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Duncan	21-Jan-07, 07:26 AM (GMT)
"b happy"
How to be happy As an introduction to her new column starting next week, Dr Cecilia d'Felice explains how therapy offers a proven, scientific route to feeling good about yourself. Published: 21 January 2007 As each new patient walks into my office, I am always struck by their bravery. Often tearful and full of fear and uncertainty as to what therapy might do to them, they begin to tell me their story. Frequently, this is the first opportunity they will have had to describe their experiences to someone who is not a friend, partner or family member - someone, in other words, who can remain relatively objective and impartial. We do not know each other and yet we talk about their darkest fears and deepest despair - sometimes things that have never been spoken aloud before. For some, the relief of being able to speak freely means that, once they start, they feel they cannot stop. For others, it is harder to let go of their feelings - as if there aren't the words to describe how they suffer: they wonder what the point is, how anyone could possibly understand them and how therapy can possibly help them. In these early sessions I am a historian; ravelling together pieces of their story to form a picture which varies in intensity and drama but rarely is without loss, suffering and confusion. Many have been emotionally or physically neglected, have seen their families split by divorce with little support or explanation, have been cruelly punished and criticised, bullied at school and work, have experienced sexual and emotional abuse or have lost a beloved parent or sibling. Some patients say they had perfect childhoods - as if to protect themselves and those they love from a less desirable truth (for this is rarely the case, as we eventually discover). Often, they describe alcoholic, violent parents withdrawn into deep depression, or unable to leave the house without panic or phobias. As adults they then find themselves depressed or anxious, almost as though they have learnt to be that way, as if they have been shown no other option. Therapy can help us understand the past, but is not about blaming the past - it is about trying to make sense of the present. Often, at the end of the first session, patients want to know my opinion - whether they are ill or having a "nervous breakdown", or simply going mad. What strikes me is how often they feel totally alone with their feelings, believing that no one else has ever had these experiences. This is perhaps what makes them question their sanity, because they perceive everyone else as being somehow "normal" and able to cope with life with equanimity, meeting all challenges head-on. When a patient with depression tells me how they feel, they often describe intense negativity towards themselves, their world and their future. They cannot see any good in themselves or other people, that the world is hostile and cruel and they feel worthless and hopeless. It often feels to them that no one else suffers in quite the way they do or can see the world as "realistically". They are surprised when the reading I give them on depression matches their own experiences, and often tell me it could have been written about them. When someone with panic attacks tells me about the physical terror they experience - with their heart pounding, trembling, unable to breathe, believing that they are about to lose control, go crazy or, worse, die - they find it an enormous relief to know that they are not alone. Other people feel these things too and the panic attack can be resolved relatively simply by learning a breathing technique. A man once described to me his inability to leave his house until he had checked and rechecked every aspect of each room, taking hours every morning, in the belief that it would prevent his loved ones getting hurt. He was amazed and relieved to learn there are others who do precisely the same thing, that it has a name - obsessive compulsive disorder - and that it, too, can be treated. Therapy can help unravel the thoughts that lead to painful feelings and self-destructive behaviours - whether it's drinking, drugging or spending excessively, eating badly or self-harming. Therapy is not, however, a soft option; it requires courage and commitment. It seems as if there comes a time when people realise that something has to change, that they need to do something differently if they are to survive emotionally. For me, this occurred in my mid-20s, when I nearly bled to death during a surgical blunder after losing my unborn baby to a cancerous tumour. While slipping in and out of consciousness, I made a pact with myself that, if I survived, I would stop emotionally hiding from myself and try to work out how and why I had become the person I was. I had struggled in my early years to please everyone, yet often found myself feeling confused, frustrated and disappointed, as if I had no life of my own. I wanted to find ways to change what I could, while accepting what I could not. I figured out the best way for me to do this was to train to be a psychologist and to experience psychotherapy. I know at first-hand, both personally and clinically, how therapy can transform lives. I do not claim to be an expert on happiness. Although I have clinical expertise, I personally do not find it helpful to adopt an "expert" role: to be an expert suggests that somehow you have all the answers and, when thinking about our emotional lives, how can this really be true? I prefer to see myself as a willing student, practicing what is known in Zen as "Beginner's Mind" - always wanting to find out more, to be curious and to experiment creatively with the big questions, including how to be happy. I have had experiences where my mood felt frighteningly rigid and interminable in reaction to traumatic life events. I view these experiences now as reflections of my humanity, encompassing complex emotions that I share with everyone. It is rare that someone over the course of a lifetime will never have experienced emotional instability and it is not weak or a failure to have done so. My negative emotions no longer propel me in to a fixed state of unhappiness because I accept them compassionately as being part of my all-too-human vulnerability. Knowing that they will eventually pass, they also teach me to look for fresh perspectives, to try doing things differently, to take some risks. Regular readers of this newspaper will know that it has been campaigning to improve the nation's mental health. As part of this endeavour, from next week I shall be contributing a column to The Sunday Review that will aim to explore, from a psychological perspective, what happiness is and how to achieve the many different forms that it takes. Each week I will examine some aspect of human behaviour that causes distress using the most current clinical advice. From the anxiety- provoking deluge of emails in your back- to-work inbox, to skilfully managing an over-demanding boss, to how to deal with insomnia, overcoming fear, or what to do if you have a panic attack. I will sometimes break down a difficult problem, such as anxiety or low mood, into week-by-week sections forming step-by-step, easy-to-use mini-workbooks. This will provide an opportunity to practice the exercises, techniques and suggestions I make before being introduced to the next level - just as I would do in therapy. I also hope that readers will send in specific examples of where happiness and wellbeing remain elusive. We can then explore these problems using therapeutic methods like cognitive behavioural therapy - which is scientifically proven to be helpful. And, because this is such a wide-ranging subject, I will also draw on "positive psychology", explaining how you can use it to improve the quality of your own life. Emotional experience and clinical practice have taught me that happiness is a state of mind that is maintained through acceptance, compassion, resolution, altruism and humour. Basic needs such as sleep, diet, relaxation and exercise are also essential ingredients in promoting wellbeing and these too will be discussed. I hope to explore with you what it means to be happy, encouraging you to adopt some of the methods, techniques and philosophies that may help alter your state of mind and create both happiness and wellbeing in your life and the lives of those close to you. Next week, we will begin to look at stress: what it is, why it appears to be endemic and what we can all do about it. Email Dr d'Felice at c.dfelice@ independent.co.uk
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Duncan	21-Jan-07, 07:41 AM (GMT)
1. "the bottom line is, its a bear market for stocks"
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Duncan	21-Jan-07, 09:55 AM (GMT)
2. "past results have little or no reason to be predictive of future results because of the problem of ever changing cycles, and ageing "
Chinese govt. economist says yuan requires big revaluation Submitted by cpowell on 12:24AM ET Sunday, January 21, 2007. Section: Daily Dispatches From Reuters Sunday, January 21, 2007 http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070121/3/2w3xo.html BEIJING -- China's policy of allowing the yuan to gain a modest 3-5 percent a year is not sustainable as the cost of preventing a faster rise will crush the central bank, a Chinese economist said. Zhong Wei, a professor at Beijing Normal University and an editor of a magazine run by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, told a weekend forum in Beijing that China needed another revaluation to build up a properly functioning exchange rate system. Advocates of a second administered revaluation are in a minority. Chinese leaders, including Premier Wen Jiabao, have consistently said there will be no repeat of the 2.1 percent revaluation of July 2005, when the yuan was depegged from the dollar and set free to float in managed bands. The yuan has climbed a further 4.3 percent since then, with heavy central bank intervention preventing a sharper advance. "My view is quite clear: the current course of modest yuan appreciation is not sustainable; only a big revaluation can solve the problem," Zhong said. "In the coming five years, the policy of allowing the yuan to rise 3-5 percent a year won't be sustainable," he added. Zhong argued that the central bank has to issue a huge quantity of bills every year to soak up foreign-exchange inflows. Not only is this costly for the central bank, but it ties up commercial bank funds that could otherwise be lent out, he said. Zhong said his pessimistic outlook assumed no change over the coming years to what he called China's ill-functioning currency market, where the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by no more than 0.3 percent a day against the dollar. Zhang Yansheng, a trader researcher with a think-tank affiliated with the National Development and Reform Commission, said Zhong's views were unfounded. The exchange rate issue was about more than monetary policy, Zhang said. China could take a series of measures in the areas of trade and investment to reduce its balance-of-payments surplus and so avoid Zhong's revaluation scenario. Zuo Xiaolei, chief economist with Galaxy Securities, agreed that the yuan's exchange rate alone was not the answer to China's economic imbalances. \ \ \ China's reserves reach trillion; premier promises to start spending Submitted by cpowell on 12:44AM ET Sunday, January 21, 2007. Section: Daily Dispatches From Xinhua News Agency via China Daily, Beijing Sunday, January 21, 2007 http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2007-01/21/content_788400.htm Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said that China would steadily push forward the foreign exchange rates reform and actively explore and expand the use of its US$1.06-trillion foreign exchange reserves. China would strengthen operation and management of foreign exchange reserves and facilitate the balance of international payment, said Wen at the two-day Third National Financial Work Conference. The closed-door meeting was designed to chart the course of China's financial sector. On Monday, the People's Bank of China, or central bank, announced that its foreign reserves, already the world's largest, hit US$1.0663 trillion at the end of last year, up US$247.3 billion from the end of 2005. China's foreign exchange reserves have been increasing rapidly on the back of a surging trade surplus and rising foreign direct investment. Analysts claim that the US$1.06-trillion reserve could buy Microsoft, Citibank, and ExxonMobil Corp. as well as General Motors and Ford. At present, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange is in charge of investing much of China's foreign exchange reserves, mainly in US treasury bonds and other high-quality assets. The fast accumulation of foreign reserves is an indication of China's growing economic strength, but it has also put China under more pressure from trading partners to appreciate the yuan faster and face increase trade friction, said Prof Zhang Liqing with the Central University of Finance and Economics. As foreign reserves rise, there are calls for using part of the money to purchase advanced technologies and equipment, to replenish social security fund, or to develop social undertakings of education, medical care, and environmental protection. But such suggestions fail to understand the fact that China's foreign reserves keep increasing as the central bank buys massive amounts of dollars in the open market to only allow gradual yuan appreciation, analysts say. "The foreign reserves are not treasury capital, but liabilities of the central bank, which means they cannot be used wishfully," said Prof. Zhao Xijun with the People's University. China needs foreign exchanges to meet its payment requirement for import and export. Apart from that, the surplus should be best allocated and invested to achieve highest returns, said Lin Yifu, a renowned economist from Peking University's China Center for Economic Research. He stressed that any use of foreign reserves have to be fully discussed and carried out in a very prudent way. "To actively explore and expand channels of using foreign reserves will be a major point in future work," he said. \ \ \ Police defend role in Turner case Blair aide Ruth Turner was arrested and released on Friday Police have warned senior Labour figures to stop putting "undue pressure" on officers investigating "cash-for-honours" claims. Several senior Labour MPs have called the arrest on Friday of Number 10 aide Ruth Turner, who denies any wrongdoing, unnecessary and "theatrical". But the Metropolitan Police Federation said this was not an "appropriate moment" to make such comments. The Liberal Democrats said police were acting professionally and normally. 'Bewildered' Ms Turner was questioned on suspicion of perverting the course of justice and was later released. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said she was "slightly bewildered" as to why the arrest had happened early in the morning, with four policemen knocking on the door of Ms Turner - who was then released without charge. "She has fully co-operated and she is a person of utter decency and conscientiousness and I am surprised," Ms Jowell said. Former Downing Street aide Lance Price said: "It does look a bit theatrical. Tony Blair has given Ruth Turner his full backing - he could do no other BBC political editor Nick Robinson Read Nick's thoughts in full Q&A: Honours probe Analysis: Blair impact "Ruth Turner has co-operated with the inquiry all the way through up until this point. There's been no suggestion that she wasn't willing to give police any help that they asked for. "So it does seem pretty extraordinary to do the sort of dawn raid that we associate generally with people who are about to abscond justice and fly on a plane to Bermuda or something." Former Home Secretary David Blunkett said he wanted "thoroughness, not theatre". Mr Blair gave Ms Turner, who as director of government relations is one of his closest aides, his full backing. 'No-one above the law' However, Metropolitan Police Federation chairman Glen Smyth told BBC News 24: "You get government ministers and senior members of the Labour party criticising the inquiry, which has frankly not even given a report to the Crown Prosecution Service yet. "What sort of undue pressure are they trying to bring? If that's not what they are intending, it's certainly the impression that they are leaving for the officers involved and, I suspect, many other people. "They should wait for the appropriate moment." Len Duvall, the Labour politician who chairs the Metropolitan Police Authority, called on others not to try to "manipulate or pressurise" officers. In a statement, he told critics that "no one in this country is above the law". Liberal Democrat spokesman Lord Thomas of Gresford said: "Once the police had formed a reasonable suspicion of her perverting the course of justice, as they must have, it was their duty to act swiftly and professionally to preserve any evidence. "That is commonplace, as any criminal lawyer knows. "Pressure put upon the police by people in high places suggests that they want the investigation stopped." No charges Ms Turner was first questioned by police in September. The Metropolitan Police inquiry into claims people gave political donations in exchange for peerages began after it emerged that a number of large secret loans had been made to the Labour Party before the 2005 general election, and that some of those lenders had subsequently been nominated for peerages. The investigation later widened to cover the other main parties. Police have so far spoken to about 90 people including Mr Blair and former Tory leader Michael Howard. All deny wrongdoing. No one has been charged. \ \ \ International Forecaster January 2007 (#3) - Gold, Silver, Economy + More By: Bob Chapman, The International Forecaster -- Posted Sunday, 21 January 2007 | Digg This Article SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 2007 THE INTERNATIONAL FORECASTER JANUARY 2007 (#3) Vol. 11 No. 1-3 P. O. Box 510518, Punta Gorda, FL 33951-0518 An international financial, economic, political and social commentary. Published and Edited by: Bob Chapman E-mail Address International_forecaster@yahoo.com CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE www.theinternationalforecaster.com SUBSCRIPTION and RENEWAL INFORMATION: 1-YEAR $129.95 U.S. Funds. Make check payable to ROBERT CHAPMAN (NOT International Forecaster), and mail to P.O. Box 510518, Punta Gorda, FL 33951-0518. Please include name, address, telephone number and e-mail address. We accept Visa and MasterCard charges. Provide us with your card number and expiration date. We will charge your card US$129.95 for a one-year subscription. Foreigners please use foreign U.S. dollar denominated checks or Money Orders. Note: We publish twice a month by surface mail or twice a week by E-mail. international_forecaster@yahoo.com RADIO APPEARANCES: To check out all of our radio appearances click on this link below: http://www.theinternationalforecaster.com/radio.php ***** NEXT ISSUE OF THE IF (MidWeek January 24, 2007) US MARKETS We certainly do not buy a soft landing for the economy and the housing market. Although the fall can be prolonged by dropping interest rates ¾% this year, but the flip side is higher inflation and gold and silver prices and a much lower dollar. That is a test of $1.3666 euros and 78.33 to 80 on the dollar index. The intermediate to long-term direction is set no matter what the elitists do. Housing sales continue to fall as inventory builds and that eventually means lower prices for residential real estate. Once speculators and others finally realize they are beating a dead horse they will give up and finally take what they can get for their properties. Energy cost reduction will help the consumer but not enough to change things radically. The boom in housing has been totally artificial. The product of ridiculously low interest rates and criminally loose lending standards. The impact of lower housing prices affects 69% of the population, not 45% as a fall in equities would. Housing will fall from its own weight. You see the inverted yield curve that we’ve so often talked about, it is now 8 months old and this situation whenever it has occurred since 1950 has been followed by recession. There were two minor exceptions, but the chance for recession is already with us. It began last February. Any recession will be accompanied by a correction in the stock market, probably to 7,286 or the 2002 low and perhaps even lower. Those who believe the rest of the world will avoid recession are mistaken. We go, they all go, and that includes China, which has a capital investment bubble and a banking system with over $1 trillion in bad debt. A recession in China would be a fall to 5% growth. Due to massive world liquidity interest rates and mortgage rates have been artificially subdued and that makes it difficult for the Fed to lower interest rates from 4.75% on the Ten-year Treasury note. Once the real estate correction takes place then interest rates, set by the Fed, will fall from 5-1/4% to 3%. That cannot happen until real estate falls 30% more and the recession is very obviously underway. The dollar has to correct as well and it cannot bottom until the recession bottoms. In this context base metal commodities have corrected some 30%. We could see a further correction, but not until the foregoing takes place. In the coming year most forecasters will again be wrong. We hope we are fortunate enough to be on the correct side again. India is willing to pay a higher price for extra quantities of liquefied natural gas from Iran if the latter honors an existing contract for five million tons. That will surely send Washington’s neocons and Israeli’s fascists into fits. This while the US, UK and the Saudi’s are pushing down oil prices to put economic pressure on Iran, Venezuela and Russia. The Treasury Department has reported to Congress that a data-collection program to spy on Americans so counterterrorism analysts can routinely access as many as 500 million cross-border financial transactions a year, can not be implement until 2010. Treasury says the program is technologically feasible and has value, but said it needs to determine whether the counterterrorism benefit outweighs banks’ costs of compliance and to address privacy considerations. If you can believe it bankers oppose the program, they say it is burdensome and invasive. Unlike another Treasury program, which uses administrative powers that bypass traditional banking privacy protections to tap into the most global database of transactions maintained by Swift Bank, the cross-border plan is the result of legislation sought by the Treasury and would require congressional oversight. Banks and money services are required by law to keep records of all wire transfers of $3,000 or more. The proposed program would mandate that each of those transactions, if they cross the US border, be reported to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN). The type of data captured would include the names and addresses of senders, amount and dates of transfers, and the names and addresses of beneficiaries and their financial institutions. Bankers say this would be very expensive and burdensome. This is a total violation of privacy and a giant fishing expedition. This has no security benefit. It is set up to snoop on American and foreign individuals and businesses. They cannot possibly filter 500 million cross-border transactions a year for terrorists. Foreign countries are up in arms, due to violations of their privacy laws. FINCEN has proposed a $1.1 million cost analysis. Implementation would cost $32.6 million and take 3-1/2 years. Our corporatist fascist police state marches on. Colorado had the highest rate of residential foreclosures in December, that is 9-months in first place last year. Nevada won in November. Colorado had one new foreclosure filing for each 376 households. It is very concerning because the state hasn’t had the price appreciation of the 30 hot markets. People are in trouble because of Mickey Mouse tactics by real estate agents, appraisers and lenders. There were 109,652 houses nationally at some stage of foreclosure in December, off 9% from November. The national foreclosure rate is one for every 1,055 US households. The MBA says the volume of applications for both refinancings and purchase loans was up 9.8% versus a week ago. Apps to buy fell 7% week-on-week, and were off 1% yoy. Home sales through November fell 11% yoy. Refis increased 6.3% and were up 24% yoy. Refinancings accounted for 49.9% of loan applications, up from 48.4% the prior week, the highest share in five weeks. The 30-year fixed rate loan was 6.19%, up 3 bps, the 15’s were 5.92%, up from 5.85% and the one-year ARMS were 5.85%, up from 5.79%. ARMS accounted for 21.2% of loan applications; up from a 3-1/2 year low of 20.1%. The MBA has projected the 30-year fixed rate loan would rise to 6.5% by the end of 2007, and that sales of new and existing loans would fall. Fannie Mae says sales of new homes are expected to drop 7.1% in 2007, while existing home sales should drop 8.1%. The two-year drop in sales during 2006 and 2007 will be the largest since 1989-91. They expect home prices to fall only 2% in 2007. What can they be smoking? Fannie is projecting a decline of 11.2% in purchase originations. One of our shorts, Lennar, has reported a quarterly loss of $195.6 million of which $111.1 million were deposit write-offs. The homebuilder lost $1.24 a share versus a gain of $3.54 a share a year ago. Ken-McGee Corp. cheated the US taxpayers out of royalties by selling oil at below market prices, a lawyer for a former Interior Department auditor said at the start of a federal trial. Bobby Maxwell claims the company knowingly sold oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico between 1999-2002 at reduced rates to Texon, which then absorbed most of Kerr McGee’s marketing costs. The culture of corporate crime continues. Monthly capital flows to the US rose in November as private investors bought bigger amounts of Treasury bonds, notes and corporate bonds. The capital flows rose to $74.9 billion from $60.4 billion in October. Of the total $65.8 billion was purchased by private investors and $9.1 billion by government institutions. Net long-term capital inflows meanwhile fell to $68.4 billion in November from $85.3 billion in October. Private investors bought $101 billion in long-term securities in November compared with $78.9 billion in October. They bought $26 billion in Treasury bonds and notes tripling the amount they bought in October. US investors bought $39.1 billion up from $18.9 billion in October. The narrowing of interest rate differentials should reduce relative attractiveness of US assets, putting downward pressure on the dollar. Japan’s holdings of US Treasuries fell in November to $637.4 billion from $639.6 billion at the end of October. China increased Treasury ownership to $346.5 billion, up from $345 billion in October. Including non-market flows, such as stock swaps and principal repayment on asset-backed securities, net foreign purchases were $58 billion, down from $74.9 billion. December industrial production rose 0.4%, following a 0.1% November drop. Capacity utilization rose to 81.8% from 81.6%. The January Housing Market Index was 35, up from 33. This is the same group that missed the top of the housing market by two years. Goldman Sachs was again critical saying the Fed will have to cut interest rates ¾% in 2007 because Americans have a complete lack of self-control with the personal savings rate in negative territory since April 2005. Americans believe rising house prices are recurring income as they use home equity withdrawals to subsidize over-stretched lifestyles. Lenders to subprime borrowers are finally tightening up and loans are getting harder to get. Loan programs that were 5% down are now becoming 10% down. Other changes are higher credit scores. Previously, borrowers with a FICO credit score as low as 570 out of an 850 could qualify for loan financing 100% of their home purchase, now it is 600 for an 80/20 loan. Rates on subprime loans have risen 1% since September, while regular mortgage rates have been relatively steady. There are also stringent savings requirements. They want to see borrowers have at least three months of reserves in their account in case of an emergency. They want to see it in your bank account for at least 60 days. Home prices have been falling in many parts of the country and the safety net of rising prices has been eliminated. With interest rates rising, borrowers with ARMS are facing higher monthly payments. Increases in delinquency rates were noticeably larger for subprime loans, particularly for subprime ARMS. Loan officers want to close the deal – they are not interested in whether the loan is suitable. Many subprime lenders are now going out of business. It now means if you want to buy a house you need to start out the old fashioned way, by saving money. It also means raising your credit rating. This means home sales will fall 50% and stay that way for a long time to come. ... GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM, PALADIUM AND DIAMONDS On Wednesday after visiting $620, after the Comex opening, gold was up all day as was silver. Gold finished up $7.10 to $632.10 and silver rose $0.25 to $12.78. The February gold contract rose $7.40 to $633.30, silver rose $0.17 to $12.89 and copper fell $0.01 to $2.57. Gold open interest rose 944 contracts to 344,685 and silver OI fell 433 contracts to 101,830. On Tuesday the big Tocom shorts cut their net shorts by 8,197 contracts again to total 97,281. This is almost at the low for the last year. Open interest overall on the Tocom hit a new low of 231,279. Goldman covered 1,601 shorts to bring their total to 29,869. They have covered a large 3,600 in just two trading sessions. The big silver shorts reduced their net short position by 615 contracts to 3,847. The XAU on Wednesday rose .72 to 132.86 and the HUI gained 1.77 to 318.12. The Dow ended Wednesday off 5 points to 12,577, S&P fell 12 Dow points and Nasdaq fell 110 Dow equivalent points. Oil rose $1.03 to $52.24 as professionals in Washington and on Wall