Malaysia to get Twentieth Century Fox theme park

Malaysian casino operator Genting's resort unit will build a 400 million ringgit ($125 million) Twentieth Century Fox Theme Park near the capital Kuala Lumpur, it said Friday.

The park -- to open in 2016 -- will be the first Twentieth Century Fox theme park with rides and other attractions based on such blockbusters as "Ice Age", "Life of Pi", "Alien" and "Night at the Museum", Resorts World Genting said in a statement.
Jeffrey Godsick, president of Twentieth Century Fox Consumer Products, said the park marked the launch "of our global location based entertainment strategy".
"For the first time, audiences will soon be transported into the worlds of their favourite Twentieth Century Fox properties," he said.
Built on more than 25 acres (10 hectares), the park will feature more than 25 rides and attractions, the statement said.
It replaces an older outdoor theme park, which is part of Resorts World Genting located at the peak of an area known as Genting Highlands.
The resort, which also includes the country's sole casino and has attracted more than 20 million visitors per year since 2011, is undergoing a reportedly three billion ringgit refurbishment.
Muslim-majority Malaysia has banned gambling but allows non-Muslims to bet at the casino in Genting Highlands, on horse-racing and the national lottery.
Asia's first Legoland theme park opened last September in the southern Malaysian state of Johor in an economic hub across a narrow waterway from Singapore.

AirAsia Japan cancels hundreds of flights

 

AirAsia Japan has said the budget carrier will cancel hundreds of flights over two months before it ceases operations under the current brand at the end of October.

AirAsia Japan, operated jointly by Malaysia-based AirAsia and major Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways (ANA), will suspend 14 daily flights from September 1 to October 26, according to a company statement.
The carrier said the cancellations, which will reportedly affect 14,000 passengers, was because of a lack of planes to service all its routes.
The affected routes include flights linking Seoul to the central Japanese city of Nagoya and Tokyo to the northern city of Sapporo.
The carrier will cease operations by the end of October, just over a year after it started flying out of Tokyo's Narita airport in August.
Announcing the dissolution of AirAsia Japan in June, the Malaysian carrier cited a "fundamental difference of opinion between its shareholders on how the business should be managed, from cost management to where the domestic business operations should be based".
ANA however said the venture dissolved because it was not well known in Japan and could not register profits.
The Japanese carrier plans to launch a new budget brand in November.

It's Time To Start Taking This Global Food Riot Model Very Seriously

Source: Motherboard

You should already know the name Yaneer Bar-Yam. He’s the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute and made news for a 2011 paper tying global food prices to 2008 and 2011 riot outbreaks in Africa, and the general theory that above a certain benchmark food price, the conditions for rioting become prime. It’s not a strict cause and effect relationship—if value x, then riots—simply an observation that the probability of riots spikes at a certain point. Other things, like, say, Mohamed Bouazizi setting himself on fire, might be the actual trigger, but day-to-day survival as it pertains to food is what allows the gun to fire.
Bar-Yam’s model has another “success,” according to a paper posted on the arVix pre-print server last week. Rioting that occurred last year during a platinum miner’s strike in South Africa—in which 34 strikers were killed by government forces—coincided neatly with a spike in the global price of maize. Stagnant wages matched with spiking food costs yields unrest. It matches well with a similar spike in 2008 that resulted in another series of riots in the country.
The graph is below is limited to South Africa and fairly self-explanatory:
Read More...

BREAKING NEWS: Amazon “declares war” on book industry

y Dennis Johnson

Is the evil clown still beatable?

Has the vicious end-game scenario we discussed just yesterday — whereby a government-sanctioned Amazon.com makes its move to cement its position as the most colossal monopoly in publishing history, and to savor the rewards — begun unfolding, and rapidly at that?
That’s what a special weekend edition of Shelf Awareness surmises. According to a report by SA editor John Mutter, late Friday Amazon, apparently to take advantage of lessened weekend attention and the company’s upcoming endorsement from President Obama …

… quietly began discounting many bestselling hardcover titles between 50% and 65%, levels we’ve never seen in the history of Amazon or in the bricks-and-mortar price wars of the past. The books are from a range of major publishers and include, for example, Inferno by Dan Brown, which has a list price of $29.95 but is available on Amazon for $11.65, a 61% discount; And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini, listed for $28.95, offered at $12.04, a 58% discount; Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, listed at $24.95, available for $9.09, a 64% discount; and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, listed at $17.99, available for $6.55, 64% off ….
The discounts are far below the usual 40%-50% range sometimes offered by Amazon, warehouse clubs and other discounters and are more typical for remainders than frontlist hardcovers. In some cases, the hardcovers are priced below the Kindle editions.

At the moment, the extreme discounting seems limited to bestsellers. Still, that’s a large category, and a vital one to brick-and-mortar retailers, such as to Barnes and Noble, which has re-made itself into a chain that now consists mostly of bestsellers and merchandise, and to numerous indies that need bestseller sales to survive … which could make this potentially a devastating blow to those businesses, to say nothing of the damage it could do to publishers already feeling their books are severely under-priced.
It’s a dramatic enough move to prompt one prominent bookseller — Jack McKeown, who runs Books & Books in Westhampton Beach, New York — to tell Mutter that “It’s an open declaration of war against the industry.”
Why now? In a closing more strongly-worded than is his habit, Mutter cites McKeown and others speculating that …

… Amazon has been “emboldened” by the Justice Department‘s victory against five major publishers in the e-book agency model case as well as Wall Street’s acceptance of continued losses by Amazon for now in the expectation of retail domination–and major profits–eventually. This last point was seen most recently on Thursday, when Amazon’s quarterly results included a net loss and were below Wall Street expectations but did not provoke the usual rush to sell, as is the case with most companies whose results are disappointing.
Another possible reason for Amazon’s boldness is its apparently cozy relationship with the Obama administration–whose Justice Department pursued the agency model case, which mainly benefited Amazon. This relationship will be highlighted this coming Tuesday, when the president will give another major speech on the economy and aiding the middle class at, of all places, the Amazon warehouse in Chattanooga, Tenn. This is roughly equivalent of going to a Wal-Mart and calling for more of the kinds of jobs it offers.

