I asked how gold price was controlled and I was referred to "GATA." What is GATA? GATA is an acronym for the "Gold Anti Trust Action Committee.
http://www.gata.org/
Here is how they define themselves: "The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee was organized in January 1999 to advocate and undertake litigation against illegal collusion to control the price and supply of gold and related financial securities. The committee arose from essays by Bill Murphy, a financial commentator, and by Chris Powell, a newspaper editor in Connecticut, published at Murphy's Internet site, www.lemetropolecafe.com [1].
Murphy's essays reported evidence of collusion among financial institutions to suppress the price of gold. Powell, whose newspaper had been involved in antitrust litigation, replied with an essay proposing that gold mining and investor interests should act on Murphy's essays by bringing suit against the financial institutions involved in the collusion against gold.
The response to these essays was so favorable that the committee was formed and formally incorporated in Delaware. Murphy became chairman and Powell secretary/treasurer.
GATA underwrote the federal anti-trust lawsuit of its consultant, Reginald H. Howe -- Howe vs. Bank for International Settlements et al. -- which was pursued in U.S. District Court in Boston from 2000 to 2002. While the Howe suit was dismissed on a jurisdictional technicality, it became the model for Blanchard Coin and Bullion's anti-trust lawsuit against Barrick Gold and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., which was filed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans in 2002 and prompted Barrick Gold's decision to stop selling gold in advance for 10 years.
GATA continues to expose and oppose collusion against a free market in gold, other precious metals, currencies, and related securities.
GATA is recognized by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt educational and civil rights organization and it welcomes financial contributions."
Stay tuned while I investigate how this works.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Did Jesus name the anti-Christ?
Biblical prophecy is often unclear when uttered, for example what Jesus said about the Temple in Jerusalem that its stones would be thrown down. This seemed such an unlikely event! But in fact it did happen when the Romans destroyed the Temple in AD 70. The story is that there were some gold inlays in the wood used in construction and when the Temple burned, the gold melted and seeped into the cracks between the stones. The Romans had the stones torn down so they could get at the gold.
Recently, a friend sent me a video on the subject mentioned in the title of this post. I can not reference the video, so I am going to go through it with you.
Luke tells us in his 10 th Chapter what happened when the 70 He sent out returned. Jesus said this to them in verse 18: ..."I saw Satan fall like lightening from Heaven." Of course, Luke had written his Gospel in Greek, whereas Jesus spoke those words in Aramaic, the ancient form of Hebrew and I am using the Revised Standard Version in English. Isaiah, who predated Jesus's ministry, had this to say about Satan, quoting Satan: 'I will ascend to Heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High;'
So, the characterization of Satan as "lightening from Heaven" (or a high place) is consistent between Isaiah and Jesus. Fortunately for us, we have Strong's Hebrew Lexicon to find out what Jesus said in Aramaic:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/
The question then is: does the calling Satan as "lightening from Heaven" (a high place) actually tell us something that we understand in today's world?
Lightening in the Dictionary is word # 1299 and is sounded out as "Barak." High place is word # 1116 which sounds "Bamah" or Bamaw. Lightening of a high place would then sound as "Barak o (or u) Bamah," the "o" or "u" being a conjunction. The question I have is did Barak Obama sit in the Illinois State Assembly? That would be a far North place from Jerusalem. And is it on a hill? Or, did he ever preside over a session? Would that be a high place? Check it out for yourself.
Recently, a friend sent me a video on the subject mentioned in the title of this post. I can not reference the video, so I am going to go through it with you.
Luke tells us in his 10 th Chapter what happened when the 70 He sent out returned. Jesus said this to them in verse 18: ..."I saw Satan fall like lightening from Heaven." Of course, Luke had written his Gospel in Greek, whereas Jesus spoke those words in Aramaic, the ancient form of Hebrew and I am using the Revised Standard Version in English. Isaiah, who predated Jesus's ministry, had this to say about Satan, quoting Satan: 'I will ascend to Heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High;'
So, the characterization of Satan as "lightening from Heaven" (or a high place) is consistent between Isaiah and Jesus. Fortunately for us, we have Strong's Hebrew Lexicon to find out what Jesus said in Aramaic:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/
The question then is: does the calling Satan as "lightening from Heaven" (a high place) actually tell us something that we understand in today's world?
