Gold World News Flash

Gold Breaks Above Key Technical Level For First Time In Over A Year
Fed Has No Escape, Gold Headed Higher
GERALD CELENTE - Top BANKERS are Committing SUICIDE. Coming COLLAPSE? CURRENCY RESET?
It Doesn’t Take Much For People To Start Behaving Like Crazed Lunatics
The Gold Price Pushed Through it's Resistance Up $5.10 to $1,300.40
The Gold Price Pushed Through it's Resistance Up $5.10 to $1,300.40
A Walkthru Explaining Facebook's "Millions" Of Fake Users
Huge Pressure on the Bank of England/Gold still in backwardation on 1, 2 and 3 months gold
NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds – Defeated When We See Them Running
Goldilocks And The Dog That Didn't Bark
Are Millions of Business People At Risk of Dying In Collapsing Buildings?
The European Debt Crisis Visualized
“Foreclosure Rebound Pattern”: Foreclosure Starts SUDDENLY Jump 57% in California (And Soar In Much Of The Country)
Gold Closes Above $1,300 After 3 Months On Steady Move Higher
Gold will spike when 'tapering' is stopped, Celente tells Sprott Money News
Developments are promising gold a great year, Turk tells KWN
The Yuan Rises as The Dollar Collapses
Gerald Celente (February 2014) | Sprott Money News
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Defeated When We See Them Running
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Defeated When We See Them Running
Gold, Silver & Oil To Crush The Bears With Historic Advances
Turk – This Is How Quickly Gold Will Smash Through $1,925
Mutual Fund Song
Turk - This Is How Quickly Gold Will Smash Through $1,925
Myths and Lessons of the Argentine â€œCurrency Crisisâ€
Dennis Gartman: "I'm Quietly Bullish on Gold"
Dennis Gartman: "I'm Quietly Bullish on Gold"
QKR rejects gold-play label to seek copper to coal
Impairments take shine off new-look Gold Fields’ numbers
Time needed before gold makes assault on $1,300
Bob Moriarty’s stock-picking tools for gold equities
What will break gold’s losing streak?
Fractional reserve bullion banking and gold bank runs: the role of central banks
Gold Buying Mystery in China Returns
Gold Buying Mystery in China Returns
Gold Buying Mystery in China Returns
Gold Bars "Re-Stocked in China" as New Year Holidays End with 1st Default in $1.8 Trillion Wealth-Management Product Industry
New York Sun: Yellen and DeGaulle
China's Huge Gold Demand Opens The Gate For The Gold Bull
China's Huge Gold Demand Opens The Gate For The Gold Bull
Gold Price Recovery Faces Resistance
Getting Positioned in Gold and Silver
Gold Stocks Picking Tools
How to Protect Your Portfolio from the Mother of All Bubbles
Mining Stocks, Chinese Demand, and a Potential Golden Surprise
Paper Gold Ain’t as Good as the Real Thing
Stockman - $500 Trillion Derivative Bomb Threatens The World
Bob Moriarty says market manipulation is 'perfectly legal'; is he practicing it too?
Stockman denounces Fed for 'massive intervention and manipulation'
The Gold Price is Pushing $1,300 Closing Up $5.20 at $1,295.30

Gold Breaks Above Key Technical Level For First Time In Over A Year

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 05:26 PM PST

Spot gold prices are now up over 10% from the 2013 closing lows. At $1,304.75, gold is at 3-month highs and has crossed above the critical 200-day-moving average for the first time in over a year. Other precious metals are on the rise with Palladium up for the 8th day in a row (the longest streak since July), Platinum up 6 days in a row (long since July) and Silver up 10 days in a row breaking $20.50.

Charts: Bloomberg

Fed Has No Escape, Gold Headed Higher

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 05:00 PM PST

from KitcoNews:

GERALD CELENTE - Top BANKERS are Committing SUICIDE. Coming COLLAPSE? CURRENCY RESET?

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 05:00 PM PST

Bankers committing suicide by jumping from the rooftops of their own banks is something that we think of when we think of the Great Depression. Well, it just happened in London, England. A vice president at JPMorgan's European headquarters in London plunged to his death after jumping from the...

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It Doesn’t Take Much For People To Start Behaving Like Crazed Lunatics

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 04:58 PM PST

Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,

If an ice storm can cause this much panic in our major cities, what will a real crisis look like? The biggest news story in the United States right now is the "historic ice storm" that is hammering the South. Travel will be a nightmare, schools and businesses will be closed, and hundreds of thousands of people will lose power. In fact, it is being projected that some people could be without power for up to a week. But at the end of the day, the truth is that this ice storm is just an inconvenience.

Yes, the lives of millions of Americans will be disrupted for a few days, but soon the ice will melt and life will be back to normal. Unfortunately, it doesn't take much for people to start behaving like crazed lunatics. As you will see below, the winter weather is causing average Americans to ransack grocery stores, fight over food items and even pull guns on one another. If this is how people will behave during a temporary weather emergency, how will they behave when we are facing a real disaster?

This is a perfect example that shows why it is wise to always have emergency food supplies on hand. According to CNN, all that is left on the shelves of some grocery stores in Atlanta is "corn and asparagus"...

As the skies turned heavy, Atlantans cleaned stores out of loaves of bread, gallons of milk, bundles of firewood and cans of beans and beer. In some stores, all that was left were the apparently less-popular corn and asparagus.

