Oldtent Archives 2010

If doctors told members of Congress the truth about what’s wrong with them…

Click here to read the full commentary or post comments on this cartoon.

….which makes you a Goldophile…

….which may be illegal in Kentucky

Been following Firestone Ventures for years up 12.5% today- a penny. MNEAF - have held 4500 shares through big ups, bigger downs, almost bailed at .54 but had it when it was well over a buck too. Sold Taseko when it crashed few months back..now kick my butt. Wild rides and since I been in and out of some since 2001, I know the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat (as AC Wide World of Sports used to say). Buy good companies, good management, reserves but sometimes fear rules and other times we chase. If I could just keep the emotions out of it I would be rich. Still, very happy wit some holdings and what choice do I have. Can’t see putting it all in physical. My big concern, as so many others, is what will these really be worth in $ buying power? Most comfortable with what I can see and touch , even fondle a little - pretty kinky, huh? Is there a 12 step program for that fetish?

First, the U.S. tells us a few days ago that the oil spilled by B.P. in the Gulf of Mexico is gone. Presto, GONE.
Now an article in Science suggests maybe it is not gone yet. I say thanks to those who contributed data and interpretations to Science journal. Cheers. Equiz.

tinyurl.com/22q2bo3

Entering a Death Spiral?
Tensions Rise in Greece as Austerity Measures Backfire

By Corinna Jessen in Athens

The austerity measures that were supposed to fix Greece’s problems are dragging down the country’s economy. Stores are closing, tax revenues are falling and unemployment has hit an unbelievable 70 percent in some places. Frustrated workers are threatening to strike back.

The feast of the Assumption of Mary on Aug. 15 is the high point of summer in the Greek Orthodox world. Here in one of the country’s many churches, believers pray to the Virgin for mercy, with many of them falling to their knees.

The newspaper Ta Nea has recommended that the Greek government adopt the very same approach — the country’s leaders have to hope that Mary comes up with a miracle to save Greece from a serious crisis, the paper writes. Without divine intervention, the newspaper suggested, it will be a difficult autumn for the Mediterranean state.

This dire prognosis comes even despite Athens’ massive efforts to sort out the country’s finances. The government’s draconian austerity measures have managed to reduce the country’s budget deficit by an almost unbelievable 39.7 percent, after previous governments had squandered tax money and falsified statistics for years. The measures have reduced government spending by a total of 10 percent, 4.5 percent more than the EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF) had required.

The problem is that the austerity measures have in the meantime affected every aspect of the country’s economy. Purchasing power is dropping, consumption is taking a nosedive and the number of bankruptcies and unemployed are on the rise. The country’s gross domestic product shrank by 1.5 percent in the second quarter of this year. Tax revenue, desperately needed in order to consolidate the national finances, has dropped off. A mixture of fear, hopelessness and anger is brewing in Greek society.

Unemployment Rates of up to 70 Percent

Nikos Meletis is neatly dressed, and his mid-range car is clean and tidy. Meletis used to earn a good living at a shipbuilding company in Perama, a port opposite the island of Salamis. “At the moment, I’m living off my savings,” the 54-year-old welder says, standing in front of a silent harbor full of moored ships.

Meletis is a day laborer who used to work up to 300 days a year; this year he has only managed to scrape together 25 days’ work so far. That gives him 25 health insurance stamps, when he needs 100 in order to insure himself and his family — including his wife, who has cancer. “How am I supposed to pay for the hospital?” Meletis asks. Unemployment benefits of at most €460 ($590) per month are available for a maximum of one year — and only if he can produce at least 150 stamps from the past 15 months.

There’s hardly a worker in the shipbuilding district of Perama who could still manage that. Unemployment in the city hovers between 60 and 70 percent, according to a study conducted by the University of Piraeus. While 77 percent of Greek shipping companies indicate they are satisfied with the quality of work done in Perama, nearly 50 percent still send their ships to be repaired in Turkey, Korea or China. Costs are too high in Greece, they say. The country, they argue, has too much bureaucracy and too many strikes, with labor disputes often delaying delivery times.

