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ARCHIVED DISCUSSION FROM 12/31/2005 All times are U.S. Mountain Time (Yesterday's Discussion.) Gold Standard (12/31/05; 23:10:10MT - usagold.com msg#: 139907) 2006 - May all your dreams come true! Best wishes to all on site for 2006 - a year that promises to be memorable for all of us! The Invisible Hand (12/31/05; 19:19:46MT - usagold.com msg#: 139906) Alan before Iran? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4562488.stm SNIP… at the end of January, Mr Greenspan retires from the position of Fed chief. Although approaching 80, he is already planning his new career. "He's going to write. He has many ideas about how economies work and free markets," his wife Andrea Mitchell, NBC's chief foreign affairs correspondent, told me.END OF SNIPAlan will start talking (about gold) in February. The Iranian Gold Bourse opens only in March. Waverider (12/31/05; 18:55:16MT - usagold.com msg#: 139905) A Happy New Year for 2006 A very Happy New Year to everyone!! A Golden Thank You to our illustrious host for this fine forum and to all the participants here. And yes, thank you Cobra, I hope to participate more this coming year. Cheers to All,Waverider 968 (12/31/05; 16:31:50MT - usagold.com msg#: 139904) HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!! Happy New Year to the forum !!! Flatliner (12/31/05; 14:52:10MT - usagold.com msg#: 139903) (Dr. Evil) 1 million dollars an ounce http://www.silverstockreport.com/email/Future_Gold_and_Silver_Prices.html Interesting graphs in this little article. OvS (12/31/05; 14:41:52MT - usagold.com msg#: 139902) Paperwork Housecleaning. Came across a note fromone of my energy suppliers:...by the time winter hit,crude prices had risen from11 dollars to over 32 dollarsper barrel...... What's more, the US Depart-ment of Energy projects thatcrude oil prices will average$22 a barrel over the next 15 years. That would give usheating oil prices in the lowrange we have come to expect..Happy New Heating Season. OvS OvS (12/31/05; 14:31:19MT - usagold.com msg#: 139901) Solutions At the same time, March 2006,when M3 will not be reportedany longer, raising the debtceiling should be done in se-cret. With one slap, two irk-some flies are dealt with... Barbarous Reliquary (12/31/05; 12:54:37MT - usagold.com msg#: 139900) Uh oh... http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/business/index.html European and Asian stock markets with double digit growth. Looks like it just became that much harder to attract our daily addiction of 2-3 billion dollars of foreign capital. Yield curve inverting, interest rates topping, stagnant stock markets...I thought the Europeans had sluggish growth? At least that's what I read in the papers. I thought we here in the US had "phenomenal" growth (or is it inflation)? I guess the smart money doesn't see it that way. Perhaps they see a future dollar tumble. Or lies about growth and inflation rates. No wonder the curtain will be drawn in front of the printing press in March. Things are getting very interesting and scary pretty quickly. USAGOLD / Centennial Precious Metals, Inc. (12/31/05; 12:40:56MT - usagold.com msg#: 139899) SECOND EDITION: Written for Today's Market! http://www.abcs-of-gold-investing.com/ Flatliner (12/31/05; 11:51:50MT - usagold.com msg#: 139898) @gold ETFs Chris, Thanks for the link to the GATA ETF information. Anyone, To me is seems that this action is dollar defensive, but, I do not know. I would greatly appreciate the views from old timers here in the forum about this regarding how they take it.Happy New Year Cavan Man (12/31/05; 10:55:36MT - usagold.com msg#: 139897) caradoc Please, pardon the poor typing as I am in a rush to coach some BB. Whose is nuttier; the evangelical neocons or the radicalized Muslims? Somebody is standing aside and profiting you can be sure of that. Cavan Man (12/31/05; 10:52:59MT - usagold.com msg#: 139896) Caradoc .....and the beat goes on. Here in the US the evangelicals are all hoping for a quickening top the end. They have their own ideas etc. Both Muslims and Jews have their own books--each replete with fact and fiction; each entitling them to the same real estate here on earth and in the hereafter. Doesn't the US prex believe he is doing God's work? I think I'll eschew all the madness; not taking sides and allow the ONE to sort everyting out according to His will. HNY....CM CoBra(too) (12/31/05; 10:39:24MT - usagold.com msg#: 139895) A Golden 2006 to All - and don't forget the silver lining. This topic seems to have recently estranged some old friends, which I find too bad. After all Silver has outperformed gold dramatically this year and may continue to catch up in future.In a similar venue, it's great to be a pure gold bug and correctly so. That is if you expect a major rogue wave in the currency imminently. It will and has to come. I've been posting about this credo (not eventuality) as well for several years; Meanwhile I've spread my bets across the whole PM sector and have been substantially empowered to bolster my physical holdings by "picking up some weight for value" alongside the "trail".Noone really knows when the monetary system will finally play out its final act. Until then the prudent investor will have his physical stash in the dry and will hope for the best with some deep storage gold - a.k.a. Homestake in the 30's.Since I don't want to convert anyone to my views, please regard this post as a new years well wishing message to my long term friends of this forum - and you all know who you are.Best to all of you - cb2PS: Specially to Lady WR - finding her way back after a prolonged absence. PPS: Now back to my own sabbitical ... Caradoc (12/31/05; 10:28:03MT - usagold.com msg#: 139894) How Iran's president sees his role http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2005/12/31/2003286812 The same fellow who's proceeding with his nuclear program and says he wants to destroy Israel and the US sees himself bathed in holy light and preparing the world for the return of the Shi'ite messiah.