Gold World News Flash |
- Pento: Return to the Gold Standard & Real Estate to the Rescue
- Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver End Mixed
- SILVER Primer: Ag Has Been Real Money For 5,000+ Years, But Who Discovered it?
- Today?s ?Your Daily Intelligence Report? from munKNEE.com ? Your KEY to Making Money!
- Busy? Here Are Today?s Five ?Speak For Themselves? Headlines
- BoJ Follows In China's Foosteps, Defers To Fed On Easing
- The Global War on Children, part 1: Physical and Mental Health Assault
- In Praise of Private Charity
- Silver Update 4/9/12 Welfare State
- Something Wicked This Way Comes
- Obama Invests $5 Million In Bullshit Energy
- Two Kinds of Black Swans
- No If, Ands, Or Buts: Central Banks Will Have To Keep Printing Money For A Long Time
- Confiscation of Gold and Silver Coins Will Not Happen
- MIT Predicts Half of Humanity to Be Culled in Post-Industrial Crash
- Counterfeit Silver
- SEISMIC SHIFT: Brazil wants Say in BRICS director for IMF
- *Turmoil in Spain/ the Scam of the Irish 4 billion note to AngloIrish/Gold and silver rebound/Huge rise in support for Italy by the ECB
- The Shocking Truth About Unemployment In America In One Chart
- Total Gold Open Interest Falls Below 400,000
- A Too-Big-To-Fail Whale Tale, a Lousy Jobs Report, and “Lazy Methodology”
- David Morgan: Silver, Gold, Platinum, Electronics & Bulk
- From FutureMoney Trends
- Is the Correction Over?
- Never Mistake Intelligence for a Bull Market: George Ireland
- Bernanke Speech Released, Prepared Remarks Uneventful, Looking Forward To Q&A
- Gold charts are manipulated to look ugly, Embry tells King World News
- The Gold Price Appears to have Turned the Corner to the Upside Closing at $1,642.50
- A Case of Cult Envy
| Pento: Return to the Gold Standard & Real Estate to the Rescue Posted: 09 Apr 2012 04:05 PM PDT  Today Michael Pento told King World News that bankrupt countries around the world will be forced to return to the gold standard. Pento, who founded Pento Portfolio Strategies, also discussed real estate, tech, gold and cyclical bubbles. Here is what Pento had to say: "The prevailing economic wisdom of today is that the world's economy is healing due to the notion that the popped real estate bubble, which took down global banking systems, has now bottomed. However, the sad truth is that both the global housing market and economy are still in the Intensive Care Unit. They are merely struggling to breathe on the artificial respirator of low interest rates."
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver End Mixed Posted: 09 Apr 2012 04:00 PM PDT Gold climbed to as high as $1648.62 by a little after 9AM EST before it fell back to $1636.51 by late morning in New York, but it then rallied back higher midday and ended with a gain of 0.65% from last Thursday's close. Silver climbed to $31.93 in Asia before it fell back to $31.32 and then also bounced back higher, but it still ended with a loss of 0.6%.
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| SILVER Primer: Ag Has Been Real Money For 5,000+ Years, But Who Discovered it? Posted: 09 Apr 2012 03:54 PM PDT
Elements such as silver and gold have been known in nature since ancient times so there is no one person accredited with their discovery. Gold and copper are free metals and occur more often in nature than silver. Their colors would also have made them more noticeable to early man than silver. This means that silver was probably found after gold and copper were discovered. Silver objects have been found by archaeologists in Egypt dating back to 6000 B. C. The drawings on the walls in some pyramids show men extracting metals from ore, most likely silver.
Silver was described in writings from India dating around 900 B. C. The word "silver" dates back to at least the 12th century. It derives from an Old English word "seolfor," but its Latin name is "argentum." This probably came from the Greek, "argos," a word used to describe silver as "shiny" or "white." Read More @ YourDictionary.com
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| Today?s ?Your Daily Intelligence Report? from munKNEE.com ? Your KEY to Making Money! Posted: 09 Apr 2012 03:40 PM PDT *You nolonger need to spend time surfing the net looking for financial, economic and investment articles of substance. The editors of munKNEE.com read 100s of articles daily, find the most informative, and then post edited excerpts for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read.*Here is*the latest*Your Daily Intelligence Report which you can sign up to receive – and its free. Check it out! You won't be disappointed. So says Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.munKNEE.com (Your Key to Making Money!). To receive Your Daily Intelligence Report go HERE. We provide an easy "unsubscribe" feature should you decide to opt out at any time. [COLOR=#ff0000][/COLOR] 1. Dr. Nu Yu's Weekly Market Update on Silver, the U.S. Stock Market, 30-Year Bonds and Dollar Index In this update I analyze the developing trends in silver, the broad stock market, the US Dollar Index and 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds. Take a look. Words: 710 2. Fleckenstein: How Can So Many People...
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| Busy? Here Are Today?s Five ?Speak For Themselves? Headlines Posted: 09 Apr 2012 03:40 PM PDT The*5 headlines below have been personally filtered this morning from over 1,200 articles canvassing economic and resource news. Reading these headlines will keep you well informed and save you time in the process. Links are included for access to each article should you*wish to explore*a*topic more fully. Words: 285 So conveys Ian R. Campbell* (www.StockResearchPortal.com) in edited excerpts from his subscription service as presented (with permission) by Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.munKNEE.com (Your Key to Making Money!). This paragraph must be included in any reposting to avoid copyright infringement. 1. Illinois Admits $83 Billion in Pension Liabilities, $54 Billion in Retiree Health Liabilities, $9 Billion in Current Unpaid Bills; Who is to Blame? [LIST] [*]Overview:*An article on*U.S. State Government fiscal problems. [*]Source: Mish’s Global Economic Trend Anslysis, Mike Shedlock, April 8, 2012. [*]Reading time: 2 minutes. [*][Other reading: The Day of Gold-Pla...
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| BoJ Follows In China's Foosteps, Defers To Fed On Easing Posted: 09 Apr 2012 03:31 PM PDT Disappointing the liquidity-starved masses, the BoJ wholeheartedly believes that this time it's different and their economy remains more or less flat and shows signs of picking up leaving hope for another massive LSAP (and a disappointed SocGen) having to wait for the Fed to pick up the pieces of a global slowdown. The BoJ maintained the size of its asset-purchase fund, credit-loan program, and ZIRP noting that, via Bloomberg:
It seems the Japanese are following China's lead (since China's economy posted a trade surplus on expectations of a deficit and following the biggest import surge since 1989, this means that the hard landing is delayed as the PBOC is far more concerned about the pockets of food inflation noted yesterday and as such will be far less willing to proceed with the easing everyone demands) and deferring to the Fed for the next global liquidity pump (remember its flow not stock so this is bad news for risk-on - as can be seen in AUDJPY, Oil, and Copper). Gold is so far enjoying this as one by one global central banks check to the Fed's check-raise expectations.
