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.. =)

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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. =)

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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.

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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.

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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