Filed under: commodities, Credit Crisis, DEBT, devaluation, Dollar, dollar bubble, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, economic depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, forecast, global economy, gold, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, predictions, Robert McEwen, Stock Market, US Economy, Wall Street
Gold May Reach $5,000 an Ounce By 2012
Filed under: AIG, bailout, bank bailout, bankergate, Big Banks, central bank, corruption, Credit Crisis, DEBT, deception, despotism, Deutsche Bank, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, end the fed, Federal Reserve, geithner, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, main street, Merrill Lynch, middle class, obama bailout, obama deception, scandal, SEC, Société Générale, Taxpayers, Tim Geithner, Wall Street
SEC Orders AIG Info Sealed Until November… 2018!
Business Insider
January 12, 2010
Good news. It looks as though we’ll be getting access to secret data on the bailout of AIG and its counterparties.
The bad news: We’re going to have to wait until November of 2018, according to Matthew Goldstein at Reuters.
- In May, the SEC approved a request by AIG to keep secret an exhibit to a year-old regulatory filing that includes some of the details on the most controversial aspect of the AIG bailout: the funneling of tens of billions of dollars to big banks like Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Merrill Lynch.
The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, in granting AIG’s request for confidential treatment, said the “excluded information” will not be made public until Nov. 25, 2018, according to a copy of the agency’s May 22 order.
The SEC said the insurer had demonstrated the information in the exhibit, called Schedule A, “qualifies as confidential commercial or financial information.” More
By then, Wall Street will have significantly recycled many people (and probably some more firms) and perhaps the American public just won’t care about how Tim Geithner helped bail out a gigantic black hole of a firm, upon which so many ostensibly rock solid firms had their foundation.
Filed under: Credit Crisis, DEBT, devaluation, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar drop, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, forecast, global economy, gold, Great Depression, Greenback, housing market, hyperinflation, Inflation, peter schiff, predictions, Stock Market, unemployment, US Economy, Wall Street
Schiff: No Economic Recovery in 2010
Filed under: agriculture, Credit Crisis, DEBT, depression, devaluation, Dollar, dollar bubble, dollar collapse, dollar drop, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, food crisis, food inflation, food market, food shortage, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, liquidation, malthusian, malthusian catastrohe, u.s. economy, USDA
Food shortages THIS year! Want to know why the media is not covering this?
Filed under: Credit Crisis, DEBT, depression, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar collapse, ecnomy, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Empire, Federal Reserve, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, Naomi Wolf, national debt, New World Order, NWO, truth movement, US Economy, Wall Street
America At Empires End
Filed under: DEBT, depression, despotism, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Empire, GDP, Great Depression, Greenback, health care reform, hyperinflation, Inflation, john williams, middle class, obama care, obamacare, riot, unemployment, Weimar, Zimbabwe
U.S. Halfway to Depression Level
ShadowStats.com founder John Williams explains the risk of hyperinflation. Worst-case scenario? Rioting in the streets and devolution to a bartering system.
Fairfield Weekly
December 31, 2009
Do you believe everything the government tells you? Economist and statistician John Williams sure doesn’t. Williams, who has consulted for individuals and Fortune 500 companies, now uncovers the truth behind the U.S. government’s economic numbers on his Web site at ShadowStats.com. Williams says, over the last several decades, the feds have been infusing their data with optimistic biases to make the economy seem far rosier than it really is. His site reruns the numbers using the original methodology. What he found was not good.
Maymin: So we are technically bankrupt?
Williams: Yes, and when countries are in that state, what they usually do is rev up the printing presses and print the money they need to meet their obligations. And that creates inflation, hyperinflation, and makes the currency worthless.
Obama says America will go bankrupt if Congress doesn’t pass the health care bill.
Well, it’s going to go bankrupt if they do pass the health care bill, too, but at least he’s thinking about it. He talks about it publicly, which is one thing prior administrations refused to do. Give him credit for that. But what he’s setting up with this health care system will just accelerate the process.
