Arab nations, and the USA.
  • Damages. Posted 10/1/2012. Bill Gross paints a gloomy outlook going forward.
  • Now Banks Can Legally Steal Retirement Accounts. Posted 9/2/2012.
  • Sentinel Ruling And What It Means For Your Street Name Shares. Posted 9/12/2012. The Sentinel Ruling is now a legal precedent. In bankruptcy of your bank, broker or fund, you can find your assets in the majority of cases are backing the liabilities of the entity in front of yourselves.
  • It's the Numbers Stupid. Posted 7/20/2012. Includes excellent video on the federal budget by an accountant.
  • Austerity 2013. Posted 9/27/2012. The US fiscal cliff is the biggest near-term term threat to the global economy, according to Fitch Ratings. The measures are due to slash the federal budget by $607 billion or 4 percent of GDP between FY 2012 and FY 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
  • The Hidden Meanings in the New $100 Bill!. Posted 9/26/2012. The author believes the new $100 bill is being held back until after the crash and a new gold standard is established for the U.S. dollar. Also read: Greenspan's Golden Secret!.
  • Israel Lobbyist - We Need a False Flag to Start War with Iran!. Posted 9/25/2012. Patrick Clawson of the influential neo-con Washington Institute for Near East Studies openly suggests that the US should provoke Iran into taking the first shot.Israel Lobbyist suggests False Flag attack to start war with Iran.
  • 09-22-12 Macro Analytics - FEDERAL RESERVE - Flawed Premise - Mistaken Role - Part-1. Posted on 9/22/2012. Great charts on the Fed and failure of central planning.
  • Now Banks Can Legally Steal Retirement Accounts. Posted 9/2/2012. This article reiterates that, thanks to the "Sentinel Ruling" banks can use customer funds to pay off creditors during times of duress and that customers might never get their money back because that money became the property of the bank.
  • Is JP Morgan Shorting Paper Metals While Acquiring Massive Physical Stockpiles? Posted 9/25/2012. This article is rebutted by the following: Are JPM's COMEX Silver Positions Only A Hedge Against Physical in the Warehouse? This is another (more thorough) rebuttal: The Arguments Against a Silver Manipulation dated 10/1/2012.
  • Dalio On Gold: Buffett Is Making A Big Mistake. Posted 9/20/2012. CNBC interview. Dalio runs the biggest hedge fund in the world. Discusses future social unrest and belief in gold.
  • QE3 – Pay Attention If You Are in the Real Estate Market. Posted 9/19/2012. So, it looks like the Fed decision last week to buy $40 billion a month in mortgage paper is the ultimate plan to clear the market once and for all of fraudulent mortgages, mortgage backed securities and related derivatives. This means Fannie and Freddie will be bailed out and winding down through the back door. This means the big banks may be paid in full for your mortgage. It also means your pension fund assets will not be marked to market – at the price of debasing the purchasing power of your assets and benefits....A major turn is now underway. Watch to see how much the banks pass through to homeowners and property owners to see how fast and big the turn may be. Watch to see the inflow of funds from offshore.
  • QE3, Deflation And The Fed's Money Illusion. Posted 9/18/2012. The bottom line is that the Fed is printing money, debasing the currency and devaluing debt. The policy is redistributive, regressive and reflationary. It’s a nasty business for sure, and the truth must be obfuscated from the public. But if we want to avoid a second great depression, it is the right thing to do. Good luck trading.
  • GARY SHILLING: Here's Why There's No Housing Recovery And Prices Will Collapse Another 20%. Posted 9/19/2012.
  • The Federal Reserve Is Systematically Destroying Social Security And The Retirement Plans Of Millions Of Americans. Posted 9/19/2012. Anyone who is 55 or older should be worried about this. Based on current law, all SS benefit payments must be cut by (approximately) 25% when the TF is exhausted. This will affect 72 million people. The economic consequences will be severe. Back in 1950, each retiree's Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 U.S. workers. But now things are much different. According to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are now only 1.75 full-time private sector workers for each person that is receiving Social Security benefits in the United States.
  • The Inevitable Decline of Retail. Posted 9/19/2012. Online shopping is rippling through the economy, affecting not just retail but energy consumption and the job market.
  • Arab Spring and Oil Prices. Posted 9/18/2012. By 2015 the Saudi government will only be able to balance its budget if oil prices are at $115 a barrel if current spending trends remain in place. So in effect, with the Arab Spring forcing governments to spend more on their citizens, it has put a floor under the price of oil.
