Busy today so no commentary. Just read IT!
Zombies
By Larry Levin
This might be getting old but here it goes: the market was dead again today. There was a little volume (better than the last few days), but NO volatility whatsoever.
The market is indeed a ZOMBIE; however, the title of today’s missive refers to a piece written by Bill Bonner here http://dailyreckoning.com/worlds-biggest-zombies/#ixzz1jD65LOdl Please enjoy this while the Zombie ES keeps stumbling across your screen looking for brains to munch on.
01/09/12 Baltimore, Maryland – Not much action at the end of last week… Gold closed the week over $1,600. Oil remained over $100.
The show goes on!
We are watching the destruction of an empire. All empires must go away sometime. They are natural things. And nature puts a time bomb in everything she creates.
The US empire is doomed. Just like all the others that went before it. It is doomed by nature herself — condemned by the gods to blow up and die.
None of this should be surprising to you, dear reader. We’ve seen this movie before. Hundreds of empires have come and gone. We know how this movie ends. More or less.
What we know for sure is that the US is going broke. There is hardly any other plausible outcome. We’ve gone over the numbers so often we don’t need to repeat them.
Yes, it is true that the feds could still save themselves….if they had the will. They could cut taxes to a flat 10%…and spend only what they raised in tax revenue… That would do the trick from an economic point of view.
But it’s too late for that — politically. Empires have lives of their own. They go forward…expanding…spending…stretching…until, boom, they go too far. Empires do not back up.
Some merely go bankrupt. Others are defeated in war. All end disastrously.
Only one candidate favors rescuing the nation’s finances and pulling the empire back from disaster. Ron Paul. He is considered such an unelectable kook that the newspapers barely mention him. And the papers are right. He is unelectable. Because he is opposed by the zombies.
We have explained how government really works. It is barbarism in action. Powerful insiders use force — police and military force — to transfer wealth and status to themselves. In the process, they turn their clients…and themselves…into parasitic zombies. The zombies support the insiders. The insiders throw the zombies a bone or two. Together they corrupt and destroy the empire.
Here is just one example from last week’s news. Bloomberg:
Despite the sluggish economy, the nation’s major health insurers have prospered in large part by expanding their role in government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, according to a study released Thursday.
The share of large insurers’ revenues contributed by their Medicare and Medicaid business has jumped from 36 to 42 percent over the past three years. And the report by Bloomberg Government, a research division of Bloomberg LP, suggests that insurers will further increase their reliance on federal dollars with full implementation of the health-care law in 2014 — when Medicaid will expand to cover an eventual 16 million additional low-income Americans and the federal government will begin subsidizing private-insurance policies for an estimated 19 million more.
The insurers have become zombified. They no longer do honest work for honest reward. Instead, they lobby for more federal spending on health. They tweak the nation’s laws and its public health programs to make sure they get the grease. They are insiders now…
But no sector has more zombies in it than the ‘national security’ industry. Dwight Eisenhower warned the nation in 1961 to watch out for the ‘military, industrial complex.’ He might have saved his breath. The zombies had already taken over. The US was already spending more on ‘defense’ than the net income of all American corporations put together.
“In the years since,” writes Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair, “the trend has warped virtually every aspect of national life, with consequences that are quite radical in their cumulative effect on the economy, on the vast machinery of official secrecy, on the country’s sense of itself, and on the very nature of national government in Washington. And yet the degree to which America has changed is noticed by almost no one — not in any visceral way. The transformation has ten hold too gradually and over too long a period.
Almost no one alive today has a mature, firsthand memory of a country that used to be very different…”
Benito Mussolini was a socialist poet. But when he got into power he, like Barack Obama years later, discovered that it was not a good idea to oppose the military. Instead, he put on a silly uniform himself…and attacked Abyssinia!
Dear Readers may have noticed too. Between Obama’s military policies and those of George W. Bush, there is not a dime’s worth of real difference. Why? Because a zombie military is almost impossible to cut down to size. It has already corrupted the political process. Now, the zombies cannot be stopped…or controlled.
A bankrupt government can cut almost anything else. But not its military. National security industry insiders glide easily into the seats left by politicians who try to stop them. Ex-generals counsel wimpy Congressmen. Flies and flakes buzz around the trillion-dollar ‘defense’ honey pot.
Military spending rose about 70% during the George W. Bush years. Today, the US spends 43 cents of every dollar of military spending anywhere in the world. And now, with the hysteria of “terrorism” and a “nuclear Iran,” who will oppose it?