All notions that echo our Friday commentary (and we couldn’t agree more with that last point — except to say Amazon takes reckless dis-concern for its labor to a level unachieved by Wal-Mart). But as the Shelf Awareness report adds, if this is indeed a sign that Amazon is playing out its end game, it’s happening much more rapidly than even we speculated, and with a dramatic dose of Amazon’s famous, always-surprising (in that it’s so unnecessary) thuggish chutzpah.
But here’s something perhaps even more surprising such a move could represent: Cause for optimism. Could this be Amazon’s first major mistake? Is this the opportunity the industry has been waiting for to galvanize opposition — and finally get the government to focus on the real monopoly in this industry? After all, this is the company’s most blatant, in-your-face flaunting ever of the prohibitions against loss-leader pricing inherent in our antitrust legislation, particularly the Robinson-Patman Act.
Then there’s the message it sends to Wall Street — “With your apparent blessing, we’re going to make our previous losses of amazing amounts of money look like nothing and really start losing some serious dough right now.”
And then there’s the way this exploits the company’s chumminess with not just the Obama administration, but Obama himself. Does the president really want to promote his jobs program by aligning himself with a company famous for stationing ambulances at the backdoors of its warehouses instead of improving working conditions, or that hires neo-Nazis to provide security at those warehouses, or that has a class-action lawsuits pending against it here and abroad for other unseemly labor practices? What happens if that association — of the president and the infamous employer — becomes an issue in itself?
Big what-if’s indeed, and not a lot of time to act on them (surely contributing to Amazon’s smugness) … and perhaps it’s the kind of thinking that comes with the mindless exhilaration of finding yourself at war, but, well, what if, indeed?
Stay tuned. The fat lady may not have sung yet.

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.

Empowering Citizens and Deterring Crime, One Free Shotgun At a Time

The 400 homeowners of the Oak Forest neighborhood in Northwest Houston were terrorized by 107 home invasions last year. It’s a neighborhood ripe for the picking by criminals who have no worries about being stopped in the act or even pursued by an already overworked police force.
But one Houston man has decided he’s fed up with the bullying and victimizing of innocent people and he’s evening the playing field. He’s put a plan into action that takes direct aim at the problem – in the form of 12 gauge and 20 gauge shotguns.

“We give brand new pump action shotguns…”
Kyle Coplen is offering free shotguns to every homeowner here in the Oak Forest area of Northwest Houston.
Coplen came up with the Armed Citizen Project in January, after he was disgusted by one of those break-ins when World War II veteran Albert Wood had his house broken into.
“It’s really upsetting because your home is your castle, it’s where you should feel safe.”
Coplen started spreading the word, accepting donations, and putting shotguns into the hands of every resident of Oak Forest who wants one.
“They’re easy to learn how to use. You don’t have to be an expert marksman.”
“No [I am not terrified that I am putting guns in peoples' hands]. To qualify for a firearm with us you have to pass a background check, and you have to take and pass our training course which is legal safety and tactical training.”
“For anyone who’s handled one of these, the sound of a shell being racked is the universal ‘Get Out of My House’ “

The Armed Citizens Project not only provides shotguns to those who need them in high crime neighborhoods, but trains residents on the weapons while also helping them to develop personal defense safety plans in the event they are confronted with a break-in.

Starting this August, the organization is planning to give away 500 shotguns to single moms in 15 cities across the country as part of their “Redistribution of Firepower”  initiative.

The Armed Citizen Project  is pleased to announce their latest effort to maximize the number of responsible gun owners in America; Armed Citizen Project’s Redistribution of Firepower Program.
The group’s founder, Kyle Coplen said “We see this as a buyback we can believe in, one that removes old and unused firearms from homes of existing gun owners, and uses them to create new responsible gun owners in our own communities.”
…

The Armed Citizen Project plans on training as many as 500 women nationally on August 10th, National Empowerment Day, and is arming entire neighborhoods in crime ridden cities.

Politicians and gun control advocates often cite guns as the problem, but statistics show that the highest levels of crime occur in those areas where residents have been disarmed, data that has been echoed in countries like the UK and Australia, where guns have been outlawed.
While they wrangle in Washington about what to do with soaring violent crime rates, the Armed Citizen Project has found a time-tested, simple and effective solution.

“We are empowering citizens and deterring crime, one free shotgun at a time.“

And the residents of the neighborhoods they have armed are grateful for the safety, security and peace of mind that comes with knowing they don’t have to wait critical minutes for help to arrive when violence is at their front door.
Hattip Steve Quayle, Investment Watch Blog

Fed Is Trying Like Crazy to Reflate a Phony Economy – Will They Spend $85B A Month Till I Retire?! US Dollar Soon Won’t Be Able to Buy Gold at Any Price

Fed Is Trying to Reflate a Phony Economy

Fed QE Will They Buy $85B A Month Till I Retire! Global Economic Crisis

US Dollar Collapse, Soon Won t Be Able to Buy Gold at Any Price – Bitcoin – Galt s Gulch

I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take this anymore
 

Rand Paul - 'ObamaCare Will Cause States to Go Bankrupt'

Goldman CEO on risk: The worst 'absolutely will happen'

Goldman CEO: What I learned from the financial crisis
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein discusses the lessons he learned from the global financial crisis, and why he thinks Fed chair Ben Bernanke has done a good job so far, at the Australian Institute of Company Directors in Sydney.
Investors should always prepare for the most extreme risk scenario because it will happen, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein told the Australian Institute of Company Directors at a breakfast briefing on Friday.
Blankfein, who's been Goldman CEO since 2006, steered it through the fallout of the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. He said the experience had taught him to accept that the worst thing you can imagine will inevitably happen.
"Most risk management is really just advanced contingency planning and disciplining yourself to realize that, given enough time, very low probability events not only can happen, but they absolutely will happen," said Blankfein.
"The definition of infinity is that you wait long enough, everything happens."
(Read more: Why Goldman Sachs earnings weren't all that: trader)
Blankfein said in his view, the major problem during the financial crisis was that ordinary people were banking on the fact that the scenario they feared the most, the collapse of real estate prices, was not a possibility
.

More Dreamliner ills; smoke in one, another grounded

There were more problems for Boeing's troubled 787 Dreamliner on Friday - one was grounded, an oven overheated in another and damage was found in wiring on two other planes as pressure mounted on Boeing over possible new electrical problems with the advanced jet.
Qatar Airways said it had taken one of its Dreamliners out of service following what it described as a "minor" technical issue.
The airline and Boeing declined to give further details but industry sources said they were treating seriously reports that the aircraft had been grounded for days after smoke was seen near an electrical panel.
According to web-tracking service Flightaware, the aircraft, registered as A7-BCB, has not flown since Sunday, an unusually long downtime for a long-haul jet designed to save fuel bills.
Qatar Airways confirmed an aircraft had been taken out of service, but said no flights had been canceled as a result. "This is a minor issue for us, and not an incident, so we are not commenting," an airline spokeswoman said.
A spokeswoman for Boeing said, "We request that you channel all your enquiries to Qatar Airways."
Two people familiar with the matter, asking not to be identified, said smoke had been reported near an electrical compartment while the jet was on the ground in Doha. A failure in a similar bay caused an fire during a test flight in 2010.
A fire-brigade supervisor in Doha said it did not have any record of an incident with an airport-related call last week.
India's aviation regulator said earlier it had started an investigation after an oven in a 787 operated by Air India overheated during a domestic flight, causing smoke.
There was no interruption to services.

