OLIVER GARRET OF CASEY RESEARCH

A HORRIBLE MESS, AND HOW WE GOT THERE by Olivier Garret No one will deny that last week was one of the most tumultuous in history. The streets red with blood...the bodies of the dead and dying strewn about where they fell. You already know the names: Lehman, Merrill, AIG. Fannie and Freddie. But none of this happened by accident. The warning signs have been all around us for years. Bud Conrad, chief economist at Casey Research, wrote about the beginnings of our current problems back in March of 2007...before most people were even aware of the storms brewing just over the horizon. “Faced with historic levels of debt, falling housing prices, and weaker economy, the pressure on housing would gain momentum as desperate homeowners either hand their keys back to the banks, or simply hit the bid on the best (low) offer they can get. A vicious cycle would set in, threatening to shove the economy into uncharted and unpredictable waters. “The impending calamity – mass housing foreclosures, failing banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in ashes, millions of personal bankruptcies – is so dire...most people can’t even conceive of it. And indeed, it may not hit us this year, or next, but the market always corrects itself, and this time will be no exception – sooner or later... That’s why the coming crisis is so predictable: there’s no way to avoid it.” I actually wish that his analysis had been flawed. I also wish that the government officials had been right who have consistently claimed since then that the subprime crisis was contained and the markets would rebound in the second half of the year. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The Fed’s recent attempts at quick fixes have not worked, and current events are reinforcing what Bud Conrad prognosticated almost two years ago: that this is much more than a normal cyclical correction. This is a disaster of biblical proportions. As the Fed and the Treasury continue to intervene in the market, they continue to lose ground and credibility, caught between a sharp recession and strong inflationary pressures. In an effort to bail out the financial sector, they have no choice but to start injecting hundreds of billions in liquidity into a contracting market place. This will contribute to the creation of a stagflation period that will make the ’70s look like a tea party. The Fed’s never-ending injection of liquidity into the market has, and will continue to, devalue the dollar. Ordinarily, a country threatened with currency collapse would lean toward tight money, perhaps contracting its domestic money supply. That would push interest rates upward and compensate foreigners for holding on to the currency despite the depreciation risk. And it would soften that risk. But this time, things aren’t ordinary...there is a difference that has turned what might otherwise be a disturbance into a disaster: the U.S. economy’s inability to endure high interest rates. Because of the corrections taking place now in the grossly distorted U.S. housing, commercial real estate, and personal credit markets, raising interest rates to protect the dollar would prove as calamitous as not raising interest rates. The housing bubble fueled a blockbuster business in first mortgages, and then home equity loans. Homeowners drew down their equity to splurge on consumer goods, including shiploads of imports. The relative attractiveness of U.S. financial instruments kept the game going into overtime. The foreigners who received all those U.S. dollars put them back into U.S. Treasury bills and other dollar-denominated instruments, thereby underwriting low interest rates for all U.S. borrowers. The net result? Foreigners funded our housing boom. The amount of mortgage growth annually matched the amount of trade deficit, which foreigners dutifully invested back into the U.S. And subprime lending was no mere sideshow. It was big business. In 2005, it accounted for 25% of all new mortgages – about $600 billion of high-risk paper, most of it with adjustable interest rates. The collapse of the subprime market soon spread into other mortgage sectors...and the derivatives created on top of all those subprime mortgages made everything much worse. Given that the annual GDP of the U.S. economy is just $13 trillion, the $250 trillion in derivatives should have been seen as an accident waiting to happen. Foreign reinvestment is part of the system of U.S. debt, and we are already seeing a significant impact. As foreign investors watched the collapse of the U.S. housing markets, and the relative values of their debts began to sink, they quickly moved out of U.S. debt, particularly Fannie/Freddie obligations. This massive exodus of foreign cash out of the debt of Fannie/Freddie prompted the biggest stock market fall since the days just after 9/11. On September 15, 2008, Treasury Secretary Paulson injected the biggest amount of daily liquidity since 2001, a whopping $70 billion in just one day. And now the government is proposing an additional infusion of approximately $1 trillion. More than the total cost of the Iraq War. To put this amount into perspective: if you had spent $1,000,000 a day, from the birth of Christ until today, you would have only spent about 732 billion dollars. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to our markets if that proposal goes through. Regards, Oliver Garret for The Daily Reckoning

