SP500 vs Gold

Here you go mr "buy sp500".     Keep in mind, when the dow jones index = the price of gold, that is when I will be exiting gold/silver.  My guess is 2017.

How come you didn’t tell me to buy feeder cattle on jan 1^st and sell it yesterday?  This is the perception of the graph, I know of know one who buys on jan 1st and sells on dec 1st.  http://www.finviz.com/futures_performance.ashx?v=16

Buy silver!   Only $2.49 over spot!   Again, the lowest silver can drop to in the next month is the 2008 high of 21.40.    Pull this post up in 1 year and you will be looking down at these prices as a bargain.

http://www.goldmart.com/bullion-1/silver-bullion/american-silver-eagles-2012-prior/2012-1-oz-american-silver-eagle-20-coin-tube.html

Silver Coin Premiums

With the paper silver market trading around $27.50, the premium over spot price of a Silver Eagle Coin is $2.89 I still cannot convince people to buy.
The lowest price silver will go is the 2008 high of $21.44. The mistake in thinking you will get that price is:
A - It is not a fact it will get that low.
B – The price might happen overnight. (can't buy while you are sleeping)
C - I expect the premiums to increase.
Example
$24 silver with a $3 premium = $27 per coin
$22 silver with a $5 premium = $27 per coin
The only way to "catch" the low is with a futures contract and the SLV ETF of the price occurs during regular trading hours. But, this is for trading and not physical.

$200 Gold Coupon

A $200 drop in the price of gold in USD in the past week.   Pretty amazing. 1760 to 1562.   I see this as a $200 coupon for the last chance to buy sub-1600 gold and sub 30 silver.

click on chart to enlarge

Libya: All About Oil, or All About Central Banking?

This is an old story, but with the recent killing of Gaddafi, I thought it would be interesting to examine the real reasons behind what happened there. This article does it perfectly:

Libya: All About Oil, or All About Central Banking?

By Ellen Brown

April 14, 2011

opednews.com

Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank -- this before they even had a government. Robert Wenzel wrote in the Economic Policy Journal:

I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising. This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.

Alex Newman wrote in the New American:

In a statement released last week, the rebels reported on the results of a meeting held on March 19. Among other things, the supposed rag-tag revolutionaries announced the "[d]esignation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi."

Newman quoted CNBC senior editor John Carney, who asked, "Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era."

Another anomaly involves the official justification for taking up arms against Libya. Supposedly it's about human rights violations, but the evidence is contradictory. According to an article on the Fox News website on February 28:

As the United Nations works feverishly to condemn Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi for cracking down on protesters, the body's Human Rights Council is poised to adopt a report chock-full of praise for Libya's human rights record.

The review commends Libya for improving educational opportunities, for making human rights a "priority" and for bettering its "constitutional" framework. Several countries, including Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia but also Canada, give Libya positive marks for the legal protections afforded to its citizens -- who are now revolting against the regime and facing bloody reprisal.

Whatever might be said of Gaddafi's personal crimes, the Libyan people seem to be thriving. A delegation of medical professionals from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus wrote in an appeal to Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin that after becoming acquainted with Libyan life, it was their view that in few nations did people live in such comfort:

[Libyans] are entitled to free treatment, and their hospitals provide the best in the world of medical equipment. Education in Libya is free, capable young people have the opportunity to study abroad at government expense. When marrying, young couples receive 60,000 Libyan dinars (about 50,000 U.S. dollars) of financial assistance. Non-interest state loans, and as practice shows, undated. Due to government subsidies the price of cars is much lower than in Europe, and they are affordable for every family. Gasoline and bread cost a penny, no taxes for those who are engaged in agriculture. The Libyan people are quiet and peaceful, are not inclined to drink, and are very religious.

They maintained that the international community had been misinformed about the struggle against the regime. "Tell us," they said, "who would not like such a regime?"

Even if that is just propaganda, there is no denying at least one very popular achievement of the Libyan government: it brought water to the desert by building the largest and most expensive irrigation project in history, the $33 billion GMMR (Great Man-Made River) project. Even more than oil, water is crucial to life in Libya. The GMMR provides 70 percent of the population with water for drinking and irrigation, pumping it from Libya's vast underground Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System in the south to populated coastal areas 4,000 kilometers to the north. The Libyan government has done at least some things right.

Another explanation for the assault on Libya is that it is "all about oil," but that theory too is problematic. As noted in the National Journal, the country produces only about 2 percent of the world's oil. Saudi Arabia alone has enough spare capacity to make up for any lost production if Libyan oil were to disappear from the market. And if it's all about oil, why the rush to set up a new central bank?

Another provocative bit of data circulating on the Net is a 2007 "Democracy Now" interview of U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.). In it he says that about 10 days after September 11, 2001, he was told by a general that the decision had been made to go to war with Iraq. Clark was surprised and asked why. "I don't know!" was the response. "I guess they don't know what else to do!" Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.

What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers' central bank in Switzerland.