Perama is certainly an unusually extreme case. But the shipyards’ decline provides a telling example of the Greek economy’s increasing inability to compete. Barely any of the country’s industries can keep up with international competition in terms of productivity, and experts expect the country’s gross domestic product to fall by 4 percent over the course of the entire year. Germany, by way of comparison, is hoping for growth of up to 3 percent.

Sales Figures Dropping Everywhere

Prime Minister George Papandreou’s austerity package has seriously shaken the Greek economy. The package included reducing civil servants’ salaries by up to 20 percent and slashing retirement benefits, while raising numerous taxes. The result is that Greeks have less and less money to spend and sales figures everywhere are dropping, spelling catastrophe for a country where 70 percent of economic output is based on private consumption.

A short jaunt through Athens’ shopping streets reveals the scale of the decline. Fully a quarter of the store windows on Stadiou Street bear red signs reading “Enoikiazetai” — for rent. The National Confederation of Hellenic Commerce (ESEE) calculates that 17 percent of all shops in Athens have had to file for bankruptcy.

Things aren’t any better in the smaller towns. Chalkidona was, until just a few years ago, a hub for trucking traffic in the area around Thessaloniki. Two main streets, lined with fast food restaurants and stores catering to truckers, intersect in the small, dismal town. Maria Lialiambidou’s house sits directly on the main trucking route. Rent from a pastry shop on the ground floor of the building used to provide her with €350 per month, an amount that helped considerably in supplementing her widow’s pension of €320.

These days, though, Kostas, the man who ran the pastry shop, who people used to call a “penny-pincher,” can no longer afford the rent. Here too, a huge “Enoikiazetai” banner stretches across the shopfront. No one wants to rent the store. Neither are there any takers for an empty butcher’s shop a few meters further on.

A sign on the other side of the street advertises “Sakis’ Restaurant.” The owner, Sakis, is still hanging on, with customers filling one or two of the restaurant’s tables now and then. “There’s really no work for me here anymore,” says one Albanian employee, who goes by the name Eleni in Greece. “Many others have already gone back to Albania, where it’s not any worse than here. We’ll see when I have to go too.”

No Way Out

The entire country is in the grip of a depression. Everything seems to be going downhill. The spiral is continuing unabated, and there is no clear way out. The worse part, however, is the fact that hardly anyone still hopes that things will improve one day.

The country’s unemployment rate makes this trend particularly clear. In 2009, it was 9.5 percent. This year it may rise to 12.1 percent and economists expect it to reach 14.3 percent in 2011. Those, though, are only the official numbers, which were provided by Angel Gurría, secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The Greek trade union association GSEE considers those numbers far too optimistic. It considers 20 percent to be a more likely figure for 2011. This would put the unemployment rate as high as it was in 1960, when hundreds of thousands of Greeks were forced to emigrate. Meanwhile, purchasing power has fallen to its 1984 level, according to the GSEE.

‘Things Are Starting to Simmer’

Menelaos Givalos, a professor of political science at Athens University, has appeared on television, warning viewers that the worst times are still to come. He predicts a large wave of layoffs starting in September, with “extreme social consequences.”

“Everything is getting more expensive, I’m hardly earning any money, and then I’m supposed to pay more taxes to help save the country? How is that supposed to work?” asks Nikos Meletis, the shipbuilder. His friends, gathered in a small cafeteria on the pier in Perama, are gradually growing more vocal. They are all unemployed, desperate and angry at the politicians who got them into this mess. There is no sympathy here for any of the political parties and no longer any for the unions either.

“They only organize strikes to serve their own interests!” shouts one man, whose name is Panayiotis Peretridis. “The only thing that interests me anymore is my daily wage. A loaf of bread is my political party. I want to help my country — give me work and I’ll pay taxes! But our honor as first-class skilled workers, as heads of families, as Greeks, is being dragged through the dirt!”

“If you take away my family’s bread, I’ll take you down — the government needs to know that,” Meletis says. “And don’t call us anarchists if that happens! We’re heads of our families and we’re desperate.”