  • Downside: After the Returns Stop Diminishing, Part II. Posted 9/18/2012. What too much military spending will do. Illustrated by Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.
  • A Total Game Changer in the Gold Market with Samsung’s Deal with Cluff Gold. Posted 9/18/2012.
  • China has big plans but Government running out of money. Posted 9/17/2012. A new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers entitled "A Homecoming for US Manufacturing" claims it is now cheaper for whole clusters of US industry to produce at home, close to their markets. Firms are "re-shoring" -- to use the vogue term -- to cut transport and inventory costs and take advantage of cheap shale gas. The weaker dollar has iced the cake.
  • Billionaires Dumping Stocks, Economist Knows Why. Posted 9/16/2012. A handful of billionaires are quietly dumping their American stocks . . . and fast. (Warning: The balance of the article is an infomercial.)
  • Cyclical or Structural? Posted 9/16/2012. The federal government borrowed 51.6% of the dollars it spent in August, 2012. Consequently, the growth of the national debt continues to accelerate. Normally economic activity revives after a recession, which in turn leads to increased revenue for the federal government, like it did from 2004-2008 when the more rapid growth in revenue almost eliminated the deficit. But not this time. Revenue is increasing, but so are expenditures at almost the same rate. Consequently, the deficit is not shrinking, which confirms a point I have made repeatedly for two years. The US is confronting a structural problem. It is not a cyclical one that will go away with improved economic activity. Importantly, the failure to address this problem will eventually lead to hyperinflation and the destruction of the dollar.
  • The Human Cost: “Your Life And The Lives of Those You Love Are Just Pawns On Their Chessboard”. Posted 9/16/2012. Those who control the United States understand that even if a few countries begin to sell their oil in another currency it will set off a chain reaction and the dollar will collapse. They understand that there is absolutely nothing else holding up the value of dollar at this point, and so does the rest of the world. But rather than accepting the fact that the dollar is nearing the end of its lifespan, The Powers That Be have made a calculated gambit. They have decided to use the brute force of the U.S. military to crush each and every resistant state in the middle east and Africa.
  • A World On The Verge Of War? Posted 9/16/2012. A summary of where the world stands.
  • "Unlimited QE3" Quick Analysis: Federal Reserve Attacks US Dollar, Risks Currency Warfare. Posted 9/14/2012. Hidden Taxes & A Devastating Blow To Retirement Investors. See also: Making 9 Million Jobless "Vanish": How The Government Manipulates Unemployment Statistics.
  • Dollar no longer primary oil currency as China begins to sell oil using Yuan. Posted 9/12/2012. This announcement by China is one of the most significant sea changes in the global economic and monetary systems. A major blow was done on Sept. 6 to the American empire, and to the power of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. And China, along with Russia, are now aiming to become the controllers of energy, and thus, controllers of a new petro-currency.
  • Obamacare Summed Up in One Sentence. Posted 8/22/2012.
  • A New Parallel Economy Will Shock The Global Monetary System. Posted 9/12/2012.
  • The “Bond King”: Buy Gold, Not Bonds. Posted 9/10/2012. Bloomberg video. Amazing to hear. "[There's] a diminished or dying cult of both bonds and stocks from the standpoint of a belief that they can return 10%....Gold can't be reproduced. It could certainly be taken out of the ground in an increasing rate but there's a limiting amount of gold....Gold is a fixed commodity that has a considerable store of value that paper money has not....When a central bank starts writing checks and printing money in the trillions of dollars, it's best to have something tangible that can't be reproduced, such as gold....Gold ... is a better investment than a bond or a stock, which probably will only return a 3 to 4 percent return over the next 5 to 10 years."
  • Jobs in a Free Country. Posted 9/10/2012. In parts: (I) The Myth of Job Security, (II) Job Volatility, (III) Comparing Merits of Economic Systems, (IV) more About Login a Job, (V) Government and Jobs, (VI) Jobs and Technology, (VII) Outsourcing: the Objections, (VIII) Global Labor Competition, (IX) Better and Worse Jobs, and Letters, (X) Protectionism Revisited, (XI) Low Wages for Jobs.
  • Prepare For The Coming Housing Collapse: Part II. Posted 9/6/2012.