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| The Global War on Children, part 1: Physical and Mental Health Assault Posted: 09 Apr 2012 03:22 PM PDT by Paul Adams, J.D., Activist Post
The globalists' first line of attack is government usurpation of parental rights and reducing the age of consent for dangerous and unnecessary medical procedures. Recently a paper entitled After-birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby Live? was published in the Journal of Medical Ethics. It argues that abortion should be extended to make the killing of newborn babies permissible, even if the baby is healthy. The paper is another example of how the Rockefeller medical establishment is dominated by a eugenicist mindset.
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| Posted: 09 Apr 2012 03:01 PM PDT by Dr. Ron Paul, Paul.House.gov:
This Easter season, I would like to applaud an organization that proves just how much private charity can accomplish without government mandates or intrusion. Convoy of Hope, based in Springfield, Missouri is equal parts grocer, clothier, heath care provider, first responder, educator, and logistics expert. It works with communities across America and around the world, bringing together other local charities, businesses, churches, and government agencies to alleviate poverty and help people in the wake of disasters. The tremendous scope of its activities serves as a reminder that government is neither the sole, nor the best, provider of goods and services to people in need. I recently had the privilege of touring Convoy of Hope's headquarters and distribution center. It was a humbling but encouraging experience. Frankly, I've never seen an organization so focused, efficient, and poised to do so much good for so many people.
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| Silver Update 4/9/12 Welfare State Posted: 09 Apr 2012 02:56 PM PDT |
| Something Wicked This Way Comes Posted: 09 Apr 2012 02:48 PM PDT by Charles Goyette, LewRockwell.com: Perhaps it's like shouting an alarm, unheard above the engine noise of two trains on a collision course. Or, screaming helplessly as a car slips its brakes and rolls toward a toddler playing at the bottom of the driveway. It is gruesome imagery and I apologize for invoking it. But if anything, it may be inadequate to the prospect before us. One only has to ask, "What is heading our way?" Headline: And don't kid yourself; they're not for target practice. It's .40 caliber ammunition, hollow point rounds that promise "optimum penetration for terminal performance." The department also has a bid out for up to 175 million rounds of .223 caliber ammunition. This isn't the flipping army, you know. This is an internal national police force, a department that didn't even exist 10 years ago.
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| Obama Invests $5 Million In Bullshit Energy Posted: 09 Apr 2012 02:37 PM PDT from Zero Hedge :
…At $333,333 a poop, pardon pop. Sorry folks. We only wish this was a joke.
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| Posted: 09 Apr 2012 02:29 PM PDT from Azizonomics:
The black swan is probably the most widely misunderstood philosophical term of this century. I tend to find it being thrown around to refer to anything surprising and negative. But that's not how Taleb defined it. Taleb defined it very simply as any high impact surprise event. Of course, the definition of surprise is relative to the observer. To the lunatics at the NYT who push bilge about continuing American primacy, a meteoric decline in America's standing (probably emerging from some of the fragilities I have identified in the global economic fabric) would be a black swan. It would also be a black swan to the sorry swathes of individuals who believe what they hear in the mainstream media, and from the lips of politicians (both Romney and Obama have recently paid lip service to the idea that America is far from decline). Such an event would not really be a black swan to me; I believe America and her allies will at best be a solid second in the global pecking order — behind the ASEAN group — by 2025, simply because ASEAN make a giant swathe of what we consume (and not vice verse), and producers have a historical tendency to assert authority over consumers. But black swans are not just events. They can also be non-events.
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| No If, Ands, Or Buts: Central Banks Will Have To Keep Printing Money For A Long Time Posted: 09 Apr 2012 02:29 PM PDT Gold crash on Fed tightening and euro salvation looks premature By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Until the rising reserve powers of Asia, Russia and the Gulf regain trust in the shattered credibility of the world's two great fiat currencies - if they ever do - gold is unlikely to crash far or remain in the doldrums for long. `Peak gold' cements the price floor in any case. It has been an unsettling experience for late-comers who joined the gold rush near all-time highs of $1923 an ounce last September. The slide has become deeply threatening since the US Federal Reserve took quantitative easing (QE3) off the table six weeks ago - or appeared to do so - and signalled the start of a new tightening cycle. Spot gold ended the pre-Easter week at $1636. "The game has changed," says Dennis Gartman, apostle of the long rally who now scornfully tells gold bugs that he is just a "mercenary", not a member of their cult. "They genuflect in gold's direction; we merely acknowledge that it exists as a trading vehicle and nothing more. There are times to be bullish, and times to be bearish … to every season, as Ecclesiastes tells us." Gold has risen sevenfold from its nadir below $260 in 2001, that Indian summer of American hegemony, when the 10-year US Treasury bond was the ultimate "risk-free" asset , and Gordon Brown ordered the Bank of England to auction half its metal. The stock markets of Europe, America, and Japan churned sideways over the same decade, and that precisely is the clinching argument against gold for contrarian traders. You avoid yesterday's stars like the plague. "Gold is far too popular," said James Paulsen from Wells Capital. It has reached a half-century high against a basket of indicators: equities, treasuries, homes, and workers' pay. Each interim low in price has been lower, and chartists tell us that gold's 100-day moving average has fallen through its 200-day average for the first time since March 2009. It is a variant of the `death's cross'. Ugly indeed, though Ashraf Laidi from City Index said the more powerful monthly trend-line remains unbroken. Whether or not the global economy has really put the nightmare or 2008-2009 behind it and embarked on a durable cycle of growth is of course the elemental question. The answer depends on what you think caused the crisis in the first place. If you think, as I do, that the root cause was the deformed structure of globalization over the last twenty years - a $10 trillion reserve accumulation by China and the emerging powers, with an investment bubble in manufacturing to flood saturated markets in the West, disguised for a while by debt bubbles in the Anglo-sphere and Club Med -- then little has changed. In some respects it is now worse. China's personal consumption has fallen to 37pc of GDP from 48pc a decade ago. The mercantilist powers (chiefly China and Germany) are still holding on to their trade surpluses through rigged currencies, the dirty dollar-peg and the dirty D-Mark peg (euro), exerting a contractionary bias on output in the deficit states - though China at least recognizes that this must change. There is still too much world supply, and too little demand, the curse of the inter-War years. That at least is the Weltanschauung of the pessimists. If correct, we face a globalized "Lost Decade", a string of false dawns as each recovery runs into the headwinds of scarce demand, and debt leveraging grinds on. There are two implications to this: central banks will have to keep printing money for a long time, and the Asian surplus powers - as well as Russia and the Gulf states - will have to find somewhere to park their growing foreign reserves. "These countries don't want other peoples' paper promises any longer," said Peter Hambro, chair of the Anglo-Russian miner Petrovalovsk. "There is no sign yet that we are returning to a well-balanced and normal financial system. The ECB is accepting bus tickets