"Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!"

Imagine being on an extended unemployment stint and just after having spent another day writing fifty-plus resumes, wondering if you'll be in your house in six-months and then switching on the news and seeing this shit, REUTERS: "JP Morgan Investment Bankers See Record Payday."

Getting By With a Little Help From My Friends

It's one thing to hit the jackpot fair and square, but these investment bankers still have a source of obscene amounts of wealth due to the trillions of dollars handed over to them by the U.S. Congress, the political class complicit with the mega-banks in the destruction of the real US economy over the past decades. Think about it, huge lumps of cash in compensation for creating nothing of tangible value. Now perhaps the smug bankers, especially at the lower levels (the one's who only receive the paltry six-figure hush-money bonuses), haven't figured out that the financial economy cannot exist indefinitely without a real economy (mining, manufacturing and agriculture). Not unlike the US Dollar, their very existence is built/leveraged upon a fraction of perceived worth and as we have witnessed, the inflating and taxing power of the Federal Reserve (the real power) on declining main street revenues. Could Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan be the major shareholders of the Federal Reserve on this side of the Atlantic? Sure seems like it.

You also have to wonder how the asshole politicans gave the Big-Three automaker executives such a hard time for arriving in Washington D.C. in private jets in November 2008 to beg for less than one-thirtieth of what the Wall Street masters of the universe investment bankers received.

Automakers actually build tangible products which add value to the United States economy and yet they were practically told to get on their knees while at the same time the Wall Street bankers were figuratively (or not) offered a free blow-job by the Potomac dirt-bags while they handed over the nation's loot.

Who's running who? These bankers actually devised the financial vehicles which are responsible for the smackdown and are still receiving cash rewards for being so clever as to make money for producing nothing but the noise of computer keystrokes and paper shuffling. If anything, these boys are economic and market vampires using methods of profiting which includes skimming money from the markets using computer programs or "flash trading"

"Bloomberg reports in the SEC filings that Goldman only lost money on 2 days out the entire quarter. So they are now hitting something like .900 for 3 months in baseball terms. Folks, there are 13 weeks a quarter, with generally 5 weekdays. That is 65 days. They made money 63 days. That's a 97% win percentage."

Now..after having traded this market for the past 15 years and being able to call consistent gains a viable second monthly income, 97% winning trades is pretty fucking amazing.

"Doing God's Work" 0r Screwing Their Own Clients?

"A Congressional committee questioned Goldman's CEO, Lloyd Blankenfeld about packaging risky assets and then selling them to clients, even though Goldman was betting against those same assets. Thus, Goldman was making money even as their clients were getting killed. I quote Blankfein. 'I do think the behavior is improper. We regret the consequences that people have lost money in it.' (Source: Dow Theory Letters dated 14 January 2010).

The Reaping

Would it surprise you to hear that a bunch of these investment banker types are gunned downed someday by perhaps a once proud family man who thinks he's got nothing to lose after losing it all? A desperate and tragic criminal act perhaps a year or so after losing his job and having written his last check. Maybe he's been put through a divorce from the woman who not only promised "until death do us part," but had made sure that he signed that option-arm mortgage contract with her for that pretty $750,000 McMansion with a four car garage and walk-in closets bigger than the size of their former home's master bedroom. And you know what? When the public someday hears the news of this human tragedy, I'll bet more than a few will be discreetly sporting a small grin of glee on their faces.

It is said that there was a time when a famous monarch stated, "Let them eat cake!" The difference between those days and today, is that the guillotine has been replaced with 500 million firearms, more or less evenly distributed throughout the country. Come to think of it, maybe the boys at Goldman already know not to bring a knife to a gunfight:
Arming Goldman Sachs With Pistols

Of course I would never advocate any violence whatsoever.....but I would understand.

JPMorgan investment bankers to see record payday

REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton ...
By Steve Eder

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM - News) on Friday announced a record $9.3 billion payday for its investment-banking employees, setting the stage for competitors like Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS - News) to also make eye-popping payouts.

On a per employee basis, JPMorgan investment bankers, sales staff and traders, on average, are set to make about $379,000 for 2009, up more than $100,000 from 2008, when the broader financial sector was mired in crisis.

"People looking at it from the outside look at the dollars and say they are high," said Kenneth Raskin, the head of law firm White & Case's executive compensation practice. "There is no question the dollars are high. The question is whether they were deserving."

Median U.S. household income in 2008 was $50,303.

Michael Cavanagh, JPMorgan's chief financial officer, told reporters that even though pay is up overall, its investment bank still reduced the percentage of revenue that it set aside for pay, to 33 percent, from 62 percent for 2008 and historical averages of about 44 percent. Its investment bank had one of its strongest years.

