I was reading a fantastic article awhile ago that inspired me to post to my blog. This informative article deals with the blatant manipulation of gold and silver prices. As a precious metals investor for the past several years, I have had to deal with these manipulations which clearly make no sense at all.
I remember a time, just a few months ago, where silver had just fallen from it’s crest of $20 an ounce down to less than $10 an ounce. Yet, when I would call every single silver dealer where I could take physical delivery, the actual selling price was upwards of $15 per ounce! That is, if you could take delivery at all! Pretty much every dealer I talked to was completely sold out and was expecting 5 to 6 week delays on resupply! For those that actually could deliver, silver was going for $18+ an ounce! Demand was huge, supply was extremely short and yet “official” trading prices maintained unreasonable levels for months!
Today, it’s not all that different, although slightly less extreme. If you want physical delivery, it’s going to cost somewhere between $2 and $3 dollars over it’s going rate. So, currently silver is trading for about $11 an ounce…but if you actually want it’s physical form, you’ll be paying $13 or $14 per ounce! This compared to just a year ago where it was common to pay anywhere from a quarter to seventy five cents over it’s going rate. It’s clear that something has been going on in these markets for some time.
In short, the commodities (paper gold & silver) are being used to manipulate and cap the market when the prices begin to rise to their natural levels. Supply and demand theories completely go out the window when artificial gold and silver are utilized to manipulate the values of the real assets.
I particularly liked this article because it graphically represents trends using historical charts and deals with both the gold and silver markets. If you have some time and have the interest, I recommend you read the following article.
Here is an article you may want to forward to your favorite mining CEO.
This article deals with the blatant manipulation that has been occurring in the gold and silver markets, and offers a solution. While this scandal has been going on for many years, at last more and more people are becoming aware that it is going on.
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Earlier this year, I heard some rumblings that Oregon was considering shifting their gas tax to a mileage based tax. The idea is to maintain or increase state road revenue by charging “by the mile” instead of “by the gallon” as a measure to combat fuel usage reductions with more fuel efficient cars on the road. I wrote it off at the time considering the technology to do so would be impractical for quite some time - but it would appear they’re now positioning some leverage against auto manufacturers to support this technology.
As has been the case for years now, going “green” will by no means be a less expensive alternative. We have to pay more for organic foods, shell out more cash for “green” energy, and dish out more for seemingly any “green” option that’s available. It would appear that the systems of taxation are right on top of this…they’ll figure out a way to make you pay, even if you’re using less.
The necessary technology behind the effort is alarming to me. Somehow, fuel providers (and who knows whom else) must “download” data from one’s vehicle to determine how many miles had been driven since the last fuel up. Theoretically, this information could be tied into GPS systems frequently found in today’s vehicles through safety technologies like OnStar, which also concerns me a great deal. This means that interested parties could use this information to determine where your vehicle has been, not just how many miles had been driven.
With every technology, I am always aware of the potential results if such information were hackable, which will always be the case. (If the Pentagon gets successfully hacked, an auto manufacturer has zero chance of a secure system.) A techno-criminal could theoretically access this information and determine where your house was and your regular travel patterns could be assessed for when you were commonly away from home.
Even if we were assured that GPS data would not be tied into the download and that our government or hackers would never receive our personal driving habits, I ask the fundamental question of whether it’s good to have such technology that can track our vehicle usage over any period of time. Why not show the real intent and create a separate (higher) tax for hybrid and fuel-efficient vehicles? The next challenge would be how to determine the difference between a gas guzzling rig vs. a fuel efficient model vehicle. Simply have a different fuel tank mechanism that can tell the pump what kind of vehicle you have. Outfitting fuel tanks and gas pumps to detect fuel efficient cars seems no more difficult than outfitting cars and pumps to be ready to download mileage data - and no personal information needs to be collected.
Anyhow, that’s what I know on this front. Hope you’re feeling better informed!
So, I’ve been keeping an eye on the alleged change to digital TV transmissions for the last several years. My interest, considering I don’t really watch TV, comes more from being curious about how the market will handle the government declared transition to a digital TV format. It occurred to me the other day that the deadline for this transition is a mere two months (or less) away. If you’ve been following this, you’re aware that the supposed deadline has been pushed back at least a couple times due to readiness concerns.
Within the last year, I set up a media center PC and HDTV antenna that would be capable of receiving HD broadcasts. I did this for the technical knowledge and the event of an emergency. I’ve found that I am simply no longer able to watch television after over a decade without it - it insults my intelligence and I am no longer drawn in by it’s assault on cognitive thought.
The results of my HDTV experiment were astonishing to me, considering the deadline was nearly a year away at the time. In Spokane, Washington - out of the dozen channels that were supposedly available “over the air” - I could only receive about 4 of them. Now that I’ve moved to Missoula, MT and set up my HD rig…I was shocked to see that I can only receive 3 channels! Both Fox and CBS cannot be received at my home. The broadcast antennas were simply too far away for me to receive the signal for these channels. CBS doesn’t even have a plan to broadcast off a nearer tower, whereas Fox will supposedly be broadcasting off the closer tower post-conversion.