Lightening in the Dictionary is word # 1299 and is sounded out as "Barak." High place is word # 1116 which sounds "Bamah" or Bamaw. Lightening of a high place would then sound as "Barak o (or u) Bamah," the "o" or "u" being a conjunction. The question I have is did Barak Obama sit in the Illinois State Assembly? That would be a far North place from Jerusalem. And is it on a hill? Or, did he ever preside over a session? Would that be a high place? Check it out for yourself.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
And how the piranhas profited from our misery.
More from Tack;
"Just my opinion, of course, but I think the powertraders on Wall Street look for weaknesses to exploit in the name of profit, without regard to economic consequences, political motives, nationalistic allegiances and/or world conspiracies. To them, Wall Street is just a Golden Goose that keeps producing.In the instance at hand, it became apparent that if mark-to-market accounting of large asset bases could be linked, more or less directly, to the ability to decimate the market value of thinly-traded debt assets, then, the balance sheets of huge institutions and their related share prices could be brought into play. Hence, we saw the ABX index created by Goldman Sachs for the specific purpose of having a vehicle to short subprime debt paper. As must have been the traders' fondest hopes, the ABX, and other debt indices, became the de-facto standard for valuing corporate debt on a broad basis, so that these thinly-traded indices could serve as the value benchmark for vast quantities of debt assets, without regard to other performance and valuation methods. Once, that occurred, the rout was on, and it was totally self-reinforcing, as declining index values lowered debt-asset values, causing huge writedowns on corporate books, creating panic share selloffs, which in turn created more fear, allowing the indices to be shorted even lower, rather easily.You raise the question of whether these factions desired or were indifferent to the final destruction of the financial system, and I'd probably conjecture that while they don't mind making the Golden Goose very ill, they don't really want to kill it, since they can make money making it healthy once again, until the next time they want to strangle it for a while.To that end, once all the damage was done shorting things to near calamity, the same interests that had made tens or hundreds of billions probably hoped to pick up all the decimated paper for a song, if banks could be forced to sell it at vastly depressed prices. That's why so much pressure has been brought to bear on forcing banks to give away 'toxic" paper. However, seeing that this approach was not bearing fruit, and looked increasingly likely not to occur, the speculators did the next best thing, they started buying large positions in the entities holding such paper, so they could participate in the inevitable ride up. "If you can't beat 'em. join 'em."
I add that the piranhas had a motive in crashing the financial system.
"Just my opinion, of course, but I think the powertraders on Wall Street look for weaknesses to exploit in the name of profit, without regard to economic consequences, political motives, nationalistic allegiances and/or world conspiracies. To them, Wall Street is just a Golden Goose that keeps producing.In the instance at hand, it became apparent that if mark-to-market accounting of large asset bases could be linked, more or less directly, to the ability to decimate the market value of thinly-traded debt assets, then, the balance sheets of huge institutions and their related share prices could be brought into play. Hence, we saw the ABX index created by Goldman Sachs for the specific purpose of having a vehicle to short subprime debt paper. As must have been the traders' fondest hopes, the ABX, and other debt indices, became the de-facto standard for valuing corporate debt on a broad basis, so that these thinly-traded indices could serve as the value benchmark for vast quantities of debt assets, without regard to other performance and valuation methods. Once, that occurred, the rout was on, and it was totally self-reinforcing, as declining index values lowered debt-asset values, causing huge writedowns on corporate books, creating panic share selloffs, which in turn created more fear, allowing the indices to be shorted even lower, rather easily.You raise the question of whether these factions desired or were indifferent to the final destruction of the financial system, and I'd probably conjecture that while they don't mind making the Golden Goose very ill, they don't really want to kill it, since they can make money making it healthy once again, until the next time they want to strangle it for a while.To that end, once all the damage was done shorting things to near calamity, the same interests that had made tens or hundreds of billions probably hoped to pick up all the decimated paper for a song, if banks could be forced to sell it at vastly depressed prices. That's why so much pressure has been brought to bear on forcing banks to give away 'toxic" paper. However, seeing that this approach was not bearing fruit, and looked increasingly likely not to occur, the speculators did the next best thing, they started buying large positions in the entities holding such paper, so they could participate in the inevitable ride up. "If you can't beat 'em. join 'em."