MOGAMBO GURU MONDAY 9/29/08

The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: We all know that the U.S. dollar has been on a steady decline since it was removed from the gold standard. So what would happen if one of the world’s fastest moving countries suddenly used gold to back their money? The Mighty Mogambo investigates... THE WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL CURRENCY? by The Mogambo Guru The economic slowdown has been characterized as “consumers are de-leveraging”, which is an interesting turn of phrase that means that people are not borrowing money to spend. The importance is dependent on your perspective. Those people who are not borrowing money to spend are thus suffering the pangs of a lowering of their lifestyle, which depended on borrowing money to spend; and then they come around, whining about stupid things like, “Daddy, things have gone up so much in price that I need more money, which you would give me if you loved me. Don’t you love me? I love you! Won’t you please love me, daddy?” And so I ask, “Can’t you love me if I don’t give you any money?” and they say, “No. You could borrow the money, and then we would love you”, and I reply, “I have been borrowing money and now I can’t pay them back” and so the kids say, “Then borrow some more!” And, in a terrifying revelation, I realized that it is not only my children, but all the rest of the economy that is totally dependent on everybody else borrowing money to spend, too. So now you see how Chaos Theory was right, and that all things are connected to all things? If not, then pay attention to how they will now commence to all drag each other down into the Nightmarish Hell Of Inflationary Insolvency (NHOII). And it doesn’t take a real genius to see why, but the point is not that the American people were stupid enough to think they could get a perpetual free lunch by borrowing money to pay for it, or even that a smaller subset of those who are suffering the pangs of a lowering of their lifestyle is composed of those who also think that they can call me on the phone and either 1.) Ask to borrow some money from me, or 2.) Ask me to pay them back the money I borrowed from them. My response is the same, in that I give neither one of them any money because I don’t have any money; so to one I laugh in scorn, and to the other I say that I have just put a check in the mail to them, and that they will get their money soon, and if it hasn’t arrived in a few months, call me back and I’ll write you a new check and get it right into the mail. The point is that a much larger subset of those who are suffering the pangs of a lowering of their lifestyle is composed of those people who think that they can elect government representatives who legislate all problems out of existence, that will tax me and then give the money to them, or the Federal Reserve will create more money to loan to investors with which to buy government debt so that the government can spend, spend, spend us into blessed Utopia. Either way, it’s Bad, Bad News (BBN). And, alas, one way or the other, they are right. Unfortunately. And that is one reason that I weep, alone, in the Mogambo Bunker Of Bunkers (MBOB), doors locked, radio blaring, machine guns cocked and loaded, mostly drunk or nearly so, soon to be blissfully comatose. Another reason that I cry so piteously and drink so abusively is that all this new government borrowing will create so much new money that it will destroy the dollar’s buying power, taking my own country down with it. The only reason that I stop bawling like a little crybaby is the knowledge that the people who own gold, silver and oil will get rich, rich, rich, and since I own gold, then people will want me to loan them a few bucks out of my huge stacks of money because they are starving, and their children are starving, and I will say “No!”, and it will be thin gruel indeed for them to hear my mocking voice again echoing in their heads, “Buy gold, silver and oil, you morons, because your stupid government is letting a private bank (that misleadingly calls itself the Federal Reserve when it is, in fact, neither) to create so damned much fiat money that it will produce catastrophic inflation in consumer prices that will destroy the country, just like it has done to every other stupid country in the last 4,000 years that let its stupid government increase a fiat money supply at its whim! Hahahaha! Now you see why I always said you were freaking doomed! Hahaha!” But I feel terrible, as this constant infliction of inflationary pain by heedless expansion of the money supply is so unnecessary, and that is why I was pleasantly surprised to read in the Wall Street Journal the headline “Central Banks Consider Gold” in its Commodities Reports column. The reason is easy to see if you read the article backwards, in that there was a question about central bank buying “last week, when gold saw a record single-day gain”, especially Chinese central bank buying of gold, which is already the ninth-largest holder of gold in the world but which holds only 1% of its foreign-exchange reserves in gold, although it actually said it would like to hold more. And Mark O’Byrne at Gold & Silver Investments says that he would “be surprised if the Chinese hadn’t been nibbling at the gold market,”, which leads to the news that Asian banks “are seen as keen buyers” of gold, which leads to the news that “other central banks are now far more likely to be holders of gold”, which leads us back to the second paragraph that “Turbulence in the financial markets and recent U.S. dollar weakness are helping the precious metal claw back its reputation as the central monetary anchor within the international monetary framework”, which leads to the opening paragraph of “Central banks may be starting to turn one of the few assets in which they can invest; gold.” In short, those crafty Chinese, a fifth of the world’s population, may be getting ready to issue a gold-standard money, which will instantly make their currency the strongest in the world, which is just what a country needs if it wants to import a lot of things cheaply so as to respond to demand for internal economic growth without stoking inflation in prices! And, fortunately for those of us who both love to have large profits handed to us and who also own gold, a Chinese gold-standard may soon make a dream come true as gold would skyrocket when priced in suddenly depreciated dollars. Whee! This investing stuff is easy! Until next time, The Mogambo Guru for The Daily Reckoning

