Thursday, November 25, 2010

Strike against austerity cuts brings Portugal to a halt

Many of Portugal's public services have ground to a halt as workers strike in a bid to weaken the government's resolve to make deep budget cuts.

Rail services, urban transport, flights, rubbish collection, healthcare and banking were all disrupted by the first general strike in decades.

The action was largely peaceful but two women were injured on a picket line.

Parliament is set to vote on a budget meant to tackle the mounting debt crisis on Friday.

The Socialist government wants to quell international unease over the country's public spending and deficit by cutting wages for public sector workers, freezing pensions and increasing taxes.

With the main opposition party saying it will not block the budget, analysts expect it to have an easy passage through parliament.

While the strike is unlikely to throw the government off course, it may fuel fresh concern on the markets, especially following the government's revelation this week that Portugal's budget deficit actually grew this year instead of shrinking, the BBC's Sarah Rainsford reports from Lisbon.

'Unfair sacrifices'

The country's main unions, the UGT and CGTP, hope the 24-hour action will be the most effective in two decades

Start Quote

It won't solve anything, it's just a way of demonstrating”

End Quote Unnamed Lisbon employee
  • Nearly 80% of trains were not running, and bus and ferry links in Lisbon were disrupted, along with the metro service
  • Both air traffic controllers and airport ground handling operators were on strike, meaning dozens of flights in and out of Lisbon had to be cancelled or rescheduled
  • All of the country's ports were closed, according to the unions
  • Fewer than 10% of the workforce at Volkswagen's Autoeuropa plant near Lisburn turned up for work, according to unions

Police in the northern town of Calendario arrested the manager of a hypermarket who allegedly drove his car into a picket line, injuring two women and threatening others.

A union official said one of the women had had her leg crushed by the car.

Police said they had arrested the man for dangerous driving and possession of a weapon.

Roads in and around the capital were choked with heavy traffic as many people chose to commute by car but in the city centre traffic was normal, Reuters news agency reported.

An information board shows cancelled flights at Lisbon's international airport, 24 November Flight after flight was cancelled at Lisbon's international airport

Cafes and shops were open and vans delivered goods as usual, it said.

In contrast to the recent protests against pension reform in France, the Portuguese strikers have not planned mass demonstrations but are confining themselves to pickets.

One CGTP leader, Manuel Carvalho da Silva, said there was strong public support for the strike as it expressed "outrage at injustices".

Another trade unionist in Lisbon told AFP news agency it was unacceptable that workers should "make all the sacrifices".

"We cannot accept that the first, second and third priority of Portugal is the deficit," said Joao Proenca.

But employees interviewed by Reuters said that, while they sympathised with the strikers' grievances, the action would only bring inconvenience and no resolution.

"It won't solve anything, it's just a way of demonstrating," said one.

Struggle to compete

The opposition Social Democrats have said that, in order to not jeopardise the country's fragile finances, they will abstain from the vote on Friday rather than vote against the measures.

Lisbon is trying to convince international investors that Portugal will not be forced to seek a bail-out like Ireland or Greece.

The budget aims to reduce Portugal's deficit from 7.3% to 4.6% of GDP in 2011.

Portugal has failed to prosper or drive up productivity since joining the euro at what many now say was an unrealistic exchange rate, BBC Europe business correspondent Nigel Cassidy says.

The country found it especially difficult to compete with China in a previously strong sector, the manufacturing of textiles and shoes.

With 80% of its public debt held abroad, Portugal now finds itself at the mercy of bond traders and wants to convince the markets that it will be able to meet its commitments, our correspondent says.

Are you in Portugal? Are you affected by the strike action? Are you taking part in the strike? Send your comments to the BBC using the form below:

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Obama calls on China to restrain N. Korea

Destroyed houses are evident from the air Wednesday on Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea. Officials say they found the burned bodies of two islanders killed in the North Korean artillery attack, marking the first two civilian deaths in the crisis. (Associated Press/Yonhap)Destroyed houses are evident from the air Wednesday on Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea. Officials say they found the burned bodies of two islanders killed in the North Korean artillery attack, marking the first two civilian deaths in the crisis. (Associated Press/Yonhap)


The Obama administration called on China Wednesday to rein in North Korea after its artillery attack on a South Korean island, as the Pentagon ordered the USS George Washington aircraft carrier strike group to the Yellow Sea for naval exercises with South Korean forces.