He predicts the situation will only become more heated. “Things are starting to simmer here,” he says. “And at some point they’re going to explode.”

from der speigel via

www.voy.com/64855/

HOMEOWNERS’ REBELLION:
COULD 62 MILLION HOMES BE FORECLOSURE-PROOF?

Ellen Brown
August 18th, 2010
www.webofdebt.com/articles/homeowners.php

Over 62 million mortgages are now held in the name of MERS, an electronic recording system devised by and for the convenience of the mortgage industry. A California bankruptcy court, following landmark cases in other jurisdictions, recently held that this electronic shortcut makes it impossible for banks to establish their ownership of property titles—and therefore to foreclose on mortgaged properties. The logical result could be 62 million homes that are foreclosure-proof.

Mortgages bundled into securities were a favorite investment of speculators at the height of the financial bubble leading up to the crash of 2008. The securities changed hands frequently, and the companies profiting from mortgage payments were often not the same parties that negotiated the loans. At the heart of this disconnect was the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS, a company that serves as the mortgagee of record for lenders, allowing properties to change hands without the necessity of recording each transfer.

MERS was convenient for the mortgage industry, but courts are now questioning the impact of all of this financial juggling when it comes to mortgage ownership. To foreclose on real property, the plaintiff must be able to establish the chain of title entitling it to relief. But MERS has acknowledged, and recent cases have held, that MERS is a mere “nominee”—an entity appointed by the true owner simply for the purpose of holding property in order to facilitate transactions. Recent court opinions stress that this defect is not just a procedural but is a substantive failure, one that is fatal to the plaintiff’s legal ability to foreclose.

That means hordes of victims of predatory lending could end up owning their homes free and clear—while the financial industry could end up skewered on its own sword.

California Precedent

The latest of these court decisions came down in California on May 20, 2010, in a bankruptcy case called In re Walker, Case no. 10-21656-E–11. The court held that MERS could not foreclose because it was a mere nominee; and that as a result, plaintiff Citibank could not collect on its claim. The judge opined:

Since no evidence of MERS’ ownership of the underlying note has been offered, and other courts have concluded that MERS does not own the underlying notes, this court is convinced that MERS had no interest it could transfer to Citibank. Since MERS did not own the underlying note, it could not transfer the beneficial interest of the Deed of Trust to another. Any attempt to transfer the beneficial interest of a trust deed without ownership of the underlying note is void under California law.

In support, the judge cited In Re Vargas (California Bankruptcy Court); Landmark v. Kesler (Kansas Supreme Court); LaSalle Bank v. Lamy (a New York case); and In Re Foreclosure Cases (the “Boyko” decision from Ohio Federal Court). (For more on these earlier cases, see here, here and here.) The court concluded:

Since the claimant, Citibank, has not established that it is the owner of the promissory note secured by the trust deed, Citibank is unable to assert a claim for payment in this case.

The broad impact the case could have on California foreclosures is suggested by attorney Jeff Barnes, who writes:

This opinion . . . serves as a legal basis to challenge any foreclosure in California based on a MERS assignment; to seek to void any MERS assignment of the Deed of Trust or the note to a third party for purposes of foreclosure; and should be sufficient for a borrower to not only obtain a TRO [temporary restraining order] against a Trustee’s Sale, but also a Preliminary Injunction barring any sale pending any litigation filed by the borrower challenging a foreclosure based on a MERS assignment.

While not binding on courts in other jurisdictions, the ruling could serve as persuasive precedent there as well, because the court cited non-bankruptcy cases related to the lack of authority of MERS, and because the opinion is consistent with prior rulings in Idaho and Nevada Bankruptcy courts on the same issue.

What Could This Mean for Homeowners?

Earlier cases focused on the inability of MERS to produce a promissory note or assignment establishing that it was entitled to relief, but most courts have considered this a mere procedural defect and continue to look the other way on MERS’ technical lack of standing to sue. The more recent cases, however, are looking at something more serious. If MERS is not the title holder of properties held in its name, the chain of title has been broken, and no one may have standing to sue. In MERS v. Nebraska Department of Banking and Finance, MERS insisted that it had no actionable interest in title, and the court agreed.

