US and UK Central Banks about to announce low-key, but drastic change in Policy.

Looks like there is about to be a sea change in the way that central banks around the world operate. In a zero interest rate environment, with their backs to the wall, they are trying to find a way of packaging 'QE infinity' without it looking like what it actually is, which is more or less entirely supporting the economy with printed money.
The unique way they have found to do this is 'The Evans Rule' or NGDP targeting. Essentially, this means that the central bank will keep providing liquidity until certain goals in growth have been accomplished. In other words, instead of being concerned about inflation, it looks they are about to finally cast that concern aside in the search for growth.
With all major currencies essentially involved in a race to the bottom in an attempt to make their exports cheaper, the very real possibility of hyperinflation is essentially being sidelined in an attempt to chase greater growth. What the outcome of this policy will be is hard to tell, essentially, the idea is if they just keep pouring money into the system, growth will resume. However, since they are giving the money to the banks, instead of directly to the people who actually need it, I suspect that growth will continue to be illusive.
Of course, in my opinion, much of this growth problem could be easily solved by giving all that bailout money to people instead of banks and let them spend it. However, even though this would work, it goes against one of the central tenets of capitalism, which is that you _never_ give money to the poor. Better to turn it into bombs and blow it up, or set it on fire, anything but give it to the poor.
Secondly, if they did give every family in America $1000 a very large amount of it would wind up in the black market as they buy drugs, or participate in the cash economy. Since the black market is untraceable by it's very nature, its growth would not provide the figures the central banks need, even though black market services have the potential to benefit many people economically.

Now for the final kicker. The Fed has announced it is going to adopt this program. [link here]
In addition, Meryn King, the current head of the Bank of England, is about to be replaced by the former head of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, who is a big promoter of this idea, unlike the current BoE head. [link here]

QE infinity can have only one possible outcome, which is hyperinflation of Weimar Republic Proportions. Of course, we now know why hyperinflation happened in those countries, the government could never balance it's books and at the time, they could not stop spending because of their involvement in wars of conquest.
It seems that the USA is doomed to repeat the same pattern.

Top Trader admits "30% of the Silver Market is usually owned by just one party"

What I had long suspected to be true was confirmed the other day when Mike Maloney from goldsilver.com revealed on RT's Capital Account that it is normal practice for one party (read JPMorgan) to hold 30% of the entire Silver market. This means two things. 1) That if you take the top 3 market participants, they would in all likelihood control upwards of 70% of the whole Silver market, making collusion very likely and profitable. Secondly, if one company owns 30% of any market, then they can swing that market in any way they wish, which explains why the Silver market has been completely unaffected by fundamental forces for the last 12 months. Many people have wondered over the reason, but the answer is simple, the market is rigged to hell.

This also means that price discovery is severely hindered. The actual price for physical Silver is likely to be higher than the quoted spot price, since spot includes all the paper silver currently circulating on the exchange. It will only take one crisis of confidence in a Silver ETF for people to start demanding physical delivery. If this happens, the price will go through the roof very quickly.

I suspect that JPMorgan used the recent dip in the silver market to get rid of the 128Million Ounces of shorts that they inherited from Bear Stearns. They may have lost some money, but nowhere near the amount of money they would have lost if silver was at it's true price of $40 an ounce.

You can watch the video here:

Hurricane Sandy, Satan's Birthday Present to the Banksters?

With Hurricane Sandy approaching the east coast of the USA and the US election only 8 days away, it looks like an act of god is certain to alter the political landscape around the next election.

How each major candidate responds to the upcoming catastrophe on the east coast is going to very heavily determine peoples perception of whether to vote for them. You can be sure there will be no Katrine like FEMA bullshit this time, the eyes of the world will on the USG and if they fail to deliver in New York of all places, where the United Nations is then they will be publicly flogged. Of course, many people have been warning of a catastrophic flood in NY for year, unlike the Thames barrier in London, New York has no such protection, and just unfortunately, because of the way the island is shaped, it channels the incoming seawater, amplifying the size of any storm surge that is going to hit the area. 
You can bet that both politicians at the moment are praying that they don't fuck up up the response, FEMA will be there actually doing it's job this time.. and why?
Well, you see.. these are rich white people, whereas New Orleans was mainly populated by poor black people.
If Obama handles this right, this could hand him the election on a plate, after all, there is no better way of making someone vote for you than rescuing them from certain death.
The fact that the NYSE is closed today, as well as the UN makes it sure that a whole bunch of clandestine bullshit will be pulled all over the world while everyone is focused on the USA. It would not surprise me at all if either the computers in the stock market get destroyed, or there is wholesale data loss of some kind. It also wouldn't surprise me at all if it turned out that a whole bunch of contracts and such will disappear into thin air the same way they did on 9/11. In fact, you could say that to the Bankers, this is Satans birthday present, an opportunity to bury all the incriminating evidence in a massive natural disaster that no one will be able to question. All the major banks will have only "essential" staff at them. You have to wonder what constitutes essential staff in this kind of situation. My guess is they will be ripping out the server racks and drowning them as fast as they can, but maybe i'm just the cynical type.

Report from FSB says ex IMF head was jailed because US Gold Reserve is 'missing"

Thank you to David Kielhiemer for posting this here.

The Currency War

(The US has long been considered a great place to stockpile gold for countries, however, what interested me is what Jim Rickards said about gold several months ago - that the US could simply take Germany's, and the rest of the European stockpiles, if the US had to continue to finance the ECB, IMF, and EU, as a result of the Euro crisis. 

Why the problem now? Remember the sex scandal of IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and how he reportedly attacked a African cleaning lady? Research a little more, and you will find that Strauss-Kahn, who was trying to finance a bailout for Greece, was being told the US government already had liquidated the gold of the IMF.

Now, the Germans are reportedly coming to see if the US does have any of this gold, although the article attatched explains it simply, the US does not have the gold separated by vaults, but the bars are simply numbered.

If any of this is true, that the gold reserves in the US are not safe, then it will be an interesting 2013.)

"A new report prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Federal Security Service (FSB) says that former International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was charged and jailed in the US for sex crimes on May 14th after his discovery that all of the gold held in the United States Bullion Depository located at Fort Knox was ‘missing and/or unaccounted’ for.

According to this FSB secret report, Strauss-Kahn had become “increasingly concerned” earlier this month after the United States began “stalling” its pledged delivery to the IMF of 191.3 tons of gold agreed to under the Second Amendment of the Articles of Agreement signed by the Executive Board in April 1978 that were to be sold to fund what are called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) as an alternative to what are called reserve currencies.