And Japan's ANA, which operates the world's biggest fleet of Dreamliners, also said on Friday it had found damage to the battery wiring on two 787 locator beacons.
Tests have been ordered on the beacons after a parked Ethiopian Airlines-owned Dreamliner caught fire at London's Heathrow this month, causing extensive damage to the plane.
The global fleet of Dreamliners was grounded for three months earlier this year due to battery-related incidents.
Aviation experts say it is common for the reported number of incidents to rise when an aircraft is in the spotlight. Aircraft regularly suffer glitches that go unreported and rarely pose a direct threat to safety.
However, aviation experts say U.S. and British authorities investigating the previous fires may seek to establish whether anything can be learned from a pattern of reported incidents connected in various ways to the jet's electrical systems.
Boeing Chief Executive Jim McNerney said this week he remained "highly confident" in the future of the 787 program and the integrity of the company's newest airplane.
The 787 incorporates a raft of changes in the way passenger jets are designed, including greater use of electrical systems that save weight compared to older hydraulics. It is the first passenger jet built mainly from lightweight carbon-composites.

18 facts 2008 crisis hitting US again

If our leaders could have recognized the signs ahead of time, do you think that they could have prevented the financial crisis of 2008?
That is a very timely question, because so many of the warning signs that we saw just before and during the last financial crisis are popping up again. Many of the things that are happening right now in the stock market, the bond market, the real estate market and in the overall economic data are eerily similar to what we witnessed back in 2008 and 2009.
It is almost as if we are being forced to watch some kind of a perverse replay of previous events, only this time our economy and our financial system are much weaker than they were the last time around.
So will we be able to handle a financial crash as bad as we experienced back in 2008? What if it is even worse this time? Considering the fact that we have been through this kind of thing before, you would think that our leaders would be feverishly trying to keep it from happening again and the American people would be rapidly preparing to weather the coming storm. Sadly, none of that is happening. It is almost as if they cannot even see the disaster that is staring them right in the face. But without a doubt, disaster is coming. The following are 18 similarities between the last financial crisis and today…
#1 According to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch equity strategy team, their big institutional clients are selling stock at a rate not seen “since 2008.”

#2 In 2008, stock prices had wildly diverged from where the economic fundamentals said that they should be. Now it has happened again.
#3 In early 2008, the average price of a gallon of gasoline rose substantially. It is starting to happen again. And remember, whenever the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the US has risen above $3.80 during the past three years, a stock market decline has always followed.
#4 New home prices just experienced their largest two month drop since Lehman Brothers collapsed.
#5 During the last financial crisis, the mortgage delinquency rate rose dramatically. It is starting to happen again.
#6 Prior to the financial crisis of 2008, there was a spike in the number of adjustable rate mortgages. It is happening again.
#7 Just before the last financial crisis, unemployment claims started skyrocketing. Well, initial claims for unemployment benefits are rising again. Once we hit the 400,000 level, we will officially be in the danger zone.
#8 Continuing claims for unemployment benefits just spiked to the highest level since early 2009.
#9 The yield on 10 year Treasuries is now up to 2.60 percent. We also saw the yield on 10 year US Treasuries rise significantly during the first half of 2008.
#10 According to Zero Hedge, “whenever the annual change in core capex, also known as Non-Defense Capital Goods excluding Aircraft shipments goes negative, the US has traditionally entered a recession”. Guess what? It is rapidly heading toward negative territory again.
#11 Average hourly compensation in the United States experienced its largest drop since 2009 during the first quarter of 2013.
#12 In the month of June, spending at restaurants fell by the most that we have seen since February 2008.
#13 Just before the last financial crisis, corporate earnings were very disappointing. Now it is happening again.
#14 Margin debt spiked just before the dot.com bubble burst, it spiked just before the financial crash of 2008, and now it is spiking again.
#15 During 2008, the price of gold fell substantially. Now it is happening again.
#16 Global business confidence is now the lowest that it has been since the last recession.
#17 Back in 2008, the U.S. national debt was rapidly rising to unsustainable levels. We are in much, much worse shape today.
#18 Prior to the last financial crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke assured the American people that home prices would not decline and that there would not be a recession. We all know what happened. Now he is once again promising that everything is going to be just fine.
Are the American people going to fall for it again?
It doesn’t take a genius to see how vulnerable the global economy is right now. Much of Europe is already experiencing an economic depression, debt levels in Asia are higher than ever before, and the U.S economy has been steadily declining for most of the past decade. If you doubt that the US economy has been declining, please see my previous article entitled “40 Stats That Prove The US Economy Has Already Been Collapsing Over The Past Decade.”
And the truth is that most Americans already know that we are in deep trouble. Today, 61 percent of all Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track.

It isn’t that so many people are choosing to be pessimistic. It is just that an increasing number of Americans are waking up to the cold, hard reality that we are facing.

Decades of incredibly foolish decisions have brought us to this point. We allowed our economic infrastructure to be gutted, we consumed far more wealth than we produced, our politicians kept doing incredibly stupid things but we kept voting the same jokers back into office again and again, and over the past 40 years we have blown up the biggest debt bubble in all of human history.
We have been living so far above our means for so long that most of us actually think that our current economic situation is “normal.”

But no, there is nothing normal about what we are experiencing. We are entering the terminal phase of a colossal debt spiral, and when it flames out the economic devastation is going to be absolutely spectacular.