Where are we right now?
In terms of the GDP, we are about halfway to depression level. If you look at retail sales, industrial production, we are already well into depressionary. If you look at things such as the housing industry, the new orders for durable goods we are in Great Depression territory. If we have hyperinflation, which I see coming not too far down the road, that would be so disruptive to our system that it would result in the cessation of many levels of normal economic commerce, and that would throw us into a great depression, and one worse than was seen in the 1930s.
What kind of hyperinflation are we talking about?
I am talking something like you saw with the Weimar Republic of the 1930s. There the currency became worthless enough that people used it actually as toilet paper or wallpaper. You could go to a fine restaurant and have an expensive dinner and order an expensive bottle of wine. The next morning that empty bottle of wine is worth more as scrap glass than it had been the night before filled with expensive wine.
We just saw an extreme example in Zimbabwe. … Probably the most extreme hyperinflation that anyone has ever seen. At the same time, you still had a functioning, albeit troubled, Zimbabwe economy. How could that be? They had a workable backup system of a black market in U.S. dollars. We don’t have a backup system of anything. Our system, with its heavy dependence on electronic currency, in a hyperinflation would not do well. It would probably cease to function very quickly. You could have disruptions in supply chains to food stores. The economy would devolve into something like a barter system until they came up with a replacement global currency.
Filed under: 2-party system, bailout, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, bush, Credit Crisis, DEBT, debt clock, deficit, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, GDP, George Bush, Great Depression, Greenback, health care reform, hyperinflation, Inflation, John McCain, left right paradigm, main street, middle class, national debt, obama, obama spending, obama stimulus, obamacare, stimulus, Stock Market, Taxpayers, US Economy, US Treasury, Wall Street, White House
U.S. Debt Hits $12 Trillion, Will Double By 2019
Outside the Beltway
November 18, 2009
Barack Obama has been president for just under 10 months but he’s added two trillion to the national debt and will double it by the end of the decade. CBS’ Mark Knoller:
- This latest milestone in the ever-rising journey of the National Debt comes less than eight months after it hit $11 trillion for the first time. The latest high-point is not unexpected, considering the federal deficit for the just-ended 2009 fiscal year hit an all-time high at $1.42-trillion – more than triple the previous year’s record high.
Much of the increase in the deficit and debt is attributed to government spending outpacing revenue – both exacerbated by the recession and the government response to it – including hundreds of billions in bailouts and stimulus spending and tax cuts along with decreased tax revenues due to rising unemployment.
[…]
The National Debt has increased about $1.6 trillion on Mr. Obama’s watch, though less than $4.9 trillion run up during the presidency of George W. Bush.
But the White House budget review issued in August projects that by the end of the current fiscal year on Sept 30th, the National Debt could top $14 trillion. It gets worse. The same document projects that by the end of the decade, the National Debt will hit $24.5 trillion — exceeding the Gross Domestic Product projected for 2019 of $22.8 trillion.
According to the Treasury Department, the debt stood at $5.727 trillion on January 19, 2001, Bill Clinton’s last day in office, and $10.627 trillion when Bush left office eight years later. That’s $612.5 billion (or $0.6125 trillion) a year, during which we fought two major wars, had the 9/11 attacks, and at least two major bailouts to deal with a global financial crisis.
We’re thus far averaging $1.92 trillion a year under Obama, or a factor of 3.146 more. And the government is projecting that we’ll continue spending at this crisis rate for the next decade, more than doubling the current record level?
That ain’t good.
Presumably, we’d have had another major bailout had Bush stayed in office for a third term (were that Constitutionally or politically possible) or had John McCain been elected. So spending and thus the debt would have escalated substantially regardless. But we likely wouldn’t be talking about adding a massive health care payment on top of the pile.
