The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. – Benjamin Franklin
– Insight: California environmentalists fear frack fight a distraction (Reuters, May 28, 2013):
As California sets the ground rules for drilling in the Monterey oil formation, a hard-to-reach shale reserve that is the largest in the United States, some environmentalists worry that politicians, regulators and fellow activists are fighting the wrong battle.
– China Is Reaping Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom (New York Times, June 2, 2013):
BAGHDAD — Since the American-led invasion of 2003, Iraq has become one of the world’s top oil producers, and China is now its biggest customer.
China already buys nearly half the oil that Iraq produces, nearly 1.5 million barrels a day, and is angling for an even bigger share, bidding for a stake now owned by Exxon Mobil in one of Iraq’s largest oil fields.
“The Chinese are the biggest beneficiary of this post-Saddam oil boom in Iraq,” said Denise Natali, a Middle East expert at the National Defense University in Washington. “They need energy, and they want to get into the market.”
– Petrogold: Are Russia And China Hoarding Gold Because They Plan To Kill The Petrodollar? (Economic Collapse, Feb 12, 2013):
Will oil soon be traded in a currency that is thousands of years old? What would a “gold for oil” system mean for the petrodollar and the U.S. economy? Are Russia and China hoarding massive amounts of gold because they plan to kill the petrodollar? Since the 1970s, the U.S. dollar has been the currency that the international community has used to trade oil around the globe. This has created an overwhelming demand for U.S. dollars and U.S. debt. But what happens when the rest of the globe starts rejecting the increasingly unstable U.S. dollar and figures out that gold can be used as a currency in international trade? The truth is that it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure that out. Demand for the U.S. dollar and U.S. debt would fall off the map and there would be a rush into gold unlike anything we have ever seen before. So are Russia and China accumulating unprecedented amounts of gold right now because they eventually plan to cut the legs out from under the petrodollar and they want to gobble up huge stockpiles of gold before the cat is out of the bag? Of course they will never admit this publicly, but there are rumblings out there that this is exactly what is happening.
Read moreRussia And China Hoarding Gold, Killing The Petrodollar
Libya 2.O. There is only one major problem with Syria (or Syria would have been finished off a long time ago) and that is Russia:
– Russia’s Chief of Staff General Nikolai Makarov: Russia Not To End Military Presence In Syria
– Russia: Military Intervention In Syria Will Lead To Catastrophe (Video)
– Russia Sends Three Warships To Syria Carrying Hundreds Of Marines
Related info:
– Syrian Insurgents Reject West-Imposed Coalition, Declare Own Islamic State
– ‘Clinton & Al-Qaeda On One Side Of Syrian War Barricades’ (Video)
– The CIA’s Muslim ‘Outfit,’ – The Muslim Brotherhood (Veterans Today)
– US-Created “Syrian Opposition” Led by Big Oil Rep (Activist Post, Nov 25, 2012):
A year ago, it was reported that Libya’s new NATO-installed prime minister, Abdurrahim el-Keib, was in fact a long-time US resident, having taught at the University of Alabama and was formally employed by the Petroleum Institute, based in Abu Dhabi, UAE and sponsored by British Petroleum (BP), Shell, France’s Total, the Japan Oil Development Company, and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. El-Keib is listed as a “Professor and Chairman” in his Petroleum Institute profile which also describes extensive research conducted by him sponsored by various US government agencies and departments over the years.
His long history of serving and working in coordination with Western governments and corporations made him and his collaborators the ideal candidates to prepare Libya for its place within the Wall Street-London international order.
Now it is revealed that the US-handpicked opposition, announced in Doha, Qatar earlier this month, is led by a similarly compromised figure, Moaz al-Khatib. The corporate-financier-funded Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reported of al-Khatib that:
– Giving Thanks That It Has Not Come To This (ZeroHedge, Nov 22, 2012):
On occasions such as the increasingly binary-outcome world in which we exist today, it is perhaps more important to give thanks not for what has happened, but for what has not, such as this fictional and dramatic potential outcome.
For your Thanksgiving entertainment pleasure:
Description:
Gerald Celente, the founder of the Trends Research Institute, at the Marriott Hotel in Munich, Germany, on November 3rd, 2012. Celente was holding a presentation later on on the Internationale Edelmetall- und Rohstoffmesse, the largest precious metals conference in Europe. You can find Gerald Celente at trendsresearch.com and trendsjournal.com.
– Iran Threatens to Halt Crude Exports If Sanctions Intensify (Bloomberg, Oct 23, 2012):
Iran will suspend all oil exports, pushing global crude prices higher, if the U.S. and Europe tighten sanctions further on the OPEC member’s economy, Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi warned.
