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ARCHIVED DISCUSSION FROM 7/4/2002
All times are U.S. Mountain Time

(Yesterday's Discussion.)

timbervision (07/04/02; 23:49:14MT - usagold.com msg#: 79917)
Belgian, miner49'er, Aristotle, ....... et al
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_02/tlaga070402.html
In the provided link, the author seems to discount the inevitability of the eventual revaluation of gold. What do you think of his "In reality" points? What is he missing?

....""Not a few among us have been distracted into endless driving around intellectual cul-de-sac centered on the belief that gold price manipulation must inevitably collapse into a financial meltdown of infernal proportions, by which the market forces will ultimately reassert themselves and will thwart the machinations of the gold cabal when gold will hit again $800 per ounce or more. It is not the first time in history for the helpless to seek solace in the concept of inevitability of the triumph of good over evil. In reality: (1) central bank gold is sold outrightly for US Treasury securities which means that central banks will never call in their gold "loans"; (2) some trillion dollars were erased by NASDAQ dot.com bubble alone which means Regular Joes and Plain Janes simply cannot buy physical gold; (3) Congressionally injected compulsory cash settlement clauses into gold contracts will ratify already existing practice to allow orderly unwinding of the gold derivatives pyramids if those invested in paper gold would elect en masse to take physical delivery.

Similar innocence about the real state of affairs is present in the thought that derivative pyramid of notional value exceeding twenty trillion dollars accumulated by JP Morgan Chase must lead to cataclysmic downfall of the entire financial system. In reality, when divided by the outlandish leverage ratios (inadvertently disclosed by LTCM debacle) this score of trillions translates into few scores of billions, which can be settled with few clicks on Alan Greenspan's computer. (When pyramid of derivatives is netted, no one is "too big to bail"; whatever was done by a few clicks on Alan Greenspan's computer, can be undone by a few clicks on Alan Greenspan's computer.) Furthermore, derivatives written by JP Morgan Chase are mostly interest rate derivatives written from the position of advance notice of the interest rate changes, meaning, no risk is involved because the entire game is played under the roof of one and the same rigged casino.""....

sector (07/04/02; 18:59:59MT - usagold.com msg#: 79916)
India/Pak Tensions...On the Way Back Up
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/index.html
Indian army warns of action if Pakistan does not end 'terrorism'

New Delhi rules out further de-escalation

NEW DELHI: India's army chief said on Thursday New Delhi would be left with no option but to take "some action" if Pakistan did not end cross-border infiltration into disputed Kashmir.

"My troops are there (at the border). Their troops are on the border," said General S Padmanabhan, as quoted by the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency. "The reason for which we stood out there for six to seven months now is that we wanted this infiltration and cross-border terrorism to stop ... it continues. If it does not stop ... we have to take some action."
[…]
He said despite the promises made by President Pervez Musharraf to end infiltration, there had been five recently aborted attempts by militants to cross the Line of Control. According to army estimates, around 107 militants had sneaked into Kashmir in recent weeks, he added.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Try to see clearly into the future.

Black Blade (07/04/02; 18:40:44MT - usagold.com msg#: 79915)
Four convicted of armed robbery have their hands and legs amputated.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/020704/libya_sharia_amputations_1.html

Snippit:

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Libyan authorities have amputated the right hands and left legs of four armed robbers in accordance with Islamic law, Libyan radio reported Thursday. The four men had been convicted of robbing a Chinese oil exploration company in the district of Muradah, 750 kilometers (470 miles) southeast of the Libyan capital of Tripoli, on April 30. They assaulted members of the company's personnel, fired shots to frighten them and stole vehicles, telecommunications sets, food and fuel, the state radio said in a report monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp.

Black Blade: Well at least it would solve the prison overcrowding problem. Something to consider – come now, lets give these guys a hand. Hmmm…

sector (07/04/02; 18:34:09MT - usagold.com msg#: 79914)
LA Airport Fatal Ticket Counter Attack..Israeli El Al was the target... from debka.com
...the dead shooter was a 52 year old arab
Yakov Aminov, 46, and 20-year Old Ground Hostess –
Both from Los Angeles – Died in Shooting
Attack Thursday at El Al Ticket Counter of
Los Angeles Airport

The Gunman Described as Arab Aged 52
Was Shot Dead by El Al Security Guards
Haim Sapir, Head of El Al Security, Sustained
Stab Wounds When He Tackled Gunman

Six More Wounded from Line Waiting to Board
El Al 106 to Tel Aviv Via Toronto

FBI Takes over Investigation, Holds One or Two Suspects,
Declines to Ascribe Attack to Terrorists

Israeli Official Spokesmen Insist This Was Act of Terror

In Separate Incident Thursday,
Pilot of El Al Flight 615 from Tel Aviv to Moscow
Reports Ground-to-Air Missile Shooting Past
Right Side of His Plane and Bright Flash
Plane Landed Safely in Moscow
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Note the part where the FBI declines to link the attack to terrorists...the most chilling part of the story.

Black Blade (07/04/02; 18:29:28MT - usagold.com msg#: 79913)
More Wall Street Jobs Threatened
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/020704/markets_stocks_brokerages_1.html

Snippit:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street firms have pinned their hopes on a stock market rebound to boost business, but they could end up cutting thousands more jobs if things don't get better.Major U.S. stock gauges are at multiyear lows amid high-profile accounting scandals, corporate profit worries and distrust of Wall Street itself. Still, even after a vicious series of layoffs, there are 118,000 more jobs on Wall Street today than five years ago.

Black Blade: It looks a lot like there is plenty of fat to trim on Wall Street. There's just way too many nonessential bankers and brokers. BTW, with online investing who the hell needs a broker these days? Arn't they redundant?

misetich (07/04/02; 18:07:55MT - usagold.com msg#: 79912)
ECB Duisenberg: No Discussion of Correct Size of FX/Gold Rsvs
Full article - subscription

ECB Duisenberg: No Discussion of Correct Size of FX/Gold Rsvs> Jul 4 / 9:32 EDT

LUXEMBOURG (MktNews) - ECB President Wim Duisenberg said Thursday
there is currently no discussion concerning the appropriate size of
foreign currency and gold reserves in the euro-system.

Asked at the press conference following the ECB's governing council
meeting how much foreign currency and gold a strong euro currency
requires, Duisenberg said the euro system contained enough foreign
currency reserves to cope with "any disaster."

"Inside the euro-system, there is no discussion and there can also
be no conclusion about what precisely should be the appropriate size of
the reserves of the euro system," Duisenberg said.

"We are in the happy position that the euro system contains or
holds so much foreign currency reserves that it will at all times be
equipped to meet any disaster which might loom over the horizon.

"The holdings are no prohibition for whatever action we might want
to take," he said.

Duisenberg noted the foreign currency and gold reserves of the euro
system are "inherited from the past, sometimes during hundreds of
years," he said.

--Frankfurt Newsroom. Tel: +49-69-720-142 Email: fftmail@marketnews.com

[TOPICS: M$$EC$,MT$$$$,M$X$$$,M$$FX$]

Misetich

Duisenberg said the euro system contained enough foreign
currency reserves to cope with "any disaster." -Duisenberg noted the foreign currency and gold reserves of the euro
system are "inherited from the past, sometimes during hundreds of years," he said

Euro system has gold to cope with "any disaster" - do you?