Obama: We must spend our way out of recession (and into deeper debt)
No End in Sight to Govt. Spending Spree: $12.1T Debt Ceiling Set to Be Raised
Filed under: AGW, Al Gore, Alex Jones, anti-human, Ben Santer, cap-and-tax, carbon credit system, carbon credits, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, China, climate change, climate cult, climate science, climategate, Co2, common currency, Communism, Conditioning, cop15, copenhagen, Copenhagen treaty, corruption, cult, darwinists, depopulation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Empire, environmentalist, environmentalists, Eugenics, Euro, Fascism, george hunt, global currency, global government, Global Warming, global warming hoax, Greenback, greenpeace, Hoax, hypocrisy, imf, indoctrination, ipcc, jesse ventura, kyoto, Lord Monckton, man made global warming, manipulation, maurice strong, monckton, Nazi, New World Order, NWO, Oil, oil companies, One World Government, Population Control, rothschild, scam, scandal, SDR, SDRs, single currency, truTV, UN, united nations, Whistleblowers, World Bank, world currency, world government | Tags: hara
Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura: Global Warming
Airs Wednesdays at 10PM on TruTV
Filed under: audit the fed, Credit Crisis, DEBT, devaluation, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, end the fed, Federal Reserve, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, Joe Scarborough, morning joe, MSNBC, private bank, Ron Paul, TIME, US Economy, Wall Street
Financial Crisis Perpetrator Bernanke Hailed As World’s Saviour By TIME
The real person of the year, Ron Paul, puts the record straight
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
December 16, 2009
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has been named TIME person of the year for 2009 and hailed as a saviour when in the real world he has overseen the worsening of the financial crisis, the looting of the American economy by foreign offshore banks and the destruction of the Dollar.
In a world where those vastly escalating war are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it makes perfect sense to award the Federal Reserve chairman with person of the year.
“His creative leadership helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression, and he still wields unrivaled power over our money, our jobs, our savings and our national future.” writes TIME.
The magazine also bizarrely states that Bernanke launched “a groundbreaking public relations campaign to demystify the Fed”, despite the fact that the chairman has consistently lobbied Congress for protection of the Fed’s “independence” (read secrecy), while categorically refusing to answer questions regarding the Fed’s decision making.
Bernanke has overseen the handing over of trillions of dollars to foreign banks and has defied lawsuits to keep secret the destination of the money from the American people.
The timing of the announcement couldn’t be more perfect. As NBC’s Matt Laur pointed out, Bernanke can go to Capitol Hill tomorrow, hold up TIME magazine and ask to be reappointed as Fed chairman.
Of course, if TIME’s person of the year award was really judged on toil in the best interests of the American people, the clear winner would be Congressman Ron Paul, who has railed against the Fed and Bernanke with great success this year.
Paul’s tireless effort to wrestle power away from the Federal Reserve and put it back into the hands of the American people has seen a major victory with the progression of legislation slated to audit the Fed and put it’s activities under public scrutiny.
Paul has consistently exposed how the Fed has delivered the financial crisis to America and the world via excessive spending, debt expansion and monetary inflation.
Instead TIME’s article on Bernanke refers to Ron Paul in the context of “Bleeding-heart liberals and tea-party reactionaries”.
Paul gave his opinion on the announcement regarding Bernanke on MSNBC’s Morning Joe earlier today, commenting:
“He is the most powerful man in the world, I believe a case can be made for that.”
“Because he controls the supply of money, the Dollar which is the reserve currency of the world. He can create a trillion dollars in secret without any monitoring of the Congress. So there is no transparency and I think he is more powerful than the president.” the Congressman added.
“The big question is, has he used that power for good or for evil? And of course, my side of the argument is that the system is evil, and the chairman, whether it’s Greenspan or Bernanke, they can do no good.”
“They cause our troubles, they cause inflation, they cause the bubbles, and therefore the bust, the correction is always their fault.” Paul stated.
