31 Jul 2012
Have you noticed this very deceptive form of inflation? "You will when your stomach starts growling" - Sovereign Man
Simon Black: Bergen, Norway.
Every summer, my colleagues and I invite young people from all over
the world for an intensive 4-day workshop about freedom and
entrepreneurship.
This year’s workshop just concluded yesterday afternoon, and it was, without doubt, the best one ever.
58 students attended from countries as diverse as Tajikistan,
Bangladesh, Japan, Venezuela, Singapore, Russia, the Philippines,
Greece, Malaysia, Turkey, Australia, China, Belarus, Switzerland,
England, Poland, Canada, the US, and many more.
These are highly motivated young people. They get it. They know that
the system has completely failed them. They know that the old path of
‘study hard, get into a good school, get a good job, work your way up
the ladder, and retire’ is no longer valid for their generation.
They understand that they will not be able to count on their
governments for anything. They realize that they only have themselves to
rely on. They’re eager to learn, and to execute.
The experience of helping shape these sharp young minds is truly
invigorating. And for many of the students, it can be life changing.
Something interesting happened this year, though.
For the past several years, we have been conducting this event at a
lovely resort in the Lithuanian countryside. It’s a pretty place– a
nice, comfortable, relaxing environment away from all the noise and
distraction of daily life.
Now, I pay for the whole thing myself. I rent out the entire resort
and pick up the total cost of food, lodging, entertainment, etc. For
this year’s event, my staff was able to negotiate the same price as last
year, and I was happy about this.
But after the first two days, we began to notice something different: the resort was actually skimping out on our food portions!
Hydrino? Electrical Power from Water Vapor Fuel
Blacklight Power, Summery: BlackLight has achieved a proprietary breakthrough power-producing
system continuously operating that converts ubiquitous H2O vapor
directly into electricity as confirmed by six separate independent
individual or groups of leading scientists from academia and industry
with Ph.D.s from prestigious universities including the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology [validation reports].
Specifically, BlackLight has developed a commercially competitive,
nonpolluting source of energy that forms a predicted, previously
undiscovered, more stable form of hydrogen called “Hydrino” that
releases two hundred times more energy than burning hydrogen enabling
ubiquitous H2O vapor to serve as the source of H2 fuel [Hydrino characterization/Hydrino spectrum].
(Left: 1999 Dr. Randell Mills says he can change the face of physics. The Scientfic Establishment thinks he's nuts.)
The Catalyst Induced Hydrino Transition (CIHT) electrochemical cell invented to harness this fundamentally new primary energy source as electrical output uses a catalyst to cause hydrogen atoms of water molecules to transition to lower-energy, Hydrino states by allowing their electrons to fall to smaller radii around the nucleus, resulting in a release of energy that is intermediate between chemical and nuclear energies [CIHT cell].
Petition to put bankers behind bars. More than 687,000 signed
Petition to put Bank(st)ers behind bars - link.
banzai7
Virtual Virtual Economy - Max Keiser with Teri Buhl + "Post Capitalist Central Bank Command and Control Cronyism i.e. Theft." Eurozone "make or break" - Max Keiser, Simon Dixon and Paul Barrow
Bill Gross: "The Cult Of Equity May Be Dying, But The Cult Of Inflation May Only Have Just Begun"
Submitted by Tyler Durden: Want to buy stocks on anything than a greater
fool theory, or hope and prayer that someone with "other people's money"
will bail you out of a losing position when the market goes bidless?
That may change after reading the latest monthly letter from Pimco's
Bill Gross whose crusade against risk hits a crescendo. Yes, he is
talking his book (and talking down his equity asset allocation), but his
reasons are all too valid: "The cult of equity is dying. Like a once
bright green aspen turning to subtle shades of yellow then red in the
Colorado fall, investors’ impressions of “stocks for the long run” or
any run have mellowed as well. I “tweeted” last month that the souring
attitude might be a generational thing: “Boomers can’t take risk. Gen X
and Y believe in Facebook but not its stock. Gen Z has no money.”....
Now in 2012, however, an investor can periodically compare the return of
stocks for the past 10, 20 and 30 years, and find that long-term
Treasury bonds have been the higher returning and obviously “safer”
investment than a diversified portfolio of equities. In turn it would
show that higher risk is usually, but not always, rewarded with excess
return."