Street are finally getting the message, and that is, the fall in oil is another manipulation, another rig job. Gas rose $0.01 to $1.38 and natural gas fell $0.40 to $6.23. The euro rose .0017 to $1.2933 after having been up .0050. The pound rose .0085 to $1.9690 after having been up .0101. The Canadian dollar rose .46 to $85.24 and the dollar index fell .09 to 84.76. The 2-year Treasury note yield rose to 4.91% and the 10-year was up to 4.78%. In the final analysis the physical gold market will prevail. The pros and manipulators can use their futures, options and other derivatives, but in the end the physical market will prevail. You are witnessing the greatest transfer of wealthy in the history of the world. You are going to see the biggest financial collapse in history. This is the key factor. The value of the dollar is, of course, important, as is inflation, the financial state of the US and other economies, oil and crisis. Physical gold overrides them all. ... SUBSCRIPTION and RENEWAL INFORMATION: 1-YEAR $129.95 U.S. Funds. Make check payable to ROBERT CHAPMAN (NOT International Forecaster), and mail to P.O. Box 510518, Punta Gorda, FL 33951-0518. Please include name, address, telephone number and e-mail address. We accept Visa and MasterCard charges. Provide us with your card number and expiration date. We will charge your card US$129.95 for a one-year subscription. Foreigners please use foreign U.S. dollar denominated checks or Money Orders. Note: We publish twice a month by surface mail or twice a week by E-mail. international_forecaster@yahoo.com -- Posted Sunday, 21 January 2007 \ \ \ make no mistake about it. If another U.S. president issues a gold-confiscation decree, it will be enforced violently and brutally by federal officials. In the climate of the perpetual “crisis” known as the “war on terrorism,” combined with an “economic emergency,” it is not difficult to imagine that federal officials would conduct warrantless raids on banks to search bank records and safety deposit boxes and prosecute dangerous “enemy combatants” and “terrorist sympathizers” who show they “hate their country” by violating the law against the ownership of gold http://news.goldseek.com/LewRockwell/1169421801.php \ \ \ \ In summary, we know the stocks don't move up (or down) of any meaningful duration without the metals going in the same direction. If you're in agreement then, with silver right at its lower boundary of 24 ,we are going to have one gangbuster of a precious metals stock rally. Those two recent lower boundary highs of 30.95 and 30.99 concern me though. Everything looked okay until late January '06 when the Ratio and the HUI began a descent. Silver kept going up, and even though the HUI and silver price recovered in March, the Ratio continued to decline and outperform. What could be is that we now have a lower upper boundary established at 30-31. The original lower channel boundary of 24 will probably hold and even go lower as silver picks up steam. We shall see. What this means is that perhaps those holding the larger market cap precious metals stocks won't get the leverage this time around that they've been enjoying since 2002. http://news.silverseek.com/CharlestonVoice/1169332497.php \ \ \ http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/ examples of market people who had adopted these principles and classified them as mystic (the secrets of pi), unappreciated (I stood alone in making the forecast), other worldly persons ("the parking lots are as empty as the ships in the harbor"), mathematicians (the lognormal distribution explains it), the traditionalist (the opera chairman, the palindrome and the abstract mathematician use my methods), the Washingtonian (I met with the Fed chair often), the correlation expert (soybeans traditionally fall before a rally in bonds), the loner (I am on an around the world cruise), and the Insider ("a bullet bid has been made"). \ \
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Duncan	21-Jan-07, 11:56 AM (GMT)
3. "time 4 a walk on the wild side"
US man survives 17-storey tumble Mr Hanson fell through the window after running in the corridor An American man has survived after falling 17 floors from the window of a hotel in the US city of Minneapolis. Joshua Hanson, 29, landed on a roof awning and suffered multiple broken bones with some internal injuries, but is expected to recover. Mr Hanson crashed through the floor-to-ceiling window at the end of a corridor after returning to the Hyatt Regency after a night of drinking. Hotel managers said they would investigate the unprecedented incident. Police Lt Dale Barness told the Associated Press that Mr Hanson must have "an angel on his shoulder or something". "He's a lucky guy." Police said Mr Hanson finished drinking with friends and returned to the hotel at about 0130. Lt Barness said that as his lift arrived at the 17th floor he ran down towards the end of the corridor, where he somehow lost balance and crashed through the floor-to-ceiling window. But his fall was broken by the awning one floor above the ground. He was found on the ground and needed to be freed from the awning before being taken to hospital for treatment. \ \ \ Business The Times January 20, 2007 The real-life Hornblower Patrick Hosking Thomas Cochrane was one of Britain’s greatest naval commanders and served as an inspiration for both C.S. Forester’s Hornblower and Patrick O’Brian’s Captain Jack Aubrey. Combining daring with great cunning, he outwitted the French and Spanish enemy on numerous occasions. Later he became a hero to Chile and Brazil as a mercenary admiral in their wars of independence. He hatched ingenious plans to win naval battles. Once he escaped from a Spanish warship by flying a Danish flag and discouraged further investigation by claiming that his ship was plague-ridden. In one David-and-Goliath contest, his 54-man, 14-gun sloop HMS Speedy captured El Gamo of Spain, a 319-man, 32-gun xebec after he disguised himself with the American flag to get close. A maverick and a radical MP, he was an outspoken critic of corruption in the Navy. Yet he brought his military approach to all problems into civilian life, leading to many quarrels and scrapes. He was once court-martialled for allegedly challenging a fellow officer to a duel, and although acquitted was reprimanded for impoliteness. He later fought a real pistol duel after attending a fancy dress ball dressed as a common sailor and being mistaken for one. He was a keen inventor, pioneering chemical warfare with ideas for “stink vessels” using poisonous gas in the early 1800s. In 1812 he secretly married Kitty Barnes, 20 years his junior. In 1831 he succeeded to the title of Earl of Dundonald. He died in 1860, aged 84. \ \ \
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Duncan	21-Jan-07, 02:23 PM (GMT)
4. "head eat"
How Easily Can Your Brain Be Fooled? in Apprenticed Investor | Psychology/Sentiment One of my favorite subjects involving investing are the intellectual errors we humans engage in on regular basis. Most of these foibles are built into our "wetware." The combination of evolutionary developments and our natural tendencies to seek pleasure and avoid pain have led to certain behavioral patterns that undermine our best efforts as investors. As we pointed out in Know Thyself, when it comes to investing, we humans just ain't built for it. Whenever I get questioned on that, I refer to Thomas Gilovich's book "How We Know What Isn't So." Gilovich, a psychology prof a Cornell, details many of the cognitive errors we unknowingly engage in. People regularly push back on this, believing they are rational (or mostly rational) and are free from preconceived biases. This is, of course, utter nonsense. I often come across non-investing examples of how much of our behavior is hardwired and chemical, and where we engage in unconscious automatic tendencies. Our behavior is impacted by factors which we are wholly unaware of. While this may not appear to directly correlate to markets and trading, they indirectly show how easily our brains can be fooled. A fascinating example I came across recently this involves food, diet, and how we eat. Typical diet plans focus on what we eat: fat content, calories, quantity, and exercise (Note that the diet industry is estimated to be $40-100 B per year). It turns out our brains regulate our food consumption in ways we are not conscious of. Often, environmental cues will influence our food intake. Brian Wansink (also of Cornell) has been called the "Sherlock Holmes of Food." He is the director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, and is the author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. Wansink claims that our minds make more than 200 food-related decisions a day -- most of them without any actual thought. It turns out the circumstances of consumption greatly impact how much we consume. Consider these example from Wansink and Mindless Eating: Container size influences how much we eat: Moviegoers given five-day-old stale popcorn still ate 53% more if it was served in a big bucket than a small bucket. Size of a serving bowl, a plate, or a package has repeatedly been shown to bias how much a person serves himself and eats by an average of 20-30%. Glass Shapes: Because of visual illusions, people (even bartenders) pour 28% more liquid into a short wide glasses than tall ones. We eat more if we like what we're drinking: In one study, diners drank the same wine but 1/2 were told it was from California, and the other 1/2 were told it was North Dakota wine (No, ND does not make wine). Those who thought they were drinking California wine ate 11% more food. Bulk Purchases: 50% of the snack foods bought in bulk (such as at a warehouse club store) are eaten within 6 days of when it is purchased (Wansink and his Food and Brand Lab have been credited with the discovery of the 100 calorie packs) Names of a food can create either positive or negative predispositions that can unfairly bias a person's perceived taste of a food. Self Service: A person will eat an average of 92% of any food they serve themselves. We don't pay attention to the extras: 31% of people leaving an Italian restaurant couldn't remember how much bread they ate; 12% of the bread eaters denied having eaten any bread at all. We eat more if the evidence is removed: In a study of chicken-wing eaters, waitresses removed the bones from half the tables while letting them stack up on the other half. The diners who still had piles of bones on their plates ate 28% less. Too much variety makes us overeat: Snackers were given bowls of M&Ms with either 7 or 10 colors of the candy. Snackers with 10 color options ate an average of 43 more candies than those with just 7 colors to choose from. Proximity of candy on one’s desk has been shown to double how much a person eats over the course of a day Friends make you eat more: You'll eat 35% more dining with a friend than when eating alone. Even worse, a person will double the amount of food ingested when dining in a group of 7 or more. Eating fast makes you consume more calories: Consider this University of Rhode Island study on diet: researchers showed the speed at which we eat influences caloric intake. Faster eaters consumed on average 67 more calories then when they ate slowly. That's about seven pounds of per year. (People also reported feeling more full after eating slowly). What does this have to do with markets and investing? It turns out, a whole lot. Many of our behaviors and belief systems are based upon elements we are wholly unaware of. We believe in myths, make false assumptions, overtrade, and engage in many investing behaviors that are destructive -- most of the time completely oblivious to them. Investors are well served if they become aware of these tendencies -- and take steps to avoid fooling their own brains. > Source: Brian Wansink John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing http://aem.cornell.edu/faculty_content/wansink.htm Food and Brand Lab Cornell University Department of Applied Economics and Management http://foodpsychology.cornell.edu/ Latest Weight-Loss Advice: Slow Down and Pay Attention TARA PARKER-POPE WSJ, January 16, 2007; Page D1 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116891615189277255.html The diet business: Banking on failure Laura Cummings BBC News Online, Wednesday, 5 February, 2003, 10:03 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2725943.stm Sunday, January 21, 2007 | 08:44 AM | \ \ \
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Duncan	21-Jan-07, 03:18 PM (GMT)
5. "seti looks to move south"
\ \ \ Libya to axe public sector staff The Libyan government is to lay off 400,000 people - more than a third of its workforce - to ease public spending and stimulate the private sector. Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi told parliament the number of civil servants had become excessive. Mr Mahmudi said redundant staff would receive three years' salary or a loan to start their own business. He said he wanted to encourage the private sector to manufacture goods to compete with foreign imports. Correspondents say almost all of Libya's foreign earnings are derived from oil production. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi regularly criticises his own government for being too reliant on oil and on foreign imported goods. \ \ \
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Duncan	21-Jan-07, 08:24 PM (GMT)
6. "how 2 feel happy = work on the real deal and know how you are going to get paid"
d poor mans nightmare rich mans plaything On 21 Jan 2007, at 19:15, m wrote: Britain is heading for the gambling centre of the world That is why they are now allowing net gambling site to run from the uk The way they see it is like this; we cannot stop people gambling on the net So we might as well let the companies locate here and at least we have the jobs With the U S banning them so the UK might as well encourage them From: duncan robertson Revealed: march of the new casinos Green light for 90 gambling sites Minister admits danger of addiction \ \ \ d long walks in forest with dog today and yesterday helps big clears out mind and helps breathing and you is breathing in clean air and no noise and good exercise i do pull ups on mat early morning pre dawn; helps and some dumbbell work while reading screen somehow exercise helps me think clearer jim rogers has laptop on a stand while he studies markets while doing walking machine - he says it helps him understand he dont like dead time; he likes to multi task \ \ \
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Duncan	22-Jan-07, 04:53 AM (GMT)
7. "bear markets start when the skies are blue and bull markets start when despair and apathy are in the air"