FROM THE DAILY RECKONING MONDAY 9/29/08

“We must regulate,” says Dominique Strauss-Kahn, director of the IMF (perhaps forgetting that Fortis was regulated by hundreds of bureaucrats in dozens of different countries....). “The time has come to save capitalism from the capitalists,” writes Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago. Thank God for the bureaucrats. The economists. The Wall Street pros. Now, they’re going to “rescue” us... But wait a minute... ...wasn’t it the US government that set up Fannie and Freddie with an implied guarantee? ...wasn’t it the SEC that was set up to regulate Wall Street and prohibit the sale of slimy “investments?” ...weren’t these same economists the ones who thought the U.S. financial system was the best in the world...because it was so “dynamic...inventive...and flexible?” ...isn’t it the Fed itself that has been lending money below the inflation rate since 2002? And wasn’t that the major source of “liquidity” that created such a huge credit bubble? ...and wasn’t Hank Paulson the head man at Wall Street’s most go-go firm when all this stuff was going on? Do you remember hearing him warn investors or lawmakers that the whole Vesuvius of hyper-credit was going to blow up? We don’t... Yes, dear reader, as predicted in these pages...we are witnessing an epochal shift – from capitalism to socialism...from markets to politics...from subtle swindle to naked larceny...from white collar grifters to stick-up men...from slick fraud to brute force. And then...who will rescue us from the rescuers? AND THIS... *** Here’s a sobering detail: For the last 15 years, the U.S. money supply has grown about twice as fast as GDP. Federal government liabilities, meanwhile, have grown three times as fast. It now has more financial obligations than assets. It is, effectively, broke. And here is another cup of strong coffee: U.S. debts are now compounding negatively like a Neg Am mortgage, that delightfully fatal confection invented at height of the housing bubble. Some house buyers didn’t even pay enough to cover the interest on their mortgage; the missed interest payments were added to the mortgage itself, causing it to grow automatically. Exponentially. We don’t know what Professor Chris Martenson is a professor of. But he has done the world a favor with his description of what happens when things grow exponentially, rather than arithmetically. Imagine you could make a football stadium watertight, he writes. Then, imagine that you put a magic drop of water in the center...a drop of water that doubles every minute...so that after six minutes or so, you’d have about enough water to fill a thimble. Now how long would it take before the stadium filled, he asks? We’re not going to leave you in suspense. For the first 45 minutes, you can walk around the stadium and barely get your feet wet. But in the next 4 minutes the stadium fills and you drown.

FROM JSMINESET.COM

ADP REPORT (almost never accurate)

ECONOMIC REPORT ADP index shows 8,000 jobs lost in September By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch Last update: 8:23 a.m. EDT Oct. 1, 2008Comments: 1WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Employment dropped by 8,000 in the private sector of the U.S. economy in September, according to the ADP employment index released Wednesday. Economists were expecting the ADP index to fall 65,000 after it lost a revised 37,000 in August. See Economic Calendar. Counting some 20,000 jobs typically created in government agencies during a month, the ADP index signals growth of about 12,000 jobs in the nonfarm payroll report to be released Friday. ADP does not include government employment. Economists expect a loss of 103,000 in nonfarm payrolls when it is reported Friday.

JIM SINCLAIR COMMENTS

Jim Sinclair's Commentary All those that the community loves to hate and blame for every reaction in the long term gold market are the ones who own most of the gold. Do you ever ask yourself who buys the gold from central banks not bought by other central banks? Do you ever ask yourself who is on the long side of all those short of gold producer hedges?

4:49AM PDST GOOD MORNING GOLD BUGS!

TODAY'S REPORTS: ADP employment ISM Construction spending On the longer term charts (hourly and greater) you can see that gold is actually trading SIDEWAYS here overall between 8285 and 932 in an up channel (blue lines on chart, see recent chart this morning. Nothing is acting as it would if the manipulators weren't fiddling non-stop with everything to prevent their arrest and conviction for TREASON for this CRIMINAL manipulation of THE MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE of our economic system which also AFFECTS THE WORLD ECONOMIC SYSTEM because our Dollar is also the INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE MEDIUM. Gold is,just before 5am pdst falling on light volume after a head fake to the upside. Short term trading in gold is a total CRAP SHOOT as nothing resolves for very long in either direction. Floor traders are simply reaching in the barrel and taking candy from the baby fishes, to combine two metaphors. The rest of this week will be insane while the "NEW" BAILOUT BILL is being considered by these infantile self-absorbed idiots we have in our NATIONAL LEGISLATURE, ADMINISTRATION, AND COURTS. The INMATES ARE DEFINITELY RUNNING THE ASYLUM!

