Gold Buying Contributing To Criminality?

In the following video I discuss the explosion of the gold buying culture in the United States and I illustrate how gold buying is indirectly contributing to a sharp rise in jewelry theft.

Gerald Celente the disintegration of Empire America

Chinese official urges buying of gold, U.S. land: report

A top Communist Party research chief said Thursday that China should buy gold and U.S. real estate rather than Treasurys, according to a Reuters report.

Li Lianzhong, who is head of economics at the party’s policy research office, said the U.S. dollar is poised for a fall, making gold and land better investments for China’s $1.95 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, the report said…

Click here for full article

U.S. Congresswoman Supports Mortgage Squatting

The State of the States: 46 US States Could File Bankruptcy in 2009 – 2010

States are facing a great fiscal crisis. At least 46 states faced or are facing shortfalls in their budgets for this and/or next year, and severe fiscal problems are highly likely to continue into the following year as well. Combined budget gaps for the remainder of this fiscal year and state fiscal years 2010 and 2011 are estimated to total more than $350 billion.

States are currently at the mid-point of fiscal year 2009 — which started July 1 in most states — and are in the process of preparing their budgets for the next year. Over half the states had already cut spending, used reserves, or raised revenues in order to adopt a balanced budget for the current fiscal year — which started July 1 in most states. Now, their budgets have fallen out of balance again. New gaps of $46 billion (over 9% of state budgets) have opened up in the budgets of at least 42 states plus the District of Columbia. These budget gaps are in addition to the $48 billion shortfalls that these and other states faced as they adopted their budgets for the current fiscal year, bringing total gaps for the year to over 14 percent of budgets.

The states’ fiscal problems are continuing into the next two years. At least 41 states have looked ahead and anticipate deficits for fiscal year 2010 and beyond. These gaps total almost $88 billion — 16 percent of budgets — for the 34 states that have estimated the size of these gaps and are likely to grow as gaps are re-estimated in the next few months.

Click here for full article

Gold likely to hit new highs on dollar fear

Gold is likely to hit new record highs, spurred by serious concern about the U.S. currency and doubt about the state of the world economy, the chairman of Barrick Gold Corp. said on Thursday.

There was even a possibility, although not a probability, central banks, including China’s, might start to switch from dollar holdings to gold, which could cause the metal’s price to treble or more.

From a gold producers’ perspective, one negative is that the cost of bringing on production has remained high, even as other raw materials, including base metals and energy, have slumped.

Click here for full article

Monetary union has left half of Europe trapped in depression

Events are moving fast in Europe. The worst riots since the fall of Communism have swept the Baltics and the south Balkans. An incipient crisis is taking shape in the Club Med bond markets. S&P has cut Greek debt to near junk. Spanish, Portuguese, and Irish bonds are on negative watch.

Dublin has nationalised Anglo Irish Bank with its half-built folly on North Wall Quay and €73bn (£65bn) of liabilities, moving a step nearer the line where markets probe the solvency of the Irish state.

A great ring of EU states stretching from Eastern Europe down across Mare Nostrum to the Celtic fringe are either in a 1930s depression already or soon will be. Greece’s social fabric is unravelling before the pain begins, which bodes ill.

Click here for full article

World Demand Collapse, Bonds Next

Anyone following the economic news in recent months has to be stunned at the declining economic activity. Japan had a 16% drop in machine orders for November. US car sales down 30 to 40%. Even world car leader Toyota has sales down 20 to 30%. Worldwide car sales are way down too, anywhere from 10 to 20% depending on which area.

US retail sales are down 2 plus percent, but depending on what stats you look at, autos -30% plus, that 2% number is far worse than it looks.

The EU region is seeing marked declines in orders and exports. Japan had a stunning 15 to 17 % drop in exports from the previous year. China had over 100,000 factories close by end of 08. The list is endless.

Of course all this collapsing demand is hitting commodities and energy. Gold has fared better overall, but is torn between central bank inflation efforts and deflation in general in every major economy. Even China is said to see possible flat growth in 09, something that they consider akin to Armageddon, as they need 15 million new jobs each year just to stay even with population growth.

Click here for full article

Merrill Lynch says rich turning to gold bars for safety

Merrill Lynch has revealed that some of its richest clients are so alarmed by the state of the financial system and signs of political instability around the world that they are now insisting on the purchase of gold bars, shunning derivatives or “paper” proxies.

Gary Dugan, the chief investment officer for the US bank, said there has been a remarkable change in sentiment. “People are genuinely worried about what the world is going to look like in 2009. It is amazing how many clients want physical gold, not ETFs,” he said, referring to exchange trade funds listed in London, New York, and other bourses.

“They are so worried they want a portable asset in their house. I never thought I would be getting calls from clients saying they want a box of krugerrands,” he said.

Merrill predicted that gold would soon blast through its all time-high of $1,030 an ounce, and would hit $1,150 by June.

Click here for full article

Gold Market Update

The way things look it will soon be impossible – or very difficult and expensive – to obtain physical gold and silver. The first major wave of physical buying has bought up all of the coins and small bar gold and silver available on the market, with the result that if you want any, you must pay a large premium. Right now, the second wave is underway, with astute investors forcing the Comex to deliver, which is having the effect of drawing down their warehouse stocks at a rapid rate.

As the Comex is massively leveraged and trades hundreds of times more gold and silver than it has in its possession, it is clear that immediately their warehouse stocks are completely depleted, there will be a mad scramble to buy physical gold and silver in order to meet contract obligations.