***Snip***" In a Nov. 16 speech in Tehran to senior clerics who had come from throughout Iran to hear him, the new president said that the main mission of his government was to "pave the path for the glorious reappearance of Imam Mahdi [May God hasten his reappearance]."The mystical 12th Imam of Shia Islam disappeared as a child in 941 CE, and Shia Muslims have waited for his reappearance ever since, believing that when he returns, he will reign on earth for seven years, before bringing about the Last Judgment and the end of the world.In order to prepare for the arrival of the Mahdi, Ahmadinejad said, "Iran should turn into a mighty, advanced, and model Islamic society." Iranians should "refrain from leaning toward any Western school of thought" and abstain from "luxurious lives" and other excesses.***end of snip***I'd guess that selling its oil for Euros isn't the only way Iran will influence gold/oil/dollar ratios.Caradoc Chris Powell (12/31/05; 10:17:37MT - usagold.com msg#: 139893) India approves gold ETFs -- and short selling by financial institutions http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gata/message/3573 Latest GATA dispatch.To subscribe to GATA's dispatches, send an e-mail to:gata-subscribe@yahoogroups.com 968 (12/31/05; 07:56:50MT - usagold.com msg#: 139892) @ David Linkley http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GL14Aa01.html Hello David,Don't try to see the world throught US/dollar-spectacles. Maybe someday in the future the US/dollar will not be the centre of the world anymore...You write : "I also live in a country with a history and tradition of openess based on individual rights. No other Republic has ever been conceived before this way, and been so successful as a result."If I may I quote a few paragraphs of Henry C.K. Liu latest here :"Basic to US national values are individual freedom and democracy, which the US now aims to spread around the world even though the current manifestation of such values is hardly recognizable from their original form. These values are not abstract concepts with natural universality. The US view of freedom and its version of democracy are deeply and fundamentally rooted in its unique historical conditions, which are far from universally shared. The global propagation of such values amounts to nothing more than moral imperialism. And the authority to decide which sovereign nation in the world order of sovereign nations is evil has not been granted to the US by any global democratic process. Such awesome authority has been usurped by the US on the basis of military and economic power, and is not accepted by others around the world, especially those who have been arbitrarily accused of being evil. No one outside of the US voted for the US president to represent them. A sizable number of the world's citizens consider the US president evil by the nature of US policies. As a universal principle of democracy, the critics of the United States have as much right to their opinion as US policymakers have about the morality of other nations. The US invasion of Iraq was not sanctioned by world public opinion or even by the United Nations. The US forgets that the world organization is called "United Nations", not "United Nation" led by a superpower, the way the US federal government often forgets that the name of the country is "United States", not "United State" led by a strongman. In fact, US unilateralism and intolerance of legitimate dissent are the reasons there is rising anti-US reaction around the world. The US is now pursuing a foreign policy that harks back to the medieval rite of trial by ordeal based on the principle of might is right. This militarized strategy of imposing US national values on alien societies by force is rationalized by the empty promise of permanent peace, since nations of similar values are supposed to be less likely to resort to armed conflict to settle their differences. This view has not been validated by actual events.""A 1998 study ("Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of US Nuclear Weapons Since 1940" by Stephen Schwartz) ranks US nuclear-weapons spending against all other federal government spending from 1940-96, as documented by the Office of Management and Budget. During this period, the US spent nearly $5.5 trillion on nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs in constant 1996 dollars. Non-nuclear-related national defense totaled $13.2 trillion. Social Security, at $7.9 trillion, is not government spending per se but funds collected from payroll taxes and redistributed to older citizens or placed in the trust fund. Nuclear-weaponry spending over this 56-year period exceeded the combined total federal spending for education; training, employment, and social services; agriculture; natural resources and environment protection; general science, space, and technology; community and regional development (including disaster relief); law enforcement; and energy production and regulation (including nuclear energy). Such non-military spending is the center of US core values, and the influence of the US would have been enhanced with better funding. On average, the United States has spent $98 