http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE49T9VI20081031
MCR wrote:
'You know I'm disappointed that some on this blog don't have better discriminatory or analytical skills. Stop chasing these distractive pieces of disinfo. They are so very easy to spot. Here, all are expected to do a little background research on their sources. We do not endorse hate mongers on this blog. And decades of experience have taught us that Neo-Nazis never put out anything reliable."
----------------------------------
JO wrote:
It's worth bearing in mind the dictum of the great JFK researcher Peter Dale Scott: "Disinformation, in order to be effective, must be 90% accurate."
To avoid muddying the treacherous waters in which we move, it's best, when posting warnings concerning the amero or any other putative danger, to do the research to come up with the best sources. This will avoid distracting misunderstandings.
When in doubt, http://www.oilempire.us/ is a good place to start as evidenced by the following comment:
"re: Amero comment at blog:
there may (or may not) be any truth to the Amero Conspiracy Theory, but an ultra right wing racist is not likely to be a place to learn any actual facts about the financial meltdown.
http://www.oilempire.us/map.html
Disinformation about Katrina
Media coverage of violence in New Orleans after the storm was greatly exaggerated and was used as the excuse for decreasing outside assistance to the survivors at their most vulnerable point. A few websites with a history of hoaxes (unintentional or deliberate) claim the levees were demolished -- the first was a white supremacist (Hal Turner) with a track record of violent threats (not investigative reporting). While Louisiana has a history of levees being breached during floods (ruin your neighbor to save yourself), the levees broke at the height of the storm, as predicted by many media articles for many years. It is unlikely the levees were deliberately breached, but it is true that New Orleans, if rebuilt, will have been ethnically cleansed of its poorest citizens. It is true that the US Air Force has researched weather manipulation for decades and boasts of a desire to control the weather by 2025 (exactly how much success they have had with this research is not publicly known). However, weather modification claims about Katrina distract from the fact that these superhurricanes show that climate change is here.
-----------------------------------------
http://www.alternet.org/rights/74255/
Computer Hackers Allege That Notorious Neo-Nazi Radio Host Is on FBI Payroll"
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
MCR wrote:
U.S. families brace for holidays without a home--
Take a second and read this. Sit with these families. Let's just stop a minute and walk a couple of steps with these people; the ones we all tried so hard to warn.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE49T01O20081030?sp=true
U.S. families brace for holidays without a home--
Take a second and read this. Sit with these families. Let's just stop a minute and walk a couple of steps with these people; the ones we all tried so hard to warn.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE49T01O20081030?sp=true
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
MCR wrote:
THE RALLY THAT WASN'T -- BACKING THE ECONOMY INTO A FATAL CORNER
Instead of cutting rates by .75 points today the Fed cut by .5. What effect did it have on the Dow?
A few years ago Japan mistakenly cut rates down to nothing. They couldn't give money away. We're moving sharply in the direction and the Fed knows it will have to cut again and again to simply delay the inevitable. The Fed Funds rate is now 1 per cent.
But when rates get to zero there's nothing left to cut is there? Usually that's the time when there must be enough left to cut to do some good. I see this short-lived rally as a failed last ditch effort to help McCain. Also as pump and dump, pump and dump.
In the meantime the auto industry is shaking out. Kerkorian is liquidating Ford stock and GM and Chrsyler look certain to merge. That means that Ford must go down, and I suspect it will be very hard. Just think of all the ancillary shutdowns that must follow: parts manufacturers and suppliers, trucking companies, dealerships, tire companies, steelmakers, car rentals, ad infinitum.
What will that do to the Dow? How many jobs go then on top of the 750,000 already lost and the maybe million more that are already in the pipe to go from the lack of spending thorughout the economy.
A bottom in the Dow 5000s look pretty good right now, but maybe not. It might go lower. It's just like what happened when they took oil prices that should have been around $110 a barrel and spiked them to$147 in the name of demand destruction. A storm was unleashed that couldn't be controlled. It still can't. Once they saw the effects ofthe $147 spike they had to shut things down faster than I think they had planned. Now, it's just fire-sale, grab-what-you-can-and-run time for TPTB. That's what happens when you play with fire.
CITIGROUP DUCKFEATHERS
As I recall, Citigroup and Ford have had a long history going back to the financing for the Model T. I also seem to recall that somewhere Citi bought Ford's Finance arm, but I might be wrong there. I'm not going to look it up but I wonder which bank handles Ford's banking services. So which bank would lose Ford's cash -- the money it useswith fractional reserve banking to create $9 or more in loans to buoya drowning balance sheet?I'm not going to take time to look all this up, but I just grinned a little.This will probably eventuate in a US gov't bailout of Ford and/orCitigroup. Let them fail or save them; either way, it's the anvil thatbroke the camel's back.
Drum roll please. Can someone please shout, "Timber!"?
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/29/news/companies/citigroup/?postversion=2008102914
*****************************
JO wrote:
Nouriel Roubini's Blog
Peak Money
Spy Fears: Twitter Terrorists; Cell Phone Jihadists
World's Mammals in Crisis (apart from the economic)
McCain's Real Petraeus Doctrine
US Special Forces Counter-Insurgency Doctrine
The Woman Greenspan, Rubin and Summers Silenced
GeoEye Releases First Half-Meter Color Satellite Image
Army of the Republic (novel)
From the book's jacket: "Read it while it's still fiction."
THE RALLY THAT WASN'T -- BACKING THE ECONOMY INTO A FATAL CORNER
Instead of cutting rates by .75 points today the Fed cut by .5. What effect did it have on the Dow?