This FSB report further states that upon Strauss-Kahn raising his concerns with American government officials close to President Obama he was ‘contacted’ by ‘rogue elements’ within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who provided him ‘firm evidence’ that all of the gold reported to be held by the US ‘was gone’"

(EU Times)

I would just like to make a few comments on this article:
Back in the days when Tony Blair was UK PM, one day in July, the whole London ATM network went down as they installed a new high speed trunk line between London and NY. When the computers came back up, all of the UK's gold was missing from their computerised account (the gold was being physically stored in NY) When the UK asked for the Gold back, the US replied that they would not give the gold back, but they would pay cash value for it, which was about $250 an ounce at the time. This is the reason that Tony Blair was fired (notice that Gordon Brown was not elected, but appointed). 
This is also the reason why many people believe that Gordon Brown consensually sold most of the UK's gold reserves at a time when Gold was the cheapest it had been in years.
2 weeks after the incident with the ATM network being taken down, a small article in the Financial Times said that the Bank of England had to take out all their gold bars to re-test them because they were unsure of their purity because they had been there for 50 years. 
Anyone who knows how good delivery works would know that this explanation is totally facile, since the gold bars never leave trusted banks. The only reason that this would happen is that the UK either needed the Gold to cover financial commitments, or the Gold had at some point been in the possession of the US and the BoE was worried that it may have been salted with tungsten or tampered in some other way while in US custody. Since then, financial tensions between the US and UK have been, lets say a bit lacking in trust, however, Tony Blair is doing great. Since turning Catholic, he has an account at the Vatican Bank and judging by the jobs he keeps getting given he certainly got paid.

Christopher Carrion.

Spanish Bond Yields

Since so much of the future of the world at the moment seems to be based on whether Spain is going to take a bailout from the ECB, I thought I would scout around and find what rind of rates their bonds are currently paying and hence how close to the edge they are. The results might surprise you. From some viewpoints, it seems quite possible that Spain could hang in there much longer than Greece.

Ok, lets start with the One Year Yield. Usually, when countries are in crisis, debt starts to pile up at the short end of the spectrum. because people do not trust that the country will pay the money back, but either bond buying by the ECB or a perception by bankers that Spanish collapse cannot come that soon, means that their 1 Year Bonds are trading quite low.

As you can see, the short term yield spiked twice in July, signifying genuine trouble, however, at the moment, the yield is only 3.2%, well within their range to pay.

Here is the yield on the 5 year bond. As you can see, it follows a similar pattern to the one year, with yields spiking at the end of June. However, they started declining even before the ECB made the promise to buy their bonds (unless of course there has been an 'understanding' that the ECB has been buying Spanish bonds on the quiet, which would nou surprise me at all.

Now this is the 10 Year Bond. If the country is in serious trouble, here is where you would expect to see it, since no one in their right mind is going to lend to a country for 10 years if they are on the brink of collapse, unless they are backed by the ECB that is. Note the massive drop on 8 September when the ECB announced it's bailout plan, effectively guaranteeing Spain's bonds as long as they ask for a bailout. Even though yields have risen a bit ince then, it's obvious that most people still think that Spain will take the bailout. 

Here's the 20 year Bond Yield, which looks identical to the 10 year, except that the rate is higher, because what hold true for lending a country money for 10 years holds double for 20. Even after the OMT was announced, the yield only dropped to just under 6.4% and could spike back up pasy 7% very easily.

Finally, the 30 Year Note, which is a much wider graph, but you can still see the drop at the start of September and the moving around since. What's interesting is at the moment, it seems to be at the exact same point it was just after the bailout was announced. I presume people are optimistic that the meetings between Spain and the ECB will come in out in a result positive for them (the bond holders)

So what's the conclusion? Well i'm not really sure, you're guess is as good as mine, but I can make a couple of observations. Since the bailout was announced, the world seems to have bought the idea that Spain is financially stable, even after the massive rate cut today. As I said before, it may be that they are waiting for the results of the ECB meetings to make their decisions. Of course, the other problem is that unless their bond yields go over 7%, Spain might not want to ask for a bailout and give up so miuch of it's fiscal sovereignty, something I could understand. I guess only time will tell.

Christopher Carrion.

Rumours of Massive Silver find in Peru 'ephemeral'

A mass email was sent out on around 28th of September purporting knowledge of a company that had found a massive Silver deposit in Peru that was valued at 5 Trillion USD. The sender of the email was one Greg McCoach (that cant be his real name, seriously?) who gave a series of 'startling' hints about this massive deposit, but refused to name the company involved.

Fortunately, due to the vast number of people sent this email, it was not hard to find someone on the internet who had done a comment on it, thanks to Bob Tsui for finding it.

The company being advertised is Tinka Resources, which trades on the Canadian exchange (TK on the main exchange and TKNFF on the pink sheets) not only is their share very thinly traded, but according to their own announcements, they have only found 20 million ounces, which hardly translates into 5 Trillion. According to their own announcements, available here: They have only sampled an area 150m by 150m and found in 5 samples between 11 to 115 grams per ton of rock.

Needless to say, it is true that this company is cheap. It is also true that silver is due for serious upside. It may even ber true that there is a large silver deposit there in Peru, but the companies own documents do not show this. In my opinion, Mr McCoach's email was simply an attempt to sell a subscription to some shitty tip service.

In case there is any doubt, here is the last year of Tinka Resources.

Now the reason I originally got into this story was that 5 Trillion of new silver floating around would seriously dent my fundamental assumptions, but is seems they are safe. A bullion seller I was talking to today said that it took 6 months for a $15million USD transaction to be delivered and that there is only 3 days of extra capacity on the silver industrial system. I had assumed things were bad, but I had no idea they were that bad. At the moment, the large banks are using ETF's and other tricks to keep the prices of precious metals artificially low, however, once physical silver becomes even more short, there will be a divergence between paper and physical prices, because after all, you cannot electroplate with paper. =)

26th of September, The Current Financial Situation

So, strange times indeed we are living through. Without many people realising it, a world wide QE programme was launched over the last two weeks, with the US, UK, Japan, China, Russia, Brazil and more spewing out vast amounts of money. The Japanese intervention is valued at over $7 Trillion alone, dwarfing the size of the US program. So now many are asking the question, what will happen next? The answer, as always is that I do not know, but I could make a few educated guesses and here they are.

The world QE will be a boost for precious metals and may be a short term boost for equities, although i would not be surprised if equities begin to decline as the effects of the world QE wear off, after all, it is only the USA that has been insane enough to announce open ended QE. Everyone is very nervous in the market at the moment. There have been declines in the price of commodities and the DJIA, to which they are closely linked. The main problem is that although the head of the ECB has said that he is willing to buy the bonds of bailed out countries, no country has actually applied yet, presumably because of the strings attached and also, unless their applying to the bailout program was kept secret. the lack of faith would make their lending rates shoot up.

In other words, Europe is in paralysis. At the same time, the US has stated QE3, called by many QE infinity, since they have announced that they will buy $40Billion in bonds a month until things turn around. Now, there are a bunch of problems with this. Firstly, the US Fed is already buying over two thirds of all the bonds issued by the USGovt. Secondly, the Fed has been engaging in 'Operation Twist' Which involves buying long term bonds and selling short term debt. This is to prevent the piling up of short term debt which happens as people begin to doubt whether a country will be able to pay their debts back. Less people ask for more money to hold long term debt from that sovereign.