billion a year on nuclear weapons, or $1.40 per capita per day, while more than 20% of the world's people live on less than $1 per day.By investing its $162 billion trade surplus (2004) with the US in US sovereign debt, China alone provides enough credit to finance the US nuclear arsenal which someday may be used against China, a card-carrying evil nation on account of its being communist.""The US has steadfastly refused to adopt a no-first-use commitment on nuclear weapons. Yet it presumes the God-given right to attack any nation with the suspected intention to develop nuclear arms. Non-proliferation has been distorted by US machination into a counterproductive regime. The US policy of indiscriminate preemption now encourages all nations to try to achieve nuclear capability as soon as possible, for the danger of attack from the US resides in the window of the defenseless vulnerability between planned acquisition and actual possession, as only non-nuclear nations are at risk from US superpower conventional forces with counterstrike immunity to the US itself, except via terrorist attacks." "The US was born of a secessionist movement from an emerging British Empire. The national psyche of the young nation was molded from a deliberate rejection of the societal values of the Old World. The idea of a United States was inspired by new ideals of liberty, individualism and anti-statism. The new society was the child of 18th-century liberalism with the promise of a new world that was expected to be free of feudal hierarchy and superstition. In that sense, the evolution of the US into another old-style superpower in the super-statist mode is a momentous disappointment in history, rather than the end of history. The US has failed the promise of a New World in a new age. It has evolved into a superpower in military force wrapped around an underdeveloped society in moral strength. The threat to the founding ideals of the United States from the "war on terrorism" is greater than that from terrorism itself." "Of course, the loyalty of Jewish Americans was not above suspicion during the Cold War and the Joseph McCarthy era, despite the shameful in-group persecution of left-wing Jews by their conservative brothers. Jews, of course, are less-than-honorable whites in the West. Should the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews be prevented from being used "like a bludgeon over the War on Terror debate", to rid of world of evil Islam? Even in wartime, the US government should have exercised greater vigilance to protect the liberties of those most vulnerable because of their ethnic ties to enemy nations. Some were dangerous, but too many were assumed guilty and never able to prove their innocence. A war to spread democracy abroad cannot be fought, let alone won, by destroying democracy at home. The protection of civil liberty cannot be selective. The loss of liberty to one is the loss of liberty to all. That is the most fatal vulnerability for the US as a democratic superpower." Goldilox (12/31/05; 07:34:35MT - usagold.com msg#: 139891) More Spy vs. Spy http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2005-12-30T154345Z_01_EIC055795_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-EAVESDROPPING.xml&rpc=22 snip:WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation to determine who disclosed a secret NSA eavesdropping operation approved by President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks, officials said on Friday."We are opening an investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified materials related to the NSA," one official said.Earlier this month Bush acknowledged the program and called its disclosure to The New York Times "a shameful act." He said he presumed a Justice Department leak investigation into who disclosed the National Security Agency eavesdropping operation would get under way.Justice Department officials would give no details of who requested the probe or how it would be conducted.-GoldiloxNever mind that the original act was even more shameful, Dubya prefers the NFL form of "field justice". The first "shameful act" is not penalized, only the retaliation.After the revelations of the London papers, 911 whitewashed investigation, and New Orleans levee explosions, George's so-called hunt for terrorists is truly the "pot calling the kettle black."The NeoCons are reverting to the tactics of J Edgar Hoover, who while snooping into other famous bedrooms for political jollies, kept his own shameful acts with little boys confined to Meyer Lansky's Cuban hotels for "security sake". Goldilox (12/31/05; 07:03:42MT - usagold.com msg#: 139890) Spying Scandal @ Barabarous,"Also, I am not so paranoid about the recent "spying" scandal. . . It would take over 4 million people, listening 8 hours a day, to listen to all of that."Make that 12 million, 'cause you know thet're gonna run three shifts. Actually, they will probably use "voice capture" SW, so some computer algorithm will decide that you are a terrorist threat. The cost of subpeoning the programmer to court will be so high (or refused on National Security grounds), that the "accused" will be "required" to plea bargain and become felons on probation the rest of their lives- not unlike misspeaking at an airport security checkpoint, except one doesn't "know" they're now at the checkpoint continually. I'm glad that doesn't alarm you.But now you get a glimpse of the "solution" to the unemployment issues. If everyone "works" for the NWO security machine, there will be even less resistance to totalitarian government, for fear of losing their paycheck and government pension. How much more declining productivity must be squandered to pay for that? As Bucky Fuller pointed out, when "cost of security" outpaces "production", society is experiencing diminishing returns, aka deteriorating.The biggest problem with the US acting as the "world police" is that at some point the rest of the world decides to stop outsourcing police duties, and the US then becomes a nation of unemployed cops - all armed, with no visible means of support and abandoned productive capacity - Not unlike the Army that could not be paid for in the last century of the Roman Empire. 