Ashtabula County: Judge tells residents to "Arm themselves" (following sheriff's department manpower cuts).




IMF Executive Board Approves Major Expansion of Fund’s Borrowing Arrangements to Boost Resources for Crisis Resolution
posted by Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 1 hour ago
Spain is next? Whomever it is they will be bailed out. The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today approved a ten-fold expansion of the Fund’s New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB) and th...






IMF Bailout For Greece To Come At SDR Rate Plus 300 bps Plus 50 bps Service Charge, Greece Says "Thank You US Taxpayers". Here is a quote: "The IMF, realizing it had a catastrophe on its hands, has caved in and according to Reuters will provide US taxpayer money to Greece at vastly below market rates."






Greek Banks Seek More Aid as Savers Withdraw 10 Billion Euro in Deposits






Greece Debt Fears Hit Fever Pitch






The Latest Gold Fraud Bombshell: Canada's Only Bullion Bank Gold Vault is Practically Empty






New Depths to Plunge To (The Mogambo Guru)






Now here is a big surprise...NOT.

Now ALL banks are permitted to do this with the blessing of the U.S. government...Just wait.

WaMu Faked Documents, Engaged in Loan Fraud: Panel

Governments Will Need To Print Money. Paper Currencies And Precious Metals.
posted by HMS at Marc Faber Blog - 18 hours ago
"When the percentage of interest payments to tax revenue gets too high, it will become clear to everyone that the government will need to print money in earnest to make these payments. That's when you're l...

Jim’s Mailbox Posted: Apr 13 2010 By: Jim Sinclair Post Edited: April 13, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Filed under: Jim's Mailbox
Dear LT,
You think they would have learned their lesson before!!!! Best, CIGA BT

Dear BT,
They are never going to stop. They have overvalued their assets courtesy of the FASB and understated their debt for that purpose thanks to OTC derivatives. They are hell bent on destroying the world and so far have been quite successful.
Jim

Big Banks Mask Risk Levels Quarter-End Loan Figures Sit 42% Below Peak, Then Rise as New Period Progresses; SEC Review APRIL 9, 2010 By KATE KELLY, TOM MCGINTY and DAN FITZPATRICK

Major banks have masked their risk levels in the past five quarters by temporarily lowering their debt just before reporting it to the public, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
A group of 18 banks—which includes Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc.—understated the debt levels used to fund securities trades by lowering them an average of 42% at the end of each of the past five quarterly periods, the data show. The banks, which publicly release debt data each quarter, then boosted the debt levels in the middle of successive quarters.
Excessive borrowing by banks was one of the major causes of the financial crisis, leading to catastrophic bank runs in 2008 at firms including Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers. Since then, banks have become more sensitive about showing high levels of debt and risk, worried that their stocks and credit ratings could be punished.
That practice, while legal, can give investors a skewed impression of the level of risk that financial firms are taking the vast majority of the time.
"You want your leverage to look better at quarter-end than it actually was during the quarter, to suggest that you’re taking less risk," says William Tanona, a former Goldman analyst who now heads U.S. financials research at Collins Stewart, a U.K. investment bank.
More…

Another Short Squeeze in the Precious Metals



By James Turk
April 12, 2010 – On August 16, 1999, I recounted how legendary traders Jim Fisk and Jay Gould had profited handsomely from a massive short squeeze in gold 130 years earlier. The opportunity they took advantage of arose because of the ongoing monetary turmoil of their day arising from the so-called “greenback”, the irredeemable fiat currency issued by the North to finance President Lincoln’s war with the South. Here is what I wrote about the immediate prospects for gold back then:
“I believe that within two weeks, another gold squeeze will start from the depths of a typically hot and humid New York summer. Like the squeeze of 1869, the market now is far too complacent about both gold and the fiat currency of our day, the Federal Reserve dollar (which differs from a Greenback dollar in name only). And conditions are ripe for a successful squeeze, most notably in the low gold price...”
Gold was $260.90 that day, and nine days later reached its $253 low. From there, gold never looked back because the short squeeze I had expected began.
In the next six weeks gold jumped nearly 30% as a massive squeeze gained momentum pushing shorts to the edge, prompting central bank intervention and the announcement of their bombastic “Washington Agreement on Gold”, which was purposefully and maliciously designed to make it appear they were not going to disrupt the gold market. This event was later described by Eddie George, then Governor of the Bank of England and a director of the BIS, as follows:
“We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The U.S. Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K.” http://www.gata.org/node/4258
Conditions are ripe for another short squeeze, which was a key element of my forecast for this year. Several big banks and others owe physical metal, but there is not sufficient metal available at current prices for them to purchase to enable them to cover their short positions, which is the important point. Physical metal cannot be conjured up out of thin air like dollars, euros, pounds and the world’s other fiat currencies that are merely intangible bookkeeping concepts. When a bullion bank owes physical metal, it must repay real – i.e., tangible – physical metal or default.
There is a huge naked short position out there. Much metal is owed, but not enough metal can be bought at the current price to enable the shorts to repay their gold debts. In fact, a squeeze has already begun. It began last summer when Greenlight, a large US hedge fund switched out of GLD – the large gold ETF – into physical metal, and I expect the squeeze to continue. A price surge in gold and silver will be the inevitable result.
Soon central banks will once again be looking “into the abyss.” We can therefore expect more interventions from them that may buy them more time, but they are losing the war against honest money.
A higher gold price is needed to entice present holders of physical metal to sell their metal and hold irredeemable fiat currency instead. How high? Before even considering parting with any of my physical metal, I will wait for something around my longstanding forecast of $8,000 per ounce, which I still expect to be reached no later than some time between 2013 and 2015.