The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr., writing on Examiner.com, noted that "[s] ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept Euros instead of dollars for oil , and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar." According to a Russian article titled "Bombing of Lybia -- Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar," Gadaffi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gadaffi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency. During the past year, the idea was approved by many Arab countries and most African countries. The only opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League of Arab States. The initiative was viewed negatively by the USA and the European Union, with French president Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Gaddafi was not swayed and continued his push for the creation of a united Africa. And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank. In an article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed:

One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned . . . . Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.

Libya not only has oil. According to the IMF, its central bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. With that sort of asset base, who needs the BIS, the IMF and their rules?

All of which prompts a closer look at the BIS rules and their effect on local economies. An article on the BIS website states that central banks in the Central Bank Governance Network are supposed to have as their single or primary objective "to preserve price stability." They are to be kept independent from government to make sure that political considerations don't interfere with this mandate. "Price stability" means maintaining a stable money supply, even if that means burdening the people with heavy foreign debts. Central banks are discouraged from increasing the money supply by printing money and using it for the benefit of the state, either directly or as loans.

In a 2002 article in Asia Times titled "The BIS vs National Banks," Henry Liu maintained:

BIS regulations serve only the single purpose of strengthening the international private banking system, even at the peril of national economies. The BIS does to national banking systems what the IMF has done to national monetary regimes. National economies under financial globalization no longer serve national interests.

. . . FDI [foreign direct investment] denominated in foreign currencies, mostly dollars, has condemned many national economies into unbalanced development toward export, merely to make dollar-denominated interest payments to FDI, with little net benefit to the domestic economies.

He added, "Applying the State Theory of Money, any government can fund with its own currency all its domestic developmental needs to maintain full employment without inflation." The "state theory of money" refers to money created by governments rather than private banks.

The presumption of the rule against borrowing from the government's own central bank is that this will be inflationary, while borrowing existing money from foreign banks or the IMF will not. But all banks actually create the money they lend on their books, whether publicly-owned or privately-owned. Most new money today comes from bank loans. Borrowing it from the government's own central bank has the advantage that the loan is effectively interest-free. Eliminating interest has been shown to reduce the cost of public projects by an average of 50%.

And that appears to be how the Libyan system works. According to Wikipedia, the functions of the Central Bank of Libya include "issuing and regulating banknotes and coins in Libya" and "managing and issuing all state loans." Libya's wholly state-owned bank can and does issue the national currency and lend it for state purposes.

That would explain where Libya gets the money to provide free education and medical care, and to issue each young couple $50,000 in interest-free state loans. It would also explain where the country found the $33 billion to build the Great Man-Made River project. Libyans are worried that NATO-led air strikes are coming perilously close to this pipeline, threatening another humanitarian disaster.

So is this new war all about oil or all about banking? Maybe both -- and water as well. With energy, water, and ample credit to develop the infrastructure to access them, a nation can be free of the grip of foreign creditors. And that may be the real threat of Libya: it could show the world what is possible. Most countries don't have oil, but new technologies are being developed that could make non-oil-producing nations energy-independent, particularly if infrastructure costs are halved by borrowing from the nation's own publicly-owned bank. Energy independence would free governments from the web of the international bankers, and of the need to shift production from domestic to foreign markets to service the loans.

If the Gaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank joins the BIS, whether the nationalized oil industry gets sold off to investors, and whether education and health care continue to be free.

Occupy Wall Street was Planned by Acorn and the SEIU

Stephen Lerner, a board member of the Service Employees International Union, and Acorn founder Wade Rathke planned the whole fucking thing.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/38593

from JULY:

From Capital Research Center publication Organization Trends, July 2011

By F. Vincent Vernuccio and Matthew Vadum

Summary: Led by the radical Service Employees International Union (SEIU), left-wing unions and activist groups have been planning to launch a national campaign of economic strong-arming and sabotage. Their plan envisions mortgage and student loan strikes and bank boycotts. Also contemplated are acts of harassment and intimidation directed against bank officials, corporate heads and public officials deemed to be enemies of the people.

On March 25 ACORN founder Wade Rathke, a one-time president of an SEIU local in New Orleans, announced what he described as “days of rage in ten cities around JP Morgan Chase.” Rathke said the forthcoming campaign of demonstrations, strikes and disruption will mark “the beginning of the anti-banking jihad.”

This kind of inflammatory language hasn’t been in the news since the days of Patty Hearst, the Weathermen, and the Black Panthers. But it has always characterized the rhetoric of left-wing activists. Now, as the labor movement lurches increasingly to port in frustration at the stalemated politics of Washington, D.C., you can expect to hear more fighting words from the activist Left.

Since at least the late 1960s, the American Left has embraced what could be characterized as economic strong arming. Striking fear into the hearts of big corporations is a tactic that has proven to be both politically useful-and lucrative. The shakedown artists of ACORN and Jesse Jackson’s Wall Street Project can attest to that.

Many activists conceal their in-your-face agenda behind the comforting message of “community organizing.” But others revel in it. For example, Bruce Marks, president of the Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America, has proudly described himself as both a “banking terrorist” and an “urban terrorist.” (NACA was profiled by David Hogberg in the April 2009 Organization Trends.)

The current campaign is still in the planning stages and descriptions of it vary depending on the audience. That’s the kind of strategem that would appeal to President Obama, who as a presidential candidate promised three years ago to do the bidding of Saul Alinsky-inspired groups such as ACORN, Gamaliel Foundation, National People’s Action, and the Center for Community Change (CCC).