as collateral and the only way out of this debt and banking crisis will be inflation in the end." Russia is raising the gold share of its reserves to 10pc, buying the dips with panache. China is coy, but Wikileaks cables reveal that Beijing is eyeing "large gold reserves" to back the internationalization of the renminbi. China's declared gold reserves of 1,054 tonnes are tiny, though it may be accumulating on the sly. Sascha Opel from Orsus Consult expects Beijing to boost its holdings by "several thousand tonnes" over the next five years to match the US stash of 8,000 and the Euro zone's 11,000. We do not know whether China's central bank or wealth funds suffered a 75pc haircut on Greek bonds -- as Norway's petroleum fund did -- but they are undoubtedly nursing large paper losses in other Club Med bonds, and the precedent for EMU sovereign default is now established. The Euro zone has become a danger zone. Rules are not upheld. Some bondholders are spared, while others are not. Last week's jump in Spanish bond yields to 5.61pc - from 4.9pc a month ago - should puncture the illusions of those such as France's Nicolas Sarkozy who think the EMU crisis has been solved. The stock line in Berlin, Brussels, and Paris is that premier Mariano Rajoy has needlessly stirred up trouble by refusing to abide by Spain's original fiscal targets, but the contraction of the Spanish economy had made the targets meaningless. To adhere to such demands would have been criminal. As it is, Madrid is embarking on a further fiscal squeeze of 2.5pc of GDP this year, in the midst of deep recession, with unemployment already at 23.6pc and rising fast, and without offsetting monetary and exchange rate stimulus. Yes, markets are punishing Spain, not Europe's politicians, but that is because bond vigilantes know that the European Central Bank will be very slow to rescue an EMU "rebel" with fresh bond purchases. Agile funds do not want to be left holding Spanish debt while the country is hung out to teach it a lesson. In the meantime, the real M1 deposits have contracted at a 10.9 annual rate over the last six months in the peripheral bloc of Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, a leading indicator of trouble later this year. "The rate of contraction has accelerated, not slowed," said Simon Ward from Henderson Global Investors. As for the US, its economy in uncomfortably close to stall speed, and real M1 money has levelled out over the last four months. The underlying pace may not be much more than 1.5pc. The US Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) is sticking to its recession call, describing the warning signals as "pronounced, persistent, and pervasive." We will see what happens as markets prepare for the "massive fiscal cliff" at the end of the year - as Ben Bernanke called it - when stimulus wears off and a tax rises kick in automatically, and as the delayed effect of Brent crude at $125 feeds through. Fed hawks are making much noise, as they did in the Spring of 2008, but Goldman Sachs says they will be forced into QE3 whatever they now hope, probably in June. Hence its call that gold will rally to fresh highs of $1940 over the next year. Interest rates are falling in real terms as inflation creeps up, and that may be the biggest single driver of gold prices. "Even without QE3, the Fed is still ultra-accommodative and they are about to reverse this," said James Steel, HSBC's gold guru. Mr Steel said the "marginal cost" for mining gold is around $1450. That is when miners leave low-grade ore in the ground and weaker producers shut down. It creates a natural floor of sorts. Besides, `peak gold' is a more immediate reality than `peak oil', he said. There has been no equivalent to the shale revolution seen in oil and gas. World output has been stuck for a decade at around 2700 tonnes a year despite a fourfold increase in investment. There are no great finds, no Wittwatersrand this time. There will come a day then the bullion super-cycle finally sputters out. My guess is that it will come once Europe's monetary system has returned to a viable footing - either by real fiscal union, or by break-up - and once China's RMB becomes fully convertible and takes it place as the third pillar of the world's currency system. We are not there yet. ______________________ Eric King, KingWorldNews.com With many global investors still rattled by the price action of gold and silver, today King World News interviewed the "London Trader" to get his take on these markets. Here is what the source had to say: "Gold was trashed on Monday, while the Fed minutes essentially said nothing. When a central bank coordinates that kind of attack, it's war, of course it's war. This type of action is coordinated by Bernanke and the Fed and executed by the bullion banks. It's actually laughable if anyone thinks that was a legitimate selloff, on what was, in reality, no news." The London Trader continues: "No legitimate market participants were really selling. Sure there were some stops that were taken out, but it was the bullion banks that came in with their selling and this was what suddenly created the air pockets. There is massive sovereign physical buying going on right now. Interestingly, the sovereign buying is being swamped by paper selling. Sovereign buyers are aggressively buying tonnage every day at these levels. You have to remember their goal is to pick up physical and get rid of dollars. Nothing has changed. Interestingly, the Asian buyers have figured out the algorithms, like breaking an enemy's code in war, and they are using the algorithmic trading to get the best prices each day for physical gold at these levels. The trading is just taking place at lower levels because these bullion banks and the Fed, which manage the price of gold, get overzealous in their price fixing. But there will be a huge price to pay for their activity.... "An incredible amount of physical gold has been promised for delivery and the amount of promised gold is increasing every day. Meanwhile, back in the casino, the bullion banks don't know whether it's day or night. But out back there are trucks carting off some of the remaining Western gold to vaults in the East. There is very little low hanging fruit left for the paper guys to cover into. Meanwhile, you have the sovereign buyers who are saying, 'You know what, this elephant herd has kind of stopped now,' and they want more physical gold at these levels. Every day at the fix, regardless of price, sovereign entities are buying physical gold. They are averaging in at the fixes, as well as during the declines. On top of that, there are bids for hundreds of tons of physical gold starting at the $1,610 level and below. This is why the recent decline in gold halted $2 above that level. Regardless, these physical buyers will be purchasing at the fix going forward, even if the price of gold rises. This is why the smart money, the few individuals and entities that are in the know, continue to accumulate physical gold. These well financed individuals and entities are buying because they know they will be in profit. After ten days of the price being pummeled, after seeing these relentless sell orders come in, day after day, I can understand how smaller players can get demoralized. Many of these smaller players have been in the mining shares, and while gold has risen $1,000 to $1,500, many of the smaller companies are the same price. It's the same bullion banks doing this to the mining shares. The same players that are manipulating the price of gold and silver. The bullion banks are naked short these mining shares in an effort to keep the prices capped. This is why when you look at the OTC Reports, in the latest quarterly report, there are $150 billion dollars worth of certain derivatives. These are not futures, options or even swaps. JP Morgan and HSBC control over 97% of all of the gold derivatives. When you think about it, this is a mind-blowing number. So this is a war. This is actual warfare where the central banks and their agents are targeting sentiment. You think the Fed and the bullion banks don't monitor King World News? Of course they do. There is a war going on here. This is a war against gold and holders of gold and the gold shares. They are being targeted. The bullion banks are so naked short both gold and silver, and they owe so much physical metal to market participants, that this has become like hell for them. They are starting to prey on