We The Sheeplez- The Coming Economic Collapse.."A Nation Of Sheep Ruled By Wolves" Thomas Jefferson

Silver Outperforming Nearly All Other Assets YTD

It sure looks like silver has gotten its mojo back. Let’s not count our chickens just yet, but January has been a banner month for the incredibly precious metal. Silver has outperformed just about every asset class and ETF since the start of the year. At the moment I’m writing this, Ag is at $32.50 and is up approximately 17% since the first trading day of 2012… not a bad way to start the year. Governments worldwide can keep on printing, we’ll just keep on stackin’.

Goldman: Data May Look Better Than They Are

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 1 hour ago

Economic data have been managed for control purposes for centuries. Aspiring minds not taught to question everything either learn this lesson quickly or get used the idea of having their pocket’s picked regularly. Most of today’s economic series time series so badly polluted by statistical tweaks and techniques that historical comparisons have become meaningless. Simply follow the money that’s... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

American Defense and Intelligence Chiefs: Attacking Iran Will INCREASE Odds that Iran Will Build a Nuclear Bomb

Posted by: George Washington

Post date: 01/23/2012 - 15:05

War with Iran Would INCREASE the Odds that Iran Develops Nuclear Weapons

The MegaUpload Raid Affects YOU – ACTA / PIPA / SOPA [Ed Note: If you think fascism is no big deal, and that it will never directly affect you, you may want to watch this.]

BRILLIANT SATIRE: Diebold Voting Machines Reveal New President [There's a Lot of Truth in Fiction]

from The Onion, via RestoreConstitution8:

Yet Another Reminder That Democracy is an Illusion

by Simon Black, Sovereign Man:

With over 150 million registered users, the file sharing site MegaUpload.com is one of the most popular on the Internet. At least, it was.
The site has now been seized by the US government and its homepage converted to an FBI anti-piracy warning. Its founder, a high tech entrepreneur named Kim Dotcom (yes, he had it legally changed), was arrested in New Zealand after his homes were raided and assets seized.
These actions were all at the behest of the US government. And it’s just the latest example of Big Brother overextending its authority across the entire world.
Last week, we discussed the grassroots efforts to stop passage of the SOPA/PIPA legislation that would give the US government jurisdiction over the Internet. Wikipedia blacked out its English language pages to raise awareness of the issue, and people went completely nuts.
Read More @ SovereignMan.com

Searching for the Bottom in Home Prices

by Charles Hugh Smith, ChrisMartenson.com:

A substantial percentage of many households’ net worth is comprised of the equity in their home. With the beating home prices have taken since 2007, existing and soon-to-be homeowners are keen to know: Are prices stabilizing? Will they begin to recover from here? Or is the “knife” still falling?
To understand where housing prices are headed, we need to understand what drives them in the first place: policy, perception, and price discovery.
In my December 2011 look at housing, I examined systemic factors such as employment and demographics that represent ongoing structural impediments to the much-awaited recovery in housing valuations and sales. This time around, we’re going to consider policy factors that influence the housing market.
Yesterday while standing in line at our credit union I overheard another customer at a teller’s window request that her $100,000 Certificate of Deposit (CD) be withdrawn and placed in her checking account because, she said, “I’m not earning anything.” The woman was middle-aged and dressed for work in a professional white- collar environment — a typical member, perhaps, of the vanishing middle class.
Read More @ ChrisMartenson.com

US Rebounds? Prosperity Around the Corner?