Mr Gresham (07/04/02; 17:17:00MT - usagold.com msg#: 79911)
Holy Gibberish Batman!
Troy Boy -- Thanks -- GN really hit it today. The big big BIG picture. Battle won; war lost. Founding Fathers have been sold out. No reason why the biggest Empire on earth would not also contain the most corruption, veiled of course by the finest rhetoric ever deployable in its service. Conduct the rest of your life accordingly...

Did Rumsfeld really say this? (as quoted by Bill Bonner): Donald Rumsfeld reflects on the WAT: "There are no
knowns," said the Secretary of Defense. "There are
things we know that we know. There are known unknowns,
that is to say there are things we now know we don't
know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do
not know we don't know."

We are truly through the Looking Glass -- and not in Kansas anymore, either. (But then, I'd say, "destroying the village" -- in Vietnam -- "in order to save it" was pretty far gone, too.) Idiots with guns -- no wonder Gladiator was such a hit -- Man In Combat has comparatively looked pretty pathetic since gunpowder arrived.

Bonner continues: "The people of Kakarak rediscovered a "known" a couple of days ago: a bomb dropped from an American warplane into a wedding party does a lot of damage. Le Monde reports as many as 40 people killed.

"*** What will happen next? What unknown unknown unknowns
await the unwary? Will the gods look with favor on
people who drop bombs on nuptial ceremonies? ..."

Was Osama's name on the invite list, d'ya think? (What a tip-off!)

What was ANYBODY thinking?

Hmmmm...I smell BOB-e-que, comin' through my window!

Black Blade (07/04/02; 16:36:15MT - usagold.com msg#: 79910)
Newmont predicts gold in multi-year uptrend
http://www.nationalpost.com/financialpost/story.html?id={6B773E44-BD86-478B-818F-FE83928A3145}
Newmont predicts gold in multi-year uptrend
U.S. dollar decline, trade deficit drive appreciation

Snippit:

MONTREAL - Pierre Lassonde, president of Newmont Mining Corp., the world's biggest gold miner, said yesterday the metal is in a "multi-year" uptrend because of weakness in the U.S. economy and political turmoil. "Gold at around US$320 an ounce is already at a five-year high with the U.S. current account deficit running at an unsustainable 5% of gross domestic product and a 10% decline in the U.S. dollar," he said in an interview before receiving the Ecole Polytechnique's 24th Prix Mérite for professional excellence.

"I base my prediction on fundamentals and it'll take two years to wring the excesses out of the U.S. system," said Mr. Lassonde, co-founder of Franco-Nevada Mining Corp. Ltd. and former manager of two successful gold funds. "There are more WorldComs to come." The U.S. needs a US$1.3-billion daily inflow of foreign currencies to maintain its former exchange rate but is getting only half that with the collapsing stock market, economic uncertainty, rock-bottom interest rates and an international flight to bullion, he said.

Black Blade: He also states that the increasing money supply will result in high rates of inflation. I agree that we are in a long term trend of higher gold prices. We may find some short term resistance as bankers and fund managers desperately search for a way out of the derivatives hole they dug for themselves.

Black Blade (07/04/02; 16:20:29MT - usagold.com msg#: 79909)
The Barbarous Relic Files - Sea hunt for Cromwell's stolen gold
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$3C2KF3IAALPCZQFIQMGSFFWAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2002/07/04/ntreas04.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/07/04/ixhome.html&_requestid=594727&_requestid=610359

Snippit:

A search for a fleet of 60 sunken Cromwellian ships carrying treasure worth up to £2.5 billion was launched in the River Tay yesterday. Scientists and bounty hunters hope to locate the fleet, which sank in stormy seas at the mouth of the river, after Oliver Cromwell's troops had sacked Dundee in 1651 and slaughtered 500 people.

Historic documents show that the ships were laden with the treasures of wealthy families from Angus, Fife, Perthshire and Edinburgh, which had been taken to Dundee for safekeeping. Yesterday the Coventry-based diving firm of Subsea Explorer began a 10-week search for the cache, which has been lying at the bottom of the Tay for more than 350 years.

Ornamental plates, gold and silver coins and religious artefacts plundered from churches and monasteries all over Scotland are believed to make up the riches on the seabed. General Monck's army devastated Dundee as part of Cromwell's campaign to suppress Royalist support in Dundee, Aberdeen and Stirling.

Black Blade: This appears to be quite an effort over a few "barbarous relics". Hmmm…

USAGOLD / Centennial Precious Metals, Inc. (07/04/02; 15:34:37MT - usagold.com msg#: 79908)
Have a Happy 4th of July -- An Independence Day thought...

"For as long as cannons have thundered,
they have echoed
with the sound of men yearning for gold."

-- R. Strauss

darkhorse (07/04/02; 14:16:23MT - usagold.com msg#: 79907)
Discovery channel this afternoon
Y'all oughta check out the show they're running about Fort Knox. It's somewhat long in the tooth, but listen to some of the crap they shell out about physical audits and who they "hired" to do them. I haven't heard this much crap coming out of my TV since the last presidential conventions. This should air again a couple times tonight and into early tomorrow morning.

Troy Boy (07/04/02; 13:54:21MT - usagold.com msg#: 79906)
Happy fireworks day
A hard hitting read for the day
While fireworks are sold legally in Florida, most counties, municipalities and incorporated zones ban the igniting of the fireworks with legal action against the law breaker. So while you are having fun tonight be careful.
I found the following document and thought I might pass it on as it reflects on the case of freedom in the US and what we celebrate today for, supposedly.

Gary North's REALITY CHECK

Issue 155 July 4, 2002

HAPPY FIREWORKS DAY

The best way to destroy the public's memory of an
important event is to make it into an American national
holiday.

Every Christmas, Americans celebrate the arrival of a
bearded, red-suited Communist who looks suspiciously like
Karl Marx, and who gives presents to everyone, irrespective
of race, color, creed, or national origin. Parents tell
their children that only good little boys and girls are so
rewarded, but the kids catch on fast: they're going to get
some of the loot, no matter what. Also, they never think
that their share of the booty is fair. This prepares them
to be voters.

Then there is Easter, the celebration of a rabbit who,
for some unexplained reason, hides colored hard-boiled
chicken eggs in everyone's back yard and on the White
House's lawn.

On New Year's Day, people recover from hangovers by
watching the Rose Parade, a TV show so excruciatingly
boring that it looks as though it was produced by PBS with
a major government grant. (Note: it was to comment on the
Rose Parade that national TV networks first brought in
women to serve as "colorful" co-anchors, something for
which the original producers will answer for on judgment
day.) Later in the day, tens of millions of men watch
college football bowl games, most of which settle nothing,
but one of which unofficially determines which major team
was the best during the season -- an exclusively past-
oriented celebration for the new year.

On Thanksgiving Day, only those people give thanks
whose favorite college football team wins the annual Big
Game with the school's major rival.

On Presidents Day, we celebrate the birth of two men
with two things in common: they were born in February, and
they were twice elected President. Because we combine
their birthdays, we learn nothing about either of them.

On Labor Day, nobody works.

On Memorial Day, nobody remembers World War I.

Because there has been insufficient time to transform
the holiday into something else, Martin Luther King Day
still officially honors the birth of Michael King (aka
Martin Luther King, Jr.). About 80% of Americans do their
best to forget, and 10% -- immigrants -- never knew.