This massive orgy of money is sure to do a number of things. Firstly, it will eventually debase the currencies involved, secondly, commodities will rise and there is a good chance that equities will also rise, at least in the short term. The works on the grapevine is that this world wide QE was hard to organise and explains a number of diplomatic visits made in the past few months.

If world wide QE fails to get us out of the shit, then there is a good chance that it will turn into every man for himself, intact, there is good evidence to suggest this is already happening, particularly with the new cold war between China and the USA. However, the Chinese have a hold over the US, which is that they hold massive amounts of US treasury debt. Even though they have been trying to shift the amount of USD that makes up their foreign reserves, the amount of money we are talking about is so massive, that if they sold their entire holdings, they would crash the USD. Now of course, they do not want that, no one does, it would be bad for business. Instead, China has been going into Africa and loaning all those worthless USD to African governments without strings attached, which is the real reason for the North Sudan / South Sudan situation.

One thing is for sure, there will be no attack on Iran before the US election. However, after that, it's anyone's guess. The word on the ground is that the Israeli's are hot to go, but the Americans are not so keen. The Israelis are trying to pull a fait accompli by making the Iranians attack them first, so they can call on the US for help, but the US have proved very reticent in this regard because of the looming election.

If you take a look at a map of the middle east, you will notice a couple of things. Firstly, because Iraq is now in ruins and the Americans have removed much of their presence, the Iraqi's have no air force to speak of. This means the Iranians will be able to strike targets in Syria or the Eastern Mediterranean, presumably, this is why there are so many American ships in the Gulf at the moment. Secondly, the USA has not been in a proper war for ages. Their usual tactic is to weaken a company through years of sanctions and then attack when they are fatally weakened, the way they did with Iraq. However,m cutting Iran off from the world economy has proved much harder due to Iran being a central energy partner of both German and China.

Thirdly, after being under sanctions for so many years, the Iranians have become VERY good at making their own technology. This is critical, since unknown to most people, many wars have been won by hacking. A classic example is the Argentine war, where the British pressured the French into giving them the disable codes for the ship to ship Exocet missile, which was being used by the Argentine navy. Now the US has a long history of selling components with backdoors to countries it does not like, witness the fall of the USSR, caused by the entire Russian oil system exploding due to valves imported from the US and tinkered with by the CIA, apparently, the explosion was visible from space. It was this cutting off of their export income that actually crashed the Soviet Union, despite the dreams of many an American hero.

There will be no such backdoor trickery if they fight Iran. America may have a larger army, but the Iranians have been preparing for this fight for the last 20 years. As a result, I expect that they have probably built an entire army around the concept of asymmetric warfare, given their inability to access the world markets due to sanctions. Asymmetric Warfare is probably best defined as using a $1000 missile to destroy a $15million tank. As Israel learned when they invaded Lebanon, Hizbollah had identified a weak spot in their main battle tank, the Merkava. The Merkava (Chariot of God) was not just a tank, but could also carry six troops, who could exit by a ramp than dropped down from the back. Hizbollah figured out that this ramp was poorly armoured and realised that by using an RPG (worth probably less than $1000) they could disable a tank worth thousands of times more to make.

It is this dilemma that the US is now facing. No doubt they have the better technology, but the maintenance of this technology is slowly bankrupting them.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, NOW is the time to buy Silver or Gold and DO NOT trust an ETF. Only use a bailment service, otherwise, your money is probably as good as gone.

Thanks you for listening..

Christopher Carrion.

Silver Gains over 4%

Silver gained over 4% today, finally ending it's upward streak at 34.816, before dropping back to rest at  about 34.500. Now that the $34 barrier for silver has been breached, many people will be watching the market nervously. there is so much upward pressure contained in the physical silver market, that many people (myself included) believe that one the 34 barrier is breached, we may move to $50 very quickly, possibly within a week. Physical silver shortages continue, with large orders continuing to take weeks to fill for central banks. China's announcement of a Strategic Silver Reserve also throws the asian market into the mix, since they are going to want to get as cheap a price as possible. It is that combination, of everyone trying to get a cheap price before the market at large realises that silver is in a state of shortage that may cause the metal to rocket up in the coming months.
I have noticed that at the moment, silver seems to be following a very odd 2:1 ration with gold, ie, if gold falls 1%, silver will fall 2, if gold gains 2%, silver will gain 4. I am not sure how long this correlation will hold, but it definitely demonstrates that there are bigger returns to be made, percentage wise, in silver than in gold.

Finally, for history's sake, i wanted to post these two charts. First, silver rising over 4%

And the second, gold over the same period, putting on only 1.74%

I hope that this is the beginning of the proving of my theory that silver prices are about to shoot through the roof. It certainly makes more sense to believe that silver will hit $60 before gold hits $3000.

Tomorrow Decides the Fate of the ESM.

BERLIN—Eight judges in a sleepy German town on Wednesday will decide whether to torpedo European leaders' strategy for taming the euro-zone debt crisis.
The German government and most legal analysts predict the country's constitutional court won't block the currency bloc's planned permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism. If they are wrong, howev
er, the euro zone could find itself short of authorized funds to prop up struggling members such as Spain, forcing Europe to redesign its safety net for crisis-hit countries.
The Karlsruhe-based court is deciding only whether to grant a preliminary injunction that would suspend Germany's ratification of the ESM, pending a full ruling on whether the ESM is compatible with Germany's constitution, expected in December. But analysts say Wednesday's verdict will send a clear signal about the court's final decision.
Last year, the court approved the euro zone's temporary bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, rejecting complaints that it undermined German democracy and the no-bailout clause of the European Union treaty. But the judges forced the government to seek parliamentary approval for every new aid package.
Many legal analysts say the court might once again strengthen parliaments' rights as its condition for allowing the ESM to proceed. That could potentially make new bailout deals in Europe even trickier politically for Chancellor Angela Merkel at home, where she faces growing opposition to bailouts within her governing coalition.
Without the ESM, euro-zone governments would have only the dwindling financial resources of the EFSF on which to fall back. Most of the EFSF's money is committed to bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal and the recapitalization of Spain's banks, leaving as little as €150 billion ($192.2 billion).
Although financial markets hope the European Central Bank, with its money-printing press, will prop up the shaky bond markets of Spain and Italy, the ECB has said it would only intervene in tandem with the government-backed bailout funds. The EFSF would quickly run out of its remaining money if it started buying Spanish or Italian bonds. The ESM would bring another €500 billion in lending capacity, although it wouldn't be fully available until early 2014.
If Germany's top court were to strike down the ESM, governments could try to expand and extend the EFSF, which is set to expire in mid-2013. But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble last week said the government is counting on the ESM, and that he is certain the court won't block it. "We have no plan B, and we don't need one either," he said.
Germany's Parliament voted in June to ratify the ESM, but German President Joachim Gauck still needs to sign it into law. He is expected to do so quickly if the constitutional court rejects the injunction demanded by the ESM's opponents. 
All other euro-zone countries have ratified the ESM, apart from Italy and Estonia. The German court is seen as the biggest hurdle, however. Financial markets and much of official Europe will be watching closely when the German justices take the bench in their red robes and hats, led by the court's youthful president, 48-year-old Andreas Vosskuhle.
The challenge to the ESM comes from the biggest-ever mass complaint heard in Germany's equivalent of the U.S. Supreme Court. About 37,000 plaintiffs have signed the petition demanding the court shelve the ESM, including law professors, economists, a few members of Ms. Merkel's center-right coalition, the radical Left Party, and thousands of ordinary citizens who are fed up with bailout of other euro-zone nations.
The complaint alleges the ESM strips Germany's Parliament, the country's most important democratic institution, of control over the national budget and taxpayers' liabilities. Plaintiffs from the political right say it breaks the no-bailouts clause of European treaties; the left says it violates democracy for the benefit of international speculators.
Germany's government is confident the court will uphold the ESM, because Germany's Parliament would have to approve any financial-aid package that the ESM grants another euro-zone country.
Some of the plaintiffs are veterans of legal challenges to Germany's pacts in Europe. The court has a history of allowing the German government to deepen Europe's political integration. But the judges have insisted on the rights of Germany's Parliament to have its say and to limit the country's European commitments.