A few years ago Japan mistakenly cut rates down to nothing. They couldn't give money away. We're moving sharply in the direction and the Fed knows it will have to cut again and again to simply delay the inevitable. The Fed Funds rate is now 1 per cent.
But when rates get to zero there's nothing left to cut is there? Usually that's the time when there must be enough left to cut to do some good. I see this short-lived rally as a failed last ditch effort to help McCain. Also as pump and dump, pump and dump.
In the meantime the auto industry is shaking out. Kerkorian is liquidating Ford stock and GM and Chrsyler look certain to merge. That means that Ford must go down, and I suspect it will be very hard. Just think of all the ancillary shutdowns that must follow: parts manufacturers and suppliers, trucking companies, dealerships, tire companies, steelmakers, car rentals, ad infinitum.
What will that do to the Dow? How many jobs go then on top of the 750,000 already lost and the maybe million more that are already in the pipe to go from the lack of spending thorughout the economy.
A bottom in the Dow 5000s look pretty good right now, but maybe not. It might go lower. It's just like what happened when they took oil prices that should have been around $110 a barrel and spiked them to$147 in the name of demand destruction. A storm was unleashed that couldn't be controlled. It still can't. Once they saw the effects ofthe $147 spike they had to shut things down faster than I think they had planned. Now, it's just fire-sale, grab-what-you-can-and-run time for TPTB. That's what happens when you play with fire.
CITIGROUP DUCKFEATHERS
As I recall, Citigroup and Ford have had a long history going back to the financing for the Model T. I also seem to recall that somewhere Citi bought Ford's Finance arm, but I might be wrong there. I'm not going to look it up but I wonder which bank handles Ford's banking services. So which bank would lose Ford's cash -- the money it useswith fractional reserve banking to create $9 or more in loans to buoya drowning balance sheet?I'm not going to take time to look all this up, but I just grinned a little.This will probably eventuate in a US gov't bailout of Ford and/orCitigroup. Let them fail or save them; either way, it's the anvil thatbroke the camel's back.
Drum roll please. Can someone please shout, "Timber!"?
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/29/news/companies/citigroup/?postversion=2008102914
*****************************
JO wrote:
Nouriel Roubini's Blog
Peak Money
Spy Fears: Twitter Terrorists; Cell Phone Jihadists
World's Mammals in Crisis (apart from the economic)
McCain's Real Petraeus Doctrine
US Special Forces Counter-Insurgency Doctrine
The Woman Greenspan, Rubin and Summers Silenced
GeoEye Releases First Half-Meter Color Satellite Image
Army of the Republic (novel)
From the book's jacket: "Read it while it's still fiction."
MCR wrote:
THE RALLY THAT WASN'T -- BACKING THE ECONOMY INTO A FATAL CORNER
Instead of cutting rates by .75 points today the Fed cut by .5. What effect did it have on the Dow?
A few years ago Japan mistakenly cut rates down to nothing. They couldn't give money away. We're moving sharply in the direction and the Fed knows it will have to cut again and again to simply delay the inevitable. The Fed Funds rate is now 1 per cent.
But when rates get to zero there's nothing left to cut is there? Usually that's the time when there must be enough left to cut to do some good. I see this short-lived rally as a failed last ditch effort to help McCain. Also as pump and dump, pump and dump.
In the meantime the auto industry is shaking out. Kerkorian is liquidating Ford stock and GM and Chrsyler look certain to merge. That means that Ford must go down, and I suspect it will be very hard. Just think of all the ancillary shutdowns that must follow: parts manufacturers and suppliers, trucking companies, dealerships, tire companies, steelmakers, car rentals, ad infinitum.
What will that do to the Dow? How many jobs go then on top of the 750,000 already lost and the maybe million more that are already in the pipe to go from the lack of spending thorughout the economy.
A bottom in the Dow 5000s look pretty good right now, but maybe not. It might go lower. It's just like what happened when they took oil prices that should have been around $110 a barrel and spiked them to$147 in the name of demand destruction. A storm was unleashed that couldn't be controlled. It still can't. Once they saw the effects ofthe $147 spike they had to shut things down faster than I think they had planned. Now, it's just fire-sale, grab-what-you-can-and-run time for TPTB. That's what happens when you play with fire.
CITIGROUP DUCKFEATHERS
As I recall, Citigroup and Ford have had a long history going back to the financing for the Model T. I also seem to recall that somewhere Citi bought Ford's Finance arm, but I might be wrong there. I'm not going to look it up but I wonder which bank handles Ford's banking services. So which bank would lose Ford's cash -- the money it useswith fractional reserve banking to create $9 or more in loans to buoya drowning balance sheet?I'm not going to take time to look all this up, but I just grinned a little.This will probably eventuate in a US gov't bailout of Ford and/orCitigroup. Let them fail or save them; either way, it's the anvil thatbroke the camel's back.
Drum roll please. Can someone please shout, "Timber!"?
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/29/news/companies/citigroup/?postversion=2008102914
*****************************
JO wrote:
Nouriel Roubini's Blog
Peak Money
Spy Fears: Twitter Terrorists; Cell Phone Jihadists
World's Mammals in Crisis (apart from the economic)
McCain's Real Petraeus Doctrine
US Special Forces Counter-Insurgency Doctrine
The Woman Greenspan, Rubin and Summers Silenced
GeoEye Releases First Half-Meter Color Satellite Image
Army of the Republic (novel)
From the book's jacket: "Read it while it's still fiction."
THE RALLY THAT WASN'T -- BACKING THE ECONOMY INTO A FATAL CORNER
Instead of cutting rates by .75 points today the Fed cut by .5. What effect did it have on the Dow?