This brings me to the Fourth of July. There are no
Fourth of July parades on TV, or anywhere else, as far as I
know. I cannot remember any in my youth.

We have all heard the phrase, "a Fourth of July
oration." Maybe in my parents' day, or my grandparents'
day, but not in mine. I do not recall ever hearing a
single patriotic speech on the Fourth of July.

On July Fourth, we set off fireworks. But fireworks
have nothing to do with the great event of the Fourth of
July. Fireworks are associated with the national anthem,
which was composed for British War II (1812), not British
War I.

Public fireworks are almost always funded by tax
money, since there is no way to keep non-paying viewers
from watching. But as government expenditures go,
fireworks should be the model for all government
expenditures: only once a year, no full-time employees,
funded locally, benefits are not means-tested, access is
first come-first served, no politician gets any credit, no
mailing lists are involved, and Congress always shuts down
during the show.

MOVIES

Americans get most of their knowledge of history from
movies.

Think of the movies about the American Revolution that
were made in Hollywood's golden era. There was. . . .

I can't think of any.

There were a few swashbucklers that were set in the
late eighteenth century, but none of them is about
defending the traditional rights of Englishmen.

I don't count "Johnny Tremain," a 1957 Disney film
based on Catherine Drinker Bowen's novel. It was Hal
Stalmaster's first and last movie. He later decided --
wisely, I think -- that he could make more money as an
actors' agent than as an actor, especially since his
brother owns one of Hollywood's major casting agencies.
The movie isn't bad, but ultimately it was a "Luana Patten,
almost grown up" movie, which did not bode well for it.
(Miss Patten was Disney's late 1940's version of Shirley
Temple, except that she couldn't dance or sing.)

Of course, there is "The Patriot." It doesn't deal
with ideology. It's initially the story of a politically
uninvolved man who is trying to save his son from a
murderous Redcoat. A similar theme governs "Revolution,"
with Al Pacino. It is about a man who wanted no part of
the war, but whose son gets persuaded to sign up, so he
signs up to protect his son. His patriotism grows out of
the war experience. It does not precede it.

"The Last of the Mohicans" is about Mohicans. Its
soundtrack is more memorable than its script.

There are more movies about Wyatt Earp than about
Thomas Jefferson or George Washington.

Let's face it: movies about people who write with
quills don't make a lot of money. This is why there are
not many French Revolution movies, either.

THE WORLD WE HAVE LOST

For most Americans, the story of the American
Revolution is more like a series of museum displays with
toy soldiers than a series of events that grab our
collective imagination. Other than George Washington, the
most famous general of the American Revolution is Benedict
Arnold. In third place is Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne. He
was a Brit, and he is famous only because of "Gentleman."

In my library are boxes of microcards. Each card
contains tiny images of up to 200 pages. On these cards is
every document published in the United States from 1639 to
1811. Yet I rarely consult those cards. I have shelves of
books on the American Revolution. I rarely pull one of
them down and read it. I read McCullough's "John Adams,"
but so did a million other people -- or at least they
bought the book. Thirty years ago, I earned a Ph.D. with a
specialty in colonial American history, although my sub-
specialty was New England, 1630-1720, not the American
Revolution. But even for me, the events and the issues of
1776 have faded. Think of the average American high school
graduate, whose history class spent two weeks on the
American Revolution two decades ago.

There was a slogan: "No taxation without
representation." How did that slogan turn out? In 1776,
there was no income tax. So, we got our representation,
but taxes today are at 40% of our income. Washington
extracts 25% of the nation's output. In 1776, taxes
imposed by the British were in the range of 1% in the
North, and possibly 3% in the South. I'm ready to make a
deal: I'll give up being represented in Washington, but
I'll get to keep 74% of my income. I'll work out
something else with state and local politicians. Just get
Washington out of my pocket.

Jefferson put these words into the Declaration of
Independence:

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and
sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our
people, and eat out their substance.

He had no idea. Not counting troops, who were here to
defend the Western territory from the French after 1763,
the number of British officials was probably well under a
thousand. They resided mainly in port cities, where they
collected customs (import taxes): Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, and Charleston. The average American had
never met a British official in 1776.

By any modern standard, in any nation, what Jefferson
wrote in the Declaration to prove the tyranny of King
George III would be regarded by voters today as a
libertarian revolution beyond the dreams of any elected
politician, including Ron Paul. Voters would
unquestionably destroy the political career of anyone who
would call for the restoration of King George's tyranny,
which voters would see as the destruction of their economic
security, which they believe is provided only by
politicians and each other's tax money.

I have therefore revised the Declaration of
Independence, in order to make it conform to the prevailing
American view of liberty and justice for all. You may read
my revision here:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north110.html

This is why the documents of the American Revolution
make no sense to us. We read the words and marvel at the
courage of those who risked their lives, fortunes and
sacred honor by signing the Declaration. But we cannot
really understand why they did it. We live under a self-
imposed tyranny so vast, so all-encompassing by the
standards of 18th-century British politics, that we cannot
imagine risking everything we own in order to throw off the
level of government interference suffered by the average
American businessman in 1776, let alone the average farmer.

If we could start politically where the Continental
Congress started in 1775, we would call home the members of
that Congress. We would regard as crazy anyone who was
willing to risk a war of secession for the sake of throwing
off an import tax system that imposed a 1% burden on our
income.

The Declaration of Independence points a finger at us,
and shouts from the grave on behalf of the 56 signers:
"What have you done? What have you surrendered in our
name? What, in the name of Nature and Nature's God, do you
people think liberty is all about?"

We have no clue. American voters surrender more
liberty in one session of Congress than the colonists
surrendered to the British crown/Parliament from 1700 to
1776.

We do not read the documents of the American
Revolution. They make us uneasy and even guilty when we
understand them, and most of the time, we do not understand
them. They use language that is above us. The common
discourse of American politics in 1776 was beyond what most
university faculty members are capable of understanding.

You think I'm exaggerating. I'm not. My friend
Bertel Sparks used to teach in the Duke University Law
School. Every year, he conducted an experiment. He wanted
to put his first year law students -- among the cream of
the crop of American college graduates -- in their place.

He assigned an extract from Blackstone's Commentaries
on the Laws of England. This was the most important legal
document of the American Revolution era. It was written in
the 1760's. Every American lawyer read all four volumes.
It was read by American lawyers for a generation after the
Revolution. Sparks would assign a section on the rights of
property. He made them take it home, and then return to
class, ready to discuss it.

When they returned, they could not discuss it. The
language was too foreign. The concepts were too foreign.
The students were utterly confused.

Then Sparks would hold up the source of the extract
from Blackstone. The source was the Sixth McGuffey reader,
the most popular American public school textbook series of
the second half of the 19th century.

That put the kiddies in their place.

If you want to be put in your place, pick up a copy of
the Sixth McGuffey reader and try to read it.

Try to read the "Federalist Papers." These were
newspaper columns written to persuade the voters of New
York to elect representatives to ratify the Constitution.
These essays were political tracts. They were aimed at the
average voter. Few college graduates could get through
them today, so students are not asked to read them in their
American history course, which isn't required for
graduation anyway.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO OURSELVES?