And according to an Infowars report, some people down in Atlanta were actually getting into fights over basic essentials such as milk and bread...

Atlanta residents ransacked neighborhood grocery stores in frantic preparation for their second major snowstorm of the year, waging fights over food items and leaving destruction and empty shelves in their wake, a stunning precursor to what will ensue once a major crisis impacts the U.S.

After three inches of snow shut the city down two weeks ago, causing major havoc and leaving miles of cars stranded on immobile roadways, the residents of Atlanta took heed and shopped early.

According to people who Tweeted photos of barren store shelves, residents went crazy over essentials like milk, bread, water and eggs, and in some cases “people were fighting. Yes fighting,” alleges one user.

The photo that I have shared below was posted to Twitter by Kris Muir. It shows what the bread aisle at a Kroger in the Atlanta area looked like as the storm approached...

So what would happen if this was an extended crisis and you had not stored up any emergency supplies for your own family?

That is something to think about.

And just like during the last major winter storm in the South, there are reports of hundreds of vehicles being abandoned on the side of the road in major cities. For example, just check out what has been happening in Raleigh, North Carolina...

"I live and work in downtown. I was able to get from my office back home. My wife works in Morrisville, about 25 minutes away. She left the office at 12 p.m. and is still on the road. I am coaching her home with Google Maps. It appears that, from WRAL TV, the ramp from Wade Avenue to 440 is blocked by abandoned cars. That is a HUGE ramp (downtown Raleigh to highway)."

We are also seeing quite a few reports of "snow rage" as this cold, snowy winter drags on. In fact, on Sunday someone actually pulled out a shotgun and threatened to shoot a snow plow driver on Long Island...

As CBS 2’s Carolyn Gusoff reported Tuesday, people have found themselves fed up with the hassle of plowing, shoveling and salting. In fact, they have been pushed to the edge, to the point where they have been taking out their frustrations on plow drivers.

Eric Ramirez, a snow plow driver on Long Island, said an irate man went so far as to rack a shotgun Sunday and threaten to shoot him because he was piling snow in front of the man’s Manorhaven home.

And a similar incident involving a pistol was recently reported in Union Township...

The incident happened Monday afternoon along Underwood Street in Union Township.

Police say Eckert became angry when the self-employed driver, John Abraham, accidentally pushed some snow into his yard while cleaning a neighbor’s driveway.

“I went like this to put it in park and there was a gun right here in my face,” Abraham said.

Eckert is then accused of taking a .22-calibur pistol out of his coat, and pressing it against Abraham’s cheek, telling him to remove the snow.

As I write about so frequently, the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is starting to disappear. A whole host of surveys and opinion polls have shown that Americans are angrier and more frustrated than ever. Our society has become a ticking time bomb, and it isn't going to take much for it to explode.

When it does explode, most people are going to be depending on the government or someone else to take care of them. The following is a brief excerpt from a recent article by Mac Slavo...

Despite warnings from FEMA, as well as the prevalence of popular preparedness TV shows, Americans still don’t seem to understand how susceptible we are to a complete destabilization of life as we know it. It boggles the mind that most people seem to think that when disasters strikes they’ll be able to depend on someone else to provide them with assistance.

Fortunately, at least a few people seem to be learning some lessons about the importance of being prepared from these winter storms...

"Last time I was totally unprepared, I was completely blindsided," said Lisa Nadir, of Acworth, who sat in traffic for 13 hours and then spent the night in her car when the storm hit Jan. 28. "I'm going to be prepared from now on for the rest of my life."

What about you?

Are you prepared?

We live at a time when our world is becoming increasingly unstable, and it doesn't take much to imagine a bunch of scenarios in which this nation would be facing a major crisis for an extended period of time...

-A major eruption of Mt. Rainier or the Yellowstone supervolcano

-The "Big One" hits California

-A massive earthquake along the New Madrid fault line

-A highly infectious pandemic that kills tens of millions of Americans

-Hackers bring down the Internet or crash the banking system

-A massive tsunami hits either the east coast or the west coast destroying numerous major cities

-A major war erupts in the Middle East and the United States gets involved

-A crisis involving North Korea sparks a major war in Asia

-A terror attack that specifically targets our power grid

-A terror attack involving a weapon of mass destruction in one of our major cities

-A terror attack or a major natural disaster causes one or more nuclear facilities in the heart of the United States to experience a "Fukushima-like crisis"

-A massive EMP blast that fries our electrical grid and our communications systems

-Last but certainly not least, a massive economic collapse that fundamentally changes life in America on a permanent basis

So what do you think?

The Gold Price Pushed Through it's Resistance Up $5.10 to $1,300.40

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 04:44 PM PST

Gold Price Close Today : 1300.40
Change : 5.10 or 0.39%

Silver Price Close Today : 20.385
Change : 0.054 or 0.27%

Gold Silver Ratio Today : 63.792
Change : 0.081 or 0.13%

Silver Gold Ratio Today : 0.01568
Change : -0.000020 or -0.13%

Platinum Price Close Today : 1415.00
Change : 9.30 or 0.66%

Palladium Price Close Today : 730.90
Change : 2.05 or 0.28%

S&P 500 : 1,829.83
Change : 10.57 or 0.58%

Dow In GOLD$ : $254.78
Change : $ 0.01 or 0.00%

Dow in GOLD oz : 12.325
Change : 0.001 or 0.00%

Dow in SILVER oz : 786.24
Change : 1.04 or 0.13%

Dow Industrial : 16,027.60
Change : 63.65 or 0.40%

US Dollar Index : 80.360
Change : -0.400 or -0.50%

The GOLD PRICE pushed through the $1,290 - $1,295 resistance at $1,300.40, up $5.10 and another $3 in the aftermarket. O, there's still some resistance between here and the 200 DMA at $1,310.49, but shorts will be having deep and gloomy periods of silent meditation when the gold price crosses that line. Might even grab their wastebaskets for a genteel puke.

The SILVER PRICE rose 5.4 cents to 2038.5c, driving us crazy as we wait for it to cross that 2050c line and begin rising in earnest.

Today brings silver plumb slap up against the downtrend line from April 2013. Mercy, the 20 day moving average hangs in the sky only a few cents higher at 2114c. I'll be mildly surprised if silver closeth not above 2050c tomorrow. Shorts will be pulling out before the weekend and that ought to give it push enough to break through. High today was 2047c, nearly there.

While a remote chance remains that silver and GOLD PRICES might make one last spike down to lower lows, that chance dims with each rising day. I've been buying since end-December and expect the rally to carry much higher into the end of February, say, to the $1,360 neighborhood for the gold price. Silver hasn't even got it's motor warmed up yet, but ought to reach 2300c at least, maybe even 2500c if it really gets feverish.

Don't miss this gold and silver train!

Oh, wow. How volatile can it get? On news of weak retail sales today (according to the media, who only lie out of one side of their mouths, the front side) the US dollar index slid 40 basis points (0.5%) to 80.36. That move takes it below the uptrend line that had caught the dollar index on ever downmove since end-November.

Here's what makes currency markets impossible to parse: the euro, which gapped down fatally yesterday, gapped up today, although it is still blocked by that long term uptrend line overhead. Currency markets are scared to death when they're this jumpy.

Yen rose 0.3% to 97.84 cents/Y100, so may be resuming its uptrend.

Today offers a perfect example why I wouldn't trade currencies. No fundamental change whatever occurred today in the value of these currencies, and truly, the euro is in far worse shape, along with European banks, than the US dollar. Besides, that, ALL fiat currencies are manipulated by central banks and government. ALL, without exception.

Me, I had rather escape from their power altogether by swapping fiat currency for silver and gold, while those fiat currency still buy something.

Stocks struggled to add a few points today. Dow grabbed 63.65 (0.4%) to close at 16,027.59, a truly beautiful number by the tape painters, above the morale-boosting 16,000 mark. Is it real, or Memorex? Who knows, when governments meddle now in all markets? S&P500 added 10.57 (0.58%) to 1,829.83. Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator is positive, so this can run for a while, but it is a doomed undertaking. Later this year there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, plus a large dose of wailing, whining, and grieving.

For all stocks bounced, the Dow in Gold and Dow in Silver still fell. DiG edged down 0.26% to 12.33 oz while the DiS inched lower by 0.46% to 785.86 oz. Trend and momentum remains earthward, held in a headlock by gravity.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2014, 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 or 18 ounces of silver. or 18 ounces of silver. US $ and 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.v>

The Gold Price Pushed Through it's Resistance Up $5.10 to $1,300.40

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 04:44 PM PST

A Walkthru Explaining Facebook's "Millions" Of Fake Users

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 04:24 PM PST

A month ago we explained in gory detail the growth of "click farms" where nothing is what it seems, and where social networking participants spend millions of dollars to appear more important, followed, prestigious, cool, or generally "liked" than they really are. The following excellent walk-through of just how the fraud works is concerning when the entire US stock market appears propped up by an ever-shrinking layer of "social media" and "cloud" faith that this time it's different and no Friendster or MySpace.

As we noted previously,

...

Social networking has been the "it" thing for a while: for the networks it makes perfect sense because they are merely the aggregators and distributors of terrabytes of free, third party created content affording them multi-billion dollar valuations without generating a cent in profits (just think of the upside potential in having 10 times the world's population on any given publicly-traded network), while for users it provides the opportunity to be seen, to be evaluated or "liked" on one's objective, impartial merits and to maybe go "viral", potentially making money in the process.

Of course, the biggest draws of social networks also quickly became their biggest weaknesses, and it didn't take long to game the weakest link: that apparent popularity based on the size of one's following or the number of likes, which usually translates into power and/or money, is artificial and can be purchased for a price.

...

And once the prevailing users of social networks grasp that one of the main driving features of the current social networking fad du jour is nothing but a big cash scam operating out of a basement in the far east, expect both Facebook and shortly thereafter, Twitter, to go the way of 6 Degrees, Friendster and MySpace, only this time the bagholders will be the public. Because "it is never different this time." The only certain thing: someone will promptly step in to replace any social network that quietly fades into the sunset.

Huge Pressure on the Bank of England/Gold still in backwardation on 1, 2 and 3 months gold

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 04:16 PM PST

by Harvey Organ, HarveyOrgan.Blogspot.ca:

Gold closed up $5.10 at $1300.40 (comex closing time ). Silver was up 5 cents to $20.38

In the access market tonight at 5:15 pm
gold: $1302.60
silver: $20.50

Today we witnessed gold rise again despite the antics of our banker friends, finishing the comex session at $1300.30. The bankers seem to be in disarray as they try to quell gold’s demand. Late this afternoon we learned that the GLD increased its inventory by a massive 7.5 tonnes of gold. With gold in backwardation, it would be very difficult for the GLD boys to obtain their gold on the open market. They called on the services of the Bank of England who no doubt supplied the necessary metal. We have a plethora of buyers of gold with no sellers: this powder keg is ready to explode.

Read More @ HarveyOrgan.Blogspot.ca

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds – Defeated When We See Them Running

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 04:03 PM PST

from Jesse's Café Américain:

“The only way to partially explain away why JPM has been allowed to hold such controlling market shares [in gold and silver] is to claim that JPM is either hedging for clients or making markets. But in flipping from a 20% short gold market corner in Dec 2012 to a 20% long market corner 8 months later, the hedging argument goes out the window as it is impossible to reconcile what clients would be shorting so much in December and being long so much 8 months later. Remember, JPMorgan tried the same hedging excuse when the London Whale debacle was first reported, but dropped it immediately when it became obvious that it was nonsense. That leaves market making…

Market making is permitted and encouraged to enhance liquidity and tamp down price volatility, but not to rig prices…If JPMorgan is practicing market making in silver they couldn't be doing a poorer job…”

Ted Butler, Butler Research LLC, Feb 12, 2014

Goldilocks And The Dog That Didn't Bark

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 03:47 PM PST

Submitted by Ben Hunt of Epsilon Theory

Det. Gregory: Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?

Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.

Det. Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.

Holmes: That was the curious incident.

-- Arthur Conan Doyle, "Silver Blaze"

Goldilocks And The Dog That Didn't Bark

The market was down more than 2% last Monday. Why? According to the WSJ, CNBC, and all the other media outlets it was "because" investors were freaked out (to use the technical term) by poor US growth data. Disappointing ISM number, car sales, yada, yada, yada. But then the market was up more than 2% last Thursday and Friday (and another 1% this Tuesday), despite a Friday jobs report that was more negative in its own right than the ISM number by a mile. Why? According to those same media arbiters, investors were now "looking through" the weak data.

Please. This is nonsense. Or rather, it's an explanation that predicts nothing, which means that it's not an explanation at all. It's a tautology. What we want to understand is what makes investors either react badly to bad news like on Monday or rejoice and "look through" bad news like on Friday. To understand this, I sing the Epsilon Theory song, once more with feeling … it's not the data! It's how the data is molded or interpreted in the context of the dominant market Narratives.

We have two dominant market Narratives – the same ones we've had for almost 4 years now – Self-Sustaining US Growth and Central Bank Omnipotence.

The former is pretty self-explanatory. It's what every politician, every asset manager, and every media outlet wants to sell you. Is it true? I have no idea. Probably yes (technological innovation, shale-based energy resources) and probably no (global trade/currency conflict, growth-diminishing policy decisions). Regardless of what I believe or what you believe, though, it IS, and it's not going away so long as all of our status quo institutions have such a vested interest in its "truth".

The latter – Central Bank Omnipotence – is something I've written a lot about, so I won't repeat all that here. Just remember that this Narrative does NOT mean that the Fed always makes the market go up. It means that all market outcomes – up and down – are determined by Fed policy. If the Fed is not decelerating an easy money policy (what we've taken to calling the Taper), the market goes up. If the Fed is decelerating its easy money policy, the market goes down. But make no mistake, the Common Knowledge information structure of this market is that Fed policy is responsible for everything. It was Barzini all along!

How do Narratives of growth and monetary policy come together? Well, there's one combination that the stock market truly and dearly loves – the Goldilocks scenario. That's when growth is strong enough so that there's no fear of recession (terrible for stocks), but not so strong as to whip the flames of inflation (not necessarily terrible for stocks, but sure to provoke the Fed tightening which is terrible for stocks).

Over the past few years the Goldilocks scenario has changed. Inflation is … well, let's be straight here … inflation is dead. I know, I know … our official measures of inflation are all messed up and intentionally constructed to keep the concept of "inflation" and the Inflation Narrative in check. I get that. But it's the Narratives that I care about for trying to predict market behaviors, not the Truth with a capital T about inflation. If you want to buy your inflation hedge and protect yourself from the ultimate wealth-destroyer, go right ahead. At some point I'm sure you'll be right. But I'm in a business where the path matters, and I can't afford to make a guess about where the world may be in 5 to 10 years and just close my eyes. The Inflation Narrative is, for the foreseeable future, dead. It's a zombie, as all powerful Narratives are, so it will return one day. But today Goldilocks has nothing to do with inflation.

The Goldilocks scenario today is macro data that's strong enough to keep the Self-Sustaining US Growth Narrative from collapsing (ISM >50 and positive monthly job growth) but weak enough to keep the market-positive side of the Central Bank Omnipotence Narrative in play. That's the scenario we've enjoyed for the past few years, particularly last year, and it's the scenario that our political, economic, and media "leaders" are desperate to preserve. So they will.

On Monday we had bad macro data on the heels of the Fed establishing a focal point of $10 billion in additional Taper cuts per FOMC meeting, a clear signal that monetary easing is decelerating on a predictable path. This is the market-negative side of the Central Bank Omnipotence coin, which turns bad macro news into bad market news. And so we were down 2%. And so the Powers That Be started to freak out. Did you see Liesman on CNBC after the Monday debacle? He was adamant that the Fed needed to reconsider the path and pace of the Taper.

And then we had Friday. Honest to God, I thought Liesman was going to collapse of apoplexy, what my Grandmother would have called a conniption fit, right there on the CNBC set. The Fed MUST reconsider its Taper path. The Fed MUST do everything in its power to avoid even a whiff of deflationary pressures. Heady stuff. By 10 am ET that morning the WSJ was running an online lead story titled "U.S Stocks Rise as Focus Returns to Fed", acknowledging and promulgating the dynamic behind bad macro news driving good market news.

It's not necessary (and is in fact counter-productive from a Narrative construction viewpoint) to switch the Fed trajectory 180 degrees from Taper to no-Taper. What's necessary is to inject ambiguity into Fed communication policy, particularly after the non-ambiguous FOMC signal of two weeks ago that led directly to Monday's horror show. The need for ambiguity is also something I've written a lot about so won't repeat here. But this is why Hilsenrath and Zandi and all the rest of the in-crowd are writing that the Taper is still on track … probably. Unless, you know, the data continues to be weak. What you're NOT seeing are the articles and statements by the Powers That Be placing a final number on QE3, extrapolating from the last FOMC meeting to a projected QE conclusion. And that's the dog that didn't bark. It's the projection that Yellen won't be asked about in her testimony; it's the article that won't be written in the WSJ or the FT. Is the Taper still on? Two weeks ago the common knowledge here was "Yes, and how." Today, after a stellar bout of Narrative construction, the answer is back to "Yes, but." That's the ambiguous, "data dependent" script that Yellen and all the other Fed Governors now have the freedom to re-assert.

If I'm right, what does this mean for markets? It means that our default is a Goldilocks scenario between now and the next FOMC meeting in mid-March. It means that bad macro news is good market news, and vice versa. If the next ISM manufacturing number (no one cares about ISM services) is a big jump upwards, the market goes down. Ditto for the February jobs number. If they're weak, though, that's more pressure on the Fed and another leg up for markets.

Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, the croupier is about to spin the roulette wheel. Pardon me if I sit this one out, though. My crystal ball is broken.

If I'm right, what does this mean for the real world? It means an Entropic Ending to the story … disappointing, slow and uneven growth as far as the eye can see, but never negative growth, never an honest assignment of losses to clear the field or cull the herd. That's not my vision of a good investment world, but who cares? I've got to live in the world as it is, even if it's a long gray slog.

Are Millions of Business People At Risk of Dying In Collapsing Buildings?

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 03:26 PM PST

This is one in a series of safety-related public service announcements.

Death Traps?

Millions of people work in or visit high-rise buildings … assuming the buildings were more or less safe.

But it turns out that there is a severe, lethal risk of sudden collapse in even the best-made skyscrapers in America, Britain, Germany, Japan and other nations worldwide.

A New Understanding

Before 9/11, no modern steel-frame high-rise building had ever collapsed due to fire.

9/11 radically changed our understanding of architecture and engineering …

Specifically, 3 steel-frame buildings collapsed on that day. That includes one that was never hit by a plane, and had only small, isolated office fires prior to its collapse.

This was unexpected, as much hotter, longer-lasting fires have never before brought down a modern steel-frame office building. For example, the 2005 Madrid skyscraper fire “reached 800 degrees Celsius (1,472 F), said Javier Sanz, head of Madrid firefighter” and lasted some 20 hours without collapsing.

In other words, officials who write building codes, architects and structural engineers had never before worried about small office fires causing office buildings from collapsing.

Appendix A of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s World Trade Center Building Performance Study notes:

In the case of the fire at One Meridian Plaza, the fire burned uncontrolled for the first 11 hours and lasted 19 hours. Contents from nine floors were completely consumed in the fire. In addition to these experiences in fire incidents, as a result of the Broadgate fire, British Steel and the Building Research Establishment performed a series of six experiments at Cordington in the mid-1990s to investigate the behavior of steel frame buildings. These experiments were conducted in a simulated, eight-story building. Secondary steel beams were not protected. Despite the temperature of the steel beam reaching 800-900 °C (1,500-1,700 °F) in three tests (well above the traditionally assumed critical temperature of 600 °C [1,100 °F]), no collapse was observed in any of the six experiments.

Underwriters Laboratories tested the steel components at the Twin Towers and found they could withstand fires for hours without failure:

“NIST [the government agency - National Institute of Standards and Technology, a branch of the Department of Commerce - responsible for investigating the collapse of the 3 buildings on 9/11] contracted with Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. to conduct tests to obtain information on the fire endurance of trusses like those in the WTC towers…. All four test specimens sustained the maximum design load for approximately 2 hours without collapsing… The Investigation Team was cautious about using these results directly in the formulation of collapse hypotheses. In addition to the scaling issues raised by the test results, the fires in the towers on September 11, and the resulting exposure of the floor systems, were substantially different from the conditions in the test furnaces. Nonetheless, the [empirical test] results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.” (NIST, 2005, p. 140).

Other fire tests have also failed to cause failures at high temperatures.

So the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11 (not hit by a plane) was a surprise … and should be a huge concern to the millions of people who work in office buildings worldwide.

To get to the bottom of this issue, Washington’s Blog reached out to a former manager at Underwriters Laboratories – Kevin Ryan – to seek reassurance that the danger was small for the millions of financial services industry workers, business men, lawyers, web executives, and others who work in office buildings:

[Question] Wasn’t the steel used in the Twin Towers and Building 7 of inferior quality? So as long as builders use better-quality steel, can’t we be assured of safety?

[Kevin Ryan] The steel used to build WTC Building 7 was the standard grade for high-rise construction–still used to this day–called ASTM A36 grade steel. It was not inferior in any way from the steel used to make many of the other high-rise buildings in America.

For the Twin Towers, fourteen different grades of steel were used in the construction, including A36, which has a nominal strength of 36 ksi. The other grades used were higher strength steels like 100 ksi WEL-TEN steel which was manufactured in Japan and shipped to the States. The steel used in the Towers was actually far superior to typical structural steel.

The official government reports on the destruction of the WTC buildings did not find any problem with the quality of the materials or construction methods used. And although those reports did make some recommendations for changes to building codes, those changes have not been incorporated in municipal codes or adopted by the building construction community.

[Question] You write in Foreign Policy Journal:

“And if people actually understood and believed the official account of what happened at the WTC they would not enter tall buildings because in doing so they would be putting their lives at risk.”

What do you mean?

[Ryan] What I mean is that high-rise buildings are designed and constructed to withstand fires that are much worse than what we know existed in WTC Building 7. My former company, Underwriters Laboratories (UL), plays a big part in that process. We know that UL did the fire resistance testing that was behind the selection of the steel components for WTC7 because that fact is in the NIST WTC7 report. Therefore the steel columns and floor assemblies should have withstood 2 to 3 hours of intense fire in a testing furnace, as required by the NYC code. But on 9/11, the fire lasted only 20 minutes in any given area, a fact that NIST admits, and the entire structure was destroyed due to an inexplicable failure to resist fire.

Moreover, NIST abandoned its previous hypotheses that suggested the destruction of WTC7 might have resulted from diesel fuel fires, or damage from falling debris, or the design of the building. In the end, NIST said that it was only the effects of the fire fed by office furnishings, on fully-fireproofed steel components, that caused the total destruction of this 47-story building. And since no actions have been taken to retrofit any existing high-rise buildings, we must assume that what happened to WTC7, according to the official account, could happen to any tall building that experiences a typical office fire.

No Change (?!)

Given that 9/11 totally changed our understanding of how dangerous small office fires could be, we couldn’t believe Ryan’s claim that “changes have not been incorporated in municipal codes or adopted by the building construction community.”

So Washington’s Blog contacted Richard Gage, a practicing architect for more than two decades, who has worked on most types of building construction, including one project which used around 1,200 tons of steel framing:

[Question] Have high-rise architects and engineers changed how they build skyscrapers, to prevent collapses after 9/11?

And have they changed how they build skyscrapers to prevent office fires from knocking down steel buildings?

[Richard Gage] No – they haven’t made any structural changes.

No structural changes?!

Either building code writers, architects and engineers are cavalierly ignoring this catastrophic new understanding of the extreme danger of small office fires, or the investigation into the collapse of World Trade Center building 7 on 9/11 was flawed.

No wonder New York residents have launched a High Rise Safety Initiative to try to protect the safety of those who work or visit office buildings.

Postscript: Until this issue is resolved through a complete revision of building codes and architectural and engineering practices, we recommend that everyone stay out of office buildings. Because if even small office fires can cause the whole building to collapse, it’s just not worth the risk to go inside.

The European Debt Crisis Visualized

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 03:24 PM PST

At the heart of the European debt crisis is the euro, the currency that ties together 17 countries in an intimate manner. So when one country teeters on the brink of financial collapse, the entire continent is at risk. The following excellent mini-documentary visually explains how such a flawed system came to be... and what's next?

“Foreclosure Rebound Pattern”: Foreclosure Starts SUDDENLY Jump 57% in California (And Soar In Much Of The Country)

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 03:09 PM PST

Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter

From Federal-Reserve-fueled bubble to debilitating return to reality – reality being a financial calamity – to Federal-Reserve-hyper-fueled bubble: that's the US housing market over the last ten years. There are many places around the country, including some cities in Silicon Valley, where home values are now higher than they were at the peak of the last bubble. Of course, no one at the Fed or in government calls it "bubble." They're talking about the housing "recovery."

But the excesses and speculators are back, and private equity funds and highly leveraged REITs are all over it, buying up every single-family home in sight, and now Wall-Street-engineering firms have come up with a new and improved contraption, a synthetic structured security that on its polished surface looks like that triple-A rated mortgage-backed toxic waste that helped blow up the banks. But this time, it's different. The securities are backed by sliced and diced rental payments from single-family homes that are, hopefully, rented out [read.... Another Exquisitely Reengineered Frankenstein Housing Monster].

So wither this "recovery?"

Foreclosure filings – default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions – suddenly jumped 8% to 124,419 in January across the nation, according to RealtyTrac. Which left some people scratching their heads. A mild uptick was expected after the holidays, but 8%? And what about the polar vortices – weren't they supposed to have slowed things down to a crawl?

OK, foreclosure filings were still down 18% from a year earlier, the 40th month in a row that they declined on an annual basis. But it was the smallest annual decline since September 2012. And the 8% jump from December was the largest such increase since May 2012. Crummy as they were, these national averages covered up some, let's say, interesting phenomena in a number of states.

"The sharp annual increases in some states shows that many states are not completely out of the woods when it comes to cleaning up the wreckage of the housing bust," said RealtyTrac VP Daren Blomquist. "The foreclosure rebound pattern is not only showing up in judicial states like New Jersey, where foreclosure activity reached a 40-month high in January, but also some non-judicial states like California....

Ah, my beloved state of California. Housing has been booming, and prices in coastal areas have been soaring – along with rents, to the point that mini-rebellions are breaking out. In this hyped and glorified housing market where the Big Money rules and where first-time buyers have been shoved aside unceremoniously, where foreclosure starts in 2013 had plunged 60% from 2012, and had declined year-over-year for 17 months in a row, or with the exception of five months, had declined four years in a row, well, in this wondrously recovered housing market, foreclosures starts in January suddenly jumped 57%.

It's not just in California. Foreclosure starts rose 10% from December to hit 57,259 properties across the country. That they on average were still down 12% from a year earlier obscured major annual increases in certain individual states, and not just in one or two, like us crazies out here in California, but in 22 states! And California with its 57% jump in foreclosure starts now suddenly seems tame: In New Jersey, they soared 79%, in Connecticut 82%, and in Maryland 126%!

The cynic in me says the sudden and dizzying jump in foreclosure starts, not only in California but in much of the country, must be some kind of data problem. Maybe RealtyTrac's computers got hacked by some evildoer who was short the housing market or something. But when I contacted RealtyTrac to request permission to republish the chart, there was no word of a retraction, though this would have been a good opportunity, and so the numbers hold.

Maybe foreclosure starts in February and March will somehow, miraculously, plunge and return to trend. Maybe January was just a fluke. But that may be wishful thinking. Instead, it could be the indication of a turning point of sorts, like some of the other indications we've already observed, and maybe the strange sound that we're hearing out there is the hot air hissing out of this whole construct, so carefully inflated by the Fed, and so assiduously taken advantage of by private equity funds and other Wall Street outfits with access to the Fed's nearly free money.

Meanwhile, my beloved state of California, whose $2 trillion economy is the eight largest in the world ahead of Italy and Russia, has a new problem: it's awash in cash. It's projecting multi-billion dollar surpluses for years to come. The feeding frenzy in Sacramento is a sight to behold. Read.... California MUST Have Magnificent, Endless Bubbles in Housing, Stocks, And IPOs – Or Go Broke Again

Gold Closes Above $1,300 After 3 Months On Steady Move Higher

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 02:59 PM PST

Exactly 3 months ago, the price of gold broke down through the psychologically important $1,300 level. Today, spot gold prices broke above $1,300 and continued its move higher to close the New York trading session at $1,300.40. Gold is very close to test its 200 day moving average which comes at $1,304.70. Needless to say this is an important technical price level.

From Marketwatch:

Gold climbed on "worse-than-expected retail sales figures along with a higher initial jobless claims number — both contributing to lower U.S. dollar DXY -.00% and therefore a higher gold price," said Jeffrey Wright, managing director at H.C. Wainwright.

The Commerce Department on Thursday said retail sales saw a seasonally-adjusted drop of 0.4% in January. Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast retail sales to fall 0.1% overall.
Weekly jobless claims rose by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 339,000, compared with the total claims of 330,000 expected by analysts surveyed by MarketWatch.

Earlier this week, we showed how the entire precious metals complex was at major resistance, from a chart perspective. The four metals and the mining indexes were all simultaneously trading at key resistance levels or at the end stages of a trading range. Meantime, the technical picture has become better, although gold trading at its 200 day moving average is expected to encounter resistance. The key gold price level to watch, as we said, is $1250 – $1260; gold should not fall below this price before the daily chart turns bullish. It would be a strong signal if gold would test $1250 – $1260 but not breach it.

Gold remains the best performing asset in 2014, even better than silver, amid tapering.

Gold will spike when 'tapering' is stopped, Celente tells Sprott Money News

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 02:26 PM PST

5:23p ET Thursday, February 12, 2014

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Trends Journal editor Gerald Celente talks about gold price suppression in an interview with Sprott Money News and predicts that gold's big spike will come when the Federal Reserve backs away from "tapering" its bond buying:

http://www.sprottmoney.com/news/ask-the-expert-gerald-celente-january-20...

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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A Personal Touch in Buying Precious Metals

If you've not secured your allocation of precious metals and numismatic coins, 2014 may be the last year to get them at affordable and undervalued prices. With huge amounts of gold leaving the West for Asia, the future availability of precious metals is very much in doubt.

All Pro Gold has competitive pricing on all bullion and numismatic products -- and offers prompt delivery too. Long-time GATA supporters Fred Goldstein and Tim Murphy are glad to answer any questions or concerns about acquiring the monetary metals. All Pro Gold has an extensive electronic library of articles from the world's top market analysts. Learn more at www.allprogold.com or write to Fred and Tim at info@allprogold.com or telephone them at 1-855-377-4653.

Join GATA here:

Mines and Money Hong Kong
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
Monday-Friday, March 24-28, 2014
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China

http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/

* * *

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:

http://gata.org/tshirts

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:

http://www.gata.org

To contribute to GATA, please visit:

http://www.gata.org/node/16

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Jim Sinclair plans seminar in Austin

Gold advocate and mining entrepreneur Jim Sinclair will hold his next market seminar from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday, February 8, at the Austin, Texas, Airport Hilton. Advance registration is required. Details for the Austin seminar are posted at JSMineSet.com here:

http://www.jsmineset.com/2014/01/02/austin-texas-qa-session-confirmed/

Developments are promising gold a great year, Turk tells KWN

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 02:01 PM PST

5p ET Thursday, February 13, 2014

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk tells King World News today that everything seems to be coming together for gold in 2014:

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/2/13_Tu...

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage

GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit:

http://www.goldmoney.com/?gmrefcode=gata

Join GATA here:

Mines and Money Hong Kong
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
Monday-Friday, March 24-28, 2014
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China

http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/

* * *

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:

http://gata.org/tshirts

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:

http://www.gata.org

To contribute to GATA, please visit:

http://www.gata.org/node/16

ADVERTISEMENT

How to profit with silver --
and which stocks to buy now

Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with profiles of nine companies and technical analysis of their stock performance. Six of the companies have market capitalizations of less than $800 million and one company has a market cap of only $30 million. The most exciting of these companies will begin production in a few weeks and has a market cap of just $150 million.

Half of all proceeds from the sale of this report will be donated to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to support its efforts exposing manipulation and fraud in the gold and silver markets.

To learn about this report, please visit:

http://www.futuremoneytrends.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=376&tmp...

The Yuan Rises as The Dollar Collapses

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 02:00 PM PST

Eurozone industrial output falls which put the economic recovery into question. Bank of England is stress testing banks for a property crash, as we know housing is in a bubble in the US, UK and around the world. China is pushing the yuan into the world market, it has surpassed the Euro and is...

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Gerald Celente (February 2014) | Sprott Money News

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 01:30 PM PST

In this exclusive interview, Gerald Celente answers questions from our readers about the gold and silver markets and his outlook on the economy. Gerald Celente is the publisher of the Trends Journal, alerting readers of critical domestic and international trends long before they show up in the...

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Defeated When We See Them Running

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 01:28 PM PST

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Defeated When We See Them Running

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 01:28 PM PST

Gold, Silver & Oil To Crush The Bears With Historic Advances

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 01:19 PM PST

On the heels of a recent surge in gold and silver, today top Citi analyst Tom Fitzpatrick sent King World News seven incredibly important charts which shows that gold, silver, and oil may now be set for historic advances. Below are the astonishing gold, silver, and oil charts that all KWN readers around the world need to see.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Turk – This Is How Quickly Gold Will Smash Through $1,925

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 01:00 PM PST

Dear CIGAs, With markets continuing to see some volatile trading, today James Turk spoke with King World News about backwardation in gold and how quickly the price of gold will smash through the all-time high of $1,925. Turk also warned that the shorts must be getting "frantic by now" because of the action in gold.... Read more »

The post Turk – This Is How Quickly Gold Will Smash Through $1,925 appeared first on Jim Sinclair's Mineset.

Mutual Fund Song

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 12:03 PM PST

This is about the most ridiculous thing that I think I’ve ever come across when it comes to shaping opinions about investing. Straight from India, where there’s been a concerted effort to get people to invest in stocks, bonds, and other paper promises rather than gold, comes this rap video extolling the virtues of mutual [...]

Turk - This Is How Quickly Gold Will Smash Through $1,925

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 10:42 AM PST

With markets continuing to see some volatile trading, today James Turk spoke with King World News about backwardation in gold and how quickly the price of gold will smash through the all-time high of $1,925. Turk also warned that the shorts must be getting "frantic by now" because of the action in gold.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Myths and Lessons of the Argentine â€œCurrency Crisisâ€

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 09:31 AM PST

The crash of the Argentine peso last month brings to a close yet another foredoomed experiment in South American left-wing populism. The precipitous “devaluation” of the peso by 15 percent against the U.S. dollar in January represents its steepest decline since the devaluation of 2001 when Argentina defaulted on its foreign debt. From January 21 to the close of trading on January 23 the peso dropped from 6.88 per dollar to 8.00 on the official market. On the black market the peso fell by 6 percent on January 23 to 13 to the dollar. Over the past year the peso has declined by 35 percent.

Dennis Gartman: "I'm Quietly Bullish on Gold"

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 09:20 AM PST

What Dennis Gartman has to say about gold manipulation, silver and Janet Yellen...

DENNIS GARTMAN joined me on BullionVault's New York Markets Live this week, says vice-president for business development Miguel Perez-Santalla.

Gartman had much to share on New York Markets Live. Which is no surprise. I've worked on many trading desks where the first thing people say in the morning is "Did you hear what Dennis Gartman had to say?"

Well "I am becoming quietly bullish on gold," is what he has to say right now.

"Gold is looking interesting to me for the first time in a long while," Dennis Gartman told me. But to maximize upside, "You want to be long in gold in the currency that is the most expansionary," using a currency trade to switch your Dollar position into "the most expansive of all...Japan.

Listen To Finance Internet Radio Stations with New York Markets Live on BlogTalkRadio

"I'm not one who falls for the thesis that there is manipulation in the gold market," Gartman said, "or there is no gold out there for delivery.

"Gold supplies are tight, but I am not that concerned about it."

While he's looking at gold in non-US Dollar terms however, and particularly the Yen, Dennis Gartman avoids trading silver because of its volatility.

Talking with me about the equity, fixed income and commodities markets, the creator of The Gartman Letter – Dennis' highly respected daily commentary on the global capital markets, distributed to subscribers each business day – also gave the new Fed chair Janet Yellen a passing grade for her first appearance before Congress.

"She was quite boring," said Gartman. "And that's as it should be. She confirmed that the Fed will continue to reduce quantitative easing by $10 billion a month as long as the data supports it."

Gartman said that there are three ways to behave in a bull market – really long, reasonably long, and neutral. Recently, he was neutral of stocks but he's switched to reasonably long. Because "you can't predict when a bull market is over until six months later."