J Y's Contributions

This is a snapshot of a nation that has reached the end of its rope. It’s not so much just the most recent events (atrocities? trampling of the rule of law? naked excess of power). It’s the decades and centuries of pent-up frustration. It’s little people, who are sick of being trampled upon, taken advantage of, robbed of the fruits of their labor. It’s people that have seen through the veneer of what is supposed to pass for democratic institutions, representative legislature and government and realized (yet again) that the system is there to exploit them – not to serve. It's people that are mad as hell, and are not going to take it any more.

The collective consciousness that is beginning to (re)emerge, and show ever-so-slight flutters of life is something that serves as a source of hope. With each human being a node, the internet makes an adaptive and ever-growing neural network of us all. A network that is already perhaps beginning to rival the complexity of the human brain – which was heretofore already so absurdly complex as to be deemed unknowable for centuries. The narrative provided by the system is no longer being swallowed whole as easily by the population. People are becoming increasingly skeptical as to the official explanation for what is being done to them and their fellow humans around the globe.

These folks took a stand, stood up to be counted. At first through 'acceptable' channels, through law-abiding traditional methods. And when they realized that sanctioned forms of (controlled) opposition such as political activism, protests, letter writing, petitioning politicians, collecting signatures, organizing sit-ins were ineffective, they decided to take a calculated risk with their livelihoods, freedom and reputations, and did what needed to be done. They took no credit, they sought no limelight or recognition. For good reason, of course. Yet, ironically, because they were successful in evading detection, they perhaps lessened some of the impact of their (unquestionably courageous and ultimately effective) deed.

A collapse, no matter how epic, is always a process. Freefall can be engineered in standalone single buildings, perhaps, but the steel beams in the case of the current global monetary regime crisscross too far and wide to pancake all at once. The good news is that we may have some time (Days? Weeks? Months?) between plainly obvious, explicit monetary collapse events. The bad new is that the obvious, explicit ones are still yet to come, and are liable to be nasty, if the endgame truly approaches.

The prices of gold and silver will be relevant when they become indicative of the depths of the waters around us, until then they are part of the scenery intended to shield our unprepared eyes from the reality. For the moment, I believe the time is to be right, and sit tight. There are now SO many situations that can be expected to tip over at any moment, that it hardly seems worthwhile to expend additional energy searching for and painstakingly exploring FURTHER black swan candidates.

Some of Turkey's richest and most powerful men, the kids of several cabinet secretaries, and an Istanbul mayor were among those arrested this week for charges connected to Iranian transactions. The General Manager of Halkbank,the facilitator of gold-for-Iranian-hydrocarbons trading, was also among those detained. Let's take a closer look as to why.

I would think twice about recommending a 60 Minutes segment these days, but this one is worth it for the comedy factor alone. This is simply gold, Jerry, GOLD . Pure, elemental comedy gold.

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Perhaps negative GOFO has no real significance. It's not a causal factor in the discovery of fair market pricing for gold, which in turn is conducted daily through the wonderfully efficient and transparent global bullion and bullion derivative markets… Everything is fine and well, please ignore the explicit incentive for a rational market actor to hold gold instead of cash present in the marketplace. This once-rare event is now a regular daily occurrence, we have all gotten used to it by now, nothing to see here, move along…

Probably not yet. But the question never what it's doing now, it's always what it will be doing in the future. While gold and silver are bouncing along what may (or may not) be a bottom, BTC continues to assault its (parabolically arrived-at) all-time highs .

A short piece on some simple, common-sense indicators that may reflect on BitCoin.

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Stretching the bounds of allegorical cave-climbing, courtesy of Greek thinkers of yore. The allegory can be seen a lot more literally than its author(s) may have originally intended. Just like 1984 was a cautionary tale, not an instruction manual, Plato's Allegory of the Cave was intended to bring clarity to the differences between perceptions, concepts and reality. Yet it seems to have become the blueprint for how to pull wool over the eyes of people everywhere today.

(credit: xkcd )

A speech from JohnF from 1961. There is plenty in it that is as timely now as it was then, if not more. It contains as many, if not far more, potential offenses against the then-PTB than just silver certificates. When thinking about men like JohnF, I am reminded of the need for inspiring, thoughtful and honest leadership. The ever-declining quality of the ‘facsimilies’ thereof that are served up to us (as opposed to rising up from among the people), has gotten to be alarming as the decades rolled on.