Watch the full interview below:
Filed under: bailout, bank bailout, banksters, Barack Obama, Big Banks, celente, Credit Crisis, DEBT, deception, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Fascism, Federal Reserve, free market, gangsters, geithner, gerald celente, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Greenback, henry paulson, hyperinflation, Inflation, madoff, mafia, main street, manipulated market, manipulation, middle class, oligarchy, Paulson, socialism, Stock Market, Taxpayers, Timothy Geithner, Too Big to Fail, u.s. economy, US Treasury, Wall Street
Goldman Sachs Mafia Arming Themselves Against Public
Goldman Sachs gang; the modern day mafia
Alice Schroeder
Bloomberg
November 30, 2009
“I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.
I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that “as a preliminary matter” it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.
While we wait, Goldman has wrapped itself in the flag of Warren Buffett, with whom it will jointly donate $500 million, part of an effort to burnish its image — and gain new Goldman clients. Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein also reversed himself after having previously called Goldman’s greed “God’s work” and apologized earlier this month for having participated in things that were “clearly wrong.”
Has it really come to this? Imagine what emotions must be billowing through the halls of Goldman Sachs to provoke the firm into an apology. Talk that Goldman bankers might have armed themselves in self-defense would sound ludicrous, were it not so apt a metaphor for the way that the most successful people on Wall Street have become a target for public rage.
Pistol Ready
Common sense tells you a handgun is probably not even all that useful. Suppose an intruder sneaks past the doorman or jumps the security fence at night. By the time you pull the pistol out of your wife’s jewelry safe, find the ammunition, and load your weapon, Fifi the Pomeranian has already been taken hostage and the gun won’t do you any good. As for carrying a loaded pistol when you venture outside, dream on. Concealed gun permits are almost impossible for ordinary citizens to obtain in New York or nearby states.
In other words, a little humility and contrition are probably the better route.
Until a couple of weeks ago, that was obvious to everyone but Goldman, a firm famous for both prescience and arrogance. In a display of both, Blankfein began to raise his personal- security threat level early in the financial crisis. He keeps a summer home near the Hamptons, where unrestricted public access would put him at risk if the angry mobs rose up and marched to the East End of Long Island.
To the Barricades
He tried to buy a house elsewhere without attracting attention as the financial crisis unfolded in 2007, a move that was foiled by the New York Post. Then, Blankfein got permission from the local authorities to install a security gate at his house two months before Bear Stearns Cos. collapsed.
This is the kind of foresight that Goldman Sachs is justly famous for. Blankfein somehow anticipated the persecution complex his fellow bankers would soon suffer. Surely, though, this man who can afford to surround himself with a private army of security guards isn’t sleeping with the key to a gun safe under his pillow. The thought is just too bizarre to be true.
So maybe other senior people at Goldman Sachs have gone out and bought guns, and they know something. But what?
Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary during the bailout and a former Goldman Sachs CEO, let it slip during testimony to Congress last summer when he explained why it was so critical to bail out Goldman Sachs, and — oh yes — the other banks. People “were unhappy with the big discrepancies in wealth, but they at least believed in the system and in some form of market-driven capitalism. But if we had a complete meltdown, it could lead to people questioning the basis of the system.”
Torn Curtain
There you have it. The bailout was meant to keep the curtain drawn on the way the rich make money, not from the free market, but from the lack of one. Goldman Sachs blew its cover when the firm’s revenue from trading reached a record $27 billion in the first nine months of this year, and a public that was writhing in financial agony caught on that the profits earned on taxpayer capital were going to pay employee bonuses.
This slip-up let the other bailed-out banks happily hand off public blame to Goldman, which is unpopular among its peers because it always seems to win at everyone’s expense.
Plenty of Wall Streeters worry about the big discrepancies in wealth, and think the rise of a financial industry-led plutocracy is unjust. That doesn’t mean any of them plan to move into a double-wide mobile home as a show of solidarity with the little people, though.
Cool Hand Lloyd
No, talk of Goldman and guns plays right into the way Wall- Streeters like to think of themselves. Even those who were bailed out believe they are tough, macho Clint Eastwoods of the financial frontier, protecting the fistful of dollars in one hand with the Glock in the other. The last thing they want is to be so reasonably paid that the peasants have no interest in lynching them.
