Cryptogon Reader Contributes $100
September 24th, 2007NH sent $100. Thank you.
Dianne Feinstein, Symbol of the Worthless Beltway Democrat
September 23rd, 2007I think enemy collaborator is a much more accurate description than enabler.
Via: Slate:
The standard excuse offered by many apologists for Bush-enabling Democrats — that they support the Bush agenda and capitulate to the right-wing noise machine due to political fear of being depicted as too liberal or “soft on terror” — is clearly inapplicable to many, if not most, of the enablers. California’s Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein provides a perfect case study for understanding why the Congress has done virtually nothing to oppose the most extreme Bush policies, while doing much actively to support it.
Bush on Blackwater USA in Iraq
September 23rd, 2007Gather close, friends, to catch the drippings from the alter.
Premier Says France Bankrupt
September 23rd, 2007Remember, a few days ago, when I asked, “Does anyone understand the French connection here?” as Henry Paulson, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, jetted around from London to Paris during the Northern Rock crisis…
Uh…
Via: Forbes:
France is bankrupt because of chronic budget deficits, the country’s prime minister said Friday, pledging to balance the budget before the end of his term.
“The truth is that I am the head of a state that is in a state of bankruptcy due to its financing plan,” Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in the Corsican city of Calvi. Fillon answers to President Nicolas Sarkozy, but heads the French government.
“I am the head of a state that has been in chronic deficit for 15 years,” the conservative Fillon remarked, adding, “I am the head of a state that hasn’t voted a balanced budget in 25 years.”
“This cannot last,” he concluded, saying he is obliged to bring the budget into balance before 2012, when France next holds presidential elections.
U.S. Government Building Extensive Travel Dossiers on Americans
September 23rd, 2007Absolutely chilling.
Via: Washington Post:
The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.
The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department’s Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country.
But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged. The details were learned when a group of activists requested copies of official records on their own travel. Those records included a description of a book on marijuana that one of them carried and small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf.
The Automated Targeting System has been used to screen passengers since the mid-1990s, but the collection of data for it has been greatly expanded and automated since 2002, according to former DHS officials.
Officials yesterday defended the retention of highly personal data on travelers not involved in or linked to any violations of the law. But civil liberties advocates have alleged that the type of information preserved by the department raises alarms about the government’s ability to intrude into the lives of ordinary people. The millions of travelers whose records are kept by the government are generally unaware of what their records say, and the government has not created an effective mechanism for reviewing the data and correcting any errors, activists said.
The activists alleged that the data collection effort, as carried out now, violates the Privacy Act, which bars the gathering of data related to Americans’ exercise of their First Amendment rights, such as their choice of reading material or persons with whom to associate. They also expressed concern that such personal data could one day be used to impede their right to travel.
Fears for Global Economy Propels Gold Price
September 23rd, 2007WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
Guys, I don’t like it when the mainstream press starts to sound like Cryptogon. I don’t like it at all.
When I wrote things like what you’ll read in the article below, before the move, it was actionable, valuable intelligence and many of you have made a lot of money as a result.
Now that the “press” has a hold of it, the noise level and the volatility are both going to go way up.
Don’t try to trade it. Don’t try to trade it. Must… Not… Trade… It…
Ok, if you can’t help it, read on:
If we get further gaps higher on hype from the media, consider unloading some into the herd and then buy it back from them lower when they get whipsawed out. This is risky, but there’s nothing wrong with taking some profit. As a gold holder, I’m very concerned about the failure of the USDX to crack 78.33. (I know, inverse correlation between gold and the dollar is weak medium term, so, pfft! on this USDX stuff.) It went down there and ominously hovered over that level. Some of you will want to string me up by my codlings for saying this, but we need to be aware of it.
If 78.33 stays intact, we could see a short squeeze from Hell on USDX. Ultimately, I think it will be a sucker bounce, but it won’t look or feel that way. That’s the point with short squeezes. If They are going to teach gold bugs a lesson, this is an opportune time to deliver the blow. The Money Honies will have their blouses unbuttoned a bit more than usual, talking about the rally in the dollar and the silly gold bugs. You might see a central bank gold sale, or two. Silly gold bugs. Silly gold bugs. Repeated everywhere, over and over. Even gold bugs will start to think, “I’m silly.” That, of course, is the time to buy. But that’s skipping ahead a couple of steps from now.
Right now, the Money Honey industrial complex might be about to start hyping gold. If you can’t help yourself, if you must trade it, this, of course, would be a good time to think about selling some.
