Imagine the power of banks and commercials to simply generate any number of contracts necessary to short sell or suppress the price of a commodity. You can create these contracts out of thin air with little regard for whether or not you can deliver the underlying commodity. Because you never do. You settle in cash. Maybe offer a premium to the holder of 20% in lieu of providing the commodity because you don't have it. You don't really care because the FED is giving you free money anyway. The US Government's CFTC has your back. They raise margin requirements making it more difficult for the holders of long contracts to take delivery of physical gold or silver. They have to prove they have the cash to settle the contract. That is the situation in the silver and gold markets. The bankers and the US Governments Commodities Futures Trading Commission or CFTC did those things last week. It is hard to imagine what might have happened if we had actual position limits tied to so...

In part one of this piece, I have retraced some of the things that have happened in the United States since the fall of 2008. I have shown how the banks had co-opted members of Congress. I did not include shady loans made to members. What I am hoping to do in this part of my "epic" two-part piece is to extend a premise to you that makes sense.  But first I'd like to do a little housecleaning here. I dislike the Republican Party almost as much as the Democrat Party. I view both of those entities, in current form, as enemies of the Republic. This is not some partisan hack on President Obama. I am no Bush fan either. I will even go to the fringe and tell you I did not particularly care for Reagan either- sacrilege to a lot of conservatives. Reagan was no conservative when it came to piling on debt. Secondly, I spend a great deal of time reading. There is simply no way that the average American citizen could do what I do. I am certainly no smarter than any other news junk...

In the fall of 2008, it was absolutely breathtaking to watch the stock market crash. I had shorted a number of stocks, particularly Countrywide Mortgage, but covered that position far too early. I had no idea of just how toxic that company had become. Clearly it exceeded my expectations. Fannie, Freddie, and many of the giant banks were every bit as bad and still are. The size and scope of the problem revealed itself when the FED was finally forced to disclose how much it had lent it's member banks back then, which was just released a couple of months ago. Over 9 trillion dollars. That was in addition to the 1 trillion Hank Paulson and Congress extorted from the American people. Ten trillion dollars. 10,000,000,000,000.00. http://nation.foxnews.com/bailouts/2010/12/02/shocking-fed-s-trillion-dollar-foreign-bank-bailout So why didn't the FED, who apparently had a spare 9 trillion dollars laying around, simply loan that last 700 billion to it's member banks? Why did it se...

Every once in awhile, I stumble across somebody who is under the impression that Social Security funds are resting in some safe account that politicians can't raid and haven't spent. Four years ago, I was one of those guys. A few folks pointed out- that I was a moron. Excess contributions and reserves have been spent. When the SSA posted a 49 billion dollar loss this year, that raised my eyebrows. Remember when they said the fund wouldn't go red until 2018? Wrong. So when you are already bleeding money, what's the smart move? Well according to this government, just cut the employees share. For a year. Snipped from an online article. The FICA tax (consisting of Social Security and Medicare taxes) is imposed on both employers and employees at an aggregate rate of 15.3 percent.   Half is paid by the employer and half is paid (through withholding) by the employee.  That is, each employer and employee pay 7.65 percent in FICA tax. Of each half, 6.4 percent is So...

Interesting. Come to think of it, that 2300, 2600, or 2700 page monstrosity of a health care bill probably qualifies for the term. Throw in the FED, the tax code, and the people dreaming up this garbage and somehow it all makes sense. http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/huckabee-health-care-obama/2011/02/24/id/387342?s=al&promo_code=BBF5-1 I will remember Huckabee as the Governor who pardoned a prison inmate for what seemed to be an outrageous sentence of 60 years for burglary at age 17. That same inmate killed four police officers in Washington State. Clearly the cops in that case, the prosecutor, and the sentencing judge knew something that Governor Huckabee didn't.

A few days ago, while conversing with the passport lady at the Post Office, she asked me if I would be traveling soon. I told her I wasn't getting a passport to travel- I was getting one to evacuate. So today, for only 151.00 dollars, I bought one of those RFID embedded passports. I don't really like embedded chips scattering my personal data from up to 30 feet away and heaven forbid the chip gets disabled. Some sort of crushing accident, perhaps a fall on my ass. I hope that doesn't happen but I've been known to be a little bit clumsy. I need the passport for a trip I am going to take through Canada with my Roofracer pal, Troy. He has one of those underpowered Harley soft tails that makes a lot of noise but doesn't go fast. My bike has the opposite characteristics. In fact, with six cylinders and carburetors, I'm not sure it gets much better gas mileage than my car. I need the passport for a couple of reasons. In the unlikely event (let me give you a wild...

