goldmap

Really? - 10/28/12

 

"The men the American public admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth." ~ H. L. Mencken

 

Dear All,

A 2 percent inflation rate?...Really?  Suppression of COLA (Cost of Living Adjustments) is one among several motives for the federal government to understate the inflation rate. Shadowstats' current measure of consumer inflation at 9.6% annualized is nearly five times greater than the official rate. Seniors are getting terribly ripped off and once the inflation wave arrives the purchasing power of social security incomes will be decimated: Social Security increase for 2013 could be lowest since 1975

A falling unemployment rate?..Really?  As this chart illustrates since January 2009 the number of Americans on food stamps swelled 45% from 31.98 million to a record 46.68 million, yet the government would like you to believe the percentage of unemployed Americans has essentially remained stagnant. The truth: 22% of Americans who want to work cannot find jobs (This again from Shadowsats, the best source for accurate, non-propagandized economic data).

Anecdotal information along with your own personal impressions now provide a more reliable (and no less scientific) means of assessing economic and labor activity than the politically supervised nonsense produced by the U.S. government.

Shadowstats' John Williams was interviewed by USA Watchdog's Greg Hunter. It is very much worth viewing:  Dollar Sell-off and Hyperinflation by 2014 – John Williams

 

Why would boobus americanus choose to focus on European unrest when there are frivolous issues such as gay marriage and green jobs to ponder? Grasping the ominous historical implications of current events in Europe would require a cursory familiarity with world history, the teaching of which is now functionally obsolete in the U.S: BBC: Alarm at Greek police 'collusion' with far-right Golden Dawn

 

Jim Rickards explains the ramifications of Libor litigation: LIBOR Could Destroy the Banking System

 

MailOnline: Global warming stopped 16 years ago

"The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures"

 

We no longer have elections in this country -- we have sales. The pretense of 'public service' provides cover in a political ecosystem driven by crony capitalism and self-enrichment, exemplified for instance, by this man:

Prior to leaving the Vice-Presidency in 2001 Al Gore reported a $2 million net worth. A key Obama supporter and contributor, Gore "invested" in fourteen green-tech companies using federal taxpayer stimulus funds totaling $2.58 billion (You may recall what was learned from the Solyndra bankruptcy debacle; the government has agreed to subordinate repayment of taxpayer capital to that of investor capital in certain green startups, which amounts to nothing less than a covert form of looting. The existence of such agreements is comprehensible only to those who routinely navigate Washington's perverse and filthy political infrastructure.). This has elevated Gore's net worth to an estimated $100 million, although none of these companies would appear to have any non-government subsidized operating viability.

 

Misc...

* How would one go about making the case that the phony 'War on drugs' has failed? Return on invested capital is a good place to start. Take a look at this astonishing chart. The real question is where this money is going. 'War' is a profitable enterprise. 

* Steven Spielberg will shortly be releasing a film about Abraham Lincoln, the brutal dictator who prosecuted what was essentially 'The War for the Southern Ports; the fracas for tax revenue.' A war criminal by any standard who trampled the Constitution and murdered thousands of innocent civilians, Lincoln's most enduring achievements are his having been solemnized with an immense, gaudy statue in Washington and receiving credit for having emancipated black slaves -- a group he cared little about and whose freedom would have occurred just as surely without a war, as it did in Europe. You can sit through the two and one-half hour Hollywood extravaganza, or in less than three minutes watch Judge Andrew Napolitano's excellent non-fictional summation of a shameful life. Next from DreamWorks': 'Stalin' -- a romantic comedy.

* How to Launder Money – Swiss Style

* Thanks to Zerohedge for bringing this actual radio call-in to our attention, aptly titled: Deer Voters: Here Is Why You Will Get Just What You Deserve On November 6

 

The trend...

Gold (real wealth) is moving from west to east (and south): Bloomberg: Brazil’s Gold Reserves Rise For First Time Since 2008

U.S. Exporting Record Amounts of Gold Overseas

Chinese Gold Imports through August exceed entire ECB Holdings; Australian Imports up 900%

Bloomberg: China Silver Demand to Climb to Record

Japan to join currency wars as exports slump

 

Regarding gold and silver...