Search crews on the island located off South Korea's west coast also recovered the charred bodies of two civilians Wednesday.

China, which has a defense agreement with communist North Korea, is the key to changing Pyongyang's behavior, said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.

"We do believe that China has influence with North Korea," he said. "We don't want to understate or overstate that. It's not that China can dictate a particular action to North Korea. It is that China, together with the United States and other countries, have to send a clear, direct, unified message that it is North Korea that has to change."

At the United Nations, Security Council, members held talks on the attack, but news reports indicated that action on the matter was unlikely. The Security Council took months to condemn North Korea's sinking of a South Korean warship and then did not mention North Korea by name.

An unidentified relative of Seo Jeong-woo, a South Korean marine killed on Yeonpyeong Island by North Korea's artillery attack, weeps during a memorial service at a military hospital Wednesday. (Associated Press)An unidentified relative of Seo Jeong-woo, a South Korean marine killed on Yeonpyeong Island by North Korea's artillery attack, weeps during a memorial service at a military hospital Wednesday. (Associated Press)

At Incheon, South Korea, residents of the bombed island told stories of the midafternoon artillery barrage.

"Over my head, a pine tree was broken and burning," said Ann Ahe-ja, who was among the hundreds of evacuees from Yeonpyeong Island arriving at the port. "So I thought, 'Oh, this is not another exercise. It is a war.' I decided to run. And I did."

In addition to the two civilians, two South Korean marines were killed and 18 wounded in the artillery strike, which destroyed 30 homes.

The shelling followed South Korean military exercises involving artillery fire south of the island.

Wang Baodong, a Chinese Embassy spokesman in Washington, said all parties in the crisis must "help relax the tension."

Story Continues →

© Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Regulators close 2 Georgia banks, 1 in Arizona

Regulators close 2 Georgia banks, 1 in Arizona

Our government paid 6.4 of our tax dollars to bail out JP Morgan, AIG, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and friends divvied up the 6.4 trillion dollars. These same banks are responsible of predatory lending scams, illegal foreclosure, and the fabrication of mortgage and foreclosure documents. Our future depends on us, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gKX9TWRyfs, ZEITGEIST II ADDENDUM for a glimpse of where our future could be heading.

The following article “Regulators close 2 Georgia banks, 1 in Arizona” is written by Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators on Friday shut down two banks in Georgia and one in Arizona, bringing to 146 the number of U.S. banks that have succumbed this year under the burden of bad loans and a tepid economy.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the two Georgia banks: Darby Bank & Trust Co., based in Vidalia, with $654.7 million in assets, and Tifton Banking Co. of Tifton, with $143.7 million in assets. Also seized was Copper Star Bank, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., with $204 million in assets.

Americs Bank, based in Moultrie, Ga., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of the two failed Georgia banks. In addition, the FDIC and Americs Bank agreed to share losses on $560.2 million of the two banks’ loans and other assets.

As a result of the acquisitions, Ameris Bank said it will now operate 60 locations in Georgia, Florida, Alabama and South Carolina.

The failures of Darby Bank & Trust Co. and Tifton Banking Co. are expected to cost the deposit insurance fund a total $160.8 million. That of Copper Star Bank is expected to cost $43.6 million.

Georgia is among the states that have seen bank failures in the double digits this year. Some communities in the states — also California, Florida and Illinois — are still reeling from the financial meltdown that brought an avalanche of bad loans, especially for commercial real estate. The two shutdowns Friday brought the number of bank failures in Georgia this year to 18.

Stearns Bank, based in St. Cloud, Minn., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Copper Star Bank. In addition, the FDIC and Stearns Bank are sharing losses on $165.2 million of Copper Star Bank’s assets.

The 146 closures nationwide so far this year tops the 140 shuttered in all of 2009 and is the most in a year since the savings-and-loan crisis two decades ago. By this time last year, regulators had closed 123 banks.

The 2009 failures cost the insurance fund about $36 billion; the failures so far this year have cost around $21 billion, less because the banks failing in 2010 have on average been smaller. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force; only three succumbed in 2007.