Our march into what Jefferson would have described as
tyranny has been a self-imposed march. Voters today would
be unwilling to go to war to restore the Declaration's
ideal of liberty. In fact, Americans would go to war to
keep from having the Declaration's ideal of liberty from
being imposed on us. By today's standards, King George III
was indeed a madman: a libertarian madman, a character out
of an Ayn Rand novel that never got published. On politics
and economics, Jefferson was madder than King George.

Forty years ago, Stan Freberg produced an LP record,
"Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America." It
was a musical. Freberg is one of America's great comic
geniuses, but he spent most of his career after 1962
creating advertisements.

In the musical, Thomas Jefferson comes to Ben Franklin
to persuade him to sign the Declaration. Franklin reads it
over briefly. Then he refuses to sign. Why not? asks
Jefferson. "It sounds a little pinko to me," Franklin
replies. Also, there was the question of spelling.
Franklin asks: "Life, liberty, and the perfuit of
happineff?"

It was a funny skit, and the music was really good.
(The song for the first Thanksgiving, "Take an Indian to
Lunch," remains my favorite.) But "pinko," Jefferson
wasn't. Calling for secession was not the same as calling
for a social revolution. The revolutionaries were calling
for secession in the name of traditional rights of
Englishmen. They were calling for a reversal of a slow-
motion political revolution by the Parliament, an erosion
of political rights. They saw themselves as conservatives
involved in a counter-revolution.

They won the battle. We have lost the war.

Generation after generation, Americans have imposed
taxation with representation. We could use less taxation
and less representation. But voters believe in lots of
representation and lots of taxation to match. Voters elect
more politicians, who then hire far more officials, than
King George ever thought about sending to the colonies.

Voters send these politicians off to the various
capital cities with a mandate: "Bring more swag back home
than those other crooks extract from us." Voters hand a
credit card to their representatives and tell them: "Make
sure the bill that you send to us at the end of the year is
less than the value of the loot that you send to us." So,
the bills keep getting bigger. We think Garrison Keeler is
funny with his description of Lake Wobegon: "Where all the
children are above average." But we all want our elected
representatives to keep our tax bills below average.

Cartoonist Walt Kelly drew "Pogo" for decades. "Pogo"
was probably the most politically sophisticated of all
American comic strips, including "Doonesbury," although not
the funniest. Kelly immortalized a phrase, which he put
into the mouth of Pogo Possum: "We have met the enemy and
he is us." The statement rings true because it is true.
We did it to ourselves.

This is why the American Revolution seems like a
museum display. Our hearts may be with those men of old,
but our minds are not. We live in a fundamentally
different world. Europe is on the far side of Marx and
Engels, while we are on the far side of Wilson and
Roosevelt.

My professor, Robert Nisbet, remarked in an
autobiographical passage in one of his books that when he
was born, in 1913, the only contact that most Americans had
with the Federal Government was the Post Office. It was in
that year that the first income tax forms were mailed out.
Take a look at the original Form 1040. Consider that the
average American family in 1913 earned less than $1,000 a
year. Then look at the tax rates.

http://www.salestax.org/library/1913form1040.html

We say that we want our high school graduates to be
familiar with American history. But do we? Really? The
history of America is the story of our surrender to a
philosophy of government that was alien to the West in
1776. What Jefferson regarded as a tyranny worth dying to
oppose, American voters today regard as a world so unjust
economically that no moral person would want to live in it,
let alone risk his life and wealth to obtain it for himself
and his posterity.

Voters get what they think they really want. When
things turn out badly, they re-think what it is that they
really want.

What the signers of the Declaration of Independence
really wanted was the right of self-government, beginning
with individual self-government. To achieve this, they
demanded the right of home rule politically. They fought a
war to attain this.

We have used home rule to place above us men whose
views of the rights of citizens Jefferson would have
regarded as beyond anything King George III dreamed of in
his madness.

Millions of voters who regard the present social and
political order as morally valid are not interested in
telling the story of the Revolution from the words of those
who began the fight. They elect Superintendants of Public
Instruction to hire teachers who also do not like that
story. The senior bureaucrats then ask these teachers to
abandon the teaching of the story of America prior to 1900,
and substitute social studies.

I am not exaggerating. The battle at the state level
to retain the teaching of American history prior to 1900
has been going on in Texas high schools for over a decade.
Texas public schools buy so many textbooks that what Texas
does -- along with New York, California, and Illinois --
determines what the rest of the nation's students will be
taught. The state of Texas allows a committee that
includes laymen to sit in judgment on the textbooks. This
is why Mel and Norma Gabler have been able to inflict so
much economic pain on liberal textbook publishers for the
last 25 years. But theirs is at best a holding action.

http://members.aol.com/TxtbkRevws/about.htm

http://members.aol.com/TxtbkRevws/moreinfo.htm

CONCLUSION

The story of America is the story of this nation's
self-imposed abandonment of the Declaration of
Independence. This is why the story of the Declaration is
rarely taught in school, and is taught badly when it is
taught.

If you want to re-gain your liberty, a good place to
begin is with the primary source documents of the world
that existed a century before the Declaration was written,
before the kings of England meddled very much in colonial
affairs. It is hard to believe, but Jefferson would have
been regarded as a little bit pinko in 1676.

That is the world we have lost. Fireworks won't get
it back.

Home schooling just might.

Mr Gresham (07/04/02; 12:17:57MT - usagold.com msg#: 79905)
Topaz, CoinGuy, sector
Topaz -- please don't take your contrarian's contrarian viewpoint away -- I need the regular corrective to help me "peek around the corner" at the opposition's next possible moves.

CoinGuy -- quite a post, and yes, that #77 is the keeper.

sector, sector, sector! Contest's over! No, actually -- a recitation like yours, done in a good rhythm, is like poetry, music. "prime undeveloped real estate" -- good! And as always, we need the contrast to the "Deer-in-the-headlights" majority around us. Because that is still the music the loudspeakers on the plaza are blasting out at all us proles. Keep on keepin' on.

In fact the danger of complacency occurred to me this A.M. in a new light -- focusing too much on our PM preps, what else is going bye-bye that we need to cover? I'll stop here, but it is obvious that the basic instincts of self-preservation have been lulled to sleep in those around us, and I hope it is not catching!

I get a feeling of "Oh no, not THAT again" but y'know, that 1998-99 period of Y2k prep was one of unusual clarity for me, as it seemed that the people I was hanging out with online were dissecting society and re-designing (an alternative future) from the ground up. A wealth of survival -- or call it "living well in hard times" -- info was collected and shared by all...

oops, gotta go. Reality beckons...

Black Blade (07/04/02; 11:40:55MT - usagold.com msg#: 79904)
Gold Talk on CNBC

I see that there has been some talk of gold on CNBC today. Bob Pisani said he has had a lot of gold questions from the email today. The word is getting out.

BTW, the Daily Gold Market Report is updated with the gold market activity over the last 24 hours.

- Black Blade

Safe and happy 4th all...

The Traveler (07/04/02; 11:22:27MT - usagold.com msg#: 79903)
Zero hour may be sooner than you think

Quotes by OPEC President Rilwanu Lukman from his opening remarks to the OPEC meeting in Vienna late last month as reported by Petroleum Finance Week.

"After a period of ascendancy stretching back years, it appears that the dollar is finally weakening vis-à-vis other leading currencies – notably the Euro and the Yen."