America overcomes the debt crisis as Britain sinks deeper into the swamp … Britain has sunk deeper into debt. Three years after bubble burst, the UK has barely begun to tackle the crushing burden left by Gordon Brown. The contrast with the United States is frankly shocking … The latest report on “Debt and Deleveraging” by the McKinsey Global Institute shows that total public and private debt in the UK is still hovering at an all-time high. It has risen from 487pc to 507pc of GDP since the crisis began … The ordeal of belt-tightening will be grim, dragging out for a generation if Japan is any guide. The Japanese at least began their post-bubble debacle as the world’s top creditor nation with a trade super-surplus and a savings rate of 17pc. Britain has no such buffers. It is a very different picture in the US where light is emerging at the end of the tunnel. American banks, firms, and households have been chipping away at their debts, more than offsetting Washington’s double-digit deficits. The total burden has dropped to 279pc, down from 295pc at the peak of the boom. Households have purged roughly a third of the excess, roughly tracking the historic pattern of post-bubble deleveraging. – UK Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme: The US is really doing well. It only appeared to be doing badly. And President Barack Obama is doing better and better …
Free-Market Analysis: Every now and then our favorite mainstream journo, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, runs off the tracks. Evans-Pritchard makes the case (see excerpt above) that Britain is not recovering from the 2008 financial crisis but that the US is on the way up.
Read More @ TheDailyBell.com

Rand Paul Detained By TSA Over Pat-Down Standoff

Senator misses flight to Washington after refusing to be groped by federal agents
[Ed. Note: Related.]
by Steve Watson, InfoWars.com

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was briefly detained this morning after a standoff incident with TSA officers In Nashville.
In a telephone interview with AP, Rand Paul confirmed that an “anomaly” on his knee was picked up by a full body scanner. Paul said he asked for another scan, but the TSA insisted he submit to a pat down by airport security.
After refusing the pat-down on the grounds that it was an infringement on his rights and “private property”, Paul said he was then “detained” in a small cubicle and consequently missed a flight to Washington for a Senate session. Paul was also due to speak at the March for Life later today in DC.
Paul also said that the incident highlights how the TSA should not be “spending so much time with people who wouldn’t attack us.”
Read More @ InfoWars.com

$58-60 Silver Price by September Says Dubai Silver Trader

by Peter Cooper, SilverSeek:

Pop down to the Old Gold Souk in Deira, part of the modern city of Dubai and the hottest selling item is a 1kg bar of silver these days.
Karachi Jewellers told ArabianMoney yesterday they are selling 600 to 700 of these $1,300 bars each month with a 4.1 per cent profit margin.
More profitable than gold
‘It is far more profitable to trade silver than gold where the margin is much smaller,’ said director Ejaz Ilyas in a video to be broadcast on this website tomorrow.
‘We get a lot of passing tourists who buy 1kg silver bars. I was born in Dubai and spent most of my professional life in London but business is better here now. Even a modest shop in this souk does well.’
Read More @ SilverSeek.com

Gold and Silver Prices Regaining Altitude on Stimulus Rumours

from GoldMoney.com:
Gold bars

After recording decent gains at the end of last week, gold and silver prices have continued rallying higher in trading this morning, as hedge funds’ “risk” appetite increases and more are drawn back into the long side of stocks and commodities.
Markets appear at last to be digesting the fact that the European Central Bank is little different from the Federal Reserve or the Bank of England when it comes to fear of deflation – despite all the media blather about its supposed Teutonic “hard money” inclinations. Credit Suisse speculated in recent days that the next “Long-Term Refinancing Operation” conducted by the ECB will could involve as much as €10 trillion’s worth of loans to eurozone banks, though others are more cautious in their estimates. Banks pay miniscule interest rate on these three-year loans – the ECB’s current borrowing rate of 1% – that essentially enables them to recapitalise, and (it is hoped) continue to invest in European sovereign debt.
Read More @ GoldMoney.com

This Is America Today, Part II

by Gonzalo Lira:

These facts are from the CIA—and they are undisputed:
• Infant mortality rate in the United States: 6.06 per 1,000 live births.
• Infant mortality rate in France: 3.29 per 1,000 live births.
• Average life expectancy in the United States: 78.37 years (75.92 for men, 80.93 for women).
• Average life expectancy in France: 81.19 years (78.20 for men, 84.54 for women).
• Total expenditure on health care in the United States: 16.2% of GDP (2009).
Read More @ GonzaloLira.Blogspot.com