A few years ago Japan mistakenly cut rates down to nothing. They couldn't give money away. We're moving sharply in the direction and the Fed knows it will have to cut again and again to simply delay the inevitable. The Fed Funds rate is now 1 per cent.
But when rates get to zero there's nothing left to cut is there? Usually that's the time when there must be enough left to cut to do some good. I see this short-lived rally as a failed last ditch effort to help McCain. Also as pump and dump, pump and dump.
In the meantime the auto industry is shaking out. Kerkorian is liquidating Ford stock and GM and Chrsyler look certain to merge. That means that Ford must go down, and I suspect it will be very hard. Just think of all the ancillary shutdowns that must follow: parts manufacturers and suppliers, trucking companies, dealerships, tire companies, steelmakers, car rentals, ad infinitum.
What will that do to the Dow? How many jobs go then on top of the 750,000 already lost and the maybe million more that are already in the pipe to go from the lack of spending thorughout the economy.
A bottom in the Dow 5000s look pretty good right now, but maybe not. It might go lower. It's just like what happened when they took oil prices that should have been around $110 a barrel and spiked them to$147 in the name of demand destruction. A storm was unleashed that couldn't be controlled. It still can't. Once they saw the effects ofthe $147 spike they had to shut things down faster than I think they had planned. Now, it's just fire-sale, grab-what-you-can-and-run time for TPTB. That's what happens when you play with fire.
CITIGROUP DUCKFEATHERS
As I recall, Citigroup and Ford have had a long history going back to the financing for the Model T. I also seem to recall that somewhere Citi bought Ford's Finance arm, but I might be wrong there. I'm not going to look it up but I wonder which bank handles Ford's banking services. So which bank would lose Ford's cash -- the money it useswith fractional reserve banking to create $9 or more in loans to buoya drowning balance sheet?I'm not going to take time to look all this up, but I just grinned a little.This will probably eventuate in a US gov't bailout of Ford and/orCitigroup. Let them fail or save them; either way, it's the anvil thatbroke the camel's back.
Drum roll please. Can someone please shout, "Timber!"?
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/29/news/companies/citigroup/?postversion=2008102914
*****************************
JO wrote:
Nouriel Roubini's Blog
Peak Money
Spy Fears: Twitter Terrorists; Cell Phone Jihadists
World's Mammals in Crisis (apart from the economic)
McCain's Real Petraeus Doctrine
US Special Forces Counter-Insurgency Doctrine
The Woman Greenspan, Rubin and Summers Silenced
GeoEye Releases First Half-Meter Color Satellite Image
Army of the Republic (novel)
From the book's jacket: "Read it while it's still fiction."
Monday, October 27, 2008
MCR wrote:
CITIGROUP -- MARKETWATCH PUTS SOME WRITING ON THE WALL
Dagnabit, at least we know who said it first.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid=%7B58fa552e-05b7-4f2e-b0f5-7dd531f414cb%7D&link=www.247wallst.com/2008/10/citigroup-c-won.html
That Harvard economist; the one they have called a prophet for prodicting all that I predicted... He will get his rewards in consulting fees and prizes. My success has been measured, from the start, by the number of lives we saved.
His story is remarkably similar to mine. I had never heard of him until today. I wonder if he's been reading me and -- if I thought it was worthwhile -- I'd might go see who wrote which stories first.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article5014463.ece
*********************
JO wrote:
Nouriel Roubini's articles have appeared in Le Metropole Cafe for many months, if not years. He broke into the mainstream in August with a profile in the New York Sunday Times Magazine.
It would seem that while his predictions were accurate, he made the mistake of timing them too precisely so that people who fixated on the dates alone triumphantly pronouced him wrong.
Dates are obviously the hardest aspect of predictions to pin down. It's a mistake to try to predict on the micro-level; there are too many unknowns and variables. And critics who don't understand the general principles one is promoting instead focus on minutiae, looking for trouble.
The Daily Reckoning, for instance, dispenses with dates but says that the DOW will hit the bottom at around 5000. It then performs the far greater service of explaining why it thinks so.
And the metaphors are worth everything: "a combination of fiscal and monetary stimulus in the early 2000s produced a huge party in the financial sector, with most of the liquor coming from residential mortgages. Banks all over the world got in the bubbly spirit. Too bad. Now, they’re all reporting in sick and calling the doctor."
Of course Mike's PG 13-rated description the other day was the sickness metaphor to end all sickness metaphors, literally.
CITIGROUP -- MARKETWATCH PUTS SOME WRITING ON THE WALL
Dagnabit, at least we know who said it first.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid=%7B58fa552e-05b7-4f2e-b0f5-7dd531f414cb%7D&link=www.247wallst.com/2008/10/citigroup-c-won.html
That Harvard economist; the one they have called a prophet for prodicting all that I predicted... He will get his rewards in consulting fees and prizes. My success has been measured, from the start, by the number of lives we saved.
His story is remarkably similar to mine. I had never heard of him until today. I wonder if he's been reading me and -- if I thought it was worthwhile -- I'd might go see who wrote which stories first.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article5014463.ece
*********************
JO wrote:
Nouriel Roubini's articles have appeared in Le Metropole Cafe for many months, if not years. He broke into the mainstream in August with a profile in the New York Sunday Times Magazine.
It would seem that while his predictions were accurate, he made the mistake of timing them too precisely so that people who fixated on the dates alone triumphantly pronouced him wrong.
Dates are obviously the hardest aspect of predictions to pin down. It's a mistake to try to predict on the micro-level; there are too many unknowns and variables. And critics who don't understand the general principles one is promoting instead focus on minutiae, looking for trouble.