“If you continue to add to the sanctions, we will stop our oil exports to the world,” he said at a news conference in Dubai. “The lack of Iranian oil in the market would drastically add to the price.”
Read moreIran Threatens To Halt Crude Exports If Sanctions Intensify (Bloomberg)
– BP Oil Spill: Case NOT Closed (ZeroHedge, Oct 19, 2012)
– Greece Is Not Poor – It Actually Has Massive Uptapped Reserves Of Gold, Oil And Natural Gas (Economic Collapse, Oct 15, 2012):
It turns out that the poster child for the European debt crisis is not actually poor at all. In fact, the truth is that the nation of Greece is sitting on absolutely massive untapped reserves of gold, oil and natural gas. If the Greeks were to fully exploit the natural resources that are literally right under their feet, they would no longer have any debt problems. Fortunately, this recent economic crisis has spurred them to action and it is now being projected that Greece will be the number one gold producer in Europe by 2016. In addition, Greece is now opening up exploration of their massive oil and natural gas deposits. Reportedly, Greece is sitting on hundreds of millions of barrels of oil and gigantic natural gas deposits that are worth trillions of dollars. It is truly sad that Greece should be one of the wealthiest nations in all of Europe but instead the country is going through the worst economic depression that it has experienced in modern history. It is kind of like a homeless man that sleeps on the streets every night without realizing that a relative has left him an inheritance worth millions of dollars. Greece is not poor at all, and hopefully the people of Greece can learn the truth about all of this wealth and chart a course out of this current mess.I have written extensively about the nightmarish economic conditions that Greece is experiencing right now. Just check out this article, this article and this article. Since the depression began in Greece, the Greek economy has contracted by more than 20 percent. In April 2010, the unemployment rate in Greece was only 11.8 percent. Since then it has skyrocketed to 25.1 percent.
The government debt to GDP ratio in Greece is projected to hit 198 percent this year, and there are persistent rumors that Greece will be forced to leave the euro.
But all of this is completely and totally unnecessary. Greece is not actually poor at all. In fact, after you account for untapped natural resources, Greece is actually one of the wealthiest nations in all of Europe.
According to Bloomberg, there is a massive amount of gold in Greece. This recent economic crisis has accelerated the approval of mining activity, and it is now being projected that Greece will soon be the number one gold producing country in all of Europe…
– Syria, Turkey, Israel and a Greater Middle East Energy War (Veterans Today, Oct 11, 2012):
Syria, Turkey, Israel and a Greater Middle East Energy War
…by F. William Engdahl
On October 3, 2012 the Turkish military launched repeated mortar shellings inside Syrian territory.
The military action, which was used by the Turkish military, conveniently, to establish a ten-kilometer wide no-man’s land “buffer zone” inside Syria, was in response to the alleged killing by Syrian armed forces of several Turkish civilians along the border.
There is widespread speculation that the one Syrian mortar that killed five Turkish civilians well might have been fired by Turkish-backed opposition forces intent on giving Turkey a pretext to move militarily, in military intelligence jargon, a ‘false flag’ operation.[i]
Read moreWilliam Engdahl: Syria, Turkey, Israel And A Greater Middle East Energy War
YouTube Added: 25.09.2012
And for some (idiots) this is not enough …
– Paul Krugman: QE3 Should Have Been ‘More Stronger’ (Quote Of The Day)
… versus those who can clearly see what is coming:
– Marc Faber: ‘Fed Will Destroy The World’ (Video)
From the article:
“Even when unwinding its balance sheet would mean sacrificing 30% of US GDP and, let’s be honest about it, civil war.”
– BofA Sees Fed Assets Surpassing $5 Trillion By End Of 2014… Leading To $3350 Gold And $190 Crude (ZeroHedge, Sep 14, 2012):
Yesterday, when we first presented our calculation of what the Fed’s balance sheet would look like through the end of 2013, some were confused why we assumed that the Fed would continue monetizing the long-end beyond the end of 2012. Simple: in its statement, the FOMC said that “If the outlook for the labor market does not improve substantially, the Committee will continue its purchases of agency mortgage backed securities, undertake additional asset purchases, and employ its other policy tools as appropriate until such improvement is achieved in a context of price stability.” Therefore, the only question is by what point the labor market would have improved sufficiently to satisfy the Fed with its “improvement” (all else equal, which however – and here’s looking at you inflation – will not be). Conservatively, we assumed that it would take at the lest until December 2014 for unemployment to cross the Fed’s “all clear threshold.” As it turns out we were optimistic. Bank of America’s Priya Misra has just released an analysis which is identical to ours in all other respects, except for when the latest QE version would end. BofA’s take: “We do not believe there will be “substantial” improvement in the labor market for the next 1.5-2 years and foresee the Fed buying Treasuries after the end of Operation Twist.” What does this mean for total Fed purchases? Again, simple. Add $1 trillion to the Zero Hedge total of $4TRN. In other words, Bank of America just predicted at least 2 years and change of constant monetization, which would send the Fed’s balance sheet to grand total of just over $5,000,000,000,000 as the Fed adds another $2.2 trillion MBS and Treasury notional to the current total of $2.8 trillion.