When the next major wave of the economic collapse comes and unemployment soars well up into the double digits, millions of businesses close and millions of American families lose their homes, I hope that those that are assuring all of us that there will not be an economic collapse will come back and apologize.
There are tens of millions of people out there right now that are not making any preparations at all because they have been promised that everything is going to be okay. When the next financial crash happens, most of them will be absolutely blindsided by it and many of them will totally give in to despair.
Don’t let that happen to you.
ISH/HJ

Republished from: Press TV

GOP banning bailout of crisis-hit Detroit

The Obama administration is making no sign of helping Detroit as its emergency manager and republican governor steer the city towards bankruptcy proceedings.
Yet, that is not enough assurance for some in the GOP who are pushing for passage of a law explicitly banning the bailout of Detroit, and any other municipality for that matter.
At least five republican senators have recently proposed tacking language onto spending bills that would broadly prohibit municipal bailouts.
These proposed measures, which would have far-reaching implications for towns and cities across the US if passed, are aimed towards preventing any federal aid to Detroit.
GOP leaders are attacking the city with notable venom at a time when its 700,000 residents–80 percent of whom are African-American–must contend with deepening crises of poverty and privatization.

Rising numbers of Republicans are declaring that the city has dug its own grave and does not deserve federal help. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) declared Thursday that Congress must not, under any circumstance, “bail out Detroit or any American city that mismanages its public finances.”
Yet, when Wall Street took a hit from its self-made 2008 financial crisis-which devastated towns and cities across the US, including Detroit-Republicans and Democrats stood behind a massive federal bailout of big banks, pushed forward under George W. Bush, with President Obama picking up the baton.
Today, there is little interest from either side of the aisle to extend a helping hand to the largest city to file for bankruptcy in US history.
Unions appealed to members of Congress not to turn their backs on the city. In a statement Thursday, AFSCME Detroit Local 207 president Lee Saunders declared:
The whole country is watching how this crisis gets resolved. As the nation emerges from the worst of the Great Recession, it is time for Congress and the White House to make it clear they will not turn their backs on our urban centers.
Nearly 60 percent of Detroit children live in poverty and 33 percent of all land sits vacant. Half of all streetlights are non-functional, and a majority of public parks have shut down. Common Dreams
ISH/HJ

Republished from: Press TV

"Economics Cannot Trump Mathematics"

Originally posted at Monty Pelerin’s World blog,
Extreme Fear Is Reasonable
It is nearly impossible to convince people that an economic ending is likely, perhaps inevitable. It is beyond anything they have seen or can imagine. I attribute that to a normalcy bias, an inherent weakness of experiential learners. For many, accepting something that has not occurred during their time on the planet is not possible. The laws of economics and mathematics may shape history but they are not controlled by history.
The form of cataclysm and its timing is indeterminable. Political decisions continue to shape both. The madmen who are responsible for the coming disaster continue to behave as if they can manage to avoid it.  Violating Einstein’s definition of insanity, they continue to apply the same poison that caused the problem. These fools believe they can manage complexities they do not understand. We are bigger fools for providing them the authority to indulge their hubris and wreak such damage.
Apocalypse In One Picture

James Quinn provided the following graph. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this graph is worth millions. The route to economic demise is depicted below:

The relationships in this graph are terrifying! Debt is shown relative to GDP. GDP growth has been one-third the growth in debt for the period. That is, the economy required $3 of debt to produce $1 more in real GDP. In recent years diminishing returns to debt required $6 of debt to increase GDP a $1. Whatever the benefits of debt, they have clearly diminished, almost to zero. Debt expansion has gone exponential in order to salvage the weak growth in GDP.
To put this into a perspective the average reader can understand, think of GDP as a household’s spending. The “family” depicted above has to borrow each year in order to maintain its spending level. Imagine the condition of your family if you borrow ed 6 times the amount of incremental spending each year. Then imagine the condition of your family after forty years of continuously increasing your debt levels substantially in excess of your income.
It is impossible for a family without a printing press and a cooperative Federal Reserve to engage in such behavior. The government is different, you say? Surely it is, but not necessarily in a meaningful financial manner. Just as you would not survive such behavior, governments cannot either. History is full of examples of government collapses resulting from excessive debt and overspending. A printing press only provides the luxury of more time before the failure.

You may object that a macroeconomy is different from a family. Debt (parroting the political claim) makes an economy grow faster. The evidence shown to the right does not support this claim. Government reported GDP growth rates are shrinking as the debt expansion accelerates. Since 1965 the growth rate of the economy has been declining.
Even if you accept government GDP reporting, the chart to the right shows a trend this is pointing to an average declining standard of living. That point will be reached when the GDP growth falls below the population growth.
The US economy has been underperforming since the 1970s according to government’s statistics. That is after all the games have been played with these numbers. How much longer can these trends continue and what happens at the end? No one can reasonably answer either of these questions.
What Is Known And Not Known
Two things are known:

• So long as borrowing increases faster than GDP, the ability to repay diminishes. That has been occurring for more than forty years and the differential growth rates have widened dramatically in recent years. 
• Not borrowing at this pace would likely have decreased reported GDP dramatically. While that may have been a proper economic response, it is now politically impossible (or highly unlikely).

Continuing to increase debt at a rate greater than GDP ensures financial collapse. Stopping or slowing down at this point likely leads to the same point. This country has maneuvered itself into a no-escape situation.
What would happen to GDP and the standard of living if borrowing were dramatically reduced? How much of the last $10 trillion in debt borrowed between 2000 and 2009 went directly into reported GDP?  Is it possible that reported GDP for this period could have been $10 trillion lower? If there is indeed a monetary/fiscal multiplier as Keynesians insist, then results would have been worse.
Answers to these questions are speculative. Those in favor of more debt argue that a calamity would have occurred had the massive rise in debt and its accompany stimulative effects not happened. For the Paul Krugmans of the world, more debt and stimulus is always the answer. All problems look like nails when you own only a hammer.
Rapidly increasing amounts of debt since 1965 have been accompanied by falling rates of growth. One may speculate what this growth would have been with different rates of debt expansion. Whether the rate of debt expansion increased or decreased the rate of real GDP is moot. Economists can use their competing paradigms to duel over this issue, but cannot come to a conclusion that is acceptable to most.
Mathematics, on the other hand, is definitive. There are mathematical limits that control the ability to service debt. Once these limits have been breached, some amount of the debt will be defaulted on. The breach point is referred to as a debt death spiral. The US has passed this mathematical point and is in a death spiral.
The political class in America, either via misguided economic policies or a deliberate attempt to hide the true condition of the country, has put us here. They will continue to employ whatever policies they believe will keep things going for a while longer. The tragic ending has been cast. Economics cannot trump mathematics.

Republished from: Blacklisted News

Group In Charge Of enforcing Obamacare Want Out Of Obamacare!

10 Ways to Commit Nutritional Anarchy

Once upon a time, if we felt we needed to, we could go to the pharmacy or department store, select a bottle of vitamins, and feel pretty confident about the actual contents of the bottles.

