Video of the nightly closing ceremony at a border crossing between India and Pakistan.
It could very well be the paradigm of government inanity, but even if not, there's no disputing that the participants offer up an (inadvertently) comedic routine that would make the Monty Python troop proud.
You can watch it here.


Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
This entire thing is coming within weeks of an unwind that no amount of bailout money is going to reverse.
April showers in the Gold market make for May flowers.

Foreclosure Rates Surge, Biggest Increase In 5 Years BY Stephanie Sklar

A record number of US homes were foreclosed on in the first three months of 2010, an indication that banks are beginning to wade through the backlog of troubled home loans at a faster rate, The Associated Press has reported.
On Thursday, RealtyTrac Inc. said that the number of US homes taken over by banks went up 35% in the first quarter from 2009. Moreover, households facing foreclosure increased 16% in the same period and 7% from the last three months of last year.
More homes were taken over by banks and scheduled for a foreclosure sale than in any quarter dating back to at least January of 2005, when RealtyTrac started reporting the data.
“We’re, right now, on pace to see more than 1 million bank repossessions this year,” said RealtyTrac’s Senior Vice President Rick Sharga.
Foreclosures started to drop in 2009 when banks were pressured by the Obama administration to modify home loans for troubled borrowers. Moreover, some states enacted foreclosure moratoriums to give homeowners, who were behind in their payments, time to catch up. And, in a lot of instances, banks have had problems in coping with how to handle the glut of troubled loans.
More…



In The News Today Posted: Apr 18 2010 By: Jim Sinclair Post Edited: April 17, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Filed under: In The News
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Who paid the bonuses for Wall Street and how it worked:
1. FASB capitulates and allows holders of OTC derivatives to value them at whatever they wish. 2. International investment firms begin strong mark up policies towards their crap inventory. 3. Profits from the mark up of crap OTC derivatives by the international investment firms is recognized as trading income. 4. Tarp money comes into the firms and goes out as bonuses to the management, trading department and general employees at obscene levels. 5. Stock and bond issues are made to pay back tarp funds. 6. Therefore the money bonuses out by the international investment firms were TARP funds, not real earnings, but false FASB permitted mark up paper earnings through the trading department and declared as trading income. 7. The TARP money was paid back through the issue of stocks and bonds to the public, therefore the public paid the TARP back, not the financial institutions. 8. The obscene level of bonuses is because this game of convert false paper profit into cash into the bank account of the banksters and their merry crew is now game over. It was the last dip at the well of public funds laundered via TARP of the caved in FASB. 9. In the final analysis the public paid those obscene bonuses that were in truth, unearned.


Tyler Durden, over at Zero Hedge: Why Are Silver Sales Soaring? That is significant news. Think about it: Annualized, that means that effectively, the entire US silver mining production is being devoted to producing Silver Eagles planchets. The law of supply and demand is inescapable. So I'm I standing by my long term price predictions for silver.


33 states out of money to fund jobless benefits.


California Jobless Rate Hits 12.6% in March


Goldman's Stock Loss Dwarfs Possible Penalty


US Home Reposessions Hit Five Year High


The latest from Nanny State Britannia: Caravanner, 61, prosecuted for having Swiss Army knife in his glovebox... to cut up fruit on picnics.


P.S.: From several sources: the feds are seriously considering capturing your IRA’s and substituting annuities in treasury bills, which could mean seizing your metals. I urge you to consider removing your gold an silver from your IRA’, pay the taxes, and take the gold and silver home. Evidently the Fourth Amendment no longer holds.