Analysts also expect Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS - News) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS - News), which report their results next week, to show an upswing in pay. Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C - News), however, could pay commercial and investment banking bonuses for 2009 that are similar to 2008 levels, sources told Reuters.

Banks across the industry have changed their compensation plans to give managers more of their pay in the form of stock that must be held for multiple years. This sort of deferred compensation is meant to curb traders and others from taking short-term risks that could harm the investment bank several years later.

Changes in compensation plans, however, have done little to bring down overall pay figures and quell public outrage over pay.

The Wall Street Journal on Friday reported that the top 38 U.S. banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their people $145 billion, based the newspaper's analysis.

The public anger over banker pay led the New York Times to call on Congress to pass a one-off windfall tax on banker bonuses. Britain plans a one-time tax of half of banker bonuses above 25,000 pounds ($40,675).

Banks, which now face President Obama's bailout tax, have so far been successful in beating back other reforms, including plans for a consumer protection regulator.

The resistance of the banking industry to roll back pay is infuriating and short-sighted to some, especially with high unemployment and people losing homes to foreclosure.

"These people need some perspective on where we are and what they have done," said Cornelius Hurley, director of the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law at Boston University.
(Additional reporting by Elinor Comlay, Clare Baldwin, and Dan Wilchins; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Don't Just Blame the "Hired Help"

This is a three part video excerpt which summarizes the history behind the rise of the Khazars (ancestral source of the majority of European Jewry) or more exactly, those who would be the elite segment of this population and their involvement in international banking and politics. The information presented is a good start for those who believe that the buck stops with some Jewish dude, Mayer Amschel Bauer, who somehow crawled out of a medieval Jewish ghetto and started lending money that he made from coin collecting, to the ruling families of Europe. The rise of elite Jewish banking power is a VERY recent event indeed, when compared to the history of the ancient power brokers of western civilization.

For those would characterize this material as Zionist disinformation, please note that it is not intended to redirect all of your hatred. It is presented as a tool for redirecting only some of your hatred or however much of it you wish to allocate elsewhere, if you have extra to spare.

For those who merely desire to point out the suspects in order to disclose political manipulation, a good investigator might, in this case, recognize a red herring and desire to go to a level above the historically and relatively new accounting department or "the help." That bright and colorful piñata presented for the world to beat up on called Zionism or Judaism has served a purpose.

Research in the realm of parapolitics is not an easy exercise in being spoon fed as it is easy to be led down the path of least resistance by information gleaned from the mainstream and even many "supressed" or readily unavailable texts. The process also requires many mid-course corrections, so to speak.

Historically, pogroms against Jews were pogroms against the common classes of Jewry and not the Jewish "fund" managers who held positions below the levels of old-line political and spiritual movers and shakers. For example, the evidence is replete which indicates that certain elite Jewish organizations of the mid 20th century made deals with National Socialist Germany which were far from being in the best interests of the common European Jewish population of the time.


Personally, if forced to point fingers, I blame the child-like herd mentality of humanity for allowing itself to be in the predicament that it finds itself in today (if you are pointing fingers at elected or appointed officials, you should stop reading here because you just don't get it, only for now, hopefully). Nothing will change unless a sizable portion of humanity can one day rise above its own incapacity to be free (freedom includes the freedom to fail). To begin the process, humanity will have to rid itself of its own worst enemies, the engineered dependence upon messiahs (human authority figures or otherwise) and its persistent state of denial regarding the belief in the benevolence of the various authority figures and the political / legal establishment (a condition which might very well be related to a nasty case of Stockholm Syndrome disease).








Recommended reading.....

"How anyone can think that the Rothschilds are the pinnacle of power is beyond me. Very powerful? Yes. The mind behind the all-seeing eye? No way. We have to look much deeper beyond these Kabbalistically-minded businessmen. While not wishing to diminish the truth about their influence, we must keep things in perspective." (Link)

"US financial magnate JP Morgan (who escaped death by not going on the Titanic that he was booked to travel on) died appropriately enough in Rome & was a Knight of the Papal-loyal House of Savoys Order of Sts Maurice & Lazarus." (Link)

"The Jews have historically been used as a hidden order of the Catholic church. They do the things that the Catholic church does not like to be seen doing. Jews are perfect for this job as long as the people rail at the Jews and as long as they rail back at their attackers, no one will look beyond the Jews.." "In the beginning--The Story of the International Trade Cartel" (first chapter: LINK) by Richard Kelly Hoskins, also author of "War Cycles, Peace Cycles," (book review: LINK).