  • Spain’s capital flight turns to stampede. Posted 9/5/2012. The net outflow of private sector capital is nothing short of awesome, equivalent to about 50 per cent of Spanish gross domestic product at the end of the second quarter. In historic context, during the 1997 Asian crisis, Indonesian capital outflows reached 23 per cent of GDP. The Spanish outflows are more than twice as large.
  • When The Music Stops – How America’s Cities May Explode In Violence. Posted 9/3/2012.
  • Breakdown: Three Tons of Food Looted From Grocery Stores In Spain As Millions Struggle. Posted 9/5/2012.
  • Poor People in Robin Hood style Supermarket Raids. Posted 8/13/2012. Supermarkets in Spain have been looted by labor union members, in a series of Robinhood style attacks.
  • Full Interview With Billionaire Frank Giustra. Posted 9/3/2012. Excellent interview. He's a heavy investor in gold and farmland, besides his core assets in mining, entertainment, etc.
  • Firestorms and Currency Twisters. Posted 8/29/2012. Writes about the Morgan Stanley implosion rumor, among other things.
  • Bob Murphy Blog.
  • Messengers for Liberty. Video series, the first episode scheduled to be released on Septeber 17, 2012.
  • Debt is Destroying Everything. Where is Common Sense When We Need it the Most? Posted 8/19/2012. Long article with good history of debt in the U.S. and in the history of the world.
  • Chinese Investment Offers in Africa Since 2010. Featured in Silver Update 8/27/2012 Africa Rising here.
  • Professor Bernanke’s Blindness on the Great Depression. Posted 8/24/2012. Bernanke thinks that the central bank didn’t create enough money in the 1930s. The truth is almost the very opposite. Inflation of money in the 1920s worked its way through the banking system and into an unsustainable real estate boom and a stock market bubble. The problem was not too little money. It was too much. The world experienced a repetition of this high money growth between 2002 and 2008 (and before). Another real estate bubble occurred. We are living in its aftermath.
  • Why you always want physical EVERYTHING… Posted 8/23/2012. Cash is king. In Italy there’s massive distrust of the local banking system. Most of the banks are insolvent, and the government has already started imposing capital controls by limiting withdrawals in some cases to 1,000 euros. As a result, many bank customers are facing substantial difficulty in accessing their funds; it’s easy to understand why they want to deal in physical cash– the counterparty risk is much lower.
  • Hyperinflation Is Not Inevitable (Default Is). Posted 8/20/2012. The article argues the case for default over hyperinflation. The reason is that the government unfunded liabilities, over $200 trillion, are too big and too long-term.
  • A Sustainable National Healthcare System: Prevention Only. Posted 8/19/2012. The current sickcare system will bankrupt the nation. One model of a sustainable national system would focus solely on providing preventative care. "I blame patients, I blame doctors, I blame hospitals, I blame drug companies, I blame insurance companies. Our health care system is messed up because the system is designed to fail, and everybody is responsible for health care failing as it is now." Dr. Otis Brawley
  • Why Do Fascists Fight Communists? They’re Two Ugly Semi-Identical Twin Brothers. Posted 8/16/2012. The United States has devolved into a statist/collectivist type of goverment. It is akin to a fascist/communist idealogy as detailed in the article.
  • 40 Points That Prove That Barack Obama And Mitt Romney Are Essentially The Same Candidate. Posted 8/15/2012.
  • 12 Things Killer Employees Do Before Noon. Posted 8/8/2012.
    1. They make a work to-do list the day before.
    2. They get a full night's rest.
    3. They avoid hitting snooze.
    4. They exercise.
    5. They practice a morning ritual.
    6. They eat breakfast.
    7. They arrive at the office on time.
    8. They check in with their boss and/or employees.
    9. They tackle the big projects first.
    10. They avoid morning meetings.
    11. They allot time for following up on messages. Set a schedule to check and respond to email in increments. Consider doing so at the top of each hour.
    12. They take a mid-morning break.
  • US Dollar already went off a fiscal cliff. Posted 8/8/2012. The dramatic dollar decline in the last four decades was offset (papered over) by an equally dramatic debt binge. In order to keep the same standard of living Americans went into massive debt. The government, banks, and entire system essentially leveraged the future for short-term gains on unsustainable promises. At this point US household debt has reach a peak debt situation and is unwinding in the form of (1) foreclosures, (2) bankruptcies, (3) job losses, and (4) tighter credit markets.