Nowadays, real vitamins are so hard to track down that they might as well be on the endangered species list.  In fact, most of what is sold as “vitamins” in the United States actually contains toxic ingredients and nutritional content that isn’t readily bio-available.  And matters may soon get even worse, as the US government “harmonizes” with an overbearing set of rules called Codex Alimentarius.
Just going to the drug-store and buying one of the brightly colored bottles off the shelf may actually be worse for your health than being bereft of the nutrient.  Before spending your hard-earned money on candy flavored chewables or much-advertised over-the-counter vitamin imposters, do some research. Recently, Sayer Ji of Green Med Info wrote about the hazardous chemicals found in a popular brand of children’s vitamins:

Kids vitamins are supposed to be healthy, right? Well then, what’s going on with Flintstones Vitamins, which proudly claims to be “Pediatricians’ #1 Choice”?  Produced by the global pharmaceutical corporation Bayer, this wildly successful brand features a shocking list of unhealthy ingredients, including:

• Aspartame

• Cupric Oxide

• Coal tar artificial coloring agents (FD&C Blue #2, Red #40, Yellow #6)

• Zinc Oxide

• Sorbitol

• Ferrous Fumarate

• Hydrogenated Oil (Soybean)

• GMO Corn starch

On Bayer Health Science’s Flintstones product page designed for healthcare professionals they lead into the product description with the following tidbit of information:

82% of kids aren’t eating all of their veggies¹. Without enough vegetables, kids may not be getting all of the nutrients they need.

The implication? That Flintstones vitamins somehow fill this nutritional void. (Click HERE to learn more about this deceptive product.)

Unfortunately it gets even worse than the deception waged by Fred, Barney, Betty, and Wilma.  With the approach of a world governed by Codex Alimentarius, natural supplements will become regulated to the point that you will no longer be able to acquire a therapeutic amount  without taking nutritionally pillaged vitamins by the handful.
In the United States, the FDA is in charge of implementing the standards. Over the next two years, with the Food Safety Modernization Act, they will be doing just that.  According to a Natural News article by Dr. Gregory D’Amato, these irrevocable standards are on their way of being implemented to allow the US to “harmonize” with Codex.

* All nutrients (vitamins and minerals) are to be considered toxins/poisons and are to be removed from all food because Codex prohibits the use of nutrients to “prevent, treat or cure any condition or disease”

* All nutrients (e.g., CoQ10, Vitamins A, B, C, D, Zinc and Magnesium) that have any positive health impact on the body will be deemed illegal under Codex and are to be reduced to amounts negligible to humans’ health

Basically what it all boils down to is that we are on our own to provide nutrients. Soon legitimate vitamins will not be readily available – only the toxic Big Pharma options will be sold.  Because of this, it is imperative that we figure out how to provide these things for ourselves.
One article suggests that once Codex is fully implemented, most vitamins and nutritional supplements will require a prescription.

Drug companies can exploit this process by trying to patent common dietary ingredients as drugs before supplement companies have an opportunity to submit their NDI notifications. Once a drug company investigates an ingredient for drug purposes and publishes their findings, the ingredient can no longer be used in supplements.

This has happened before – it happened with the pyridoxamine form of vitamin B6 we mentioned above. In other words, what was once a supplement available to consumers at low cost will now be an expensive prescription-only drug, if it is available at all. (And it’s not only the drug that costs more: you’ll need to pay your doctor for an office visit just to get the prescription!)

The draft guidance also states that a synthetic copy of a supplement constituent, or an extract of an herb or other botanical, is not considered a dietary ingredient at all (much less an NDI). Isn’t this good – isn’t it better not to be an NDI? No. If the FDA says it is not an NDI, that means they are saying it can only be sold as a drug – period. This could knock out a number of important supplements currently sold.

The guidance discusses at length the evidence required for a notification (approval) – and the requirements are extensive, including a strong recommendation to include human studies. We sometimes forget that human studies, in addition to being very costly, do not always fit supplements. (source)

Here’s how to commit to nutritional anarchy.

The most important thing we can do for our health right now is to learn about nature’s vitamins in preparation for the day that choosing our own supplements is against the law. For example, did you know that a cup of rose hip tea contains staggeringly high amounts of Vitamin C?  Or that a cup of dandelion greens contains three times the RDA for Vitamin A?

Anarchy is defined as the non-recognition of authority. If nutrition becomes regulated by a bunch of bureaucrats who, at best, don’t really care about people, and at worst, hope to depopulate the globe, you must have the plans and weapons in place to live a life of nutritional anarchy.  Take these steps to prepare for the day when real vitamins might be completely inaccessible without a prescription.

1. Educate yourself on which foods provide the most nutritional bang for the buck
2. Plant nutrient dense flora in your garden
3. Learn to identify edible plants and locate wild sources of nutrients, like a field of dandelions (make sure they are not sprayed with pesticides)
4. Learn small space gardening methods to make the most of urban locations
5. Consider hydroponics and/or aquaponics
6. Purchase heirloom seeds to put aside for the future, when they may no longer be available
7. Learn how to properly save and store seeds from your own plants for future gardening endeavors
8. Learn how to harvest and preserve the bounty from your own property
9. Practice preparing delicious meals using the most nutritious  foods available
10. Experiment with multiple ways to use the in-season bounty from your garden to prevent boredom
    

These are the actions that will provide our independence from those who would have the audacity to regulate good nutrition.

When you stock your pantry with vitamin-laden goodies straight from nature, you don’t have to question whether  you are providing your family with what they need or just buying into the Big Pharma marketing scam. Big Pharma executives are rubbing their greedy hands together, just waiting for the day that we have been “food modernized” and can no longer purchase nutritional supplements without a visit to a physician, a trip to the pharmacy, and all of the costs (and risks) associated with those things.