European citizenry seems to be mobilizing toward accountability of their sovereign gold reserves.The  matter of physical verification of course obscures the equally important matter of actual ownership, which is muddied (as intended) through international swap agreements. The double-entries in western sovereign gold accounting would cause criminal underworld bookkeepers to blush.

 

German magazine Der Spiegel is reporting that the German court of auditors is demanding that the Bundesbank (German central bank) audit its foreign- held gold and repatriate 50 tons annually. The auditors are interested not only in the 'authenticity and weight' of its reserves held domestically, but question the practice of relying on a written confirmation from the three foreign central bank custodians (i.e. The Bank of England, The Bank of France, and the US Federal Reserve) in whose vaults German gold is held: Der Spiegel (not translated)

 

In the Netherlands -- Uneasiness about national gold reserve

 

And the new world's bastion of uncensored journalism, the former Soviet Union's RT (Russia Today) featured this report by Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert on western Europe's gold accounting rumblings.

 

This Reuters story says much about the unique qualitative aspects that make gold the world's best currency: Exclusive: Turkish gold trade booms to Iran, via Dubai

"Every currency in the world has an identity, but gold means value without identity. The value is absolute wherever you go"

Precious metals prices are in a temporary headlock. You know the drill; rock, paper, scissors. Physical trumps paper. Fear not the temporary stall.

My best,

Jeff

Rabbit holes and the List of Parodoxes - 10/14/28

.

.

"Every election is a sort of advance auction of stolen goods."       - H.L. Mencken

.

.

Dear All,

.

Shoot the messenger...Let's back up a second before we even examine the vitriol with which the establishment took ex-GE CEO Jack Welch to task for daring to accuse the Obama administration of cooking the books on the most recent pre-election unemployment report. For years we have been ranting here about the farcical economic reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics produces and worse, the near unanimity with which economists and financial media so willingly accept them. The politicization of data did not start in the Obama administration; it has been going on for decades and the fact that these reports are works of fiction is easily observable by anyone who bothers to look. So ingrained apparently is the American inclination to believe in the integrity of its institutions that in the face of copious political and banking scandals, from ubiquitous government looting to Libor fraud to daily market manipulations and corruption at all levels of government -- pattern recognition is eschewed and the citizenry happily awaits its next serving of bullshit.

.

Welch's and other observers' questioning of the surprising drop in unemployment gave rise to wrangling by economists and media pundits over the micro-integrity of an unemployment report that is wrapped in a considerably grander fraud that goinglargely unmentioned. One out of every 4.5 Americans (per Shadowstats) who desire work cannot find jobs, while protagonists and defenders of the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics fakery quibble over whether or not the official September number could have legitimately fallen from 1 out of every 12.8 to 1 out of every 12.3 (Side note: Not possible -- payroll tax receipts declined by $2.2 billion in September.). When the BLS is free to invent its own denominator at will, the precision of the numerator and much else becomes, shall we say, a bit less critical.  

.

.

In the week's theatre of the absurd...The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (Prior winners: Yassar Arafat and Barack Obama) to The European Union, a serial destroyer of nation/state democracy that has been fueling violence through elitist experimentation gone terribly awry. Nigel Farage assessed the spectacle of one coterie of pompous snobs congratulating another:

 

"You only have to open your eyes to see the increasing violence and division within the EU which is caused by the Euro project. Spain is on the verge of a bail-out, with senior military figures warning that the Army may have to intervene in Catalonia. In Greece people are starving and abandoning their children through desperate poverty and never a week goes by that we don't see riots and protests in capital cities against the troika and the economic prison they have imposed. The next stage is to abandon the Nation state: the awarding of this prize to the EU brings it into disrepute."

.

.

The media loves to suggest that this presidential election is "one of the most important -- if not the most important in a generation." In fact it is just as meaningless as the majority that have preceded it. Presidential elections are a mass drill in sheep herding

.