  • A Little Perspective on What Lies Ahead. Posted 8/6/2012. For a little perspective on what lies ahead, let's consider the structural problems that remain even if we were fortunate enough to throw off the yoke of the Fed, the corporate cartels, and the entire system of Elitist dominance.
    1. We would still have mountains of debt that will never be paid and enormous losses to write off.
    2. We would still have a global economy facing the constraints of higher-cost energy and commodities.
    3. As Status Quo policies fail, replacement policies will become less predictable in their implementation and unintended consequences.
  • Bill Gross to Investors: Stay Away From Europe. Posted 8/7/2012. Don’t put your money into Europe because they are not going to get out of their debt crisis any time soon. The ultimate aim of European leaders is to get their hands on private-sector money because they know they will need it to fund the European economy. The current public-spending program is not sustainable and efforts to fix the debt crisis have been, and will be, futile, he said.
  • It's a Matter of Trust - Part 1. Posted 8/5/2012. The article includes a good history of economic bubbles going back several centuries. "The largest bubble in world history continues to inflate at a rate of $3.8 billion per day and has now expanded to epic bubble proportions of $15.92 trillion, up from $9.65 trillion in September 2008 when this current Wall Street manufactured crisis struck. A 65% increase in the National Debt in less than four years can certainly be classified as a bubble."
  • Global QE Is Coming: Let the Gold Mania Begin! Posted 7/20/2012. Nearly 50% of the total outstanding debt of the world's top 10 debtor nations needs to be rolled over by the end of 2015....It is my belief that global central banks will be the buyers of last resort and will be monetizing the debt in massive quantities over the next two and half years. This may perhaps be the catalyst leading to the mania phase for gold as investors all over the world attempt to protect themselves from global quantitative easing and global currency debasement.
  • Draghi Just Pulled Out His Bazooka… How Long Before the Crash? Posted 7/26/2012. The ECB is out of ammo. Draghi is pulling a classic Central Banker stunt: verbal intervention. If Draghi could in fact solve this mess, he would have already done so. All that Hank Paulson got from this type of tactic in 2008 was two months of market gains. ECB’s Mario Draghi's comments have the same vagueness and the same illusory sense of control. His comments assisted by short-selling bans in Europe, have sent stocks through the roof. However, I have no doubt that these effects will be even more short-lived than Paulson’s bazooka.
  • Nationalizing the Financial Industry. Posted 7/20/2012. Goes into great detail. Also explains the distinction between the two types of socialism: communism and fascism.
  • More on Unleaded Gasoline - Ethanol. Posted 7/19/2012. About 40% of all domestic corn demand is the result of a federally mandated ethanol requirement.
  • Nullification Backed by Federal Supreme Court Decision, States Reaffirm. Posted 7/12/2012. We must remember that at the nation’s founding, it was the several States that created a central body, laying out explicitly where the federal government is supreme to states. Contrary to what you have been taught in school, state sovereignty was considered an important check on federal overreach.
  • Extreme Danger Signposts. Posted 7/12/2012. The U.S. dollar is quickly losing its reserve currency status. Consider the recent headlines:
    • "World's Second (China) and Third Largest (Japan) Economies to Bypass Dollar, Engage in Direct Currency Trade"
    • "China and Russia Drop Dollar in Bilateral Trade"
    • "China and Iran to Bypass Dollar, Plan Oil Barter System"
    • "India and Japan sign new $15 billion currency Swap Agreement"
    • "Iran & Russia Replace Dollar with Rial & Ruble in Trade"
    • "India Joins Asian Dollar Exclusion Zone, Will Transact with Iran in Rupees."
    • "China and Chile to Establish Strategic Partnership, Launch Currency Swap and Settle in Renminbi"
  • U.S Gold Net Exports Increased Substantially During First Quarter 2012. Posted 7/3/2012. The United States was a net exporter of 103 metric tonnes of gold during the first quarter of 2012. The reason why this is interesting is due to the fact the U.S. was a net importer of 38 metric tonnes of gold during the same time period last year. Switzerland, United Kingdom, and Hong Kong acquired over 90% of the total amount exported by the U.S.
  • 15 Reasons Why The Obamacare Decision Is A Mind Blowing Disaster For America. Posted 6/29/2012. Reason #15 The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Obamacare will add more than a trillion dollars to government spending over the next decade.