By Susann Kreutzmann for Wall Street Journal

The Current Euro Situation.

The European situation is growing stranger by the day, while most people dont seem to think about it, the truth us that the peripheral Euro states are headed for a car crash whether they like it or not and here are the reasons why.
Firstly, the Germans are essentially terrified by the current situation. At the moment, the EFSM (the European 'bailout fund') is being contributed to by all members except greece, I believe. However, once a country requests a bailout, then they no longer have to put money towards the EFSM. What this means is that if Greece, Spain and Italy go into Bailout, then between them, Germany and France will be left holding the bag for 66% of the total value of the EFSM, which is currently valued at 60 Billion.
As a result, the Germans want gold as collateral for their bailouts to Greece and Spain. Now Gold is a tricky thing. If you give another country your gold reserves, then essentially, you have also given them your sovereignty. History shows that a countries gold reserves are the central credit basis that all other transactions that country makes are based upon.
Incidentally, if you are interested in how the EFSM works, you can have a look at the very confusing report from the OECD here. Please note that it was written in 2011, so the differences between the text and the reality may have widened somewhat.. =) However, you can also check out the EU's explanation here.
Now, this is speculation, but I believe what is happening is this.
Not everyone is aware that Goldman Sachs hid 1Billion euro of Greece's debt so they would appear to be within financial limitations to join the EU. In other words, they joined under false pretences. The Germans, quite rightly, feel probably shocked by this, since as a result of this fraud, Greece is now in the situation it is in now.
Now none of the southern European countries are going to _want_ to give up their financial sovereignty (remember, the EU is a financial union, not a fiscal union, or to put it in english, we all use the same currency, but all the states are allow to set their own economic policies).
Now of course, this had lead to big problems, essentially, large banks have been raiding the bonds of peripheral EU countries and making a killing. In a strange twist that is often true of the market, if everyone didnt think that greece was on the edge, then their borrowing costs would not be so high, therefore, they would not be on the edge..=)
The only solution, as far I and others can see is the Eurobond. Like the USA, the EU has to have a single bond, so that peripheral countries cannot be raided and have their interest rates forced up. However, if this happens, Germany's (and probably France as well) will have their ratings cut because of the extra debt they have to take on, regardless of whether this debt is 'sterilised' or not, which will lead to higher borrowing costs. However, this may not be such a problem for Germany. Another little known fact is that German bonds are actually at _negative_ rates now, which means that you have to pay them to hold on to your money, since people are so scared to put it in the bonds of any other country.
If the Eurobond is made, then the EU will have to become a fiscal union, which means that the financial policies of the PIIGS will be decided by Germany (and France) the populations of these countries are not going to like this, but I suspect that once things get bad enough, they will beg for the eurobond. After all, things are not really bad yet, people still have food, for instance. But once the price rises from all the droughts happening in the world filter into the world food prices, there are likely to be food riots and other serious disturbances in the PIIGS. Politicians are by nature cowardly creatures and once the civil disturbances start, I suspect they will tell the people anything to get them to accept the eurobond, (including trying really really hard not to tell the people that Germany is getting all their gold.)
After all, a country without a gold reserve is not really a country. Just because we can create 'money' out of thin air, when the debtors come calling, that have to be paid with something more than paper of electrons and gold historically, is that thing.

This is one of the reasons why the value of gold is rising at the rate that it is. Unlike paper or electrons, which work fine when everything is in a boom, when the shit hits the fan, everyone wants the gold, because unlike contracts, swaps, derivatives, or ETF's, gold has intrinsic value.

Recommendations on Bullion Investing

This is a post that was originally posted on my Facebook Group, Bullion Traders
However, a number of people gave me very positive reactions over it, and so I am re-posting it here, so it will not get lost in the inevitable churn of Facebook and also so I can re-link to it again later.. =)

[ begin article ]

I'd just like to note that if anyone is considering buying physical bullion, please chat me. I will not charge you any money for my recommendations on the best place to put your bullion. I do not think that such information should have to paid for. The ability for a person to retain the money that they have made in their life is in my mind a fundamental right.
Just to be completely clear, I both use and recommend bullionvault.com As a storer of physical bullion they are not an ETF and do not 'lend' out gold. In addition, they are audited every day and a public audit is released every day on the internet. They also give you a choice of three different vaults, New York, London or Zurich. I believe that having vaults in multiple countries makes bullionvault much safer than storage facilities located in just one country, since governments around the world, notably the USA have a history of confiscating the gold of their citizens.
Ultimately, the choice of where to put your money is your own, but the problem with taking advice from anyone who asks money for it is that you cannot trust that their interests are not aligned with yours, ie, that they will rip you off. I have no such agenda, I merely wish to help as many people survive the coming crash as possible and believe me, the next one is going to make the flash crash look like a small fart and _in my opinion_ the only people who will be safe are those holding _physical_ not paper precious metals. I invite any other people in the group to comment or disagree with my analysis, after all, it is only mine, but I use bullionvault myself, so I am putting my money where my mouth is, as it were. Also, I would like to formally state that I am in no way paid or even associated by bullionvault apart from holding an account there. I just happen to think their service is very good, which is why I recommend it.
There is a way by which a new client to bullionvault can nominate another person who recommended them, which will give a small bonus to both parties (I think it's about $50 of gold) if you wish to use me in your recommendation, please message me, as I am unwilling, as I said, to make people pay for information that I believe is vital, critical and could save the lives of you and those you love.
I wish all of the people in this group the best success with whatever economic endeavour they are part of, unless it involves ripping other people off, in which case I hope you go broke. =)

[ end article ]

Why Silver is More Valuable than Gold

This article is by Theodore Butler, the original can be found here.

I think this is one of the best articles I have found in recent times describing the current world dilemma regarding silver and it's incredible upward potential.