So what is a cult chasing figure supposed to do? Well, the cult of
equities may be over. But the cult of reflating inflation is just
beginning: "The primary magic potion that policymakers have
always applied in such a predicament is to inflate their way out of the
corner. The easiest way to produce 7–8% yields for bonds over the next
30 years is to inflate them as quickly as possible to 7–8%! Woe to the
holder of long-term bonds in the process! Similarly for stocks
because they fare poorly as well in inflationary periods. Yet if profits
can be reflated to 5–10% annual growth rates, if the U.S. economy can
grow nominally at 6–7% as it did in the 70s and 80s, then America’s and
indeed the global economy’s liabilities can be “reflated” away. The
problem with all of that of course is that inflation doesn’t create real
wealth and it doesn’t fairly distribute its pain and benefits to
labor/government/or corporate interests. Unfair though it may
be, an investor should continue to expect an attempted inflationary
solution in almost all developed economies over the next few years and
even decades.
Oregon Man Sentenced to 30 Days in Jail - for Collecting Rainwater on His Property???
By Kendra Alleyne: A rural Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail and
over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to
collect and use rainwater.
Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal his
conviction in Jackson County (Ore.) Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor
charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called
“three illegal reservoirs” on his property – and for filling the
reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.
“The government is bullying,” Harrington told CNSNews.com in an interview Thursday.
“They’ve just gotten to be big bullies and if you just lay over and
die and give up, that just makes them bigger bullies. So, we as
Americans, we need to stand on our constitutional rights, on our
rights as citizens and hang tough. This is a good country, we’ll
prevail,” he said.
The court has given Harrington two weeks to report to the Jackson County Jail to begin serving his sentence. (audio interview>)
Escape From Economics - Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Readers ask me from time to time to recommend a book from which they can learn about economics.
The problem with reading a book to learn economics that is taught in
the universities and practiced in Washington is that economics is now a
highly formalized subject based on abstract models and assumptions and
has been mathematized. It is not that the subject is totally useless and
without any applicability to real world problems. Rather, the problem
is that the discipline both lags an ever-changing world and got some
things wrong at the beginning. Consequently, learning economics places
one inside a box where some of the tools and understanding provided are
outdated and incorrect.
For example, every textbook will draw a picture of agriculture as the
perfect example of competitive markets in which “no producer’s output
is large enough to affect price.” This made sense when one-third of the
US work force was on family farms. Today, American agriculture is
dominated by corporations and agribusiness. Additionally, part of the
disastrous financial deregulation pushed by no-think economists and
special interests was the removal of position limits on speculators.
Formerly, speculators smoothed agricultural and commodity markets by
buying and selling in order to stabilize price over periods when supply
and demand were out of balance. Now speculators can dominate markets
and rig prices to the benefit of their profits.
There are many such examples where economics no longer speaks to the real world.
The age of inequality: The 1 per cent and the rest - New Scientist
An appeal for fairness in society
ANYONE who has children - or, for that matter, anyone
who's ever been a child - will testify that we appreciate the importance
of fairness from an early age, or at least its usefulness when
appealing to authority. "But that's not fair!" is one of the earliest
indications that a child is developing a moral sense - even if their
conception of fairness doesn't always accord with their parents' view.
We know that this commitment to
fairness persists into adulthood. Experiments in behavioural economics
demonstrate that we will punish "free riders" - those who benefit from
others' efforts without contributing equally themselves - even if that
means we end up worse off ourselves. To put it another way, our
cognitive biases mean that we punish perceived unfairness even when that
conflicts with our narrow economic interests.
And narrow is the operative word.
Considered within the context of isolated transactions, such apparently
self-defeating behaviour is hard to rationalise. Set within a social context, however, it makes more sense.
Societies which prize fairness and egalitarianism may actually be more
stable; these values appear to have been held dear by our distant
ancestors (see "Inequality: Why egalitarian societies died out").
But we seem to have abandoned this emphasis on equality when it comes to the design of modern civilisation (see "Inequality: Who are the 1 per cent?").
Inequality is rife both within and between modern societies. Western
societies, in particular, are profoundly skewed, by almost any measure
you care to name.
And yet for much of the past 40 years,
inequality has remained a topic of serious discussion for just a small
cadre of academics. Only recently has the Occupy movement, among other
developments (e.g. Fathers 4 Justice), brought it to the forefront of public attention.
Troops to fill Thousands of supposedly 'sold out' seats vacant across events in the 'UK Orwellian Nightmare Olympics'
The Fed On Gold Price Manipulation
Submitted by Tyler Durden: Lately various media outlets have been swamped
with stories and allegations of precious metal manipulation ranging
from the arcane, to the bizarre to the outright ridiculous. At issue is
not that these claims of price fraud are unfounded - they very well
may be completely true - but without a notarized facsimile of an actual trade ticket signed
by Brian Sack, or his replacement Simon Potter, or any of the BIS
traders confirming they are indeed selling gold on behalf of the Fed,
BOE, ECB, SNB or BOJ simply to keep the price of the metal down, what
such constant factless accusations (and no, sorry, a chart
showing that the price of gold may go up or go down sharply indicates
merely that and nothing about the underlying factors for such a move) do
is to habituate the broader public to the real issues surrounding
precious metal, and other asset class, manipulation. So instead of
searching for circumstantial evidence which one can easily find
everywhere, we decided to go straight to the source. To do that we go
back to a post we wrote back in September of 2009, based on an internal
previously confidential Fed document, which conveniently enough
explains everything vis-a-vis gold manipulation and leaves nothing to
speculation or misinterpretation. 