The Daily Reckoning, for instance, dispenses with dates but says that the DOW will hit the bottom at around 5000. It then performs the far greater service of explaining why it thinks so.
And the metaphors are worth everything: "a combination of fiscal and monetary stimulus in the early 2000s produced a huge party in the financial sector, with most of the liquor coming from residential mortgages. Banks all over the world got in the bubbly spirit. Too bad. Now, they’re all reporting in sick and calling the doctor."
Of course Mike's PG 13-rated description the other day was the sickness metaphor to end all sickness metaphors, literally.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
MCR wrote:
THE HIDDEN GOLD PREMIUM -- Congratulations to Jamey Hecht
Last night a whole lot became clear about what's going on with gold prices. Not everything is explained but much more of the map has been filled in.
I was at the wedding of former FTW writer Jamey Hecht who also edited"Rubicon" for me. He and his new wife Sava were just beautiful together and the ceremony, at a time of great fear, was a welcome relief for all of us. It was probably the most beautiful wedding I've ever attended and I know we all send Jamey and Sava Hecht our best wishes. They are an amazing pair.
Seated at my table was an executive for a precious metals company. What he told me was something I have seen suggestions of, but nothing made it as clear as his explanation.
1. There's virtually no gold out there to ship, at any price.
2. Major dealers are paying some serious premiums to actually get physical gold. I was told that currently the major vendors are paying a $70 an ounce premium over spot price when they order lots of 5,000 or more ounces. Order fewer than 5,000 ounces and the premiums are much higher and even then there's no guarantee of delivery. So what's being charged small retail customers who just want an ounce or two? The best answer I could come up with is "whatever the markets will bear". So the so-called posted spot price is now meaningless and I smell a possible (I emphasize "possible") embryonic black market for gold emerging. That is something I hadn't expected for a couple of years yet.
3. Even with the premiums there is so little actual gold available to ship that half the big companies have stopped writing orders because they don't know if they'll ever be able to deliver. The other half are still writing orders on the hopes that they will get some gold --sometime.
4. The credit crash has made it difficult for large vendors to get float loans to finance purchases and expensive delivery and insurance costs. The only gold out there is dealer-to-dealer or whatever is being sold by private holders.
The problem appears to be global.
That means that I could take one of my Maple Leaves, add maybe $100 to the spot price, then add the standard Maple Leaf premium of say $10 anounce and then go out and demand an even higher price based on which dealer needed the coin the most. I can easily add $120 an ounce over spot to arrive at a reasonable market price. The executive's words were "Nobody is paying attention to the spot price anymore. It doesn'tmean anything."
That means that gold is being hoarded and kept off the market. There's only one reason for that IMO. Sure, one could argue that the hoarding is intended to drive up prices. But is that happening? Nope. Prices are low. What this says to me is that some with insider access are holding gold off the market pending a large breakout. When I suggested this the executive agreed instantly. It would have been like selling Iraqi oil at $40 a barrel instead of leaving it in the ground to sell at $80 or $100. Of course, that brings us smack dab into collision with the fact that plummeting oil prices are doing nothing to increase demand. TPTB and the economy itself have no choice but to unwind completely now. The plug was pulled too hard when oil hit $147. Whether that was inadvertent or intended we have yet to see but anyone hoping that falling oil prices will stabilize things is drinking some real bad Kool Aid.
Gold's breakout will be much different than what's happening with oil.
So we have opium/heroin/cocaine and gold being withheld from the markets at a time when cash is in short supply and credit is virtually non-existent. That confirms my position -- a position shared by many economic experts -- that the worst economic news is yet to come. The executive agreed that a major breakout in gold prices is imminent.
Yes, as one poster observed on the blog, things are happening very quickly. This next week is likely to be very tough. When I saw theWells Fargo chairman suggesting no bottom for six months I wondered how it could possibly take that long at the rate things are going."What'll be left in six months?", I asked myself. It's hard to say. I shared my analogy with the exec about how it seemed like the markets had dysentery and were on the verge of evacuating and he loved it."That's exactly it", he responded. "Very little is making sense anywhere and almost no one understands where they really stand. People are trying to redefine their positions at a time when there's nothing solid to stand on."
By definition then, we're a long way from the bottom. Because when the bottom is reached, everyone knows exactly where they stand... on the floor.
Right now all I'm focused on is getting through an election and an inauguration. I don't see any possible chance that anything remotely looking like a bottom -- with capitulation -- will happen before Bush and Cheney leave office. That's at least three months. It will be interesting to see if a strong psychological rally begins on November 5th. It will be a hollow rally and another round of folks going back to the bar after the Titanic has already been hit by the iceberg. In the meantime, those who get it are busy building lifeboats.
Stay low and stay dry. Make yourselves economically "small" in terms of exposure. I really believe the scariest part of this ride is yet tocome.
Oh, and for the person who yelled out that they wanted me to talk about ROOT CAUSES... That's all I have ever talked about. I wrote one book on them and published a newsletter that did nothing but talk about them for eight and a half years. You'll have a new book that talks more about them early next year. It will also more fully address the infinite growth paradigm.
Until you change the way money works, you change nothing. Money is still trying to work the way it has for more than a century -- but it's finding the resistance to that increasing as one paradigm ends and a new one begins. Let's pray that Alan Greenspan has an epiphany and suddenly remembers and understands what he did to help create this. I wonder if it will make him sleep better. Somehow I think he's sleeping pretty soundly. He did what he intended to do.
