The CIA and rioting Uyghurs in Xinjiang

(AANGIRFAN) -- Are the CIA and its friends trying to break up China? On 6 June 2009, we learn that about 140 people have been killed and more than 800 injured in violence in the city of Urumqi in China's Xinjiang region. (China's Xinjiang hit by violence) Relations between the Han Chinese community and the minority Muslim Uyghurs are tense. The Uyghurs, a Muslim minority from the autonomous region Xinjiang (Western China), are seeking the secession of their region "East Turkestan" from the People's Republic of China... Read all

Update: Did CIA and RAW create Uighur unrest? Xinjiang - China's energy gateway
Beijing's concern at the unrest in Xinjiang extends beyond the threat to its own authority. The vast region, already an essential supplier of oil and gas to the rest of China, is an important border gateway for energy supplies from its numerous Central and South Asia neighbors

Happiness is... living in Costa Rica

(click on the map for explanation of the Happiness Index)

US lurching towards 'debt explosion' with long-term interest rates on course to double

The US economy is lurching towards crisis with long-term interest rates on course to double, crippling the country’s ability to pay its debts and potentially plunging it into another recession, according to a study by the US’s own central bank
By Philip Aldrick, Banking Editor, telegraph.co.uk, 6 Jul 2009

Goldman: Pwned?

Oh oh..... Insane major props to Zerohedge on this one!
Back-up: This week's NYSE Program Trading report was very odd: not only because program trading hit 48.6% of all NYSE trading, a record high at least since the NYSE keep tabs of this data, and a data point which in itself was startling enough to cause some serious red flags as I jaunt from village to village in what little is left of Europe's bison country, but what was shocking was the disappearance of the #1 mainstay of complete trading domination (i.e., Goldman Sachs) from not just the aforementioned #1 spot, but the entire complete list. In other words: Goldman went from 1st to N/A in one week. What? Was NYSE/Euronext suddenly "asked" to remove Goldman from the prop trading reports? Or is something else going on, as Zerohedge and Reuters apparently have managed to scoop:
While most in the United States were celebrating the Fourth of July holiday, a Russian immigrant living in New Jersey was being held on federal charges of stealing secret computer trading codes from a major New York-based financial institution. Authorities did not identify the firm, but sources say that institution is none other than Goldman Sachs. The charges, if proven, are significant because the codes that the accused, Sergey Aleynikov, tried to steal are the secret sauce to Goldman's automated stock and commodities trading business. Federal authorities contend the computer codes and related-trading files that Aleynikov uploaded to a German-based website help this major financial institution generate millions of dollars in profits each year. Oh this is bad for Goldman if true. It's even worse for the NYSE however, as Reuters goes on to explain:
The case against Aleynikov may explain why the New York Stock Exchange moved quickly last week to stop reporting program stock trading for its most active firms. Goldman was often at the top of the chart -- far ahead of its competitors. It's possible Goldman had asked the NYSE to stop reporting the number after it discovered that someone may have infiltrated the proprietary computer codes it uses.And yet here's the problem - there's a SEC issue here, in that this most certainly is a material issue related to the firm's prospects and thus under the rules is supposed to be disseminated, at minimum when the request was made to the NYSE to suspend their reporting - if the request was made. The next obvious question is "who was the firm in Chicago that this guy was going over to work for?"This is pretty amazing stuff folks.Industrial espionage is nothing new of course. Firms try to "hire away" important employees all the time, and frequently what they want is what's in someone's brain - employment agreement be damned. There is often years of litigation that comes out of this; as can be imagined its damn hard to own someone's head or there contents thereof, at least in a way you can defend in court. Limited non-competes and such are routinely upheld but often the damage is done by the time the suit is filed.What's more-clear is when someone makes off with software, a customer list or otherwise clearly-identifyable work product that can be traced to its owners. That's blatantly unlawful and yet it can be tremendously profitable - if you get away with it. What's surprising here is that the FBI got involved so quickly - or at all. These sorts of cases are almost always civil in nature; while there is nearly always a criminal offense embedded in there somewhere (computer tampering, transportation of stolen property, etc.) it is relatively rare for the FBI to give a damn.Well give a damn they did this time, and the affidavit that Zerohedge has makes clear what they claim they've got this guy cold on - the "bash history" file they're referring to is a Unix system log that the "shell", or command interpreter, automatically keeps. Said alleged offender apparently was aware of this file and tried to erase it after doing his deed, but was unaware that the system he was working on had auditing enabled (oops.) The bad news for Goldman though is that if this code is now in the hands of who knows how many other people, what sort of fun could ensue by knowing how Goldman is analyzing the markets? This could be kinda fun to watch.... from a distance, of course :) http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1181-Goldman-Pwned.html

More here

NO PLANE HIT the PENTAGON says Former Head of Military intelligence

Former head of Military intelligence turns "9-11 Truth Seeker"