"For oil producers, it could easily mean a reduction in the real value of the revenue they receive from sales of petroleum on world markets."

OPEC sees the future of the dollar and the repercussions of its fall from grace. Do you?

Au-some (7/4/02; 10:57:59MT - usagold.com msg#: 79902)
(No Subject)
Happy Fourth!
Congrats to all winners...
And thanks to YGM for the Puplava/Murphy link. Check it out.

sector (7/4/02; 09:53:42MT - usagold.com msg#: 79901)
@ Aristotle COMEX Default? But...But...But
There are allot of "Buts" in COMEX paper
With $71 Billion in gold derivatives. US banks are as strung out as cokeheads. They have converted their real gold or the Treasury's real gold into paper and there it is...a sitting duck...way underwater.

As for specs thinking they can get their gold back from the COMEX "Warehouses"? This bullion is the inventory of individual corporations and people who KNOW the value of gold and they most certainly would NOT give it up in any emergency...which would be the case during very high COMEX volatility.

So...should there be a squeeze, COMEX will default plain and simple and the contract holders will get nada except FRNs.

The real deal is the metal, the beautiful metal. It's the most prime undeveloped real estate one can ever find. It is a shield in times of social unrest.

BTW predicting unrest as a result of trillions in financial losses is easy. The hard part is getting up off one's duff and actually painting a CLEAR picture of the future. We don't need a n ME war to upset things. We don't need heightened awareness of Greenspan's relentless inflation. We don't even need more political and ideological division nor do we need the potent catalyst of massive Wall Street and Washington corruption to trigger social unrest.

The falling stock market will do it that all by itself. Pension funds will be decimated as a direct result of the SM fall and pensioners will develop that "Deer-in-the-headlights" look. Add a little more reality about their vanishing social security fund and voila! A CLEAR bleak future and the big blame game cranks UP. Vote the bums out? Citizens already know Washington is powerless.

Need more? How 'bout those Japanese? Wrecked banks and senior citizens who stand to be World-Class chumps in a "Government bailout"...$1.2 Trillion in their life savings confiscated for the "Good of the country" [Watch for preparations later this year].

COMEX default? Set your watch baby. Buy the popcorn,…pull up the chaise lounge. The warning clue is the departure of Wendy Gramm [CFTC] and her estimable husband, Senate Banking heavyweight, Phil Gramm [Who personally knows ALL about GoldGate]...gettin outa Dodge along with Minority Whip, J.C. Watts [R-OK].

They will shut off COMEX gold and silver when the heat gets up there around $340...no more trading. You want gold? Try Mumbai, Shanghai, London [Maybe], Tokyo [Perhaps] ...oh yeah Istanbul…you can pop over there and get all the gold you want. But don't expect to bring it back IN the US without hefty tariffs. As for the Treasury's gold bullion trade…it will dry up as the Treasury cuts overtime and goes on a two-and-a-half-day workweek.

YGM (7/4/02; 08:54:11MT - usagold.com msg#: 79900)
A Preview of the Future.....
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/real_estate/article/0,1299,DRMN_414_1242052,00.html
Excerpt:

Foreclosures soar
Weak economy could spur highest level in 11 years

By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News
July 2, 2002

Metro-area home foreclosures are headed for their highest level in 11 years, as the battered economy leads to a huge spike in homeowners defaulting on mortgages in the first half of the year.

Foreclosures rose by 53.7 percent in the first six months of the year, compared with the same period in 2001, assuming that Denver and Jefferson counties continue the same pace of previous months. Those two counties have not tallied their foreclosures through June.

Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield and Douglas counties report a total of 2,130 foreclosures in the first half of the year, compared with 1,365 foreclosures through June of last year, a 57 percent increase.

Toss in expected foreclosures from Denver and Jefferson counties and the number in the seven-county region rises to more than 3,500 through June of this year, compared with 2,306 in the first half of 2001.

That would be the most yearly foreclosures since 5,379 in 1992.

Whatever the final number, the trend is clear: Foreclosures are going through the roof.

Cont'd @ Link....

Waverider (7/4/02; 08:07:02MT - usagold.com msg#: 79899)
USAGOLD
My apologies for not acknowledging the French Angel earlier, but I have been in transit and am writing from Zurich.

Thank you very much...I am both humbled and honoured. A special thank you to Gandalf for all your work in making the competition possible, and to USAGold for hosting it. Thank you Michael. I think that by the time I return home from Switzerland I shall have a very special parcel waiting for me.

Also congratulations to all of the other winners and to everyone who entered. What a fun event to participate in. Thank you again USAGOLD. Cheers,

Waverider

Black Blade (7/4/02; 08:02:56MT - usagold.com msg#: 79898)
Tice on CNBC

For anyone interested, David Tice of Prudent Bear Fund and Gold Bull is on CNBC. Should be interesting.

- Black Blade

YGM (7/4/02; 07:33:29MT - usagold.com msg#: 79897)
July 4th Email Message from GATA
RE: "GOLDS INDEPENDENCE DAY"
The following email was sent last night to the GATA Strategic Army Command:

Hello GATA ARMY,

We only need one of these main stream buggers to shine the light on DRACULA.
When that happens and if we can cultivate an "industry crew" to ask some official questions to the Treasury and the Fed, the cabal is sunk.

Fineman is a "big league" guy who takes on these sort of things in his Newsweek feature stories. He may bite. He may not. If not, we move on. Chris and I have sent him missives and I spoke to him briefly. More importantly, the GATA Royal Air Force Pilot in our ARMY, the famed novelist Arthur Hailey, also has alerted Howard Fineman to the GATA story.

We are one BIG splash from winning the day. Let us attack like there is no tomorrow, especially with the Royal Bank of Canada report at our backs.

All the best and a happy 4th to all.
Bill

Attached:

Hello Howard again,

This is Bill Murphy, chairman of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA). Yesterday, I did an interview with Jim Puplava, one of the most brilliant men on the financial scene (www.financialsense.com.).

If interested, you can read more on GATA and listen to the interview at:

http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/2002/Murphy_B.htm

As I mentioned to you in our brief conversation the other day, this gold mess dwarfs Watergate and Enron combined and I have THE PROOF to back it up. I have already been to Washington 5 times on this matter and met with the Speaker of House, Dennis Hastert, and James Saxton, who was chairman of the House Joint Economic Committee. If you are interested in JUST reviewing what evidence GATA has of the biggest fraud/scandals in the history of our great country, please let me know. I could be at your office in a heartbeat, with all of GATA's proof of the manipulation of the gold price laid out at your disposal.

I look forward to hearing from you.

All the best,

Bill Murphy
Chairman
GATA

*** Howard Fineman can be contacted at....
Fineman@newsweek.com

"GO GATA" "GO ARMY".......Email Mr. Fineman....YGM

**Again "Happy July 4th" to all my American Friends...Ken R.

CoBra(too) (7/4/02; 07:23:23MT - usagold.com msg#: 79896)
Derivative Time Bomb looming - according to hedge fund manager
http://money.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2002/07/03/cndye03.xml&sSheet=/money/2002/07/03/ixcity.html
- And the biggest of all may well be the gold derivative games, played by "the too big to fail for too long to bail"?

We'll see - cb2

And have a great independence day USA.