FROM THE LUDWIG VON MISES INSTITUTE..READ AND LEARN

Will Central Bankers Become Central Planners? Daily Article by Robert Blumen | Posted on 7/31/2006 http://mises.org/story/2257 As if fighting inflation, smoothing out the business cycle, and saving the world from economic crises were not enough, central banks are being advised to include another objective in their mission: the purchase and management of stock portfolios. The Washington Post reports that former Treasury Secretary (and soon-to-be-former president of Harvard University) Lawrence Summers "is advising some of the world's biggest holders of US Treasury bonds that they ought to find much better ways to invest their money." Summers says that by holding large portfolios of US Treasuries, central banks are passing up more lucrative investments in the stock market. BREAK Mises explained the tendency of economic management to evolve in small and seemingly logical increments into a regime of complete central planning. The progression of central banks from their origin as repositories of gold created to bail out bankrupt fractional reserve banks into active portfolio managers perfectly illustrates the Misesean critique.

GT's NOON COMMENTS

What a crazy market! Be sure to read Dan Norcini's comments on his afternoon chart today. One more person saying this is all crazy ought to convince you you're aren't nuts. Nobody knows what's happening in the short term. But we all know where this is headed ultimately. Join all the groups you find on the internet that want to have Bush and his cronies charged with TREASON and WAR CRIMES before they escape to Paraguay. These people need to lose their freedom for what they've done to BILLIONS of the people of this planet. More tonight as the day's info comes in. Read the usual sites I recommend to keep up to speed.