Leading Canadian banker recommends gold, denounces fiat system Submitted by cpowell on 11:06AM ET Sunday, January 21, 2007. Section: Daily Dispatches 11a ET Sunday, January 21, 2007 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Gold got a stirring endorsement and the central bank system of infinite money a denunciation last week from a remarkable source -- a leading banker in Canada's financial establishment. The banker, Anthony S. Fell, chairman of RBC Capital Markets and former president of Royal Bank of Canada, delivered the endorsement and denunciation at RBC's client appreciation dinner in Vancouver. Fell's remarks on gold and the excesses of the fiat money system came at the conclusion of his address at the dinner and were forwarded to GATA today by a friend who was in the audience. Fell's remarks are excerpted below. CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. * * * By Anthony S. Fell, Chairman RBC Capital Markets Vancouver Client Appreciation Dinner Four Seasons Hotel, Vancouver Thursday, January 18, 2007 .... I would not want to close off the evening without tabling one opportunity for all of us to make money, safeguard our wealth, and protect ourselves from the ravages of inflation over the next many years -- and that is gold bullion. Gold bullion is a secretive, opaque market with little transparency. Gold can be volatile, is almost impossible to forecast on a short-term basis, and requires great patience, and, accordingly, it's not for short-term traders but rather for serious long-term investors. Is gold a currency, a commodity, or a store of value? The answer is all three, but gold bullion is primarily a currency and a store of value and is a hedge against fiat paper money and inflation. As an economic consultant in 1966 Alan Greenspan wrote: "In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process." At Royal Bank we trade gold bullion off our foreign exchange desks rather than our commodity desks because that's what it's is -- a global currency. As J.P. Morgan said in 1913: "Gold is money and nothing more." It was Alan Greenspan again who said in a 1999 testimony before the U.S. House Banking Committee that "gold represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." Gold bullion is the only currency worldwide which is freely tradable and which is unencumbered by vast quantities of sovereign debt and prior obligations. Gold bullion is the one investment and long-term store of value which cannot be adversely impacted by corrupt corporate management or incompetent politicians -- each of which are in ample supply on a global basis. As a currency and a store of value gold has stood the test of many centuries. At the current level of about $625 per ounce, gold has risen about 250 percent over the last five years. Nevertheless, I believe gold bullion is now in the very early stages of a long-term secular bull market which will carry it to much higher levels over the coming decade. I don't think there's any point in speculating how high the price of gold might go in the course of this cycle because no one can be that precise. Suffice to say I anticipate a material increase. History doesn't repeat but it's well to remember that from 1970 to 1980 gold rose 2,300 percent so it shows what can happen. Reflecting on the long-term outlook for gold, it is important to fully appreciate that we now live in a world of fiat paper money. Just as a reminder, fiat paper money, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is inconvertible paper money made legal tender by government decree. The real question over the long term is: How much confidence do you have in politicians and central bankers to maintain the purchasing power of their currencies? Since the U.S. moved to fiat paper money in 1971, the dollar has lost 80 percent of its purchasing power. Since the Federal Reserve was established 93 years ago, the dollar has lost 98 percent of its purchasing power. The new fiat U.S. dollar system has been in place for only 35 years -- not long when you consider the sad and sorry record of fiat paper money around the globe throughout the past century or two. I would say the jury is very much out on this new system. What will the record of the U.S. dollar be in another 20 or 30 years? Recent history does not augur well and it could be much worse. The U.S. annual trade deficit, now running at a rate of more than three-quarters of a trillion annually, or 6.3 percent of GDP, is a huge concern. It's not prudent for the U.S. to depend on foreign bond buyers to finance domestic consumption. Asian countries produce low-cost goods which are shipped to the United States, the U.S. ships dollars back to Asia, and then the Asians purchase U.S. treasuries. One could say this is a giant international Ponzi scheme. I don't think this model is viable or sustainable. Asian central banks will not want to accumulate U.S. dollars at the current rate forever. There is no free lunch. Virtuous circles like this, where everyone appears a winner, always come to an unhappy ending. We have never before experienced imbalances in global trade and foreign exchange of the current magnitude -- not even close. Major currency realignment is coming, and the longer it is delayed, the more the risk of the crisis. You can't hold back the tide. The ingredients are here for major trouble in global financial and foreign exchange markets. For all these reasons, I believe the stature and reputation of the U.S. dollar as a store of value have been greatly diminished and undermined over the past decade. In light of all this, I believe gold bullion will gradually re-emerge as an accepted alternative asset and investment. Over the past few years the price of gold has been in a clear uptrend against the U.S. dollar, the euro, the yen, the Indian rupee, and the renminbi. I think this trend will continue and accelerate as events unfold. Another factor is that I believe over the past decade there has been a substantial increase in systemic risk in the global financial system, which has benefited greatly from an extended period of incredibly low interest rates, easy credit, and what can only be described as massive liquidity. History shows that such an environment can, and usually does, foster a degree of complacency. In the financial and investment business memories are short and every generation has to learn the hard way. Leverage in virtually every area of the financial markets has increased. Financial products are now infinitely more complex. There is, at present, an unwarranted optimism that the business cycle is a thing of the past, that central banks with infinite wisdom are in firm control and will be able to thread the needle between inflation and deflation, and that we will never again have a major foreign-exchange or financial crisis. Well, I don't believe it, and the record shows that gold bullion represents a solid store of value in times of economic and financial distress. Over the coming decade, global gold production will be static to declining while governments around the world continue to increase the money supply at a rapid rate. If there is an "event" and a crisis develops, they will print money even faster. The arithmetic is compelling. Total gold production since the beginning of time is estimated at 5 billion ounces valued at about $3.2 trillion at current prices now scattered around the world in jewellery, artifacts. and gold bars in safety deposit boxes. Annual gold production is now running at about 76 million ounces, which means that the above-ground stock of gold is increasing at about 1.5 percent per year. In contrast, central banks around the world are probably printing money and creating credit at the annual rate of 5 to 10 percent per annum. Recently in China the money supply has been increasing at a rate of 18 percent. These numbers dictate that gold prices are destined to go much higher. In short, the global supply of fiat paper money is increasing perhaps four times faster than the physical supply of gold bullion, and sooner or later this will be reflected in the market. It's like a coiled spring. Major gold companies are not replacing reserves and major discoveries are incredibly rare. Investors forget that at most gold mines you have to move 35 to 40 tons of dirt and rock just to get one ounce. On the other hand, fiat paper money can be printed by pressing a button on a computer. It's quite interesting if you've noticed what's happening to paper money. Not so many years ago millions of dollars seemed like a lot of money. Then we started talking about hundreds of millions and then we were thinking in terms of billions. Then a billion became petty change and we started to talk in terms of hundreds of billions and now you hear the word "trillion" more and more. The next stage will be hundreds of trillions. Recently an "old master" painting was auctioned in New York for $94 million. Just based on common sense, we have to ask ourselves: Is that painting really worth $94 million, or has the U.S. dollar become just like so much confetti? I think we know the answer. When Mr. Nardelli was recently fired as CEO of Home Depot he received a settlement of $210 million. The CEO of Pfizer received a settlement of $240 million when he was let go. A condo in New York trades for $80 million. What does all this say about the value of money? Finally, there is a great deal of skepticism about the future of gold, which is a very positive factor. Investors forget that bear markets start when the skies are blue and bull markets start when despair and apathy are in the air. At present most major investors now regard gold and gold shares with apathy and even distain and are vastly underweight the sector. The vast majority of investors are so short-term oriented they just don't see the big picture unfolding. When the price of crude oil bottomed out at $10.70 a barrel on Christmas Day in 1998 and the front cover of the Economist magazine was forecasting a glut of oil and a price of $5 a barrel, you couldn't give oil or gas stocks away. Now just seven years later, even after the recent decline, the price of oil is up five times. What a difference a few years can make. Similarly, with the price of uranium at $7 a pound at the end of December 2000 you couldn't give away either uranium or uranium stocks. Now that uranium has increased by 1,000 percent to $70 a pound, investors are driving uranium stocks to all-time highs. The market just didn't see it coming -- it happens all the time. So it is my view that, after a 20-year bear market from 1980 to 2000, the past few years represent a major positive turning point in the fundamental long-term outlook for gold bullion. Gold is a hedge against inflation and, as a result of the excesses of the past 15 years, I believe there is more inflation in the pipeline than is generally anticipated -- perhaps quite a bit more -- just like the 1970s. I believe any surprises on the inflation front will be on the upside. To some extent, I regret to say, all paper currencies are becoming somewhat suspect, and accordingly it is my view that gold bullion, rather than being the barbarous relic described by John Maynard Keynes, may well become the asset of choice for many investors over the coming decade. I have always been told to buy quality assets that are vastly undervalued and that have been ignored by the marketplace for a prolonged period. Notwithstanding the modest rise in gold prices over the past few years, that is where gold bullion is today, and it represents a great opportunity. \ \ \
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Duncan	22-Jan-07, 05:49 AM (GMT)
8. "oil demand fell for the first time in 20 years and that can not be signaling much of anything other than a global slowdown"
m Look at all the jobs it creates Las vegas, can you imagine what it would be like without gambling, a desert From: duncan robertson poor mans nightmare rich mans plaything On 21 Jan 2007, at 19:15, m wrote: Britain is heading for the gambling centre of the world \ \ \ m Clear mind is great if one can sustain it Williams talks in the book about righting for clearing the mind The problem you have is your opinions, to strong Thought is our worst enemy, without thought we would do well -----Original Message----- From: duncan robertson long walks in forest with dog today and yesterday helps big clears out mind and helps breathing and you is breathing in clean air and no noise and good exercise i do pull ups on mat early morning pre dawn; helps and some dumbbell work while reading screen somehow exercise helps me think clearer jim rogers has laptop on a stand that he studies markets while doing walking machine - he says it helps him understand he dont like dead time; he likes to multi task \ \ \ m Just looking at all fx instruments, very interesting Many b o on them whether sustainable who knows But they all move differently to each other \ \ \ China's multi-billion-dollar question Submitted by cpowell on 02:41PM ET Sunday, January 21, 2007. Section: Daily Dispatches By Richard McGregor Financial Times, London Sunday, January 21, 2007 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/cf2b2a5c-a989-11db-9185-0000779e2340.html With a vaguely worded statement from Wen Jiabao, China's premier, at the close of a weekend meeting in Beijing on finance policy, the die has been cast for a momentous change in the management of the country's massive foreign exchange reserves. Mr. Wen said the management of the reserves, the world's largest at more than a thousand billion dollars, should be improved and the channels through which they are invested diversified. Such remarks might seem to be little more than common sense but, against the backdrop of an intense, year-long debate in China about how to use the money, Mr. Wen's remarks represent a decisive policy shift. Everyone from senior leaders to local policy entrepreneurs has been floating ideas about how to use the money, ranging from funding education and health systems to buying foreign oil and stocks. Such policy proposals can now be put forward for possible adoption. Once a plan has been implemented, in five to 10 years, Beijing could preside over one of the world's largest and most powerful investment agencies. The debate thus far has irritated some economic policymakers who testily point out that the reserves cannot simply be spent as they represent assets on the central bank's balance sheet. The government, or some agency under its control, would have to account for the funds in some fashion, perhaps through the issuance of bonds to the People's Bank of China. But the PBoC has already used $60 billion (46 billion euros, 30 billion pounds) to recapitalise the big state banks through Central Huijin Investment, the holding company for state assets under its control. That bailout set a precedent that others are keen to follow. Mr. Wen did not endorse any specific plan but has indicated the government will consider proposals on how to use some of the money -– now mostly locked up in US Treasury bonds –- more aggressively. Initial projections for the amount of money that could be more actively managed are $200 billion to $300 billion but Mr. Wen shed no light on this. "China will diversify the use of its reserves but, as to how it is actually done, there are still some different ideas," said Ha Jiming, an economist with China International Capital Corp., a local investment bank. "There will almost certainly be some outsourcing as a result -– it's difficult for the government to manage the reserves this way and invest abroad." The government will take some time to sort through the bureaucratic competition developing round a plan to establish