each other. We are now at the point where these bullion banks are forced to fight a day trading battle each day, sometimes against each other. We are now to the end game. The bullion banks are so naked short gold and silver it's unimaginable. They owe so much physical metal to market participants and more physical purchases are being scaled in every day. The sovereign buyers are taking down huge size, we're talking serious tonnage. The bottom line here is the leverage by the bullion banks is extraordinarily massive, and players have to remember, eventually it has to get unwound. Jim Sinclair recently stated, 'Overvaluation in the gold market will be something to behold.' I can promise you, his statement will be proven correct." _______________________ Fed injections can be hard habit to kick By Michael Mackenzie in New York Addiction is debilitating and this week illustrates just how dependent financial markets have become on a regular infusion of easy money from the Federal Reserve. Any habit is tough to break and for more than three years, the central bank has supplied investors and traders with near zero overnight interest rates, two rounds of "quantitative easing" or large scale bond purchases and Operation Twist, set to end in June. So perhaps it was a genuine shock for some investors to peruse on Tuesday the minutes from March's Fed meeting, which indicated less willingness among policy makers to pursue a third round of QE. The result was a minor tempest of selling that swept across markets led by falls in gold, US Treasury prices and equities. Other risky assets, such as corporate and mortgage bonds also weakened, sending a signal that investors remain reliant on the Fed keeping its monetary fire hose wide open. For now investors should recognise that the prospect of QE3 remains conditional, an important tool for the Fed to implement should the global economy sag or the eurozone debt saga take a turn for the worse. It's very much an emergency measure and should be seen as such. With official overnight rates confined near zero and the Fed conducting the Twist, whereby it buys long term Treasuries, the cost of new mortgages and car loans remains historically low. But some investors want more and are actively positioned for greater bond purchases from the Fed in the coming months. For example, Bill Gross at Pimco has positioned just over half his total return fund in favour of mortgages, seen as the type of bonds that the Fed will buy under QE3. And following their bout of midweek jitters, the QE3 backers in the markets were riding again on Friday after the March jobs report revealed 120,000 new hires, well below the consensus estimate of 203,000 and the weakest monthly gain since October. Even a lower unemployment rate of 8.2 per cent, from 8.3 per cent, reflects a decline in the labour force, suggesting people are giving up looking for work. So, after three prior months of solid job growth against the backdrop of mild winter weather that had pushed policy makers to downplay introducing QE3 when they met last month, the odds are once more tilted in favour of greater monetary largesse from the Fed. It now seems likely that policy makers will hint more openly about QE3 when they meet later this month, worried that the economy may emulate its summer slumps of the past two years. Trades geared towards QE3 include buying gold and other dollar-denominated commodities. Greater use of the printing press by the Fed is seen fanning inflation concerns, hurting the dollar and boosting demand for gold. Higher commodity prices, however, are a cost borne by businesses and consumers and this has mitigated the economic stimulus provided by prior bouts of QE. Higher equity prices, alas, can't offset pain at the petrol pump and the supermarket for many consumers. All that raises the prospect that introducing QE3 simply runs the risk of entrenching the economy in its post-financial crisis mode of a stop and start recovery. In fact, advocates of QE3 are really betting that the Fed will err far more on the side of risking much higher inflation in the long run as it seeks to lower the unemployment rate towards 7 per cent. These investors point to Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's comments that a major mistake during the 1930s was the early tightening of policy, a decision he does not want to repeat. All this easy money is storing up plenty of trouble down the road for the Treasury market. The manipulation of interest rates, which lowers the government's cost of financing its debt and rewards opportunistic bond traders, has anchored the 10-year yield at just above 2 per cent. That is well below the current annualised inflation rate of 2.9 per cent, representing a loss in purchasing power for long term investors. For now, though, investors want another shot of QE to spur higher equity, bond and gold prices. More weak jobs data are likely to push the Fed down that road and intensify the market's dependency. _______________________ HUSSMAN: There's No Jobs Recovery, Just Older Workers 'Desperate' To Grab Any Menial Job They Can Joe Weisenthal In his latest weekly commentary, fund manager John Hussman takes on a few ideas. First he says that Friday's jobs report wasn't a surprise, and that April will be worse. Then he talks about the liquidity-fueled bubble, and a market addicted to more Fed sugar. Then he takes on the idea that there's been some fundamental improvement in the economy since the market bottom. What looks like job growth, he says, really just reeks of desperation. Last week, we observed "Real income declined month-over-month in the latest report, which is very much at odds with the job creation figures unless that job creation reflects extraordinarily low-paying jobs. Real disposable income growth has now dropped to just 0.3% year-over-year, which is lower than the rate that is typically observed even in recessions." It wasn't quite clear what was going on until I read a comment by David Rosenberg, who noted that much of the recent growth in payrolls has been in "55 years and over" cohort. Suddenly, 2 and 2 became 4. If you dig into the payroll data, the picture that emerges is breathtaking. Since the recession "ended" in June 2009, total non-farm payrolls in the U.S. have grown by 1.84 million jobs. However, if we look at workers 55 years of age and over, we find that employment in that group has increased by 2.96 million jobs. In contrast, employment among workers under age 55 has actually contracted by 1.12 million jobs. Even over the past year, the vast majority of job creation has been in the 55-and-over group, while employment has been sluggish for all other workers, and has already turned down.  For most of history prior to the late-1990's, employment growth in the 55-and-over cohort was a fairly small and stable segment of total employment growth. Undoubtedly, part of the recent increase has simply been a change in the classification of existing workers as they've aged (1945 + 55 = 2000, so the we would have expected to see some gradual bulge in this bracket since 2000 due to aging baby boomers). But the shift is too large to be explained simply by reclassification. Something more troubling has been underway. Beginning first with Alan Greenspan, and then with Ben Bernanke, the Fed has increasingly pursued policies of suppressing interest rates, even driving real interest rates to negative levels after inflation. Combine this with the bursting of two Fed-enabled (if not Fed-induced) bubbles - one in stocks and one in housing, and the over-55 cohort has suffered an assault on its financial security: a difficult trifecta that includes the loss of interest income, the loss of portfolio value, and the loss of home equity. All of these have combined to provoke a delay in retirement plans and a need for these individuals to re-enter the labor force. In short, what we've observed in the employment figures is not recovery, but desperation. Having starved savers of interest income, and having repeatedly subjected investors to Fed-induced financial bubbles that create volatility without durable returns, the Fed has successfully provoked job growth of the obligatory, low-wage variety. Over the past year, the majority of this growth has been in the 55-and-over cohort, while growth has turned down among other workers. Read the whole thing > _______________________ Got Gold You Can Hold? Got Silver You Can Squeeze? It's NOT Too Late To Accumulate!!! 