Zero Hedge presents the smoking gun
that may provide responses to all the various open questions regarding
the Fed's Modus Operandi in the gold arena which answer the core question - motive -
courtesy of a declassified memorandum, written by none other than the
then Fed Chairman, and addressed to the president of the United
States.30 Jul 2012
Drawing back the Financial Iron Curtain to a Beautiful Anarchy - Jeffrey Tucker
Steve Jobs Lost Interview 1990 - A must watch for any entreprenuer
"We didn't build Apple to be a company, We started it to make computers for our friends." Source
Greece: the Washington v Berlin poker game returns…to Athens’ advantage. The Slog
US Treasury Secretary Geithner may yet wind up being Greece’s saviour.
A few airy vapours emerged in the way of rationales for US Federal
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s session with German finance minister
Wolfgang Schäuble today. The two men ‘expressed confidence in euro-area
member states’ efforts to reform and move towards greater integration’,
‘welcomed the Irish example of placing successfully longer-term bonds
last week and Portugal’s continued success in meeting program
commitments andzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..’
Bazooka Geithner was scheduled to travel on to Frankfurt Monday
afternoon for a session with European Central Bank President Mario
Draghi, and no doubt at that time they will talk about Borussia
Dortmund’s women’s soccer friendly against Inter-Milan’s mixed-sex 2nd
XI next Thursday. It promises to be a storming game, but most people
watching ClubMed developments (especially those in Athens) could be
forgiven for suggesting that Greece’s future location as a sphere of
vital influence was the main reason Mr Geithner was talking to two of
the most powerful financial players in Europe.
The eurozone has been a pimple on the backside of global money for
two years now, but while the buttock-blemish just keeps on getting
bigger, nothing seems to bring it to a head. My theory is that the
problem is now so big, it has expanded far beyond the fiscal arse, and
is about to launch an assault on the head: but whether I’m
right or wrong, there’ve been so many jigsaw bits, clues and signs
falling into place of late, you’d have to be Mr Magoo in a tank not to
notice them.
What’s going on here is a high-stakes poker game between Washington
and Berlin. And once again, we are talking Greek default into the
welcoming arms (in every sense) of America v Merkel’s FiskalUnion vision
wherein Greece stays in the eurotent…along with its strategic, mineral,
and energy importance to Brussels.
The world’s gold is moving from West to East - Tim Staermose
Did you know that, according to Capgemini and the Royal Bank of
Canada’s latest World Wealth Report, there are now more millionaires in
Asia than North America…?
An estimated 3.37 million individuals in the Asia-Pacific region have
a liquid net worth of over US$1 million. That compares to 3.35 million
in North America.
The same trend is evident in the gold market.
While the current world hubs for gold trading and storage are London,
Zurich, and New York, stores of physical metal are also beginning to
migrate east. Gold storage facilities are springing up all over Asia
like mushrooms after a summer rain.
Back in 2009, the Hong Kong Airport Authority set up the first secure
gold storage facility inside the confines of the Hong Kong Airport.
This September, Malca-Amit, the Tel Aviv-based diamonds and precious
metals company is opening a second state of the art facility at the
airport, which will have capacity for 1,000 metric tons of gold.
That compares to the 4,582 tons that the US government claims is in
Fort Knox, and the record 2,414 million tons that the world’s exchange
traded gold funds collectively held – mostly in London– as of July 5th.
Malca-Amit also has a facility in Singapore’s Freeport complex, and
the company is planning a third Asian precious metals storage facility
in Shanghai in the near future.
Speaking of Singapore, Simon has written before that the government
there recently announced a series of incentive measures aimed at
grabbing as much as 15% of the world’s physical gold trade within 5 to
10 years.
West provoking civil war in Syria: Jonathan Steele
The Syrian government says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence while the opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the killings.
Dave Mustaine: We Are In The Fight of Our Lives
Citibank-sters in India threaten customers with the removal of their organs or death if they do not pay! - The Scandal Deepens As Convicted Debt Collectors Go Missing
By Alexander Eichle:
The fugitive debt collectors were interrogating an Indonesian Citibank customer at the time of his death.