  • Is the Table Set for a Mania in Precious Metals? Posted 6/29/2012. If corporations chose to invest 1% of their cash in silver ETFs, it would surpass the total current value of all such ETFs.
  • Three phases of money flow in the Great Depression. Posted 6/25/2012. (1) After the 1929 stock market crash, people moved money out of investments and put it into banks. (2) As the economy weakened in the 1930s, people started to convert their deposits into cash currency. This was the second part of the crisis, when fear for the safety of one's money became more important than liquidity. (3) In the third phase, people moved out of cash, and into gold because they realized that there was more paper outstanding than there was gold in the U.S. reserve.
  • (PDF) IEA WEO 2011. Posted 4/14/2012. Important charts on Oil and Nuclear supply/demand.
  • Irredeemable Currency Session 2, 1/2. Posted 6/13/2012. Keith Weiner lecture on irredeemable paper money vs. gold. Session 1 presents the problem. Session 2 presents the solution. Here is Part 2/2.
  • Still Report #50 Spain. Posted 6/13/2012. Good summary of where the European financial crisis is at the moment.
  • Eric Janszen on Hyperinflation vs. High Inflation. Posted 6/11/2012. Eric Janszen continues to predict 2013-2015 for Ka-Poom.
  • Gonzalo Lira on a Eurozone Marriage turned Orgy and a Latin American Divorce!. Posted 6/8/2012.
  • 10 Things That We Can Learn About Shortages And Preparation From The Economic Collapse In Greece. Posted 6/4/2012. (1) Food shortages, (2) Scarce supply of medicines, (3) Downed power grid, (4) Lack of clean water, (5) Credit/debit cards stop working, (6) Crime, rioting, and looting become commonplace, (7) Average citizens start bartering, (8) Suicides spike, (9) Currency rapidly loses value, and (10) The government will not save you.
  • Margin Call? JP Morgan Sells $25 Billion in Securities to Offset Derivatives Losses. Posted 5/30/2012. It's likely JPMorgan is liquidating capital to meet massive margin calls over its escalating Interest Rate Swap losses.
  • USTBond Tower of Babel Teeters. Posted 5/23/2012. Explains how the bond rallies of second and third quarters of 2010 and August/September 2011 were likely IRSwap (Interest Rate Swap) induced by Morgan Stanley of $8 Trillion in 2010 and JPMorgan of an unknown quantity in 2011. The writer believes the currently announced JPMorgan losses are related to IRSwap derivatives going against them and that the losses are likely to be in the tens of billions if not hundreds of billions of dollars within a year and not the $3-5 billion they have reported. The writer believes a chain reaction event has occurred in the Interest Rate Swaps system that will go viral and overwhelm USTBonds within a year. The toppling of USTBonds will result in the death of the USDollar and announcement of the USGovt debt default. Gold prices will then skyrocket.
  • Low-Tech Solutions To High-Tech Tyranny. Posted 5/24/2012. GPS Jammer and other ideas. Here's one Car GPS Jammer for sale.
  • Why we’re nowhere near the mania phase in precious metals. Posted 5/24/2012. Unscientific survey of locals around Lake Tahoe with an American Silver Eagle in hand. No one knew its value.
  • Marginal Cost of Oil. Posted 9/16/2011. See also: Marginal oil production costs are heading towards $100/barrel (posted 5/2/2012).
  • United States Budget Dilemma. Posted 3/14/2012. Over 600k views!
  • That Which is Unsustainable Will Go Away: Medicare. Posted 5/16/2012. The Medicare system would need about 10 workers for every beneficiary to be sustainable. Right now the ratio is just above 2-to-1. That simply is not sustainable.
  • Backwardation in Gold And Silver. Posted 5/16/2012. Backwardation going forward several months suggests markets for precious metals, silver more than gold, have become quite tight. There is a lack of unencumbered (i.e. available) metal.
  • Turk - Expect Tremendous Chaos, Europe Deteriorating Rapidly. Posted 5/15/2012. Europeans are exiting the Euro, which is strengthening the U.S. dollar. Europe is undergoing from all appearances a deflationary collapse, yet inflation is rising because of the ECB printing.