******************
JO wrote:
Some bullion now comes (if it comes at all) with a delivery period of up to three months and a hefty disclaimer: If they can't get a hold of the gold, you have the option of waiting another month or getting your money back; either the current price of the gold or the price when you bought it, whichever is higher.
What this means, of course, is that the dealers expect the price to remain suppressed for at least another three months, til the inauguration.
The schizoid disconnect between the suppressed price and the scarcity, even the unavailability of gold has been covered by GATA, the Gold Anti-Trust Association whose website, for those who might be new to this game, is http://www.gata.org/
PS: Sixty Minutes did a report this evening on Credit Default Swaps in which they asserted that, "Nobody knew how many there were."
Perhaps they should read another GATA-affiliated website, www.lemetropolecafe.com which provides the following on derivatives:
"as of December, 2007 there were:
$9 trillion Commodities Contracts (excluding gold) outstanding
$56 trillion Foreign Exchange Contracts outstanding
$393 trillion Interest Rate Market Contracts, outstanding
http://www.lemetropolecafe.com/chien_du_cafe.cfm
Congratulations, Jamey and Sava!
THE HIDDEN GOLD PREMIUM -- Congratulations to Jamey Hecht
Last night a whole lot became clear about what's going on with gold prices. Not everything is explained but much more of the map has been filled in.
I was at the wedding of former FTW writer Jamey Hecht who also edited"Rubicon" for me. He and his new wife Sava were just beautiful together and the ceremony, at a time of great fear, was a welcome relief for all of us. It was probably the most beautiful wedding I've ever attended and I know we all send Jamey and Sava Hecht our best wishes. They are an amazing pair.
Seated at my table was an executive for a precious metals company. What he told me was something I have seen suggestions of, but nothing made it as clear as his explanation.
1. There's virtually no gold out there to ship, at any price.
2. Major dealers are paying some serious premiums to actually get physical gold. I was told that currently the major vendors are paying a $70 an ounce premium over spot price when they order lots of 5,000 or more ounces. Order fewer than 5,000 ounces and the premiums are much higher and even then there's no guarantee of delivery. So what's being charged small retail customers who just want an ounce or two? The best answer I could come up with is "whatever the markets will bear". So the so-called posted spot price is now meaningless and I smell a possible (I emphasize "possible") embryonic black market for gold emerging. That is something I hadn't expected for a couple of years yet.
3. Even with the premiums there is so little actual gold available to ship that half the big companies have stopped writing orders because they don't know if they'll ever be able to deliver. The other half are still writing orders on the hopes that they will get some gold --sometime.
4. The credit crash has made it difficult for large vendors to get float loans to finance purchases and expensive delivery and insurance costs. The only gold out there is dealer-to-dealer or whatever is being sold by private holders.
The problem appears to be global.
That means that I could take one of my Maple Leaves, add maybe $100 to the spot price, then add the standard Maple Leaf premium of say $10 anounce and then go out and demand an even higher price based on which dealer needed the coin the most. I can easily add $120 an ounce over spot to arrive at a reasonable market price. The executive's words were "Nobody is paying attention to the spot price anymore. It doesn'tmean anything."
That means that gold is being hoarded and kept off the market. There's only one reason for that IMO. Sure, one could argue that the hoarding is intended to drive up prices. But is that happening? Nope. Prices are low. What this says to me is that some with insider access are holding gold off the market pending a large breakout. When I suggested this the executive agreed instantly. It would have been like selling Iraqi oil at $40 a barrel instead of leaving it in the ground to sell at $80 or $100. Of course, that brings us smack dab into collision with the fact that plummeting oil prices are doing nothing to increase demand. TPTB and the economy itself have no choice but to unwind completely now. The plug was pulled too hard when oil hit $147. Whether that was inadvertent or intended we have yet to see but anyone hoping that falling oil prices will stabilize things is drinking some real bad Kool Aid.
Gold's breakout will be much different than what's happening with oil.
So we have opium/heroin/cocaine and gold being withheld from the markets at a time when cash is in short supply and credit is virtually non-existent. That confirms my position -- a position shared by many economic experts -- that the worst economic news is yet to come. The executive agreed that a major breakout in gold prices is imminent.
Yes, as one poster observed on the blog, things are happening very quickly. This next week is likely to be very tough. When I saw theWells Fargo chairman suggesting no bottom for six months I wondered how it could possibly take that long at the rate things are going."What'll be left in six months?", I asked myself. It's hard to say. I shared my analogy with the exec about how it seemed like the markets had dysentery and were on the verge of evacuating and he loved it."That's exactly it", he responded. "Very little is making sense anywhere and almost no one understands where they really stand. People are trying to redefine their positions at a time when there's nothing solid to stand on."
By definition then, we're a long way from the bottom. Because when the bottom is reached, everyone knows exactly where they stand... on the floor.
Right now all I'm focused on is getting through an election and an inauguration. I don't see any possible chance that anything remotely looking like a bottom -- with capitulation -- will happen before Bush and Cheney leave office. That's at least three months. It will be interesting to see if a strong psychological rally begins on November 5th. It will be a hollow rally and another round of folks going back to the bar after the Titanic has already been hit by the iceberg. In the meantime, those who get it are busy building lifeboats.
Stay low and stay dry. Make yourselves economically "small" in terms of exposure. I really believe the scariest part of this ride is yet tocome.
Oh, and for the person who yelled out that they wanted me to talk about ROOT CAUSES... That's all I have ever talked about. I wrote one book on them and published a newsletter that did nothing but talk about them for eight and a half years. You'll have a new book that talks more about them early next year. It will also more fully address the infinite growth paradigm.