Video source and suggested reading: "The Brotherhood of Death" series on Red Ice Creations

The Abuse of Your Fictitious Wealth

There are peculiar goings on in the world of finance which are continuing to manifest themselves in painful ways directly for those who have stored much of their life-energy in paper investments. I have to ask whether the free reign given to investment banks to create the exotic Frankensteinian financial instruments which triggered the current cascade may have been intentional. Any idiot could have predicted that eventually this idea of highly leveraged derivatives would lead to a disastrous train wreck. This panic would not be the first orchestrated money panic in United States history. Something tells me that we are perhaps witnessing a harvest of sorts...a harvest of the working class' wealth. Most peculiar and less bizarre is how the UNITED STATES Inc., (see USC 28 § 3002 (15)(A)) , federal police agencies and Wall Street and their financial advisor foot soldiers are continuing to do their best to funnel your financial activity into asset classes which can be tapped by insiders when and if it is needed. This includes manipulating the stock market and supressing the gold price by way of the Exchange Stabilization Fund (USC 31) and other means, regulating and requiring sponsorship to operate as a financial advisor, as well as clamping down on certain money alternatives to paper, which might gain too much popularity (more on that below).

The paper representation of productivity used to stand for direct, unleveraged claims on assets in the tangible world. That all began to change beginning with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the subsequent consolidation of financial power with the orchestration of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Used to be that paper notes or money of the day were actually warehouse receipts representing claims upon physical assets, usually gold and silver coin, kept in custodial form at your local bank. This idea was slowly done away on a gradual, inter-generational timeframe as a result of the Great Depression. A convenient fix. The result of this as well as the Nixon Shock of 1971, created lasting shockwave which is being felt right now in the markets. More recently, we are discovering a similar type of fraud perpetuated to the extent that we could call it the theatre of the absurd. How absurd? So absurd that now even the idea that a security, a derivative of wealth representing a claim or interest in a corporate entity, is being done away with through deliberately unenforced criminal activity on the US exchanges. (more on that too, below).

Have a look at these and compare them to the paper in your purse or wallet. Read the print below the dead white guy (click on the image for a slightly larger view):

Notwithstanding the public firestorm that surrounded the $700 billion bailout bill, we can elaborate further on how the Nanny State is not looking out for your best interest.

First we take a look at how physical violence (or threat thereof) by the state operates to contain a political paradigm. Below is a two minute news report video which summarizes what happend in the fall of 2007 to the offices of the LIBERTY DOLLAR. While the alternative currency supplied by the LIBERTY DOLLAR is backed by gold and silver if not actual gold and silver coin minted by this organization, a requirement per the alleged Constitution, keep in mind that the Federal Reserve Note is also a private currency backed by nothing but faith and the horsepower of the federal government corporation. Being that the power of Washington is funded by at-will issuance of paper money or the much more prevalent electronic equivalent, it is obvious that the idea of people storing their energy in something other than the official unbacked paper currency might be seen as a threat. The erroneously monikered US Dollar, is the stock of the USA, Inc., and the board members do not want to see their stock tank, for the moment. The current monetary system is the desired conduit used to tap precious human energy that people willingly provide the leviathan to make endless war (wars and gold backed money cannot co-exist but for very short periods), beat up on free enterprise and threaten violence under an intrusive and oppressive system of taxation. Therefore, it may come as no surprise that this organization was a direct threat to the largest Ponzi scheme ever devised in recorded history. It is also interesting to note that the founder of the LIBERTY DOLLAR and monetary expert Bernard von NotHaus, has not been arrested yet. Imagine this individual, an expert in monetary history, cross examining the government and asking them how the Federal Reserve Note is not a counterfeit piece of paper and how gold and silver as currency, is. Von NotHaus also has in his possession, from the beginning, written replies by law makers and government attorneys, informing him that indeed, the currency he was planning to provide was not in violation of any law. What has changed since then? His organization got way too popular.

Andrew Williams, a spokesman for the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C.:
"There is no law that says goods and services must be paid for with Federal Reserve notes. Parties entering into a transaction can establish any medium of exchange that is agreed upon."

Now we turn to the real fraud, the stealing of your hard earned wealth on the public exchanges. As this illegal activity is going on out in the open (including the SEC grandfathering previously counterfeited securities circulating on the exchanges!!), where's the FBI and Secret Service when you need'em? Oh, I almost forgot, they're busy raiding issuers of honest money. Please read on.

Is there any wonder how a provider of a stable alternative currency is raided by federal law enforcement and their assets seized when trillions are being illegally pilfered on Wall Street while enforcers of the Department of Justice and the more pathetic Securities and Exchange Commission look the other way? Besides the vaporization of assets with the collapse of exotic financial instruments and detonation of powerhouse banks, some of which had been in existence for over one hundred years, there is the very problematic issue of "naked short selling." This is larger than most people think. This is huge and it also extends to the commodities exchanges (one being the US based COMEX). Basically, investment banking houses and brokerage firms have been creating electronic shares and selling them on the exchanges. They have been selling assets with no title to them as they dilute existing share values. Stories of more shareholder votes cast than issued shares at annual shareholder meetings can only mean that many of the securities on your financial statement might very well be other than issued by the corporation in which you think you own. These perps have taken it upon themselves to act like mini-Federal Reserve Banks by creating assets without regard to the prohibition of this activity by Regulation SHO and other statutes. This regulation requires short sellers to locate the stock that they sold by a certain deadline, which must be accounted for to prevent this very activity. Legitimate short selling, per se, has never been the problem. For those unfamiliar with market trading, forget the term "short selling" and note that what is being addressed here is the counterfeiting of securities, selling them, and taking in a free lunch, courtesy of shareholders.