In other words, for once we actually were shockingly optimistic on the US economy. Assuming BofA is correct, and it probably is, this is how the Fed’s balance sheet will look like for the next 2 years:
Or, in terms of US GDP, the Fed’s balance sheet will have “LBOed” just shy of 30% of all US goods and services.
It gets worse:
– What Does A $4 Trillion Fed Balance Sheet Mean For Gold And Oil (ZeroHedge, Sep 13, 2012):
Earlier we explained why Bernanke’s actions today mean that the Fed Balance Sheet will likely grow to over $4 trillion by the end of 2013. Critically this flood of liquidity will raise the nominal price of every asset (from whimsical pieces of stockholder paper to barbarous relics and black gold). Some of these assets, like stock prices and high-yield credit spreads do have point-in-time ‘value limits’ to their price – though at times it seems a dream that fundamentals would ever matter again; but some have less of a binding constraint – such as gold. Should the Fed proceed, as seems likely, and do its worst/best to blow its balance sheet wad then we estimate Gold will be priced at least $2250 per ounce by the end of 2013(of course higher if the Fed sees no evidence of recovery). Meanwhile, deeper underground, the world’s mainstay source of energy, WTI Crude oil, could jump to record highs over $150 per barrel(which just happens to coincide with the ‘pegged’ value of oil in gold). It will be interesting indeed to see how the world’s socio-economic infrastructure hangs together should that occur – can’t happen? Different this time? Indeed it is now that Ben hit the big red ‘panic’ button.Gold vs Fed and ECB balance sheets… notably for QE2, gold priced in all the Fed balance sheet expansion within around half the period (around six months from Jackson Hole) and then overshot – this would infer we see Gold $2250 around the end of the first quarter next year – and expect some overshoot…
Oil vs Fed balance sheet… (which fits nicely into the 0.07 oz of Gold per barrel ‘peg’ that seems to have been ‘agreed’ with the world’s oil producers).
Charts: Bloomberg
– Venezuela Ramps up China Oil Exports Unsettling Washington (OILPRIZE, Aug 21, 2012):
The biggest geostrategic change of the past decade overlooked by Washington policy wonks in their fixation on their self-proclaimed “war on terror” is that Latin America has been throwing off the shackles of the Monroe Doctrine.
These ignored developments may well soon refocus Washington’s attention on the Southern Hemisphere, as Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez reorients his country’s to China.
Read moreVenezuela Ramps up China Oil Exports Unsettling Washington
– ATP Oil And Gas Files For Bankruptcy, CEO Blames Obama (ZeroHedge, Aug 18, 2012):
Now that the “alternative energy” industry is in shambles following one after another solar company bankruptcy, as the realization that at current prices, alternative energy business models are still just too unsustainable, no matter how much public equity is pumped into them, more “traditional” companies have resumed circling the drain. First, it was Patriot Coal, which finally succumbed to reality a month ago. Now it is the turn of ATP Oil and Gas, which filed Chapter 11 in Texas last night. And sure enough, in a world in which nobody is to blame, and everything is someone else’s fault, the CEO promptly made a case that he is blameless and it is all Obama’s fault. According to Forbes: “The founder and chairman of [ATP Paul Bulmahn] wants the world to know that the Obama Administration—and its illegal ban on deepwater drilling in the wake of the BP disaster—is to blame for the implosion of his company. Not him. “It is all directly attributable to what the government did to us,” he rails. “This Administration has gone out of its way to create problems for my company, the company that I formed from scratch.”
Forbes continues:
Read moreATP Oil And Gas Files For Bankruptcy, CEO Blames Obama
– What To Do When Every Market Is Manipulated (ZeroHedge, Aug 16, 2012):
Hint: cut the strings
If you don’t know who the sucker at the card table is, it’s you.
~ old gambler’s saying
What do the following have in common?