In the case of Codex Alimentarius and the nutritional dictatorship the document portends, Mick Jagger had it right when he said:

Allegations of Overtime Abuse in DC Fire and EMS Department

DC News FOX 5 DC WTTG

There are new allegations of overtime abuse in the D.C. Fire and EMS Department. It comes at a time when the city is strapped for cash.
One firefighter has earned more than $300,000 with the overtime he earned, more than three times his base salary.
Last year, 25 firefighters racked up more than a million dollars in overtime.
FOX 5 has found one person, a commanding officer, who has earned overtime nearly every pay period in the last two years. The firefighter has earned nearly $100,000 in overtime each year.
At times, Lt. Richard Lehan has racked up 90 hours of overtime when others complain they are getting very little. Documents show at least two other firefighters earned $100,000 in overtime last year.
These documents obtained by FOX 5 show that since 2008, Lehan stands out as one of the top overtime earners in the department.
According to payroll records, Lehan has worked nearly 2,500 hours in overtime since 2009. It shows month after month, Lehan is averaging 45 hours of overtime per pay period. Department policy dictates that there should be no more than 36 hours overtime per pay period.
D.C. Council Member Phil Mendelson wants accountability and says it is overtime abuse at its worst.
"I'm going take that information to the Chief Financial Officer and ask why those paychecks are being processed,” said Mendelson. “Some attention has to be given to the supervisors who permitted the work to take place and the supervisors who authorized the paycheck to be written. Frankly, if it's egregious enough, some heads have to roll.”
Lehan wouldn't comment on camera Monday about his overtime, but says he works the hours given to him to support his five children and has done nothing wrong.
Payroll records show he earned $153,000 in overtime over the last two years. If you add that to his $89,000 a year firefighter salary, his take-home pay for the last two years has been at least $331,000.
Mendelson says this has to stop.
"This overtime has been out of control. Management has not been managing the overtime issue, so the overtime has been millions of dollars over the budget. So we're doing it ourselves through the law. It's a crude way of doing it," said Mendelson.
Because the fire department policy wasn't working, the D.C. Council imposed a new law last year. It says no firefighter or officer can earn more than $20,000 in overtime.
However, documents show Lehan's overtime continues to exceed that amount even under the new law.
In October, November and December, Lehan has again met or exceeded the overtime limits, working 153 overtime hours in the last three months of 2010, earning him nearly $10,000.
On Monday night, the D.C Fire and EMS Department could not say which supervisor or assistant chief approved all the overtime or why it was approved, but issued a statement saying the department has made changes and now uses overtime management software called Telestaff.
"To reduce overtime, Telestaff assists the department to better plan, distribute and manage OT through improved work scheduling controls on a shift-by-shift basis," said D.C. Fire and EMS spokesman Pete Piringer in a written statement.
The only problem according to sources is that the person in charge of the computerized Telestaff scheduling of overtime is Richard Lehan and his firefighter brother, Eddie Lehan.
A fire department spokesman says of late that Lehan appears to be within the guidelines set forth by the D.C. Council.

Read more: http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/17949698/allegations-of-overtime-abuse-in-dc-fire-and-ems-department#ixzz2aJz4UZZ4
Follow us: @myfoxdc on Twitter | myfoxdc on Facebook

Jim Rickards: Most Likely Outcome Is Still A Monetary Collapse

In his latest interview Jim Rickards gives an update on his economic and monetary outlook and compares it with his view two years ago when he was writing his book. In particular, he talks about the scenario that is unfolding currently: a monetary collapse.
In general he recognizes that we are going through a major transition which started in 2007. We are on our way to a new economic and monetary situation. Major transitions are characterized by unstability, or a bubbly environment. That will continue till one of the following scenarios becomes reality:

1. Chaos, or monetary collapse.
2. A basket of currencies acting as a world reserve currency.
3. SDR (special drawing rights) issued by the IMF.
4. A form of a gold standard.

Mr. Rickards still expects a collapse of the dollar as the most likely outcome. That has not changed since he has written his book.

Long term outlook – Monetary collapse

Mr. Rickards sees that we are heading towards the first of the four scenarios. Although he does not pretend to know the future (which nobody does evidently) he comes to his conclusion by analyzing the evolution. Up until now, based on the decisions and behaviour of policy makers, he believes there is enough evidence to believe that all signs point to a monetary collapse.
Just to clarify things, he adds, “there is nobody who really wants a collapse. The reason why it could happen has more to do with a basket of factors, including [but not limited to] the inherent instability of the monetary system, the inability of policy makers to correctly analyze the situation, wishful thinking, denial, delay, bad monetary science, wrong assessment of risk, etc.”
Is it too late to change direction and avoid a collapse? Mr. Rickards believes it is not; we can still avoid it. The key point, however, is that policy makers are not showing signs of understanding the seriousness of the situation and their policy outcomes. They neither show signs of reversing course and solving the underlying structural issues. Going forward, those are the most important signs to force a reversal of the path we are on.
Mr. Rickards adds to it that chaos is not the end of the analysis. In other words, suppose the world will face a collapse it will undoubtedly result in rather draconian executive orders.  We might end up in a form of a gold standard based on a gold backed SDR. A gold standard or an SDR standard are the two most likely outcomes of a collapse; a combination of both is also a realistic possibility.

Gold – Short term outlook

The long term outlook for gold remains positive. Shorter term, however, increased volatility is likely. Both higher and lower prices are in the cards. It  all depends on policy makers, in particular the US Fed. Between August and September there are two FOMC meetings with a press conference: September and December. Suppose the Fed would “taper” their bond purchases they will not announce it in December because it will be right before the new Chairman will take over. September is the most likely month to announce it.
So the September FOMC meeting will be an important one. Basically there are two possible outcomes. Tightening monetary policy is the first one. Doing so in a weak economy will have deflationary consequences. It will lead to higher interest rates and lower precious metals prices. Accommodative monetary policy, by contrast, would be bullish for gold and will lead to higher prices going to the end of the year.

S&P Wants Government Documents About Investigations of other Credit Raters.

McGraw Hill Financial Inc. (MHFI)’s Standard & Poor’s, preparing its defense to the fraud lawsuit by the U.S. Justice Department, will ask the government for information about investigations of other credit raters.


The Justice Department and S&P yesterday filed a joint report ahead of a hearing July 29 in federal court in Santa Ana, California. The report lays out the kind of evidence each side will seek from the other in preparation for a trial of the government’s claims that S&P lied to investors about its ratings being independent and free of conflicts of interest.


S&P wants the government to provide it with documents about its investigation of S&P and others, about the government’s decision to file the lawsuit, and information the government received about residential mortgage-backed securities and collateralized-debt obligations in investigations of others, including other credit rating providers.


The parties “anticipate that S&P’s document discovery in these areas will generate objections from the government,” according to the filing.