968 (12/31/05; 02:57:03MT - usagold.com msg#: 139889) Visualising US-debt... http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/thirteen.asp What does one trillion pennies, or 10 billion dollars look like ?>>>>> see link !At the bottom of the page some additional comparisons. Belgian (12/31/05; 02:38:53MT - usagold.com msg#: 139888) @David Concerning your doubts about gold - CBs - nation states...Think about "one" single evolving fact : In Euroland and many other places on our planet, the -taxing- on all financial industry papers (stocks-bonds-etc) is permanently rising...AND...taxes (VAT) on BULLION are zero or declining gradually to zero !!!The general public does NOT -yet- sees this as a signal...as an invitation...as a dramatic change. Because of a very long list of many different reasons. Main reason is that western investors/speculators/gamblers, stay paper (virtual-!) and still have no intention to go physical (gold bullion -!).This is in very sharp contrast with the US situation, where increasing deficits and lower taxes go hand in hand.Remember that one element of a currency's use-value is the issuer's capacity to collect taxes.Whilst many Americans keep on talking about gold confiscation, the rest of the world gets the official invitation of -untaxed- bullion !!!Just imagine all those giants (and shrimps) having their wealth stored in goldmetal and see the universal exchange rate of their wealth being raised with 30% recently...UNTAXED !!!And behind this official (legal) UNTAXED bullion, stands a *new* CB (ECB) that is marking its gold-wealth-reserves to the present gold market. And as I mentioned before, the ECB's gold MTM concept is meant to function 100% in "Another" gold market...a physical one, where the REAL value of goldmetal will finally surface. And all gold-bugs are OFFICIALLY invited, -TAXFREE-, to join this wonderful evolution.I think that you cannot believe what you see, because you still hope that the old $-IMS system can still be saved !That's an unfortunate mistake ...error in judgement. Don't wait for more detoriation as evidence for your error.Think about all those $-digits floating around outside the US borders ! Is there still enough US political will to support any longer the use of this growing stash of international dollars (dollars outside US borders) !!!???Would you be surprised to learn, one day, that the non US part of the world, replaces its ever swelling dollar reserves with gold reserves under another regime (real wealth) than the present $-paper-gold-regime (virtual wealth) !?Happy New Year to all. Barbarous Reliquary (12/31/05; 00:03:53MT - usagold.com msg#: 139887) NWO My take on "globalization" as it is now practiced is that it provides a fire exit for corporations to escape our inevitable hyperinflation. US companies remain based in US and pay taxes for our government's favor in opening markets and providing military muscle for economic opportunities. We all know how the US government lets in illegal labor to try to mitigate excessive money creation's upward press on wages. I believe the situation is similar for outsourcing.Also, I am not so paranoid about the recent "spying" scandal. Think about this for a minute. Let's say the average amount of time a US citizen spends on the phone each day is 10 minutes. And let's say that out of country of 300 million people, only 200 million use the phone 10 minutes per day. That's 2 billion minutes (33.3million hours) of phone conversation EACH DAY. It would take over 4 million people, listening 8 hours a day, to listen to all of that. Nobody is listening to our conversations about what movie to rent for the evening, or our making medical appointments, or business conversations. Obviously, if someone were mining through that data, they would have to focus VERY narrowly with AI computer tech to find what they were looking for. We have no reason to believe that what is occurring is anything other than looking for Islamic terrorists. I'm positive this type of spying was done during the Cold War as well. I'm not worried one bit.And as for gold confiscation, it can be done very easily without the nightmare scenario of government "brown shirts" breaking down doors some here have fear of. This confiscation is very familiar and practiced widely throughout the world, to much grumbling, but virtually no violence. Its called TAXATION. When all the goldbugs here go in to cash in their chips (yes, we will, to varying degrees). Whatever the market price is offered, the government will get X% of those dollars (or euros), and if the government so chooses, it can also purchase that X% of the gold you just sold with their TAXATION. No thugs, no break ins, no violence whatsoever. Civilized. And you get to keep the majority of the gains. What world is perfect? They can also use TAXATION to obtain a percentage of production from current gold mines through the same mechanism as detailed above.Happy New Year to you all! ViewYesterday's Discussion.
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