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| Confiscation of Gold and Silver Coins Will Not Happen Posted: 09 Apr 2012 02:17 PM PDT By Greg Hunter's USAWatchdog.com Dear CIGAs, People ask me on a consistent basis if I think the government will confiscate their gold and silver coins if times get rough. I feel there is little chance of this happening, and here's why. Gold and silver coins are predominantly held by the wealthy (especially gold). The Continue reading Confiscation of Gold and Silver Coins Will Not Happen
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| MIT Predicts Half of Humanity to Be Culled in Post-Industrial Crash Posted: 09 Apr 2012 02:02 PM PDT Researchers claim that only global government can save humanity, echoing MIT/Club of Rome model for collapse by 2030 by Aaron Dykes, Info Wars:
Will 5 billion people perish from the earth in the coming century? That's what the controversial elitist think tank, the Club of Rome, predicted back in 1972. Decades after its publication, advocates of world government are still pushing its predictions as a call to curb mankind's footprint on the earth. Australian physicist Graham Turner has recently made news again after revisiting computer models MIT researchers created for the Club of Rome's 1972 publication that sees a drastic decline in human population coming in relation to a increasing scarcity of resources. Turner's basic conclusions, however, give away the agenda in plain sight. "The world is on track for disaster," he bluntly states, while suggesting that "unlimited economic growth" is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint. The neo-Malthusian Club of Rome has once again surfaced– at a time when environmentalists are demanding world government to save the earth– to present computer models it developed with MIT. It predicts a stark future where limited resources like oil, food and water supposedly trigger a crash that ends with a precipitous reduction in the human population. The graph, while failing to provide actual numbers on the Y axis, appears to show a world population level in 2100 approximately equal to the almost 4.5 billion people in 1980, a decline of more than 5 billion from projected peak numbers (which could be even higher):
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| Posted: 09 Apr 2012 01:56 PM PDT from thevictoryreport1 : |
| SEISMIC SHIFT: Brazil wants Say in BRICS director for IMF Posted: 09 Apr 2012 01:48 PM PDT from RT America:
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff visited US President Obama on Monday. Brazil, a member of the BRICS nations, has now overthrown the UK as the sixth largest world economy. Last week the BRICS countries made a bold move to start backing away from the dollar and have proposed to start using their respective currency – and Rousseff is believed to be seeking the position of president of the World Bank. Eva Golinger, author and lawyer, joins us to give us insight on what the BRICS nations hope to accomplish.
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| Posted: 09 Apr 2012 01:41 PM PDT by Harvey Organ, HarveyOrgan.Blogspot.ca: Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen: The price of gold rose today to finish at $1642.50 for a gain of $14.40, Silver fell by 21 cents to $31.90 as this metal was the object of interest to our bankers. Today, news of Italy being again supported by the ECB as this central bank has accumulated 270 billion euros worth of bonds from this nation. Spain, has yet to report. Last month the ECB has supplied 150 billion euros of support to Spain, as the lTRO seems to be waning as interest rates are rising in these two PIIGS nations. On the weekend there was a curious paper written by Jan Hatzius that I want to draw to your attention namely that the Fed is now more concerned with "flow" of treasuries than "total stock". I will go into all of these important stories for you to maul over. On Friday, we received the jobs report and it was lousy with only 120,000 jobs added. We had a 90,000 plug B and D plus another seasonal adjustments. It brought the jobs report to a positive instead of a real negative. Also on Friday we received the COT report on positions by our major players. So without further ado, let us head over to the comex and assess trading. Read More @ HarveyOrgan.Blogspot.ca
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| The Shocking Truth About Unemployment In America In One Chart Posted: 09 Apr 2012 01:38 PM PDT from The Economic Collapse Blog:
Read More @ TheEconomicCollpaseBlog.com
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| Total Gold Open Interest Falls Below 400,000 Posted: 09 Apr 2012 01:30 PM PDT from TF Metals Report:
I don't know. Maybe you think I'm crazy for harping on this so much. But, I'm here to tell ya, this is a big deal. I can't remember the last time the total gold open interest on the Comex was under 400,000! And now here, in 2012 with price at $1650 and interest/attention in gold at an alltime high, total gold OI as of last Thursday evening is 399,607. This is astounding and it has significant implications. Once again, perhaps I need to give you some perspective. In November of 2009, with price near $1200, total OI was 510,744. In September of 2010, with price near $1400, total OI was 585,564. In July of last year, before The Cartel got caught in an S&P downgrade-induced short squeeze, price was near $1600 and total OI was 542,342. Lastly, just six short weeks ago, the gold price was near $1800 and total OI was 479,044. Even at late February levels, gold OI was down 20% from the peak in 2010 but still 20% above where we were as of Thursday night. This is breathtaking, startling, amazing and…confusing. How could this be? Is not fiat devaluation awareness higher than it was in 2010? Is not gold investment demand higher than it was in 2010? Is not physical demand greater than it was in 2010? If so, then how in heck can total gold open interest on the Comex be down 30-35% in 18 months? Read More @ TF Metals Report.com
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| A Too-Big-To-Fail Whale Tale, a Lousy Jobs Report, and “Lazy Methodology” Posted: 09 Apr 2012 01:26 PM PDT |
| David Morgan: Silver, Gold, Platinum, Electronics & Bulk Posted: 09 Apr 2012 01:22 PM PDT |
| Posted: 09 Apr 2012 11:43 AM PDT The following is automatically syndicated from Grandich's blog. You can view the original post here. Stay up to date on his model portfolio! April 09, 2012 02:43 PM It’s ugly out there, the world is flooded with fiat currency and in debt to its eyeballs. Global governments have done an excellent job hiding their insolvency and keeping the people they represent in the dark. Remember, the government is technically ‘the people,’ so the gold at Fort Knox (if there is any) is our gold and the debt the government has accumulated, is our debt. We find it sad that so many Americans go to the government for help after the government is the very entity that put them in a personal mess. Prior to the government entering our housing market, the max you would see for a home mortgage was 7 years, however, in order to make homes more affordable, the government started backing 30 year loans. The government’s definition of affordability is you making a payment for lif...