And of course the ever-popular, yet mysterious Executive Order 11110 : what was it, what did it mean, and could it have contributed to (or caused) the national shock that took place five decades ago today.

Just like what I imagine medieval street theater to be like, professional wrestling is a staged affair, with ‘scripts’, roughly delineating the dialogue and roles of the wrestlers. There is always a ‘ face ’ character, a good-looking (to some, anyway) leading man the audience can identify with, cheer for and be enamored by. And there must be a foil, a villain, an anti-hero – the ‘ heel ’. Specifically designed to be caricatures, they are the Emmanuel Goldstein equivalent at whom the audience can hiss, boo, vent their frustration and anger – release the stress of everyday life in the righteous feeling of all being right with the world when they are vanquished.

Is China content to ride the status quo, keep buying foreign currencies to keep the yuan down? Is it moving to advance the cause of the SDR by pushing for inclusion in it, along with Russia? What, if anything do the above have to do with the buildout of Chinese gold production capability, and in-country reserves?

I was not able to find all of the answers, but will try to share the breadcrumb trail that I eventually traced, and the data sources I stumbled upon. They present (what was to me) a remarkable sketch of the lengths China is going to in order to secure resources around the world.

The United States is most often held up as the shining example of a ‘market economy’ or a ‘free market’ – where objective, impartial and (in the long run) infallible rules of the market shape the economy, development, resource utilization and output. It is the so-called ‘textbook example’ of a free market, indeed, the champion and guarantor of free markets worldwide – thanks to its economic influence, trade relations, investment prowess and expertise, available investment capital, rule of law, benevolent military might… But in truth ALL of these factors can be questioned and if not laid to waste, certainly taken off their perceived pedestal.

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It is fascinating to look for the reflections of truth among the lies and the misdirection. Could it be that the global ‘outrage’ over spying/surveillance really IS just theater? If two of the largest producers of oil in the world were to try to seek a path towards new alliance and alignment that directly violates the existing 'world order' (such as it is), would they simply state they are sitting down to hammer out the details of the deal?

The distancing from the US we are seeing around the world must be done as carefully as possible, a cornered, wounded giant can be extremely dangerous. Pretexts and excuses must be found to slowly, gradually gain distance (before breaking into a full evasive sprint). Of course, it is easy to fall prey to paranoid speculation, and always difficult to try to unravel who is spinning which yarn, and why -- but naturally I try anyway.

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Before mankind was able to accurately and repeatedly measure the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second, the metric for distance had a fixed, physical ‘yardstick’: an 'X'-cross-section 90% platinum 10% iridium bar.

Let us consider an altogether different unit of measurement. There is a unique one that comes to mind, one that – similarly to the measurement of distance in physics – is central to the definition and measurement of many, many things in the world around us. Certainly a significant portion of things considered to be part of modern society.

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What a colorful tapestry they weave… Keep your eyes and ears open this weekend, it has a significant amount of interesting events all happening at the same time. The air is full of the flaming, spinning batons, the stage smoke is heavy all about. It’s not like there is flammable material around or anything. Now if only one could see what all the misdirection might be hiding...

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Obviously, no relief or reset has come from the exposure of title and mortgage fraud. It is unlikely (at this point) that any such thing will occur under current paradigm. Mortgage rates – despite the (alarmingly) rapid rise in Treasuries recently -- remain low compared to historical standards. As higher debt service load levels are untenable for the government, interest rates CANNOT be allowed to rises substantially (see PIMCO boss’s thoughts on the matter recently). Repealing the income tax credits for mortgage payments does not look imminent. Despite their zombified state, the government loan guarantees afforded by Freddy/Fannie are still around, exerting influence and buying up loans.

So how DOES one approach a house purchase with the knowledge of the above, but in light of the ongoing end of the G(reat)K(eynesian)E(xperiment)? What is the calculus for possible prospects under a variety of potential future scenarios?

This post is not about technical analysis. But this song is also not a rebel song.

While I am very happy to welcome any REAL signs pointing to an end to the bloodshed, the perfect unison and timing with which all of these puzzle pieces are suddenly falling into place is truly astounding to me. BUT -- perhaps we are all being cynical, and government’s long-awaited efforts to secure peace in the Middle East are finally bearing fruit, and we are about to see some major group hugs. At the rate things are going, the next Peace Nobel could now be in the bag.