I add that the piranhas had a motive in crashing the financial system.
How the banks were dismantled.
Here is an article on the value of Citibank:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/160007-citigroup-a-simple-analysis-of-a-terribly-complex-company?source=email
And here is a description by blogger "Tack" of what happened to the bank stocks:
You have hit the nail on the head, one that has eluded so many observers, misled by the ridiculous mark-to-market values, which, of course, are near meaningless for bank loan portfolios that are being held for performance, not as speculative-gain assets. The current mark-to-market values, so frequently cited by the "insolvent" crowd, bear almost no resemblance to the discounted-cashflow values typically used banks and other financial firms to value debt portfolio assets.The above explains why banks are making record cashflows and amassing record cash balances -- lots of that "valueless," "toxic" debt is actually performing nicely and throwing off cashflows, month after month. It, also, explains why no bank is in the slighest interested to jettison absurdly-marked loans at giveaway prices, so that some drooling speculators can make all the gains on the writeups after the hysteria passes (it's passing, now, by the way).Huge lobbying efforts were expended by the speculator class to inspire Congress to pass laws making it mandatory for banks to sell their assets at ruinous prices, but, thankfully, these efforts have failed, so far (and let's hope, forever). If this had occurred, we would have seen the complete ruination of the banking system and utter destruction of the economy, with an accompanying depression of incalculable magnitude.Related to the foregoing, the same speculator class caused most of this crisis by taking what could have been a manageable subprime-loan problem and turning into an economic rout by playing a rigged game of shorting (much of it illegal naked shorting) debt indices, while at the same time buying huge CDS positions on the institutions holding the debts, know full well that the then-current mark-to-market rules would ensure financial catastrophy for the banks and other lenders.So many observers/commenters seem to think that the writedown, selloff, paper-insolvency stage was/is the real world and that the current recovery is false, but they have it exactly backwards. The banks, mistakes though they made with poor loans (aided and abetted by Barney Frank/Christopher Dodd lending mandates), have been the victims of a scurrilous campaign of manipulation and profiteering. It is only now that they are regaining some semblance of normal operation, and even now, they have a long way to go to regain full economic and stock-market value.On Sep 05 11:38 AM stonebluff wrote:> Beware of assuming that mark to market should be a mantra. When the> Fed racked interest rates up to 20% in the early 80's, probably every> commercial bank in the US was broke bcause of depreciation in its> assets. A bank of which I was a director was under water because> of depreciation in its impeccable loan portfolio alone.. The regulators> and bankers very sensibly ignored the mess. They have to have that> flexibility.> > An analysis of book value that is made based on intangibles based> on what every credit trainee is taught not to do.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/160007-citigroup-a-simple-analysis-of-a-terribly-complex-company?source=email
And here is a description by blogger "Tack" of what happened to the bank stocks:
You have hit the nail on the head, one that has eluded so many observers, misled by the ridiculous mark-to-market values, which, of course, are near meaningless for bank loan portfolios that are being held for performance, not as speculative-gain assets. The current mark-to-market values, so frequently cited by the "insolvent" crowd, bear almost no resemblance to the discounted-cashflow values typically used banks and other financial firms to value debt portfolio assets.The above explains why banks are making record cashflows and amassing record cash balances -- lots of that "valueless," "toxic" debt is actually performing nicely and throwing off cashflows, month after month. It, also, explains why no bank is in the slighest