And if the proles really do appear brandishing pitchforks at the doors of Park Avenue and the gates of Round Hill Road, you can be sure that the Goldman guys and their families will be holed up in their safe rooms with their firearms. If nothing else, that pistol permit might go part way toward explaining why they won’t be standing outside with the rest of the crowd, broke and humiliated, saying, “Damn, I was on the wrong side of a trade with Goldman again.”
Filed under: black friday, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, Stock Market, US Economy, Wall Street | Tags: National Retail Federation, ShopperTrak
US Shoppers Spent Less Over Black Friday
Reuters
November 30, 2009
American consumers shopped more for bargains at the start of the U.S. holiday season and spent significantly less than a year ago, according to early data released on Sunday.
Consumers said they will have spent nearly 8 percent less on average, or about $343 per person, over the weekend that includes U.S. Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and runs through Sunday, according to the National Retail Federation.
While traffic to stores and retail websites rose to 195 million people from 172 million in 2008, the early data this weekend represents a worrisome sign for retailers, who had braced for weak sales and sought ways to protect margins.
Data released by ShopperTrak on Saturday showed that sales rose a scant 0.5 percent on Black Friday, which is often the single busiest day of the holiday shopping season.
Filed under: China, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, global economy, gold, gold shortage, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, imf, India, Inflation, jim rogers, Russia, sri lanka, Stock Market, US Economy, Wall Street | Tags: CNBC, jim rickards
Jim Rogers: Gold Price to Double in Coming Months
CommodityOnline
November 28, 2009
The rally in gold prices has driven several bullion analysts to frenzied forecasts. Some say gold prices will reach $2,000 per ounce soon. Others are predicting big boom for the yellow metal, saying gold prices will zoom to $5,000 and eventually to even $15,000 per ounce in the years to come.
What is happening in bullion market these days? Yes, agreed that weakening dollar, global economic meltdown, shrinking gold supply and increasing cost of mining gold from the earth are all making gold the most-sought after investment these days. That is also driving the yellow metal prices to record highs.
These days, the biggest gold buyers are not individual customers or families, but global central bankers that are vying with each other to accumulate gold reserves in an attempt to get out of their decades-old dependence on the US dollar as the best asset class. India jumped into the bullion fray to buy 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) early this month. Other countries like China, Russia, Brazil and Sri Lanka are frantically trying to accumulate gold reserves.
Jim Rickards Discusses $4,000 Gold on CNBC
Filed under: Credit Crisis, DEBT, depression, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, job market, main street, middle class, recession, Stock Market, Taxpayers, unemployment, US Economy, Wall Street
Animated US Map Shows Startling Growth of Unemployment
Filed under: bullion coins, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economy, gold, gold shortage, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, IRS, legal tender, peak gold, US Economy, us mint
Gold eagle is legal tender and is exempt from reporting to the IRS
US Mint to Suspend American Eagle Gold 1-Ounce Coins
Reuters
November 26, 2009
The U.S. Mint said Wednesday it will suspend sales of the popular American Eagle 1-ounce bullion coins as rising demand depleted its inventory.
“The United States Mint has depleted its current inventory of 2009 American Eagle 1-ounce gold bullion coins due to the continued strong demand for this product,” the Mint told its authorized dealers in a memorandum on Wednesday.
November sales to date were at 124,000 ounces, higher than the 115,500 ounces sold in each month of September and October, the Mint said.
The Mint said it expects to resume sales in early December.
Filed under: Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, gold, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, Stock Market, US Economy, Wall Street
Gold hits record high $1,174
Sydney Morning Herald
November 24, 2009
Gold prices soared to a record 1,174 US dollars an ounce here on Monday as a sliding US currency and worries about a possible spike to inflation increased demand for the ‘safe-haven’ metal.
Gold hit exactly 1,174 US dollars an ounce in late trading on the London Bullion Market.