  • Silver Plunges Below Marginal Cost: Commentary from a Retired Geologist. Posted 5/15/2012. Marginal cost for silver is currently $29, according to the article. Essentially, silver has been produced below total costs since the 1930's, which is why only 22% of silver mines subsist on silver alone and the other 78% survive on their other metal production with silver as a mere by-product. No straight silver mine makes money, unless it is very, very high grade.
  • Gold miners need $3,000 price in five years - gold council. Posted 5/14/2012. Miners currently need a gold price of $1,300 to survive, but face steep rises in mining costs, along with the cost of dividends and host nation taxes.
  • 24 Facts That Prove That America Is A Nation Of Slobs. Posted 5/9/2012. Mostly statistics on social condition, but a few on finances. The U.S. has more credit card debt, mortgage debt, and student loan debt than anyone in the world. On the social front, we are the most obese (36%), the greatest percentage of divorces, the most prescription and illegal drug usage, the most fast food and soda consumption, the highest teen pregnancy rate, etc.
  • Economic Alert: If You’re Not Worried Yet…You Should Be. Posted 5/8/2012. Originally posted on Zerohedge. Suggests 2012 will be the year that QE3 is announced, resulting in the $USD losing a lot of its value which will cause inflation in prices. Oil and energy prices will skyrocket. With high inflation, doing traditional business will become nearly impossible.
  • The Fraud & Theft Will Continue Until Morale Improves. Posted 5/7/2012. Excellent article on inflation of various sectors these last 40 years. For example,
    • The average new home price in 1970 was $26,600. The average new home price today is $291,200.
    • The average cost of a new car in 1970 was $3,900. The average price of a new car today is $30,748.
    • A gallon of gasoline cost 36 cents in 1970. A gallon of gas today costs $3.85.
    • The average price of a loaf of bread in 1970 was 25 cents.
    • HOWEVER, total wages and salaries rose from $16,079 in 1970 to $22,060 today.
  • US Dollar VS Gold: Epic Money Battle. Posted 4/25/2012. Suggests Eastern bloc billionaires are involved in the suppression of gold prices in order to raid gold. "The Eastern Coalition, not to be confused with the Eastern Alliance, continues to push down the gold price in order to execute some important very high volume purchases. The coalition is comprised of a handful of extraordinarily wealthy Eastern families with heavy motive to disrupt the balance of banking power dominated by the New York and London crowd to the point of chronic hegemony and abuse. They had a $50 billion infusion last November to move the bullion metal out of cartel banks methodically. The coalition pushes down the gold price in order to conduct raids on the gold cartel member banks, exploiting their vulnerability with respect to margin calls on sovereign bond positions and currency positions." Also suggests that Germany will ally with China and Russia, and together they will eventually ally with the Persian Gulf nations.
  • Peak Housing, Peak Fraud, Peak Suburbia and Peak Property Taxes. Posted 4/25/2012. Compelling article on why housing will remain depressed for years to come.
  • The Great Western Revenue Crisis, Part I. Posted 4/23/2012. In REAL dollars: (1) Spending on government social programs has been falling since the mid-1990s, (2) Wages for government workers have been falling since the 1970s, and (3) With our economy already totally hollowed-out, so-called "austerity" causes deficits to get larger, not smaller—a situation not unlike what has occurred in Greece.
  • The real unemployment rate is at 22.2% (SGS-alternate unemployment measure). Posted 4/9/2012. The peak unemployment rate in the Great Depression was 25% (1933), so we are currently near those levels. Another number to consider is the non-farm unemployment rate in 1933 of 35%, since roughly a quarter of the population (27%) worked on farms compared to 2% today.
  • The Broken Window Fallacy. Posted 4/2/2012. This short video explains one of the most persistent economic fallacies of our day.
  • Gold Coins (US Mint) In Q1 2012 Show "No Hysteria and No Bubble". Posted 4/2/2012. Dr Gurdgiev concludes that “in recent months demand for gold has been oscillating around the historic trend (as opposed to resting above that trend in August 2008-August 2011 period) is the good news - the current levels of demand are historically sustainable, trend reversion-consistent and show neither hype, nor panic buying.”
  • The Critical Number for Gold. Posted 4/2/2012. History shows that as long as REAL interest rates are 2% or lower, gold will remain in a bull market.
  • China Syndrome 2: A Run on the US Treasury. Posted 3/20/2012. Explains the scenario that will play out when foreign lenders, particularly China, refuse to rollover their holdings of U.S. debt.