Regarding the COMEX, some experts estimate that today, 90% of all gold and silver contracts outstanding at anyone time, have no gold and silver backing them should investors demand physical delivery. Recently during the volatile movement of gold and silver prices, it is estimated that one or two of the US mega-investment banks sold enough non-existent paper silver and gold out to an equivalent of one year's future production. So contrived are the current spot prices of the white and yellow metals, that physical bullion has been getting very difficult to come by with physical silver deliveries estimated at six to eight weeks for delivery and gold premiums for bullion coins $80 or so above the 'official' spot price of gold. Even with the higher premiums, inventory has still been depleted almost down to nothing. I know of no bullion dealers from about a dozen, who have any supply on hand as of the day of this writing.

Below is a very impacting interview which explains in good detail the overt criminal activity on Wall Street and the COMEX and how regulators are non-responsive to complaints. The loss of confidence could have an impact lasting decades. Most people alive today don't realize that it took until the mid-1950s until the DOW achieved break even from the market top in 1929 and that's excluding the factor of survivorship bias. If you wish to listen to the unbelievable descriptions of the rampant fraud, play the interview below, or download and save the file (link provided) to listen later on:

File version of the interview. Bud Burrell of http://www.thesanitycheck.com/ is interviewed by Jim Puplava of http://www.financialsense.com/ .

Right click the link/save: Burell interview

So there you have it. Not only is the Federal Reserve and its largest and complicit debtor the United States Treasury throwing money around and diluting the value of the dollar, we now have registered firms diluting another form of holding wealth, equities for a double screw-job.

From a news report on the LIBERTY DOLLAR raid:
"We have no money. We have no products. We have no records to even know what was ordered or what you are owed," von NotHaus wrote in the e-mail, which was sent to Liberty Dollar customers. "We have nothing but the will to push forward and overcome this massive assault on our liberty and our right to have real money as defined by the US Constitution. We should not to be defrauded by the fake government money." Source: LIBERTY DOLLAR Offices Raided

Now, do you suppose that the federal agents who participated in the LIBERTY DOLLAR raid are seeing their retirement account values diminish during this current market chaos? Will their pensions still be available if the government is hit with insolvency? Maybe they should ask pre-USSR collapse KGB officers how it went? If so, they can pat themselves on the back for participating in taking down an organization which offered the American people the opportunity to engage in private agreements using gold and silver money per Article I Section X of the US Constitution. A take down of an organization by order of a government which, by its actions, would regard its subjects as batteries to be tapped or cows to be milked. Now, to which constitution did those participating federal law enforcement agents swear an oath to protect?? Good job guys! Great work in aiding and abetting the financial take down of yourselves, your friends and family, the entire country! Some day and not soon enough when their usefulness has run its course, the help's going to find out that the dude's at the top don't give a shit about them either.

Big changes are on the horizon. Are you ready for the shift?

For what its worth...if just to let them know that we know: SEC Center for Complaints

SEC Complaint Center 100 F Street NE, Washington, D.C. 20549-0213. You can also send a fax to 202-772-9295.

The Moral Hazard of Funny Money

Notes on the Current Banking Crisis and the Elite MBA Diploma Mills

What are we to make of the current financial crisis and looming insolvencies (& bailouts) of some of the most "respected" investment banking institutions with such cool household names like Bear Stearns and Citibank? How could the three-piece suits not see this coming? Even with the most rudimentary knowledge of technical charting and the behaviour of markets, any fool with an economics or finance degree from any community college should have seen this coming. How sustainable were home price increases exceeding 25 to 30% annually in many areas of the country? The problem with human nature and markets is the belief that what goes up just keeps going up. The "tyranny of the moment." But why were the best and the brightest from the best regarded financial institutions creating incredibly leveraged, toxic financial instruments that were doomed to fail should any unperceived, yet predictably bound to occur, economic downturn? The current problems we are witness to are not solely due to the mortgage mess, but also due to credit swaps and other complex instruments referred to as "derivatives" that even Warren Buffet doesn't understand. These financial instruments had begun to exist more than a decade ago.