Irzen Octa, an Indonesian businessman, died in a Citibank
office under mysterious circumstances last March, while debt collectors
were questioning him about money he owed on a Citibank credit card. Now,
two of the three collectors convicted in Octa's death are reportedly on
the run from the law.
Arif Lukman and Henry Waslinton, who were each sentenced to five years in prison last month for their role in the March 2011 interrogation, have failed to answer a court summons for detention, according to the Jakarta Globe. On Wednesday, both men were declared fugitives.
Octa, who owed Citibank more than $11,000 at the time of his death,
met with third-party collectors on March 28, 2011, in an attempt to
negotiate a settlement. He was found dead in the Citibank office that
afternoon. Following Octa's death, there were conflicting reports as to
the cause. Medical professionals have disagreed on whether hypertension
played a role in Octa's death, and whether he was physically assaulted
before he died. Post-mortem reports from various doctors have given his
cause of death as asphyxiation, brain hemorrhage and "blunt violence,"
Rick Ackerman on the Next Market Meltdown
By usawatchdog: Professional trader Rick Ackerman thinks "the next market meltdown is
going to look like the flash crash" of a few years ago. Who knows what
could cause the next calamity, but Ackerman says, "War in the Middle
East would be a severe shock to the system . . . and the system is
pretty fragile right now." Please join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One
with Rick Ackerman. Source
Anaheim USA rally video: Cops Arrest and Intimidate Protesters, Disperse Crowd on Horseback with Shotguns In Your Face
At least nine people have been arrested by Orange County Police as they
pushed protesters back during a street rally in outrage over the recent
officer-involved shootings that left two locals dead - FULL STORY
NUMBERS NEVER LIE, BANKERS OFTEN DO. SO MAYBE IT’S TIME TO STIMULATE THE ECONOMY BY BUILDING BIGGER JAILS?
"For every million dollars that banks fiddle, or manipulate, or launder,
or miss-sell, one banker should spent one year in jail. And recall that
HSBC laundered billions. We can stimulate the economy by building
bigger jails.
Another day, another banking scandal.
Barclays’ LIBOR cheats exploited an arcane and out-dated rate-setting
mechanism to fix rates in their favour – which means to your detriment.
But just ripping off ordinary people and ordinary investors doesn’t win many points in the Bankster’s Cheat Olympics. If you really want to shoot for those medal places, you need to do more. You need to get down and dirty with the drug lords and the terrorists, the narcotics cartels and the failed states. That’s what HSBC did. It laundered money on an industrial scale. In the words of one commentary: ‘HSBC’s subsidiaries transported billions of dollars of cash in armoured vehicles, cleared suspicious travellers’ cheques worth billions, and allowed Mexican drug lords buy to planes with money laundered through Cayman Islands accounts.’
Just think for a moment what that means. Don’t think about the financial implications of these things. Think of the human ones.
But just ripping off ordinary people and ordinary investors doesn’t win many points in the Bankster’s Cheat Olympics. If you really want to shoot for those medal places, you need to do more. You need to get down and dirty with the drug lords and the terrorists, the narcotics cartels and the failed states. That’s what HSBC did. It laundered money on an industrial scale. In the words of one commentary: ‘HSBC’s subsidiaries transported billions of dollars of cash in armoured vehicles, cleared suspicious travellers’ cheques worth billions, and allowed Mexican drug lords buy to planes with money laundered through Cayman Islands accounts.’
Just think for a moment what that means. Don’t think about the financial implications of these things. Think of the human ones.
Shellshock: War, blockade traumatize Gaza's children
29 Jul 2012
Update: WikiLeaks, A Post Postscript - Potential financial blockade against the New York Times by Visa, Mastercard, and American Express?
- Potential financial blockade against the New York Times by Visa, Mastercard, and American Express
- Paypal statement on NY Times investigation
The backroom pressures by the Obama Administration’s State Department to expand its financial blockade targeting WikiLeaks to include news organizations that host information from their trove of pilfered documents goes too far.UPDATE: Bill Keller just tweeted that the above (and Below) opinion piece is FAKE? If that is true, then presumably the paypal one is as well? Your thoughts on what is going on? Yes Men? Presumably it would have taken quite a bit of technical know-how to create a fake NY Times, which I believe the Yes Men have created in an analogue form in the past?
UPDATE 2: The strange thing is that, according to
Greenwald, it was Bill Keller himself who retweeted a link to the hoax
NY Times page. And only later did he issue a statement saying that it
was not him. At the moment, you can still see this retweet of the hoax on his tweet stream.UPDATE 3: I’m pretty sure it’s Yes Men succeeding once again in forcing a major corporation to deny responsibility for doing the responsible thing. But mark my word, this will one day be a true headline.
UPDATE 4: NY Times lead tech writer was also taken in by fake op-ed and tweeted that all should read this ‘important’ piece. Note, he’s now deleted it, but picture is below of his tweet encouraging all to read the Op-Ed.
Will Kurds Fight Kurds - Roy Gutman + Christians flee Al-CIA-da - Afshin Rattansi
The Julian Assange Show: Cypherpunks Uncut (p.2)
Olympic destruction and resignation - Afshin Rattansi
Bypassing Government Roadblocks to Your Personal Prosperity
By David Galland, Casey Research: Recently
I helped out with some delivery chores. As I drove about, I discovered
that one of the roads I would normally use was closed by roadblocks. It
was, I imagine, due to road repair work. I had to reverse course and
take a substantial detour.
I wondered why the road crew hadn't put
up a sign indicating the road was closed back at the main intersection,
but I shrugged and muttered something like "Typical government
operation."
Driving back home, this idea of roadblocks took root
in my mind. The thing is, only governmental entities can set up
roadblocks – at least, legally.
Obviously, there are times when such roadblocks are entirely appropriate... for example, when a bridge is found to be dangerous.
In that case, putting up a roadblock to let drivers know that the road is a no-go makes perfect sense.
For
example, a temporary warning sign to let people know that there is a
road crew fixing potholes ahead makes sense and that sort of thing.
Otherwise,
unless a road is damaged to the point where driving is either
impossible or ill advised, there should be no roadblocks set up. Makes
sense, right?
The decision to
set up a roadblock should be taken only by people who are close to the
problem, who understand the issues, and can deal with the problem on the
road, fix it, and open it up again as quickly as possible.
Imagine
then a world where government officials, as often as not operating
hundreds or even thousands of miles away, are in control of the
roadblock rules.
West Bank under fire "repeatedly stabbed by 'New York' settlers after just being shot by Israeli soldiers" - Remember Palestine
Nazi Death Gulag Frenzy: A number of NGOs including UNICEF and the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights as well as Palestinian Al Haq and the Israeli Yesh Din, issued
yet another statement on the continued rise in settler violence against
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The statement which states there
has been an astounding 150% increase in settler violence since 2009
comes just a few days after a lethal attack on a Palestinian who was
repeatedly stabbed by settlers after just being shot by Israeli
soldiers.
Shahrzad - A Lady in Iran explains Iran's position + Iran culture and Kurds
TSA agent: “America is nothing, I don’t get paid from tax payers, I get paid by the federal government!” TSA Checkpoints Exposed: Journalist Tracked, Targeted and Harassed
Protesters Slam £24 Billion "militarized and corporate London Olympic games"
Media Blackout: The Mexican Spring "Against 70 years of oppression" THE LARGEST PROTEST THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN
THE LARGEST PROTEST THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN IS GOING ON NOW
LAME STREAM MEDIA HAS IT BLACKED OUT
LAME STREAM MEDIA HAS IT BLACKED OUT
'Addicted to WAR' The Pentagon Budget: Largest Ever and Growing
By Sara Flounders: On Oct. 28, President Barack Obama signed the 2010 Defense Authorization Act, the largest military budget in U.S. history.
It is not only the world's
largest military budget but is larger than the military expenditures of
the whole rest of the world combined. And it is growing nonstop. The
2010 military budget--which doesn't even cover many war-related
expenditures--is listed as $680 billion. In 2009 it was $651 billion and
in 2000 was $280 billion. It has more than doubled in 10 years.
What a contrast to the issue of health care!
The U.S. Congress has been
debating a basic health care plan--which every other industrialized
country in the world has in some form--for more than six months. There
has been intense insurance company lobbying, right-wing threats, and
dire warnings that a health care plan must not add one dime to the
deficit.
Yet in the midst of this
life-and-death debate on medical care for millions of working and poor
people who have no health coverage, a gargantuan subsidy to the largest
U.S. corporations for military contracts and weapons systems--a real
deficit-breaker--is passed with barely any discussion and hardly a news
article.
Physicians for a National
Health Program estimates that a universal, comprehensive single-payer
health plan would cost $350 billion a year, which would actually be the
amount saved through the elimination of all the administrative costs in
the current private health care system--a system that leaves out almost
50 million people.
Compare this to just the cost
overruns each year in the military budget. Even President Obama on
signing the Pentagon budget said, "The Government Accountability Office,
the GAO, has looked into 96 major defense projects from the last year,
and found cost overruns that totaled $296 billion."
28 Jul 2012
James Holmes' Likely Murders Overshadow Father Robert Holmes' Libor Testimony Or Does It?