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| Posted: 09 Apr 2012 11:43 AM PDT Synopsis: It doesn't take much to spook the average Joe in precious metals these days – and that plays right into the hands of smart speculators. Dear Readers, Just last week I made a case for not being a gold bug… and this week, we're talking about gold again – but with good reason. When there's a market correction such as we had last week, it's good to pull back and get some perspective. Jeff Clark's article below does that admirably. I just want to add that it strikes me as slightly ridiculous to see such large-scale movements following the mutterings of Ben Bernanke – doubly so when he says he's not doing anything. That inaction doesn't undo one bit of the harm already done, nor does it do anything to solve the underlying problems that drove the world to crisis in the first place. Nothing changed from one moment to the next, and yet a large number of people in the precious metals market decided to sell. I can only...
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| Never Mistake Intelligence for a Bull Market: George Ireland Posted: 09 Apr 2012 11:43 AM PDT The Gold Report: Your grandfather was a mining engineer. Your father founded a coal company. You are a geologist, worked with Cliffs and ASARCO and are on the boards of several mining companies. How much of your success at Geologic Resource Partners do you attribute to your business acumen and how much to your relationships in the industry? George Ireland: Having grown up in a mining-oriented family, the dinner table conversations from an early age steeped me in the lore and intrigue of business. Based on that early interest, I have built up quite a book of relationships and a broad knowledge over the years, but I attribute a lot of the opportunities that have come my way to hard work and perseverance in an industry that was, for quite a long time, out of favor. TGR: What wisdom did you pick up at the dinner table that you use today? GI: One of the first things I learned was to see for yourself what you are investing in and who you are investing with. The second—and I give this ad...
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| Bernanke Speech Released, Prepared Remarks Uneventful, Looking Forward To Q&A Posted: 09 Apr 2012 11:21 AM PDT Many are eagerly awaiting Bernanke's opening speech at the 2012 Financial Markets Conference "The Devil's in the Details" which just like last year had nothing in the prepared remarks about the market, or about current labor or inflation conditions. Instead, Bernanke speaks about (what we deem far more important) Shadow Banking, repos, money markets, and other things which the market does not care about at all. And since he will not address monetary policy at all in the prepared remarks, the only hope is if a random question at the Q&A will provoke him to tell the world if the NEW QE is coming. We are not holding our breath. Speech highlights from Bloomberg:
The only potentially actionable soundbite is the following:
Of course, this is not news... What should be news is that Bernanke disclosed that tri-party repo lenders (read JPMorgan as it is the only one of two that matters, the back up being insignificant BoNY) provide daily average intraday short-term liquidity of $1.4 trillion. But that apparently is not news either. Q&A begins:
Full prepared speech here (pdf)
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| Gold charts are manipulated to look ugly, Embry tells King World News Posted: 09 Apr 2012 11:20 AM PDT 7:20p ET Monday, April 9, 2012 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Sprott Asset Management's John Embry today tells King World News that Western governments and central banks would love the gold price to collapse but he adds that gold and gold mining investors shouldn't be overly concerned about ugly price charts because market manipulation is designed to make the charts look ugly and prompt selling. An excerpt from the interview is posted at the King World News blog here: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2012/4/9_Emb... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Be Part of a Chance to Discover Northaven Resources Corp. (TSX-V:NTV) is advancing five gold and silver projects in highly prospective and politically stable British Columbia, Canada. Check out the exploration program on our Allco gold/silver project : -- A large (13,000 hectare) property, covering more than 15 square kilometers of a regional mineralized trend just 3km from a recently announced 1.2-million-ounce gold and 15-million-ounce silver deposit. -- The property hosts historic high-grade silver workings and many mineral showings as well as former mines at the property's northern and southern boundaries. -- A deep-penetrating airborne geophysics survey has just been completed on the entire property and neighboring deposits and its results are eagerly awaited. To learn more about the Allco property or Northaven's other gold and silver projects, please visit: http://www.northavenresources.com Or call Northaven CEO Allen Leschert at 604-696-3600. Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Golden Phoenix Discusses Royalty Mining Growth Strategy Golden Phoenix Minerals Inc. has discussed its royalty mining growth strategy on the Fox Business Network program "21st Century Business" with host Jackie Bales. Golden Phoenix's director of corporate communications, Robert Ian, told how the company narrows its focus to project generation and future royalty streams. He explained why Golden Phoenix believes it's better to own joint-venture interests in several producing mines instead of full exposure to just one project. "21st Century Business" has been airing for 15 years. Previous hosts have included Gen. Alexander Haig, Gen.l Norman Schwarzkopf, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Golden Phoenix appeared as paid programming on this broadcast. To view the program with Golden Phoenix, please visit Golden Phoenix's Internet site here: http://www.goldenphoenix.us/company-videos.html