LIBOR, Bernie Madoff, MF Global, Peregrine Financial, zero-percent interest rates, the Social Security and Medicare entitlement funds, many state and municipal pension funds, mark-to-model asset values, quote stuffing and high frequency trading (HFT), and debt-based money?
The answer is that every single thing in that list is an example of market rigging, fraud, or both.
World’s biggest gold coin
– Gold, Silver, Corn, And Brent Are Best Performers On The 5-Year Anniversary Of The Great Financial Crisis (ZeroHedge, Aug 9, 2012):
Five years ago today BNP Paribas stopped withdrawals from three of their investment funds – because they couldn’t value their holdings following the subprime fallout – and arguably marked the start of the Great Financial Crisis as money markets seized up and the ECB did its first emergency liquidity pump. In the five years hence, as Deutsche’s Jim Reid notes, its been a pretty good run for commodities and most fixed income assets. Given all that’s gone on over this period it’s fair to say that returns have been pretty good if you’ve been in the right areas. The authorities have played a big part in ensuring the period wasn’t a disaster even if there have been frightening periods and very poor returns in some areas. Given that there are still numerous unresolved issues, the authorities need to continue to be on full alert for the next 5 years to ensure that when we do the 10 year anniversary there haven’t been set-backs in many of these assets.
Source: Deutsche Bank
FYI.
– Oil And Gold Seasonals Suggest BTFD (ZeroHedge, July 23, 2012):
The long-term seasonal data for gold and oil has not just remained relatively highly correlated over time but, as Barclays points out today, has very clear periods of bearishness, consolidation, and bullishness. While Gold may have another month of treading water, the period from September to mid-October is empirically bullish while Brent’s August to mid-October period is the most bullish segment of the year. Given gold’s stability in the past month or so since the EU Summit, and oil’s surge (and modest pull-back very recently), seasonals certainly provide some technical support for BTFD here in these QE-sensitive, real assets.
Brent Crude’s two major bullish seasonals…
and Gold’s three periods of bullish seasonality…
Source: Barclays
– 11 International Agreements That Are Nails In The Coffin Of The Petrodollar (The Economic Collapse, July 18, 2012):
Is the petrodollar dead? Well, not yet, but the nails are being hammered into the coffin even as you read this. For decades, most of the nations of the world have used the U.S. dollar to buy oil and to trade with each other. In essence, the U.S. dollar has been acting as a true global currency. Virtually every country on the face of the earth has needed big piles of U.S. dollars for international trade. This has ensured a huge demand for U.S. dollars and U.S. government debt. This demand for dollars has kept prices and interest rates low, and it has given the U.S. government an incredible amount of power and leverage around the globe. Right now, U.S. dollars make up more than 60 percent of all foreign currency reserves in the world. But times are changing. Over the past couple of years there has been a whole bunch of international agreements that have made the U.S. dollar less important in international trade. The mainstream media in the United States has been strangely quiet about all of these agreements, but the truth is that they are setting the stage for a fundamental shift in the way that trade is conducted around the globe. When the petrodollar dies, it is going to have an absolutely devastating impact on the U.S. economy. Sadly, most Americans are totally clueless regarding what is about to happen to the dollar.
YouTube Added: Jul 17, 2012
Description:
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss how market participants are never more than a few milliseconds away from the next act of fraud and how a teaspoon of collateral leads to economic martial law. They also discuss German economists proposing that the wealthy be forced to buy bonds while in Spain the government and EU force bank losses on cooks and pensioners. In the second half of the show, oil analyst, Chris Cook, about how, despite sanctions, oil will always find a home; the Enron technique of pre-pay now being used by Enron’s former counterparties; and how stability is the death for the oil market middlemen.
MUST-SEE!!!
***
YouTube Added: 23.01.2009
Description:
Talk by Dr. Doug Rokke, former head of the Pentagon’s Depleted Uranium Project speaking about depleted uranium November 16, 2002 at University Baptist Church in Seattle.
– Iran lawmakers prepare to close Hormuz Strait (RT, July 2, 2012):
Iranian lawmakers have drafted a bill that would close the Strait of Hormuz for oil tankers heading to countries supporting current economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
“There is a bill prepared in the National Security and Foreign Policy committee of Parliament that stresses the blocking of oil tanker traffic carrying oil to countries that have sanctioned Iran,” Iranian MP Ibrahim Agha-Mohammadi told reporters.
“This bill has been developed as an answer to the European Union’s oil sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Agha-Mohammadi said that 100 of Tehran’s 290 members of parliament had signed the bill as of Sunday.
Read moreIran Lawmakers Prepare To Close The Strait Of Hormuz
