Yearly Archives: 2013

Chris Martenson: Official Gold Numbers Don’t Add Up

"If a lot of gold has been leased out, someday it will have to be rebought, and difficulties may emerge if the gold cannot be rebought in sufficient quantities without creating mayhem within the financial system by causing a very large hike in the price of gold. The amounts of gold leased by central banks is a very closely guarded secret, and we do not have direct information on them, which means we have to try and back-calculate these amounts by other means. After accounting for all known flows of gold into and out of the US over the past 22 years, the Sprott team arrived at a figure of nearly 4,500 tonnes of gold that cannot be accounted for." Continue reading →

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The Government’s Us? Not Last Time I Checked

"In a speech last month about proposed gun control legislation, President Obama decried opponents’ attempts to encourage 'suspicion about government.' 'The government’s us,' he responded. 'These officials are elected by you. They are constrained as I am constrained, by a system that our founders put in place.' But if government were 'us,' why would we have ever needed a Bill of Rights or defense attorneys? In order for the government to be 'us,' and for its elected officials to be our 'representatives' in any meaningful sense, a number of prerequisites would have to be met." Continue reading →

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Why Cops Bust Down Doors of Medical Pot Growers, But Ignore Men Who Keep Naked Girls on Leashes

"Strange, isn’t it, that hunches and vague tips about potential marijuana growing (in a state that recently legalized the drug!) is motivation enough to send a SWAT team busting down a door? Compare that to recent reports that police in Cleveland, Ohio ignored years of tips and calls about strange things going on in the home of the three Cleveland men suspected of holding captive, brutally raping and beating three women for nearly a decade. Neighbors say they knew something was up and claim that they repeatedly called the cops. The police did not appear concerned; they certainly lacked the enthusiasm many law enforcement officers display regarding drugs." Continue reading →

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Why No Construction Workers Memorial Day?

"A reader tells me that Peace Officers Memorial Day is held annually in the United States on May 15 in honor of federal, state and local officers killed or disabled in the line of duty. Then he wonders why no Construction Workers Memorial Day. He says: 'According to Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS), about 140-160 officers are killed in the line of duty each year,' but 'according to stats, each year in the US about 1,100 construction workers die on the job.' Here is an article with figures." Continue reading →

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The New Truth About the Cop Shot in Watertown: Friendly-Fire in a Getaway

"The way the nation met 33-year-old MBTA Transit Police officer Richard Donohue was — like much of the conflicting information from that night of mayhem in Watertown, Massachusetts — violent, fast, and scary: He was exchanging fire with the Tsarnaev brothers, the story went, and he took a gun shot to his right thigh from the Boston bombing suspects — an injury that would see Donohue lose all of his own blood, sever three blood vessels, send him into cardiac arrest, and almost die. Now comes a more complete picture, with more eyewitnesses telling a new story, that Donohue was probably shot by a fellow police officer." Continue reading →

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Boston’s Top Cop Warns Against “Police State”

"Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis warned against creating a 'police state' in the aftermath of the marathon bombings during testimony in front of a congressional hearing today. 'We do not, and cannot, live in a protective enclosure because of the actions of extremists who seek to disrupt our way of life,' Davis told lawmakers, adding 'I do not endorse actions that move Boston and our nation into a police state mentality, with surveillance cameras attached to every light pole in the city.' However, he did call for more surveillance cameras as well as more undercover officers to increase security around big events." Continue reading →

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Tallest Skyscraper Yet Going Up In Midland, Texas

"In 1927, when T.S. Hogan announced plans for a 12-story office building called the Petroleum Tower, many here were incredulous. A skyscraper? On the plains of West Texas? But city leaders embraced the building and the status it conferred on the city as the heart of the new Permian Basin oil field, historians say. At least until 1929, when the price of a barrel of crude dropped to 15 cents and the just-opened building sat empty. Eighty-six years later, the Petroleum Tower still stands—and history may be starting to repeat itself." Continue reading →

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Fed Economists: Stocks Are The Cheapest They’ve Been In 50 Years

"New York Fed economists Fernando Duarte and Carlo Rosa are out with a new article on Liberty Street Economics titled, 'Are Stocks Cheap? A Review of the Evidence.' The answer: judging by the equity risk premium (ERP), stocks are about as cheap as they've ever been. The last time the Fed said something so bold was when in 2004 when NY Fed economists wrote that there was no housing bubble." Continue reading →

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Detlev Schlichter: Is present monetary policy rational?

"Deflation is not such a bad thing if you have to live on your savings or a modest, nominally fixed payment stream. Additionally, reshuffling the economy’s deck of cards could also offer opportunities. Tearing down the old structures and allowing the market to price things honestly again, according to real risks and truly available savings, may at first cause some shock but ultimately bring new possibilities. The present monetary policy is inherently conservative. It bails out those who got it wrong in the recent crisis at the expense of those who didn’t even participate in the last boom." Continue reading →

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Spain refuses to extradite Swiss bank data ‘thief’

"A Spanish court refused on Wednesday to extradite a former HSBC bank employee to Switzerland where he is wanted for allegedly stealing data that exposed thousands of suspected tax dodgers. Hervé Falciani, a 40-year-old French-Italian, was arrested in Barcelona in July 2012 after he arrived by boat from France. Switzerland asked for Falciani to be extradited to face charges of violating Swiss banking secrecy laws and revealing industrial secrets. Spanish prosecutors had opposed Falciani's extradition on the grounds that he was helping authorities investigate tax fraud and because banking secrecy was abolished in Spain in 1977." Continue reading →

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