Many of the nation’s biggest manufacturers are weapons producers — Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northup-Grumman, L3 and KBR. The jump in employment numbers were largely the result of government hiring. We have seen a figure over 40% for the portion of domestic manufacturing devoted to the zombie defense industry. Among the most profitable businesses in the country are surely the 2,000 corporations getting money for counter-terrorism, homeland security, military intelligence and other boondoggles.
In Washington itself, 33 new building complexes have been put up since 2001 whose occupants are somehow involved in top-secret activities.
Yes, dear reader, the armed zombies pretend to protect the ‘land of the free.’ But they are its biggest enemies. In 2011, they put through a new defense spending bill…which removed Americans’ ancient habeas corpus rights. The Commander-in-Chief also asserted, and exercised, the right to kill anyone, anywhere…on his own say-so. And both the president and Congress continued to spend money they didn’t have on cockamamie boondoggles even though it is obvious that the nation is going broke.
It is only a matter of time now. The empire will be stabbed in the back by its own protectors.
Trade well and follow the trend, not the so-called “experts.”
Behold the age of infinite moral hazard! On April 2nd, 2009 CONgress forced FASB to suspend rule 157 in favor of deceitful accounting for the TBTF banksters.
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True American Legacies
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China Gold Imports Hit Record High
China’s gold imports from Hong Kong, a proxy for overseas buying, set a record in November for the fifth consecutive month as demand from the world’s largest gold consumer continued to defy expectations.
China’s gold imports have soared in recent months, as Chinese investors pour their savings into popular gold bars and consumers start to buy gold gifts for Chinese New Year.
China’s gold imports via Hong Kong in November were leapt 20 per cent from the previous month to 103 tonnes . Thursday’s data, released by Hong Kong, brought China’s total gold imports from the territory to 389 tonnes during the first 11 months of 2011. The Hong Kong data are considered a proxy for China’s overall gold imports, which Beijing does not disclose.
“The weaker prices have been seen as a clear buy signal by many, with jewellery consumption and investment demand returning strong gains in the final quarter,” Cameron Alexander, senior metals analyst at consultancy GFMS, said. “The lower prices coincide with the important stocking period in the lead-up to the Chinese New Year celebrations, with reports from the trade of robust sales at current price levels.”
The run-up to Chinese New Year, which this year falls in late January, is the busiest time for gold purchasing in China, and November’s imports fall at the beginning of the holiday gold rush. Dragon-embossed gold bars and dragon figurines are particularly popular in Chinese gold shops this year as consumers prepare to welcome the year of the dragon under the Chinese zodiac.
Analysts said that the gravity-defying growth in Chinese gold imports in recent months reflected strong demand from retail investors eager to take advantage of bullion prices that have fallen from their August peak.
However, some traders cautioned that they had seen a slowdown in buying in December due to global economic uncertainties at year-end while other analysts expressed surprise at the numbers. “Perhaps it is worth highlighting here the lack of full transparency in this market, which makes it difficult to get a clear picture of the distribution channels and ascertain who is behind the buying at this stage,” said Edel Tully, precious metals strategist at UBS, a leading bullion dealer.
China’s gold demand has surged over the past year as domestic investors, facing limited investment options, have turned to gold as a hedge against inflation. But with inflationary pressures now easing, analysts and traders are watching closely for any cooling in investors’ appetite for bullion.
Although China is the world’s biggest gold producer, mining 291 tonnes in the first ten months last year, the country’s ageing gold mines have failed to keep pace with demand, forcing imports to rise.
Unlike the west, the majority of China’s gold demand is from individual consumers buying gold bars or jewellery, and China’s institutional investment in the metal is relatively low. One important exception is China’s central bank, which disclosed in 2009 that it held 34m ounces of gold.
A key adviser to China’s central bank recently called on China to increase its gold holdings and diversify its foreign exchange reserves, describing gold as “the only safe haven for risk-averse investors.”
Analysts have suggested that another factor in the rising imports could be gold smuggling from China into Vietnam, though they cautioned that the volumes involved were likely to be small. In Vietnam, which shares a long, porous land border with China, gold typically trades at a premium to international prices because of government controls on bullion sales.
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Central Banks Printing Money Like Gangbusters
The world's central banks are "printing money like gangbusters," which could revive the threat of inflation , Pimco founder Bill Gross told CNBC Wednesday.
By putting "hundreds of billions" in currency in circulation, the central banks "can produce reflation—that's why we’re seeing the pop in oil, gold" and other commodities, he said in a live interview.