Filed under: alan grayson, audit the fed, Big Banks, campaign for liberty, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economy, economy collapse, Federal Reserve, GAO, Great Depression, Greenback, Inflation, Mel Watt, private bank, Ron Paul, secret meetings, Stock Market, tarp, US Economy, Wall Street | Tags: House Financial Services Committee, watt amendment
Ron Paul’s Fed Audit Bill Passes House Financial Services
Politico
November 20, 2009
The House Financial Services Committee has approved Rep. Ron Paul’s measure to drastically expand the government’s power to audit the Federal Reserve.
The measure, based on a Paul proposal that has attracted more than 300 co-sponsors, passed, 43-26, as an amendment to a financial reform bill. Florida Democrat and fellow Fed critic Alan Grayson co-sponsored the amendment with Paul and played a leading role drumming up support for it among committee members. The adoption of this amendment is an extraordinary victory for Paul, whose libertarian, anti-Fed leanings have often been dismissed by the political establishment.
The amendment would give the Government Accountability Office much greater to audit the Federal Reserve, which has a long history of independence from congressional audits. Paul and Grayson beat out a competing measure offered by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), who after weeks of negotiations with the pair felt their measure would threaten the Fed’s monetary policy.
Grayson, however, told POLITICO in an interview that Watt’s amendment would add more restrictions on the GAO’s ability to audit the Fed, not less. “And there’s a crying need to expand it because the Federal Reserve has completely changed the way it’s done business since a year and a half ago.”
The House Financial Services Committee will vote on approving the underlying bill after Thanksgiving recess.
Filed under: DEBT, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, gold, gold bubble, gold shortage, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, imf, Inflation, jim rogers, peak gold, Stock Market, US Economy, Wall Street
Gold hits record near $1,150/oz as dollar slips
Jan Harvey
Reuters
November 18, 2009
Gold hit a fresh record high near $1,150 an ounce on Wednesday, boosting precious metals across the board, as a dip in the dollar index added to momentum buying as prices broke through key technical resistance levels.
In non-U.S. dollar terms, gold also climbed, hitting multi-month highs when priced in the euro, sterling and the Australian dollar.
Spot gold hit a high of $1,147.45 and was at $1,146.05 an ounce at 0948 GMT, against $1,141.50 late in New York on Tuesday.
U.S. gold futures for December delivery on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange also hit a record $1,148.10 and were later up $7.10 at $1,146.40 an ounce.
Filed under: CBO, Congress, Credit Crisis, DEBT, debt clock, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, George LeMieux, government control, government regulations, Great Depression, Greenback, health care, health care reform, Healthcare, House, hyperinflation, Income Tax, Inflation, medicare, national debt, Neolibs, obama care, obama deception, obama tax, obamacare, Senate, Stock Market, tax, Taxpayers, universal health care, US Economy, US Treasury, Wall Street
US public debt tops $12 trillion for first time ever
AFP
November 18, 2009
The US public debt topped 12 trillion dollars for the first time in history, Treasury officials disclosed Tuesday, moving past a key barrier that raised hackles in Congress.
Treasury data showed Monday’s outstanding debt at 12.031 trillion dollars, up from 11.999 trillion on Friday.
The ballooning debt reflects the massive deficit spending by the government in an effort to revive an ailing economy over more than one year.
The public debt topped 10 trillion dollars in September 2008.
The debt is quickly approaching the statutory limit of 12.104 trillion dollars, meaning Congress would have to raise the ceiling to prevent a shutdown of government operations.