  • Ben Bernanke Tries To Convince America That The Federal Reserve Is Good And The Gold Standard Is Bad. Posted 3/20/2012.
  • Savings & Capital Theory. Posted 3/11/2012. Good discussion of monetary versus physical capital. What is capital? Think in terms of capital creation, capital employment and capital consumption or destruction. If you build a house, you have created capital. If you live in the house, you are consuming the capital. If you use a special tool to build the house, you are employing capital. Savings is the result of production being greater than consumption. The act of saving is deferring the fruits of capital creation/employment/consumption until later, whether the capital is used by the saver or handed over to the next person for consumption. When savings is done poorly, it results in capital destruction. The article explains how governments are always net consumers of capital and, therefore, are net destroyers of capital. Governments confiscate capital in at least three ways: (1) via taxation, (2) by selling government debt (i.e. you are loaning your capital to a net consumer when buying government bonds, not creator of capital), and (3) via the fractional reserve system and money printing (i.e. the dilution of the currency in which the capital is valued).
  • South African Gold Production Dives Again To 90 Year Lows. Posted 3/15/2012. The article suggest peak gold is here, "some data suggests that global gold production may have peaked in the early 2000s."
  • Making 9 Million Jobless "Vanish": How The Government Manipulates Unemployment Statistics. Posted 3/14/2012. By Daniel R. Amerman.
  • Russia Dumps Treasurys For 14 Consecutive Months; China Slashes Holdings To Lowest In Over A Year. Posted 2/15/2012.
  • Americans: Here’s How to Protect Your Retirement Assets From Coming Gov’t “Confiscation”. Posted 3/31/2011. It's dated, but still valid.
  • States seek currencies made of silver and gold. Posted 2/3/2012. Worried that the Federal Reserve and the U.S. dollar are on the brink of collapse, lawmakers from 13 states, including Minnesota, Tennessee, Iowa, South Carolina and Georgia, are seeking approval from their state governments to either issue their own alternative currency or explore it as an option. South Carolina Republican Representative Mike Pitts proposed a currency system that would allow people to use any kind of silver or gold coin. Of all the state proposals circulating right now, Republican-controlled states including South Carolina, Georgia, Idaho and Indiana have the best chance of passing their proposed bills this year, said American Principles Project's Danker. If just one or two states implement an alternative currency, it could have a Domino effect, he said.
  • Corruption in Fascist Business Model. Posted 2/1/2012. The United States of America had been the beacon of capitalism and freedom. In the last 20 years, it has proven to be the epitome of anti-capitalism...The historians all too well are aware that the final chapter of a capitalist nation is embedded in fascism, as its institutions suffer from profound corruption. Headings: Corrupt Big Banks, Corrupt Central Bank, Corrupt Regulators, Corrupt Mortgage Business, Corrupt Wars, Corrupt Exchange Traded Funds, Corrupt Comex, Corrupt Economic Data.
  • The Debt Supercycle Part II: On Borrowed Time. Posted 1/31/2012. The U.S. deficit is structural and growing exponentially.
  • Pento - Gold Shines as West Continues to Destabilize the World. Posted 1/29/2012. We are going to engender a bubble that is ten times bigger than the real estate bubble and I’ll name that bubble, it’s the bubble in US Treasuries and in sovereign debt. The eventual collapse in that bubble is going to dwarf anything we have seen to date in this ongoing financial crisis. You don’t have to guess what happens during a period of intractable inflation or hyperinflation. If you look at the worst hyperinflation case the planet has ever witnessed, it was the Hungarian collapse in 1946. The Hungarian pengo was not even fit to line the bottom of a bird cage when the Hungarian government was finished with it.
  • How to Benefit from the Greatest Transfer of Wealth. Originally posted 2/16/2009. During the 7 years of famine in Egypt, in the time of Joseph, one of the greatest transfers of wealth in the history of this world took place. The Pharaoh of Egypt obtained great wealth in the amount of land and people who became his servants. “And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh: for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaoh’s” –Gen 47:20. Not only did he buy every man’s field but also every man as a servant. With what did he buy every man and his field? With bread – “buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh” –Gen 47:19.
  • Americans Are Deleveraging, But Not Because They Want To. Posted 1/23/2012. It would require another 22% reduction in house prices from mid-2011 in order to get to a ratio of debt relative to income of 2000. This may happen by mid-2013. By another more extreme measure, U.S. households are a bit more than one-third of the way through deleveraging.