[ begin article ]
With gold selling for around 50 times the price of silver, you may be perplexed to hear me say that silver is more valuable than gold. It seems like an obvious contradiction. What I mean, exactly, is that silver has heavy demand by industry, while gold has limited demand, other than for jewelry. In terms of its necessity to a modern society, silver has the highest value and the greatest utility. An ounce of silver has more value to industries that must have it than does an ounce of gold. An opportunity exists because the current price doesn't reflect this fact.

For 60 years more silver has been consumed by industry than produced. That's the most bullish circumstance possible for a commodity. Silver is in much greater demand by industrial users worldwide than is gold. Yet gold sells for fifty times the price of silver.

For the past 60 years silver was dumped onto the market without much regard to price. The U.S. Government sold off inventory of five billion ounces. This silver has been used up by industry and is gone forever. A few years ago the U.S. Mint announced they would have to buy silver on the open market.

That's only part of the story. You may be shocked to learn that there's more gold around than silver. About five times more gold is documented in above-ground supplies than silver. Furthermore, there are less years of silver production remaining underground to be mined than gold. These powerful facts are not currently reflected in the price. However, some day they will be. That's why the opportunity for profit exists in silver like no other opportunity in history. Nothing in the world has the potential to multiply your net worth like silver.

IN DEMAND

Today, world silver inventories are at the lowest point in 200 years. All the known and recorded silver in commodity warehouses, and elsewhere, only comes to 250 million ounces, and most of that is tied up and unavailable. Industry requires over 900 million ounces each year. Mining and recycling fall short of providing the necessary silver.

Silver is the best conductor of electricity. Every computer, server, monitor, cell phone and switch must have silver. Lasers, satellites, high-tech weaponry and robotics, all require silver. Digital technology and telecommunications need silver. Around the house there's silver in every TV, washing machine, wall switch and refrigerator. Conductors, switches, contracts and fuses use silver because it does not corrode or cause overheating and fires. Silver is used heavily in photography and in prints. Meanwhile, new and exotic uses for silver are expanding.

A new double layer of silver on glass is sweeping the window market, as it reflects away almost 95% of the hot rays of the sun. A new electronic application for "smart tags" that are replacing bar codes could use significant quantities of silver.

Silver achieves the most brilliant polish of any metal and is the best reflector of light, allowing it to be used in mirrors and in coatings for glass, cellophane or metals. Chemical reactions can be significantly increased by adding silver. Approximately 700 tons of silver are in continuous use in the world's chemical industry for the production of plastics.

Batteries are now manufactured with silver alloys. Lead-free silver solder is used heavily for joining materials and producing leak-tight joints. Silver is also widely used in silk-screened circuit paths, membrane switches, electrically heated automobile windows, and adhesives. Silver has a variety of uses in pharmaceuticals. Silver sulfadiazine is the most powerful compound for burn treatment. Catheters impregnated with silver eliminate bacteria. Silver is increasingly being tapped for its bactericidal properties and water purification. In the face of all these industrial uses there is less silver available.

Here we have a vital material, known to all men for all time, literally disappearing before our eyes, both above and below ground. It is a material upon which modern life and rising standards of living are dependent. It is beyond indispensable, it is a miracle metal.

SILVER BUBBLE

The stock bubble and the real estate bubble better move over, because I'm going to tell you about a bubble that will be talked about for as long as mankind exists; the silver bubble. At the epicenter of reasons for launching silver to the heavens is the coming end of artificially depressed silver prices. There is no legitimate free market explanation for such extremely depressed prices in the face of greater demand and depleted world inventories.

For 20 years, there has been an outsized silver short position on New York's Commodity Exchange, Inc. (COMEX). This paper short position has been unique, in that no other commodity has ever before had a short position larger than its world production and world known inventories. This accounts for why silver has been depressed in price. But shorting is a two way street. While the shorts have had their way with the price of silver for a long time, when those shorts are brought back or covered, the price effect of shorting is reversed and it becomes bullish.

You can't keep the price of anything artificially depressed for decades and not expect violent counter moves when the artificial restraint is suddenly removed. So it is logical to assume that, when the silver price suppression ends, we will get a severe jolt to the upside. Silver must move to a price point where supply and demand balance. Considering how long silver has been kept depressed, it will take an extremely high price to accomplish this balance. It is very possible that, in the inevitable move to a market equilibrium price, we could overshoot dramatically to the upside. A short covering panic appears unavoidable at some point, because of the large size of the short position. That could create triple digit silver all by itself. Silver is a prime candidate for a future price explosion that is historic and worldwide in scope. The fundamentals of silver are so bullish and so compelling that I couldn't make them up if I tried.

INDUSTRIAL USER PANIC

The amount of silver used in each industrial application, while vital to the finished item, is a tiny percentage of the product's total cost. This means industrial users will not readily substitute other materials for silver in a price rise. If the price of silver jumps significantly, they will be more inclined to build inventories.

When the inevitable silver shortage hits, it will be only a matter of time before industrial users try to protect themselves from delays and price increases. They will attempt to build inventories of silver. You don't risk the shutdown of an assembly line for want of a single, low-cost component.

As industrial users try to immunize themselves from assembly line shutdowns, extraordinary demand will make the supply tighter.

This is how panics occur. The price of palladium rose to over $1,100 an ounce because industrial users panicked and built inventories. Silver is used in many more applications than palladium. That increases the chance that silver users will panic and try to build inventories. If a panic does develop, there is only one known cure - it must burn itself out at extremely high prices.

ANOTHER BOMBSHELL

There are many forms of paper silver where the real silver does not exist, including pool accounts, leveraged accounts and bank silver certificates.

These accounts offer cheaper commissions and storage fees (since there is no real silver backing). I would estimate that there is well over a billion ounces of silver held in this form, perhaps by Swiss banks alone.

The issuers have use of "free" money, which is highly profitable to them as long as silver doesn't move up in price. But when silver moves up decisively, the issuers are, in essence, holding a short position. This is just another one of the many unique reasons for a historical blow off in the price of silver. At some point, with a high enough price of silver, the issuers can panic and try to limit losses. The only way to limit their losses is to buy silver. The net effect of the cumulative short positions in silver amount to a hydrogen bomb, on top of an atomic bomb, on top of a neutron bomb.

[ end article ]

What Is Wrong With the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

The EFF is fighting a very strange trade pact that is being signed by 9 large industrial countries which is supposedly about IP (intellectual Property). However, the fact that China and Russia are missing means that it is unlikely to make much difference to the world IP situation, but merely burden citizens and companies in those countries with many extra burdens.

You can find the original link at EFF here.

EFF has been fighting against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) intellectual property chapter for several years. This agreement poses a great risk to users’ freedoms and access to information on a global scale.

We have created this infographic to capture the most problematic aspects of TPP, and to help users, advocates and innovators from around the world spread the word about how this agreement will impact them and their societies. Right-click and save the image for the PNG file.

We thank Lumin Consulting for working with us on this project.

Unfortunately, there is no way to get blogger to make this image larger, so right click and save it, or go to the link at the EFF for the full size version.