By KingCast65: I keep looking but cannot independently verify this. If it is a hoax,
who did it, because that could be an even bigger story. The
money-laundering info. is definitely verified.
5:30am EST update: After intermittently searching late last night I find that Tree of Liberty reports that the initial source for the testimony claim was Sorcha Faal, and if so I am glad for my disclaimers. I am also glad I ran this because now we can start to get to the bottom of why these things happen and *perhaps* who is behind them......
OR NOT.....
5:30am EST update: After intermittently searching late last night I find that Tree of Liberty reports that the initial source for the testimony claim was Sorcha Faal, and if so I am glad for my disclaimers. I am also glad I ran this because now we can start to get to the bottom of why these things happen and *perhaps* who is behind them......
OR NOT.....
Colorado Shooting Patsy Was Under Air Force Shrink
This whole tragedy is covered with all
the hallmarks of a staged event. Now we learn that the "shooter"AKA the
clown patsy was under the care of a top air force psychiatrist. Source
Hang 'Em High! "The Banksters and the Lame Stream Media" Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert + On the Edge: Fictitious capital with Michael Hudson
Harvard Study Finds Fluoride Lowers IQ
"Significantly lower IQ than those
who live in low fluoride area."
Should Crimes of Capital Get Capital Punishment?
By Jason Zweig: Overheard in midtown Manhattan at the lunch hour:
“Another day, another financial scandal. New regulations,
prosecution, getting hauled up in front of Congressional hearings –
nothing seems to stop it.”
“Maybe we need to try something more drastic.”
“Like what?”
“Well, there’s always the death penalty.”
Unfortunately, that’s been tried, too – and found wanting. Financial
criminals throughout history have been beaten, tortured and even put to
death, with little evidence that severe punishments have consistently
deterred people from misconduct that could make them rich.
The history of drastic punishment for financial crimes may be nearly as old as wealth itself. The Code of Hammurabi, more than 3,700 years ago, stipulated that any Mesopotamian who violated the terms of a financial contract – including the futures contracts that were commonly used
in commodities trading in Babylon – “shall be put to death as a thief.”
The severe penalty doesn’t seem to have eradicated such cheating,
however.
In medieval Catalonia,
a banker who went bust wasn’t merely humiliated by town criers who
declaimed his failure in public squares throughout the land; he had to
live on nothing but bread and water until he paid off his depositors in
full. If, after a year, he was unable to repay, he would be executed –
as in the case of banker Francesch Castello, who was beheaded in 1360. Bankers who lied about their books could also be subject to the death penalty.
Current Liquidity In System Risks Hyperinflation - Art Cashin on KWN
“By standards, the amount of liquidity
that’s around the globe should be hyperinflationary. It is not. It is
because when Bernanke flies over your house and drops millions of
dollars in fresh cash on your lawn, you are so terrified you pick it up
and store it in the garage. They’ve got to find a way to unlock all of
that liquidity in the garages around the globe.
The Upside of Default - The Archdruid Report
Writing The Archdruid Report has its
pleasures, and one of them is the wry amusement to be had when some caustic jab
of mine turns into an accurate prediction of the future. Longtime readers may recall a comment of mine
late
last year to the effect that ordinary investors would surely find
some way to pile into the shale gas bubble before the next year was out. Thanks
to an anonymous reader and the August 2012 edition of
SmartMoney Magazine, which arrived from said reader in
yesterday’s mail, that comment can now be moved over into the
"confirmed" category.
The prediction, to be sure, didn’t require any particular
clairvoyance on my part. Its sources
are, first, a decent grasp of the history of economic stupidity, and second, a
keen sense of the levels of desperation in what we might as well call the
investmentariat, the people who have a little money and are looking for a safe
place to put it. The investmentariat has
been told for decades that their money ought to make them money, but nobody
told them that this only works in an economy that experiences sustained real
growth over the long term, and nobody would dream of mentioning in their
hearing that we don’t have an economy like that any more.
Doug Casey on Crisis Investing, Political Risk, and a Benign Anarchy!
Olympics 2012: Policeman assaulting and pepper-spraying a disabled man on a tricycle - Mass arrests as London Police Attack cycle ride
London police have used pepper spray against a “Critical Mass” cycle
ride as the British capital holds the opening ceremony of the 2012
Summer Games. “Large number of people” arrested said a police tweet. "A number of people in breach of regulations imposed on a monthly cycling event have been arrested," a spokesman for Scotland Yard said. According to some reports at least 50 people have been detained and their bicycles loaded onto special buses parked nearby.
Critical
Mass is a cycling event typically held on the last Friday of every
month all around the world. Earlier there have been calls on the
Internet to stage the London ride on July 27 as an anti-Olympics
protest.