LeSin (7/4/02; 06:28:58MT - usagold.com msg#: 79895)
Dependence or Independence?
Unhappy Dependence Day to all US Government Citizens

Happy Independence Day to all Americans!

"S"

kludge (7/4/02; 05:53:16MT - usagold.com msg#: 79894)
Paper Avalanche / All
"To what end does it serve to ask questions to which the answers already exist other than to sew the seeds of doubt in the minds of those who have migrated to this webiste for the first time."

If a couple posts can sow the seeds of doubt about an item whose value has endured for thousands of years, then I'd think those swayed were foolish. Those that need constant reassurance that their decision to buy physical may not know their history very well. Maybe they were the weak longs?

I've taken some moderate heat here for my view that gold is a means to store and transfer wealth through the generations and ages. That it's the ultimate conserative, long term investment and not a get rich quick scheme. As DOWNUNDER stated, it's current price will fluctuate, but I believe that viewed in terms of decades or generations it's value, it's convertability to other "real goods", will probably average out in the future to what it has always been in the past. And I believe it's value today is not far off from that average, although perhaps a little low.

With the wealth of good info here, and the obvious intelligence of the posters, I am perplexed that many seem to look at gold with the same eyes as a stock investment. "ooh, it's up today" or "awww, it's down". Where's my calculator so that I can figure out my unrecognized gain/loss?

Guess this is my "newbie" question, considering all the havok that would be caused by the true currency of the ages suddenly skyrocketing against any/all fiat - why would anyone desire it - which many here seem to? Greed, to the extent that we care not about anyone or anything else so long as we're rich? At what fiat level would you sell?

Personally, I'd rather just hold it for my life and pass it to my kids - with full disclosure to the IRS, of course... It's a no-brainer in my view, thousands of years of stability isn't likely to change in my lifetime - but if it should and gold skyrockets, then I was wise, rolling in wealth, and have a clear conscience.

Happy and safe 4th to all.

Golden Bear (7/4/02; 04:48:39MT - usagold.com msg#: 79893)
Aristotle (msg#: 79885)
Poignant message expressed clearly. Well done Sir Ari...

and let us not forget the deceit of 1934. Americans were ordered to surrender their bullion to the government, on which they received $20.67 per ounce. Once relieved of their wealth, FDR promptly raised the value to $35!

Thats right, the people were swindled to the tune of 75%! And if you could stomach that, then how about being forbidden to own this wealth of kings.

And the people have continued to allow themselves to be swindled through stealth - Inflation - to this day. Only a fool believes that contracts will be honoured in times of crisis.

In contrast, America was on a gold standard from 1834 to 1914 (except briefly from 1862-1879) where general price levels remained flat. Can you imagine what that's like..., gasoline stays the same price for over 50 years!
(information courtesy of Mr Lips' Gold Wars).

Topaz (7/4/02; 04:33:34MT - usagold.com msg#: 79892)
Fleshing out the upcoming Equities Megabubble.
This WILL BE my last post on the subject.....thanks one and all for tolerating
Righto, hidden amongst all the doom and gloom there lie some fundamental signposts that, when added to the following, provide for a fait accompli, lay down misere DJIA Megabull.....and by my estimation there's about 4 hrs trading to get set.
Basic Plusses:
Signs of growth returning.
Capital spending on the increase.
Profit margins widening.
Price is "reasonable" in the p/e arena. (I'll get to the "E" directly)

Then we have the Bond market Yields (dropping) and Truckloads of Cash taking it in the neck.

All the above can be further researched via my NEW good friends Abby Jo or Larry. (wink)
Now for the kicker:
The $US was decimated recently and now (with some help from the PoG) is once again strengthening.....guess when it was at or near it's lowest....30/06/02.....The LAST day of the Q2 reporting period.
A co-incidence? or a pre determined mechanism for bolstering "E" in the upcoming reporting season? Foreign earned Q2 income went UP by 10% Simplex and no doubt a lot more Complex.
Chow down on that one for a few minutes....

Next, it is NOT AN OPTION for the DJIA to be BELOW it's 911 level on the Anniversary of that fateful day...to be so would send an unacceptable signal of capitulation to the ENEMY (whomever they are?) so all stops will be pulled to drive the Market to (at least) that height and - I'm thinking - a good bit higher.
The Patriotic thing to do....trade the upside, then, the INDEPENDENT thing to do.....cash out on, or shortly before/after, 91102, race in to CPM and convert to Bullion, at, I'm guessing, VERY reasonable prices.

Good luck and Happy Independence Day one and all.

The CoinGuy (7/4/02; 02:28:21MT - usagold.com msg#: 79891)
Aristotle...Felt a crack,But will take a step Forward in Faith and Truth
Aristotle,

Your response seemed straight from the heart in your usual style. I felt it might be beneficial to force a foot forward at this point. So I shall step away from the trunk of this tree i grasp so tightly. I have sensed the urgency in your message from the beginning of your return, and I post my heart felt warnings that others may benefit to the degree of their understanding, or disagree as their viewpoint may govern their feelings.

As an oft called "Market Maker", I have been stepping out on those thin paper limbs for quite some time and counter-balancing those paper trades you speak not so highly of.

I may live quite the reticent lifestyle, but I feel it is necessary to forward this opinion.

To not take my words to heart could possibly be the workings of a fool, yet life is elusive, I may be the fool myself. I only wish there were answers to these questions so that we may know what the future holds now, but why would life be worth living? Although my account, as well as my feelings on the matter hold true.

After the rhetoric's of life. Let's not be subtle, frankly put, and yes this is only my seasoned opinion. Until there is a divergence in paper backing, I, as well as others will be on the other side of those paper trades "some" believe to be executing with precision; and folks I wish you the best of luck in your trading, but there is no secret. The money to be made from paper executioners is rather liquid and free. This is including your paper stocks, very liquid at this stage of the game, and making for a great play from both sides of the fence, but the long term wealth holding may be elusive?

Barring elusiveness, paper profits have governed our physical purchases for some time.

Yet, to switch roles, it is of my utmost and sincere opinion that scooping up the physical metal at this point is a gift from the one above, and there isn't any lyrical stance where i could govern my opinions or your oppositions to satisfaction. Other than knowing history, and living through it well.

Only for Aristotles sacrifice do I step out with conjecture. Yet, as a human being, i wish all the best of luck with all posters endeavors, whether they be small or large...Silver or Gold. If my opinion be known, I would prefer the sun of the Gods.

This may be thought provoking to some. I carry one post from FOA on my desk that is well worn and has been read repeatedly, well worn with my desire for a future holding of my family, as well as the vision of what this/our future holds. It is a simple, but succinct post, and was addressed to Cavan some time back. Gold Trail post #77, I hope none are taking this lightly?

In reflection of all the past posts read, I'm aware some will consider the consequences of a currency that has already been thrown to the wind. Yet I believe most Americans will readily go down with this sinking ship. Their collective arses aren't large enough to plug the gaping hole in this currency's underbelly.

The consequences of this argument is not readily absorbed, but it is not on the resting of your laurels to consider, for it is not the fault of your own management. Time is truly on the side of the simple man here, yet there should be no haste in his soul. For now is the time to gather his fruits for the future. May his transition be prosperous to his family, friends and relatives besides. There is no time to waste.

saddened, but hopeful...Ari you are truly a gem in the eyes of my next generations future.