World Gold Update

Gold production has dropped by 0.9% of total output this year, which given the amount of pressure gold is under, is a serious reduction and can only put more upward pressure on the gold price. 
Inputs from scrap gold are also seriously down, since most of the scrap gols sotred in peoples homes has already been sold off to the multitude of 'Cash for Gold' companies that sprung up like mushrooms in 2008-9. Additionally, those who do still have scrap gold left expect the price to rise, so they are hanging on to it for the moment.
Australia has announced that there will be further reductions in it's future gold output, after already revising the figure for this year downwards by 5%. This has some people worried that Australia will not just be able to use it's mineral wealth to support it anymore, which would mean serious trouble for the Australian economy.
China has announed that it is going to double its already significant Gold reserves and in addition, start a Silver reserve for the first time. However, their next five year plan calls for expansion of the service industry, not infrastructure, which means that they will be buying less mineral resources from Australia. This could have a serious impact on Australia's economy.
Canada is one of the few remaining countries with excess gold output, but there will be a delay of two years before extra capacity comes on
stream
The USA is currently in election fever, which means that everything will behave differently until they have picked one of thier 2 choices for emperor (oh, sorry, I mean president =) 
The election is likely to have a destabilising effect on the US Dollar, which would also cause more upward pressure on gold prices.
The Big question in the short term for the USA however is QE3, as in, will they, or wont they? If the announcement for more QE is made, it will be definitely made in december, since October is regarded as too close to the election to patch things up incase there is negative fallout from more QE.
The next probable announcement for QE is on the 13th of September when the FOMC next meets.
QE in the USA will weaken the dollar, because of higher inflation expectations and hence push gold higher as well.
Even allusion to QE3 by the Fed is causing small market spikes because people are so desperate.
The big question for europe is whether the ECB is going to begin it's bond buying program again.
Further bond buying by the ECB will be good for the Euro, hence good for gold. It will also remove turmoil in the bond markets (at least temporarily)

In addition, Silver mining output is expected to rise by 1-2% this year.

As an ending piece, i leave you with this fascinating chart of the World's Recorded Gold Reserves. Unfortunately, the picture is not dated, so I do not know what year it is from exactly, but it probably represents a reasonably accurate picture.

Christopher Carrion.

Perhaps American Television is not Dead After All?

This video is the first 3 minutes of a new HBO show called Newsroom.

It is by far the most truthful piece of TV that I have seen an American company produce in forever.

Watch and be amazed.

Only God Knows What Devils We Are

While the US Market is closed, I thought you guys might want to read something interesting. Apparently, Occupy Wall St has developed a paramilitary arm, calling themselves the 'black bloc'. They believe that only force will change the current state in the USA and they may well be right.
I came across this after reading about an anonymous hack on CCA (for those who dont know who they are, they own prisons for pay and are currently trying to buy public prisons from broke US states, but only on the condition that they will pass the laws to make sure the jails are always close to full capacity. The entire idea just makes me sick.

You can find the article http://www.politicsisnotabanana.com/2012/02/god-only-knows-what-devils-we-are.html

Also on this page was this amazing piece of artwork that I would like to post. I do not know the name of the artist, but it is a truly amazing piece.

The Prison Industrial Complex is without doubt one of the most horrible creations of Corporate America. The fact that they are willing to by jails off municipalities that are in financial trouble means that there is a good chance they they will get quite a few of the jails in those 48 states, which could mark the largest expansion of the prison industrial complex since it's inception.

In my opinion, this is the real reason for the drug war in America. It has gone way past prohibition now, they need laws against victimless crimes to keep the jails full to keep the companies in profit. I'm sure that imprisoning a third of the black population also makes them much easier to control.

Christopher Carrion.

Rising Food Prices, GMO's, BT Toxin and Consolidation of the Food Industry

With one of the worst U.S. droughts in 50 years striking the Midwest, withering crops. There are expectations that the extreme weather could send corn and soybean prices to all-time record highs.  According to the USDA, consumers can expect to pay up to 4 percent more for groceries next year as a result. Clearly weather is impactful, however it’s only one of the factors that affect the price of our food.

Among these reasons is a growing global middle-class, particularly in developing economies such as China and India, resulting in increased demand for meat and grains. In fact, the U.N. estimates 50% more food will need to be produced by 2030 to meet these growing needs.

This shows that the majority of processed food eaten in the world is made by only 10 different companies. Many people are not even aware that many of their favourite brands are owned by massive multinationals. Although it can be argued that there are some advantages to this setup, such as economies of scale, I would personally reply that it it by far outweighed by the increasing consolidation in the food industry, who knows, in 5 years, we might have only 6 companies, and in 15 years, maybe it will just be Unilver and P&G battling it out. Of course, one could argue that we have made our bed and now we must lie in it. There is now way we could all go back to organic faming without some kind of massive catastrophe, and I bet all of us would miss fast food.. =)
However, one of the big problems with these massive multinational companies is that thier advertising never makes any mention and never shows the conditions in which the food is actually made. Instead, the advertising is all designed to make an emotional connection to the consumer to make them want to the eat the food. After all, if you showed how it was being made, quite a few people would be sickened. Now this is an old argument with meat, for example, many people eat meat but dont want to see the cow slaughtered. However, I would argue that the way some of our modern foods are made, if the consumer actually saw the processes used to manufacture them would make them feel far sicker than watching the slaughter of a cow. I'm referring to things like mechanically scavenged meat (which is basically any scrap of meat that mechanical rollers can scrape off the bones after every other part of the cow has been cut away) as well as shipping a tanker full of liquified egg to be used to make such things as quiches. Now I am not suggesting that there is necessarily anything intrinsically unhygienic about these practices, but it means that most products purchased in a supermarket today contain a multitude of ingredients, sourced from all over the globe. It only takes one of those ingredients to become spoiled to poison all of the resulting food that is made downstream with it. Personally, one thing I am glad about living in the EU is that they have not legalised GMO's and they have a much stricter policy on meat that the United States, which is why in the USA from 2000-2007 there were 16,000 cases of food poisoning for every 100,000 people, which is nearly 20% ! During the same period in France, there were only 1210 cases per 100,000 people, or 1.2%. However, Spain is the chink in Europe's armour, it has been growing GMO crops for years, mind you, under much more isolated and responsible ways than the way they have been doing it in America, but more importantly, a law to label GMO food is sure to pass in Europe, since it is such an emotional issue.
As we ride on into the future, food is becoming increasingly removed from what it was, ie people working the land to grow crops that they would then eat. Now it is large Agriculture firms with masses of land who use massive quantities of chemical pesticides and fertiliser and then sell the product on to another set of manufacturers who turn it into everything from breakfast cereal to chocolate bars. However, none of this would concern me as much if it wasn't for Monsanto.

Monsanto - The Most Evil Corporation on the Planet

If I had to give a prize to the most Evil Corporation on the Planet, there would be many contenders, Hallibuton, for their help starting 2 wars and screwing over the very servicemen they were supposed to protect. Or JPMorgan, just one of a number of companies who presided over the biggest robbery of public money in recorded history, but still, I would still have to choose Monsanto.