Almost a year before Obama told Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher that he planned to “spread the wealth around,” the candidate made it clear to the nation’s cadre of far-left community organizers that they would be major players in his administration. At the CCC-sponsored Heartland Democratic Presidential Forum on Dec. 1, 2007, Obama promised that he would “be calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda ... for the next presidency of the United States of America.”

On With the Financial Attacks

The lead organizer of what Rathke called the “anti-banking jihad” is Stephen Lerner, a well-known SEIU operative. Lerner is a board member of SEIU and is tremendously respected and influential in leftist organizing circles. He has reportedly visited the Obama White House at least four times.

SEIU happens to be President Obama’s favorite union. The labor organization went into hock when it spent a staggering $85 million in the last election to promote Barack Obama and other Democratic Party candidates. SEIU even produced a documentary film called Labor Day to let Americans know how much hard work it did to put Obama in the White House.

SEIU is one of America’s largest and fastest growing labor organizations with 2.1 million members. It is certainly one of labor’s most politically active unions. Unlike some unions that focus on preserving the pay and benefits of existing members, SEIU is eager to expand by aggressively organizing new members by almost any means necessary. SEIU leadership understands that focusing on signing up new members and negotiating higher pay is not enough. If it is to survive in a modern global economy labor unions must develop new ways to confront and intimidate corporations.

The goal is to have these companies sign neutrality agreements with unions. Such pacts prevent workers from learning about the consequences if they unionize. In almost all cases unions want the company to deny workers the right to vote by secret ballot on whether to join a union. Unions prefer the undemocratic “card check” method because it allows union leaders to intimidate workers into voting for unionization. Their motivation is simple: more members equals more union dues.

The best-known leaders of SEIU are two of its former presidents, John Sweeney, who went on to become president of the AFL-CIO, and Andy Stern, who often challenged Sweeney for not doing even more to confront corporate management. But below Sweeney and Stern are large numbers of dedicated and talented organizers, whose knowledge and zeal have made SEIU a very powerful-and dangerous-organization.

_____

This is the same Stephen Lerner who is closely affiliated with the Obama Administration:

Not only does Lerner maintain the clout of being a former SEIU executive, but his influential position seems to have gained him access to the Obama White House on more than one occasion. According to White House visitor logs, “Stephen Lerner” has visited the White House four times over the past two years.

Two of these visits were for public gatherings: a large group’s private White House tour and a White House Hanukkah celebration. But at least two other visits were scheduled for private meetings with high-level executive offices.

On May 22, 2010, Lerner met with a presidential personnel officer who manages economic agencies. While the minimal information in the WH visitor log offers no real information on what this meeting was about, it’s distressing to know a) anyone in the White House would meet with the kind of man who could openly call for the deliberate dismantling of the American economy, and that b) that White House official works to recruit personnel for the federal government’s economic agencies.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/uncovered-did-the-leftist-encouraging-economic-terrorism-have-access-to-obamas-white-house/

________

This was pretty obvious from the start, the protests have focused on pretty much the opposite of the real reasons that people should be angry about Wall Street.

________

UPDATE: Obama scheduled an 11 a.m. press conference this morning to push his latest jobs bill, and stated that Occupy Wall Street "expresses the frustration that the American people feel...you're still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight methods to keep (financial meltdown) from happening again".

________

UPDATE #2: Traveling Professional Agitators Making $120K per Year to Occupy Wall Street

http://biggovernment.com/laborunionreport/2011/10/02/meet-occupywallsts-jeffrae-professional-rabble-rouser-agitator-organizer-labor-activist/

Among Saturday’s arrestees was one Jeff Rae, from Washington, DC. Mr. Rae describes himself on Twitter as a “rabble rouser, agitator, organizer, labor activist.” According to Mr. Rae, he was arrested for ‘failure to obey order, prohibited use of roadway, and blocking traffic.’

...

In fact, it appears that Mr. Rae is the same Jeffrey Ray who is employed as the Director of New Media by the Transport Workers Union in Washington, DC—the same union that joined the #OccupyWallSt protests last week. And, as a professional rabble rouser, agitator, organizer and labor activist, Mr. Rae isn’t one of those downtrodden masses for whom the Neo-Communist protests are allegedly meant for since Mr Rae seems to be doing quite well for himself…

In fact, as many Americans have been losing their jobs and homes during the Great Recession, Mr. Rae has actually seen his income as a professional rabble rouser, agitator, organizer and labor activist increase substantially—from $69,353 in 2008 to $118,534 in 2010.

Mr. Rae also appears to be the same Jeffrey Rae who traveled to Bejing in 2008 and was arrested and detained six days, as well as traveled to Wisconsin earlier this year.

_____

So, apparently, this asshole sets up protests online, and actually travels to the hotspots (Beijing, Wisconsin, Wall Street, etc) and does further organizing. The sole point of his job is to sew and agitate civil unrest, get arrested, smoke dope and play bongos with braindead hippie scum, etc. $120k/year.