Scuffles occurred near the Olympic Stadium on the
outskirts of the Olympic Park with participants saying they were being
“kettled”.
My Response to a Gold Hater - Michael Krieger
So this morning, I woke up to an email forward from someone that used
to be a client. The forward was an anti-gold rant from a sell-side
(Wall Street) broker who will remain unnamed. The piece was so biased
and ridiculous I took the time to write a somewhat lengthy response. I
am not going to include this person’s message since it is the property
of his employer, but you can tell his arguments based on my answer.
Hope this helps anyone that feels the need to make the bull gold
argument cogently to a sheeple should you run into one in the wild.
My email:
Only someone on Wall Street could write something so foolish. It is so easy to pick this guy’s arguments apart it is not even funny. First, he claims gold has no intrinsic value. I’d love for him to define what “intrinsic” value is? So let’s say a painting is just a piece of canvas with a blue solid image on it. It may look like nothing or garbage to me but others may see brilliance and pay $5 million for it in the market. Because I look at it and see junk does that mean it has no intrinsic value? Gold has been the money of Kings for 5,000 years and even in the “modern” world it remains the asset people gravitate to as a store of value. I’d say having high value consistently for the entire span of human civilization gives it intrinsic value. It has value as alternative money and a store of wealth. That is the value of gold. Also why are regulators considering making gold a Tier 1 asset if it has no value and is archaic. See here. Finally, no one put it better that the fiat pimp himself Alan Greenspan in his article “Gold and Economic Freedom.”
Only someone on Wall Street could write something so foolish. It is so easy to pick this guy’s arguments apart it is not even funny. First, he claims gold has no intrinsic value. I’d love for him to define what “intrinsic” value is? So let’s say a painting is just a piece of canvas with a blue solid image on it. It may look like nothing or garbage to me but others may see brilliance and pay $5 million for it in the market. Because I look at it and see junk does that mean it has no intrinsic value? Gold has been the money of Kings for 5,000 years and even in the “modern” world it remains the asset people gravitate to as a store of value. I’d say having high value consistently for the entire span of human civilization gives it intrinsic value. It has value as alternative money and a store of wealth. That is the value of gold. Also why are regulators considering making gold a Tier 1 asset if it has no value and is archaic. See here. Finally, no one put it better that the fiat pimp himself Alan Greenspan in his article “Gold and Economic Freedom.”
27 Jul 2012
JOHN HARRIS : It's an Illusion "Economic Slaves"
Unfortunately inaction is taken as consent, hence we have unwittingly surrendered our inalienable rights through identifying with the PERSON. Remember you are a human being with god given rights, all you have to do is claim them. Source
Gold and Economic Freedom - by Alan Greenspan "...the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold"
Published in Ayn Rand's "Objectivist" newsletter in 1966, and
reprinted in her book, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,
in 1967.
An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is
one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense
— perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of
laissez-faire — that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that
the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each
implies and requires the other.
In order to understand the source of their antagonism, it is
necessary first to understand the specific role of gold in a free
society.
Money is the common denominator of all economic transactions.
It is that commodity which serves as a medium of exchange, is
universally acceptable to all participants in an exchange economy as
payment for their goods or services, and can, therefore, be used as a
standard of market value and as a store of value, i.e., as a means of
saving.
The existence of such a commodity is a precondition of a
division of labor economy. If men did not have some commodity of
objective value which was generally acceptable as money, they would
have to resort to primitive barter or be forced to live on
self-sufficient farms and forgo the inestimable advantages of
specialization. If men had no means to store value, i.e., to save,
neither long-range planning nor exchange would be possible.
What medium of exchange will be acceptable to all participants
in an economy is not determined arbitrarily.
Collapse of Al Saud becomes imminent
Bernanke and Draghi Are Dangerous - Charles Hugh Smith
Today we present the culmination of the previous entries
(
Global Crisis: the Convergence of Marx, Orwell and Kafka and
Are You Loving Your Servitude Yet?): A brief commentary by longtime correspondent
Harun I. on Mario Draghi's market-moving statement:
“Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro.
And believe me, it will be enough.”
Nice, Mr. Draghi, but at what cost? And who will ultimately bear this cost?
It is already far beyond the measure of mere money; democracy, truth and sovereignty
have all been destroyed to prop up the central bankers' Status Quo.
We can presume Mr. Bernanke and the Federal
Reserve are in on the propaganda campaign, and so we need to examine the words and
promises of these two central bankers, as well as what they have not said.
Is talking about printing money as good as actually printing money? It would seem so.
Is promising to "do whatever it takes" as good as actually doing whatever it takes?