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| The Gold Price Appears to have Turned the Corner to the Upside Closing at $1,642.50 Posted: 09 Apr 2012 10:36 AM PDT Gold Price Close Today : 1642.50 Change : 14.00 or 0.86% Silver Price Close Today : 3151.30 Change : 20.3 cents or -0.64% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 52.121 Change : 0.775 or 1.51% Silver Gold Ratio Today : 0.01919 Change : -0.000290 or -1.49% Platinum Price Close Today : 1612.90 Change : 12.90 or 0.81% Palladium Price Close Today : 642.50 Change : -3.60 or -0.56% S&P 500 : 1,382.20 Change : -15.88 or -1.14% Dow In GOLD$ : $162.73 Change : $ (3.04) or -1.83% Dow in GOLD oz : 7.872 Change : -0.147 or -1.83% Dow in SILVER oz : 410.29 Change : -1.49 or -0.36% Dow Industrial : 12,929.59 Change : -130.55 or -1.00% US Dollar Index : 79.78 Change : -0.104 or -0.13% All those crowing the GOLD PRICE funeral dirge have been a mite previous, seeing that gold jumped $14 today to end at $1,642.50. Low never reached below $1,636.10, while gold closed nearer its $1,648.11 high. To validate last week's Wednesday spike bottom, the GOLD PRICE needs to remain above $1,630. No telling what Bernancubus will say tonight, so no telling which way gold will jump, but Bernancubus' effects never last as long as an 80 grain aspirin. The GOLD PRICE appears to have turned the corner to the upside. SILVER PRICE on the other hand, fell 20.3c today to close Comex at 3151.3c. Silver handily defended 3100c with a 3099 low, but traded no higher than 3192c. None of this is great, but it's okay as long as SILVER remains above 3100c. Oh, mercy, the Bernancubus is speaking in Georgia (the one around Atlanta, not the one around Tblisi) tonight, and markets are all a-moiling, not knowing what he will say. The Moneychanger is a-moiling because no matter what he says, there's no gauging the public's irrational response to it. Y'all think about this. Y'all are grown people, competent to run your own lives and make generally good choices, but your economic future is chained to this apparatchik's bloviation du jour, because he runs the private bank that manufactures out of thin air the money you must use in your business. Wherefore it is easily seen that it needs only a single moron to mess up the plans of millions of intelligent people, under our present "stabilizing" system. Let us cut to the bone: no matter what the Bernancubus says, and no matter what the public thinks of it, he will inflate more because he can do no other. Other power hath he none, save to inflate, so he will. And you can INVEST on that. Stocks fell into morale-bruising territory today. As it has long been signaling, the Dow fell below 13,000, dropping 130.55 to 12,929.59, down 1%. The more important S&P500 fell 15.88 (1.14%) to end at $1,382.20, further still from the psychologically critical 1,400. Now let us poke around at other technical measures. Dow now has fallen below both its 20 DMA (13,146.48, several days ago) and its 50 DMA (12,980 today). It left behind a double, nay, a triple top, which is to markets as Warfarin is to wharf rats. The RSI is a little below 50 at 41.66 and the MACD is pointing down like the sign at the mouth of the netherworld. But here lieth the Potemkin-ness of it all: with a few words tonight, the man who has never actually run a business or produced anything for a living will, economic outlook notwithstanding, drive all those stocks in one direction or t'other. 'Tis nuts. Seems the currency markets anticipate Bernancubus will say something pointing to inflation, since the US dollar index is trading 28.8 basis points lower than Thursday (0.35%). Noteworthy here is a close below round-number and resistance at 80. Yet the dollar remains in a short term uptrend. Dollar index now at 79.782. The Japanese yen took advantage of dollar worries to gain a full 1% today to 122.69c (Y81.51). Behind it left another gap up, very strong action. The euro rose 0.31% to $1.3106. This changes nothing. When the Euro drops below about 1.3035 - 1.3000, look for a spectacular plunge. Would have to close above 1.3200 to gainsay that outlook. Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com 888-218-9226 10:00am-5:00pm CST, Monday-Friday © 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down. WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned: Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures. NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps. NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced. NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt. What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands. One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. 
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| Posted: 09 Apr 2012 09:45 AM PDT Today, we examine two cults — one with a charismatic leader and millions of disciples; and one with no leader whatsoever, but billions of disciples. Neither cult engages in fringy activities like polygamy, sacrificing goats or building armed compounds in the desert. Nevertheless, both cults attract a very fanatical following. Today, we examine the cult of Berkshire Hathaway and the cult of gold-buying. The former pays homage to Warren Buffett; the latter genuflects at the altar of Hard Money. [To disclose your editor's biases in advance of making them obvious to all, he is far more sympathetic to the gold-buying cultists than he is to the Berkshire cultists. In fact, he owns gold, but has no position of any kind in Berkshire Hathaway.] If you always wanted to belong to a cult, but didn't want to deal with the threat of a federal raid or the hassle of raising dozens of children who may or may not possess your DNA, Berkshire Hathaway may be your ticket. In fact, Berkshire may be the most "cultish" cult since the Branch Davidians. Let's pull back the sacred shroud to examine the evidence… Once a year, you get to join your fellow cultists in Omaha for Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting — the "Woodstock for Capitalists." Additionally, you get to quote the utterances of your leader as if they were holy writ. Best of all, you don't have to surrender your possessions to the community of believers. Instead, you get to make even more money for yourself. Unfortunately, like most cults, the early adopters have fared better than the late converts. (You may have noticed, for example, how the leaders of a cult often partake of the identical earthly pleasures that they instruct their followers to renounce. Similarly, the early adopters of the Berkshire Hathaway cult have enjoyed much greater earthly pleasure than the latter-day converts.) A buyer of Berkshire Hathaway common stock at the end of 1988, for example, would have received a robust 31% annualized return on that investment over the ensuing decade. By contrast, a buyer of Berkshire Hathaway common stock at the end of 1998, would have received a dismal 3.3% annualized return over the ensuing decade — or less than half the return of simply buying a 10-year Treasury.
Curiously, the worse Berkshire's investment performance becomes, the greater the frenzy to attend the company's annual love-in… and the higher the price to break bread with the cult leader.
As the chart above illustrates, the attendance at Berkshire's annual meeting in Omaha has exploded from a mere 15 individuals in 1981 to about 40,000 last year. And as the chart below illustrates, the winning bid to purchase a lunch for eight with Warren Buffett has skyrocketed from $25,000 in 2000 to $2.6 million last year. If this "lunch with Warren" were a stock, its value would have increased at a compound annualized growth rate of more than 50%!