End of eBay deals on silver/gold coins – Part 2

As a update to my post 3 months ago http://theeconomises.blogspot.com/2011/06/end-of-ebay-deals-on-silvergold-coins.html

Next Saturday, October 1^st, Ebay will no longer offer eBay Bucks for purchases from the Bullion category within Coins & Paper Money. http://pages.ebay.com/rewards/terms.html

Re-read the original post. This will mean the only discount will be from your credit card.     Unless ebay can beat the dealers final price, the buyers will focus on the dealers over ebay. That is a tough break for ebays sellers who have to deal with the ebay/paypal fees http://www.rolbe.com/ebay.htm

A $5 coupon code http://www.retailmenot.com/view/gainesvillecoins.com#

Here a purchase 14 months ago on ebay. This does not include the discount from mr rebates and the credit card. Today a roll of 25 maple leafs goes for over $1100. Seems like a buy one get one free deal a year ago.

Bing Cashback - You received $88.40 from your eBay purchase on 7/2/2010
2010 CANADA SILVER MAPLE LEAF COINS NEW UNC 50 LOT Unit price: $1105.00

Stock Markets Are HFT Algo Chaos

Take a look at the images below, which show just how much, and how quickly trading has change since 2007. We sifted through 1,152 trading days of U.S. Equity data, from January 2007 through August 16, 2011, and plotted this data for each minute of the trading day. There were 513 billion quotes and 34 billion trades, during regular trading hours. The time scale indicates the hour or minute in Eastern Time (Military format). Charts are colored by date according to the legend, which shows dates in the format M/YY (so 8/11 indicates August 2011). The most recent data on all the charts is colored red, with older data using colors towards the blue end of the spectrum. Click on any of the charts for the full resolution image.

Note the significant changes from late 2009 (light green/aqua-marine).

The below chart shows the one-second peak quote rates. Note how the spikes at 10am, which were driven by significant news events in years past, pale in comparison to normal trading today. Those 10am events would always saturate and overload quotation systems. They still do, but at much higher levels.

You can see that the rates in 2007 (way at the bottom of the chart in black) were about 100 times lower than the peaks of today.

One-Second Peak Quote Rates

MORE SOBERING DATA HERE


Publication Date: 08/18/2011
http://www.nanex.net


This report and all material shown on this website is published by Nanex, LLC and may not be reproduced, disseminated, or distributed, in part or in whole, by any means, outside of the recipient's organization without express written authorization from Nanex. It is a violation of federal copyright law to reproduce all or part of this publication or its contents by any means. This material does not constitute a solicitation for the purchase or sale of any securities or investments. The opinions expressed herein are based on publicly available information and are considered reliable. However, Nanex makes NO WARRANTIES OR REPRESENTATIONS OF ANY SORT with respect to this report. Any person using this material does so solely at their own risk and Nanex and/or its employees shall be under no liability whatsoever in any respect thereof.

8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance

From: http://www.alternet.org/

The ruling elite has created social institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance.

July 31, 2011 |

Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination.

Young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it. A 2010 Gallup poll asked Americans “Do you think the Social Security system will be able to pay you a benefit when you retire?” Among 18- to 34-years-olds, 76 percent of them said no. Yet despite their lack of confidence in the availability of Social Security for them, few have demanded it be shored up by more fairly payroll-taxing the wealthy; most appear resigned to having more money deducted from their paychecks for Social Security, even though they don’t believe it will be around to benefit them.

How exactly has American society subdued young Americans?

1. Student-Loan Debt. Large debt—and the fear it creates—is a pacifying force. There was no tuition at the City University of New York when I attended one of its colleges in the 1970s, a time when tuition at many U.S. public universities was so affordable that it was easy to get a B.A. and even a graduate degree without accruing any student-loan debt. While those days are gone in the United States, public universities continue to be free in the Arab world and are either free or with very low fees in many countries throughout the world. The millions of young Iranians who risked getting shot to protest their disputed 2009 presidential election, the millions of young Egyptians who risked their lives earlier this year to eliminate Mubarak, and the millions of young Americans who demonstrated against the Vietnam War all had in common the absence of pacifying huge student-loan debt.

Today in the United States, two-thirds of graduating seniors at four-year colleges have student-loan debt, including over 62 percent of public university graduates. While average undergraduate debt is close to $25,000, I increasingly talk to college graduates with closer to $100,000 in student-loan debt. During the time in one’s life when it should be easiest to resist authority because one does not yet have family responsibilities, many young people worry about the cost of bucking authority, losing their job, and being unable to pay an ever-increasing debt. In a vicious cycle, student debt has a subduing effect on activism, and political passivity makes it more likely that students will accept such debt as a natural part of life.

2. Psychopathologizing and Medicating Noncompliance. In 1955, Erich Fromm, the then widely respected anti-authoritarian leftist psychoanalyst, wrote, “Today the function of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis threatens to become the tool in the manipulation of man.” Fromm died in 1980, the same year that an increasingly authoritarian America elected Ronald Reagan president, and an increasingly authoritarian American Psychiatric Association added to their diagnostic bible (then the DSM-III) disruptive mental disorders for children and teenagers such as the increasingly popular “oppositional defiant disorder” (ODD). The official symptoms of ODD include “often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules,” “often argues with adults,” and “often deliberately does things to annoy other people.”