  • One Hundred Million Dollar Penny. Posted 12/13/2011. If a penny was worth $100,000,000, how much could you buy?
  • The Debt Supercycle Reaches Its Final Chapter. Posted 1/18/2012. Welcome to the final chapter of the Debt Supercycle—a period of trillion dollar deficits that are being monetized by trillion dollar expansions of central bank balance sheets, otherwise known as money printing. Once fiscal policy is pushed to the limits of sustainability, the Debt Supercycle will come to a violent end. Three potential market shocks: (1) A spike in commodity prices triggered by additional rounds of quantitative easing, (2) political instability and loss of confidence in government policy, (3) a default or restructuring of a sovereign debt that caused a domino effect.
  • Reggie Middleton Illustrates Pitfalls of American Education Using His 5 yr Old Daughter. Posted 1/16/2012. Why we have a failed educational system.
  • Are China's gold imports reaching panic proportions? Posted 1/12/2012. Total gold imports expected to be around 490 tonnes for 2011 or double the 245 tonnes of 2010. Together with domestic production estimate of 375 tonnes, the total for 2011 would be 865 tonnes. At this rate, in a few years China's gold reserves will surpass Germany's 3,400 tonnes.
  • Deadly Dow 36,000 and The Secret History Of A 70% Market Loss. Posted 1/12/2012. Documents how inflation hid a 70% market loss from 1968 to 1982, and how it will do it again in our current situation.
  • Russian Move Against US Called “First Shot” Of World War III. Posted 1/11/2012. Also details Saddam Hussein's and Muammar Gaddafi's attempts to trade oil in non-US dollar based currencies.
  • Argentina to Maintain Cash Supply Growth at Inflationary Pace. Posted 1/3/2012. Argentina’s central bank plans to keep injecting cash into the economy at the current pace, a move that may further stoke inflation that’s already among the fastest in the world....Consumer prices in Argentina rose about 25 percent this year, according to private economists. That’s more than any major global economy except Venezuela as President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner increases government spending to spur consumer demand and boost local production.
  • It's All Been Done Before. Posted 1/10/2012. Everything that is currently going on in the US... government "stimulus", massive deficits, pending bankruptcy and the use of the crisis to institute more government controls and blame the "free market" has already happened twice in the last century in the US.
  • Ron Paul's Fantastic Speech After Taking 2nd In New Hampshire. Posted 1/10/2012. Succinct presentation of his views.
  • Simon Black: Another Consequence of Economic Decline. Posted 1/10/2012. After limping along for most of the last decade with a socialist agenda, the government of Argentina is at it again. The economy is rapidly deteriorating, and street-inflation has surpassed 25%.
  • The Arbitrageur: Silver In Backwardation. Posted 1/6/2012. In a normal commodity, backwardation means shortage. But in gold and silver it means something else entirely. People have the metal. They are just unwilling to decarry (i.e. sell) it.
  • Three Scary Sectors for 2012. Posted 1/3/2012. CNBC interview with Reggie Middleton. Explains the problems with F.I.R.E. (Financials, Insurance, and Real Estate) going into 2012. Mentions Bank of America's insolvent condition.
  • The Dismal Economic Outlook For The New Year. Posted 1/6/2012. Scathing commentary on the U.S. economy over the last 10 years.
  • January Surprise: Is Obama preparing a trillion-dollar, mass refinancing of mortgages? Posted 1/4/2012. Steps may be underway to give the economy a boost via a mass refinancing program for agency-backed mortgages.
  • Food Price Volatility Hits the World. Posted 1/3/2012. Food-at-home (grocery store) prices are expected to have increased 4.25 to 4.75 percent for 2011 (from data as of November, 2011) and for 2012 are forecast to increase another 3 to 4 percent. The article presents many other issues related to food production, including energy (petroleum) costs, food stamps, arable land, and water. "The US no longer controls oil prices through our own demand structure. We are no longer the force in world oil price movements. It is the emerging demand from the 7 billion people in the developing world that control oil prices, and now that is going to be the case with milk, beef, and grains, as well. This means that the value of a home garden, although its "price" is not posted every day, is rising -- and will rise further."
  • World's Biggest Hedge Fund [Bridgewater Associates] Is Bearish For 2012 Through 2028, And Is Long Gold. Posted 1/3/2012.

Historical log