Once again, it seems so; global markets leaped at the "news" that the financial Status
Quo was going to be "saved" yet again.
What if it is beyond saving?
What if the cost in treasure, blood, liberty, sovereignty and truth is not worth
the 'saving" of a broken, unsustainable, corrupted, parasitic, predatory system?
Do we get to choose, or are we just passengers on the train as the central bankers
accelerate toward the chasm ahead?
Here is Harun's commentary:
Words have meaning and people should choose them carefully. Nigel Farage commented that what he saw in the faces of EU officials was "madness". We should not underestimate his assessment. At some point these individuals have to be viewed as dangerous.
The Absurdity of Sandy Weill - azizonomics
"I’m suggesting the big banks be broken up so that the taxpayer will
never be at risk, the depositors won’t be at risk and the leverage will
be something reasonable."
Aziz: This from the guy who provided the impetus and the funds to end
Glass-Steagall? Totally absurd — akin to Joe Stalin renouncing
Marxism-Leninism and the gulag archipelago on his deathbed.
Glass-Steagall’s separation between depository and speculative
institutions — especially during the Bretton Woods period — was a
relatively robust system; there was never a large-scale banking calamity
of the nature of 2008 or 1929 under its regime. Certainly, it had its
imperfections — above all else that it never prevented bankers like
Weill from chipping away at it up to the point of repeal — but the proof
of the pudding is in the eating, and Glass-Steagall presided over a
period of growth and stability.
While the data tends to show that the end of Bretton Woods in 1971
was the real catalyst of the financialisation, globalisation,
deindustrialisation and debt buildup that ultimately flung the US into a depressionary deleveraging trap, the end of Glass-Steagall was profound.
Depositors’ funds became a medium for the creation of the huge and sprawling shadow banking and derivatives webs.
John Williams of Shadowstats: The Next Crash Will Be A Lot Worse!
By usawatchdog: Anyone who thinks the U.S. is in recovery should stop listening to
the mainstream media and listen to John Williams. He heads up
Shadowstats.com, and is one of the few economists who crunches the
numbers to give unvarnished true statistics. Adjusted for real inflation
of about 7%, Williams says, "GDP has plunged, and we have been bottom
bouncing" ever since the financial crisis started. Williams says, "The
next crash will be a lot worse (than 2008) because it will push us into
the early stages of hyperinflation." He predicts this will happen "by
the end of 2014" at the latest.
Up to 20% of Aleppo is FSA controlled - Mr Aleppo
Police State West: Federal Protective Service orders around 150 sets of riot gear to be delivered in 15 days + Rooftop Missile Controversy in London 2012 Olympics
By Madison Ruppert:
The Federal Protective Service a child agency of the behemoth Department of Homeland Security (DHS),
which is tasked with protecting property owned, occupied or secured by
the federal government, seems to be getting ready for a riot or riots in
the very near future.
This is the same Federal Protective Service which reportedly
“drafted plans to send armed agents into downtown Chicago to patrol the
city and prepare for protests” during the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) summit earlier this year.
This quite sizeable procurement of 150 sets of riot gear is especially noteworthy since it is being filled on a highly accelerated timetable.
The solicitation was posted on July 25, 2012 with a response date of July 26, 2012 and delivery a mere 15 days later.
The USA is Rolling into Fascism and Interest Free Money - Rodney Shakespeare with Morris + Paul Craig Roberts with Alex Jones - US Police State Hell
The world is not going to forgive the USA for its warring and Torture
Half of the US military budget is hidden in other budgets
Homeland Security has just purchased 100's of millions of dumb dumb bullets
The Banks have lost any sense of what it means to be productive
In the USA 10,000,000 jobs have been outsourced
The bankers are arrogant self satisfied complacent and stupid
Plots are afoot around the world to wreck the US$ reserve status
Half of the US military budget is hidden in other budgets
Homeland Security has just purchased 100's of millions of dumb dumb bullets
The Banks have lost any sense of what it means to be productive
In the USA 10,000,000 jobs have been outsourced
The bankers are arrogant self satisfied complacent and stupid
Plots are afoot around the world to wreck the US$ reserve status
From Natural Resources to Currency Wars - Rick Rule & Jim Rickards
Not only do we have commodities and
resource expert Rick Rule on the show, but fan favorite Jim Rickards is
guest co-hosting with our dear Lauren Lyster!
In today's news, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said policymakers will do what is needed to save the Euro. This comment was enough to spur a bout of market euphoria. But how do you invest around what a policymaker may or may not say?
In today's news, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said policymakers will do what is needed to save the Euro. This comment was enough to spur a bout of market euphoria. But how do you invest around what a policymaker may or may not say?
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