I want to see support at $721. If that doesn’t hold, take your pick of supports down to the critical $650 level. Now that it’s entering the herd mind: The move higher could take on dynamic, sustained characteristics, then again, WATCH THE F OUT!
Me, personally, I’m not selling. I don’t care. I’ll wait out any shakeout. There’s too much interest lurking under the spread, a lot of paper that needs to go… Somewhere. Gold longs, just know, we could be in for an intermediate term shakeout. I refuse to try to trade this. I’m providing this commentary to those of you who may have gone in heavy and are thinking about locking in profits.
For you guys, the phrase, “Pigs get slaughtered,” is the order of the day.
Diversification. Diversification. Diversification.
I know how we’ll know when to pull the plug: When I hear from my dad and he’s asking about buying gold. As long as he thinks gold is a bad idea, gold bugs should be smiling. HAHA. Dad, love ya!
UPDATE: Would you believe me if I told you that my dad called within a few hours of me writing this post?! He doesn’t read Cryptogon. He has never read it. He doesn’t like to read much at all, actually. He doesn’t use computers. Never has. Never will.
“What idiots are buying gold at $730 per ounce? How can it be that high?”
I’ll call this the Angry Old Fart Oscillator. So, since he thinks gold is a bad idea here, gold bulls should probably be confident in their holdings.
Via: Telegraph:
The moment every gold bug has been waiting for finally arrived this week when ‘Barbaric Relic’ smashed through resistance to close the week at a 27-year high of $737 an ounce on the London PM Fix.
A heady mix of a collapsing dollar, a British banking crisis, and widespread suspicion that central banks are slackening in the fight against inflation, all combined to propel gold above the $730 peak of May 2006.
Analysts say there is now “clear blue sky” until reaching the all-time record of $850 in December 1980, when speculators drove it upwards in a parabolic rally at the end of the great inflation crisis.
Greg Wilkins, chief executive of the world’s top producer Barrick Gold, said the shock half point rate cut by the US Federal Reserve had been the trigger for a major break-out.
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“I think it’s a perfect storm, to be quite honest with you,” he said. “What we have is inflation plus lower interest rates, and that’s not something that we’ve seen before. I think that’s going to be very bearish for the dollar, which is conversely good for gold,” he said.
Adding to the mood of euphoria, the autumn is typically a season for gold rallies, and Spain’s central bank has at last halted its bullion sales.
Madrid has been a major cap on prices this year, flooding the market with 150 tonnes. The bank has now cut its total holdings by 46pc, leaving the country with wafer-thin foreign reserves.
Experts suspect that Asian central banks may have become buyers. China has less than 2pc of its vast $1,340bn reserves in gold, and has signalled an intent to diversify away from dollars.
President Vladimir Putin has instructed Russia’s central bank to raise the gold share of its huge reserves from around 5pc to 10pc.
The Fed’s aggressive rate cut at a time when oil is hovering at an all-time high of $82 a barrel, and food prices are rocketing, has created the impression that the US authorities are willing to tolerate higher inflation rather that allow the credit and housing bubble to deflate fully.
As recently at late July, the Fed warned that inflation remained the “predominant” risk to the economy. Although price rises were tame in August, there are concerns that the headline CPI rate could jump from the current 2.4pc to nearer 3.5pc. China’s inflation jumped to 6.5pc in August and price pressures are developing across Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.
The Federal Reserve may be right in calculating that the US housing slump is now so serious that it will slow the economy sharply, dampening global price pressures over time. But for now, a large number of well-heeled investors are willing to bet otherwise.
Feds Investigating Blackwater USA for Selling Weapons to Iraqi Insurgency
September 23rd, 2007Imagine my shock. But keep in mind, Blackwater is a CIA cutout that got so big that it just happened to become a household name. They’re just doing what Uncle tells them to do.
Remember these?
Pentagon Arms its Enemy’s Enemies in Iraq
U.S. “Loses” 190,000 Weapons in Iraq
If They need to roll that thing up, They’ll do what They always do with cutouts: Kill a couple of key players who know too much and maybe throw a flunkie or two in jail to give the press some distraction to write about.
Sorry if my use of the term “cutout” seems outdated. When I was a boy, firms like Blackwater existed, they just didn’t let it all hang out like this. 9/11 was a coming out party for the cutout industrial complex. Hell, the spooks even set up a venture capital firm to fund more cutouts. So, private military contractors? No, they’ll always be cutouts to me.
And whores of war.
Via: AP:
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press. Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C.
A spokeswoman for Blackwater did not return calls seeking comment Friday. The U.S. attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina, George Holding, declined to comment, as did Pentagon and State Department spokesmen.