Many of America’s greatest activists including Saul Alinsky (1909–1972), the legendary organizer and author of Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals, would today certainly be diagnosed with ODD and other disruptive disorders. Recalling his childhood, Alinsky said, “I never thought of walking on the grass until I saw a sign saying ‘Keep off the grass.’ Then I would stomp all over it.” Heavily tranquilizing antipsychotic drugs (e.g. Zyprexa and Risperdal) are now the highest grossing class of medication in the United States ($16 billion in 2010); a major reason for this, according to theJournal of the American Medical Association in 2010, is that many children receiving antipsychotic drugs have nonpsychotic diagnoses such as ODD or some other disruptive disorder (this especially true of Medicaid-covered pediatric patients).

3. Schools That Educate for Compliance and Not for Democracy. Upon accepting the New York City Teacher of the Year Award on January 31, 1990, John Taylor Gatto upset many in attendance by stating: “The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions.” A generation ago, the problem of compulsory schooling as a vehicle for an authoritarian society was widely discussed, but as this problem has gotten worse, it is seldom discussed.

The nature of most classrooms, regardless of the subject matter, socializes students to be passive and directed by others, to follow orders, to take seriously the rewards and punishments of authorities, to pretend to care about things they don’t care about, and that they are impotent to affect their situation. A teacher can lecture about democracy, but schools are essentially undemocratic places, and so democracy is not what is instilled in students. Jonathan Kozol in The Night Is Dark and I Am Far from Home focused on how school breaks us from courageous actions. Kozol explains how our schools teach us a kind of “inert concern” in which “caring”—in and of itself and without risking the consequences of actual action—is considered “ethical.” School teaches us that we are “moral and mature” if we politely assert our concerns, but the essence of school—its demand for compliance—teaches us not to act in a friction-causing manner.

4. “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top.” The corporatocracy has figured out a way to make our already authoritarian schools even more authoritarian. Democrat-Republican bipartisanship has resulted in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, NAFTA, the PATRIOT Act, the War on Drugs, the Wall Street bailout, and educational policies such as “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top.” These policies are essentially standardized-testing tyranny that creates fear, which is antithetical to education for a democratic society. Fear forces students and teachers to constantly focus on the demands of test creators; it crushes curiosity, critical thinking, questioning authority, and challenging and resisting illegitimate authority. In a more democratic and less authoritarian society, one would evaluate the effectiveness of a teacher not by corporatocracy-sanctioned standardized tests but by asking students, parents, and a community if a teacher is inspiring students to be more curious, to read more, to learn independently, to enjoy thinking critically, to question authorities, and to challenge illegitimate authorities.

5. Shaming Young People Who Take Education—But Not Their Schooling—Seriously. In a 2006 survey in the United States, it was found that 40 percent of children between first and third grade read every day, but by fourth grade, that rate declined to 29 percent. Despite the anti-educational impact of standard schools, children and their parents are increasingly propagandized to believe that disliking school means disliking learning. That was not always the case in the United States. Mark Twain famously said, “I never let my schooling get in the way of my education.” Toward the end of Twain’s life in 1900, only 6 percent of Americans graduated high school. Today, approximately 85 percent of Americans graduate high school, but this is good enough for Barack Obama who told us in 2009, “And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country.”

The more schooling Americans get, however, the more politically ignorant they are of America’s ongoing class war, and the more incapable they are of challenging the ruling class. In the 1880s and 1890s, American farmers with little or no schooling created a Populist movement that organized America’s largest-scale working people’s cooperative, formed a People’s Party that received 8 percent of the vote in 1892 presidential election, designed a “subtreasury” plan (that had it been implemented would have allowed easier credit for farmers and broke the power of large banks) and sent 40,000 lecturers across America to articulate it, and evidenced all kinds of sophisticated political ideas, strategies and tactics absent today from America’s well-schooled population. Today, Americans who lack college degrees are increasingly shamed as “losers”; however, Gore Vidal and George Carlin, two of America’s most astute and articulate critics of the corporatocracy, never went to college, and Carlin dropped out of school in the ninth grade.

6. The Normalization of Surveillance. The fear of being surveilled makes a population easier to control. While the National Security Agency (NSA) has received publicity for monitoring American citizen’s email and phone conversations, and while employer surveillance has become increasingly common in the United States, young Americans have become increasingly acquiescent to corporatocracy surveillance because, beginning at a young age, surveillance is routine in their lives. Parents routinely check Web sites for their kid’s latest test grades and completed assignments, and just like employers, are monitoring their children’s computers and Facebook pages. Some parents use the GPS in their children’s cell phones to track their whereabouts, and other parents have video cameras in their homes. Increasingly, I talk with young people who lack the confidence that they can even pull off a party when their parents are out of town, and so how much confidence are they going to have about pulling off a democratic movement below the radar of authorities?