interested to jettison absurdly-marked loans at giveaway prices, so that some drooling speculators can make all the gains on the writeups after the hysteria passes (it's passing, now, by the way).Huge lobbying efforts were expended by the speculator class to inspire Congress to pass laws making it mandatory for banks to sell their assets at ruinous prices, but, thankfully, these efforts have failed, so far (and let's hope, forever). If this had occurred, we would have seen the complete ruination of the banking system and utter destruction of the economy, with an accompanying depression of incalculable magnitude.Related to the foregoing, the same speculator class caused most of this crisis by taking what could have been a manageable subprime-loan problem and turning into an economic rout by playing a rigged game of shorting (much of it illegal naked shorting) debt indices, while at the same time buying huge CDS positions on the institutions holding the debts, know full well that the then-current mark-to-market rules would ensure financial catastrophy for the banks and other lenders.So many observers/commenters seem to think that the writedown, selloff, paper-insolvency stage was/is the real world and that the current recovery is false, but they have it exactly backwards. The banks, mistakes though they made with poor loans (aided and abetted by Barney Frank/Christopher Dodd lending mandates), have been the victims of a scurrilous campaign of manipulation and profiteering. It is only now that they are regaining some semblance of normal operation, and even now, they have a long way to go to regain full economic and stock-market value.On Sep 05 11:38 AM stonebluff wrote:> Beware of assuming that mark to market should be a mantra. When the> Fed racked interest rates up to 20% in the early 80's, probably every> commercial bank in the US was broke bcause of depreciation in its> assets. A bank of which I was a director was under water because> of depreciation in its impeccable loan portfolio alone.. The regulators> and bankers very sensibly ignored the mess. They have to have that> flexibility.> > An analysis of book value that is made based on intangibles based> on what every credit trainee is taught not to do.
Weather Channel Blues.
It is hurricane season right now, but hurricanes stubbornly refuse to do their usual devastation of the Eastern Sea Coast, Florida or the Gulf Coast. When tropical waves form, they are torn up by Westernly winds, what we see referred to as "shear." The Weather Channel is reduced to reruns of Katrina and other famous hurricanes.
To be sure, Jim Cantore lives for standing out in 100+ mile winds and reporting how awful, wet and windy it is. Weather like that is no joke. BUT! What what became a joke was the career of Dr Heidi Cullen at the Weather Channel. She lost sight of all measures of objectivity and became a misguided advocate of the Global Warming cult. This cult trumpeted endlessly that because of increasing carbon dioxide emissions, global temperatures would rise resulting in all manner of catastrophes. Her solution (and the solution of most of the Warmists) was to build a Socialist government that would dole out carbon credits, while some charlatans would grow rich selling these credits.
Dr Cullen is no longer at the Weather Channel. She resurfaced at PBS, Jim Lehrer and other Liberal outfits. I decided to check a few of her predictions.
The basic problems with Dr Cullen were that: 1. she lost scientific impartiality and became an ideologue, an extreme advocate of a theory; 2. she assumed that once a trend was established, it would continue; 3. that global warming was established almost as a scientific law with no dissent permitted and 4. that global warming could be alleviated by the Socialist prescriptions of the greens.
One prediction of the Greens was that the warming experienced up to 1998 would continue. It did not and cooling set in in 1998. This trend continues. A second prediction was about increased hurricanes. That trend did not continue either. Another prediction was for larger number of hurricanes. We are seeing fewer hurricanes and so on. There was one prediction, however, which was one of the most alarming: that global warming would devastate the trout fishing in Montana.