Officials with knowledge of the case said it is active, although at an early stage. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, which has heightened since 11 Iraqis were killed Sunday in a shooting involving Blackwater contractors protecting a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Baghdad.
The officials could not say whether the investigation would result in indictments, how many Blackwater employees are involved or if the company itself, which has won hundreds of millions of dollars in government security contracts since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is under scrutiny.
In Saturday’s editions, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that two former Blackwater employees — Kenneth Wayne Cashwell of Virginia Beach, Va., and William Ellsworth “Max” Grumiaux of Clemmons, N.C. — are cooperating with federal investigators.
Cashwell and Grumiaux pleaded guilty in early 2007 to possession of stolen firearms that had been shipped in interstate or foreign commerce, and aided and abetted another in doing so, according to court papers viewed by The Associated Press. In their plea agreements, which call for a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the men agreed to testify in any future proceedings.
Calls to defense attorneys were not immediately returned Friday evening, and calls to the telephone listings for both men also were not returned.
The News & Observer, citing unidentified sources, reported that the probe was looking at whether Blackwater had shipped unlicensed automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq without a license.
Prominent Los Angeles Investment Banker: Economy Facing ‘Colossal Problem’
September 22nd, 2007Via: Press Democrat:
The U.S. economy might be in more trouble than some people think, a prominent Los Angeles investment banker said Thursday during a visit to Sonoma State University.
Americans need to wake up to economic reality, said Ed Wedbush, chief executive of Wedbush Morgan Securities, one of the largest investment banking firms based on the West Coast.
“We could have a real colossal problem on our hands,” he said.
Wedbush pinned the recent jolts to global stock markets on fundamental problems with the nation’s economy. The U.S. markets are being bogged down by issues ranging from the souring credit market, the growing federal budget deficit and the large U.S. trade deficit.
Those three issues have shaken foreign investors’ perceptions of the once vaunted U.S. financial markets, he said.
He pointed out that the two largest holders of U.S debt — the Chinese and Japanese governments — have publicly announced a desire to reduce their positions in U.S. debt such as Treasury notes.
“The investment activity in the United States is going down,” he said. “This is something that could snowball.”
Research Credit: AC
Bernanke Abolishes Corrections and Bank Losses
September 22nd, 2007Via: Safe Haven:
By lowering rates by .50 points the Fed not only surprised the stock market, which forced shorts to close out positions and caused people to react to the news and create an outsized rally, but sent a very powerful message: The Fed will not allow the market to have a pullback of any sort. The Fed will not allow banks that made bad loans to go under and simply doesn’t care about inflation or the value of the dollar at this stage of the game.
I know many people reading this are excited to see the market go up, but you need to step back and think about things for a minute. Why did the Fed do what it did yesterday? What the Fed did is dire, because it is lowering interest rates in a huge dramatic way when the DOW is only 1.7% off of its all-time high and inflation is accelerating. Not even Alan Greenspan did anything like this.
This is one of the most shocking things I’ve ever seen in the markets.
…
Billionaire Jim Rogers before the rate cut in a must see Bloomberg video:
“Every time the Fed turns around to save its friends on Wall Street, it makes the situation worse if Bernanke starts running those printing presses even faster than he’s doing already, yes we are going to have a serious recession. The dollar’s going to collapse, the bond market’s going to collapse. There’s going to be a lot of problems in the U.S.”
Mystery Trader Who Bet Market Would Crash by September 21?
September 22nd, 2007The options have expired worthless. When I originally mentioned this, I asked, “Hedging or forknowledge?”
Hedging appears to be the answer.
However, in Summer of Fear Coming to a Close, Clif Droke theorizes that the put options deal itself was some kind of fear generating tactic. To me, that seems like it would leave way to much to chance with such large bet.
Why not buy some deep out of the money put options on the QQQQ (or some other index ETF) and then spend several million dollars to drive down the NASDAQ 100 futures (or some other index futures), triggering sell programs on the funds that are comprised of the companies in the targeted index? Do it on a day with a lot of bad news. “The market” will think the futures are dropping because of the bad news, when it’s mostly just your swindle in operation. The match you used to start the fire will quickly intensify as the winds of fear and panic move through the market. Well, lookee there, it wouldn’t take too long before those deep out of the money put options were suddenly in the money and worth a mint. I saw something like this happen to Amazon re: options. Jim Cramer talks about how he used to do it. Military deception is also interesting to read about with regard to market moves like this.
Again, if I was forced to guess, I’d say that this particular options deal was just cost-of-doing-business hedging by some fund. As I demonstrated above, there are much more effective ways to panic the herd into movement than simply buying options.