Click here for full article

Alternative Currencies Grow in Popularity

Most of us take for granted that those rectangular green slips of paper we keep in our wallets are inviolable: the physical embodiment of value. But alternative forms of money have a long history, and appear to be growing in popularity. It’s not merely barter, or primitive means of exchange like, say, seashells or beads. Beneath the financial radar, in hip U.S. towns or South African townships, in shops, markets, and even banks, throughout the world people are exchanging goods and services via thousands of currency types that look nothing like official tender.

Alternative means of trade often surface during tough economic times. “When money gets dried up and there are still needs to be met in society, people come up with creative ways to meet those needs,” says Peter North, a senior lecturer in geography at the University of Liverpool, author of two books on the subject. He refers to the “scrips” issued in the U.S. and Europe during the Great Depression that kept money flowing, and the massive barter exchanges involving millions of people that emerged amidst runaway inflation in Argentina in 2000. “People were kept from starving [this way],” he says.

Click here for full article

Milwaukee neighborhoods could print own money

They may be talking funny money, but it’s not funny business.

Residents from the Milwaukee neighborhoods of Riverwest and East Side are scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss printing their own money. The idea is that the local cash could be used at neighborhood stores and businesses, thus encouraging local spending. The result, supporters hope, would be a bustling local economy, even as the rest of the nation deals with a recession.

“You have all these people who have local currency, and they’re going to spend it at local stores,” said Sura Faraj, a community organizer who is helping spearhead the plan. “They can’t spend it at the Wal-Mart or the Home Depot, but they can spend it at their local hardware store or their local grocery store.”

Incentives could be used to entice consumers into using the new money. For example, perhaps they could trade $100 U.S. for $110 local, essentially netting them a 10 percent discount at participating stores.

Click here for full article

Financial Disaster Will Lead to Civil Disorder in 2009 or 2010, Says Secret Citibank Memo

An internal memo from a top Citibank analyst reveals what the banks really think about the global financial situation, and the outlook is grim.

“The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done. When the dust settles this will either work, and the money they have pushed into the system will feed through into an inflation shock,” wrote Tom Fitzpatrick, Citibank’s chief technical strategist.

He goes on to explain that the massive money creation efforts by the Federal Reserve and other central banks will end with one of two things: A resurgence of inflation, or a fall into “depression, civil disorder and possibly wars.” Either outcome, he says, will cause the price of gold to skyrocket. Gold will push to well over $2,000 per ounce, he explains.

The timing on all this? Sometime in either 2009 or 2010, said the analyst.

Click here for full article

Russian prof says economic meltdown will break up U.S.

MOSCOW – A professor at the diplomatic academy of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the U.S. will break into six parts because of the nation’s financial crisis.

“The dollar isn’t secured by anything,” Igor Panarin said in an interview transcribed by Russian newspaper Izvestia Monday.

“The country’s foreign debt has grown like an avalanche; this is a pyramid, which has to collapse.”

Panarin said the financial crisis will worsen, unemployment will rise and people will lose their savings — factors that will cause the country’s breakup.

Click here for full article

Making Financial Sense of the Coming Energy Crisis

Millions of people “vanished” in U.S. – historian

While America lectures Russia on the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine, Russian historian Boris Borisov asks what became of over seven million American citizens who disappeared from US population records in the 1930s.

Click here for full article

Why should gold stop at $1,500?

Euphoria over bank bailouts and the temporarily buoyant stock markets is masking a sober reality.

The piper still has to be paid.

One fairly sanguine estimate of the cost of salvaging Wall Street came Tuesday morning from analysts at Merrill Lynch. They figure the inflationary effect of all the bank bailout measures now underway will push gold to $1,500 an ounce and oil back to $150 a barrel.

The analysts don’t offer a timeline, but the way markets have been jumping around lately it could be any day now.

Perhaps the real question is: why stop at $1,500?

Click here for full article

Bailout Plan Up in the Air After House Rejects Bill

Democratic leaders pledged to try to put together another financial rescue bill, but it was unclear whether there was enough support for even a revised plan.

Congressional staffers told CNBC that there wouldn’t be any votes on a new bailout proposal until Thursday at the earliest.

In a statement following the vote, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he was “very disappointed” at the result of the vote but pledged to continue working with Congress to forge a rescue.

“I will continue to work with Congressional leaders to find a forward to pass a comprehensive plan to stabilize our financial system and protect the American people by limiting the prospects of further deterioration in our economy,” Paulson said. “We’ve got much work to do, and this is much too important to simply let fail.”

Click here for full article

Other countries unlikely to buy U.S. bailout bonds, China banker says

The U.S. dollar will face short-term fluctuations and weaken in the long run, a leading Chinese banker predicted here on Sunday.

Speaking at the Summer Davos forum in this north China port city, Bank of China Vice President Zhu Min said he believed it would be less likely for the United States to sell more treasury bonds to other countries to obtain the funds needed to bail out the turmoil-beleagued financial market, which would only accelerate inflation in other countries.

Instead, the U.S. could only issue other bonds to finance the rescue plan, which Zhu said would definitely cause the dollar depreciation in the long term. The bailout fund will have topped $1 trillion U.S. dollars if the U.S. Congress passes the Fed’s $700 billion financial rescue plan.

Click here for full article

US Mint suspends sale of 24-karat gold coins

The U.S. Mint is temporarily halting sales of its popular American Buffalo 24-karat gold coins because it can’t keep up with soaring demand as investors seek the safety of gold in these turbulent economic times.

Mint spokesman Michael White said Friday that the sales were being suspended because demand for the coins, which were first introduced in 2006, has exceeded supply and the Mint’s inventory of the coins has been depleted.

Click here for full story