Still not convinced Berkshire is a cult? Here's the clincher: The Berkshire cultists hold the members of other cults in contempt…especially members of the gold-buying cult. In this year's letter to the Berkshire faithful, Warren Buffett derides gold as an asset that is "forever unproductive." "[Gold] will never produce anything," the Grand Pooh-Bah of Berkshire Hathaway declares, "Gold has two significant shortcomings, being neither of much use nor procreative. "This type of investment," says Buffett, "requires an expanding pool of buyers who, in turn, are enticed because they believe the buying pool will expand still further. Owners are not inspired by what the asset itself can produce — it will remain lifeless forever — but rather by the belief that others will desire it even more avidly in the future." Of course Buffett scorns gold! It represents the opposite of everything that enabled him to become a billionaire. He amassed most of his billions betting on anti-gold investments in an anti-gold era. He acquired most of his über-wealth during the disinflationary decades of the 1980s and 1990s. He became an investment genius, thanks largely to a mighty US economy that featured low inflation, low taxation, a reliable rule of law and a stable dollar. But gold's steady climb since the 1990s suggests that the foundations underlying Berkshire's success are rotting a bit. The current generation of American capitalists faces a much more hostile environment than did Warren Buffett at the dawn of his legendary career. Berkshire Hathaway is a leveraged play on the American enterprise. It always has been…and so it remains. As the American enterprise flourished throughout the last 50 years, so did Berkshire Hathaway. But now that the great American economy has started sputtering a bit, Berkshire's spectacular long-term track record is becoming less and less spectacular. In other words, the world is changing before our eyes, but Buffett seems to have little desire to change with it. Perhaps he is incapable of doing so. He knows what has worked for him and assumes that it always will. Gold has never been a part of Berkshire Hathaway's secret sauce…and it still isn't. Buffett's contempt for gold, therefore, feels more like a wish then an investment insight. But so far, he appears to have tossed his shiny pennies into the wrong wishing well. Despite gold's "significant shortcomings," it has delivered a much higher return during the last 15 years than the "useful" and "procreative" Berkshire Hathaway. By any quantitative measure, gold has kicked Berkshire's rear-end from wherever you happen to be reading this column all the way back to Omaha.
And as James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, points out, gold is not the only non-procreative asset to have embarrassed the Berkshire Empire during the last decade and a half. "In 1996," Grant relates, "a pound of raw cane sugar cost eleven cents. Fifteen years on, at year-end 2011, the same non-procreative pound was quoted at 23 cents. The fact is, that from year-end 1996 through year-end 2011, the hypothetical continuous holder of the generic sugar futures contract earned a compound annual return of 5.13%, while a stockholder in the utterly non-generic Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE:KO) had to settle for a compound annual return of 3.99%."
"Sixteen years ago," Grant recalls, "we characterized Coke, only half-facetiously, as the 'corporate equivalent of Mount Rushmore, the hot dog, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and Mohamed Ali, all rolled into one.'" And it was. This iconic Buffett investment was the ultimate "one decision" stock — the stock to buy and hold forever. And yet, despite its red, white and blue pedigree — and Warren Buffett's wholehearted endorsement — Coke lost some of its effervescence during the last few years. Not only did KO's investment returns fail to keep pace with raw cane sugar during the last 15 years, they also failed to deliver even half the return of the S&P 500 Index over that timeframe. In other words, circumstances change. The investing world is never constant. National boundaries move, governments meddle, patterns of international trade shift and economies go boom and bust. These changing circumstances sometimes compel a change of tactics. "For Buffett," Grant continues, "Coca-Cola is a prime example of the procreative investment, gold the archetypical other. [But] we submit that Buffett has failed to take proper account of today's unique monetary backdrop. Interest rates are uncommonly low, worldwide monetary policy unprecedentedly easy. No institution under the sun is so procreative as the quantitatively easing central bank. Faster than even the best businesses can spend cash flow, the Federal Reserve can materialize scrip." In other words, the America of Berkshire Hathaway's future is very unlikely to resemble the America of Berkshire Hathaway's past. Today, the Federal Reserve's printing presses are "firing on all eight," not the engine of US economic growth. Today, therefore, it is the gold price that is climbing ever higher, not the share price of Berkshire Hathaway. "Gold is no investment," Grant winds up. "It is money, and money is, by definition, sterile…Gold is the refuge of the wary. The constructively anxious goldbug will ask germane questions. For instance, what if QE spins out of control? What if the inflation rate gets out of hand? How can I preserve purchasing power sufficient to allow me to buy oodles of Coke at the next bear-market bottom?" Good questions. And these are exactly the kinds of questions all forward-looking investors may wish to ask themselves, no matter whether they decide to buy gold or Berkshire Hathaway…or both…or neither. Challenging one's complacent assumptions can be a very constructive exercise…and a profitable one as well. The appeal of any investment — sugar as well as Coca-Cola, gold as well as Berkshire Hathaway — relies greatly upon the precise monetary and macroeconomic conditions in which it resides. Price also plays a role, of course. As the writer of Ecclesiastes observed, "There is a time for everything." In fact, as recent history proves, there is even a time to favor "non-procreative" assets over procreative ones. Notwithstanding this irrefutable evidence, Buffett insists there is never a "time for gold." Maybe so, but chose your cults carefully. Regards, Eric Fry, A Case of Cult Envy originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, published by Agora Financial provides over 400,000 global readers economic news, market analysis, and contrarian investment ideas. Recently Agora Financial released a video titled "What is Fracking?".
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Silver is rather easy to extract from its ores, so once it was discovered, it was easy to work with and therefore, was used for many things.
In their quest to undo what is natural and good, the 
One of the great fallacies of our time is that if government doesn't do something, no one will. Its corollary is that if you are opposed to the government doing something, that you are opposed to anyone performing that function at all. These disastrous fallacies color much of our national debate concerning heath care, education, poverty, housing, and disaster relief, and other issues. 
Just when we thought we had seen the epic failure of every single possible "alternative energy" project by this administration, along comes the announcement that the USDA is investing $5 million in a "biogas anaerobic digester" that will use "cow manure to heat an ethanol plant and create 15 permanent jobs." Which for anyone confused, is roughly exactly what it sounds like. Perhaps if "Hope and Change" is a little passe now, a far more appropriate slogan for the 2012 Campaign will be "From Bullshit to Jobs, and Back Again."
The mainstream media is not telling you the truth about unemployment in the United States. The percentage of working age Americans that are employed is not increasing. In March 2010, 
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