Why Hasn’t the Day of Financial Armageddon Occurred Yet?

by Bill Sardi, LewRockwell.com:
In a household, what would force a family to file for bankruptcy? Of course, it would be the day when a family couldn’t pay the interest on their credit cards. Using this example, when would the day of financial Armageddon occur for the US federal government? Answer: the day it can’t meet the interest payments on the national debt. Until then, the US government keeps racking up bills on its imaginary credit card, largely by borrowing money from foreign countries that do business with the US, or if these trading partners no longer want to lend the US money in the form of IOUs (US Treasury Bills), then the US can just print money to pay for its debts, a counterfeiting privilege a household obviously does not have.
For some time now, economic prognosticators have predicted a day when the financial world plunges into an abyss that it cannot save itself from. Various dooms-dayers have suggested that the public buy precious metals like gold based upon a predicted but nebulous future day of financial Armageddon. But over recent decades, people listening to dire prognostications have been so bombarded that they have become desensitized to them, given that massive bank runs, an official devaluation of the dollar and insolvency of the federal government never occurred.
Read More @ LewRockwell.com

In Gold, Inflation We Trust – Sprott’s Franklin Argues

In outlining the case for a good time to buy gold, Sprott Wealth CEO David Franklin suggests the tide on the yellow metal may have turned with Europe’s new source of cash.
by Kip Keen, MineWeb.com:
The head of Sprott Wealth pushed a simple message on how dedicated it was to staying in gold.
“Until we see real interest rates go positive we won’t see an end to the gold trade,” said David Franklin, Sprott Wealth CEO, in reference to the caustic effect inflation has in outpowering otherwise miserly gains from rock-bottom interest rates.
Franklin made the comment in the opening hours of the Cambridge International conference in which he outlined what he called the “Sprott thesis” on gold and silver.
In his presentation Franklin made the case that Europe’s liquidity crunch was the main driver behind gold’s sinking price in the past few months. He said, in an effort to alleviate this liquidity crunch, the European Central Bank ECB lent yellow metal to banks who then sold iton the markets to raise the very liquidity desperately craved.
That helped drive down the price for gold.
Read More @ MineWeb.com

EU Bans Iranian Oil, Tehran Responds With Threats

by Justyna Pawlak and Hossein Jaseb, Reuters:

(Reuters) – The European Union banned imports of oil from Iran on Monday and imposed a number of other economic sanctions, joining the United States in a new round of measures aimed at deflecting Tehran’s nuclear development program.
In Iran, one politician responded by renewing a threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, an oil export route vital to the global economy, and another said Tehran should cut off crude shipments to the EU immediately.
That might hurt Greece, Italy and other ailing economies which depend heavily on Iranian oil and, as a result, won as part of the EU agreement a grace period until July 1 before the embargo takes full effect. Angry words on either side helped nudge benchmark Brent oil futures above $110 a barrel on Monday.
A day after a U.S. aircraft carrier, accompanied by a flotilla that included French and British warships, made a symbolically loaded voyage into the Gulf in defiance of Iranian hostility, the widely expected EU sanctions move is likely to set off yet more bellicose rhetoric in an already tense region.
Read More @ Reuters.com

Dead People Vote?

Iran ‘Definitely’ Closing Strait of Hormuz Over EU Oil Embargo

from RT.com:

Tensions in the Gulf could reach a breaking point as a senior Iranian official said Iran would “definitely” close the Strait of Hormuz if an EU oil embargo disrupted the export of crude oil, the semi-official Fars news agency reports.
The announcement came in response to a decision by the European Union on Monday to impose an oil embargo on Iran over the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program.
“The pressure of sanctions is designed to try and make sure that Iran takes seriously our request to come to the table,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.
However, with Washington’s decision to deploy a second carrier strike group in the Gulf, the EU’s attempt to pressure Iran economically could greatly increase the likelihood of all-out war in the region.
Read More @ RT.com