The growing bank failures have sapped billions of dollars out of the deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red last year, and its deficit stood at $15.2 billion as of June 30.

The number of banks on the FDIC’s confidential “problem” list jumped to 829 in the second quarter from 775 three months earlier, even as the industry as a whole had its best quarter since 2007, making $21.6 billion in net income. Banks with more than $10 billion in assets — only 1.3 percent of the industry — accounted for $19.9 billion of the total earnings.

The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to total around $52 billion from 2010 through 2014.

Mounting Unemployment in America: Poverty and "Social Explosion"

The social net has become a bit more frayed. Soon extended unemployment benefits will cease and 2 million Americans will have to dip into their savings, if they have any. This is an outgrowth of the effects of free trade, globalization, offshoring and outsourcing. We have lost 8.5 million jobs over the last ten years to this destructive process. We have seen more than 42,000 manufacturing plants leave the country as well. There are now more than 17 million Americans unemployed and the U6 official government unemployment figures 17%. If you remove the bogus birth/death ration, the real figure is 22-5/8%. Over that ten-year period we have lost about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs or about 1/3rd of that labor force. As recent as 1985, 25% of output was in manufacturing, now it is close to 11%. America’s physical infrastructure is in a shambles, so that transnational conglomerates can bring us cheap goods to suppress inflation and bring these companies mega-profits, which they keep stored offshore to bypass taxation. They presently have $1.7 trillion in such profits.


This in part has been caused by deficit spending and the creation of money and credit since August 15,1971, when the US left the gold standard. It is not surprising as a result that 81% of the US economy is considered in poor shape and that the IMF fears a social explosion. You could call this a financial death spiral. There is no question the economy is moribund and the next stage could be dead in the water and that is after QE1 which saw $2.5 trillion enter the economy. The first installment of QE2 is in process and that $600 billion will grow to another $2.5 trillion, to be followed by Q3 and a further injection of another $2.5 trillion. There are those who say QE2 should be eliminated. We wonder if they realize that if it is, that the American economy, and most of the world’s economy will collapse. If we had allowed a severe recession to play itself out in the early 1990s all this would have never happened, but that is not what Wall Street and banking wanted. We should have bitten the bullet three years ago, but the elitists wanted to take the problem at least one step further to be sure the final result would bring about one-world government. Readers, that is what this is really all about.


We have a foreclosure crisis in real estate of epic proportions caused by the criminal behavior of banks. The use of food stamps reaches an all-time high each and every day. Soon unemployment will be more than 23%. If you want to see where we are headed look at the unemployed figures projected from the 1930s. U3 was 25.2% and U6 was 37.6%. In addition if you use the 1990 methodology the CPI inflation figure is about 4.5%. If you use the 1980 basis real inflation is 8.5%. We have ceased looking at official government figures because very simply, they are bogus and have no connection to reality. The unemployment situation is so bad that millions are filing for disability. That comes after extended unemployment benefits end.


It is not that people do not want to work but that there are simply few jobs available. 8.5 million of our jobs have gone to foreign nations with cheap abundant labor and they won’t return until we erect tariffs on goods and services. As a result 14.3% of adult Americans live in poverty. That is cash income before taxation of $22,000, or less, for a family of five. This does not include existing assets or food stamps or unemployment benefits. This situation is similar to the early 1960s, which was solved by the Keynesian “War on Poverty” and another no-win war. As we recall, the last time fewer Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941, when unemployment was 16.2% and we had another war. Incidentally, we do not believe in coincidence. It should be noted that we not only face labor differentials of 90%, but America’s regulatory environment is purely anti-business and anti-growth, as our competitors face no such handicaps. These factors began the exodus and that will continue until there are no jobs and the American economy collapses. The World Trade Organization, WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA and all the other sweetheart deals with other countries have to be eliminated, and they will be purely because soon the US will be strictly in a survival mode. America is left with a service economy and that does not produce wealth. Then there is the declining dollar that has put the US on sale. It has gotten so bad that states, cities and counties are selling off ports, parking meters, bridges and highways. Foreigners are happy to comply in their effort to dump depreciating dollars. In addition unfunded US liabilities are about $90 trillion, plus the current short-term liability of $14 trillion. This is debt that cannot possibly be repaid.


Consumers in great part are living off credit cards, as they try to pay them down. Recently consumer debt fell 1.4%. That means in the intermediate and longer term consumers cannot consume enough to maintain consumption at 70% of GDP. The flip side of that is that 13% of the economy is deficit spending. If government spending was eliminated GDP would fall at a 10% rate.


As a result governments, corporations and individuals are dumping the depreciating dollar. That is what QE2 is all about and that is monetizing US debt, because fewer and fewer people will buy it. The Fed will end buying all the US debt and the dollar will collapse. In February, almost two years ago, we declared an inflationary depression. It’s still going on. There is no growth in America. What is spent is debt by the US Treasury augmented by the Fed. Purchasing power is dropping off a cliff and that means America’s standard of living is falling and will continue to fall. What will America do when the music stops? When no one will no longer buy US bonds? The Fed will buy them all eventually and that process is already under way. What happens if the Congress cuts back spending and austerity begins? That means cuts in many areas and higher unemployment and less consumption. That means a deepening depression. This shows you what few options the government and the Fed really have. They rescued Wall Street and banking and left the economy to shift for itself. If the Fed does not inject over $2 trillion into the economy GDP could shrink by some 18%. This is a consequence the Fed doesn’t dare tell you and the Congress about. That also means the dollar could fall 20% to 50% from current levels. Living standards would then fall a like amount, as government cuts extended unemployment, food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. At the same time persistent inflation will be a drain on purchasing power. This is where this is all headed and Wall Street, banking, the Fed and government are well aware of where this is headed. Where will the welfare come from? As a result there will be social unrest and dislocation. We are already seeing families moving together from one state to another and an exodus of inhabitants from high tax states to states with low or no state taxes and warmer climate. Major changes are already taking place. All kinds of big changes are coming. What can government do when they are committed to $105 trillion in debt and foreigners refuse to any longer fund its debt? Those who own gold and silver related investments will protect their wealth and those who have put food; a water filter and weapons away will have a good chance of survival.


Americans are not alone in this dilemma; many other nations are as well. Even Canada has a debt to GDP ratio of 150% and 60% would be in trouble with just the loss of one paycheck. Like in the US savings are miniscule. There is no incentive to save with 1% interest rates. The funds are either spent or invested in more speculative vehicles as they are in the US and in other countries. Do not forget savings are the lifeblood of the economy.


Open currency warfare is out in the open after having been under cover for many years. It isn’t just the Chinese; it is everyone including the US, and this will eventually lead to trade wars, which is a battle exporters cannot win. Exporters with large US dollar positions are getting rid of them by buying bonds in other currencies, commodities, gold and silver. Many other nations are following their lead, as we explained earlier in reference to SOC, the Shanghai group. You also have Japan making its biggest currency intervention in years. Needless to say, the US blames everyone else when they have been manipulating the dollar for years. Just stop for a minute and think of what the Treasury’s, Exchange Stabilization Fund is all about. It is about currency manipulation. No one is blameless, and if the US had not eliminated tariffs on goods and services we wouldn’t have the problems we are having today. Lack of tariff protection has definitely driven America to the end - not to speak of the loss of 42,000 businesses and 8.5 million good paying jobs, which has resulted in 22-5/8% unemployment. Americans are still not paying attention. They still think the good things in life grow on trees and all they have to do is pluck them off free of charge. They still do not get it. We made gains in the last election from the socialists, but a paltry 100 seats in the Senate and House changed hands. They still are too dumb to understand that the crooks have to be thrown out, not re-elected.


If all of this wasn’t bad enough we have a European debt crisis to make things even more difficult. The euro hit about $1.19 in June and has since traded up to $1.40 and back to about $1.35 as the odyssey of debts hangs over Europe. The low euro made euro exports inexpensive over the months when it was down. That break has ended. We see the euro reversing from $1.40 to $1.30, but that fall won’t be enough to push exports up again. That means no exit strategy, no higher interest rates and back to stimulus again. Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain will leave the euro zone and if Germany, France, Holland and Austria want to bail them out, they now know the price tag will be $5 trillion.


Even the IMF is releasing warnings of falling world GDP, no recoveries and dire warnings of social crisis worldwide and massive world unemployment. What the elitist leadership behind the scenes in the US and Europe do not understand is when you have austerity economies slow down. They do not grow, they stagnate ad have recessions and depressions. Why do you think you are seeing massive demonstrations all over Europe, soon to come to the US as extended unemployment ends? Britain can appropriately be called a dog’s breakfast. In both France and Germany financial institutions are warning their clients that a global collapse could occur over the next two years. Serving high debt is no longer possible and that governments have reached the point of no return. The debt picture has so deteriorated that defense spending has to be cut in a major way.


This is probably your last opportunity to sell stocks and bonds. The only exception is gold and silver shares. Interest rates cannot go any lower and legislatures are unwilling to pass legislation for more stimulus. That job has been laid at the feet of the Fed. There is no one left to save the US or the world economy. The Fed cannot, because it is too busy buying US Treasury and Agency debt. People are getting savvy fast on the secrets of the Federal Reserve. Before long everyone will be aware that the Fed makes money out of thin air. It won’t be long and the Fed will be out of business and rightly so, because it is a criminal enterprise and the public is discovering that via the Internet and talk radio. The free ride for the insiders is coming to an end.


The conclusion of the failure of the Fed is about to be sound money, currency backed by gold. The struggle to suppress gold and silver are about to come to an end and they are about to again find their true place in the monetary establishments of the world. Gold will again become the ultimate world currency and it is proving that now and has proved that over the past 18 months.

Crisis of Fiat Currencies: US Dollar Surpluses Converted into Gold

China, Russia, Iran are Dumping the Dollar

Something is going on that your government does not want you to know about. Very few journalists have written about it and little or nothing has appeared in the mainstream media. The story could be one of major stories of our time.


Western powers have tried to destroy gold as a backing for currencies for many years. Presently the major media won’t touch the story and that is understandable.


Something we have been writing about for years is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization known as SCO. Few have been listening and few have been interested in what their mission is and what they have been up to.


Some of the members are large oil producers and some, like China, are large oil users. Some have very large US dollar surpluses. As well, some are large commodity and gold and silver buyers. In fact, members are in a great part responsible for driving these prices higher. It is debatable, but we believe there is a conscious effort to accumulate gold and silver, dump dollars and to back their currencies with gold.

China and Russia are both large gold producers and for a number of years have been buying up domestic gold and silver production, so that it never reaches the market and does not affect prices. If anything the absence of sales tends to push the markets higher. As a matter of fact Russia and India are visible buyers. Even Iran with its oil surplus recently announced that they had purchased 340 tons of gold. Their recent gold purchases are very significant as affiliate members, which have access to the present and ultimate direction of the group. You might say buying gold has been a protective effort to shield members and close observers from the problems generated by dollar policies. They are accumulating gold, as many have been worldwide, for the past ten years, but particularly over the past few years.

This buying, for protection, has served to thwart the efforts of US policymakers, the Treasury, other central banks in Europe and the Fed, from being able to continue the blatant suppression of both gold and silver prices. The malefactors, except for forays into derivatives and futures, which are transitory, have lost control and suppression of gold and silver prices, and it is only a matter of time before all visages of any control will be visible. Since 1988, in August when Present Reagan signed the Executive Order creating, “the President’s Group on Financial Markets” and the subsidiaries that have grown out of that policy, that the Treasury won many if not most of the battles. The SCO in part changed that and now they and the public are winning the war for a fair and free gold and silver market. The current class action lawsuits, including RICO, are a testament to the market manipulation in silver, which is finally coming to an end. HSBC and JPMorgan Chase, the latter that is the major owner of the Fed, are going to be finally prohibited from rigging these markets. Their officers all belong in jail, but elitists never go to jail; they pay fines, and keep right on robbing the public.


Other SCO members and observers are accumulating gold as well, be it in smaller amounts. We might add that other nations observing Russia and China and their gold purchases are buying as well. These participants must believe that there could be a return to sound money; otherwise they wouldn’t be gold buyers. Buying gold is certainly preferable to holding US dollars, which have consistently fallen in value versus other currencies over the past ten years. Then again all currencies have fallen versus gold over that period, some 19.6% annually. It is nice to see nations are finally waking up to the reality that fiat currencies will all over time deteriorate versus gold. The temptation is enormous to deficit spend.


The most interesting aspect of the SCO is that they do not strive for political agreement such as the European Union. They are interested in economic stability and development and security. There is no overall binding laws. Nations retain their sovereignty, which is the exact opposite of what the elitists in the US and Europe desire, and that is world government. The SCO has provided great flexibility something that is non-existent in elitist controlled countries. Another interesting facet is that the SCO probably represents half of the world’ population, far more than the US and Europe. As these nations accumulate gold so does some of their citizens, which puts strong upward pressures on gold prices on a continuing basis.


In addition some of these nations, such as China, are spending dollars by buying natural resources and other things in other nations in an attempt to relieve themselves of excess dollars earned in trade. Both Russia and China fully realize that the US dollar is in serious trouble and has been for a number of years due to fiscal debt and the unbridled creation of money and credit by the Federal Reserve. They well know the dollar is in serious trouble and what the outcome will probably be.


As the economies of the US and Europe become more deeply mired in problems the economies of SCO nations more and more resemble the free economies of old that were very successful. You might say they have found their way back to basics and sound money. As the dollar comes under further downward pressure more nations will probably join the SCO to escape the clutches of European and American imperialism and bureaucracy, which for some years has been onerous and unsuccessful. What we see is a natural path by nations to extricate themselves from the control of Wall Street and the City of London, which have dominated the world for so long. All these facts considered we believe gold will find its way substantially higher with the participation of these nations, a factor the West never figured on. These ten nations are sucking excess gold out of the market every day and that will continue indefinitely.


These SCO nations are well aware that the surge of hot dollars created by the Fed out of thin air are headed their way and with them inflation. Brazil was the first nation to attempt to stop this onslaught by imposing a 6% tariff on interest and dividend paying Brazilian securities, purchased with US dollars. Over the last two years between stimulus and the Fed $2.5 trillion has been injected into the US and world financial system. As a result commodity and gold and silver prices have exploded. This has caused the dollar to fall in value versus other currencies and gold. There is no question more and higher inflation is on the way, as the Fed gets into QE 2. You can also bet that QE2 will not be $600 billion, but more than $2 trillion. Inflation is already showing up in food, petroleum products, airline fares and in many other items that we use every day. As usual the government says there is little or no inflation. Even competent economists still use government’s bogus figures. What can they be thinking of? They know what is going on as well as we do. That means we are embarking on the highest inflation rates in US history. Thus far the undertow of deflation has been superseded by government banking and Fed aggregate creation. The Fed, in order to subdue deflation and such spending has to always overshoot the inflation they create, so that they can be sure that deflation cannot take hold. This money and credit is in the process of working its way through the economy, spreading inflation as it winds its way through.


The only investors who are being afforded protection are those who have invested in gold and silver and commodities. That is less than 2% of the American population. We predicted in mid-May that QE2 and QE3 would take place for a combined $5 trillion over the next two fiscal years. In fact, the Fed was late in starting in June and as a result 4th quarter GDP growth will probably be 1% and the 1st quarter of 2011 will probably be in the minus column, as unemployment heads to 25% and extended benefits run out. We are not seeing growth; we are seeing forced feeding.


The Fed’s promises are not worth the paper they are written on. Ben Bernanke will print money until he cannot anymore and we have hyperinflation. That is because he has no other choice. He has no way out and he knows it won’t work. Tragically, this is where we are headed and there is no way to stop what the elitists have put deliberately in motion.


As long as quantitative easing is official Fed and Wall Street policy, gold is going to continue to rise with silver, and the stronger the case is that gold is the real world reserve currency. That means all currencies will eventually have to be backed by gold. We believe that elitists have accepted this fact and that was borne out recently by World Bank President, CFR, Trilateralist and Bilderberger Robert Zoellick. We can assure you that was no slip of the tongue. That was a cleverly planted trial balloon to get public reaction.