7. Television. In 2009, the Nielsen Company reported that TV viewing in the United States is at an all-time high if one includes the following “three screens”: a television set, a laptop/personal computer, and a cell phone. American children average eight hours a day on TV, video games, movies, the Internet, cell phones, iPods, and other technologies (not including school-related use). Many progressives are concerned about the concentrated control of content by the corporate media, but the mere act of watching TV—regardless of the programming—is the primary pacifying agent (private-enterprise prisons have recognized that providing inmates with cable television can be a more economical method to keep them quiet and subdued than it would be to hire more guards).

Television is a dream come true for an authoritarian society: those with the most money own most of what people see; fear-based television programming makes people more afraid and distrustful of one another, which is good for the ruling elite who depend on a “divide and conquer” strategy; TV isolates people so they are not joining together to create resistance to authorities; and regardless of the programming, TV viewers’ brainwaves slow down, transforming them closer to a hypnotic state that makes it difficult to think critically. While playing a video games is not as zombifying as passively viewing TV, such games have become for many boys and young men their only experience of potency, and this “virtual potency” is certainly no threat to the ruling elite.

8. Fundamentalist Religion and Fundamentalist Consumerism. American culture offers young Americans the “choices” of fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist consumerism. All varieties of fundamentalism narrow one’s focus and inhibit critical thinking. While some progressives are fond of calling fundamentalist religion the “opiate of the masses,” they too often neglect the pacifying nature of America’s other major fundamentalism. Fundamentalist consumerism pacifies young Americans in a variety of ways. Fundamentalist consumerism destroys self-reliance, creating people who feel completely dependent on others and who are thus more likely to turn over decision-making power to authorities, the precise mind-set that the ruling elite loves to see. A fundamentalist consumer culture legitimizes advertising, propaganda, and all kinds of manipulations, including lies; and when a society gives legitimacy to lies and manipulativeness, it destroys the capacity of people to trust one another and form democratic movements. Fundamentalist consumerism also promotes self-absorption, which makes it difficult for the solidarity necessary for democratic movements.

These are not the only aspects of our culture that are subduing young Americans and crushing their resistance to domination. The food-industrial complex has helped create an epidemic of childhood obesity, depression, and passivity. The prison-industrial complex keeps young anti-authoritarians “in line” (now by the fear that they may come before judges such as the two Pennsylvania ones who took $2.6 million from private-industry prisons to ensure that juveniles were incarcerated). As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed: “All our things are right and wrong together. The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.”

Streaming Football for $40.40

As an followup to the streaming football games post from last year.    Live247.tv just posted a deal for 6 months for $40.40 using the coupon code NFL4ME when you sign-up with this link.

Financial Podcasts

In my eyes a podcast is just an MP3 file. I use a tiny $20 SanDisk Sansa Clip MP3 Player to listen to music, audio books and podcasts. I use Winamp to sync the mp3s to the player. I use google reader to manage the RSS feed. Here is a list of financial related podcasts that do not have any of the mainstream media nonsense and interruptions.

Main Website	RSS	Info
King World News	Link	Around 5 interviews per week, each 10-25 mins long.
Financial Sense Newshour	Link	Around 5 interviews per week, each 15-30 mins long.
Goldseek.com Radio	Link	2 interviews released mid-week.
The Lew Rockwell Show	Link	~15 mins long released on Tues.
S&A Investor Radio	Link	45-60 mins released on Weds.
The Disciplined Investor	Link	1 hour long released Sunday Nights
DH-Unplugged	Link	1 hour long released on Weds.

No Job, free home for 1 year?

"Starting August 1st, the Federal Housing Administration will extend the forbearance period for unemployed homeowners in its programs from three or four months to a full year. That'll allow qualified homeowners to miss payments for 12 months before the foreclosure process begins."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2011-07-06-help-for-unemployed-homeowners_n.htm#

http://www.makinghomeaffordable.gov

So, collect an unemployment check and not have to pay your mortgage for 1 year now?!? What a mess. They really do not want to flood the market with foreclosures. What is wrong with renting?

Gold/Silver vs. 70+ fiat currencies

Enough said. Gold and silvers % gain/loss vs. 70+ fiat currencies in the first 6 months of 2011. What liquid saving account offered 5.7% interest?

http://goldsilver.com/re/includes/modules/print_new.php?id=12946

High-Interest Savings Accounts vs. Real Inflation Rate

http://lifehacker.com/5817597/five-best-banks-for-high+interest-savings-accounts list top five savings rates as:
Capital One: 1.10% (minimum $1,000 balance)
Ally: 1.04%
SmartyPig: 1.10%
ING Direct: 1.00%
Discover: 1.15% (minimum $500 balance)

The top five are under 1.25%. Meanwhile, the real inflation rate http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts as of May is 11%

If you were to store $1,000 USD of fiat currency for one year with the "best" saving bank you would have $1,011.50 or a gain of $11.50
If the real rate of inflation is 11%, that mean you are losing 10% of your purchasing power per year. I can see why this is a hidden tax as your saving account does not display a loss of 10% or $100

If you look at Gold's % Annual Change http://www.goldmoney.com/gold-research/gold-rises-in-2010-to-end-a-stellar-decade.html?print it has averaged 18.4% from 2001-2010. You would have not only maintained your purchasing power, but increased it. For those who say gold is risky, this displays saving fiat currency is risky.

Confluence of technicals = ~1440 the summer bottom in gold?