So, I checked the headlines from local sources in Montana.
http://www.newwest.net/city/article/montanas_snowpack_bodes_well_if_it_doesnt_melt_too_fast/C8/L8/
The report is from "Carbon based climate change." Takes alarmist tack and reports that cold weather kept snow pack lower than average and if there is a warm year, it could be bad.
http://willfishforwork.com/2009/03/27/montana-snow-pack-march-27-2009/
This blogger laments the length of the cold and his cabin fever. No evidence of serious low water in Montana rivers as of March 27, 2009.
http://www.newwest.net/city/article/montanas_snowpack_bodes_well_if_it_doesnt_melt_too_fast/C8/L8/
This blog reports about average snow pack. Less than normal precipitation was preserved because of cooler weather. This is a May 1, 2009 report with a map.
http://www.mt.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/data/comparison.html
Actual tabulation of snow pack as of May 11, 2009. Snow pack is 122% of average statewide.
http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/research/ftm_snow.htm
The July report from Flattop Mountain SNOTEL site reports near average snow.
http://www.wrds.uwyo.edu/wrds/nrcs/updatesur/update-mt.html
The snow precipitation update from SNOTEL sites in Montana shows near average precipitation most places with a couple of exceptions. In other words: a normal year.
OK, so how is the fishing in Montana? Did it rain? Here is the person on the scene:
http://www.wapiti-waters.com/blog/?p=809
This summer has been busy and the fishing has been great. One nice thing is that we haven’t had many wildfires so the air quality is very clear. I am enjoying that! Our rivers levels have been ample though in late July, the water temperatures were creeping up. But now, we have had cooling rain, a little too much rain as the river has been running a bit muddy from run-off sediment.
This last week we had a pacific and a Canadian weather system collide over our big sky and it dumped record breaking rain amounts. The Bitterroot and Big Hole doubled their water levels. The fishing hasn’t been very good except on the Blackfoot River. It fished well yesterday.
I am posting a few photos taken at Victor Crossing on the Bitterroot a few days ago to give you an idea of what our river looks like right now. As the storm passes and the sun comes out, the river should clear and the trout will be hungry.
Our national Media do not check the accuracy of predictions and when they do, they suppress reports that show their favorite alarmists to be wrong. Here is an obviously biased (and wrong) prediction by Dr Cullen:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/july-dec08/troutdrought_10-31.html
The facts contradict the alarmist prediction so PBS is not reporting them. They are busted by the evidence. And Algore should be in jail for fraud and racketeering.
To be sure, Jim Cantore lives for standing out in 100+ mile winds and reporting how awful, wet and windy it is. Weather like that is no joke. BUT! What what became a joke was the career of Dr Heidi Cullen at the Weather Channel. She lost sight of all measures of objectivity and became a misguided advocate of the Global Warming cult. This cult trumpeted endlessly that because of increasing carbon dioxide emissions, global temperatures would rise resulting in all manner of catastrophes. Her solution (and the solution of most of the Warmists) was to build a Socialist government that would dole out carbon credits, while some charlatans would grow rich selling these credits.
Dr Cullen is no longer at the Weather Channel. She resurfaced at PBS, Jim Lehrer and other Liberal outfits. I decided to check a few of her predictions.
The basic problems with Dr Cullen were that: 1. she lost scientific impartiality and became an ideologue, an extreme advocate of a theory; 2. she assumed that once a trend was established, it would continue; 3. that global warming was established almost as a scientific law with no dissent permitted and 4. that global warming could be alleviated by the Socialist prescriptions of the greens.
One prediction of the Greens was that the warming experienced up to 1998 would continue. It did not and cooling set in in 1998. This trend continues. A second prediction was about increased hurricanes. That trend did not continue either. Another prediction was for larger number of hurricanes. We are seeing fewer hurricanes and so on. There was one prediction, however, which was one of the most alarming: that global warming would devastate the trout fishing in Montana.
So, I checked the headlines from local sources in Montana.
http://www.newwest.net/city/article/montanas_snowpack_bodes_well_if_it_doesnt_melt_too_fast/C8/L8/
The report is from "Carbon based climate change." Takes alarmist tack and reports that cold weather kept snow pack lower than average and if there is a warm year, it could be bad.
http://willfishforwork.com/2009/03/27/montana-snow-pack-march-27-2009/
This blogger laments the length of the cold and his cabin fever. No evidence of serious low water in Montana rivers as of March 27, 2009.
http://www.newwest.net/city/article/montanas_snowpack_bodes_well_if_it_doesnt_melt_too_fast/C8/L8/
This blog reports about average snow pack. Less than normal precipitation was preserved because of cooler weather. This is a May 1, 2009 report with a map.
http://www.mt.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/data/comparison.html
Actual tabulation of snow pack as of May 11, 2009. Snow pack is 122% of average statewide.
http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/research/ftm_snow.htm
The July report from Flattop Mountain SNOTEL site reports near average snow.
http://www.wrds.uwyo.edu/wrds/nrcs/updatesur/update-mt.html
The snow precipitation update from SNOTEL sites in Montana shows near average precipitation most places with a couple of exceptions. In other words: a normal year.