a state body to oversee any investment of the reserves. Huijin has long been discussed as a potential vehicle but the Ministry of Finance, which sees the reserves as its to manage, is battling to establish a role for itself in any new agency. Mr. Wen said at the meeting's close that China should take "various measures to improve the basic balance of international payments" -- a statement just as important as the issue of reserves management. Beijing's reserves could double within four years based on current projections, driven mainly by an ever-expanding trade surplus. As long as Beijing maintains its present posture of allowing only an incremental appreciation of its currency, the renminbi, and runs a large trade surplus, its reserves will continue to balloon. Beijing's policy has long been to have its global trade basically balanced but announcements recommitting the country to such a path have reached a peak in recent weeks. Such statements appear to reflect rising awareness in Beijing of growing impatience in Washington and Brussels, where perceptions that China is pursuing unfair trade policies are hardening. Combined with suspicions about China's geopolitical ambitions, a failure to address such perceptions risks political confrontation between China and the US and Europe. Such tensions could also have a practical impact on China's ambitions to put its reserves to better use and the W'st’s efforts to bring Beijing closer into the prevailing global order. In a hostile world, the US and Europe might not welcome Chinese investments, especially the purchase of assets such as raw materials. That would propel China to look for more properties in countries such as Sudan and Iran -– a path that would raise tensions even further. \ \ \ Liberty is not for these slaves; I do not advocate inflicting it against their conscience. On the contrary, I am strongly in favor of letting them crawl and grovel all they please before whatever fraud or combination of frauds they choose to venerate...Our whole practical government is grounded in mob psychology and.. the Boobus Americanus will follow any command that promises to make him safer." --H. L. Menchen -- 1956. -- = O liberty! O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!: Madame Jeanne-Marie Roland = The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understands the minds of other men and women…: Learned Hand = He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself: Thomas Paine = Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down: Frederick Douglass = He who dares not offend cannot be honest: Thomas Paine === Read this newsletter online http://tinyurl.com/dy6yy === Number Of Iraqi Civilians Slaughtered In America's War On Iraq - At Least 655,000 + + http://tinyurl.com/usq4x Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America'sWar On Iraq 3,052 http://icasualties.org/oif/ The U.S. War On Iraq Costs $359,821,930,371 See the cost in your community http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182 === Robert Fisk: Fear climate change, not our enemies By Robert Fisk Did we really think that after we had impoverished them and destroyed so many of their children; after a generation of Iraqis had been "physically and morally crippled", they were going to welcome our "liberation"? From this wreckage of Iraq was bound to come the insurgencies and the hatreds now tearing its people apart and destroying the presidency of George W. Bush and the prime ministership of Tony Blair. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16243.htm === The Arabs' feelings of love and hate for Saddam Hussein By Ramzy Baroud I am certainly not a fan of tyranny. I've spoken out against human-rights violations since my early years. In Cairo, I stood in alliance with students protesting government crackdowns; in Seattle, I marched for equal opportunities for African-American students demanding the preservation of affirmative action. I lived most of my life in a Palestinian refugee camp, under Israeli military occupation in Gaza. http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/36/2/ === First Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran! The Israel Lobby Trips and Tilts By Alexander Cockburn For weeks now the lobby has hurled its legions into battle against Carter. He has been stigmatized as an anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier, a patron of former concentration camp killers, a Christian madman, a pawn of the Arabs who “flatly condones mass murder” of Israeli Jews. (This last was from Murdoch’s New York Post editorial, relayed to its mailing list by the Zionist Organization of America.) http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/35/2/ === UK Spying On Muslims Who Visit Mecca By David Leppard THE intelligence agencies are monitoring every Muslim who travels from Britain to Mecca on pilgrimage in a wider effort to piece together intelligence on suspected Al-Qaeda terrorist activity. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16245.htm === The Beginning of the End for Corporate-Led Globalization? By William Greider If Congress can protect the rights of dogs and cats in foreign trade, will it do the same for the young girls -- some as young as 11 -- who work in sweatshops? They stitch garments for as little as 6 cents an hour and typically work twelve- to sixteen-hour days, sometimes longer and often in brutal conditions. http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/37/1/ === Lying Like It’s 2003 By Frank Rich Scooter Libby, the mastermind behind the White House’s bogus scenarios for ginning up the war in Iraq, is back at Washington’s center stage, proudly defending the indefensible in a perjury trial. Ahmad Chalabi, the peddler of flawed prewar intelligence hyped by Mr. Libby, is back in clover in Baghdad, where he purports to lead the government’s Shiite-Baathist reconciliation efforts in between visits to his pal Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16244.htm === Diseases kills hundreds in south Sudan : Meningitis and another unknown disease have killed at least 1,000 people in one week in south Sudan, the governor of Warap state has said. http://tinyurl.com/3crnwf === Iraq: At least 35 killed as U.S. occupation grinds on : 6 occupation force soldiers killed in occupied Iraq http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM340982.htm === Al-Sadr ends parliamentary boycott : The political movement of Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shia leader, has said it will end a two-month boycott of parliament, signalling an easing of tensions with its Shia allies in the US-backed government. http://tinyurl.com/2p2ya8 === Troops as pawns: The True Face Of This Administration Fully Revealed: I cannot imagine in any other democracy that the person who made this statement would not immediately be told to resign from his non-elected high office of influence http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/16/9288/25225 === Defense official says Pentagon hid unspent funds in accounts : The Pentagon has hidden at least $1.4 billion in other agencies' accounts instead of returning unspent money to the U.S. Treasury, the Defense Department's internal watchdog told Congress Wednesday http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-01-17-pentagon-funds_x.htm === Iraqi president urges US to talk to Syria: - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is urging the United States to talk with Syria, claiming in an interview that Damascus "supports" Iraq in fighting the insurgency. http://tinyurl.com/2ro8h2 === Rice: More Iran sanctions may come : "I think people ought to think about the risk of further sanctions. The United States is clearly sanctioning Iranian banks and our laws are very tough on those who deal with banks that we have sanctioned." http://www.gulfnews.com/region/Iran/10098429.html === Iran plans 3 days of missile war games: Iran plans three days of military maneuvers, including short-range missile tests, beginning Sunday — its first since the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions against it in late December, state-run television said. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070121/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_missile_tests === Iran’s strongman loses grip as ayatollah offers nuclear deal: IRAN’S supreme leader is considering a change of policy on the country’s nuclear programme in an effort to defuse growing tension with the West, according to senior sources in Tehran. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2557946,00.html === War pimp alert: Netanyahu: West must stop Iran from executing new Holocaust: Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday passionately called on the world to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions in its tracks by imposing sanctions on the Tehran regime. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/815991.html === Netanyahu: Aim to bring down Hamas : Opposition leader says Israel should aim to bring down Hamas government, urges Jewish community to promote awareness of Iranian threat http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3354995,00.html === Jewish Groups Head to Emirates, as Worries Grow Over Iran : The main umbrella group of American Jewish organizations is set to visit Dubai and Abu Dhabi next month in a sign of the growing concern among Sunni regimes over Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions. http://tinyurl.com/2vnzfn === Occupied Palastine: Impossible travel : All the promises to relax restrictions in the West Bank have obscured the true picture. A few roadblocks have been removed, but the following prohibitions have remained in place. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=815559 === "A true friend of Israel" Shalom, Ayalon Respond to Clinton Candidacy : She supported Israel’s right to build the separation wall after the international court in the Hague ruled that it should be removed. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=119887 === China tries to reassure the world on space missile 'aimed at peace'; China signalled yesterday that its first missile strike against an orbiting satellite was intended to force the US into talks aimed at abolishing weapons in space http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2556823,00.html === US asks Czechs to host radar base : The United States has asked the Czech Republic to host a key part of its global anti-missile system, the country's prime minister has said. http://tinyurl.com/2q66fp === Tribe: U.S., not Pakistan, hit village: Tribesmen from a Pakistani mountain village where an airstrike hit a suspected al-Qaida hideout claimed Friday that missiles were fired from an American plane and denied the dead were terrorists. http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/16498800.htm === Abid Ullah Jan: General Musharraf is tightening the noose around his neck : The U.S. forces attacked the border town of Zamzola in South Waziristan on January 16, 2007, killing at least 8 civilians. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. He reported eight “militants” were killed and 10 wounded. http://tinyurl.com/3877e9 === Taliban militants to open own schools in occupied Afghanistan: The Taliban said it will open its own schools in areas of southern Afghanistan under its control, an apparent effort to win support among local residents and undermine the Western-backed government's efforts to expand education. http://tinyurl.com/2paxjo === Initial Rule By Decree Bill Approved For Chavez: The country's National Assembly has passed its initial approval of the bill that will allow President Hugo Chavez to rule by decree for 18 months. It is expected to easily gain final approval on its second reading at the assembly next week. http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7006182589 === Chavez tells US to 'go to hell': A State Department spokesman on Friday said Mr Chavez's reform plans have caused "some concern," describing the proposal allowing presidents to rule by decree as "a bit odd" in a democracy. http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/0121/breaking41.htm === Chávez accuses telecom of spying: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on Friday accused his nation's main telecommunications company of spying on him and suggested it was at the bidding of the United States. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/16504256.htm === Bush Orders More CIA Activity in Venezuela: Current CIA chief General Michael V. Hayden revealed President George W. Bush had requested his agency “pay more attention” to the activities of President Hugo Chávez and his government in Venezuela. http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2196 === U.S., Iran and Venezuelan battling for influence in Ortega's new Nicaragua : The U.S. is again battling leftists in Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua. This time, the fight is being waged not with guns and guerrilla warfare, but with free tractors, health clinics and donated electrical plants. http://tinyurl.com/33mmm8 === UK admits prior knowledge of secret CIA prison network : British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett admitted Friday in a written response to a parliamentary question that Britain was "aware of the existence of a secret US detention program" prior to a September speech by President Bush acknowledging the existence of CIA-operated secret prisons http://tinyurl.com/2nexfq === Guantanamo "fails to meet basic British standards": The U.S. detention centre in Guantanamo fails to meet even basic British standards for prisoners, MPs who visited the base said on Sunday. http://tinyurl.com/36b7ab === US prison is 'threat' to Geneva treaties: THE United States is undermining international law by unilaterally rejecting demands to grant detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp protection against mistreatment and torture, an influential committee of British MPs has warned. http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=107542007 === World Social Forum focuses on Africa's economic struggles: More than 80,000 people gathered for an annual anticapitalism conference yesterday in Kenya's capital and marched on Nairobi's largest slum to protest globalization policies they say hurt the poor. http://tinyurl.com/38z5gu === Empire And U.S. History: Video Debate: Noam Chomsky vs. William F. Buckley http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16240.htm === Surge in carbon levels raises fears of runaway warming: Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than scientists expected, raising fears that humankind may have less time to tackle climate change than previously thought. http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1994071,00.html === Landmark UN study backs climate theory: 2,000 scientists all but end the debate: Human activity causes global warming http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16242.htm === Tony Blair top aid arrested over 'cash for honors': Video: Turner was arrest and questioned in connection to the "cash for honours" affair. Three others with close connections to Tony Blair have also been arrested. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16241.htm === Custodial deaths highest in India: Arundhati Roy: India accounts for the highest number of custodial deaths, writer-activist Arundhati Roy said Thursday, arguing that atrocities against tribals would lead to a violent situation. http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/21541.htmlhs_highest_in_india_arundhati_roy.html === Google News As Censors? We think the exclusion of alternative media through search engines results is government/corporate tactics to harness the free flow of information on the Internet. http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m29900&hd=&size=1&l=e === \ \ \ Dog-owners 'lead healthier lives' Dogs can provide companionship If you want to live a healthier life get a dog, research suggests. The companionship offered by many pets is thought to be good for you, but the benefits of owning a dog outstrip those of cat owners, the study says. A psychologist from Queen's University, Belfast, said dog owners tended to have lower blood pressure and cholesterol. Writing in the British Journal of Health Psychology, she says that regular 'walkies' may partly explain the difference. Dr Deborah Wells reviewed dozens of earlier research papers which looked at the health benefits of pet ownership. In some cases, the social support offered by an animal is greater than the support than another human could offer Dr June McNicholas Health psychologist She confirmed that pet owners tended in general to be healthier than the average member of the population. However, her research suggested that dog ownership produced more positive influence than cat ownership. As well as lower blood pressure and cholesterol, she said dog-owners suffered fewer minor ailments and serious medical problems. There was also the suggestion that dogs could aid recovery from serious illnesses such as heart attacks, and act as 'early warning' to detect an approaching epileptic seizure. Stress-busting Dr Wells said the precise reason for the benefits was not totally clear. "It is possible that dogs can directly promote our well-being by buffering us from stress, one of the major risk factors associated with ill-health. "The ownership of a dog can also lead to increases in physical activity and facilitate the development of social contacts, which may enhance both physiological and psychological human health in a more indirect manner." Dr June McNicholas, a health psychologist who has specialised on research into the health effects of pet ownership said that an important reason for the improved health of dog-owners was not just the exercise received while taking it for walks, but the opportunity for social contact with other dog-owners. She said: "For older people, an animal can fulfil the 'need to be needed', perhaps after children have left home. "In some cases, the social support offered by an animal is greater than the support than another human could offer." \ \ \ Peerage auction affair: it is Labour who should 'shut up' By Janet Daley Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 22/01/2007 Comment on this story Read comments If one of my trusted colleagues had a knock on the door from the police at 6.30am, I suppose that I would be shocked and maybe even outraged. I might be inclined to make comments publicly to the effect that the police were being "theatrical" or unnecessarily intimidating. But then, I am not a member of the governing party which has spent the past decade telling the country that what it most needs is reverence for the law and a renewed respect for the authority of the police. Rather mixed signals here, no? When a clutch of the Prime Minister's friends rushes to the microphones to suggest that the manner in which one of his aides was arrested was a gross impertinence, and imply that the police really are getting above themselves, what is the hoodie (or the Muslim terrorist suspect) in the street to conclude? That there is one law for him and another for friends of Mr Blair? advertisement Let's get one thing straight from the start: we have no idea at this stage whether Ruth Turner, or Lord Levy, or Jonathan Powell, or any of the other Blairite acolytes whose names have been, as they would have it, traduced, will be charged with anything in the great peerage auction affair. But there was nothing inherently peculiar or irregular about the manner of Miss Turner's arrest last week. The fact that it took place at her home so early in the morning was routine under the circumstances. The reason that she was not simply served with a request to turn up at police headquarters for a chat (as Lord Levy had been) is first that the police were apparently intending to carry out a search of her premises for evidence and second, that they were intending to question her about the very serious offence of "perverting the course of justice" (unlike those other Labour figures who had given their testimony under more relaxed circumstances). If the police have a warrant to go over your house for what they think might be incriminating evidence, they do not ring you up to make an appointment, thereby possibly giving you time to destroy such evidence: that is standard procedure. It is outrageous for experienced ministers (particularly a former Home Secretary such as David Blunkett) to suggest that Miss Turner's known integrity should somehow have been taken into account by the police and that she should therefore have received an advance warning of their impending visit. It is not for the police to make character judgments about people who are to be arrested under suspicion of a crime. No ordinary person, not even a highly placed business figure caught up in, say, a fraud case, could expect such consideration. And surely politicians and government officials, given their extraordinary power and privileges, should be seen to be given less, not more, favour and special treatment by the police than any private person. This new possibility of charges being brought as a consequence of an alleged cover-up moved the scale of the police operation and the criteria of appropriateness for their actions on to a different level. (At any rate, it is generally thought more benign for the police to arrest people at home rather than at their place of work, which might be thought to expose them to professional humiliation: catching people at home on a working day means early morning.) There has been no suggestion, even from the most lickspittle Blair loyalists, that police behaviour toward Miss Turner on the morning in question was anything other than courteous and professional. So what is it that is being insinuated by all those fulminating Labour spokesmen: that the police are out to get them in some calculated payback for having been briefed against by Downing Street? Or that the Metropolitan Police, tired of taking the rap for failed Blairite crime initiatives, is playing power politics: trying to push Mr Blair out of office at the behest of Gordon Brown and his allies? Or that Assistant Commissioner John Yates is trying to make a name for himself with publicity-seeking actions? Do the Labour politicians who are shooting their mouths off have no idea that what they are saying will be seen as an attempt to smear the police and impugn their professional motives? To spell it out, here is what it amounts to: that Britain's police are a politically driven, self-serving force whose judgments are determined by base interests and vindictiveness, and that the relationship between government and the criminal justice system is one of personal rivalry and distrust. In short, our standards of law enforcement are scarcely above those of a third world tinpot dictatorship. You may think that I exaggerate. But what else are we to make of it when a Downing Street source describes the circumstances of Miss Turner's arrest as "a classic shakedown", and Lord Puttnam publicly demands that the police "put up or shut up" on their suspicions about Downing Street personnel? "Put up or shut up"? Is this the way government spokesmen are accustomed to discussing the proceedings of the criminal justice system? Whom exactly do they think they are talking to? And, for that matter, who the hell do they think they are? If, in fact, any of them has been guilty of, in the first instance, selling peerages, and then engaging in a cover-up of that activity (which is to say, perverting the course of justice), establishing the facts of the matter will be a long and complex process in rather the way that financial fraud investigations are long and complex. Such crimes – if indeed they have been committed – and the behaviour that they entail are sophisticated and ambiguous. So there is nothing inherently odd about the number of arrests without charge that Mr Yates has carried out. The police may be quite mistaken in their assumptions. That remains to be seen – and is perhaps for the courts to decide. If they are proved right, and their suspicions are not groundless, there will be a serious price to be paid by all conscientious politicians, who will need to spend a great proportion of their energy rebuilding trust in the democratic process. If the police are wrong, they will pay the price in public confidence. But all that is yet to come. What is beyond doubt is that the damage that is being done to the credibility of law enforcement by government spokesmen, out of pure political expediency, is inexcusable. \ \ \ spa I think that oil and oil can go a little lower, but it is clear to me that they are near breakout, ending as they are a forth symetrical wave. Next is wave five up. \ \ \ d crowd people talk;but dont understand enough; and are manipulated by peer psychology; and far too concerned about what others think of them; they are not of independent mind; they disappear with time; more participants, the markets ate alive \ \ \ http://www.safehaven.com/article-6742.htm \ \ \
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Duncan	22-Jan-07, 06:00 AM (GMT)
9. "a global explosion in debt levels and a universal biding up of asset prices"
January 21, 2007 The US Economy: Where is the Bush Boom Heading? by Gerard Jackson "The economy has entered a new era", wrote one financial journalist while another exclaimed that a "new epoch in economics" had arrived. Needless to say, these Pollyanna statements were typical of the economic slop that was served up during the Clinton boom. However, just because the same ideologically motivated commentators cannot find anything good say about the Bush boom this should not lead Republicans into wrongfully thinking that President Bush's tax cuts -- vital as they are for economic growth -- have created an economic nirvana. I've said on numerous occasions that history does not repeat itself: it's just that people keep making the same mistakes because they deliberately ignore the lessons of history. This also goes for most economists -- especially so in Australia. It is true that during the Clinton boom a few economic commentators made a comparison between it and the "Roaring Twenties", warning that history might repeat itself. Even so, they still could not get a handle on the problem. The great American boom of the 1920s was also hailed as a "New Era", one, so it was thought, that heralded permanent prosperity for the American people. A stable price level and booming output convinced the likes of Keynes and Professor Fisher that a new era had indeed arrived, with Keynes describing Federal Reserve Board's monetary management as a "triumph" -- a triumph whose economic and political denouement was the Great Depression. (Though Fisher was later ridiculed for his optimism, Keynes was praised for his 'wisdom'.) Investment in the capital structure of about 6.4 per cent a year caused manufacturing productivity per worker to rise by 43 per cent while prices remained relatively stable. By 1929 America was producing virtually as many cars as in 1953, the sale of electrical products tripled, spending on radios rose from about $10.7 million dollars in 1920 to more than $411 million by 1929, a prolonged building boom provided millions of Americans with their first house. That the period was marked by rapidly rising consumption was not disputed. There was, however, a dark side to this success story. Despite the rise in productivity many workers found it difficult to maintain their purchasing power. The increasing movement of married women into the workforce at this time tends to lend support to this view. Although the 1920s is considered by some to be the greatest boom period in US history the greatly neglected boom of 1896-1903 exceeded it, certainly in terms of physical production though not in financial folly. Statistics show that nearly half of the rise in productivity during the 1920s took place from 1921 to 1923. US Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal that average real wages (excluding agriculture) rose by just over 6 per cent from 1921 to 1929. Needless to say, this average concealed considerable differences in pay rates. What happened was that the attempt at price stabilisation skewed consumption and created an imbalance in production. (What the Austrian school would call misdirected production or malinvestments.) The rapid progress in productivity should have seen the price level gently decline. Convinced by the likes of Fisher, Gustav Cassel and Sir Ralph Hawtrey that allowing prices to fall was a bad thing, the Federal Reserve engaged upon massive credit expansion by forcing down the discount rate. The result was that though the number of dollar bills remained comparatively stable ($3.68 billion in 1920 compared with $3.64 billion in 1929) credit grew from $45.3 billion in June 1921 to $73 billion in July 1929, a 61 per cent rise. It was this rapid expansion that fuelled the stock market frenzy and created malinvestments by discoordinating the market process. However, by the end of 1928 the inflation was over. Total money supply stood at $73 billion on December 31, 1928 and $73.26 billion on the 29 June 1929. One argument advanced in support of the price stabilisation doctrine is based on the fallacy that any general fall in prices is by definition deflationary and will thus depress business activity and raise unemployment. This view makes no distinction between a money induced fall in prices caused by a monetary contraction and falling prices caused by rising productivity. Nonetheless, economic commentators argue that the period 1870-90 was a deflationary one in the US and that it was "excess capacity" that drove prices down while "production boomed. (This kind of nonsense is to be found in the Australian media along with silly comments about the gold standard and "robber barons"). The Australian Financial Review seriously argued (14 September 1998, p. 38) the case for the "excess capacity" thesis. It evidently did not occur to the author that booming output is incompatible with 'excess capacity'. Moreover, he admitted that falling prices were caused not by a monetary contraction, i.e., genuine deflation, but by increasing investment -- thus demonstrating how rife confusion is on this subject. I think that we can largely blame the monetarists for this