The 1^st chart shows gold has bounced of the 150 day simple moving average (SMA) since the summer of 2009.

The 2^nd chart adds the Fibonacci retracements measure from each year's winter lows to spring highs. The rule is buy the 50% retracement. The target is the -23.6% retracement. The stop loss is a break of the 61.8% retracement.

Will gold repeat 2010 of where the 150 day SMA meets the yearly 50% retracement to mark the bottom for gold? I think so. I will be a buyer in the 1425-1450 range. If I am wrong and gold breaks 1400, then I will still have extra USD's on standby to buy it even cheaper.

End of eBay deals on silver/gold coins

It looks like the end of deals (below dealer price) for silver/gold coins on ebay.

Over a year ago, you could stack the discounts:

8% - Bing (ended July 30, 2010) (was up to 35% in late 2009)
3% - Mr Rebates (suspended as of June 16, 2011) side note: ebay created its "Bullion Center" on the 15th.
2% - ebay bucks (paid quarterly)
1.5% - American Express (paid annually)
---
14.5%


If mr rebates and/or the other affiliate programs do not resume in 3 months (decided by ebay), then you only have 3.5% off from ebay bucks and amex.

Today with silver near $36….
Gainesville coins sells a roll of silver eagles for $807 + 18 shipping = $825 – 1.5% from amex = $813
The cheapest price on ebay is for a roll is $849 shipped. 849 – 2% ebay bucks – 1.5% amex = $820

So, for the first time that I can recall in the past 1.5 years, the dealer is cheaper than ebay!
Why? Look at the ebay fees calculator. The person who is selling the roll of eagles for $849 is only getting back $769.64 after the ebay and paypal fees!

I did not find any other non-dealer sites for deals. This should drive sales to dealers like Gainesville coins as what is the point in buying on ebay unless you want to play a premium for specific years coin.

Bottom line. I think this is the end of an era for deals on silver/gold coins on ebay as the seller fees are increasing while the buyer discounts are decreasing. It was great while it lasted in that I was getting "paid (in USD)" to exchange my USD for silver/gold.

Past 6 Months - Gas & Silver

Gas per gallon
$2.61  to $3.61
38% increase

Silver per Oz
$22 to $39
77% increase

Gas:Silver Ratio
.11   to .09

12 gallons of gas in a tank paid in silver
1.32oz  to 1.08oz

Proves if we were paid in silver, the cost of gas has gone down in the past 6 months.

Bernard von NotHaus Interview

Here is a 25 minute interview of Peter Schiff interviewing Bernard von NotHaus - http://www.schiffradio.com

Bernard was found guilty on making of counterfeit coins http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/20/us-crime-currency-idUSTRE72J46L20110320

I do not think this is counterfeiting, but more of an alternate choice to say a silver eagle or Canadian maple leaf.

Here is how liberty  dollar website looked back in March of 2009:
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090303160528/http://www.libertydollar.org/

In Utah, US Mint only silver/gold coins became legal tender.  I like the no capital gain tax in this act.  http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page72068?oid=124156&sn=Detail&pid=102055

Gasoline Prices

More and more of my peers are complaing about the constant increase in gas prices. They think it is due to the instability overseas. I asked everyone if they would rather purchase gold/silver/house for price appreciation and they chose a house. I still do not get it. When will the masses wake up to gold/silver? I can easily sell some of my gold or silver, but you cannot sell a chunk of your house. Plus, people are pissed that their house is not going up in nominal terms while their paycheck is being eaten away by gas/food. Everyone sees the price increase but does not think for one moment that the currency is losing value. Well, if you exchanged your USD for gold or silver, the cost of gas would be the same or even lower with silver. It seems extremely difficult for people see/understand this perspective.

Egypt is telling us Gold preserves wealth

Wow! Egypt bans the export of any form of Gold https://research.tdwaterhouse.ca/research/public/Markets/CommoditiesNews?documentKey=1314-WEB1950-1

"to preserve the country's wealth". Hmm, so Gold is a store of value?

Gold Silver Margin Increases

An increase in margin to buy or sell a gold or silver futures contract by the CME increases 30% on 11/9/10 causes the metals to sell off, but yesterday's 50% increase caused the metals to increase in price. Looks like the shorts were forced to cover this time at much higher prices.
The backwardation in silver continues. http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/metals/precious/silver.html

Feb 2010 $32.298
Dec 2015 $31.568
People want the physical delivery now and are willing to pay a premium. Anything still think $50 this year is still a pipedream? Posts: Jan 23, 2011
Nov 8, 2010

Acceptance of Gold

More proof of acceptance most recently by JPM. The major exchanges also accept gold as collateral.

2/7/11 - J.P. Morgan Collateral Management Offers Automated Use of Gold - http://investor.shareholder.com/jpmorganchase/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=547977

11/11/10 – ICE says will takes gold as collateral http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USLDE6AA12520101111

10/19/09 - CME to allow gold as collateral for all exchange products http://www.marketwatch.com/story/story/print?guid=8F1E8264-27B8-4E48-98C0-DFEFAA90D9D9

 

$42 Gold

Yes, the current book value of U.S. Treasury-Owned Gold gold is currently $42.2222 per troy ounce! Everyone thinks I am joking around, but here is the link http://www.fms.treas.gov/gold/index.html Who is correct? The market thinks $1389 per troy ounce is the correct price as of 2/18/11

IMF sub-site and SDR’s

Enhancing International Monetary Stability—A Role for the SDR? http://www.imf.org/external/np/pp/eng/2011/010711.pdf Hardly a peep on gold.

http://imsreform.org/ - Seems they are pushing for 1 world currency.