YouTube - General of all American Intelligence: 911 was a fraud!
Stubblebine agrees with Architect, Richard Gage and other 9/11 investigators that the Twin Towers were blown up.Major General Albert "Bert" N. Stubblebine III, head of all intelligence says: Pentagon NOT hit by a planeWTC 7 brought down by explosives Media in America is controlled A terrible pilot hits pentagon accounting office holding records of missing 3 trillion in oil for money scheme & missing 2.3 trillion in DOD expenses Pentagon debris a single 3 foot engine Proven not related to 757 FBI took all recordings & refuses to show The FCC had all records on criminals like Paulson, Geithner, Ruben, Summers & others engaging in that illegal activity. But all the records of those illegal trades were destroyed when WTC 7 was brought down by thermite on 9/11! 911 was a public snuff film used to shock the public and enact the end of the Bill of Rights & invasion of oil bearing countries, & make money for private companies like Halliburton, (stock from 10 to 50 a share)! By destroying the WTC, they were able to cover up theft of gold bullion & destroy illegal financial transaction records performed just prior to the attacksSilverstein spends 140 million to make 7 billion almost over night; Silverstein said it was demolished by explosives, (pull it) It reminds me of CIA man Byrd, the owner of TX School Book Depository, who turned a 2.5 million insider purchase into 26 million dollars thanks to JFK assassination!
Major General Albert Stubblebine Major General Albert Stubblebine, U.S. Army (ret) -- Former Commanding General of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, 1981 - 1984. Also commanded the U.S. Army's Electronic Research and Development Command and the U.S. Army's Intelligence School and Center. Former head of Imagery Interpretation for Scientific and Technical Intelligence. 32-year Army career. Member, Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.

Video 7/11/06: "One of my experiences in the Army was being in charge of the Army's Imagery Interpretation for Scientific and Technical Intelligence during the Cold War. I measured pieces of Soviet equipment from photographs. It was my job. I look at the hole in the Pentagon and I look at the size of an airplane that was supposed to have hit the Pentagon. And I said, "The plane does not fit in that hole". So what did hit the Pentagon? What hit it? Where is it? What's going on?" http://www.undersiegemovie.com/media/stubblebine.wmv

Editor's note: For more information on the impact at the Pentagon, see Colonel Nelson, Commander Muga, Lt. Col. Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col. Latas, Major Rokke, Capt. Wittenberg, Capt. Davis, Barbara Honegger, April Gallop, Colonel Bunel, and Steve DeChiaro.
Bio: http://www.canadiansub.com/Board.html
More: Who is General Albert Stubblebine?

James Turk on how the elites always destroy the paper money they value - and why gold always wins

Excerpts from an interview to James Turk, founder of Goldmoney, Sunday, July 05, 2009[my emphasis]:

"...Turk: For decades we have been using in commerce money substitutes, i.e., national currency, rather than money itself, namely, gold. Consequently, few people today understand money/gold, which has created a prevailing bubble mentality. In other words, people view dollars and other fiat currency to be a store of value, rather than what they really are, empty promises that are no more reliable in the long-run than the hollow rhetoric of politicians. My point is that we are in a bubble, which is bigger than the Internet bubble, the Nasdaq bubble and the real estate bubble. It's the bubble of mistaken beliefs that the dollar has a long-term future, when in reality, the dollar is on the road to the fiat currency graveyard. The consequence of this irrational faith in the dollar means that the dollar is over-valued and gold is under-valued. These relative valuations are an unnatural state and will correct - I should say, continue to correct given gold's appreciation this decade - by the price of gold rising a lot further.
Eventually, more and more people will recognize the dollar for what it really is, which will cause this dollar-bubble to pop. When it does, people will increasingly turn to gold, and this heightened demand will increase the value people place on gold. In the 19th century, about 40% of the purchasing power of the world's money rested in gold, with the balance in money substitutes, i.e., the various national currencies. By the mid-20th century gold's percentage declined to about 10%, and fell further to less than 2% in 1971 when the dollar's link to gold was formally broken by government edict. The reliance of money substitutes thereafter declined in the inflationary 1970s, so gold increased to about 10% again by 1980. It thereafter fell again, this time to less than 1% when Gordon Brown announced that the Bank of England was selling one-half of the gold reserves it held. Gold's percentage today still remains less than 2%. I believe that the 10% level is a reasonable minimal target, which implies that gold will rise 5-times in real purchasing power terms. My longstanding price target for gold, first given in an interview in Barron's back in October 2003 when gold was in the $340s, is $7,000 per ounce by 2013-15. But given how badly the Federal Reserve is destroying the dollar probably means that my price forecast will be too low.
Daily Bell: How does the U.S. government manage the gold price? Can you give us the details?
Turk: The key is to understand that there are two gold markets, one for physical gold in which real, physical metal changes hands and one for paper gold, which are simply promises to deliver gold in the future. The world's major physical markets are in Europe. Because the US government confiscated gold in 1933, there is very little physical metal traded today in the States, which is principally a paper market.
These two markets are interrelated, but each responds to its own unique supply/demand characteristics. To execute trades on its behalf, the U.S. government, operating though the quasi-governmental Exchange Stabilization Fund, has enlisted a few bullion banks, which together have been dubbed the "gold cartel". The gold cartel operates principally in the paper market to ‘paint the tape'. Though its intervention can occur anytime during the day, there are discernable patterns. Its footprints are most noticeable after the physical market closes in London and Zurich, and the US paper market takes center stage. The gold cartel also hits the market after the US market closes and before Asia opens when the market is notoriously illiquid, again to paint the tape with a low gold price.
The gold cartel only uses sparingly the available physical stock of gold held in government coffers. It can create paper gold out of thin air, which is obviously not possible for physical gold.
The other technique governments use is propaganda. For example, how many times have they proposed to sell some IMF gold over the past several years? And why are these proposals only floated when gold is threatening to run higher? Of course, propaganda is standard fare for governments. Remember when the sub-prime crisis was starting to unfold and Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke said the problems would be "contained"? Do you think they really believed what they were saying, or was it just propaganda? So with these questions in mind, let me ask you another question. If you hold paper gold instead of physical gold, do you really believe that your counterparty will make good on its promise to deliver physical gold to you when you ask for it?
The mountain of paper promises dwarfs the available physical supply of metal, which explains why I have always recommended owning physical metal. And there are only two ways to do that. You buy gold and store it yourself, or you buy gold and have someone store it for you, which is what we do in GoldMoney. But if you choose this alternative, be sure that the company you use has the same governance procedures that we have in GoldMoney, and particularly real audits where the auditor goes into the vault and verifies the weight of metal really exists. In GoldMoney, these audit reports are available to our customers upon request.
Daily Bell: How did the gold cartel come about? You seem to believe former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan was involved.
Turk: He re-lit the fuse after it had been dormant for awhile. Under the classical Gold Standard, gold and national currencies were complementary. Each central bank managed their country's national currency so that it would always be equal to the purchasing power of gold. For example, the British pound had essentially the same purchasing power in 1914 as it did when Sir Isaac Newton invented the classical Gold Standard two-hundred years earlier. But this complementary role changed in the 20th century. It became adversarial. Governments began to chafe at the discipline imposed by Newton's invention. This is when Keynes called the Gold Standard a "barbarous relic". He advocated government control of currency so it could be managed as government saw fit. Rather than being a neutral tool in commerce as it was under the classical Gold Standard, currency became a manipulative force available to government planners.
Anyway, in the latter half of the 1990s, the gold price began rising because of the inflationary and easy-money policies followed by the Federal Reserve. The banks realized that they had a growing problem. They had been borrowing gold, and there was no way they could repay the gold they had borrowed without driving up the gold price, which would worsen their losses.
Daily Bell: How did the Japanese yen figure into it?
During the last banking crisis in the early 1990s, Greenspan purposely steepened the yield curve so that banks could borrow at very low rates and use this money to lend at very high rates. This strategy increased bank earnings to help them out of insolvency. The consequence was that banks looked for anything with a low interest rate to borrow, and the yen had low interest rates because the Bank of Japan was trying to revive the Japanese economy after their stock market crash in 1990.
Daily Bell: Can you explain the gold carry trade?
Turk: Interest rates and asset/liability management are the keys to understanding the carry trade. A bank borrows a currency with low interest rates and uses that currency to purchase assets in a high interest rate currency. Thus banks have been borrowing gold at interest rates less than 1%, then selling the gold to obtain dollars which are used to acquire dollar denominated assets yielding 5% of more. It is a lucrative trade as long as the price of gold does not rise in dollar terms.
Daily Bell: Has the gold cartel caused losses to the average investor? How about professional investors?
Turk: The answer depends on how you have approached gold over the past decade. Given gold's outstanding appreciation this decade, if you regularly purchased gold under a dollar-cost averaging program - which is what I have been recommending for years and continue to recommend - you have done exceptionally well. However, many trend following professional traders have been getting chopped up and whip-sawed by the gold cartel trading against them. So I do not recommend trading gold. I recommend accumulating it. Buy gold as your savings, but you are saving sound money and not some debased fiat currency.
Daily Bell: Will the gold cartel fail?
Turk: Yes, because gold always wins. The cartel will win a battle or two, but it will lose the war. Governments always destroy the value of national currency; it is inevitable. Look at the history of fiat currency. I challenge you to come up with one fiat currency that has not been debased. Eventually all fiat currency is destroyed. The creation of currency needs discipline, which is something governments lack. They will always find some politically expedient excuse to create money out of thin air, and as a result, the currency eventually gets created to excess until it collapses. Gold imposes an essential discipline on currency creation, which explains why Newton's classical Gold Standard was so successful.
Daily Bell: What are the most important - seminal -- articles of yours that you would encourage everyone to read? Where can they be found?
Turk: There are two I think that stand out. The first provides basic information about gold, which its title makes clear. It is "8 Things Everyone Should Know About Gold". You can read it now - click here.
The second article is entitled "The Barbarous Relic - It Is Not What You Think" and is posted on GoldMoney.com - click here to read now.