situation, despite the fact that Milton Friedman could writh: The price level fell to half its initial level in the course of less than fifteen years and, at the same time, economic growth proceeded at a rapid rate. The one phenomenon was the seedbed of controversy about monetary arrangements that was destined to plague the following decades; the other was a vigorous stage in the continued economic expansion that was destined to raise the United states to the first rank among the nations of the world. And their coincidence casts serious doubts on the validity of the now widely held view that secular price deflation and rapid economic growth are incompatible. (Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971). What is obviously not understood is that falling prices due to increased productivity benefits everyone by spreading the fruits of increased investment. Attempts to stabilise purchasing power of the monetary unit blocks this process, denying to many rises in real income they would have otherwise enjoyed. And this is precisely what happened during the 1920s boom. Credit expansion caused wage rates in the capital goods industries to significantly outstrip those in the consumer goods industries. By expanding credit capitalists were encouraged to invest in lengthier and more complex stages of production causing them to bid up wage rates at the expense of those in the consumer goods industries. In addition, because the means (capital goods, i.e., savings) were not available to finish these stages1 they eventually revealed themselves as malinvestments, misnamed 'excess capacity'. Put another way, labour employed in the capital goods industries had the value of its services inflated by credit expansion, which in turn allowed it to bid more goods away from other workers. It should also be clear that the credit expansion imposed forced savings which kept real wages below the level that a genuine free-market saving/consumption ratio would have dictated. And all for the sake of stable prices. No wonder Phillips, McManus and Nelson were driven to charge that "the end-result of what was probably the greatest price stabilisation experiment in history proved to be, simply, the greatest depression" (Banking and the Business Cycle, New York: The MacMillan Company, 1937). Unfortunately it was the stock market frenzy that marked out the 1920s and became the culprit for the depression instead of credit expansion. It is also in the current stock market boom that we see shadows lurking from the financial follies of the Roaring Twenties. By 1929 the average stock had tripled its value in only 7 years. Alarmed at the apparent inexorable rise of the market and the accompanying reckless speculation, Roger Babson, a Boston financial adviser, was warning investors in September 1929 of an imminent crash. (Babson was far from being a lone voice. Sound money men like Benjamin M. Anderson and E. C. Harwood also warned that a crash was inevitable). In early 1929 Hayek published a number of articles in the monthly reports of the Austrian Institute of Economic Research, of which he was director, arguing that the boom only had months to run. Felix Somary, another economist in the Austrian school and a Swiss banker, even warned Keynes against buying stock and predicted an impending crash. Keynes replied: "There will be no more crashes in our lifetime". Convinced that the price level proved there was no inflation, Irving Fisher argued that "stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau". In his paper Is There Inflation in the United States?, 1 September 1928, Keynes endorsed Fisher's hopeless optimism, only to admit in 1930 that he had been mistaken about inflation. It is therefore only a matter of time before the current boom also collapses. Unfortunately the "culture of corruption" that runs through every layer of the American media will see to it that the Republicans will be held entirely responsible for any downturn. These politically bigoted hacks will be the same ones who told us that the Clinton boom heralded a "New Era", and who tried to pin the blame for the Clinton crash on Bush. So who or what is really to blame for the boom-bust 'cycle'? Answer: bad economics. The sort of economics that dominates most economics faculties and central banks. Talk Back Gerard Jackson BrookesNews.Com Gerard Jackson is Brookes economics editor. Copyright © 2005-2007 Gerard Jackson \ \ \ http://www.safehaven.com/article-6740.htm \ \ \ January 21, 2007 Deflation Scenario to be Tested by Greg Silberman Article originally submitted to subscribers on 12th January 2007... Is there a limit to the amount of Money the Fed can Print? It's obvious the Fed is willing and able to print an infinite amount of money. So why wouldn't they? The answer lies in the fact that if people expected a never ending blizzard of paper they would take steps to protect themselves from holding such a depreciating item. How? By buying those items whose supply remains relatively inflexible for example Gold. Taken to the extreme, if expectations of complete and rapid money printing (debasement) became commonplace, the rush out of paper would become a MAD dash for the exits. Therefore, in the interest of holding onto the money creation reigns, the Fed is restrained by people's expectations of how quickly their money will lose its purchasing power. That is, if expectations of inflation are low, the Fed can print a Lot and if expectations of inflation are high, the Fed can only print a Little. Are we now entering the Print a 'Little' stage? By 2003 the Fed had slashed short-term interest rates from 6% to 1%, the world began reflating from the Nasdaq collapse and asset prices were being fuelled by never-ending cheap money. The problem was/is that such money had to go somewhere and the money flowed into almost every asset class including Bonds (fuelling the Housing Bubble), the stock market (large caps and emerging markets), private equity funds (fuelling M&A) and ofcourse commodities (most notably Oil and Industrial Metals). But remember inflation expectations? Rising commodity prices and more precisely rising Gold prices raise the red flag on inflation expectations. To combat this, the Fed started its mini-rate rising campaign to convince the market that any inflation problem was being dealt with, thereby keeping a lid on inflation expectations. All the while, cheap money continued to flow from other central Banks, most notably the Bank of Japan, ensuring the monetary system was well supported and lubricated whilst inflation expectations remained low. The net result has been a global explosion in debt levels and a universal biding up of asset prices. But alas, the laws of nature apply to markets as well. Those micro Fed rate increases have begun to take their toll. As the Yen : Dollar rate stabilized the Yen Carry Trade has also slowed. And ever so subtly the tap of Fresh Money is being stopped up. The markets have responded through a drop in Home Building Stocks, a haphazard rise in Bond Yields and ofcourse brutal corrections in commodities such as Oil. Now we find ourselves in a crazy situation where the Fed requires a slowdown and asset prices to fall in order to justify the next round of rate cuts and more money printing. Remember, inflation expectations must be kept low at all costs to keep the game going. Wow! What a dangerous game. We have entered into a Fed sponsored slowdown where an element of deflation will be allowed to enter the system. The Fed is attempting to land a debt laden Jumbo Jet. Refuel and take-off again. A lot is at stake and a lot could go wrong. Will they be successful? We'll have to wait and see. As deflation bites over the next few months watch for a widening in risk premiums and a flight to quality which should ultimately be positive for Gold. More commentary and stock picks follow for subscribers... Talk Back Greg Silberman CA(SA), CFA blog.goldandoilstocks.com/ Greg is an investor and newsletter writer specializing in Junior Mining and Energy Stocks and Short Selling Over-Valued Stocks. Please visit his website for more free articles and analysis: http://blog.goldandoilstocks.com/. This article is intended solely for information purposes. The opinions are those of the author only. Please conduct further research and consult your financial advisor before making any investment/trading decision. No responsibility can be accepted for losses that may result as a consequence of trading on the basis of this analysis. Copyright © 2006-2007 Greg Silberman \ \ \
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Duncan	22-Jan-07, 06:35 AM (GMT)
10. "Despite free-falling energy prices and favorable economic news, markets could not string together much progress"
http://www.safehaven.com/article-6739.htm \ \ \ http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2007/01/linkfest_1.html \ \ \ Starving of the elderly By BENEDICT BROGAN - More by this author »Last updated at 22:54pm on 21st January 2007 A health minister made the shameful admission that elderly people are effectively being starved in care homes and hospitals. Ivan Lewis said some are given just a single scoop of mash as a meal. Other bedridden pensioners are 'tortured' with trays of food placed just out of their reach. The minister's words are a stunning acknowledgement of how the care system still lets down the frail and elderly after nearly ten years of Labour rule. They follow years of campaigning by charities and the Daily Mail to expose appalling deficiencies in the care of the over-65s. Mr Lewis will launch an official campaign this week to improve the quality of food offered to thousands of vulnerable old people. But his belated move drew a lukewarm response from campaigners. Help the Aged said: 'This is an issue we have been lobbying over for a long time and something the Government has known about for years. I hope it gets the proper attention and investment now.' A spokesman for the charity Independent Age said: 'The Government has now finally realised, after years of campaigning, that it has a problem. Now it has to ensure its plans and initiatives are carried forward.' Mr Lewis, the minister responsible for the elderly, gave a starkly frank account of the daily suffering in institutions where cost-cutting and indifference are rife. He said: 'A single scoop of mashed potato, lonely in the middle of the plate. It's not an appetising meal. Yet for some elderly patients in hospital, this masquerades as lunch every day. 'Plastic cutlery has its place at a summer picnic, but not for everyday use. 'Yet some older people are still being served their dinners with plastic cutlery, even though they have suffered a paralysing stroke which making it impossible for them to eat properly. 'Some have a tray placed on the end of the bed, tantalising with hot food. It may be just an inch out of reach but it might as well be a mile. 'To a bedridden pensioner, it must seem like torture.' Speaking to a local newspaper in Birmingham, where the campaign will be launched this week, Mr Lewis added: 'We wouldn't put up with this happening to our children, so why should we find it acceptable for our older people?' The Daily Mail's Dignity for the Elderly campaign has chronicled in full the suffering of pensioners who find themselves neglected and mistreated by a system they spent years supporting through their taxes. Last August. Age Concern warned that some elderly people were having their lives put at risk because many nurses were too busy to feed them properly. It said that, instead of getting better, already-vulnerable OAPs could have their health damaged by going into care. Figures from official inspectors published in December 2005 found that more than 2,000 care homes for the elderly failed to meet minimum nutrition requirements. Yet it is precisely these people - who are most at risk of becoming ill - who need the highest standards of nutrition. The cost of the failures to the NHS is estimated at more than £7.3billion a year. Poorly-fed patients stay in hospital longer, have a higher death rate and are three times more likely to develop complications during surgery. Mr Lewis said the government's 'Dignity for Older People' campaign would concentrate on nutrition and the way the elderly are fed. A network of local 'champions for dignity' will be set up to promote better care in their area. He added: 'Where bad practices still occur, it's time to stamp them out for good. 'After a lifetime's service to our country, every older person who needs health or care services has the right to receive these and be treated with dignity.' But charities pointed to the Government's dismal record of looking after the elderly and questioned whether the new initiative is just another 'flash in the pan' gimmick. Independent Age said: 'The whole issue of the elderly in hospital is something health professionals have put on the backburner for far too long. 'Underlying ageism in the health service means the needs of elderly people have always been put to the back of the queue. 'This initiative could fall by the wayside. We will be watching carefully to make sure it is not a flash in the pan lasting only a few months. 'There is no way of knowing until we see the results in a year or two.' Help the Aged said: 'This is a great scheme if the investment is put in to make it happen. As well as providing money for fruit and veg, there needs to be investment in staff and resources. 'Often staff don't have time to sit and eat with patients, but the right nutrition is sometimes vital to the recovery of an elderly person.' \ \ \ Blue Monday: The unhappiest day of the year By COLIN FERNANDEZ - More by this author »Last updated at 00:01am on 22nd January 2007 If you are feeling a little down then you can take solace in the thought that things are unlikely to get any worse. Today, say experts, is the unhappiest day in the entire year. Unpaid Christmas bills, nasty weather, and failed New Year's resolutions combine to make January 22 the gloomiest in the calendar. But if anyone can cope with 'blue Monday' it is the British, who researchers have found to be mainly optimists. More than 85 per cent of us expect the future to be happier than it is now, according to researchers. Dr Cliff Arnall, a Cardiff University psychologist, devised the formula that shows today is the most depressing. His equation takes into account six factors: weather, debt, time since Christmas, time since failing our new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and the feeling of a need to take action. Taken together they pinpoint today as 'Blue Monday'. Dr Arnall said that by understanding the main factors for depression we can prevent becoming unhappy next year. He said: 'Use the day as a springboard for a higher quality life. For example keeping Christmas spending to a strict budget next year will make you less depressed in the last week of January. 'Also, decide on changing behaviour, such as giving up smoking, eating better, exercising more and getting that new job.' It might also be a good idea to take extra care on the roads. Research by Privilege Insurance reveals that nearly half of the UK's drivers suffer from seasonal symptoms such as depression and lethargy in January, which impact on their driving ability. All is not doom and gloom, however, as a survey of 85 per cent of people in Britain expect to be happier in the future than they are now, a psychological study for Standard Life Bank found. Scots were the most optimistic, followed by people in the South West, while people from London and the West Midlands had the least positive outlook on life, researchers discovered. Taking up a new hobby is the most favoured tactic by Britons to become happier in 2007, amid a general trend for people wanting to make work less of a focus in 2007. People responding to the survey said they hoped to make themselves happier by clearing their debts, paying off their mortgage and achieving financial security. Those who listed things they were looking forward to were plans to reduce their working hours or retire to improve their quality of life. The research - entitled the Freestyle Happiness Index - also found that the nation's optimism is being boosted by a falling interest in material possessions. For the 15 per cent of pessimists and those who feel very depressed, the Samaritans urged people not to bottle it up but to get in touch. Press spokesperson Kate Redway said: 'Sadly, one in five people in the UK experience depression and this time of year can be particularly difficult, with people in debt after Christmas and finding it hard to settle back into a work routine during dark days. \ \ \ 'Broadband divide' threat to rural Scots COLIN DONALDBUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (cdonald@scotsman.com) SCOTLAND faces a new "broadband divide" if lack of service competition in rural areas means that faster connections are not made available, the first major report into the economic impact of broadband technology has found. Commissioned from economic development consultants SQW and entitled Next Generation Broadband in Scotland, the 150-page report is the first to analyse the present and future benefits of the Scottish Executive's "Broadband for Scotland" programme, made in conjunction with BT. The widely-praised initiative has seen high-speed internet access become available to almost all of the Scottish population. According to the report, the availability of broadband technology will add £3.4 billion to the country's gross value added (GVA) by 2015, or roughly 5 per cent of the total annual market-sector GVA. But the document also raises questions about the future direction of Scotland's broadband promotion policy. Referring to the already available second-generation broadband - 2B - which, at 5MB per second, is ten times faster than standard broadband connections, it said: "Our study confirms that a new 'broadband divide' has already started to open up between urban and rural areas, in terms of the availability of 2B. Our expectation is that 26 per cent of Scotland's population will remain unable to access such services in the foreseeable future." On the subject of ultra-high speed third generation plus or "3B+" broadband (50 MB), expected to become available in urban centres this year, the report was more pessimistic. "Whereas the roll-out of 1B and 2B services in rural areas require upgrades, the bandwidths associated with 3B+ services go beyond the capabilities of the legacy BT copper access infrastructure and necessitate the extension of fibre deep into the access . "There would be major costs associated with such a roll-out, and, in areas with no competition, relatively little incentive for BT or anyone else to risk such an investment. Approximately 44 per cent of Scotland's population will remain unable to access 3B+ services in 2015." A spokesman for the Scottish Executive yesterday hailed the reports findings on the "staggering" economic benefits of broadband to Scotland, and played down fears that the rapid advances in technology would benefit urban areas at the expense of those parts of Scotland already struggling with their distance from markets. "First and foremost, we welcome this report for flagging up the potential problems emerging from the roll-out of the next generation of broadband" he said. "We are very proud of what we have achieved with first generation broadband roll out, and the findings of this new report suggest that the 2G and 3G+ are more relevant to entertainment applications, and not as vital for business. But it is good that we have this report and we note its warnings very carefully." The SQW report says that not only will 2B and 3B+ broadband serve to make teleworking still more attractive, it argues that the new generation services "will serve to bring substantial benefits to the health and education sectors in Scotland - where they are available". The report goes on to detail what it calls "important market failure" in the under-exploitation of broadband by Scotland's businesses. It recommends ensuring that publicly funded information and computer technology support is "2B ready" and minimising of barriers to private-sector investment in 2B and 3B+ networks But it also warns against "market distorting interventions" in the 2B and 3B+ markets, saying "it is too early to judge whether the future lack of 2B and 3B+ services in certain areas will represent an unacceptable inequity." \ \ \ \ Booming Britain at risk of blow-out Item Club hails Britain's buoyant economy but warns that heavy borrowing and 'lax lending' policies could provoke a financial crisis Richard Wachman Sunday January 21, 2007 The Observer As British firms and private equity groups borrow heavily to fuel expansion, there is a danger that the economy could overheat, forcing the Bank of England to hike interest rates to protect the UK from a 'financial crash', according to the influential Ernst & Young Item Club. The report says the economy is in rude financial health and will grow by 2.9 per cent this year - higher than consensus forecasts - propelled by mergers and acquisitions and money moving into commercial property to extract advantages from a more favourable tax regime. Article continues Peter Spencer, economic adviser to the Item Club, which uses the same financial model as the Treasury, says business investment is expected to increase by another 7.5 per cent in 2007, but there is a danger of a financial crisis ahead. He said easy credit was feeding through to asset price inflation, with valuations of equities and commercial property also rising as a result of the highest level of corporate profitability in more than 10 years. He added: 'Recruitment and confidence in the financial services sector, which accounts for about 30 per cent of GDP, is extremely high at the moment. That means many people will have plenty of disposable income, especially those receiving bonuses, which might make it harder to bring residential property prices under control too.' Even though the Bank of England has been lifting interest rates, banks and other institutions are using 'lax lending criteria', says Spencer, and the credit boom shows little sign of abating. Corporate and private equity borrowers may become complacent, depending on central banks to bail them out by cutting rates if the economy takes a downturn. During the 1990s the head of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, slashed rates when US hedge fund LTCM imploded, but despite his warnings of 'irrational exuberance', investors chased prices even higher until the dotcom bubble burst in the run-up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Spencer warned: 'If asset valuations continue to rise, there will be a strong case for raising interest rates higher later in the year to bring the markets to heel and protect the economy from a financial crash.' The Financial Services Authority and the Bank of England have warned banks about the dangers posed by the high level of borrowing taken on by both consumers and private equity groups; the latter have been buying companies by aggressively gearing up their balance sheets. 'The growth of money and credit is worryingly high in real terms,' said Spencer. But he pointed out that other factors are working to the economy's advantage, such as the fall in oil and commodity prices, which could be sufficient to bring inflation back below the 2 per cent official target by the end of 2007. However, Spencer concluded: 'The US market still looks robust and key European markets remain strong. It's important to remember that we still enjoy a stable global macro-economic environment which will remain benign as long as inflation remains low.' · Economists will be scrutinising the minutes of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee this week for indications on the future for interest rates, following the shock increase earlier this month. Most observers expect the vote to raise to have been seven to two, with the 'doves', David Blanchflower and Rachel Lomax, continuing to resist a rise. Any deviation from those positions would raise eyebrows: a unanimous vote would be seen as meaning another rise is imminent. \ \ \ Britain The Times January 22, 2007 Police attend a simulated terror in central London. The SAS can now provide support from a permanent base in the capital (Sean Dempsey/PA) SAS unit moves to London in terror fight Michael Evans, Defence Editor Troops callled in after police errors Minister to agree before deployment An SAS unit is now for the first time permanently based in London on 24-hour standby for counter-terrorist operations, The Times has learnt. The basing of a unit from the elite special forces regiment “in the metropolitan area” is intended to provide the police with a combat-proven ability to deal with armed terrorists in the capital. The small unit also includes surveillance specialists and bomb-disposal experts. Although the Metropolitan Police has its own substantial firearms capability, the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian electrician who was mistakenly identified as a terrorist bomber on the run, has underlined the need to have military expertise on tap. Defence sources emphasised that a minister would have to make the decision to use the unit based in London. The Home Office would make a request to the Ministry of Defence, which was the usual procedure when the military was required to help in a police operation, the sources said. The SAS counter-terrorist unit in London is part of an expanded headquarters in the capital for the Hereford-based regiment, which has been given extra resources and manpower to deal with the rising threat from international terrorism. More funding has been provided to ensure that the four squadrons of 22 SAS, the regular army special forces regiment, are fully manned. Its smaller counterpart in the Royal Marines, the Special Boat Service (SBS), has also been given more money and is now in the process of gaining a second squadron. Since the 1970s, the SAS has maintained a round-the-clock, counter-terrorist squadron based at Hereford, its main headquarters. It has been drafted in from Hereford on several occasions to assist in terrorist incidents, notably the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980 and the Balcombe Street siege in 1975, when an IRA active service unit held a couple hostage in their flat. However, with the expansion of the special forces in the past two years, particularly after the July 7 suicide bombings in London in 2005, it was considered prudent to have an SAS counter-terrorist unit located full-time in the capital. The Ministry of Defence requested that the location of the unit be kept secret. The Director Special Forces or a senior member of his staff attends Cobra, the Cabinet Office civil emergencies committee, whenever there is a suspected imminent terrorist attack or when an incident has taken place. The presence of a standby SAS team in London has coincided with moves by MI5, which has responsibility for counter-terrorist intelligence, to expand its own workforce to meet the increasing terrorist threat. MI5 has set up a special headquarters on the outskirts of London for teams of surveillance experts to give them easier access to the North and the Midlands. Meanwhile, according to Whitehall sources, the overarching responsibility for co-ordinating the Government’s counter-terrorist strategy may be given to the Cabinet Office, after a security review carried out by John Reid, the Home Secretary. Sir Richard Mottram, the security and intelligence coordinator who is the Government’s principal counter- terrorist adviser in the Civil Service, is based at the Cabinet Office. 'Who dares wins' December 1975 SAS deployed when an IRA unit took hostages in London. The men surrendered after several days of negotiations April 1980 Iranian Embassy siege. Gunmen took 26 people hostage for five days, killing one. Millions watched on TV as SAS stormed the building July 7, 2005 Claims that SAS scrambled by helicopter to London on the day of the terrorist bombs July 2005 SAS reportedly helped police to track down bombing suspects, including taking part in a raid in West London in which they blew off a door and threw stun grenades \ \ \ Britain The Times January 22, 2007 Stray sheep may be cause of fatal crash Marcus Leroux Stray sheep may have caused a car crash that killed a young man, his parents and his unborn baby. The Renault Clio carrying Craig Williams, 19, his pregnant fiancée and his parents, Andrew and Elaine, swerved into an oncoming Land Rover on Friday evening on an unlit country road near Ebbw Vale, South Wales. Mr Williams’s fiancée, who is 18 but has not been named, was cut free from the wreckage and taken to hospital. She lost her baby and was in a critical condition last night. The two people in the Land Rover were treated for minor injuries. The family, who had just learnt of the pregnancy, had been on their way to a local restaurant. Police said yesterday that they were investigating the cause of the crash. Witnesses said that bad weather had driven sheep down from the mountains and on to the A467 between Crumlin and Abertillery. A police spokesman said that Mr Williams’s elder brother, Ian, was devastated by the news. “It is one of the most tragic events we have ever dealt with — three generations of a family were killed instantly,” the spokesman said. Neighbours in the Ash Grove area of Ebbw Vale said that the family were highly thought of in the town. Andrew Williams, 45, was the doorman at a local social club. “They are a close family. No one can believe they have gone like that,” a friend of the family said. “Craig and his girlfriend have been together for a while but we didn’t know she was pregnant. It is heartbreaking.” Dai Davies, MP for Blaenau Gwent, said yesterday: “We’ve heard they swerved to avoid sheep on the road. “There are a lot of farms and smallholdings in the area and animals could have come down off the mountain.” The crash is the second fatal accident in the area in two months. Four teenage girls — Danielle Caswell and Katie Roberts, both 15, and Louise Jones and Kayleigh Parry, both 16 — were killed in a road crash near by. Mr Davies said: “We are devastated yet again as this is the second tragic accident in a relatively short space of time. Our thoughts are with the families involved.” \ \ \
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