.

in which boobus americanum (credit: Mencken), driven by false platitudes about civic responsibility and other such nonsense but above all -- the illusion of choice and participatory government -- show up at polling places in order to feel good about their affirmation of the perpetuation of a  system that condemns them. It is a grand and pathetic exercise in the placebo effect. Americans scoff at other countries in which there is only one candidate on the ballot or the outcome is otherwise pre-ordained. Here they celebrate it.

.

The most remarkable aspect of the farce is the not the participation of the campaigns' target audience (the median intellect/emotion of the American voter -- under 100/teenager) but the compliance of the educated class, which lines up to pull levers; holding its collective nose perhaps yet totally buying in to the  fraud: The '"Lesser of Two Evils' Con-Game

.

"Lessor of two evils?..There's no such thing."

.

I would add that there are also no issues in this campaign. Certainly there are critical concerns facing the country, but they won't be impacted in any manner by the election's outcome. Yes, the RepubliCrats have their party platforms and the candidates draw sharp distinctions between themselves.  But it is in essence a single party and it is not possible to determine what those distinctions might actually be or how they will manifest; you simply have no clue as to who either of these sociopaths really are. It's nothing new; FDR ran as a fiscal conservative in 1932 lambasting Herbert Hoover for his government activism to try to end the Depression, and then upon his election morphed into the New Deal president.*

Once the election facade is over the political machines get into gear; both candidates are owned and unless you've written some large checks recently, it isn't by you. George Carlin: Why I don't Vote.

.

.

Miscellaneous...

.

I've previously referenced G. Edward Griffin's "The Creature from Jekyll Island," the seminal work about the creation, purpose and operation of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Griffin recently addressed the Casey Summit: "The Fed's sole purpose: keeping the banks afloat"

.

During the cold war U.S. media barraged us with stories about the Kremlin spying on its own people. From RT (Russia Today): DHS to test 30,000 drones over U.S. for 'public safety'

.

The Feds are adept at tracking down tweezers and removing shampoo from carry-on luggage. Protecting their weapons-grade uranium? -- Not so much: Reuters: U.S. nuclear site ends security contract following nun's break-in

.

She's my kinda' nun.

"An investigation by the Energy Department's inspector general last month found a security camera had been broken for about six months and was part of a backlog of repairs needed for security at the facility...The NNSA repeated on Saturday that Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said the incident was an important 'wake-up call' for the entire nuclear complex." .

.

This is terrific: Obamacare summed up in one sentence

.

The Bears are back: The Rich Get Richer Explained 

.

.

The trend...

.

Games States Play with Underfunded Pensions

.

.

Regarding gold and silver...

.

Americans remain fixated on their stock portfolios and oblivious to the value of the dollar and their investments measured in the most stable and purest currency -- gold. It is hardly a U.S. phenomenon. Linked here is a list of 70 world currencies and a recap of what has happened to their values since 2000. All 70 have depreciated against gold (and silver) for the past 12 years -- every single one. The scorecard for the year thus far is no different.

.

To have kept pace with the increase in the price of gold since the beginning of the millennium the Dow Jones Industrial Average today would have to be priced at 71,000. To have matched the  performance of the goldmap index of precious metal stocks the Dow would need to trade at 218,000.

.

.

Rummaging the internet this past week I arrived in what my tech-savvy son tells me is called a "rabbit hole," -- the result of jumping from one site-link to another without the ability to recall where you started, how you arrived where you are currently, and even perhaps -- your original destination. The object of my story and post title is this Wikipedia page, which directly followed a Google search entitled "paradoxes." (Don't ask - I have no recollection).

.

You'll recognize it as the type of serendipitous find that comes about as a result of curiosity and active reading, and it delighted me. My hope it that upon viewing the page your sensibilities are similarly stricken.

.

All the best,

.

Jeff

____________________________________

* According to history textbooks Hoover favored a laissez-faire, free-market approach to the country's economic problems. This is one of the great self-serving Keynesian myths. Hoover was in fact a massive interventionist. His Reconstruction Finance Corporation was that era's TARP and his activism served as the model for Roosevelt's meddling.  R.G. Tugwell, one of Roosevelt's chief advisors would confess many years later, "We didn't admit it at the time, but practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started."