Filed under: Africa, CNBC, DEBT, Dennis Gartman, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, gas prices, global economy, gold, gold bubble, gold shortage, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, Oil, peak gold, Petrol, Stock Market, US Economy, Wall Street | Tags: Blyvooruitzicht, Blyvooruitzicht gold, Witwatersrand, Witwatersrand gold
Peak Gold
South African gold on final deathwatch as top grade scientist finds residual gold is more than 90% less than claimed
Barry Sergeant
Mineweb
November 16, 2009
The apparent bottom line in a paper published in the South African Journal of Science is that South Africa’s gold industry is on final deathwatch, despite claims of massive existing below-ground reserves. Chris Hartnady, research and technical director of Cape Town earth sciences consultancy Umvoto Africa, has found that South Africa’s Witwatersrand goldfields are around 95% exhausted, and anticipates that production rates should fall permanently below 100 tonnes a year within the coming decade.
Gold production from the Witwatersrand, the biggest known gold field in the world, peaked at around 1,000 tonnes in 1970 and has declined ever since. Hartnady says that while initially (1970-1975) the decline was “quite precipitous”, it has been interrupted by only short periods of slight trend reversal (1982-1984 and 1992-1993).
Leon Esterhuizen, a London-based specialist analyst at RBC Capital Markets, has reacted to the research by saying that “South African gold is dying — this is not new news”, but adds “that it may be dying faster than we currently believe is novel”. On the levels of reserves, Hartnady finds that the South African “residual gold reserve” after production through 2007 is only 2 948 tonnes, a little less than three times the 1970 production figure, and much less than 10% of the officially cited reserve
The country’s gold reserves are less than half of the current United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimate of 6 000 tonnes, and the country is not first, but fourth in world rankings, after Australia (5,000 tonnes), Peru (3,500 tonnes) and Russia (3,000 tonnes), Hartnady’s research shows. The USGS currently cites South Africa’s gold reserves at around 6,000 tonnes, while SA claims a 36,000 tonnes reserve base figure (or about 40% of the global total). Hartnady’s findings are based on Chamber of Mines figures and mathematical modeling pioneered by the distinguished American geologist M. King Hubbert.
Esterhuizen comments that “most recent indications from Harmony (even with gold bullion at new dollar records over USD 1,133/oz) is that its old shafts – effectively the Free State gold field – are dying. DRDGold has got Blyvooruitzicht on life support and is trying to get permission to keep the plug in for a little bit longer (with everything around Blyvooruitzicht now having been shut down), while Pamodzi Gold’s demise and Simmer & Jack’s failure at Buffelsfontein just proves the point — all of this, at record gold prices in rand terms”.
Gold Is in a ‘Bubble’ And Will Keep Going Higher: Gartman
Filed under: China, DEBT, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, France, Germany, global economy, gold, gold shortage, Great Depression, Greenback, India, Inflation, italy, silver shortage, Stock Market | Tags: barrick gold
Barrick Confirms We Reached Peak Gold
Global gold production is in terminal decline despite record prices and Herculean efforts by mining companies to discover fresh sources of ore in remote spots, according to the world’s top producer Barrick Gold.
London Telegraph
November 11, 2009
Aaron Regent, president of the Canadian gold giant, said that global output has been falling by roughly 1m ounces a year since the start of the decade. Total mine supply has dropped by 10pc as ore quality erodes, implying that the roaring bull market of the last eight years may have further to run.
“There is a strong case to be made that we are already at ‘peak gold’,” he told The Daily Telegraph at the RBC’s annual gold conference in London.
“Production peaked around 2000 and it has been in decline ever since, and we forecast that decline to continue. It is increasingly difficult to find ore,” he said.
The supply crunch has helped push gold to an all-time high, reaching $1,118 an ounce at one stage yesterday. The key driver over recent days has been the move by India’s central bank to soak up half of the gold being sold by the International Monetary Fund. It is the latest sign that the rising powers of Asia and the commodity bloc are growing wary of Western paper money and debt.
China has quietly doubled holdings to 1,054 tonnes and is thought to be adding gradually on price dips, creating a market floor. Gold remains a tiny fraction of its $2.3 trillion in foreign reserves.
Gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) – dubbed the “People’s Central Bank” – have accumulated 1,778 tonnes, making them the fifth biggest holder after the US, Germany, France, and Italy.
noworldsystem.com 