Monsanto seem to be unflinchingly evil. They do things that many sane people would surely stop and ask 'Is this really a good idea, given that we could possibly destroy all plant life on the planet?' a classic example of this is the terminator seed. A terminator seed can only grow one copy of the plant and produces no germinating seeds of it's own. In other words, it it genetically programmed to commit suicide after just ome crop. So every year, instead of using the seeds collected from last years crop, the farmer has to go cap in hand to Monsanto, who will sell them the single use seeds, as well as the fertiliser and pesticide to go with them, since many of Monsanto's GM crops are designed to be resistant to Monsanto herbicides such as Roundup(tm). As if this were not bad enough, if this gene spreads through the wild, it could potentially cripple the ability of wild plants to reproduce and thus cause a massive famine of previously unseen proportions and all the while, Monsanto would be sitting pretty.
The goal of Monsanto seems to be complete dominance of the food chain, it's as though a group of bright, but totally amoral marketing execs got together around a table and said to themselves,
'What is it that people really need?' 'I know! Food!'
'Why if we controlled the world food supply, they would have to pay us anything we want!!'
Now whether this plan can actually be accomplished as far as the whole world goes is debatable, but one thing is sure, Monsanto is doing a hell of alot of damage to many innocent people in their quest for dominance over the global human food chain. In addition to getting extra land by planting their seeds next to someone elses farm and just letting the wind do it's work. Because Monsanto's GMO products are actually patented, if just one seed from their stock is found on your farm, then you are in breach if copyright laws, which means that if you are a poor farmer, you can kiss your land goodbye,
Another good example would be Monsanto's BT Corn, which synthesises a toxin from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. This toxin works by essentially poking holes in the intestinal tracts of various insects that eat it. Unsuprisingly (perhaps) tests have also shown that it pokes holes in the guts of people who have eaten BT Corn and that the BT Gene may infact cross with the bacteria in your gut to create little factories that continually pump out BT toxin into your gut. BT toxin is also shown to induce allergies to substances other than itself. As if that was not bad enough, BT toxin is also carried in the pollen of the GMO plants, leading to severe allergic reactions during pollenating season. Since the BT toxin is thousands of times more concentrated inside the plant than it is when sprayed by plane, the people who pick the plants get massive exposure to BT toxin and so too, does anyone who eats the final product.
As much as many Europeans think that we are safe from GMO's, there have been extensive trials going on in Spain now for years. The real problem for them is I dont think there is any way they can bribe the EU government to ban labelling of GMO products the way they did in the US, the outcry would be massive. However, just because you dont eat GMO crops doesn't mean necessarily you are safe. One of the main uses of GM Soy is to feed animals, which are then eaten by people. Although I have yet to see conclusive tests, I cannot help but think that if they cows are eating BT Soy, then the amount of BT toxin in their system must be huge, and that cant be good for the consumer.
BT Toxin could easily become the next thalydamide, since we have no data on what it does to people in the long term and the short term data that is coming in is not good. If it is true that BT toxin combines with bacteria in the gut to forever produce more BT toxin, which will slowly rip holes on the epithelial lining of the gut, then the results will be catastrophic. We can expect a massive rise in intestinal ulcers as well as possibly rectal and colon cancer
I guess what I am trying to get at is to try and eat as little BT toxin as possible, whether in Corn or Soy. However, the current law which means that products made with GMO's don't have to be labelled in America makes that much harder if you are an american living  in an urban area.
Only by spreading  awareness of the danger of this toxin  is there any chance of getting it removed from the world's diet. However, with Monsanto cackling at the wheel while driving the whole planet into unimaginable danger, I am not holding my breath..

Christopher Carrion

More than half of Americans depend on government subsidies

Copied from RT

Government dependency is on the rise, with more than half of all Americans relying on the government for survival. While the Obama administration is broadening eligibility, US citizens increasingly also say they prefer it this way.
Americans’ self-reliability has been decreasing as eligibility for Medicaid, food stamps, earned income tax credit, work pay tax credit and unemployment benefits have broadened since 2009 to allow more US citizens to enjoy them.
More than half of the US population – 165 million of 308 million Americans – is now dependent on the state in some form. Of these, 107 million Americans rely on government welfare, 46 million seniors collect Medicare and there are 22 million government employees.
The number of Americans on welfare have increased from 97 million to 107 million since President Obama took office, according to research by Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee Jeff Sessions. The number of Americans on food stamps during the president’s term has risen by more than 14 million.
“Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job – they’d just send you a welfare check,” stated a recent anti-Obama television advertisement.
And it seems that Americans increasingly want it that way. In 2011, a report by Globescan showed that the number of US citizens who believe in the strength of a free market economy dropped to 59 percent from 74 percent in the previous year, falling below Brazil and China. When Globescan first conducted this survey ten years ago, 80 percent of Americans favored a free market economic system.
Those with the lowest annual incomes were more likely to oppose a free market economy.
This year’s annual Index on Dependence on Government, released in February, found that since 2008, the American people’s dependence on government has grown by 23 percent. The US government broke a record last year, spending the most on federal assistance in the nation’s history.
The Heritage Foundation found that on average, Americans who depend on federal assistant received $32,748 in annual benefits, which is more than an average American worker makes in a year. In 2011, the median annual paycheck was reported as $26,364.
“We expect the government to take care of us from the cradle to the grave,” said an analyses in the Economic Collapse blog.
In 2010, more than 70 percent of federal spending went to dependence programs – which is almost 2.5 times more what it used to be fifty years ago. In 1962, only 28.3 percent of federal spending was used for these purposes.
But the cost of these programs does not go to those who reap the benefits. Half of all American households pay no income taxes – the very half that is most likely to be granted welfare and food stamps.
As government dependency increases, the cost of federal assistance programs will decrease with less people paying for it.

[end article]

This just illustrates the massive hole that the USA is in financially. The more their growth slows, the more people go on unemployment benefits, which means more tax income goes to the poor. Then they kick those people off unemployment benefits after 16 weeks and if they cant find a job, then the only options left are drugs, crime, or prostitution. Believe me, I have met many people who were victims of 'Tough Love' by their parents who kicked them out of home at the tender age of 15, only to wind up addicted to heroin, stripping and whoring in the Red Light district of the nearest big city.

Drugs are the only business keeping many of these areas alive as far as I can tell. There is no other economic activity going on anywhere, there are no factories, no shops. To suggest that people in such areas should gainful employment is just stupid. Not only that, but if you are convicted of a crime, (which is really easy when you are American and Black, since they have more people in Jail than the next 4 countries combined) then your right to vote gets taken away, as well as your right to employment in many places who will not employ anyone who has been convicted of a crime.

It is my personal theory that the introduction of fluoride in the drinking water by 1960 combined with the massive amount of LSD being spread across the country have made Americans more susceptible to just sitting there and doing nothing about it.. But then again, I dont know.. When I was living in a country with fluoridated drinking water, I felt alot more powerless and so did everyone around me, I think it is a real effect, although many will disagree, (I still use fluoride toothpaste though) the problem with putting it in the water supply is that there is no way of controlling just how much fluoride each single person in the population gets, which is inherently dangerous, given that fluoride is toxic.