I am convinced that the big-boys, maybe at the CEO level and definitely at the central bank level and above, knew where this would all end up. Ultimately, any discerning individual with two brain cells who gives this some thought knows where this all ends up in the long run. Are we near the end of the "long run?" Who really knows, but logically, a debt-based monetary system, whose operation is dependent upon having interest payments service previously issued debt by issuing yet more debt which incurs yet more interest obligation, which is serviced by issuing yet again, more debt (...you get the picture), is mathematically unsustainable. It wouldn't surprise me if these banksters, represented by ethereal institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the Bank of International Settlements in Basil, Switzerland and the Bank of England, have been orchestrating a plan to foster transition to a new system and I can bet that this plan has been in the wings for some time now. What could that be? A Federal Reserve bank of the world which might eventually be paired with a cashless system? Surely the public would never go along with such a system...but what if the public were taken beyond the edge of the economic abyss? Might they beg for any solution, no matter the cost, to relieve them from suffering?"

Slowly, evidence is coming to light of the deliberate financial take-downs of the past, starting with the money panics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the Great Depression, which eventually killed state-chartered banking and created political acceptance of central banking in the United States, just as intended. If history doesn't exactly repeat, at least it often seems to rhyme. What to believe other than that the current situation could have only been fostered and encouraged with insane easy money and suspiciously absent regulatory oversight, which included enticing home buyers into committing bank fraud on their "no-doc" mortgage applications? The lack of guidance and enforcement of predatory lending regulations, which are especially required in an environment of easy credit with its concomitant moral hazard, were curiously not in the way of what was obviously all-out predatory lending practices. Basically, the bankers were desperate for more warm bodies to create more debt (money) for the system with promissory note signatures.

Of course, one individual New York Governor was about to take the money-changers to task until his weakness was used to stop that unusually noble endeavour. My, my, my, what a coincidence. Nothing changes in politics now, does it? Even the ignorance of the public regarding the most obvious of machinations. Do you believe that [former] New York Governor, Eliot Spitzer, is the only politico in office now known to have shelled out money on call-girls? Please....how transparent.

Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime
How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers
by Eliot Spitzer Thursday February 14, 2008

Sustaining the System; Not Only a Matter of Greed, but of Trained Ignorance
Consistently, highly intelligent young men and women are indoctrinated in Keynesian Economic Theory by the elite MBA diploma mills like WHARTON, STANFORD and THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS. Many of these young MBA types, who are probably not privy to the "plan," are certainly running around in panic mode right now as this crisis continues to unfold. I believe these graduates, from the most desired post-graduate business schools, are given high starting salaries and key positions based upon their "proper" training from this cream-of-the-crop education pipeline. They are purposefully indoctrinated into the Keynesian economic model and kept deliberately ignorant of the sound monetary systems which have successfully existed for hundreds of years prior. I would not be surprised to learn that the professors, which I suspect are gate-keepers in these institutions, are charged with continuously monitoring and watching for any deviations of any candidate away from the originally selected "yes-men" characteristics and/or knowledge beyond the program text books. Creative thinking and aggressive solutions oriented styles are encouraged and expected, but only within a well defined box of the current economic paradigm. This assists and assures the maintenance of the status quo of the current system so as to avoid any rocking of the boat from the chairs of their consulting firms and investment banking offices and in certain cases, from key leadership positions. You could take an academic superstar who speaks heresy from the likes of the free market advocate, the late Ludwig von Mises of the Austrian School of economic theory, and he would be shunned from such lucrative employ. What's wrong, in my opinion, with our current "Keynesian" monetary situation, a non-free market system which is maintained by government interventionist policies? You can explore for yourself, but what confidence could anyone have in the longevity of a monetary system advocated by a man who, in reply to a question regarding the sustainability of his theories in practice responded with, "In the long run, we'll all be dead."(?)

A couple of years ago, I remember working with a very soon to be grad from one of these hotshot schools. I asked many questions about the program he was going through and commented about an email I had coincidentally sent to what I found out was one of his professors, regarding his flawed criticism of hard money [gold/silver]. I also discussed with this student the economic fundamentals of the US economy and how precious metals were to continue their appreciation to the point of values that would shock the investment world. He had no idea what to make of my predictions for gold and silver and actually could not process the decaying fundamentals of the economy I was trying to relay to him, much less how the economy used to function on sound money. If he had been made knowledgeable of monetary history and in a position of more seniority to inform higher level officers of his employer regarding the irresponsible risks behind the exotic financial instruments precipitating the current crisis, would he have been well received? It was hard for me to believe that in less than a few months, this individual would be working at a major financial firm advising very wealthy clients.

I am convinced that some of the important qualities sought for recruitment or acceptence to "the club" by way of these schools, is BOTH high intelligence coupled with an Orwellian ignorance of economic history and naivete...and these traits CAN co-exist. The professors are also more than likely monitors to judge the "proper" mindset of the future robotic investment bankers and consultants needed for the system to thrive and continue on its current reckless path to oblivion.