Cheviot's Sound Money Conference

Here is the link to the conference held on 1/27/11. The speakers include James Turk, Chris Powell, David Morgan and Hugo Salinas-Price.

I would convert the speeches to mp3 as each is at least a half an hour long.

I would rather listen to this conference than the nonsense on mainstream media.

Make a Pledge!

Watch the video.  This would be great!  And you are only charged if the debate happens (Krugman accepts challenge).

New FED Accounting Rules

I find this all hilarious.  This should confirm to everyone that Bernanke and FED economists will fight to the end to prove that central banking, and their theories that go along with it, can work.  Anyone who thought they had to accept reality at some point was wrong.  They just keep getting crazier.

The new accounting change essentially allows the Fed to denote losses by the various regional reserve banks that make up the Fed system as a liability to the Treasury rather than a hit to its capital. It would then simply direct future profits from Fed operations toward that liability.  This is convenient and better than the alternative of the FED facing insolvency, better for the FED and the banks that is.  


There is no market, it is simply a thing of the past.  It will not return until the FED destroys itself.  I strongly suggest considering this fact before putting too much money into something that does not reflect reality such as the stock market, a home, and any interest bearing assets.  Someone eventually has to eat these losses, don't let it be you.

Backwardation in Silver / $25-27 will be the bottom

James Turk pointed out in a recent post on the condition of the silver market - backwardation.
You can see this in plain sight. Compare the table below with gold/oil/uranium where those forward month prices are higher.
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/marketquotes/index.php3?market=SI

<><><><>

Jan 11	27.416
Mar 11	27.427
May 11	27.451
Jul 11	27.465
Sep 11	27.476
Dec 11	27.488
Jul 12	27.539
Dec 12	27.574
Jul 13	27.629
Dec 13	27.666

I believe $25-27 will be the bottom for silver. Once silver breaks $30, we will never see silver in the 20's every again when measured in USD's. $50 silver is not a pipe dream in 2011. The backwardation condition is just the groundwork for a blast to upside. With silver in the 20's, there is no reason not to exchange your USD's for silver from a financial standpoint. I understand that $1341 gold is not affordable for everyone to purchase every month.

It should be interesting, from a dealer perspective, if we see $25-27 silver in terms of premiums increases and delivery delays.

A note on gold. If gold breaks $1300 and tests the breakout price of $1265, I bet all of the weak hands who bought $1300+ in Oct-Jan will throw in the towel and sell…meanwhile the strong hands and smart money will be buying those shares/contracts as they foresee $1600 in 2011.

World needs $100 Trillion in the next 10 Years?

http://www.weforum.org/news/over-us-100-trillion-additional-credit-needed-support-global-growth?ol=1

This sounds like a move towards one world bank and a group that managers each countries debt. I bet the $100 trillion will be in the form of SDR's. The WEF does not mention gold…hmmm.

How is this not inflation???

Percent change at seasonally adjusted annual rates        M1                    M2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Months from Aug. 2010 TO Nov. 2010                   20.5                   7.2
6 Months from May  2010 TO Nov. 2010                  14.8                   5.4
12 Months from Nov. 2009 TO Nov. 2010                  8.6                   3.3

Source:  http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/current/

Sprott Physical Silver Trust Updates Investors on the Delivery Status of its Silver Bullion Purchases

Go here for more on the late delivery and concern of trust management:

"Frankly, we are concerned about the illiquidity in the physical silver market," said Eric Sprott, Chief Investment Officer of Sprott Asset Management. "We believe the delays involved in the delivery of physical silver to the Trust highlight the disconnect that exists between the paper and physical markets for silver."

As someone who frequents websites to see what physical is for sale to the average consumer there has been a strong, scary almost how strong it is, trend of longer and longer wait times for expected delivery of not just coins but bars and even scrap silver (gold too but much lesser of a degree). This is if they even are offering it for sale or it has not already been sold out. It is remarkable that anyone would call this a bubble right now, the laws of economics promise us this will go ape shit to the up side on. All that is needed is the first failure to deliver of physical metals from one of the major exchanges. This will set off a chain reaction of every paper metal holder in the world trying to claim what they thought was being held for them in good faith. It will be a good old fashion bank run on the exchanges and I predict they will be shut down and allowed to deny delivery. When, that is impossible to say. We are approaching the trigger event rapidly. I would be shocked if it makes it another 5 years, but you never know, the white shoe gang can be pretty creative with their ponzi schemes and at robbing the public blind.

Decade of Silver/Gold vs. Fiat

Here are the tables comparing silver/gold to all major fiat currencies from James Turk's recent post http://goldmoney.com/gold-research/gold-rises-in-2010-to-end-a-stellar-decade.html Enough said!