Also, after getting the rig set up, it was apparent to me that much of the programming on the boob tube is still standard definition format. I’ve read countless articles how news crews aren’t set up for HDTV broadcasts and it’s shocking to see that only a handful of broadcasts are actually in HD format. Not just that, but I’m pretty certain that millions are still not set up to receive the new digital format. Additionally, I noted that the digital broadcasts were volatile - it seemed fairly common in my limited experience that “down time” was a common theme. It’s pretty clear that the market just isn’t ready for the conversion, despite the government’s whim on the matter.
Perhaps the cable and satellite providers have the edge - from reports from my friends, there’s dozens of HD channels up and operational. For me though, there’s just simply no way that I’m paying $50+ a month for something I’ll hardly use - and not just that, I’m offended that I would have to pay “extra” for HD programming.
This is the typical result of a government mandate being pushed on the market. The market and individuals have to scramble and spend billions of dollars in new equipment to comply. It’s no wonder that there’s some resistance and delays associated with it! I’ll be really curious to see if the nation will be ready for this change next year. I suspect that it won’t come without a slew of complaints once the old “analog” system is turned off.
“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” -Arthur Schopenhauer
I’ve been talking about “world government” for almost a decade now. At first, I met a high degree of scepticism and disdain…people called me a conspiracy theorist or a nut. Later on, it became a concept that was tangible to the people - they could see it, but outright denied it. Now, it would seem that the people and the media have outright accepted it’s plausibility.
I have noticed an alarming trend, as of late, that these ideas of global governance are now being widely reported in the media. People are seeing how we’re facing a near perfect storm for such a thing to come into the light.
I suppose the concept of global rule, to some regards, is nearly inevitable. As our economic and social backgrounds become ever more blurred through the advancement of technology, it becomes logical, if not even sensible, to embrace others around this world in common cause. Anyone who’s read H.G. Well’s, “The Open Conspiracy” has likely gotten a good dose of the human-centric idealism that a lot of pro “one worlders” have in the back of their minds.
When thinking through these concepts with a critical eye, however, one must recognize some serious faults with the destruction of nationalism. Is a homogeneous culture really beneficial to human kind? What happens if one power gains a foothold and turns sour? Once we traverse into this realm of unified governance, how can the people resist an oppressive regime? How do we avoid the inevitable political and social conflicts that such a plan will create? What if a mistake is made…is it too much to affect the whole world? These are just a handful of questions that come to mind.
The following article, from the highly respected Financial Times, is a must-read for anyone that cares to know what’s going on. I felt it to be an honest investigation into the plausibility of the plan to create a new world.
I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.
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Barry Cooper, former Texas police officer, has made it his mission to expose the heavy handed tactics that police are using these days to fight the war on drugs. There are quite a few cops that have seen the light and now oppose the incendiary and ineffective war on drugs.
It was fantastic. They rented a house and set up a couple of Christmas trees under high powered lights, similar to those used in a marijuana grow operation. And then they waited. Sure enough, 24 hours later, the cops came busting in the door - only to find benign Christmas trees and a lawyer waiting for their arrival.
One question. Where’s the probable cause??????
I can pretty confidently say that pine trees and marijuana do not smell at all similar. Obviously if a cop had *seen* the plants, he would have rightly come to the conclusion that they do not look similar either. Interestingly enough, the Austin cops are refusing to release the search affidavit - which, in this case, is clearly full of lies and false statements. Just to be clear, lying to get a judge to sign a search warrant is highly illegal and is very dangerous to a free society.
http://jeffwhiteside.com/video/kopbusters.flv
For those that know me, you know that I support the libertarian viewpoint on drug legalization. I say legalize ‘em all. The argument is very simple and has three major points.
First, for over 30 years, the war on drugs has done very little to actually reduce the amount of drugs on the streets. Instead, it has caused prices to rise, further increasing the alure for young kids and law-dodging entrepreneurs to make huge sums of money. The underlying effect has been to actually increase supply. It’s been proven over and over, especially during the times of prohibition, that when a “popular” thing is made illegal, it does not go away and it concentrates the activity into less-than-desirable underground movements.
The second is that legalization would do nothing to increase usage. I ask every pro-drug-war proponent this question: “If drugs were legalized tomorrow, would YOU go out and start dropping heroin and meth?” The answer is by and large no, and that truth stands for me as well. Those who will experiment will experiment, regardless of what the law says. The difference is that legalization would bring things out in the open, where dangers could be warned against at the time of sale.
The fundamental argument is whether we are allowed to put whatever we want into our bodies, so long as it does not harm others. The problem of addiction is a health matter, not a criminal one. Causing harm to others is all ready against the law - so things like hurting another person or driving under the influence are illegal regardless of the status of drug legalization.
In conclusion, I give my props to Barry Cooper and his group KopBusters for performing this little stunt. The trap they laid was awesome and will hopefully go a long way to expose the police, judges and other parties that were involved in this.
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