I've tried to leave plenty of ammunition, but I hope all was spent. Those that are in this game as I, are not alone, and will not be alone as time goes forward...

Happy 4th of July, may we keep our independence well into the future,

The CoinGuy

P.S. Congratulations to all contest winners. Miner49er, I continue to learn from you with a steady beat, although my heart cannot condense your speech as well as my wisdom. Kudos my friend...

Black Blade (7/4/02; 02:07:03MT - usagold.com msg#: 79890)
THE SUBTLE WAR - WHAT WHITES IN AFRICA DID AFTER THEY LOST
http://www.etherzone.com/2002/lamp070802.shtml

Snippit:

Prior to the year 2000 the world's Liberals were ever so smug about Zimbabwe and South Africa. They pointed their fingers at us whites in Africa and smugly told us that our worst fears had never been realised. Neither Zimbabwe nor South Africa had collapsed as we had said it would. We looked like fools, and those haughty liberals mocked us. We whites, having lost military and political power were trying to exist under regimes hostile to us, and so we just said nothing.

What I am about to tell you has never, to my knowledge, been written about anywhere. The blacks here have long suspected it, but no whites have ever come forth to openly talk about how we work against them. Let me tell you the real reason why Zimbabwe lasted as long as it did, and why South Africa and Namibia have not yet collapsed.

Black Blade: An interesting take from a former Rhodesian and current South African on the state of economic affairs both Zim and SA. For anyone concerned about investment in South Africa and the possibility of government intervention in the Gold mining business, this article may provide a little insight.

steady (7/4/02; 01:12:32MT - usagold.com msg#: 79889)
more foreclosures
http://www.rense.com/general26/goth.htm
Denver-Area Foreclosures
Go Through The Roof
Metro-area home foreclosures are headed for their highest level in 11 years, as the battered economy leads to a huge spike in homeowners defaulting on mortgages in the first half of the year.
got gold, give it a silver lining!

Aristotle (7/4/02; 00:52:11MT - usagold.com msg#: 79888)
Independence Day!
A day for hammocks and beer, in peaceful repose with the knowledge that financial independence can be yours, too, for the straightforward price of buying personal property upon the Sovereign Isle of Gold Ownership.

Get you some. (And enjoy your only (hopefully "only" -- unless your second home is a diamond-shaped stadium) hotdog sandwich of the year... with lots golden mustard. A must!!!) --- Aristotle

Huh? Oh, nothing against 'dog sandwiches, it's just that you'll want to live a long healthy life to enjoy spending your Golden fortune. Keeling over suddenly simply will not do!

steady (7/4/02; 00:50:16MT - usagold.com msg#: 79887)
the return of the bi-metalic monetarysystem
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_02/tlaga070402.html
see link for the rest of the story.....
FOCUS ON STRATEGY

Copyright 2002 J.N. Tlaga

By defeating France in early summer of 1940, Nazi Germany acquired momentary window of opportunity to defeat England too, depending solely on Luftwaffe's ability to destroy Royal Air Force before the autumn storms would make landing across the English Channel impossible. But when relentless raids on RAF airfields brought Luftwaffe dangerously close to accomplishing this goal, Winston Churchill erased the German edge by ordering RAF to bomb civilian targets in Berlin. Enraged by this provocation, Adolf Hitler ordered around-the-clock bombardment of London in response, and thus RAF's time to breathe and England's ultimate victory in the Second World War were won by focusing foe's attention on the wrong target.

Why this masterful maneuver of England's most illustrious leader never found its way into history books? In order not to enlighten the masses that great powers and numbers, which are difficult to defeat by outright destruction, are easily thwarted by way of distraction. Distraction is the ultimate weapon of war and the ultimate instrument of politico-economic control. How does the fiat money elite, whose entire membership would fit into an opera house, manage to keep the six billion people of the planet Earth in their present state of subjugation? By keeping them distracted!

It would not serve any good purpose to receive Judge Lindsay's decision of March 26, 2002 in Howe vs BIS with anything but magnanimity. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines magnanimity as "loftiness of spirit enabling one to bear trouble calmly, to disdain meanness and pettiness, and to display a noble generosity".

In this spirit we should have no difficulties to grasp that when Judge Lindsay upheld the sovereign immunity of gold price manipulators, he in effect said that the proper remedy of the people aggrieved by such misdeeds lay not at law but in the realm of politics. Translated into colloquial format, the underlying message of his decision reads:

"You the people should not try to force administrative officials to correct their discretionary policies by suing them. Such an approach in effect merges the administrative branch of the government into judiciary one, and forces the judges to second-guess administrative decisions rather than to interpret the law. Because you have the power to elect public officials, you should not ask me, a trial judge, to tell them what to do; if you are not happy with their policy, you should throw them out of their offices in the next elections instead. And if you are unable or unwilling to do it, you deserve what you are getting. Don't ask me to pick up chestnuts from the open fire for you! Put your own fingers at risk!"

In this generous interpretation, Judge Lindsay's decision means that our attention should be focused on electing honest-money President and honest-money Congress, and we should allow no one to distract us from this objective, because any change of direction will in the end be like targeting London instead of RAF airbases.

Most emphatically, no effort should be made to relitigate gold price manipulation as a class action of gold mining companies against bullion banks, because two more years down this road, in the election year 2004, sovereign immunity will be invoked again. What the bullion banks need to do to avail themselves protection of the sovereign immunity veil all over again is to tell the truth:

"We are manipulating the price of gold upon request of Secretary of the Treasury and of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board as their agents and assigns, we are merely executing the policy of the President of the United States."

It were not the central banks that were drawn into gold-carry trade in order to save the leading bullion banks from their folly that brought them to the edge of the abyss - as an apocryphal or deliberately deceptive statement of Edward A. J. George, Governor of the Bank of England, tends to suggest. It were the bullion banks that were drawn into gold-carry trade by the central banks to execute a global policy decision to make the world safer for the fiat money regime. The fact, that the blueprint of this policy was "sold" in 1992 to then Governor of the State of Arkansas by then Co-Senior Partner and Co-Chairman of Goldman Sachs during a dinner meeting in New York, does not undermine this conclusion. There are plenty of similar dinners in Presidential election years. This is how the winners of incoming elections are actually selected, their campaigns charted, and their policies conformed. The point is, if Mr Clinton would have decided to renege on his promise after becoming the President of the United States, and would have refused to commit the gold reserves of US Treasury to this "strong dollar" policy (a code name for gold price manipulation), the bullion banks would not have been in the position to launch this policy on their own.

To be sure, every player in the "strong dollar" game always had his own ax or two to grind, but the fundamental purpose of the gold price manipulation has been and is to save the fiat dollar regime by converting it into trilateral euro-dollar-yen regime. Creating the source of cheap capital in the form of gold-carry trade to finance hedge funds operations was not the primary purpose; yen-carry trade was already supplying much more than gold-carry trade could ever hope to supply. The specter of collapse of the likes of Goldman Sachs would require no greater attention than actual collapse of Barring Brothers required. And LTCM was bailed out not because its insolvency would destroy world finances, but because its insolvency would expose the fact that central banks gold (and US Treasury's gold) was not being lent into gold-carry trade but outrightly sold in exchange for US Treasury securities.