OK, so how is the fishing in Montana? Did it rain? Here is the person on the scene:
http://www.wapiti-waters.com/blog/?p=809
This summer has been busy and the fishing has been great. One nice thing is that we haven’t had many wildfires so the air quality is very clear. I am enjoying that! Our rivers levels have been ample though in late July, the water temperatures were creeping up. But now, we have had cooling rain, a little too much rain as the river has been running a bit muddy from run-off sediment.
This last week we had a pacific and a Canadian weather system collide over our big sky and it dumped record breaking rain amounts. The Bitterroot and Big Hole doubled their water levels. The fishing hasn’t been very good except on the Blackfoot River. It fished well yesterday.
I am posting a few photos taken at Victor Crossing on the Bitterroot a few days ago to give you an idea of what our river looks like right now. As the storm passes and the sun comes out, the river should clear and the trout will be hungry.
Our national Media do not check the accuracy of predictions and when they do, they suppress reports that show their favorite alarmists to be wrong. Here is an obviously biased (and wrong) prediction by Dr Cullen:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/july-dec08/troutdrought_10-31.html
The facts contradict the alarmist prediction so PBS is not reporting them. They are busted by the evidence. And Algore should be in jail for fraud and racketeering.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
The astonishing comments of Pat Caddell.
Friday I listened in on Sean Hannity and he had a substitute. And his substitute was talking to Pat Caddell. Mr Caddell has some astonishing things to say, all uncomplementary of Obama and the Democrat Party. Caddell was complaining of the direction Obama and the Democrats were taking the Country. And he, Caddell, was angry about the goodies given out by the regime to Wall Street bankers. The stimulus came in for its share of criticism. The last time I agreed with a Democrat like Pat Caddell was when Jimmy Carter was President.
I was at the site where the Tea Party stopped on I30 on its way to Little Rock. Hundreds of people came on a Friday afternoon to protest. I recorded many of the signs. Most were complaining about the unelected Czars: one, a member of the Socialist International (Carol Browner) and one an avoved Communist (Jones). People feel that the Constitution is threatened and want the Country to veer away from its march toward Socialism. The mood is that we will stop this march: one way or another.
The march of gold.
Gold finished trading at 996.80 (if I can believe the after hours trade) down $1 from Thursday. A lot of forecasters now figure on a gold breakout coming sooner than expected, followed by another big drop in the Stock Market. The question is whether gold prices and the price of gold mining stocks will hold their value in a second ObamaCrash. Here is the graphic of the gold bug index for recent years.
Notice that gold hit its top in Jan 2008 and lost some value in the ObamaCrash, but only lost 30% instead of the 50% loss in stocks. It would appear that if we have another crash, not even gold stocks will be safe. I might add thouth that the ObamaCrash of Oct-Nov last year was exaggereated by the deflation used to elect Obama and it is not likely to be redone in the next dip.
As you can see, gold stocks lost about as much as other stocks. At this point, the Stock Market is still advancing while gold is moving up. This could change and change rapidly. Here is the graphic for the ETF GLD (exchange traded gold fund that owns actual gold):
Notice that gold hit its top in Jan 2008 and lost some value in the ObamaCrash, but only lost 30% instead of the 50% loss in stocks. It would appear that if we have another crash, not even gold stocks will be safe. I might add thouth that the ObamaCrash of Oct-Nov last year was exaggereated by the deflation used to elect Obama and it is not likely to be redone in the next dip.
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