An August 2010 article in Mother Jones titled “Fannie and Freddie’s Foreclosure Barons” exposes a widespread practice of “foreclosure mills” in backdating assignments after foreclosures have been filed. Not only is this perjury, a prosecutable offense, but if MERS was never the title holder, there is nothing to assign. The defaulting homeowners could wind up with free and clear title.

In Jacksonville, Florida, legal aid attorney April Charney has been using the missing-note argument ever since she first identified that weakness in the lenders’ case in 2004. Five years later, she says, some of the homeowners she’s helped are still in their homes. According to a Huffington Post article titled “‘Produce the Note’ Movement Helps Stall Foreclosures”:

Because of the missing ownership documentation, Charney is now starting to file quiet title actions, hoping to get her homeowner clients full title to their homes (a quiet title action ‘quiets’ all other claims). Charney says she’s helped thousands of homeowners delay or prevent foreclosure, and trained thousands of lawyers across the country on how to protect homeowners and battle in court.

Criminal Charges?

Other suits go beyond merely challenging title to alleging criminal activity. On July 26, 2010, a class action was filed in Florida seeking relief against MERS and an associated legal firm for racketeering and mail fraud. It alleges that the defendants used “the artifice of MERS to sabotage the judicial process to the detriment of borrowers;” that “to perpetuate the scheme, MERS was and is used in a way so that the average consumer, or even legal professional, can never determine who or what was or is ultimately receiving the benefits of any mortgage payments;” that the scheme depended on “the MERS artifice and the ability to generate any necessary ‘assignment’ which flowed from it;” and that “by engaging in a pattern of racketeering activity, specifically ‘mail or wire fraud,’ the Defendants . . . participated in a criminal enterprise affecting interstate commerce.”

Local governments deprived of filing fees may also be getting into the act, at least through representatives suing on their behalf. Qui tam actions allow for a private party or “whistle blower” to bring suit on behalf of the government for a past or present fraud on it. In State of California ex rel. Barrett R. Bates, filed May 10, 2010, the plaintiff qui tam sued on behalf of a long list of local governments in California against MERS and a number of lenders, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, for “wrongfully bypass[ing] the counties’ recording requirements; divest[ing] the borrowers of the right to know who owned the promissory note . . .; and record[ing] false documents to initiate and pursue non-judicial foreclosures, and to otherwise decrease or avoid payment of fees to the Counties and the Cities where the real estate is located.” The complaint notes that “MERS claims to have ‘saved’ at least $2.4 billion dollars in recording costs,” meaning it has helped avoid billions of dollars in fees otherwise accruing to local governments. The plaintiff sues for treble damages for all recording fees not paid during the past ten years, and for civil penalties of between $5,000 and $10,000 for each unpaid or underpaid recording fee and each false document recorded during that period, potentially a hefty sum. Similar suits have been filed by the same plaintiff qui tam in Nevada and Tennessee.

By Their Own Sword: MERS’ Role in the Financial Crisis

MERS is, according to its website, “an innovative process that simplifies the way mortgage ownership and servicing rights are originated, sold and tracked. Created by the real estate finance industry, MERS eliminates the need to prepare and record assignments when trading residential and commercial mortgage loans.” Or as Karl Denninger puts it, “MERS’ own website claims that it exists for the purpose of circumventing assignments and documenting ownership!”

MERS was developed in the early 1990s by a number of financial entities, including Bank of America, Countrywide, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, allegedly to allow consumers to pay less for mortgage loans. That did not actually happen, but what MERS did allow was the securitization and shuffling around of mortgages behind a veil of anonymity. The result was not only to cheat local governments out of their recording fees but to defeat the purpose of the recording laws, which was to guarantee purchasers clean title. Worse, MERS facilitated an explosion of predatory lending in which lenders could not be held to account because they could not be identified, either by the preyed-upon borrowers or by the investors seduced into buying bundles of worthless mortgages. As alleged in a Nevada class action called Lopez vs. Executive Trustee Services, et al.:

Before MERS, it would not have been possible for mortgages with no market value . . . to be sold at a profit or collateralized and sold as mortgage-backed securities. Before MERS, it would not have been possible for the Defendant banks and AIG to conceal from government regulators the extent of risk of financial losses those entities faced from the predatory origination of residential loans and the fraudulent re-sale and securitization of those otherwise non-marketable loans. Before MERS, the actual beneficiary of every Deed of Trust on every parcel in the United States and the State of Nevada could be readily ascertained by merely reviewing the public records at the local recorder’s office where documents reflecting any ownership interest in real property are kept….