Here’s what happens when a central bank goes bust

Sovereign Man – by Simon Black
Over the past several decades, people around the world have become so brainwashed that few people really give much thought anymore to the safety of their currency.
It’s not something people really understand… there’s apparently some Wizard of Oz type figure at the top of the hill pulling all the levers of the monetary system. And we just trust them to be good guys.  
This is partially true. Today’s financial system is dominated by central bankers who have been awarded nearly dictatorial control of global money supply.
In allowing them to set interest rates, they are able to control the ‘price’ of money, thus controlling the price of… everything.
This power rests primarily in the hands of four men who control roughly 75% of the entire world money supply:

• Zhou Xiaochuan, People’s Bank of China
• Mario Draghi, European Central Bank
• Haruhiko Kuroda, Bank of Japan
• Ben Bernanke, US Federal Reserve

Four guys. And they control the livelihoods of billions of people around the world.
So, how are they doing?
We could wax philosophically about the dangers of fiat currency. Or the dangers of the rapid expansion of their balance sheets. Or the profligacy of wanton debasement through quantitative easing.
But let’s just look at the numbers.
In theory, a central bank is like any other bank. It has income and expenses, assets and liabilities.
For a central bank, assets are typically securities or commodities which have value in the international marketplace, such as gold or US Treasuries.
Central bank liabilities are all the trillions of currency units floating around… dollars, euros, yen, etc.
The difference between assets and liabilities is the bank’s equity (or capital). And this is an important figure, because the higher the capital, the healthier the bank.
Lehman Brothers famously went under in 2008 because they had insufficient capital. They had assets of $691 billion, and equity of just $22 billion… about 3%.
This meant that if Lehman’s assets lost more than 3% of their value, the company wouldn’t have sufficient cushion, and they would go under.
This is exactly what happened. Their assets tanked and the company failed.
So let’s apply the same yardstick to central banks and see how ‘safe’ they really are:

• US Federal Reserve: $54 billion in capital on $3.57 trillion in assets, roughly 1.53%. This is actually less than the 1.875% capital they had in December. So the trend is getting worse.
• European Central Bank: 3.69%
• Bank of Japan: 1.92%
• Bank of England: 0.843%
• Bank of Canada: 0.532%

Each of these major central banks in ‘rich’ Western countries is essentially at, or below, the level of capital that Lehman Brothers had when they went under.
What does this mean?
Think about Lehman again. When Lehman’s equity was wiped out, it caused a huge crisis. The company’s liabilities instantly lost value, and almost everyone who was a counterparty to Lehman Brothers lost a lot of money because the company could no longer pay its debts.
Accordingly, if the US Federal Reserve’s assets unexpectedly lose more than 1.5% of their value, the Fed’s equity would be wiped out. This means that any counterparty holding the Fed’s liabilities (i.e. Federal reserve notes) would lose.
More specifically, that means everyone holding dollars.
Theoretically if a central bank becomes insolvent, it can be bailed out. It happened in Iceland a few years ago.
There’s just one problem with that thinking.
Iceland’s government wasn’t in debt at the time. So they were able to borrow money in order to bail out their central bank. Today the government is in debt over 100% of GDP, but the central bank is solvent.
But governments in the US, Europe, Japan, England, etc. are all too broke to bail out their central banks. These governments are already insolvent. So if the central bank becomes insolvent, there won’t be anyone to bail them out.
This is one of the strongest indicators of all that the financial system as we know it is finished. When central banks can no longer credibly issue liabilities, and their home government are too broke to bail them out, this paper currency standard can no longer function.
Such data really underscores the importance of owning real assets such as productive land and precious metals.
Given its nominal roller coaster ride lately, there has certainly been a lot of scrutiny and skepticism about gold.
But to paraphrase Tony Deden of Edelweiss Holdings, if you dispute the validity of gold as a hedge against declining fiat currency, that makes you, by default, a paper bug. Can you really afford to be confident in this system?

What Would You Do If A Bank Stole Everything You Owned?

SHTF Plan – by Mac Slavo
With millions of Americans across the country facing default and foreclosure banks are hiring outside firms to take possession of their homes. It is often the case that those living in homes that have been repossessed by their lender stay until the very last minute, or simply aren’t aware of their final eviction date. In such cases these firms simply enter the home, take all of the personal belongings of the tenants, and restrict access. Usually, the tenant has no recourse and may never have their personal items returned to them. It’s a common practice that happens every day in modern day America.  
Something else that has become commonplace amid the real estate crisis of the last several years are errors associated with foreclosure repossessions. Sometimes the bank is at fault, while other times the firms hired by them repossess the wrong house.

Katie Barnett of McArthur came home a few weeks ago to find everything in the house gone. She eventually discovered that First National bank mistakenly foreclosed the wrong house — but kept her stuff. Not only did they clear everything out like the Grinch, but they changed the locks. Their actual foreclosure target had been the house across the street.
This matters not to the bank president who responded to her $18,000 estimate for wrongfully stolen goods with a firm:

We’re not paying you retail here, that’s just the way it is.

But they make no attempt for remedy and the actual translation is: Oops, nothing we can do now. (Without the Oops)
Barnett says:

I did not tell them to come in my house and make me an offer. They took my stuff and I want it back.
Now, I’m just angry… It wouldn’t be a big deal if they would step up and say ‘I’m sorry, we will replace your stuff.’ Instead, I’m getting attitude from them. They’re sarcastic when they talk to me. They make it sound like I’m trying to rip the bank off. All I want is my stuff back.

Additionally, the police chief closed the case!
Katie remains without any of her things and no compensation for theft and damages.
Via: Activist Post
(emphasis added)

In any other situation this would be a crime punishable by prison time and the perpetrators would be charged with breaking and entering, burglary, and theft.
But, since it’s a bank, the police chief closed the case and chalked it off as an honest mistake.
An individual who was doing nothing wrong lost everything she owned. And what does the bank do? They laugh at her and make snarky comments, and they refuse to make her whole again.
What would you do if everything you owned was stolen and the criminals who committed the act were left free to prey on others?
Maybe you could hire an attorney with the money you probably don’t have.
Or, you could take matters into your own hands and visit the bank to forcibly take back the money owed to you, but you’d be facing 25 to life as a result.
Corporations, especially banks, continue to act with impunity, whether it be stealing billions of dollars from investors or breaking into their homes and looting everything in sight.
How long before Americans hit a breaking point?
How long before those who are being taken advantage of get mad as hell and decide they’re not going to take this any more?
The day of reckoning will come and when it does the bankers and brokers who have made a living off the backs of hard working Americans better hope they used some of their stolen loot to build underground bunkers, because the masses will be looking for payback, and they won’t be carrying picket signs.
They’ll be carrying pitchforks, nooses, and AR-15′s.

Gold And Silver – Newton’s Third Law Is About Ready To [Over]React. Be Prepared.

by Michael Noonan
Our clarion call is for the physical market to soon takeover the actual price for buying
and selling.  When, we do not know?  Timing is now less critical than actual possession,
from this point forward.
The probability of a new low, in futures, may be 50-50.  It was much higher, a month ago.
The odds of successfully picking a bottom are remote.  Not to pick on Richard Dennis, but
he is a poster boy for losing big time when he tried to pick a bottom in sugar, to the extent
of decimating one or a few of his funds.  How hard could it have been to lose so much
money buying sugar when it was under 5 cents, at the time?
The point is, never think you know more about the market than the market itself.  It is for
that reason we always say to follow the market’s lead.  Too many try to get ahead of it,
speculating that it will catch up to one’s brilliant “market timing.”  Margin departments
are usually the first ones to let the ego-driven speculators know that their [questionable]
prescience has gotten a little more expensive, in the process.
The odds of being able to buy physical gold and silver, at current levels, diminish with each
passing month.  In terms of pricing for buying physical precious metals, [PMs], we are
more than likely looking at the lows.  The timing for buying and holding as much gold and
silver as you can will not be much better than at current prices for a few generations.  If
anyone wants to pick a bottom in physical gold and silver, the odds are against them.
If silver were to go to $140 the ounce, will it matter if you paid $20 or $24?  Same for gold.
Here is how we see it.
If there is one law that is not on any known government’s books, but one which none of them can avoid, it is Newton’s Third Law of Motion:  To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.  All government, Keynesian, and central planner idiots abuse this law profusely, and at the expense of the masses, throughout history.  Every one and
awhile, it catches up to them, and we stand fortunate enough to be the beneficiaries for
decades suppressed prices.
Decades, we say, and not just since the 2011 highs.  The New World Order, [NWO] has
had marching orders for their central bankers to keep gold prices low, especially since
the United States was placed into their receivership hands  by Socialist Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, in 1933.  Price has been steadily rising, ever since, with a few upside bursts
that the NWO has tried to contain.  That is about to come to an end.
The fiat game has run its course.  [We covered the ruse of Federal Reserve Notes, [FRNS],
in last week’s commentary, [See When Precious Metals Bottom Is Irrelevant To Your
Financial Health, click on http://bit.ly/12Uz4Q6, if you missed it.]  We also said there is
no evidence of a change in trend.  That was last week.  This week is different.
JP Morgan has been the recognized culprit for suppressing the paper market by naked
shorting by the tens of thousands of contracts.  It does not matter if others were acting
in concert, the intervention was intentional:  Scare everyone out of the gold and silver
market.  It worked, in a small part, pretty much destroying the futures market, and it
failed on a grand scale by attracting world-wide pent-up demand for bargain prices!
The natural law of supply and demand has been unnaturally distorted, and the fiat
buzzards are about to have their paper asses handed back to them, with their heads
still up there.  The final push to keep PM prices artificially low has created such a tightly
coiled spring that once the pressure lets up, or is forced up, the reaction is going to push
gold and silver to levels unknown that will be equal and opposite to the misplaced energy
keeping them down.
Leave to central planners to convert the Law Of Supply and Demand to Unintended
Consequences, once Newton’s Third Law Of Motion takes its course.  The economy has
been eviscerated by central bank fiat debt, Wall Street greed, all enabled and protected by
the NWO’s corporate federal government.  In all likelihood, things will worsen during this
cleansing process, for those in power will hang on to the bitter end.
Let no one ever forget that the  Fed, a privately held corporation NOT under US control, [but in total control of the US], was modeled after the Weimar banking system.  The Weimar banking system was designed for one purpose and one purpose only, to enrich the bankers at the expense and destruction of the German economy.  Mission accomplished.
The Weimar banking system was imported to this country in 1913, when the Federal
Reserve Act, a mirror of the Weimar banking system, was passed. The privately owned
federal reserve was established for one purpose and one purpose only, to enrich its owners
at the expense of the US economy.    “Mission accomplished,” as Bush the inept Jr would say.

None of this matters, any more.  Either you see the handwriting on the wall or you do not.
Can there be yet one more push to the downside in PMs?  Yes.  Will there be?  The odds of
that suicidal banker event diminish with each passing day.  Do not play Russian roulette
with the timing of your purchases, anymore.  In fact, the Russians, [and the Chinese, and
the Indians, and the Turks, and the Arabs] have been the willing beneficiaries of this
blatantly stupid move by Western central bankers to scare people away from owning
precious metals.
As far as the futures and their artificial prices are concerned, the bear market is starting to
fray around the edges.  For the first time in months, we opted to go long gold in futures.  It
may be just a short-term trade, but the signal to buy was clear.  An update of the charts:
We have been aware of, but have not commented on the potential support from the level
indicated by points 1, 2, and 3.  Futures have not signaled a definitive bottom, but we are
of the solid belief that the physical market may soon become the more accurate pricing
mechanism.

There is one trading scheme that calls for a buy and hold whenever price rallies and closes
at the highest level in a four-week period.  That is a mechanical process, but one for which
we have some degree of respect within the context of developing market activity.
It is no accident that gold was able to rally as strongly as it did , and have that rally fall in
line with the 4 week higher close scheme.  It is something we will continue to watch.
We gave advance warning of the upside potential, given confirmation, in our commentary,
Purely A Mental Game Right Now.  Do Not Blink, click on http://bit.ly/14fT8R0, second chart, at the end of June.

Last week’s call for buyers absorbing the effort of sellers, just under 1300 was spot on.
Once price rallied above that area, it did so on strength not seen for some time in the gold
market.  We recommended buying, as stated in the chart comments.
It is possible that another level of absorption may be forming, in the second box.  Price
activity will confirm or negate that, possibly next week

The argument for silver is not as compelling, chartwise, as explained.

It looked like silver was signaling earlier than gold, in the past month, and note was made
of its high volume, strong close, at the end of June, similar to gold, http://bit.ly/14fT8R0,
fourth chart, making several observations about it.

Will gold pull silver up, or will silver act as a drag on the current rally in gold?  Each has to
be viewed separately for decision-making purposes.  Right now gold is favored, and it
would be a mistake to buy silver over gold in the hopes it will catch up.  Buy silver futures
when developing market activity signals a buy, as occurred in gold.
The window of opportunity to buy physical gold and silver continues to narrow.  Like the
housing market top was known to be coming, when it came, those who waited too long
regretted it.  When the bottom for the physical PMs is known as a certainty, those who
waited for a “better price” may also regret that decision.  It is all about choice.
We choose now for buying and holding physical gold and silver.  We are on the long side in
gold futures, but that can change on any given day.