After reading a fascinating article on why the SEC General Counsel recently departed quietly- I have added Lawyers on Strike to the blogroll. Please read this article, it's short. http://strikelawyer.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/interesting-lesson-in-journalism/ I want you to stop and think about this for a moment. The fucking SEC General Counsel was invested in Madoff's Fund??? And Madoff went uninvestigated for 10 years??? Please tell me what IF ANYTHING, qualifies as a conflict of interest?? This guy stands to lose 1.5 million profit he got from Madoff?? Turns out that this piece of shit, served as General Counsel to the SEC from 2000-2002. He was rehired in 2009 shortly after Madoff was arrested. He would have had all of this time to publicly disclose that he inherited profits from Madoff and certainly before beginning his second tour of duty at the SEC. Even the idiots at the SEC might have run a little scared. But hell, who knows? Here is the story of the poor sap who spe...

This doesn't have a damn thing to do with government hating. I put this up... well... because it's my fucking blog and even I...get tired of talking about our crooked government. One of my all time favorite scenes. ALWAYS worth a giggle.

Two and a half minutes of your life gone forever. Aw c'mon, it's not like you have a job or some place to be.

This week's gem courtesy of the BBC. Maggie Shiels, you might take down a Pulitzer here. Apple beats off move to reveal Jobs succession details By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

From ZeroHedge. Fucking priceless. Geithner Says Not To Worry About Surging Oil Prices: "Central Banks Have A Lot Of Experience In Managing These Things" Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/23/2011 11:51 -0500 Central Banks Global Economy Middle East Recession recovery Tim Geithner You really can't make this shit up: " The economy is in a much stronger position to handle ” rising oil prices, Tim Geithner said today during a Bloomberg Breakfast in Washington. “ Central banks have a lot of experience in managing these things ." We are, all of us, now doomed. Bloomberg 's account of one lunatic's daily ramblings in a collapsing world:

Baseball, apple pie, motherhood. Not sure it gets any better. Note the tattoo on the cankle. Proof positive that given enough beer, anything can happen.

A lot of things can happen in 32 years. Significant history. I'd like to take you back to 1971 for just a moment. Some forty years ago when a very significant event took place. Most have never heard of it. I'll call it the unraveling. Go figure, Nixon was in the WH. On August 15, 1971, the United States pulled out of the Bretton Woods Accord taking the US off the Gold Exchange Standard (whereby only the value of the US dollar had been pegged to the price of gold and all other currencies were pegged to the US dollar), allowing the dollar to "float". Shortly thereafter, Britain followed, floating the pound sterling. The industrialized nations followed suit with their respective currencies. In anticipation of the fluctuation of currencies as they stabilized against each other, the industrialized nations also increased their reserves (printing money) in amounts far greater than ever before. The result was a depreciation of the value of the US dollar , as we...

What a day! One of my coins shops was absolutely inundated with sellers. One guy walked in with 1100 ounces of silver which appeared to be collected over a century. All kinds of different pieces, fascinating stuff. I wanted to pick through them and buy a few...but the throngs waiting to sell made it necessary for me to just sit down and shut up. I wanted to yell at them...don't sell!!! Another guy unloaded a 100 oz bar. He got his 3300 bucks and the guy behind him bought it right back from the dealer for a 50 buck premium which was kind of nice. The seller could have just turned around and sold it- and cut the dealer out of the transaction. I headed up to my dealers on the bench. They were virtually out of silver entirely. One had three one hundred ounce bars and little else. The other dealer just had some bizarre little pieces left- although two people came in clutching odd containers full of stuff. Probably sellers. People in Boise carry silver around in weird ass container...

Greed, the glue that binds them all. Simply the best read I've had all week. Courtesy of my on line psychiatrist, ZeroHedge. Many thanks. http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-fecks-lies-and-video-tape-or-cabal-channel I couldn't help myself. I just had to snip this piece from the bottom of the article. Absolutely fucking precious. None of this should come as a surprise to any of us.  Remember folks, it was none other than former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder – while appearing on the Nightly Business Report back in 1994 – issued these prescient words,                   “the last duty of a central banker is to tell the public the truth” Knowledge is power. Physical precious metals are real money. How aware are you and how many ounces do you possess?

On some obscure blog, this may be the most important thing that gets written here. Only a few will see it. Most have gone about the business of forgetting already. The money supply. Ask 100 people how money is created and maybe one or two people can actually answer that question. On Wall Street those odds would go up. On Main Street in Wichita, Kansas, or Peoria, Illinois, those odds would go down. You might think the opposite would be true. But it's not. People are simply ignorant when it comes to the money supply and how that effects them. Ignorant on purpose, unwashed, because there is no profit in you understanding the truth. It's just as true here as it is in Cairo, Madison, or Zimbabwe. That's not a fluke. The people who benefit and profit from your lack of knowledge or ignorance have no vested interest in telling you how the money supply works. Because if you knew what they knew- they couldn't keep you enslaved. They couldn't keep profiting from a syst...

Where do they get these whackjobs? I dunno. But thank gawd they do. Say hello to one of my recent additions to the blog roll. The Hard Right Edge.  http://thehardrightedge.com/ After seeing the Turk video, thinking I need more gold. It's up huge in the futures market today and the shit is expensive. Cheaper at 1410 than 8000. The best thing about the Turk video is that he explains why banks hate gold. (and silver) He also addresses a very serious concern of mine. That our banker controlled government- once it can no longer manipulate the price of gold and silver will simply outlaw it and confiscate it. That's when I give the U.S. a middle finger wave. My passport appointment is Thurs. and get this- the gal calls and asks if I will be traveling soon. I said honey, I don't know. I am not planning on traveling- I am planning on evacuating. Silence. She kept my appointment. Probably- she thinks I killed the neighbor kids. http://thehardrightedge.com/jamesturkhyperinflati...

Meddlers and liars. President Obama, isn't it about time for another vacation? You've put in a a couple of tough weeks. How about finding a nice warm, sunny beach somewhere and leave the work to the grownups. When the anarchists have the WH. Busted at the link. http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/02/oops-white-house-dnc-disavows.html

Hehe. This is the woman who invented those toxic credit default swaps and some of the other financial tools of destruction that have plunged us into the economic abyss which we are going to revisit again in the coming months. You remember that mess don't you? That thing we are currently pretending does not exist? After that disaster, JP Morgan transferred her to the commodities trading desk where she is now shorting silver that she does not have and may have to deliver soon. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/20/wallstreet.banking You kinda get this disturbed feeling, inside, when you read something like this: "I do believe CDSs [credit default swaps] have been miscast, much as poor workmen tend to blame their tools." Other than a broom, I get a feeling this gal hasn't had too much experience with actual tools. Or "workmen." Or "work." Or "men." Maybe I got her wrong. Maybe she is a sweetheart. Nahhhh.... If you ever needed...

Oh, this is going to be a fun week. Silver supplies are non existent. And the U.S. hedge fund, J.P. Morgan, have 7 years worth of world silver production shorted. I can't wait to see how they are going to deliver the goods- that which they do not have. Check this out.  http://harveyorgan.blogspot.com/2011/02/silver-lease-rates-skyrocketing.html Someones' gonna get their ass kicked this week. I can hardly wait for Tuesday.

The right to keep and bear arms. The right to protect myself. Maybe, some right wing nut job can even save a few moonbat kids on a college campus near you. Laws like this get passed needlessly, since we have already been given the right to bear arms. I don't mind seeing states, usually red ones of course, accept the principle that we are not forced to sacrifice our lives on the off chance that we are attending Virginia Tech on a very bad day. Law or not, I carry guns. The people that I love do too. I don't apologize for that. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110220/ap_on_re_us/us_guns_on_campus

In another installment of government extortion, here is a quick summary. The government went to great lengths to shut down internet gambling. You don't have the right to spend your money the way you want. Government will tell you what to do their money. Instead of debating the issue, like honest men and women- and fearing all those lost votes of bankrupt wives everywhere, the spineless legislators slid banning internet gambling into a bill that had absolutely nothing to do with that issue. That's why guys like me couldn't understand how that feat was accomplished. I was playing poker on line in 2006, the next thing you know, I had to shut it down. Heaven forbid, federal stormtroopers would come in and seize my computer and of course I would lose my job in some shameful event. (It's apparently ok if Suzie Jackson buys 15 pairs of shoes and a few nighties on line) Initially, I couldn't figure out what had happened because these spineless morons-couldn't do som...

Wisconsin legislators are holding firm despite the fact that government employees don't want to pay for their own medical insurance. And they've been skipping out on work to protest. I tell you what kind of maniac I am. You call in sick, and you ain't sick- we're gonna have a little termination hearing about lying. That's what kind of hard ass I am. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/us/12unions.html Courts have ruled that public employees have no right to lie to their employers. Democratic legislators fled so they wouldn't have to vote on the impending union busting. They actually had to call the state police to bring them back to vote, to do their jobs. I'd fire their asses too. They can. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/17/wisconsin-democrats-flee-avoid-anti-union-bill-vot/ As they used to say in the Polish neighborhood in Butte, "tough shitski." Here's where I get sympathetic. All of this was brought on by those filthy, g...