After MERS, . . . the servicing rights were transferred after the origination of the loan to an entity so large that communication with the servicer became difficult if not impossible …. The servicer was interested in only one thing – making a profit from the foreclosure of the borrower’s residence – so that the entire predatory cycle of fraudulent origination, resale, and securitization of yet another predatory loan could occur again. This is the legacy of MERS, and the entire scheme was predicated upon the fraudulent designation of MERS as the ‘beneficiary’ under millions of deeds of trust in Nevada and other states.

Axing the Bankers’ Money Tree

If courts overwhelmed with foreclosures decide to take up the cause, the result could be millions of struggling homeowners with the banks off their backs, and millions of homes no longer on the books of some too-big-to-fail banks. Without those assets, the banks could again be looking at bankruptcy. As was pointed out in a San Francisco Chronicle article by attorney Sean Olender following the October 2007 Boyko [pdf] decision:

The ticking time bomb in the U.S. banking system is not resetting subprime mortgage rates. The real problem is the contractual ability of investors in mortgage bonds to require banks to buy back the loans at face value if there was fraud in the origination process.

. . . The loans at issue dwarf the capital available at the largest U.S. banks combined, and investor lawsuits would raise stunning liability sufficient to cause even the largest U.S. banks to fail . . . .

Nationalization of these giant banks might be the next logical step—a step that some commentators said should have been taken in the first place. When the banking system of Sweden collapsed following a housing bubble in the 1990s, nationalization of the banks worked out very well for that country.

The Swedish banks were largely privatized again when they got back on their feet, but it might be a good idea to keep some banks as publicly-owned entities, on the model of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. For most of the 20th century it served as a “people’s bank,” making low interest loans to consumers and businesses through branches all over the country.

With the strengthened position of Wall Street following the 2008 bailout and the tepid 2010 banking reform bill, the U.S. is far from nationalizing its mega-banks now. But a committed homeowner movement to tear off the predatory mask called MERS could yet turn the tide. While courts are not likely to let 62 million homeowners off scot free, the defect in title created by MERS could give them significant new leverage at the bargaining table.

Ellen Brown wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Ellen developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how the Federal Reserve and “the money trust” have usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her websites are webofdebt.com, ellenbrown.com, and public-banking.com.

…..up 7%…..which is one penny….hehe

…..BIG Volume too… 2 million plus

…..They are waking up IMHO

Bill H:

Recovery?

To all, so much for the recovery huh? Unemployment claims exploding again, the Philly Fed index negative for the first time in a year, retailers reporting very poor sales and housing numbers crumbling again. This was all predictable a year ago but not “provable” without the passage of time to discredit the “spinmeisters”. It will be very interesting to see whether these purveyors of “rose colored cow patties” have lost their credibility or whether they will have one more shot at fooling the public.

No matter, Ben Bernanke must really be freaking out now because his experiment has failed and is obvious to everyone! IN YOUR FACE QE is the only tool he has left. The “keeper of the currency” has no choice other than to destroy it!

A very interesting day today, the PPT has it’s hands full preventing a waterfall event and Gold keeps chugging along higher. THIS is what Gold is supposed to do, preserve and accrue value during bad times and “discount” future debasement. Even though many Gold bulls are distraught and many have already quit in disgust, I am very pleased with the action lately. Gold has broken out to the upside and is now only 2-3% from new all time highs. What I find very interesting are the shares. The listed shares while they have taken a breather from a year long out performance look better on the charts than they have for a while and many juniors are now quietly coming back to life.

In fact, my personal portfolio over time has become WAY over weighted in juniors and explorers because they underperformed so badly (they HAD to be bought) and in my opinion offered better value relative to Gold and the listed shares. It was a conscious effort on my part to “go down the totem pole” and create more leverage, I used to call it “unit leverage”. The HUI is down roughly 5 points as I write this and I see more of my juniors up today than down. This could be for a variety of reasons but I suspect the “shorts” (both legal and naked) are looking out ahead and beginning to cover.

I have said many times before that I believe once the top blows on the paper vs. physical scam that the juniors will move upward unlike any asset class in history. If you recall the “dot com” boom where any company with the name dot com in it exploded upward upon issuance or even changing their name. For instance, a fertilizer company named something like “International Methane” could have changed their name to “Cow Dung dot com” and rise 300% in a week’s time. THIS is what I believe will happen with gold shares, anything with word “Gold” in it will be bid up wildly until Wall St. actually hires some analysts that can discern the different mining companies from the real deal to the scams.

I have written many controversial pieces over time and was one of the first (OMG) to actually write about the “default” of the U.S. government, while many may argue “it hasn’t happened yet”, it is now so obvious mathematically that if you don’t see it now you never will! I say this because I am sure there are some out there laughing wildly at me for saying the juniors will become the biggest moonshot in history but as always time will tell. The funniest thing to me is that many Wall St. firms will not even place an order for junior mining companies while others (like my ex firm) will not even purchase physical metal anymore (maybe it got too hard to procure?). I can’t even tell you how many times the compliance department called me asking “what the hell are you doing?” because I was building precious metals positions.

My point here is that many are jumping up and down screaming BUBBLE at the Gold market. Real physical Gold and the mining shares can’t be in a bubble because so much REAL demand has been diverted to FAKE products and very few own the real thing! At the same time many firms will not even place UNSOLICITED trades for juniors nor physical metal! I can’t prove that Gold and the shares will explode anymore than the “green shootsters” could prove recovery, but common sense tells me when people finally figure out “they are not really in”, THEY ARE GOING TO WANT “IN” EVEN MORE SO! Now THAT is a recipe for a future and very REAL bubble!. Regards, Bill H.

That’s what I was thinking…

….likely it was real….Tommy Smothers and the Who were from 2 different Planets

Mineras Andes….up 8% today

Osisko ………….up 8% Today

a 10 Bagger since Oct 08 Lows…..geez…look at the chart….when do you sell something like this ?

That was a terrific rendition of My Generation; the whole band was on top of it.  Wonder whether the tension between Tommy S. and the band was real or put on…

Rubicon drills 22 oz/ton over 1.6 ft at Phoenix Gold

2010-08-18 09:44 ET - News Release

Mr. David Adamson reports

HIGH-GRADE GOLD INTERCEPTS CONTINUE AT RUBICON’S F2 CORE ZONE, RED LAKE, ONTARIO

Rubicon Minerals Corp. has provided an update of the latest diamond drill results at its 100-per-cent-owned Phoenix Gold project, located in the heart of the prolific Red Lake Gold district of Ontario.

Deep drilling in target area 8 confirms gold mineralizing system continues to depth

Recent drilling of deep target area 8 from both underground and surface has returned positive gold results in the southwestern part of the F2 gold system at depth. Underground drill hole 305-06 intersected 0.54 ounce per ton gold over 14.8 feet (18.6 grams per ton gold over 4.5 metres), and is part of a wider intercept grading 0.32 ounces per ton gold over 29.5 feet (10.9 grams per ton gold over 9.0 metres) at a vertical depth of 4,580 feet (1,396 metres) below surface. Surface holes F2-100A and F2-100A-W1, testing target areas 5 and 8 intersected multiple gold zones including a bonanza hit of 22.0 ounces per ton gold over 1.6 feet (754.2 grams per ton gold over 0.5 metres) at a vertical depth of 4331 feet (1320 metres) below surface in drill hole F2-100A and 4.16 ounces per ton gold over 1.6 feet (142.6 grams per ton gold over 0.5m) within a broader zone grading 0.27 ounce per ton gold over 31.5 feet (9.2 grams per ton gold over 9.6 metres) at a vertical depth of 3,563 feet (1,086 metres) below surface in drill hole F2-100A-W1.These results begin to fill in the deep target areas and demonstrate that the robust F2 gold system, as documented by over 492,000 feet (150,000 metres) of drilling to date, continues to depth.

That chart is only “scary” because it does not take into account the Dollar Inflation going on.  If it did, the chart would be unbelievably scary as a Dow investment has lost about 90% of its value since the year 2000.

Look back to 1987 on that same chart.  Do you see something very similar in the price structure?  You betcha!  “Price versus Value”………………..it is the only transparent game in town.  Take care………………………….. 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xZOrWK6d4g&NR=1

We’ve heard that you are going to be “moving forward” this weekend. Wow!

Posted: Aug 19 2010     By: Dan Norcini     

Dear CIGAs,

Click chart to enlarge today’s hourly action in Gold in PDF format with commentary from Trader Dan Norcini

The last time we had this setup going into September, GOLD ran four hundred dollars in five months. Is a repeat in the offing?

I see that the Obamas are soon to go on their sixth holiday this year, this time to Martha’s Vineyard. This must thrill the already overburdened American taxpayer!

Some of our politicians here have been doing the same kind of thing, causing a huge outcry. Hopefully, the problem has been knocked on the head for the time being.

This kind of mind set seems to have taken root over the last few years and it isn’t pretty.

http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=11493

Bill,
There are at least seven separate components when analyzing the future dollar price of gold. Mainstream analysts deliberately focus largely on just one (demand) while ignoring the other six. While any one individual component is bullish in of itself together they add up to an incredibly synergistic possibility for gold owners.

1. The multi-decade gold suppression, and the requisite amount needed for gold to truly be fair value.

2. Unfunded liabilities by the U.S. government, which by all accounts now exceeds 100 trillion dollars.

3. Quantitative easing (printing) covering all future deficits.

4. Fractional reserve gold derivatives, admittedly 100 - 1 by Jeffrey Christian.

5. Higher mining costs and dwindling production. (New supply)

6. Decreased availability of official gold reserves. (Existing supply)

7. Demand.

With such a confluence of bullish events it’s easy to imagine a gold dollar price of $30,000 an ounce. If gold were to unwind the suppression portion alone it could be $5,000 an ounce, while still ignoring the other 6 components. Does anybody think the fractional gold derivatives scam can go on forever? Is 100 trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities possible without default? Are multi-trillion annual budget deficits sustainable? Can gold mining ramp up production in any meaningful way?

In this context $30,000 an ounce isn’t a pie in the sky number. It’s a realistic number representing the end result of egregious fiscal decisions that to this day continue unabated. Adrian Douglas’ excellent work (”The Failure of the Second London Gold Pool”) mentions a $30,000 equilibrium price for gold if it follows a similar trajectory to the first London Gold Pool failure. This seems to be yet another corroboration of where I believe gold is heading. Most people never imagined $850 gold when it was stuck (fixed) at $35. Fewer now imagine a $30,000 gold price as a possibility today. $30,000 isn’t pie in the sky, it’s a barometer that is finally allowed to function.
James Mc

Gay bar to be built next to Ground Zero mosque (Video)

• August 11th, 2010 2:40 pm

Ground Zero Mosque To Help “bridge the great divide” Between Muslims and Non-Muslims

So says Imam Rauf, head of the Cordoba Institute and in charge of the project of developing this mosque steps from the worst terrorist act ever brought on U.S. soil. The Imam goes on to say that “We are Americans, we are Muslim Americans. Many of us were born in the United States. We have no higher aspirations than to bring up our children in peace and harmony in this country.”

One may question the saneness of building this mosque where Islamic terrorists brought down the World Trade Center. One may question the true ideology and purpose of Imam Rauf. One may also question where the funding for this proposed cultural center may be coming from. Certainly no one involved in the project has been forthcoming with that answer, but our government leaders seem satisfied. I only wish I had any faith in our government leaders, led by the extremely disappointing Mayor Bloomberg.

In any event, in the name of bridging great divides and of fostering peace and harmony, a proposal has been made to open a gay bar in the commercial space next to Cordoba House. Now although the Muslim faith does not look kindly on homosexuals, as the Imam Rauf says let’s all live in peace and harmony.

Video @

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