At the same time, "there’s the potential for deflation if the private credit markets can’t produce some sort of confidence and solvency going forward," Gross said. "So we’re at great risk here, not only in the U.S. but on a global basis."
Gross has previously predicted a "paranormal" market in 2012 characterized by "credit and zero-bound interest rate risk" and fewer incentives for lenders to extend credit.
He said stock and bond investors must lower their expectations when it comes to returns, with 2 percent to 5 percent as good as they get this year.
He also told CNBC he expects the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates "exactly where it is at 25 basis points for the next three to four years."
Gross's Total Return Fund, the world's largest bond fund, had over $10 billion in outflows in 2011, but Gross stressed the fund "started 2011 at $240 billion and ended it at $244 billion."
He said he will run the Pimco Total Return Fund ETF , which starts March 1, the same way he runs the bond Total Return Fund, adding, "They're twins."
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More on the current bills that are being presented. Don't believe anything these jokers try to feed you.
Eric Blair
Activist Post
Last January, four-term senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) announced that he would not seek reelection in the upcoming 2012 elections. This seems to have relieved any pressure of facing his constituency for approval, allowing him to push for some of the most draconian legislation in the history of the United States. Or, perhaps, he is just auditioning for a more powerful position like Secretary of Defense or Secretary of the DHS.
Besides his renewed pressure on Google and Twitter to openly censor the Internet, Lieberman's desire to crush all dissent against the war machine has manifested in bills like his Enemy Belligerent Act, his Internet Kill Switch bill, and the recently introduced Enemy Expatriation Act.
Unfortunately, the most egregious parts of the above mentioned bills already found their way into law under the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which seemingly renders any further discussion of these bills as somewhat redundant, but they certainly won't be critically discussed in the corporate media.
The Enemy Belligerent Act grants "the president the power to order the arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment of anyone -- including a U.S. citizen -- indefinitely, on the sole suspicion that he or she is affiliated with terrorism, and on the president's sole authority as commander in chief."
The Internet Kill Switch bill, officially called the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, gives the President the authority to police, censor and shut down parts of the Internet under a cyber emergency. While promoting the bill, Lieberman openly called for the U.S. to have the same ability to censor the Internet as China.
The Enemy Expatriation Act aimed to remove the rights protected by U.S. citizenship from those who "support hostilities against the United States." This act was in response to Obama's assassination of a U.S. citizen without formal charges or due process to, in effect, legalize such action by removing Constitutional protections of those suspected of supporting hostilities.
The NDAA, which has declared American soil part of the formal battlefield, permits the U.S. military to arrest and indefinitely detain U.S. citizens on the suspicion of supporting or sympathizing with broadly defined terrorists -- thus effectively rendering their rights as citizens obsolete -- expatriation in practice but not in name.
The NDAA also includes authorization to go after those who engage in a "belligerent act" including protests and speech, thus fulfilling the intent of the Enemy Belligerent Act. Shahid Buttar points out on FireDogLake:
If Occupy and Tea Party groups are treated as terrorists, does that render them among the 'associated forces' of groups 'engaged in hostilities against the United States' for whom the NDAA authorizes military detention without trial? Just to be clear: no one has a good answer here, which is precisely the problem.
Even within the four corners of the NDAA itself (here’s the full text of the bill), section 1031(b)(2) includes among 'covered persons' subject to potential military detention 'any person who has committed a belligerent act….' What, exactly, is a belligerent act? 'Hostile' and 'aggressive' are synonyms, and while the term has an established (though not entirely defined) meaning in the context of international war, its precise meaning in the context of the NDAA remains unspecified.
And finally, the NDAA declares the Internet an "operation domain" in the war on terror allowing for the Pentagon, "upon direction by the President may conduct offensive operations in cyberspace." The authority goes even further than passive Internet censorship. The Pentagon also claims the authority to use military force as a response to serious cyber attacks. The Pentagon announced their efforts (PDF) to recruit and train an army of cyber soldiers as funded by the NDAA.
How bad each of these bills are separately only reflects the magnitude of what Lieberman and his hawkish ilk were able to accomplish in the NDAA. No other elected official can claim the success of Lieberman in terms of ramming through increasingly tyrannical legislation. But nearly all elected officials are responsible for passing the NDAA and its predecessor the USA PATRIOT Act.
So, protest of these individual bills are futile, much like the overwhelming public opposition to the bank bailouts was futile in swaying the "deciders." As Lieberman departs the Senate in a blaze of tyranny, Americans will most certainly continue to be burned unless the people wake up.