POOR PETER!!


"When, through the process of law, the common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more easily governed through the strong arm of government applied by a central power of wealth under leading financiers. These truths are well known among our principal men who are now engaged in forming imperialism to govern the world. By dividing the voter through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting for questions of no importance." The American Bankers Association Digest, 1924

Gold; the Ultimate Currency & a Short Video Course on the Subprime Mortgage Crisis

Since The Bull Market in Things and Portfolio Check-up were posted to this site earlier this year, I thought perhaps it was time to take another look at the growing elephant in the living room; gold. There is a tiny minority of Americans who recognize what it going on and who have been quietly investing in this asset class or currency. Yes, it is still a currency, after thousands of years and it certainly has been trading like one (copper, the base metal bellwether has been plunging of late while gold stubbornly appreciates in price). Since most investors invest in what's popular, higher prices will have to be realized before they take the plunge. Once they see gold breaking through $1,000 US (and silver in the $20s), things will begin to change.

Keep in mind that currency indices measure paper currencies against each other. The Euro has appreciated in dollar terms, yes, but has been falling in terms of gold. As an analogy, all the ships are taking on water, some just slower than the others due to the tremendous creation of money and credit worldwide, at double digit rates. Even the venerable "Swissy" (Swiss Franc), perhaps the top performing paper currency in the world, is beginning to spring some leaks in the face of gold (see charts below).

Despite the unrelenting appreciation of the metal since 2001, only the populations in the Middle-East and Asia have widely taken notice. As far as the West goes, those populations simply refuse to give up thinking in terms of pieces of paper posing as stores of value. As an example of this myopia, this month we saw media reports of top model Gisele insisting upon payment in Euros and "rapster" Jay-Z in a music video flashing a wad of 500 Euro bills. Central bankers are international. They care not which of their pieces of paper you prefer. What about gold? As far as we know, they have not yet succeeded in turning lead into gold, but what they have done is better as they pass off notes which pose as money. As the scheme began to grow cracks in the late 1990's with the LTCM and Russian debt default etc., astute market observers discovered admissions by the FED, as revealed in their FOMC minutes, of selling (or leasing) gold to suppress its price. In addition, despite gold's appreciation and recent run-up, you won't hear CNBC, the 24-hour Wall Street infomercial, talking much about gold, much less the coming gold investment wave which will dwarf that of the dot.com mania.

Financial professionals and money managers have been ignoring the clear signs of a secular bull trend in gold which has been in play for over the past five years. Now that price action is screaming a long term buy (and maybe a few clients are beginning to ask some questions), they will soon no longer be able to stubbornly adhere to their professional indoctrination. A Keynesian economic indoctrination which has also been enforced by the extremely short timeframe that is a few decades of observation of an economy in motion (gold's slumber lasted for almost half a lifetime). So now the usual recommendations are being touted. Five to ten-percent allocation into precious metals. Now we can all sleep at night as we allocate 90 to 95% of our wealth in currencies which are being multiplied by governments and their central bank paymasters struggle to keep the system from imploding.

Funny money, limited corporate liabilty, the off-loading of risk into the financial system by way of non-transparent exotic financial instuments and the myriad bailouts of the past half-century have increased the moral hazard to the degree of threatening the entire world financial system. In times past, no financial entity lent real money (gold), without carefully considering the capabilities of the borrower. But back then, investment capital was derived from savings and interest rates were determined by the quantity of savings available.

I tend to believe that the behind the scenes planners know very well what they are doing as we stare at more consolidation into currency blocks and an eventual world central bank. It is a replay of the orchestrated bank panics of the early twentieth-century on a worldwide scale. This time, they used hedge fund managers and mortgage bankers, whom I must assume have very short memories or perhaps shave once a week. Did the gray hairs really believe that real estate appreciation (ignited by the FED lowering rates in 2001) was sustainable? That a couple earning $70,000 could afford a $450,000 McMansion making payments dependent upon temporary teaser or adjustable mortgage rates? Why did former Federal Reserve Chairman Sir Alan Greenspan encourage borrowers to buy homes using ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) in the face of rising interest rates?

The last orchestrated bank panics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries led to the creation of the Federal Reserve (which was devised in secret, since back then, people were extremely suspicious of the "money trust"). Sixteen years later the United States was hit with a major economic disaster, the Great Depression. The Great Depression consolidated even more power for the banking cartel, as state chartered banking was destroyed (as intended) and gold was officially demonetized, domestically. Forty-two years later, gold was demonetized on a worldwide scale and currencies have floated ever since without the discipline which gold created for balanced trade (this was the real reason for the energy crisis of the early 70s). Did the private banking cartel that is the Federal Reserve create the economic stability it promised? Even if you hold on to your wallet, the big boys are going to bail themselves out at your expense without having to pull out a single note from it. They'll just have the value of each adjusted so that you pay your fair share, once again, for their reckless profilgacy.

Below are three month charts of Euros, Canadian Dollars, Swiss Francs and the US dollar in terms of gold.






































Confused about the mortgage lending problems and the growing financial panic? This is bigger than you can imagine and it involves more than just mortgage lending. See the video below for a quick explanation of a topic which could use a little humor:

AN "INVESTMENT BANKER" EXPLAINS THE SUBPRIME MORTGAGE MELTDOWN

Portfolio Check-up

So the markets are doing well and you've found yourself able to open your quarterly brokerage statements these past few years and actually look at the figures without cringing. But let's take a look at the yardstick that you are using as you absorb and digest the seemingly successful appreciation of your invested sweat and toil.

Notwithstanding the confiscation of large portions of your income and other gains at the point of a gun (individual income taxes--"home of the free,"---yeah!), you might want to look beyond the massaged Bureau of Labor and Statistics numbers to take a true measure "the other tax;" inflation. Why would the BLS tell you the truth about inflation with their benign-looking CPI index when this entity is an agency of a government which must make provisions for cost of living allowance increases for federal workers, social security and other government retirement program recipients as well as making variable payments to holders of inflation protected (TIPS) U.S. bonds? Not only that, the inflation figures they publish exclude food and energy! Try asking the check out girl at your grocer for the "core rate of inflation" prices the next time you pay for your food. By the way, inflation has never, until recent history, been an out-in-the-open state of affairs and in the past, the "coin clipping" was done so only covertly. As a matter of fact, the devaluation of money at the time of the birth of the United States, was punishable by death! [1] Yet today, participants in this economy, although many are unsure why, have come to accept this state of affairs and frantically chase yields. Let's make one thing perfectly clear, inflation is defined as the increase in the money supply, and rising prices are the result. Interestingly, WIKIPEDIA tells us that this was the old definition. Really?

Today, the debasement of money is in your face and don't think for a minute that the Federal Reserve is charged with "fighting inflation." The Federal Reserve is the sole creator of inflation. If a nation, civilization or world for that matter, expects to continue to function properly without the inevitable major disturbances in the economic state of affairs, stable medium(s) of exchange must preceed such expectations. So much today for "fair weights and measures."

Without having to get blurry-eyed staring at statistics and figures, let's see if we can take a quick glance at a few charts so that we can get an idea of the slow destruction of your livelihood. By the way, don't blame the US government. That visible entity hasn't run the show for quite a good while now and most Americans continue to vote for the controlled political selectees paraded before them, while viable candidates are buried and not allowed the stage for open national debates.[2] Worse, there is little knowledge of the fact that the US Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, IS NOT a public agency of the US Government. The real deal is that the oligarchs run the show, and they'll keep pushing until you push back. When will you have had enough? Ever wonder where the robber-barron families of old have disappeared to? That's just it, they no longer make appearances, but they still very much run the show.

Now, to the point of all of this as we take a look at the DOW Jones Industrial average as a measure of the U.S economy as well as the standard of many investment portfolios, against REAL (tangible) things and not to some floating, imaginary intrinsically worthless medium of exchange which is the U.S. "Dollar." [3]

Let's take a look at the DOW as measured in U.S. "Dollars," then, as measured in items that directly illustrate why the rate of inflation is , in reality, approaching double-digits. Click on the charts, if you wish to expand them.





















































































Sorry to tell you this, but you are not getting richer. If anyone is, it is the corporate bosses and the "made men" in politics who are doing so and doing so quite well. The irony of it all is that the media will try to convince you that capitalism is a failure in attempting to have you beg for a more level playing field. If and when the public demand more regulation and socialism because things are so "unfair," the top dogs WILL NOT take a hit, trust me. Never have, never will, as they are the script writers of the grand "coincidences" that we call history. Who was it who said that those who believe they are free make the best slaves?

By the time most begin to figure out what's going on, gold will be in the four figures. By the time most become convinced, they'll be buying hard assets as those run wild to a blow-off top and soon thereafter seek a lower equilibrium. That is the madness of human nature and thus the markets. Check out, The Bull Market in Things, if you get a chance.


[1] See Section 19 of the COINAGE ACT OF 1792 for the penalty for debasing the coinage.

[2] Have you heard of Congressman Ron Paul? According to the latest MSNBC poll on line, he leads the Republican Party yet barely a peep from the press about him. Why? Perhaps because he happens to believe in liberty and the Constitution.

[3] A silver coin of the United States containing 371.25 grains of silver and 41.25 grains of alloy, that is, having a total weight of 412.5 grains. See: COINAGE ACT OF 1792 .

CNBC's Jim Cramer on the Hedge Fund Manager's "How To" of Market Manipulation; You won't hear this on CNBC

From Jim Cramer's own experience as a hedge fund manager, this is a must watch video on how investors are taken to the cleaners by market manipulation. Things are said here that he admits would not be said on the network. Listen closely...this borders on the criminal.

Note: You may experience problems viewing the following video if you are using Firefox as your browser. Embedded videos work best with IE.



CRAMER REVEALS A BIT TOO MUCH
NEW YORK POST
By RODDY BOYD
March 20, 2007 -- Flamboyant Wall Street trader turned TV host Jim Cramer, not known for being the shy, retiring type, might have said too much in a video interview he did for a financial Web site.

The host of CNBC's daily program "Mad Money" had hedge fund-trading desks buzzing yesterday after he bragged about manipulating stock prices during his days as a trader.

In the video from TheStreet.com's "Wall Street Confidential" Webcast, Cramer boasts about manipulating the price of a high-flying stock down, and even acknowledges that doing so might have been illegal. The video is making the rounds on YouTube.

"A lot of times when I was short, I would create a level of activity beforehand that would drive the futures. . . . It's a fun game," Cramer said in the Webcast, which was moderated by TheStreet.com Executive Editor Aaron Task.

Cramer later said that "no one else in the world would ever admit that, but I don't care."

However, seconds later, he acknowledged, "I'm not going to say that on TV," referring to his show on CNBC.

A remarkably successful money manager when he ran the $450 million Cramer Berkowitz hedge fund, Cramer in the Webcast shared his "tips" on how to drive a stock price down so that a short-position - a bet that a stock price would drop - remains profitable.

He added that the strategy - while illegal - was safe enough because, "the Securities and Exchange Commission never understands this."

A call to Cramer was not returned.

The Bull Market in Things

For those who have expressed an interest in the ongoing and developing bull market in "things" or tangibles, the following information is presented for educational purposes.

Paper represents claims. In the current system, by design, if too many attempt to cash in claims, problems arise as too many head for the exits. This is especially true today as the Federal Reserve Note, private scrip (today erroneously referred to as "the dollar"), is intrinsically worthless as it ultimately represents a claim on nothing.

Not investment advice. Please due your own due diligence!

Interestingly, financial planners and mainstream financial publications rarely address the specter of the falling US dollar for the average American investor. Can investors truly call themselves financially diversified if all their investments are denominated in a currency of a nation which is accumulating staggering debt? This is especially important for those whose retirement is more than a few years away. The enormous trade deficits, war expenditures and unfunded liabilities of the US government (one estimate was over $60 trillion in unfunded liabilities alone), present a dangerous risk that the US dollar may be a museum relic by the time today's middle age investor is ready to retire. Already, the Council on Foreign Relations is discussing a replacement currency, a regional one (to be called the AMERO) and high level G-8 and US Treasury officials have expressed a desire to "allow" the US dollar to fall, (albeit, in a controlled fashion). They are telling us this, point blank. We are witnessing this today as commodities and gold are reacting strongly to the upside as structural deficits will only be worked out by way of a falling dollar. Perhaps it might be prudent to do some personal research about defensive plays to preserve sweat and toil by diversifying in varying degrees suited to each investor, outside of one asset class. Relying solely on an asset which is being multiplied toward infinite quantities is the ultimate in foolishness. A study in the markets is a study in human behaviour and yourself.

*First, if there be any doubt as to past being prologue!
Click here


*"Gold and Economic Freedom," by Alan Greenspan;
from Ayn Rand's "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal:" Click here


*Successful master commodities trader Jim Sinclair runs a website on his own dime. He has demonstrated his abilities especially during the last gold run of the 1970s. He lives and breathes trading and provides his observations and technical analysis knowledge free of charge. He does provide a wealth of his compilations in CD format at a nominal charge to cover costs. His observations during the past five years have been prophetic. Do well not to dismiss his analyses of the future of the gold market (and commodities, in general).
Click here


*Live Precious Metals prices and education:
http://www.kitco.com
http://www.amark.com


*Education on the markets, economics, with a slant toward precious metals:
http://www.gold-eagle.com
http://www.321gold.com
http://www.goldseek.com
http://www.zealllc.com/essays.htm


*Jim Puplava is a macro-economic genius. The wealth of information on his website is astounding. He also hosts weekly shows and posts them in MP3 format for free downloading. His Storm Watch series is especially educational. Check out the button at the top right of his website for updates. Puplava also runs a financial planning business for wealthier clients.
Click here


*"Commodities Bull Portfolio Design," by Adam Hamilton
Click here


Hamilton called it!
"The Great Commodities Bull of the 00's" (April 27, 2001)
Click here

Do yourself a big favor, read this: "The Creature From Jekyll Island."

Buy gold and silver: http://www.coloradogold.com