If you are at all interested in this kind of stuff, check the Wikipedia article on Flouride

The Vast Interlinked Modern Food Network

Below is a Picture of the 10 biggest food companies and all of their subsidiaries. It graphically points out how foods that we think come from different 'brands' came from the same company. In addition, many of these companies use GMO products, which are not required to be labelled in the USA.

Given the trend of individual farmers increasingly leaving their land, especially in America, more and more, it is these companies that are responsible for feeding us, which is arguably the most important function a company could have, because, as they say, every city is just 3 days away from a revolution if the food runs out.

Christopher Carrion

August Soft Commodities Update

US dryness fears shift south as wheat sowings near

21st August 2012
The southern Plains, the seat of drought in the US last year, revived as a centre for this year too, seeing its crops continue to deteriorate even as those in much of the Midwest improved – and ahead of the important wheat sowing period.

The US Department of Agriculture, for a third week, rated domestic corn as 23% in "good" or "excellent" health, showing no further deterioration towards the levels of 1988, the last year drought caused such devastation to US crops.

Soybeans were rated at 31% in good or excellent health as of Sunday, an increase of 1 point on the week, if still the worst figure since 1988, and an improvement at the bottom end of market expectations.

Reports of poor yields, below even USDA expectations, were revealed on Monday on the first day of the ProFarmer tour of major US row crop areas.

'Continued to deteriorate'

However, the overall USDA crop condition data concealed a difference in experience between states - crops in parts of the southern Plains continued to deteriorate, even as those in much of the Midwest improved.

While some of the Plains state of Oklahoma received rainfall last week, more than half did not and overall the rains "provided no significant improvements to conditions", USDA officials said.

"Concerns about aflatoxin in corn were reported," they added, a reference to a fungal residue commonly found in crops stressed by drought.

In Kansas, "row crop conditions continued to deteriorate last week as the state received only scattered rainfall", they said, cutting their good or excellent ratings of Kansas soybeans by two points to 3%, and of corn by three points to 5%,

"While average temperatures dropped last week, continued lack of precipitation still plagues farmers," the USDA staff said.

'Greened up considerably'

The comments contrasted with those from Midwest states such as Indiana, where rains allowed soybeans to recover by four points to 20% rated good or excellent.

"Rain showers helped to improve drought conditions with less than half the state still in extreme-to-exceptional drought conditions compared with nearly 70% on July 31," the USDA said.

"Pastures and hay fields have greened up considerably in the last two weeks.

"Later-planted soybeans are benefitting from the recent rainfall with additional growth and pod fill," besides lower spider mite activity and reduced aflatoxin risk in corn.

'Tight grip of drought'

Can an Algorithm Write a Better News Story Than a Human Reporter?

This article was copied from Wired. I chose to include this article to give people an idea of what kind of things computers can really do nowdays. Despite the fact that it is known that there are software packages out there that allow you to pretend to be 1000 different users twiter and facebook, most people just wouldn't think a message had been written by a machine unless it was very formal and designed to look like computer output (for instance, SMS's about Taxi's, Emails about Margin Calls, etc.) 

I actually think that much more media is being written by computers than people realise, the same way that the stock markets are being run by computers. I mean, lets face it, due to costs, for many years, various publications have been using 'press releases'. A Press Release is a piece of Corporate Propaganda that is usually slightly disguised to make it look like something else vaguely newsy.

A good example would be the following: A Public Relations Consultant has a number of clients who tell them what kind of image they wish to portray. The PR Company will then write a Press Release, which is basically just the propaganda message of their client disguised as something to do with news and send it off to a hundred local newspapers.

Now, the local newspapers, which have been drowning slowly for years to the point where they are now being given away free just to boost circulation, receive the Press Release along with an offer from the company involved, or one of it's subsidiaries to purchase advertising. This has a two pronged effect,  since the local papers are always looking for column inches, it's very easy for them to just copy the press release verbatim, plus, it is understood that if they do not, then the company involved will not advertise with them.

Given that your average press release could be written by a 12yr old, I think the development of this technology will breath fresh life into local newspapers, since they will simply be able to auto-generate content. Doubtless, some papers will fire their human staff for the savings, but some may keep their reporters on, freeing them up to do more actual reporting instead of churning out the piles and piles of crap, such as sport results. This could actually lead to a rise in the quality of some local newspapers. I mean, after all, I cant imagine a newspaper putting a computer generated story into print without proofreading it first, but proofreading it is a snap compared to actually writing such boring crap. I suspect this will make many journalists very happy.. The ones that get to keep their jobs, that is.

Christopher Carrion

2012 in Perspective.

For anyone who is worried about all the 2012 end of the world crap flying around, I present the following bit of humour pinched from here:

Just remember, humanity has survived many crisises in the past and will survive many in the future. I just cant see the whole human race being wiped out, I mean, we are like cockroaches. I could see certain portions of the world being scorched, but at the same time, there will always be places for the people who make money from the wars to hang out, after all, they dont want to hang out in some smelly bar in Kabul, they want to hang at the Armed Services Club in London.
So if you live in a large city, just remember, there are alot of people who would be ruined if a disaster struck and given the increasing frequency of natural disasters, I imagine many of them are scrambling to make their buildings more weather proof. Or maybe they arn't because of the economy.. Who knows? =)
And below, something for all my friends into technical analysis, stolen from here:

LCH.Clearnet Raises Deposits On Wheat And Corn After Price Gains

LCH Clearnet SA, the French arm of Europe’s biggest clearing house, raised the deposits it demands from clients to trade milling wheat and corn futures on NYSE Liffe in Paris after prices jumped.
The margin for milling wheat futures will climb to 1,300 euros ($1,595) per contract from 1,200 euros, LCH.Clearnet wrote in a statement on its website yesterday. Margin requirements for corn will rise to 1,000 euros from 900 euros, the clearinghouse said.
Milling wheat futures have climbed 33 percent in the French capital this year to 259.25 euros a ton, while corn futures have advanced 28 percent to 252.25 euros a ton. The changes will come into effect with the margin call tomorrow morning for positions at today’s close, LCH.Clearnet wrote.
This should send a signal that the price of basic food commodities such as Corn and Wheat are set to rise further, after rising already over 30% this year.
Some people have estimated that the effect of speculation adds up to 20% to the price of basic food items, which may made trading in such commodities morally dubious, however, I would say that it is not the individual investors so much as the massive banks with the potential weight to move the market that are responsible for the majority of the increase in the price of food, but alas, such is the world we live in. In addition to speculation, I think the biggest driver of food prices is the making of food into fuel, such as corn based ethanol. Although there are experiments happening with thing such as switchgrass in order to extract food from plants that cannot be eaten, but this does not solve the problem. Instead of planting the ground with crops that bear food, the fields will be planted with crops that yield food. In fact, one could even say that moving to switchgrass or some other kind of ethanol made from crops that are inedible is even worse, because if there is a surplus, then it cannot be eaten.

For a table on World Corn consumption by country, look here: