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Duncan	13-Dec-08, 06:00 AM (GMT)
"USDX"
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Duncan	13-Dec-08, 06:14 AM (GMT)
1. "The key in times like these is to stay solvent so you can load up when opportunity comes"
12 DECEMBER 2008 Citadel Suspends Withdrawals to Halt the Run on Two Funds Are the hedge fund runs the modern day equivalent of the bank runs of the 1930's or even the Panic of 1907? That is not as glib an observation as you might think at first. The hedge funds like Citadel and Fortress resemble the private banks of New York in the early 1900's in many ways. As in the case of Bernie Maddow, as a type of Richard Whitney, we're seeing echoes of certain periods in the past in many of the events today. This is clearly not your father's recession, but we are not quite sure what it will be yet, and are often unpersuaded by those who think they do. "Why can't you just accept that this is deflation?" It is clearly a deflation in terms of aggregate demand, no question. All one has to do is look at GDP. But we do not see it as a true straightforward money deflation with a sustainable increase in the value of the dollar. The dollar is a financial asset and not a store of value. It is an artifice. Something is going to replace the dollar, but we cannot tell what it will be yet. The Fed and Treasury have given away three trillion dollars at least so far, with commitments to give away five more. It only seems to be a deflation if you are not on the list of the chosen few, and take a shower before leaving for work instead of after. In the short term deleveraged cash is king, no doubt about it. Risk is still high, and we have much further to do to the downside. Stocks are poison and debt is unstable. The dollar is decoupled from reality, far from the conventional mechanisms of savings and investment. Its all policy now in the short term, and then the next phase of this transformation will begin, and it will contain a surprisingly large portion of the unexpected, the unanticipated, on the order of the stagflation of the 1970's that left so many economists with their mouths gaping open. The natural question is "But Jesse, this is all well and good, and it makes my head hurt. What is the endgame? Where should I put my money now?" Cash. The safer stores of value of wealth. Its no coincidence that short term Treasuries have spiked to negative returns, and manageable forms of gold and silver bullion are in scarce supply. And then we wait and see what happens next. Take risks if you must, but only with a very small percentage of your portfolio, and sit on the rest, get out of debt, cut consumption, and wait. There is no way to adequately measure and assess risk in a system in which the price discovery mechanisms are broken, and the standards of value are changing to something radically different, and success and failure can rely on the somewhat arbitrary policy decisions of a few politicians and bankers and the decisions of foreign governments. Citadel Suspends Withdrawals in Two Hedge Funds After 50% Drop By Saijel Kishan and Katherine Burton Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Citadel Investment Group LLC, the Chicago-based hedge-fund firm run by Kenneth Griffin, halted year- end withdrawals from its two biggest funds after investors sought to take out $1.2 billion, according to a letter sent to clients. The Kensington and Wellington funds, which together manage about $10 billion, have lost 49.5 percent of their value this year through Dec. 5. Withdrawals may resume as early as March 31, said the letter, signed by Griffin and sent to investors today. “We have not made this decision lightly,” Griffin wrote. “We recognize how a suspension impacts our investors, especially those with current financial obligations of their own to meet.” Citadel joins hedge funds including Fortress Investment Group LLC and Tudor Investment Corp. in limiting withdrawals as hedge funds head for their biggest annual losses since at least 1990. Hedge funds have declined 18 percent, on average, this year through Nov. 30, according to Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc. As of October, 18 percent of hedge-fund assets, or about $300 billion, managed by 5 percent of hedge funds, were subject to some sort of restriction on withdrawals, according to Peter Douglas, principal of Singapore-based hedge-fund consulting firm GFIA Pte. Citadel normally allows clients to withdraw up to 1/16th of their assets quarterly. If total withdrawals exceed 3 percent of the fund, investors must pay a fee back into the fund ranging from 5 percent to 9 percent. Redemptions have never before surpassed the limit. Citadel will also absorb “a substantial portion” of the funds’ expenses this year, the letter said. Citadel clients usually pay these charges, which have traditionally amounted to about 3 percent to 4 percent of assets. The fund is holding between 25 percent and 30 percent of its assets in cash. Katie Spring, a spokeswoman for Chicago-based Citadel, declined to comment. Before 2008, Citadel had posted just one losing year since Griffin started the firm in 1990, dropping 4 percent in 1994. Three Citadel funds, whose returns are tied to the firm’s market- making business, have climbed about 40 percent this year. Those funds manage about $3 billion. POSTED BY JESSE AT 10:23 PM \ \ \ 13 december 2008 Thanks for your Comments, Readers I posted item to this blog since 2005 and didn't get any feedback for a year and a half at all. The insanity that 80% of the increases in the West's spending this century was driven by home equity withdrawl and the monitisation of what will prove to be have been largely illusionary appreciation of nominal asset values in everything from homes, commercial real estate and stocks escaped most people. It screamed bubble. Anyway, its demise has made the blog more popular, but I not a complete gloom and doomer. I very much think that both hard and commodities, gold, silver, oil and alternate energy are very undervalued. Commodity producers, energy and alternate energy services will the the cash rich core around which many economy's will rebuild and this will be reflected in the popular culture. I agree with Jim Rogers. Jim Rogers "The commodities guru predicted two years ago that the credit bubble would devastate Wall Street. We are in a period of forced liquidation, which has happened only eight or nine times in the past 150 years. The fact that it's historic doesn't make it any more fun, of course. But it is a pretty interesting time when there is forced selling of everything with no regard for facts or fundamentals at all. Historically, the way you make money in times like these is that you find things where the fundamentals are unimpaired. The fundamentals of GM are impaired. The fundamentals of Citigroup are impaired. Virtually the only asset class I know where the fundamentals are not impaired - in fact, where they are actually improving - is commodities. Farmers cannot get a loan to buy fertilizer right now. Nobody's going to get a loan to open a zinc or a lead mine. Meanwhile, every day the supply of commodities shrinks more and more. Nobody can invest in productive capacity, even if he wants to. You're going to see gigantic shortages developing over the next few years. The inventories of food worldwide are already at the lowest levels they've been in 50 years. This may turn into the Great Depression II. But if and when we come out of this, commodities are going to lead the way, just as they did in the 1970s when everything was a disaster and commodities went through the roof. What I've been buying recently is agricultural commodities. I've also been buying more Chinese stocks. And I'm buying stocks in Taiwan for the first time in my life. It looks as if there's finally going to be peace in Taiwan after 60 years, and Taiwanese companies are going to benefit from the long-term growth of China. I have covered most of my short positions in U.S. stocks, and I'm now selling long-term U.S. government bonds short. That's the last bubble I can find in the U.S. I cannot imagine why anybody would give money to the U.S. government for 30 years for less than a 4% yield. I certainly wouldn't. There are going to be gigantic amounts of bonds coming to the market, and inflation will be coming back. In my view, U.S. stocks are still not attractive. Historically, you buy stocks when they're yielding 6% and selling at eight times earnings. You sell them when they're at 22 times earnings and yielding 2%. Right now U.S. stocks are down a lot, but they're still very expensive by that historical valuation method. The U.S. market is yielding 3% today. For stocks to go to a 6% yield without big dividend increases, the Dow will need to go below 4000. I'm not saying it will fall that far, but it could very well happen. And if it gets that low and I'm still solvent, I hope I'm smart enough to buy a lot. The key in times like these is to stay solvent so you can load up when opportunity comes." So please, feel free, ask and comment away and lets define together what we face and what individuals should do about it. Posted by kevin at 12/13/2008 01:18:00 PM \ \ \
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Duncan	13-Dec-08, 06:22 AM (GMT)
2. "To recognize an opportunity and use it is the difference between success and failure"
http://www.safehaven.com/article-12069.htm
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Duncan	13-Dec-08, 06:58 AM (GMT)
3. "Fed acts like comical Ali"
http://prudentinvestor.blogspot.com/2008/12/fed-wont-tell-who-got-2-trillion.html
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Duncan	13-Dec-08, 02:16 PM (GMT)
4. "Financial Times hears Comex gold squeeze talk"
Gold surges as doubts rise on car bail-out By Chris Flood Published: December 11 2008 12:43 | Last updated: December 11 2008 20:12 Gold prices hit an eight-week high on Thursday as the dollar staged a broad-based retreat amid fears that the US carmaking sector could still face bankruptcy as a scaled-down government rescue package faced opposition from Republican senators. Gold surged to $833.80 a troy ounce, its highest level since October 16, before easing back to $825, up 2.1 per cent on the day. Suki Cooper of Barclays Capital said gold should move towards the $900 level in the coming months but the current rally was only likely to be sustained if an additional catalyst emerged or if the dollar continued to weaken against the euro. Traders have been hearing talk that the gold market could face a potential squeeze at the end of this year if market participants with futures position on New York’s Comex exchange decide not to roll over their positions, because of concerns about counterparty risk and opt for physical delivery instead. But dealers dismissed the threat of a squeeze, pointing out that Comex gold stocks stand at 8.5m ounces, well above the five-year average of almost 6m ounces. In Chicago, agricultural commodities were mixed after the latest update from the US Department of Agriculture. CBOT December corn rose 6¼ cents to $3.33 a bushel even though the USDA cut its demand forecast to 12,185m bushels from November’s estimate of 12,535m bushels. The USDA cut its forecast for corn consumption by the ethanol sector by 300m bushels to 3,700m bushels, reflecting the difficulties facing the refining industry, with US demand for petrol expected to fall in 2008 and 2009. Lewis Hagedorn of JPMorgan said the USDA had been “implausibly optimistic” in its assessment of corn consumption by ethanol refiners. But he highlighted the downward revision in corn export demand, from 1,900m bushels to 1,800m bushels, as significant. “US corn has been unable to sustain world buying interest”, he said, adding that competition from record wheat supplies meant corn was less competitive as a source of animal feed. CBOT January soyabeans increased 20 cents at $8.49½ a bushel after the USDA cut its forecast for Brazilian production by 1.5m tonnes to 53.5m tonnes, seen as significant because is below the Brazilian agriculture ministry's current projection. CBOT December wheat traded unchanged at $4.95 a bushel after the USDA revised its forecast for the global crop up 1.5m tonnes to a record 683.98m tonnes, helped by a larger Canadian crop. Oil prices surged after Russia’s president said he was willing to work with Opec on possible supply cuts. Nymex January West Texas Intermediate rose $4.46 to $47.98 a barrel after touching a high of $48.35 while ICE January Brent gained $4.99 to $47.39 a barrel. Expectations that Opec would announce a substantial supply cut were strengthened by the International Energy Agency’s latest report, which said global oil demand would contract in 2008, the first annual decline for 25 years. The energy watchdog of the developed world said Opec had only complied with about half of the output re-ductions already agreed. But Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, said the kingdom pumped 8.49m barrels a day of crude in November, in line with its Opec target and below the IEA’s estimate of 9.05m b/d last month. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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Duncan	13-Dec-08, 03:46 PM (GMT)
5. "If you go into what I call a bubble boom, every bubble bursts." - Margaret Thatcher"
In The News Today Welcome To Jim Sinclair's MineSet 12/12/2008 22:30 Jim Sinclair In The News Comments Jim Sinclair’s Commentary This article puts focus on the shocking exposure of a NASDAQ trading house’s Boss running a massive Ponzi scheme. I firmly believe the scams in gold, once disclosed, are going to set your hair on fire. These will take the form of no gold gold certificates, paper gold rather than bullion confirmed as bullion to simply taking your money, sending you a confirmation without anything whatsoever behind it. Dr. Fekete’s warning of gold scams don’t even scratch the surface of what I assure you will surface. Just because someone says or writes what you want to believe, don’t for a second assume the author has ethics when there is a request for your money or an offering of a gold/silver deal. Bernie Madoff’s alleged $50bn fraud may be just a foretaste of what’s to come First come the losses and the stupidities committed by bankers working for their own self-interest. By Rob Cox, breakingviews.com Last Updated: 5:47PM GMT 12 Dec 2008 Then come the rogue traders, who are unable to ‘fess up on market bets gone wrong. The last to arrive is the "bezzle". That was economist JK Galbraith’s word for the outright frauds built up when markets are good. These can be kept hidden for as long as the lies hold up. But the truth will out. The first big outing in the current financial crisis is an alleged scam that may cost investors as much as $50bn. It was committed, according to a US criminal indictment, by a highly respected member of the financial community, a one-time Nasdaq executive and a legendary trader in New York. Bernard Madoff is accused of orchestrating a multi-year fraud in which generous returns were manufactured for sophisticated investors. The technique was the usual Ponzi scheme. Old investors were paid off by the new funds lured into to Madoff’s art-laden New York headquarters. Losses of $50bn would probably make Madoff the biggest single fraudster in history. But in fairness, such an accomplishment shouldn’t come as a great surprise. In Galbraith’s model of a speculative cycle, good times spawn the excess and corruption which eventually bring them to end. The last good times were especially profitable, fertilising the ground for especially large frauds. More… Jim Sinclair’s Commentary Scotty beam me up please. This world is coated with abhorrent stinking slime, and is terminally disintegrating. Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion in Lending By Mark Pittman Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it’s allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information. The institution confirmed that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to some of the requests. “If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that’s what they don’t want us to know,” said Carlos Mendez, who oversees about $14 billion at New York-based ICP Capital LLC. More… Jim Sinclair’s Commentary I always suspected this guy was hiding something. Actually this is a serious article that nails the foundational problem now being thoroughly assaulted by instant karma. Blame the Bailouts on Mister Rogers? By Elizabeth MacDonald Mister Fred Rogers, the children’s TV star, who, beginning in 1968, started every show telling us that we were “special” just the way we were. Blame all of those preening child-rearing experts who encouraged an excruciatingly costly culture of entitlement, a culture of narcissism, of excessive self-righteous self-indulgence, where generations grew up believing they were entitled to follow their own codes of conduct, a chronic “me first, I get what’s mine first” attitude–to the point where one survey shows one in three teenagers expect to be famous. Better yet, blame the bailouts on everyone who forgot the most important part of the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood show, a willful ignorance that has led to a mass dereliction of civic duty, of civic vision–Rogers’ emphasis on “neighborhood.” Blame it on a post World War II culture of “me-ism,” of individuality over community, of “I’m special, you owe me,” a culture of anything goes in this Age of Aquarius. A mindset which has resulted in more than half of the country’s annual $14 tn in GDP, $7.8 tn, a quantum leap in fiscal debt, now being committed to bail out the economy. Concrete proof that equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent, to quote Laurence J. Peter, author of the “Peter Principle.” More… Jim Sinclair’s Commentary 25 down, 2075+ to go. Georgia, Texas Banks Seized as Foreclosures Push Failures to 25 By Margaret Chadbourn and Alison Vekshin Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) — Georgia and Texas banks with $544 million in deposits were closed by state regulators today, pushing the toll of failures to 25 as mortgage delinquencies and home foreclosures surge to records during a deepening recession. Haven Trust Bank of Duluth, Georgia, was seized and sold by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to BB&T Corp. of Winston- Salem, North Carolina, which will reopen four offices northeast of Atlanta on Dec. 15 as branches, the FDIC said. Sanderson State Bank was shut by Texas regulators and its assets were sold to Pecos County State Bank of Fort Stockton, which will open Sanderson’s southwest Texas office as a branch on Dec. 15. Acquisitions by BB&T, the fifth-best performing stock in the KBW Bank Index this year, and Pecos County were “the ‘least costly’ resolution for the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund,” the Washington-based FDIC said in a statement. Regulators have closed the most banks in 15 years, and the annual total now exceeds the combined toll for the previous six years, with the collapses of Washington Mutual Inc. and IndyMac Bancorp Inc. among the biggest in history. The U.S. entered a recession a year ago and President-elect Barack Obama on Dec. 7 said the slump will worsen before a recovery begins. BB&T will buy about $55 million of Haven’s $572 million in assets and pay $112,000 for the failed bank’s $515 million in deposits, the FDIC said. The agency will retain the remaining assets “for later disposition.” The deposit insurance fund, supported by fees on insured banks, will pay an estimated $200 million, the agency said. More… Jim Sinclair’s Commentary This might make India feel good but it is a terrible implications for the world and serious risks for Israel. You can be sure if there is an Armageddon it lives in Pakistan. Israeli experts help India prepare commando raids into Pakistan DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 6, 2008, 11:45 AM (GMT+02:00) New Delhi has asked Jerusalem to assist in the operational and intelligence planning of Indian commando cross-border strikes against Islamist terrorist havens in Pakistan - including al Qaeda, Indian counter-terror sources report. The Indian government’s decision to embark on these in-and-out incursions in reprisal for the Mumbai outrage of Nov. 26-29 was first revealed in DEBKA-Net-Weekly 375 published Dec. 4 (Indian Retaliatory Raids inside Pakistan Impending). DEBKAfile adds: Israel is willing to help the Indians carry out punitive forays into Pakistan because it has its own scores to settle for the brutal murder of six Israelis in Mumbai’s Chabad Center by the Islamist terrorists and for the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency’s hand in the atrocity. Security sources in New Delhi disclosed Saturday, Dec. 6, that ISI officers actively trained the terrorists on military lines and selected their targets, including two big hotels and the Jewish-Israeli center. Indian sources told DEBKAfile that Israel was asked for assistance because its special undercover forces were long seasoned in plotting and executing reprisals for terrorist attacks; above all, they were expert in getting away after covert operations without leaving a trail. New Delhi wants its commando operations in Pakistan to be stealthy and focused, and does not propose to admit responsibility. More… Jim Sinclair’s Commentary Most? I would say all. This is because of the interdependency of every regional bank and regional area on the spider web of financial products spun by the money center and investment banks, all without limit or any concern of the consequences to others. Jim Rogers calls most big U.S. banks "bankrupt" Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:53pm EST By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jim Rogers, one of the world’s most prominent international investors, on Thursday called most of the largest U.S. banks "totally bankrupt," and said government efforts to fix the sector are wrongheaded. Speaking by teleconference at the Reuters Investment Outlook 2009 Summit, the co-founder with George Soros of the Quantum Fund, said the government’s $700 billion rescue package for the sector doesn’t address how banks manage their balance sheets, and instead rewards weaker lenders with new capital. Dozens of banks have won infusions from the Troubled Asset Relief Program created in early October, just after the Sept 15 bankruptcy filing by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (LEHMQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz). Some of the funds are being used for acquisitions. "Without giving specific names, most of the significant American banks, the larger banks, are bankrupt, totally bankrupt," said Rogers, who is now a private investor. "What is outrageous economically and is outrageous morally is that normally in times like this, people who are competent and who saw it coming and who kept their powder dry go and take over the assets from the incompetent," he said. "What’s happening this time is that the government is taking the assets from the competent people and giving them to the incompetent people and saying, now you can compete with the competent people. It is horrible economics." More… \ \ \ From Money Printing To Hyperinflation – The Path OTC Derivatives Have Paved Welcome To Jim Sinclair's MineSet 13/12/2008 03:04 Jim Sinclair General Editorial Comments Dear Friends, This incisive article by Peter Shann takes us from the shock of the creation of more dollars than ever anticipated being ploughed into both financial and industrial concerns to the mechanics of how hyperinflation is created and why it is now unavoidable. All of this was caused by the implosion of the huge mountain of garbage paper, over the counter derivatives. In terms of forward discounting markets, this could be marketwise tomorrow. Farming is a credit-based business that has for months been discussed not in terms of farming products, but rather in the sense of its impact on demand in the market for critical products to the farming process. Primary focus has been aimed at South America but applies everywhere. Grains and meats, as all edibles, certainly qualify as necessities to life. Electricity, heating oil, housing, and medicine are part of what is necessary for life, itself. Dislocations in supply are easiest to understand when viewing today’s decision to support Motors from the US Treasury. There is still no clear answer if the suppliers to Motors are willing to do business as usual in terms of delivering goods for payment 45 days later. It seems as if supplier will not be happy with this traditional manner of doing business. It may be like beer suppliers to a questionable credit that is “cash on hand,” or no beer. So here are two examples that will be repeated many times but in the same way as we move faster and faster toward the unseen CONSEQUENCES of a broader and ass backwards approach to the business of government and commerce. That is best understood as when you reward non-production and punish production. The result is ALWAYS non-production. You would assume that extremely difficult business conditions would be accompanied by an oversupply of all kinds of goods and services, but hard logic and history prove otherwise. Simply stated, both on the micro and macro level, the present credit lockup and lack of confidence between lender and borrower, between supplier and consumer, and eventually between international suppliers and the currency of the world’s major manufacturer of currency will be the process of why the present unprecedented air bombing of cash (US dollars) will result in hyperinflation as unprecedented as is its cause. Do some introspection. Does a supply of essential goods seem attractive to you? If the answer is YES here are the mechanics of what you have intuitively understood Read the following slowly with your major focus on the steps numbered one through ten. We will name this Peter’s Formula, the natural outcome of Jim’s Formula. Jim The roots of hyperinflation I have written the following because I do not think the dangers of hyperinflation and currency collapse are understood; Peter Shann The most widely accepted view is that hyperinflation and monetary collapse results from governments introducing large amounts of fiat money into the economy, Wikipedia comments; "The main cause of hyperinflation is a massive and rapid increase in the amount of money, which is not supported by growth in the output of goods and services. This results in an imbalance between the supply and demand for the money (including currency and bank deposits), accompanied by a complete loss of confidence in the money, similar to a bank run" This explanation is superficial and doesn’t provide answers as to why governments would in the first instance "massively and rapidly increase the amount of money" nor why they would. feel compelled to continue with this as inflation increases by factors of thousands of percent and in some extreme instances print banknote in denominations of 100,000,000,000,000 currency units, it also fails to explain why newly issued money is not primarily invested in asset class goods or why goods that can easily be replicated, as can most essential consumables, be often subject to the greatest price inflation. A prerequisite of hyperinflation and monetary collapse is that a disruption in the availability of essential goods occurs, today this could happen as a result of past reliance on expanding credit and fiat money temporally facilitating dependency on low cost imported goods many of which now feed primary needs leading to a commensurate loss of home production capacity with an inherent delay to the medium-term should such reengagement with manufacture become necessary as it would in the event of off shore suppliers losing confidence in reciprocal worth of monetary instruments offered in exchange for goods, and or shortage of essential goods may arise as a result of natural correction occurring, by way of example from the collapse of speculation driven credit markets and or as a result of collateral damage to the production cycle caused by inappropriate governmental action in further increasing money and credit supplies in attempt to drive a spontaneously occurring and necessary correction back in the direction of instability and in so doing distorting essential work ethics and disincentivising investment in the production cycle, In my view the most probable sequence of events resulting in hyperinflation and monetary collapse is as follows: 1. A broad based shortage of goods that are thought essential develops and this is not relieved in time to satisfy demand. 2. Consumers trying to acquire essential goods that they believe are in short supply become fearful and are prepared to pay increasingly higher prices and stockpile these goods further increasing shortages and accelerating prices as a sellers market develops. 3. Prices rise for essential goods in short supply as an increasing proportion of the money supply circulates in these goods, also with increasing velocity and as most of these goods are consumables with high turnover upward re pricing quickly occurs. 4. The proportion of available money circulating in goods that are perceived as essential increases and the demand for less essential goods diminishes I.e essentials become disproportionately more expensive than the norm against non essential goods displacing money towards the goods most in demand further fuelling inflation, 5. The shortage of essential goods accelerates as manufactures increasingly focus on short term survival, longer term risk is avoided and investment in the production cycle is reduced accelerating 1. 6. The normal balance of demand for all goods increasingly prefers those goods required to satisfy primary needs and people engaged in making and supplying less immediately essential or non essential goods become unemployed who then pressures governments accelerating condition 9. 7. Eventually goods not immediately required but non the less essential are needed and rapidly increase in price as they also become in short supply. 8. Consumers with least money first find it increasingly difficult to secure essential goods, become frightened and are forced to allocate greater proportions of their money on essential goods and demand greater income, 9. The demand for money forced by need and fear becomes irresistible so governments feel insecure and provide increasing amounts of fiat new money, 10. Consumers first to spend the new money see some value but soon as this new money is distributed and its value is lost, the velocity of money also accelerates as people rapidly exchange money for goods, wealth is seen as best protected when stored as goods rather than cash further increasing price and reinforcing condition 9, \ \ \ http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/pdf/mwo121208.pdf \ \ \ In the 435-member House of Representatives, 123 elected officials earned at least one million dollars last year, according to recently released financial records made public each year. Next door in the ornate Senate, whose blue-blooded pedigree includes a Kennedy and a Rockefeller, one in three people are millionaires. By comparison, less than one percent of Americans make seven-figure incomes.: Source: Millionaires Fill US Congress Halls, Agence France Press, June 30, 2004 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6418.htm = "The country is headed toward a single and splendid government of an aristocracy founded on banking institutions and monied corporations, and if this tendency continues it will be the end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling and riding over the plundered plowman and the beggar... Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) = In a country well governed poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed wealth is something to be ashamed of. : Confucius = Democracy when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers: Aristotle = Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. -- Walter Anderson === Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered Since The U.S. Invaded Iraq "1,284,105" http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html === Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America'sWar On Iraq 4,209 http://icasualties.org/oif/ The War And Occupation Of Iraq Costs $579,101,627,447 See the cost in your community http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182 === Jim Rogers Calls Most Big U.S. Banks "Bankrupt" By Jonathan Stempel "Governments are making mistakes," he said. "They're saying to all the banks, you don't have to tell us your situation. You can continue to use your balance sheet that is phony.... All these guys are bankrupt, they're still worrying about their bonuses, they're still trying to pay their dividends, and the whole system is weakened." http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21447.htm === What is to be Done? The End of the Washington Consensus By Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers Austerity and "fiscal responsibility" are for other countries. America acts ruthlessly in its own economic interest at any given moment of time. It freely spends more than it earns, flooding the global economy with what has now risen to $4 trillion in U.S. government debt to foreign central banks. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21450.htm === We Told You By David Sirota Please, forgive me for saying it. I know it's a tad annoying, but it has to be said to America's ruling class in this humble column space. Because if it's not said here you can bet it won't be said anywhere else in the media, and it needs to be said somewhere on behalf of the millions of citizens who were right. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21454.htm === What Exactly is Money? A separation of truth and myth about our monetary system By Jon Ronnquist Ever wonder why your representatives in government seem helpless to make real changes to bad situations? It's because the situations are only bad from where you're standing and he or she couldn't change them if they wanted to. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21451.htm === Obama and Daschle Should Opt for Single-Payer By Rose Ann Demoro Obama and Daschle have a choice: Rely on a private insurance-based plan that does little to mitigate the escalating health care crisis, or solve the problem once and for all and adopt universal, single-payer health care. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21452.htm === If G.M. Was a Canadian Company It Wouldn't Be Asking for Help By Dean Baker The Big Three are also not responsible for the broken U.S. health care system. If we paid the same amount for health care as Canada, G.M. would have accumulated an additional $22 billion in profits over the last decade. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21453.htm === Barack Obama: "America's First Jewish President" By James Petras According to a nationally prominent Zionist spokesperson, former Congressman, Federal Judge, White House Counsel to President Bill Clinton and early backer of Obama, Abner Mikvner, "Barack Obama is the first Jewish President". Mikvner's affirmation reflects both Obama's one-sided and longstanding commitment to the State of Israel and loyalty to the Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) in the United States. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21449.htm === Rahm Emanuel and Jesse Jackson Jr Face New Revelations in Governor Rod Blagojevich Scandal By James Bone in Chicago Mr Emanuel, a Chicago politician who won the Illinois governor's former Congressional seat, may have been captured on FBI wire-taps discussing the fate of Mr Obama's vacated US Senate seat with Gov Rod Blagojevich. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21448.htm === NATO: Forces kill 4 civilians in Afghanistan: NATO troops fired on a civilian bus Friday in central Afghanistan that refused warnings to stop, killing four passengers, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force said. http://tinyurl.com/5ucolj === Four UK occupation force members killed in Afghanistan: Four British occupation troops have been killed in two separate explosions in troubled southern Afghanistan , the Ministry of Defence (MoD) says. http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/5211574/uk-marines-killed-afghanistan/ === US: Iran buying Russian arms via Belarus: US government officials say Moscow is selling Tehran the sophisticated SA-20 strategic-range air defense system through Belarus. http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=78263§ionid=351020101 === Iran arrests nuclear employees suspected of spying: Last month, Tehran's official radio station announced that Iran had dismantled an espionage network allegedly linked to Israel's Mossad spy agency. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1045776.html === Ahmadinejad: Zionists' crimes stem from their anger: He noted that the "worn-out" regime's growing crimes should not be taken as sign of its increasing strength, power and progress, rather they testify its failure. http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-22/0812126832194929.htm === Obama adopting old US tactics of 'deception and fraud': Iran cleric: A senior Iranian cleric described President-elect Barack Obama yesterday as a novice who was adopting old US tactics of "deception and fraud", underscoring Iran's scepticism about prospects for change in US policy. http://tinyurl.com/5bl2jl === In case you missed it : Study alleges US sets aside own security interest for Israel's: Research paper by two leading academics on US-Israel relationship ignites controversy. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12435.htm === An Israeli in Gaza: An Interview with Jeff Halper: : As an Israeli and the head of an Israeli peace organization (ICAHD - The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions), I was asked by the Free Gaza Movement organizers to take part in their action to Break the Siege of Gaza by sailing two boats from Cyprus to Gaza City port http://www.counterpunch.org/barat12122008.html === Jimmy Carter regrets not meeting with Hezbollah: Jimmy Carter said Friday he would have been "delighted" to meet with Hezbollah officials during his visit to Lebanon and regretted the militant group's leaders refuse to meet with current or former American presidents. http://www.newsobserver.com/1635/story/1331785.html === Uganda says AU occupatiuon forces to quit Somalia if Ethiopian occupation forces go: Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on Thursday broke the news that the AU force would also leave and promised to help the Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers, numbering around 3,000, to pull out. http://tinyurl.com/5g5kbm === 'Thousands' desert Somalia forces: More than 80% of Somalia's soldiers and police - about 15,000 members - have deserted, some taking weapons, uniforms and vehicles, the UN says. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7779525.stm === EU Buys Second Irish Vote On Lisbon Treaty: Under the deal, the EU also agreed to note Irish concerns, including worries about European interference in Ireland's military neutrality, abortion laws and taxation. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/12/2008121218647878260.html === Correa Defaults on Ecuador Bonds, Seeks Restructuring: Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa halted payment on foreign bonds he calls "illegal" and "illegitimate," putting the South American country in default for a second time in a decade. http://tinyurl.com/6zugqf === Jackson Jr. denies he was involved in scheme: The newspaper said businessmen with ties to the governor and congressmen discussed raising $1 million for Blagojevich to get him to appoint Jackson to the Senate. The report depicts Jackson's brother as an active participant. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081212/ap_on_re_us/illinois_governor_jackson === Daschle's Lobbyist Wife Might Complicate New Post: Daschle's new position might be complicated by his wife, Linda Hall Daschle, who is a registered lobbyist with the Washington firm of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz. http://tinyurl.com/5ftrpa === More Americans Believe in the Devil, Hell and Angels than in Darwin's Theory of Evolution: Nearly 25% of Americans Believe They Were Once another Person http://tinyurl.com/6pot5m === Ex-Nasdaq chair arrested on fraud charge in NYC: A former Nasdaq stock market chairman was arrested on a securities fraud charge Thursday, accused of running a fraudulent investment business that lost at least $50 billion before he confessed to senior employees it was a "giant Ponzi scheme," authorities said. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ExNasdaq-chair-arrested-on-apf-13813639.html === Auto Bailout: White House to the Rescue?: President Bush indicates he won't let the auto companies collapse. Treasury may tide Detroit over with remaining bank-bailout funds http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/dec2008/db20081212_593723.htm === Georgia, Texas Banks Shut as Foreclosures Rise; Toll Reaches 25: Georgia and Texas banks with $544 million in deposits were shut by state regulators, raising the failure toll to 25 for this year, as mortgage delinquencies and home foreclosures climb in a deepening U.S. recession. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aVS5VeaLpgRs&refer=us === Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion - The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillin of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=apx7XNLnZZlc&refer=home === Fear triggers gold shortage: US treasury yields below zero http://tinyurl.com/5m226a === US homelessness, hunger rising: A survey cited by AFP says homelessness and hunger increased in an overwhelming majority of 25 US cities in the past year, driven by the foreclosure crisis.. http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=78276§ionid=3510203 === Credit crunch? What credit crunch?: The credit crunch is not nearly as severe as the U.S. authorities appear to believe and public data actually suggest world credit markets are functioning remarkably well, a report released on Thursday says. http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSTRE4BA47420081211 === \ \ \ http://www.24hgold.com/viewarticle.aspx?rss=true&langue=en&articleid=353564_Escaping+Retirement+Fund+%e2%80%9cPrison%e2%80%9d+for+Fund+Profits \ \ \ http://www.24hgold.com/viewarticle.aspx?rss=true&langue=en&articleid=353567_The+Invisible+Grind \ \ \ http://www.24hgold.com/viewarticle.aspx?rss=true&langue=en&articleid=353568_Don't+Cave! \ \ \ http://www.24hgold.com/viewarticle.aspx?rss=true&langue=en&articleid=353569_The+Credit+Crunch%2c+Close+Up+and+Personal \ \ \ Holiday camp with a Nazi past By Tristana Moore BBC News, Prora It has a long, white sandy beach and several miles of beautiful, unspoiled coastline, but Prora, on Germany's Baltic Sea island of Ruegen, does not feature in tourist brochures. Perhaps it's something to do with its history - as a Nazi holiday camp. But the local authorities in Ruegen think it is time to turn a new page, and have approved plans to turn Prora into a modern tourist resort. Strolling along the beach, you catch a glimpse of the imposing, concrete buildings which are partly obscured by a pine forest. When you walk over the sand dunes, you are struck by the sheer scale of Prora, an eerie relic of Germany's Nazi past. The sprawling 5km-long resort now consists of five identical, six-storey buildings (originally there were eight buildings, but three now lie in ruins). Mass tourism The Nazis planned mass murder and they also planned mass tourism, as part of their attempt to indoctrinate the entire German population. The vast complex, designed to accommodate 20,000 visitors, was part of the Nazis' "Strength through Joy" ("Kraft durch Freude," KdF) programme. The aim was to provide leisure activities for German workers and spread Nazi propaganda. The plans included a cinema, a festival hall, swimming pools and a jetty where Strength Through Joy cruise ships would dock. The Nazis started building Prora in 1936. But, at the same time, Hitler was making preparations for war. That took priority, and the massive building project was never finished. During the Allied bombing campaign, many refugees took shelter here. After the war, Prora was used as a military outpost for the East German army. But since German reunification in 1990, the buildings have stood empty. Ambitious plans Today, the whole place is still pretty deserted, except for a small museum and disco. Locals call Prora the Colossus, and you can see why - it is a gigantic monumental structure. There are hundreds of empty rooms, with many windows smashed by vandals. After years of debate, the plan now is to turn Prora into a modern holiday resort. Four of the five blocks have been sold to private investors and the district council of Ruegen. The council wants to build a 500-bed youth hostel in one block, which will cost around 15m euros (£13m). "Prora has one of the most beautiful beaches on the island of Ruegen. With its fine, white sand, Prora is like a Caribbean beach," says Kerstin Kassner, a local councillor. "It isn't nice to have such a large, empty property on the beach, so we have to bring life back to this area," she adds. Developers have a new vision. They want to build hundreds of holiday apartments, with cafes, discos, hotels, sports halls and swimming pools in order to attract thousands of visitors. "We want to revamp Prora as quickly as possible," says Horst Schaumann, the mayor of Binz. "We'll be able to house 3,000 people here in the future. We want lots of young people and tourists to come here and enjoy their holiday in this peaceful resort," he adds. Mixed feelings Construction of the new resort is due to start next year. But the idea of turning Prora into a tourist attraction is proving controversial. In the nearby seaside town of Binz, locals have mixed feelings about the new project. "We've got enough tourists here already and we don't need any more visitors," one man says. "Prora should be left as a reminder of the past and it shouldn't become a package holiday resort. We must not forget our history," Kathrin, a shopkeeper says. "I don't think that it is right to build a new resort here, because of what Prora stands for," says Heike Tagsold, a historian at the Documentation Centre in Prora. "This is where the Nazis wanted to feed and entertain people, as well as indoctrinate them. It's not really a holiday destination. I can't imagine coming here on holiday, and I don't think people should enjoy themselves at this place," she says. It is not clear whether the museum will remain in Prora once the building work gets under way - but Ms Tagsgold insists it should. "Far-right groups are powerful in Germany. We have to make sure that people understand what happened in Prora, so we need to keep this museum," she says. The plans for the new resort are still up in the air and the local authorities and developers have still not decided the museum's fate. "We won't ignore the history of Prora. It's a listed property so the building's facades will be preserved," said Guedrun Reimer, from Binz council. But whether Prora can be transformed into a popular holiday destination remains to be seen. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7777866.stm Published: 2008/12/13 07:51:25 GMT © BBC MMVIII \ \ \ The invisible man rescuing art By Simon Worrall BBC News, Philadelphia There are about 100 of us packed into a restaurant in Upper Holmesburg, Philadelphia - art experts and curators, museum security chiefs, and a phalanx of FBI agents with 9mm Glocks concealed under their G-man suits. We have gathered to say farewell to a man few people have heard of and even fewer could recognise or describe. That is the way Special Agent Robert "Bob" Wittman prefers it. For nearly two decades, usually masquerading as a crooked art dealer with links to the Mafia or the Colombian drug cartels, he has run undercover sting operations, luring criminals into selling him stolen works of art. Protecting his identity means the difference between life and death. In one operation he found himself in a hotel bathroom in Copenhagen hugging a Rembrandt to his chest as a Danish Swat (Special Weapons and Tactics) team burst into the room to arrest an Iraqi-born hoodlum named Baha Kadhoum, who was trying to sell him Rembrandt's self-portrait from 1630. Painted on copper, the size of a paperback book, and worth tens of millions of pounds, it had been stolen from The National Museum of Sweden in one of the most daring art heists of modern times. Housed in a Renaissance palazzo at the end of a peninsula, the Museum is surrounded on all sides by water. And as families strolled through Stockholm's Christmas markets and skated on frozen lakes, Kadhoum and his gang set fire to a vehicle blocking the only access road. Wearing ski masks and brandishing guns, they then stormed the building, cut the Rembrandt self-portrait and two Renoirs from the walls, and escaped by speedboat. Lone operator Art crime is big business. Estimated to be worth between $1.5 - $6bn (£1- £4bn) annually, it is now the fourth largest international crime, after drug dealing, gun running and money laundering. It is a fully globalised industry. Paintings stolen in Europe turn up in Japan or America. They are easy to transport and hard to identify. If challenged by a customs officer, a thief can always say he bought it at a flea market for his wife. And as yet no beagle has been trained to sniff out Old Masters. Bob Wittman has been on the frontlines of the war against art crime since 1989. In a distinguished career he has recovered stolen art worth millions, in more than a dozen countries. Paintings by Rembrandt, Goya, Brughel and Rothko, Geronimo's eagle-feathered war bonnet and a piece of solid gold Inca armour are just a few of his trophies. One of his last assignments was to investigate links between the sale of looted art from Iraq and Afghanistan and Islamic terrorism. For most of his career, he was a lone operator. Today, the FBI's Art Crime Team has 12 agents spread across the United States. Scotland Yard has four detectives - France has 30. Not surprisingly, in view of its vast cultural patrimony, Italy boasts the world's biggest team - 300 art-hunting Carabinieri, including agents who use helicopters to patrol the country's myriad archaeological sites. 'Regular Joe' Like a spy, Mr Wittman's job is all about befriending and betraying. Fox-like cunning, nerves of steel, a silver tongue and the ability to convincingly pretend to be someone else are essential. So, too, is having a face that is easy to forget. No scars, no cauliflower ears, average height, average build. What the Americans call "a regular Joe". Put him in a crowded room and he would blend into the background, like a camouflaged moth on a piece of tree bark. Now, at the age of 53, the king of heists is hanging up his silver badge and gun to write a book and spend more time with his wife and three children. Even in retirement, he will not allow his face to be photographed. He is forging a new career as a private art-security consultant and may still need to go undercover. Besides, there are too many criminals who would love to know the true identity of the smooth-talking FBI agent who put them behind bars. "It's about saving the cultural property of mankind," Mr Wittman tells me, when I ask him why he chose such a dangerous job. "Every country has a different cultural heritage and saving these things brings us closer together as human beings. When it comes to art, it's visceral. It affects us in a deep, emotional way." From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 13 December, 2008 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7780059.stm Published: 2008/12/13 12:02:20 GMT © BBC MMVIII \ \ \ Blows for freedom John Redwood's Diary 13/12/2008 09:45 John Redwood Blog Comments Every time the public is allowed a vote they show their scorn and dislike of current EU and UK government policies. The French, Dutch and Irish all voted against the ghastly EU Constitution and its renamed look alike. The people of the North East voted against regional government. The people of Manchester voted against more surveillance cameras and a further tax on motoring. In the latter two cases it was not a marginal decision or a small vote. The feeling was overwhelming, in carefully chosen Labour areas. The people had been beaten up by the Labour propoganda, yet they still voted No. The frustration with governments is now intense, as they seek more ways to annoy us, and to thwart the popular will. Why will they never learn? They spend a fortune of our money on polling and researching our views, yet when they give us a vote they ignore the result. They should get the underlying message. We want more freedom. We want to keep more of our hard earned money to spend as we see fit. \ \ \ When will housing be affordable? John Redwood's Diary 13/12/2008 10:02 John Redwood Blog Comments The government is discovering that wishing for housing to be more affordable, as they did for several years, creates an uncomfortable world of negative equity, weak banks and mortgage famine. They by now should have worked out that their theory that you needed to build more houses to bring house prices down was completely wrong. We today have plunging prices at the same time as large cuts in new building. So when will housing be affordable? There is no single good price level, as it all depends on what price level the mortgage banks will support. They, under strong regulatory influence both ways, have lurched from believing very high prices are affordable, to working with much lower prices. What is affordable when banks will lend 5 times salary is not affordable when they will only lend 3 times salary. What was affordable with a 100% mortgage may not be affordable with an 80% mortgage. The boom was so overdone in London that even people on good incomes were priced out of the London housing market unless they already owned a property or had some other windfall to help them. Still today, after considerable falls in the market, a new MP on £63,000 a year would be hard pressed to find anything more than a studio flat he or she could afford north of the river near the office. A professional, middle manager or Doctor on around £100,000 would have little choice of anything other than a one bedroom flat in the central districts if they were starting out with a mortgage and not much else. Pity anyone on average wages, they do not have a chance in inner London. I fear this all means the fall has further to go. The government has not yet found a way to help mend the banks. The mortgage market is still far from happy. Northern Rock is in effective run off, so Northern’s mortgages need refinancing elsewhere as they fall due. On current policies we have not found a base for the property market. That means more losses at the taxpayer financed banks, in line with the deteriorating loan experience revealed by HBOS in their figures yesterday. Taxpayers are currently losing more than £7 billion on the bank shares the government has bought for £37 billion at current prices. This week I asked the Foreign Secretary why it appears that Northern Rock cannot offer competitive busniess rates in the market owing to EU competition rules, but this constraint does not seem to apply to RBS. He said he would write to me with an answer. I think we need to know, as it seems odd that the smaller bank is prevented from writing much new business, whilst the bigger bank is unaffected. \ \ \
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Duncan	13-Dec-08, 04:55 PM (GMT)
6. "if you dont respect risk, it will come and hang you"
http://www.safehaven.com/article-12070.htm \ \ \ This article will appear in an upcoming issue in Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ US/Canadian political impasse: The patient is dead The disastrous Bush years have left a legacy of war and financial collapse. They have also brought North America to a political impasse, bemoans Eric Walberg The really extraordinary political event in North American politics as 2008 came to a close was not the albeit remarkable election of the first US black president, but the collapse of Canada’s parliamentary system. Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system allowed the Conservatives to form a minority government during the past three years with about 1/3 of the popular vote, supported by the Canadian equivalent of the Bushites (hardcore rightwingers -- Bible-thumpers and the very rich). Last month’s election resulted in another stalemate, and when the Cons presented a budget that did nothing to address the alarming fallout for average Canadians of the financial crisis, the three left-centre opposition parties were galvanised into agreeing to defeat the Conservatives in the next major vote in parliament and, in parliamentary tradition, form a coalition government. This has happened only once in Canada’s history -- in 1926. Prime Minister Steven Harper realised his goose would be cooked and called on Canada's equivalent of the US president, the otherwise powerless Governor General Michaelle Jean (BTW, a black woman), to "prorogue" parliament for two months, creating a new first – the government avoiding defeat by dismissing the lawmakers. How’s that for democracy? Pundits joke that this makes Canada a "pro-rogue" state. The Cons are gambling that the opposition’s plans will fall apart by the end of January. The uncharismatic Liberal leader Stephane Dion has already been pressured into ceding leadership of the Liberal Party to the unproven and reluctant coalitionist Michael Ignatieff, and the separatist, albeit social democratic Bloc Quebecois is not the most reliable friend for a coalition consisting of the Liberals and the socialist New Democratic Party. But dismissing parliament is precisely what German President Paul von Hindenburg did in 1933 at the request of another minority conservative government, making Hitler chancellor and allowing the Nazis to finish off the democratic system there and begin a fateful rule which still sends shudders down one’s spine. Even if the opposition had prevailed, however, the policies of this fractious centre-left coalition would not have looked startlingly different. Sure, an economic stimulus package of sorts, maybe slightly better regulation of shady business practices, some good environmental legislation. Nothing to sneeze at. But Canadian troops would continue to murder Afghan patriots and be blown up by their roadside bombs, despite the desire of 60 per cent of Canadians to bring the troops home immediately; the military budget would get a hefty boost; health care would continue to flounder; the Cons' corporate tax cuts would be enacted. The Liberals insisted there was no socialist bottom line agreed upon, and the neocon-in-sheep's-clothing Michael Ignatieff, an nasty silver-tongued American (sorry, Canadian) actually hailed Bush's criminal invasion of Iraq. The NDP -- Canada's sole political party voicing the will of Canadians to pull out of Afghanistan immediately -- could be decimated if a sufficiently charismatic Liberal leader called an election at the moment of his choosing, the public's fear of a Conservative majority is so great. Cut to the much slicker US political scene, where liberals, workers, blacks and hispanics united to defeat their Bushites, electing a clutch of Democrats, including the world's darling, president-elect Barack Obama. He promises a Canadian-style health insurance, better environmental standards, and promised -- at one point -- to withdraw all troops from Iraq by the end of next year. His statements on Iraq were interpreted to mean that there would be no permanent US bases there. But even before he has taken office, he has shown which side of his bread the butter is on. The “change” incumbent supported the shameful bailout of the big banks of US President George W Bush and company, and proceeded to appoint some of the very culprits in the deregulation madness of the past two decades to positions in his cabinet and as advisers to implement the bailout. Not one nod to his promise for change. He talks about using “soft power” abroad but reappointed Bush's Robert Gates, a hawk if there ever was one, as his secretary of defence. As for pulling out of Iraq, forget it. And the US military is hard at work building barracks for an addition 20,000 troops in Afghanistan with plans to increase this to 40,000 for up to four years. How can this be? The same policies that have driven Americans and Canadians to distraction over the past decade are being pursued by politicians both left and right today, after "democratic" elections. You kick one party out but get much the same policies from the other. There is no relief. The current war/ financial crises, orchestrated by Zionists Wolfowitz, Greenspan etal remind ex-Israeli writer Gilad Atzmon of the joke about the surgeon who comes out of the operating theater after a 12-hour open-heart operation and tells the anxious family, "The operation was a great success but unfortunately your beloved didn’t make it to the end.” Greenspan’s and Wolfowitz’s doctrines looked promising on paper. Greenspan claimed in an April 2005 speech: “Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as subprime loans and niche credit programmes for immigrants.” Yes to help these humble immigrants buy houses. How thoughtful. Wolfowitz and his PNAC crew claimed they were invading various countries to bring them "democracy and freedom". Greenspan would keep the US economy afloat long enough for Wolfie to capture Iraqi oil and to secure pipeline routes through Central Asia, fueling the empire for long into the future. As it turned out, Greenspan’s success with his subprime-primed real estate boom was much like Wolfowitz’s success in toppling Saddam Hussein. It started out all "shock and awe" (remember the obscene carpet bombing of Baghdad in 2003?), but ended up pulling the American empire down with it. However, it is not necessary to claim the credit crunch to be a Zionist plot (though the intent was a boom to finance their war in Iraq) so much as a Zionist accident. The trouble is the patient didn’t make it through to the end. This Zionist accident shows us that we are all victims along with those other victims -- Palestinians, Iraqis and Afghanis. The operation was carried out but it appears the American empire is now on life support and headed for the morgue. Unless, of course, the Zionist answer to its own mad operation -- bankrupt the rest of the world by printing dollars to keep the patient alive -- succeeds. The pattern is familiar: these selfless civil servants are always trying to save the world. They bring democracy to the Arabs, they bring prosperity to the poor. But somehow, it is their friends, in the first place, Israel, that always benefits. “One has only to read Herzl to know that this is what political Zionism is all about: the manipulation of superpowers to serve the Zionist cause,” writes Gilad Atzmon in “Credit Crunch or rather Zio Punch?” The events leading up to the current US financial bailout follow the logic of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, with 9/11 as the "shock" that allowed the neocon establishment to railroad through an anti-democratic "homeland security" system and tax cuts for the superwealthy. The $700 billion Paulson bailout merely adds the finishing touch to this breathtaking con. It was steamrolled through Congress not to "solve" the financial crisis but to solidify the gains that a tiny disproportionately Zionist hyper-wealthy class has stolen through deregulation and war since 9/11. Obama is surrounded by Zionists, from his veepee Joseph Biden ("You don't have to be Jewish to be a Zionist") down to his lowly (ex-IDF volunteer) White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. His domestic policy will be presided over by Zionists Timothy Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Paul Volker, Peter Orszag, Jason Furman, not to mention the founder of Rubinomics, the great Robert Rubin himself. Is this mention of implicit political affiliation impolite? The question is: do they act tribally, as a cabal, rather than simply as individuals? Unconditional US support for Israel would evaporate overnight without their intensive lobbying. There would have been no US invasion of Iraq. Obama would not be appointing their likes to "change" the disastrous direction the US is heading in. In business circles, it is well know that it takes as little as 15 per cent of a company's stock to effectively control company policy. Thirty per cent of the rich and 50 per cent of the billionaires in the US are Jewish (and you can bet they are Zionists), whereas Jews, the inspiration behind Zionism, constitute only 2.5 per cent of the population. It's as if one family controls 30 per cent of the "stock" in the US government. Is it possible that this whole electoral system has become a farce, manipulated from behind the scenes by these very grey eminences to keep an agenda of war for Israel and economic elitism on track? Why would the Canadian gg refuse to give the centre-left a chance to govern, and even if she did, why would the coalition Liberals suddenly replace the one-time critic of Canada's "mission" in Afghanistan Dion with the more reliably neocon Ignatieff? How could Obama possibly appoint architects of the Bush-era war/ financial policies, after he was elected to end the war, and with the culprits now exposed for what they are? Both the Canadian and US political events of the past few months defy any other explanation and yet are accepted as perfectly normal in the mass media. American politicians are rushing to save the bankers and their warrior brothers, all in the defence of Israel, with their Canadian counterparts acting on cue, governed by the same forces, if anything, moreso. But the patient is dead. *** Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly. You can reach him at www.geocities.com/walberg2002/ \ \ \ http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/12/masters-of-the-universe-ver-12/ \ \ \
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Duncan	13-Dec-08, 05:08 PM (GMT)
7. "gold lays the way north, while silver stays shy"
\ \ \ http://stockcharts.com/charts/gallery.html?$GOLD \ \ \ http://stockcharts.com/charts/gallery.html?$XSF \ \ \ http://stockcharts.com/charts/gallery.html?$WTIC \ \ \
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Duncan	14-Dec-08, 03:18 AM (GMT)
8. "if you tell a big enough lie, people swallow it"
14 december 2008 "Sorry everyone....what you've been pursuing has all been a lie, a big Ponzi, a rat-hole to nowhere....". Re-boot. Not a year has gone by during the past fifteen that I have not contemplated what Bernie Madoff did (or didn't do) to make his money. Seventy to one-hundred basis-points-a-month. Net. Net. Net. During tempests, earthquakes, panics and crashes - even during the closure of the exchange itself, Bernie apparently minted coin like few others. Even Renaissance and Shaw tripped occasionally. Not Bernie. Yet no one knew what he did. It was one of the best kept secrets in the world. Oh yeah, sure, split-strike conversions were the official line. But every skeptical arb trader knew this couldn't be true. I also never came across an ex-Madoff trader the way one meets ex-Shaw, ex-Moore Cap, or ex-Citadel employees. Resumes are sent in reply to postings and guys have done the rounds, even if they weren't unhappy and making a moral statement. A spouse moves...whatever. Surely there must be disgruntled Madoffians somewhere, right?. Were they ummm underground? I mean, literally? My friends at a large IB (who were soliciting business from them years ago) who'd been to their offices said they looked like the bridge from the USS Enterprise (the Starship - The Next Generation version). Entry to the IM sub was strictly verboten. Uh huh. He said it was a paperless office. No paper trails. Hmmmm. Violators were fired. Weird. No one transgressed. Whatever he did, he came a long way from arbing the odd-lots that were the reputed foundation of his activities. I knew his shop from London where he was one of the few to make markets in US stocks out of hours, and if my clients for whatever (mostly ill-advised) reason needed to trade instantly, Bernie would make a price. Not necessarily a good price, but a price. But one does so at their peril since the folk with material non-public information are more predisposed to want to trade outside hours, so the pick-off risk was huge. But he never complained. Next thing I know, he's at the center of an electronic trading revolution - an electronic market-maker facilitator at the center of the trading universe. Yet even Timber Hill has bad hair days. Volkswagen ord-pref days. Not Bernie. Is he arbing the exchange fee structure? Is he algorithmically scalping cause he's seeing the order flow before it gets to the exchange? Maybe. Profitably? Who knows? But I didn't have a problem with an old Jewish guy making markets. This is what we DO. But there are these investment funds - Fairfield Sentry and Kingate, and these are the issue. They are Madoff-only feeders reputed to be $7bn each. Are they funding his market-making? Why does he need so much capital? What the f*ck f*ck f*cking f*ck could he be doing in the equity markets with that much capital and still keep it a secret AND deliver returns? They say they are doing these split strike conversions but I can't see how the numbers work. Nor can anyone else. The Wall Street Journal raises the red flags in an article, but it's dismissed as hyperbole disseminated by jealous competitors. But the nagging thing is: there are lots of smart guys out there. More than sixty of them near Stonybrook with Simons focused on cracking the nut faster, better quicker, and this activity and result, I can understand. But there is no sign of such exactitude or intellectual firepower at Madoff. Just 70 to 100 bps per month, secretiveness, and dissonance. In 2000, I advised a family-office on their alternative investments and constructed a portfolio on their behalf. I had free rein. Included in their legacy portfolio was a sizable Madoff position. As a fiduciary - and a conservative one - coming on the heels of LTCM which also lacked transparency and which made it hard for me to raise capital - I dug, asked every well-connected equity-finance, prime-broker, electronic trader and HF allocator type I knew and it still didn't add up. The best and brightest still had no more insight than I, though the skeptical shared my suspicions. So, I strongly suggested they "dump it". "One isn't being compensated sufficiently for not knowing, and something just isn't right here. Yeah maybe it's OK, but I think it's not". But they liked "it" and they liked "him". "He's always paid", they said. "We've been with him a long time". Old school they were. Trusting. What the f*ck did I know anyway? Well, it seemed to me that the "split-strike conversions" were profit shifting bookkeeping tools. Money invested in the feeders did obtain split-strike conversion positions on their books that had an implied "yield" equal to their return but it seemed these were pre-arranged combinations that shifted return back to the investment vehicles and were "phantom" positions vs. Madoff securities. In the interim, Madoff presumably has use of the entire pool of capital, to do what he pleased, plus whatever that pool could command in terms of leverage from bank lines and financing sources. It could be in anything and everything. He could be doing mutual fund timing, or mutual fund market impact trades. Credit arbitrage. Funding coup d'etats in Africa. Or buying GSCI commodity swaps. More plausibly, he could be doing option and index-option market impact trades since he was ostensibly at the center of market flow, or he could be at the center of a loan-sharking network across America earning 50%pa, and here he was passing a paltry 9% back to investors. Either he was crooked beyond belief or he was an evil contrapreneurial genius. Who would have have thought he was both??!! Some crimes are too perfect. Some facades too well-painted to be original or convincing. A good hustler knows he must lose sometimes in order to win. THAT is the reflection of reality that makes it believable, and gives confidence to the punter who will shortly be taken out. THAT was what was wrong with Bernie Madoff's Ponzi. The people who were taken - like the Family Office and many other investors who in time will go public on their fleecing - wanted badly to believe they were onto something that was so good that they ignored the most obvious signs of bogusness. It just didn't make sense. It just didn't add up. Even Jim Simons earns it. There is no free lunch. There is something fitting and just in the timing of this. It is emblematic of America since Reagan and the Great Leveraging. Something for nothing. Thank you, Mr Laffer. But as a philosophy and modus operandi it is, quite literally, bankrupt and without merit. And Laffer has since been proven to be full of sh*t. Now, Americans will have to confront this, the premise that greed is good and self-guiding and somehow omnisciently beneficial, for it has had repercussions down to the core of our society and values. "Sorry everyone....what you've been pursuing has all been a lie, a big Ponzi, a rat-hole to nowhere....". Re-boot.
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Duncan	14-Dec-08, 03:32 AM (GMT)
9. "Glencore International AG (management buy out of Marc Rich & Co AG) is one of the world's largest suppliers of commodities and raw materials, and is also among the world's largest privately held companies."
14 december 2008 Banks now seeing the wisdom of the previous generation's gold holdings Kyoto - Private banks could be the next big buyers in the global gold market, helping drive prices higher as they consider restocking bullion bars that were sold off in calmer times, the top HSBC gold trader said on Monday. Jeremy Charles, chairperson of the London Bullion Market Association and global head of precious metals trade at HSBC Bank, also said he expected central banks around the world to put the brakes on their plans to sell down gold reserves as they see other assets deteriorate, lending further support to prices. "I think the institutional investors and private banks in particular will all be reconsidering their strategy. My belief is they are likely to want to own some gold again," he said on the sidelines of the LBMA's annual conference. The current generation of private bankers destocked their gold holdings in the 1980s and 1990s to pursue higher-return investments in recent years, but are now seeing the wisdom of the previous generation's gold holdings, he said. The deepening world financial crisis as the burden of toxic housing debt pushed US and European banks to the brink of collapse has roiled investors globally, causing many to rethink their approaches and potentially putting a new shine on gold. Charles also said he saw only 10% downside potential from the current gold price of around $875 an ounce, with far greater potential on the upside. He declined to give a price forecast. "The premiums around the world tell a big story to me," he said. "The recent dip in the gold price has created massive demand from the retail investors." Premiums to buy physical bullion, normally in the range of a few dollars, surged to more than $20 an ounce over the last few weeks - the highest in recent memory - amid an unprecedented spike in demand to hold gold bars or coins, he said. The spike was caused by a combination of mounting anxiety tied to the US financial crisis and relatively tame spot gold prices as financial institutions sold holdings to raise cash. Last week, the US Mint said it was temporarily suspending sales of American Buffalo 24-karat gold one-ounce bullion coins because strong demand had depleted its inventory. In mid-August, a shortage of American Eagle one-ounce gold coins due to "unprecedented" demand had also forced the US Mint to temporarily suspend sales of the popular coins. In Asia, premiums for gold bars jumped to this year's highs at $2 an ounce to the spot London prices this month, driven by demand from jewellers and investors as well as tight supplies. While Western retail money flowed into exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with the biggest of these reaching a record 724.94 tonnes last week, investors in places like India, the Middle East and other countries with a deep affinity to gold rushed to buy. If private bankers and other financial investors join the spree, prices could quickly retest their mid-March record high of $1 030.80 an ounce, analysts and traders say. The ETFs are backed by physical gold, which gives investors exposure to the gold price without needing to take delivery. That adds to demand for the precious metal, which has attracted safe-haven investors during a year of unprecedented turbulence. Bullion holdings of SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, holds near a record at 724.63 tonnes. \ \ \ http://www.24hgold.com/viewarticle.aspx?rss=true&langue=en&articleid=353677_Swelling+Ranks+of+Sellers \ \ \ http://news.kontentkonsult.com/2008/12/another-swiss-giant-on-edge-glencoe.html
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Duncan	14-Dec-08, 04:27 AM (GMT)
10. "Cancer is an indication that something is drastically wrong with what you are putting into your body"
http://www.24hgold.com/viewarticle.aspx?rss=true&langue=en&articleid=353679_Backwardation+Update+-+Still+No+in+Gold%2c+but+Maybe+in+Silver! \ \ \ Bush sneaks through host of laws to undermine Obama guardian.co.uk From the Observer: Observer 14/12/2008 24:01 Paul Harris George Bush Obama White House United States World news Observer Pollution Environment After spending eight years at the helm of one of the most ideologically driven administrations in American history, George W. Bush is ending his presidency in characteristically aggressive fashion, with a swath of controversial measures designed to reward supporters and enrage opponents. By the time he vacates the White House, he will have issued a record number of so-called 'midnight regulations' - so called because of the stealthy way they appear on the rule books - to undermine the administration of Barack Obama, many of which could take years to undo. Dozens of new rules have already been introduced which critics say will diminish worker safety, pollute the environment, promote gun use and curtail abortion rights. Many rules promote the interests of large industries, such as coal mining or energy, which have energetically supported Bush during his two terms as president. More are expected this week. America's attention is focused on the fate of the beleaguered car industry, still seeking backing in Washington for a multi-billion-dollar bail-out. But behind the scenes, the 'midnight' rules are being rushed through with little fanfare and minimal media attention. None of them would be likely to appeal to the incoming Obama team. The regulations cover a vast policy area, ranging from healthcare to car safety to civil liberties. Many are focused on the environment and seek to ease regulations that limit pollution or restrict harmful industrial practices, such as dumping strip-mining waste. The Bush moves have outraged many watchdog groups. 'The regulations we have seen so far have been pretty bad,' said Matt Madia, a regulatory policy analyst at OMB Watch. 'The effects of all this are going to be severe.' Bush can pass the rules because of a loophole in US law allowing him to put last-minute regulations into the Code of Federal Regulations, rules that have the same force as law. He can carry out many of his political aims without needing to force new laws through Congress. Outgoing presidents often use the loophole in their last weeks in office, but Bush has done this far more than Bill Clinton or his father, George Bush sr. He is on track to issue more 'midnight regulations' than any other previous president. Many of these are radical and appear to pay off big business allies of the Republican party. One rule will make it easier for coal companies to dump debris from strip mining into valleys and streams. The process is part of an environmentally damaging technique known as 'mountain-top removal mining'. It involves literally removing the top of a mountain to excavate a coal seam and pouring the debris into a valley, which is then filled up with rock. The new rule will make that dumping easier. Another midnight regulation will allow power companies to build coal-fired power stations nearer to national parks. Yet another regulation will allow coal-fired stations to increase their emissions without installing new anti-pollution equipment. The Environmental Defence Fund has called the moves a 'fire sale of epic size for coal'. Other environmental groups agree. 'The only motivation for some of these rules is to benefit the business interests that the Bush administration has served,' said Ed Hopkins, a director of environmental quality at the Sierra Club. A case in point would seem to be a rule that opens up millions of acres of land to oil shale extraction, which environmental groups say is highly pollutant. There is a long list of other new regulations that have gone onto the books. One lengthens the number of hours that truck drivers can drive without rest. Another surrenders government control of rerouting the rail transport of hazardous materials around densely populated areas and gives it to the rail companies. One more chips away at the protection of endangered species. Gun control is also weakened by allowing loaded and concealed guns to be carried in national parks. Abortion rights are hit by allowing healthcare workers to cite religious or moral grounds for opting out of carrying out certain medical procedures. A common theme is shifting regulation of industry from government to the industries themselves, essentially promoting self-regulation. One rule transfers assessment of the impact of ocean-fishing away from federal inspectors to advisory groups linked to the fishing industry. Another allows factory farms to self-regulate disposal of pollutant run-off. The White House denies it is sabotaging the new administration. It says many of the moves have been openly flagged for months. The spate of rules is going to be hard for Obama to quickly overcome. By issuing them early in the 'lame duck' period of office, the Bush administration has mostly dodged 30- or 60-day time limits that would have made undoing them relatively straightforward. Obama's team will have to go through a more lengthy process of reversing them, as it is forced to open them to a period of public consulting. That means that undoing the damage could take months or even years, especially if corporations go to the courts to prevent changes. At the same time, the Obama team will have a huge agenda on its plate as it inherits the economic crisis. Nevertheless, anti-midnight regulation groups are lobbying Obama's transition team to make sure Bush's new rules are changed as soon as possible. 'They are aware of this. The transition team has a list of things they want to undo,' said Madia. Final reckoning Bush's midnight regulations will: • Make it easier for coal companies to dump waste from strip-mining into valleys and streams. • Ease the building of coal-fired power stations nearer to national parks. • Allow people to carry loaded and concealed weapons in national parks. • Open up millions of acres to mining for oil shale. • Allow healthcare workers to opt out of giving treatment for religious or moral reasons, thus weakening abortion rights. • Hurt road safety by allowing truck drivers to stay at the wheel for 11 consecutive hours. \ \ \ From The Sunday Times December 14, 2008 Ross: What I did was all 'above board' Jenny Davey and James Ashton DAVID ROSS, the Carphone Warehouse tycoon caught in a row over his business affairs, broke his silence this weekend to defend his name. The entrepreneur, who has resigned all bar one of his public-company directorships after admitting that he failed to disclose that he had signed over his shareholdings as collateral against personal borrowings, is mapping out a future concentrating on his private business interests and philanthropy. However, he is expected to have to sell some or all of his public shareholdings over time to service debts elsewhere after the collapse in value of his commercial-property holdings. “I feel very surprised by the scale of the media furore about it,” Ross said. “It is deeply regrettable. My shares are owned by me and the deals I entered into were perfectly above board. Words like scandal just aren’t appropriate.” RELATED LINKS David Ross: Playboy who fell to earth Why UK carmakers need a jump start Ross said he had drawn comfort from more than 500 text messages from friends and colleagues since the revelations emerged last Monday. “People who know me know I would never knowingly operate in a dishonest manner,” he added. “They say what we’re reading about in the papers is not what you are.” An investigation by the Financial Services Authority has yet to begin but Ross intends to co-operate fully when it does. “I am resolute in my determination to resolve this issue and move forward,” he said. Lawyers say that disclosure on using shares to guarantee loans is a grey area. “It is regrettable,” added Ross, who also lost his job as Olympics finance adviser to London mayor Boris Johnson. “But it is an opportunity to re-evaluate and reconsider — it could be quite a cathartic process for me to look again at what I really want to do and enjoy doing.” Ross believes that his business career is not over, but “there are plenty of other things to do in the world, different sorts of business. For example, in recent times, I have really enjoyed my not-for-profit work.” Ross is already planning to dispose of his 2% stake in National Express, which was worth £14m last Friday. Some or all of his 19.4% stake, worth £160m, in Carphone Warehouse may follow soon. \ \ \ The Proven Cure and Prevention for Cancer the Medical Establishment Doesn't Want You to Know (Part I) NewsTarget.com 13/12/2008 08:00 (NaturalNews) This article is about how you can prevent and cure cancer with a bottle of flax oil and a carton of cottage cheese. As incredible as this may seem, it is a truth that has been well proven and documented. It is also a truth that has been vigorously suppressed because the cancer industry is big business at its worst. You or someone you love may have been diagnosed with cancer, and you are very much afraid. You have been taught by the disease establishment that you have a life threatening condition, and you had better sign on for the "standard of care" treatments before it is too late. Your doctors have thrown all sorts of frightening statistics at you about what will happen if you don't have immediate surgery followed by radiation, chemotherapy, and probably a lifetime of debilitating drug use. You are being pressured to make an immediate commitment to these toxic treatments. Your mind is in a whirl, you can't think straight, and you're scared out of your wits. Now the cancer industry has you right where it wants you. You are in no condition to investigate alternatives. If you could gather your wits enough to start investigating what cancer really is and how it should be treated, your doctors know that you would run from them and their poisons. That's why the pressure on you is so intense. So what is cancer really? Does a person get cancer because he is suffering from a deficiency of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and drugs? Once you realize that the answer to this question is obviously 'no', you will see that traditional "standard of care" treatments, even if administered at state of the art cancer clinics, have no cure to offer you. So there is no rush to sign up for those treatments. You really can afford to take the time to relax and regain your composure, and then decide on a rational approach based on alternatives that do offer you the potential for complete cure. Whether you have a lot of money or not, and even if you have no health insurance, you really can make a complete recovery from cancer. Cancer is an indication that something is drastically wrong with what you are putting into your body. If you have a family with a high incidence of cancer, maybe you think cancer is in your genes and you really can't do anything about it. This is not true. No matter what your genetic makeup, it is the choices you make that determine whether genes that induce cancer will get switched on. Cancer is not a deadly disease. Cancer is a life saving wake up call. So, with all this in mind, let's get back to the flax oil and cottage cheese. Johanna Budwig Dr. Johanna Budwig was born in Germany in 1908 and died 95 years later. She devoted her life to cancer research and was often referred to as the top cancer research scientist in Europe. She was also a biochemist and physicist who was a leading authority on fats, oils and nutrition. After original and exhaustive research which included years of clinical trials, Johanna proved beyond doubt that unheated and unprocessed flaxseed oil could provide the body with the essential fatty acids that would replenish the loss of critically needed phosphatides and lipoproteins missing from the diets of many people of her time and are missing to an even greater degree in the diets of Americans today. Through blood analysis of many cancer patients, Johanna determined that cancer patients were always grossly deficient in these critical nutrients. Blood samples from all patients with later stage cancer revealed a greenish yellow substance in place of normal, healthy red oxygen carrying hemoglobin indicating an inability of the blood to transport oxygen to the cells. After she treated them for a few months with daily doses of flaxseed oil, their cancer tumors gradually receded and the unhealthy blood color was replaced by healthy red blood cells. This change in blood color signaled the rise of phosphatide and lipoprotein levels. Her discovery of how to make the fats water soluble was her crowning moment. She realized that fats become water soluble and able to pass through the cell membrane only when they are bound to protein. This is where the cottage cheese comes in. It is the binding of the electron rich fats from the flax oil with the sulphurated protein from the cottage cheese that ushers these electrons in through the cell membranes and into the cell walls. Johanna was adamantly against the use of hydrogenated, partially hydrogenated, and polyunsaturated fats. She saw the chemical processing of these fats as damaging to every organ in the body. The heart rejects these fats and they end up as inorganic fatty deposits on the heart muscle, blocking circulation, damaging heart action, inhibiting cell renewal and disrupting the normal flow of blood and lymph fluids. Johanna's patients were those so terminally ill that traditional medical practitioners had given up on them, with many having been given only days or hours to live. She treated these patients with a simple diet based on a combination of flax oil and quark, the European version of cottage cheese. Her published research is full of testimonials from people around the world that were diagnosed with terminal cancer and were completely cured by the Budwig diet. The benefits of Johanna's research extend to the healing of anyone with any of the major debilitating diseases. There are thousands of documented cases of recovery from cancer using the Budwig protocol. For her research and practice, Johanna was nominated for seven Nobel Prizes, but was kept from receiving any of them by the German pharmaceutical and medical industries that subjected her to endless vilification and harassment and blocked the publication of her writings and clinical studies. We are the body electric In addition to compromising the integrity of our cellular membranes, processed and cooked oils lower the voltage in the cells of our bodies making us highly susceptible to chronic and terminal disease. Boiled and processed unsaturated fats have their field of electrons altered and destroyed resulting in the inability of the cells to fire properly. The ability of fats to associate with protein and to achieve water solubility in the body is destroyed. When fats are able to bond with protein to achieve water solubility, they are able to enter the cells, provide them with oxygen, and restore proper electrical energy levels. Remember, it is only in an oxygen deficient environment that cancer cells can thrive. The proper metabolism of fats affects every vital function and organ of the body, including cell regeneration and death. When new cells grow there is a di-polarity between the positive charge of the nucleus and the negative charge of the cell membrane. During the division phase of the cell cycle, the new or daughter cell must have enough energy to completely divide off from the old cell. It is electron rich fatty acids that facilitate this process. When this process is interrupted because di-polarity is missing through lack of electron rich highly unsaturated fat, cells do not completely divide from each other. This process can be reversed by providing the body with food that restores the ingredients necessary to return di-polarity and resolve the stagnated cell cycle. The molecular configuration of flax oil, with its two unsaturated fatty acid components composed of three pi-electron double bonds between atoms of the molecule is capable of transferring an immense amount of energy, allowing the body much greater assimilation and transport capacity of oxygen. This causes any tumors present to dissolve, and the range of symptoms indicating lack of di-polarity to disappear. Here is an excerpt from Johanna's research: "The moment two unsaturated double links occur together in a fatty acid chain, the effects are multiplied and in the highly unsaturated fats, the so called "linoleic" acids, there is generated a field of electrons, a veritable electrical charge which can be quickly conducted off into the body, thus causing a recharging of the living substance ,- especially of the brain and nerves. It is exactly those highly unsaturated fatty acids which play a decisive role in the respiratory functioning of the body. Without these fatty acids, the enzymes in the breath cannot function and we asphyxiate, even when given extra oxygen, as for example in hospitals. The lack of these highly unsaturated fatty acids paralyses many vital functions. Primarily, it cuts off the air we breathe." Let the sun shine in Johanna also investigated the relationship between fats, electrons, photons, and the solar energy from the sun. She was aware of the health giving energy of the sun and its effect on the body. This energy is in part due to the photons in sunlight which are the purest form of energy. People are meant to be in relationship with the sun as indicated by their high level of photons. This concentration of the sun's energy is improved when we eat electron rich food such as the flax oil, cottage cheese mixture which attracts the electromagnetic waves of sun beams. According to Johanna, "Matter always has its own vibration, and so, of course, does the living body. The absorption of energy must correspond to one's own wave length." This is what makes the sun and the human body so compatible when the body is in proper condition to receive it. Once Johanna's patients were feeling better, they were instructed to sit in the sun and found it easily tolerated. Johanna saw the electrons in the food we eat as our resonance system for the energy of the sun. She viewed the human body as an antenna for the sun and the interplay of the sun with the electrons in our food as the governing principal for all vital functions of the body. What this research means for you Most of the foods and almost all of the snacks of the American diet contain boiled or otherwise cooked oils, the oils that have lost their integrity and are unable to provide the life giving energy and oxygen transport essential to the proper functioning of your cells. If you have cancer now, have had it in the past, or wish to prevent it in the future, you must come to terms with this fact. Your doctor may tell you that what you eat has nothing to do with whether or not you are a victim of cancer. But nothing could be further from the truth. About the author Barbara is a school psychologist, a published author in the area of personal finance, a breast cancer survivor using "alternative" treatments, a born existentialist, and a student of nature and all things natural.
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