We do not see QE2 and QE3 as incompetence or bungling. It happens to be the only option available to the powers behind government. The same errors committed during the Great Depression of the 1930s are being repeated and economists, including Mr. Bernanake know they do not work. Yes, the Fed contracted money supply and when they let it loose again, it was too late for it to be in anyway effective. Next comes tariffs as an outgrowth of: currency wars; interest and dividend penalties on the inflow of hot, inflationary dollars and retaliatory tariffs as a result of losing 8.5 million jobs and 432,000 businesses over ten years to free trade, globalization, offshoring and outsourcing. Smoot-Hawley tariffs and even dumb Fed moves were bad enough, but Hoover’s raising of taxes by 150% was a monumental piece of stupidity.


At the root of all this is that the Fed is supposed to be saving the US economic and financial structure. They are not doing that, they are saving the banking system and Wall Street instead and these are the

miscreants that caused the problem in the first place. The result of this policy of zero interest rates and easy money is that few are saving.


There you have it, planned destruction. Is it any wonder the SCO members and observers are buying gold on every dip and will not stop doing so until they run out of dollars. Our only question is; what took them so long and why are they not buying more faster?

Peter Schiff vs. Gata: $56,000 Dollar Gold?


Summary: Peter comments on silver gold price suppression and $56,000 Gold

I snipped and edited this piece down to 5 minutes and added some wordage that might make it a bit easier to follow

This is Adrian Douglas From GATA and Pet ...

China, Russia quit dollar

China, Russia quit dollar

Premier Wen Jiabao shakes hands with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on a visit to St. Petersburg on Tuesday.ALEXEY DRUZHININ / AFP

St. Petersburg, Russia - China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday.

Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies.

"About trade settlement, we have decided to use our own currencies," Putin said at a joint news conference with Wen in St. Petersburg.

The two countries were accustomed to using other currencies, especially the dollar, for bilateral trade. Since the financial crisis, however, high-ranking officials on both sides began to explore other possibilities.

The yuan has now started trading against the Russian rouble in the Chinese interbank market, while the renminbi will soon be allowed to trade against the rouble in Russia, Putin said.

"That has forged an important step in bilateral trade and it is a result of the consolidated financial systems of world countries," he said.

Putin made his remarks after a meeting with Wen. They also officiated at a signing ceremony for 12 documents, including energy cooperation.

The documents covered cooperation on aviation, railroad construction, customs, protecting intellectual property, culture and a joint communiqu. Details of the documents have yet to be released.

Putin said one of the pacts between the two countries is about the purchase of two nuclear reactors from Russia by China's Tianwan nuclear power plant, the most advanced nuclear power complex in China.

Putin has called for boosting sales of natural resources - Russia's main export - to China, but price has proven to be a sticking point.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who holds sway over Russia's energy sector, said following a meeting with Chinese representatives that Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to agree on the price of Russian gas supplies to China before the middle of next year.

Russia is looking for China to pay prices similar to those Russian gas giant Gazprom charges its European customers, but Beijing wants a discount. The two sides were about $100 per 1,000 cubic meters apart, according to Chinese officials last week.

Wen's trip follows Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's three-day visit to China in September, during which he and President Hu Jintao launched a cross-border pipeline linking the world's biggest energy producer with the largest energy consumer.

Wen said at the press conference that the partnership between Beijing and Moscow has "reached an unprecedented level" and pledged the two countries will "never become each other's enemy".

Over the past year, "our strategic cooperative partnership endured strenuous tests and reached an unprecedented level," Wen said, adding the two nations are now more confident and determined to defend their mutual interests.

"China will firmly follow the path of peaceful development and support the renaissance of Russia as a great power," he said.

"The modernization of China will not affect other countries' interests, while a solid and strong Sino-Russian relationship is in line with the fundamental interests of both countries."

Wen said Beijing is willing to boost cooperation with Moscow in Northeast Asia, Central Asia and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as in major international organizations and on mechanisms in pursuit of a "fair and reasonable new order" in international politics and the economy.

Sun Zhuangzhi, a senior researcher in Central Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the new mode of trade settlement between China and Russia follows a global trend after the financial crisis exposed the faults of a dollar-dominated world financial system.

Pang Zhongying, who specializes in international politics at Renmin University of China, said the proposal is not challenging the dollar, but aimed at avoiding the risks the dollar represents.

Wen arrived in the northern Russian city on Monday evening for a regular meeting between Chinese and Russian heads of government.

He left St. Petersburg for Moscow late on Tuesday and is set to meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday.

Agencies and Zhou Wa contributed to this story.