In EURO AND GOLD PRICE MANIPULATION, PART II, I rushed to judgment that the probable purpose of sudden switch from de facto pegged gold price of $384 in 1995 to the suppression of the price of gold from early 1996 on was "to throw monkey wrench into development of euro". Obviously, I was wrong. The purpose was exactly opposite. It was to assist euro rather than to sabotage it.

Even though launching of euro would in the end displace hundreds of billions of Eurodollars, strategically, the fiat euro is the fiat dollar's natural ally, and the Anglo-American establishment, sitting on top of the world, has no choice but to upgrade the fiat dollar regime to euro-dollar-yen regime. The myth of euro's competition is being recycled for usual disinformation purposes to make the average Joe and Jane completely unaware of what is going on until it will be too late for their voting power to do anything about it.

Anglo-American establishment's imperial control of the world rests on the proposition that the world is ruled by those who buy, not those who sell. Anyone anywhere can always make cars as good as or better than General Motors, and anyone anywhere will always conform to the will of those who wield the power to buy. Herein lies raison d'etre of the Bank of England and its American subsidiary, the Federal Reserve System: without God-like power to create the world money out of thin air, the power to buy is naturally limited by the power to earn. This means that whoever will stay in control of the world fiat currency system long enough, will in the end own the planet Earth. Ever since 1717, England's elite has been driven and possessed by this thought alone. See: GOLD STANDARD = FIAT IN DISGUISE.

pluss the link to the rest of his work
http://www.gold-eagle.com/research/tlagandx.html

Black Blade (7/4/02; 00:41:43MT - usagold.com msg#: 79886)
Pension Plunge
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_27/b3790048.htm

Snippit:

What horrified some people most about the Enron Corp. collapse was the way its employees' retirement accounts got wiped out. The increasingly popular 401(k) is a pension plan in which employees are responsible for investing a tax-sheltered portion of their earnings and employers kick in matching funds or stock. In the booming 1990s, millions came to see their 401(k) plans as perpetual wealth-spinners.

They're anything but, say former BusinessWeek chief economist William Wolman and Anne Colamosca in The Great 401(k) Hoax. They argue that Americans have been hoodwinked by corporations and Wall Street into believing that investing savings in stocks will guarantee income enough for a comfortable retirement. But even at the end of the '90s, a decade in which stock prices quintupled, the average 401(k) account held just $46,740.

Worse, the authors say, there's strong evidence that stock market returns will probably average less than 2% a year throughout the first decade of the 21st century. They draw parallels to market bubbles that peaked in 1901, 1929, and 1966 and were followed by years of declining or stagnating stock prices.

Snippit: Better not get off the treadmill just yet. We will see many more retirements plans blow up. With nearly $7 Trillion of wealth gone to "money heaven", many have seen their hopes and dreams for a cozy retirement crushed and their finances destroyed beyond repair. This story is far from over. More wealth will be vaporized to "money heaven" before this "New Depression" wraps up.

Aristotle (7/4/02; 00:23:52MT - usagold.com msg#: 79885)
Selling that COMEX stuff down the river
I was almost *almost* among the brain surgeons and rocket scientists who "sold" COMEX Gold (contracts) today.

No, I didn't have a long position to liquidate (never have, never will.)

What I'm talking about is establishing an outright short. Plunking down my $1,350 margin per each and every contract on what could easily become a one way ride down to the Intrinsic Value (i.e., Zero) of these danged ol paper contract thingies.

I know, I know... one of you good-hearted (yet sweetly naive) souls will at this point surely chime in, "But Ari... the COMEX exchange promises -- PROMISES on their own good name -- to ensure against counterparty default! Therefore these contracts CAN'T be considered intrinsically worthless! Being short on COMEX Gold can be dangerous!"

To that I'd say the world is filled with danger. Now run along and play indoors where it's safe, my sweet innocent wearer of short pants, and leave the grown-ups to look each other eye-to-eye across the table until the weak side blinks.

I've said this before, as have many others, and I'll say it again now. It is naive to think that COMEX Gold futures -- merely private contract instruments overseen by a commercial enterprise (the Exchange) -- are immune from reaching their intrinsic value of zero simply because The Exchange stands behind them with their "full faith and credit."

Sheeeeeeeeeeesh!!! Where have I heard *that* one before?!

Ohhhhhhh YES! NOW I remember! There was once an entity, no less powerful than the United States Government itself (in fact, it WAS the Government) throughout the 1960's (and before) tried to put across the same scam. But even better than mere COMEX guarantees, these futures contracts were backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America.

And you know what, folks?

That's right. They defaulted.

For those not quite up to speed on their history, the parallel I'm talking about here is the U.S. bond market, and the 1971-73 default on the Bretton Woods "Gold standard."

You see, if you'll allow me a bit of latitude, similar to the COMEX Gold futures contracts were the monetary bonds issued under the monetary system of that era. (Bretton Woods is where the post WWII treaty was held that established the international Gold-exchange standard in which the U.S. dollar was "guaranteed" to be exchangeable and as good as Gold at a rate of $35/oz.) As such, a person could plunk down a little bit of money (similar to a COMEX margin) to buy a bond -- a contract which promised (under the full faith and credit of the U.S.of A.) to give them future control of an even greater quantity of money/Gold. (That quantity being the principle PLUS interest, paid out in a schedule according to the terms of the bond contract.)

I submit to you, if the U.S. government can thumb its nose at contract participants no less prestigious and influential than its international trading partners (among others,) then it takes no stretch of the imagination to see COMEX doing the same to you under very similar circumstances, that being a crisis of confidence in the deliverable good of all those contract thingies.

And for those obstinate folks who think that a COMEX fallback plan of "cash settlement" is good enough to make the Long Gold contract worth their while/risk, listen to me now and do yourself this favor of FULL consideration. Those market participants in the wide world (yes, the grown-ups wearing the long pants) who have no faith in the dollar will short the dollar outright as a pure currency play. They won't piss away their resources through this pathetic little Exchange -- expressing their expectation of dollar demise through plunking down margin money on Long positions in COMEX Gold futures contracts. They simply don't play that way.

Yes, there are exceptions, but these exceptions don't set the trend, and the prevailing trend is for Gold paper -- Gold contracts backed by ANYBODY regardless of size or power -- to default and to diminish to the intrinsic value of the paper they are written on.

So why DIDN'T I plunk down my big fat wad of cash on margins for a bunch of COMEX Shorts?

Because there's a curious feature about your own money -- you can only spend it once. Given one alternative or the other, I decided it would be most beneficial to forego each payment of an initial Short margin for an outright purchase of 4 ounces of real Gold.

I can't say with any certainty when it will happen, but when the contract market does go into default, neither the Short side nor the Long side will benefit from the outcome. The way I figure it, with my latest tranche of spendable cash, I would be better off with an additional 40 ounces of Gold in my vault than holding ten Intrinsically Paper COMEX Gold contracts, be they Short OR Long!

Protest if you must, Mister Small Pants. The lesson of 1971 is apparently too big for you to fathom... "A problem for others," perhaps you'll say, one that only afflicts sailors who allow themselves to foolishly drift past the clear warning signs too close to the edge of the flat earth. You, of course, will surely *know* when to turn back.

The world is round, my friend... and we've been this way before.

Real Gold. Get you some. --- Aristotle

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