15 Aug 2012

The Hoarding Continues: China Has Imported More Gold In Six Months Than Portugal's Entire Gold Reserve

Tyler Durden's picture: While the highly "sophisticated" traders that make up the gold market continue to buy or sell the precious metal based on whether the Fed will or will not do the NEW QE tomorrow (or just because, like Bruno Iskil, they have a massive balance sheet, and can create margin position out of thin air with impunity), China continues to do one thing. Buy. Because while earlier today we were wondering (rhetorically, of course) what China is doing with all that excess trade surplus if it is not recycling it back into Treasurys, now we once again find out that instead of purchasing US paper, Beijing continues to buy non-US gold, in the form of 68 tons in imports from Hong Kong in the month of June. The year to date total (6 months)? 383 tons. In other words, in half a year China, whose official total tally is still a massively underrepresented 1054 tons, has imported more gold than the official gold reserves of Portugal, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and so on, and whose YTD imports alone make it the 14th largest holder of gold in the world. Realistically, by now China, which hasn't provided an honest gold reserve holdings update to the IMF in years, most certainly has more gold than the IMF, and its 2814 tons, itself. Of course, the moment the PBOC does announce its official updated gold stash, a gold price in the mid-$1000 range will be a long gone memory.

Global Financial Collapse is Coming! Interview with Webster Tarpley

Something really strange appears to be happening. All over the globe, governments and big banks are acting as if they are anticipating an imminent financial collapse.

Unfortunately, we are not privy to the quiet conversations that are taking place in corporate boardrooms and in the halls of power in places such as Washington D.C. and London, so all we can do is try to make sense of all the clues that are all around us. Of course it is completely possible to misinterpret these clues, but sticking our heads in the sand is not going to do any good either.

Farage Blasts Communist Europe And Leaders "Living In Noddy-Land"

Nigel Farage, looking tanned and refreshed, is back and as he tells FOX Business in this brief clip "nothing has changed" from his views of Europe as the Titanic and its unelected officials dragging it down to the depths of the ocean. Citing Mario Monti specifically with his concerns over allowing politicians to 'decide' anything he notes the leader's demeanor is "We must not let democracy interfere with our great Grand Project."

Stop Bankster Shill Government selling off British school sports fields to rich property developers!

Dear friends across the UK,


The UK Government is selling off school land to rich developers across the country, leaving kids with nowhere to play. Education Secretary Michael Gove is under pressure, and we can stop the latest sale. Let's end the school fields sell-off once and for all -- sign the petition!

Education Secretary Michael Gove is selling off our school sports fields to rich property developers at a staggering rate -- leaving a generation of British kids with nowhere to play. But he’s overreached with his latest sell-off attempt, and if we stand together now we can stop him.

Rather than investing in education, Gove is on the verge of approving the sale of school fields at Elliott School in London -- the latest in a string of 21 sales under his watch. This could turn almost half of the school’s grounds into luxury residential apartments. But under growing community pressure, Gove is hesitating, sending out conflicting messages about whether he approves the sell-off.

The local community is already mobilising against the sale, and a strong national outcry supporting this opposition can force Gove to back down and save these school fields -- sign the petition now and share with everyone you know:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Save_Londons_school_fields/?bImAqdb&v=17158

Is Rwanda the victim of Western conspiracy against the leadership of Paul Kagame?

There are assertions that Paul Kagame has used western aid to build up a killing machine against all those who oppose him.

He has also been criticized for his role in human rights abuses in DRC and his support for rebel groups in the area. His operations are financed by western aid and vocal support predominantly from the US and UK. Fears are growing of genocide in the region.

The awkward truth about Iceland that the EU and the neocons won’t face - The Slog

Springtime for Iceland and Germany, winter for Athens and Spain “Four countries, one policy, half a year…”
In 2001, the banks were deregulated in Iceland. This set the stage for banks to upload debts when foreign companies were accumulated. A major crisis unfolded when banks became unable to refinance their debts.The debts were bonkers, but the advisers all said “Nooooo, nothing to worry about, just offer very high savings rates.” However, it is a fact that the three major banks held foreign debt in excess of €50 billion, or about €160,000 per Icelandic resident.
But a funny thing happened after the Icelandic fiscal collapse of 2008. The Government let most of the banks fail, told the bondholders to whistle for their sovereign debt, didn’t sell any assets, ringfenced the social security budgets, and hunkered down to rebuild the country. The slump was arrested by late 2010, and growth was under way again by mid 2011. One sign of the success of the Icelandic efforts is the fact that the government was successfully able to raise $1 billion with a bond issue on 9 June 2011.
Today, Iceland is regarded as one of Europe’s recovery success stories.

Government is Far Worse Than The Mafia - Lew Rockwell

Alex talks with political commentator, activist, proponent of the Austrian School of economics, and chairman and CEO of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Lew Rockwell. Rockwell served as Ron Paul's congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982. He hosts a popular website and is the author of Speaking of Liberty and The Left, The Right, and The State.  Source

German Bailout Rebellion: “We Have Euro-Anarchy”

Testosterone Pit: For German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ilk, it’s going to be a steamy August and an even steamier September and October with political battles left and right, to be fought mano a mano, as the Eurozone debt crisis and the growing bailout rebellion in Germany are migrating from parliamentary discussions, closed-door meetings, and shaky EU summit—21 of them so far—to electoral politics. Voters may finally have a say.
She has consistently driven her agenda towards a more integrated Europe, but her solutions to the debt crisis have butted into the German constitution. The Fiscal Union treaty and the ESM bailout fund are currently being dissected by the Federal Constitutional Court, with a decision due on September 12. These mechanisms would transfer budgetary sovereignty and other rights from the Bundestag to the EU government, and thus from voters in Germany—or Italy and Spain, for that matter—to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.
More mechanisms with sovereignty transfers have appeared on the horizon as the EU government has embarked on a power grab—supported by many national politicians with visions of upward extensions of their careers. Might German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble be dreaming about a promotion to EU Finance Minister? And the inevitable Merkel to EU President?

UK Fascism: SurfTheChannel Owner Anton Vickerman Sentenced To Four Years In Jail For 'Conspiracy'

from the nods-and-winks dept:

By Leigh Beadon: In June, we underlined the disturbing UK ruling that found Anton Vickerman guilty of "conspiracy to defraud" for operating SurfTheChannel, a TV link indexing website that hosted no infringing content whatsoever. The case raised huge concerns from the very start, when police invited FACT (a private anti-piracy group) to join the raid on the STC offices—and it culminated in a man facing up to 10 years in jail for building a popular website, despite not actually facing charges of copyright infringement since he did no such thing. The "conspiracy" charge allowed a conviction on the basis of Vickerman maybe-kinda-sorta being adjacent or somehow connected to infringement even though no specific copyright laws were broken.
Now, the sentencing has come down, and Vickerman will be spending four years in prison. Four years of his life... for operating a non-infringing website. All on the basis of a charge that failed against two extremely similar sites. Not only does this seem like an insane punishment, it is going to create a massive chilling effect on innovative online services. Of course, FACT is extremely proud of both these things:
"This case conclusively shows that running a website that deliberately sets out to direct users to illegal copies of films and TV shows will result in a criminal conviction and a long jail sentence," FACT Director General Kieron Sharp says.

"The sentencing indicates the severity of the offenses committed and the sophistication of [Vickerman's] criminal enterprise and should send a very strong message to those running similar sites that they can be found, arrested and end up in prison."
That's quite the picture to paint of STC. In reality, the site did not aim to direct users to illegal copies—merely to help users find film and TV content online.