Until you change the way money works, you change nothing. Money is still trying to work the way it has for more than a century -- but it's finding the resistance to that increasing as one paradigm ends and a new one begins. Let's pray that Alan Greenspan has an epiphany and suddenly remembers and understands what he did to help create this. I wonder if it will make him sleep better. Somehow I think he's sleeping pretty soundly. He did what he intended to do.
******************
JO wrote:
Some bullion now comes (if it comes at all) with a delivery period of up to three months and a hefty disclaimer: If they can't get a hold of the gold, you have the option of waiting another month or getting your money back; either the current price of the gold or the price when you bought it, whichever is higher.
What this means, of course, is that the dealers expect the price to remain suppressed for at least another three months, til the inauguration.
The schizoid disconnect between the suppressed price and the scarcity, even the unavailability of gold has been covered by GATA, the Gold Anti-Trust Association whose website, for those who might be new to this game, is http://www.gata.org/
PS: Sixty Minutes did a report this evening on Credit Default Swaps in which they asserted that, "Nobody knew how many there were."
Perhaps they should read another GATA-affiliated website, www.lemetropolecafe.com which provides the following on derivatives:
"as of December, 2007 there were:
$9 trillion Commodities Contracts (excluding gold) outstanding
$56 trillion Foreign Exchange Contracts outstanding
$393 trillion Interest Rate Market Contracts, outstanding
http://www.lemetropolecafe.com/chien_du_cafe.cfm
Congratulations, Jamey and Sava!
Saturday, October 25, 2008
NOW HERE'S A REALLY INTERESTING READ.
Well Fargo's Chmn thinks a lot like we do. Very revealing about his belief that a hard-fast bottom is best. He gets that. For him, that would be six months from now. Wow! But all he wants to do is reignite the old infinite growth paradigm and he doesn't get Peak Oil.
http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/08_44/b4106000649486.htm
MCR
Well Fargo's Chmn thinks a lot like we do. Very revealing about his belief that a hard-fast bottom is best. He gets that. For him, that would be six months from now. Wow! But all he wants to do is reignite the old infinite growth paradigm and he doesn't get Peak Oil.
http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/08_44/b4106000649486.htm
MCR
Friday, October 24, 2008
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
Peter Schiff today on CNN. My jaw hit the floor and I yeehaed like the Dodgers had made it to the World Series. -- "This is a phony economy. There's only one thing to do and that's tear it down completely and build a new one from scratch."
We aren't the only ones who get it. Now if the damned Libertarians would just get Peak Oil. There's an alliance that just might save the world.
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING MAY CONTAIN LANGUAGE THAT IS OFFENSIVE TO SOME-- PARENTAL CAUTION IS ADVISED
As a writer I have always thought it my highest duty to most accurately describe events as they actually are; hopefully in the fewest possible words. I watched the markets with a microscope all day today. There is only one way to describe what I saw. Let's begin with a commonly accepted term: "The markets took a dump". What I saw today was markets that are deathly ill with dysentery. In the natural world it was a leading cause of death. All day the markets leaked and squirted and the internal agonies were all too apparent, as were some very strange noises. The eruption is inevitable; the evacuation must happen. Distance, splash guards and protective gear are recommended. Hang on to your gold because the Fed is flat out telling people a .75 rate cut is coming.
IMPLOSION PLUS -- Turn on the printing presses while prices are falling rapidly, at a point in time when nothing has shaken out. Do it when the biggest crashes are still coming. The snake is eating its own tail. That's my original line from maybe eight or nine years ago. Now the bite nears the heart.
Citigroup Update
This could be big and it could hurt them real badly. One of the reasons why I watched Citigroup so closely from the start is that I have been documenting their criminal behavior for eight years or more; especially vis a vis drug-money laundering. Sure, there are lots of lawsuits out there. But when TSHTF I have always looked at the most conspicuously dirty player first. That's Citigroup. There was nothing about them for days when the crash started three weeks ago. Silence. That told me a lot. It told me that Citi was in heavy play behind the scenes and under the carpet. Citi is the one that can pull the plug. You can bet that the people filing this lawsuit have some damn good evidence. "Those who win in a rigged game get stupid". That was not my original line.
http://newsticker.welt.de/index.php?channel=fin&module=smarthouse&id=799319
MCR
Peter Schiff today on CNN. My jaw hit the floor and I yeehaed like the Dodgers had made it to the World Series. -- "This is a phony economy. There's only one thing to do and that's tear it down completely and build a new one from scratch."
We aren't the only ones who get it. Now if the damned Libertarians would just get Peak Oil. There's an alliance that just might save the world.
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING MAY CONTAIN LANGUAGE THAT IS OFFENSIVE TO SOME-- PARENTAL CAUTION IS ADVISED
As a writer I have always thought it my highest duty to most accurately describe events as they actually are; hopefully in the fewest possible words. I watched the markets with a microscope all day today. There is only one way to describe what I saw. Let's begin with a commonly accepted term: "The markets took a dump". What I saw today was markets that are deathly ill with dysentery. In the natural world it was a leading cause of death. All day the markets leaked and squirted and the internal agonies were all too apparent, as were some very strange noises. The eruption is inevitable; the evacuation must happen. Distance, splash guards and protective gear are recommended. Hang on to your gold because the Fed is flat out telling people a .75 rate cut is coming.
IMPLOSION PLUS -- Turn on the printing presses while prices are falling rapidly, at a point in time when nothing has shaken out. Do it when the biggest crashes are still coming. The snake is eating its own tail. That's my original line from maybe eight or nine years ago. Now the bite nears the heart.
Citigroup Update
This could be big and it could hurt them real badly. One of the reasons why I watched Citigroup so closely from the start is that I have been documenting their criminal behavior for eight years or more; especially vis a vis drug-money laundering. Sure, there are lots of lawsuits out there. But when TSHTF I have always looked at the most conspicuously dirty player first. That's Citigroup. There was nothing about them for days when the crash started three weeks ago. Silence. That told me a lot. It told me that Citi was in heavy play behind the scenes and under the carpet. Citi is the one that can pull the plug. You can bet that the people filing this lawsuit have some damn good evidence. "Those who win in a rigged game get stupid". That was not my original line.
http://newsticker.welt.de/index.php?channel=fin&module=smarthouse&id=799319
MCR
Thursday, October 23, 2008
MCR wrote:
I LOVE TOM WHIPPLE!
For years now he has demonstrated the clearest grasp and most articulate voice on understanding what Peak means and how it plays out. He makes me feel like I'm playing in the best infield in baseball.
This is what I wrote about today. He wrote about it too because we can feel how many just haven't gotten it yet and we both knew what your laments would be. I think I can speak for Tom when I say that our biggest fears are that not enough people will get it in time.
Inside joke for Tom: I love ya babe! [Spoken like a true case officer,which makes me worry that I may have met one too many in the last thirty years.]
The CIA is Wall Street. And we know from declassified documents that the CIA understood and was following Peak Oil way back in the 1970s.
So, here's my team: Whipple at third, Ruppert at short stop, Heinberg at second, Simmons at first, and Campbell at the plate. Robinowitz is in left field (no pun), Darley in center, and Quinn-Bachman in right. Kane is third base coach. Rice Farmer is first base coach.
Stan Goff is the umpire.
Jenna sweetheart, you're the one sitting in the dugout spitting all the time. (Oh, am I going to hear about that. Pray for me fans.)
Now everyone go read Whipple before I get cranky.
http://www.fcnp.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3670:the-peak-oil-crisis-in-the-eye-of-the-storm&catid=17:national-commentary&Itemid=79
JO wrote:
You forgot Kunstler as pitcher, sweetheart.
I LOVE TOM WHIPPLE!
For years now he has demonstrated the clearest grasp and most articulate voice on understanding what Peak means and how it plays out. He makes me feel like I'm playing in the best infield in baseball.
This is what I wrote about today. He wrote about it too because we can feel how many just haven't gotten it yet and we both knew what your laments would be. I think I can speak for Tom when I say that our biggest fears are that not enough people will get it in time.
Inside joke for Tom: I love ya babe! [Spoken like a true case officer,which makes me worry that I may have met one too many in the last thirty years.]
The CIA is Wall Street. And we know from declassified documents that the CIA understood and was following Peak Oil way back in the 1970s.
So, here's my team: Whipple at third, Ruppert at short stop, Heinberg at second, Simmons at first, and Campbell at the plate. Robinowitz is in left field (no pun), Darley in center, and Quinn-Bachman in right. Kane is third base coach. Rice Farmer is first base coach.
Stan Goff is the umpire.
Jenna sweetheart, you're the one sitting in the dugout spitting all the time. (Oh, am I going to hear about that. Pray for me fans.)
Now everyone go read Whipple before I get cranky.
http://www.fcnp.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3670:the-peak-oil-crisis-in-the-eye-of-the-storm&catid=17:national-commentary&Itemid=79
JO wrote:
You forgot Kunstler as pitcher, sweetheart.
MCR wrote:
GOLD AND OIL PRICES
I've seen a few postings the lead me to think that panic and fear are creeping into people's thinking. Perhaps I haven't been clear enough. And let me say that everyone should take a breath. This is going to be a long process and there's too much urgency creeping in to people's thinking. If you cave in now you won't stand a chance against what's yet to come.
GOLD
For the longer term (maybe 30-50 years) I do agree that gold by itself may not be a permanent answer to anything. It may prove to be but my vision doesn't reach that far. From 2004 through the present day, however, I have recognized something that many don't seem to grasp and I have said it clearly in my lectures and writings.
Too many people see that the end of the petroleum-industrial age is here and are planning and preparing to live in a post-petroleum world. That is a big mistake. It's great to start repairing your soil, plant a vegetable garden, reduce debt etc. But what lies before us is what I have called the "Transition Period" -- a period of turbulence, uncertainty, possibly violence, and massive social and economic dislocation. However money will be defined in the future, it will most certainly have to have one quality. It must be tied and limited bysomething tangible that is also finite -- like energy is. Historically, over maybe six thousand years, gold has been that accepted refuge and it still is. The thing with gold is that it is known, recognized and accepted already. Consider the advantage of gold as opposed to say, trying to get people to accept something new as money. That work is already done with gold. Of all the options available, I have chosen gold as a PART of my plan to survive the"Transition Period" because if one doesn't get through that phase,whatever follows is moot. This is not for just the "rich and famous" as someone said. Anyone can start buying small amounts of gold for a few hundred dollars. No, one cannot eat gold. But one can carry it. One can measure it. One can trust that it is what it is; an unreactive metal that is always the same weight and same measure. One can trade gold for other things. It doesn't require someone to go and look up in tables or other material to find out what it is. It is simple and it is universally recognized as a store of value. Gold is part of a recommended mix of many survival needs, not the only thing I recommend. During the transition period it will offer choices that few other commodities, with similar characteristics will. It is by far not the only tool in my tool kit, nor should it be in yours.
OIL PRICES
I guess I am a little disappointed that so many folks don't seem to understand what's happening with oil prices. It's been on the map for a long time. TPTB are losing their control as must happen as the paradigm shifts. The $147 price seen this summer broke the backs of over-extended consumers. Demand destruction was too successful. Everything that has happened since was triggered by that, and I repeat that I believe the July price spike was intentionally induced.The collapse hasn't even begun to hit home. Millions more are going to be unemployed and the business shut downs have only just begun. The trickle-down effect hasn't fully hit home. The economy has crashed so far, so fast, that even plummeting oil prices aren't reigniting consumption. Unemployed people don't drive as much no matter what the gas price is and they won't until they have a job again. The problem is that most of them won't have jobs again. All the economic predictions are saying that waves of shutdowns, layoffs and firings are still coming. Airlines are almost giving away seats because flights are getting empty. I just talked to someone at the dog park who flew round trip to NY for $349 two weeks ago. Then I spoke to someone who had just bought a roundtrip to Chicago for only $179. As all the Peak Oil experts have been saying for years, a collapse in oil prices is a very bad thing that makes the so-called Bumpy Plateau look like the Rocky Mountains. Why? It de-inecentivizes investment in alternative energies and delays any efforts to wean ourselves from oil. Oil below a certain price makes it no longer economical to invest in wind, solar, tar sands, deepwater or any of the more expensive alternatives and the things that can tide us over. Those regimes are already showing signs of shutting down. A couple of years ago Matt Simmons suggested to me that setting a floor of $100 for oil was a good thing. I agreed completely. We must have some stability to prepare. It is clear now that falling oil prices are not going to stabilize the economy, so we shouldn't look there. They are only going to make the future less safe for all of us. That being said, the recents hints that OPEC may cut production are a good thing. They will help conserve a resource for which we still haven't got an alternative.
GOLD AND OIL PRICES
I've seen a few postings the lead me to think that panic and fear are creeping into people's thinking. Perhaps I haven't been clear enough. And let me say that everyone should take a breath. This is going to be a long process and there's too much urgency creeping in to people's thinking. If you cave in now you won't stand a chance against what's yet to come.
GOLD
For the longer term (maybe 30-50 years) I do agree that gold by itself may not be a permanent answer to anything. It may prove to be but my vision doesn't reach that far. From 2004 through the present day, however, I have recognized something that many don't seem to grasp and I have said it clearly in my lectures and writings.
Too many people see that the end of the petroleum-industrial age is here and are planning and preparing to live in a post-petroleum world. That is a big mistake. It's great to start repairing your soil, plant a vegetable garden, reduce debt etc. But what lies before us is what I have called the "Transition Period" -- a period of turbulence, uncertainty, possibly violence, and massive social and economic dislocation. However money will be defined in the future, it will most certainly have to have one quality. It must be tied and limited bysomething tangible that is also finite -- like energy is. Historically, over maybe six thousand years, gold has been that accepted refuge and it still is. The thing with gold is that it is known, recognized and accepted already. Consider the advantage of gold as opposed to say, trying to get people to accept something new as money. That work is already done with gold. Of all the options available, I have chosen gold as a PART of my plan to survive the"Transition Period" because if one doesn't get through that phase,whatever follows is moot. This is not for just the "rich and famous" as someone said. Anyone can start buying small amounts of gold for a few hundred dollars. No, one cannot eat gold. But one can carry it. One can measure it. One can trust that it is what it is; an unreactive metal that is always the same weight and same measure. One can trade gold for other things. It doesn't require someone to go and look up in tables or other material to find out what it is. It is simple and it is universally recognized as a store of value. Gold is part of a recommended mix of many survival needs, not the only thing I recommend. During the transition period it will offer choices that few other commodities, with similar characteristics will. It is by far not the only tool in my tool kit, nor should it be in yours.
OIL PRICES
I guess I am a little disappointed that so many folks don't seem to understand what's happening with oil prices. It's been on the map for a long time. TPTB are losing their control as must happen as the paradigm shifts. The $147 price seen this summer broke the backs of over-extended consumers. Demand destruction was too successful. Everything that has happened since was triggered by that, and I repeat that I believe the July price spike was intentionally induced.The collapse hasn't even begun to hit home. Millions more are going to be unemployed and the business shut downs have only just begun. The trickle-down effect hasn't fully hit home. The economy has crashed so far, so fast, that even plummeting oil prices aren't reigniting consumption. Unemployed people don't drive as much no matter what the gas price is and they won't until they have a job again. The problem is that most of them won't have jobs again. All the economic predictions are saying that waves of shutdowns, layoffs and firings are still coming. Airlines are almost giving away seats because flights are getting empty. I just talked to someone at the dog park who flew round trip to NY for $349 two weeks ago. Then I spoke to someone who had just bought a roundtrip to Chicago for only $179. As all the Peak Oil experts have been saying for years, a collapse in oil prices is a very bad thing that makes the so-called Bumpy Plateau look like the Rocky Mountains. Why? It de-inecentivizes investment in alternative energies and delays any efforts to wean ourselves from oil. Oil below a certain price makes it no longer economical to invest in wind, solar, tar sands, deepwater or any of the more expensive alternatives and the things that can tide us over. Those regimes are already showing signs of shutting down. A couple of years ago Matt Simmons suggested to me that setting a floor of $100 for oil was a good thing. I agreed completely. We must have some stability to prepare. It is clear now that falling oil prices are not going to stabilize the economy, so we shouldn't look there. They are only going to make the future less safe for all of us. That being said, the recents hints that OPEC may cut production are a good thing. They will help conserve a resource for which we still haven't got an alternative.
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