Full Text of Ahmadinejad's Speech to the UN General Assembly

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20872.htm Full Text of Ahmadinejad's Speech to the UN General Assembly By Haaretz Service 25/09/08 "Haaretz" -- The following is a copy of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's speech to the United Nations General Assembly early Wednesday morning, as translated by the Presidency of the Islamic Republic of Iran News Service: Mr. President, Excellencies, I am grateful to the Almighty for granting me another opportunity to be present in this world Assembly. In the last three years, I have talked to you about great hopes in the bright future of human society, and some solutions for achieving sustainable peace and expanding love, compassion, and cooperation. I have also talked about unjust systems governing the world; pressures exerted by some powers seeking to trample the rights of other nations, oppression imposed on the majority of the global community, especially on the people of Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Africa, Latin America, and Asia; about challenges we are faced with, such as efforts to shatter the sanctity of families, destroy cultures, humiliate lofty values, neglect commitments, expand the shadow of threats, as well as about the arms race and the unfairness and inability of the systems governing world affairs in reforming the status quo. With the occurrence of various new developments, the debility of existing mechanisms has been revealed even more. However, at the same time, an encouraging trend, which has originated in the thoughts and beliefs of peoples, has blossomed and become stronger. Posed against the despairs caused by the new developments, this trend has ignited the ray of hope for a brilliant, desirable and beautiful future in the hearts of men. Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Colleagues, Today I would like to talk to you about the main reasons behind the conditions ruling the world and the means to tackle them. Of course, you are already aware of what I am talking about, but I think it is necessary to remind ourselves. It seems that the roots of problems lie in the way one views and perceives the world and humankind, as well as in the important issues of freedom, obeisance to God, and justice. The world, humankind, freedom and obeisance to God, and justice, have been of utmost importance to humans throughout history. 1. The World: God Almighty purposefully created the world. This world is the bedrock for the evolution and growth of a creature called man, and the laws governing the world and all other creatures are at the service of man's quest for loftiness. The world should provide the needed opportunities for the fulfillment of the purpose behind man's creation. No phenomenon, creature, or indeed anything has been created in vain. Together they all pave the ground for the flourishing of mankind in a complex and purposeful system, and they are, each, one of the signs of God Almighty. All are His creations and He is the sole creator and ruler of the world. All existence including power, knowledge and wealth come from Him. 2. Humankind: God created the world for humans and humans for Himself. He created humans from mud and in the soil, but He did not want them to remain in the soil and with animal instincts. He kindled the light of guidance in their souls and asked them to rise from the soil to the heavens and to Him with the help of wisdom, prophets and perfect men. The world will ultimately disappear, but God has created man for eternity and has made them a manifestation of Himself. Creativity, mercifulness, kindness, knowledge, wisdom, zeal, concealment of sins, splendor, justice, bounteousness, generosity, greatness, love, glory, dignity, forgiveness, insight, kingship and all other goodness and beauty are attributes of God. God has not created humans for aggression, bloodshed, rancor, selfishness and destruction. He made humans His vicegerents on earth and has asked them to, on the one hand, make earth prosper by using their God-given potentials and to prepare the ground for the growth of divine attributes in all humans, and to provide all with a life full of beauty, amity, freedom, justice and goodness; and on the other hand in pursuance of this path, to prepare for a prosperous, everlasting life endowed by God's mercy. God has obligated humans to live divinely and socially, for it is only through social life and interactions with others that divine attributes may emerge. 3. Obeisance to God: God Almighty has tied their perfection and true freedom of humans to their devotion and obedience to Himself. True freedom and obedience to God are in balance and in fact are two sides of the same coin. Obeisance to God means confessing to monotheism and obeying His commands, and to be free from ungodly worship. Obeisance to God means the acceptance of the absolute truth, the absolute light, and the absolute beauty. Obeisance to God means abandoning selfishness and animal instincts, power-seeking and aggression, surrendering to righteousness, justice, love, and perfection. And in this way, humans can achieve their true freedom and flourish, they can grow and manifest divine attributes, have affection for others, stand up for justice, and fear no power or threat, and defend the oppressed. In such an environment, one's freedom will not impinge on any others. Contention and conflict are characteristic of materialistic freedom and animal instinct. The essence of all divine religions and obeisance to God and true freedom is disassociating from oppressors and instead obeying and worshiping God, for: - God is omniscient and knows all that is revealed or kept secret, and He is kind and merciful. - All creatures are humble before Him and resign to His will. - God is alive and is the Creator of the universe and all life. - God loves His creatures and desires nothing but goodness, blessings, and perfection for them, and is against bullying, injustice, selfishness and domination. 4. Justice: Justice is the foundation of the creation of humankind and the whole universe. Justice is tantamount to placing every phenomenon in its own place, and providing humans with opportunities to actualize all their divine capabilities. Without it, the order of the universe will collapse and the opportunity for perfection will fade away. Without justice, it would be impossible for human society to taste real peace, beauty, joy and happiness. Justice is the main pillar of social life and without it, social life cannot continue or grow. Humans need to know God in order to realize a prosperous society in this world as well as to strive for a beautiful eternal life, and to this end they first have to know themselves and strive for loftiness in themselves and their societies. However: - as long as the world is construed as closed, limited and aimless, - as long as eternal life is considered imaginary and illusory and afterlife and the Judgment Day as well as reward and punishment are thought of as fictional and unreal, - as long as morals and commitment to them are called backwardness, and immorality, lies, deceit and selfishness are considered desirable, and humans are limited to a materialistic life in this world, - as long as attempts are made to replace obedience to God and following His prophets and true freedom with servitude to materialistic tendencies and animal instincts and servitude to oppressing human beings, and contention reaches its pinnacle, - as long as the aggressors, because of their financial, political and propaganda powers, not only escape punishment but even claim righteousness, - and as long wars are started and nations are enslaved in order to win votes in elections, not only will the problems of the global community remain unsolved, but they will be increasingly exacerbated. Friends and Colleagues, Let's look at the situation of the world today: Iraq was attacked under the false pretext of uncovering weapons of mass destruction and overthrowing a dictator. The dictator is toppled and WMDs are not uncovered. A democratic government is established by the votes of the people but, after 6 years, the occupiers are still there. They insist on imposing colonial agreements on the people of Iraq by keeping them under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. Millions of people have been killed or displaced, and the occupiers, without a sense of shame, are still seeking to solidify their position in the political geography of the region and to dominate oil resources. They have no respect for the people of Iraq and disregard any dignity, rights or status for them. The UN is not capable enough to solve the problems and to remove aggression, occupation and imposition. In Palestine, 60 years of carnage and invasion is still ongoing at the hands of some criminal and occupying Zionists. They have forged a regime through collecting people from various parts of the world and bringing them to other people's land by displacing, detaining, and killing the true owners of that land. With advance notice, they invade, assassinate, and maintain food and medicine blockades, while some hegemonic and bullying powers support them. The Security Council cannot do anything and sometimes, under pressure from a few bullying powers, even paves the way for supporting these Zionist murderers. It is natural that some UN resolutions that have addressed the plight of the Palestinian people have been relegated to the archives unnoticed. In Afghanistan, production of narcotics has multiplied since the presence of NATO forces. Domestic conflicts continue. Terrorism is spreading. And innocent people are bombarded on a daily basis in streets, markets, schools and wedding ceremonies. The people of Afghanistan are the victims of the willingness of NATO member states to dominate the regions surrounding India, China, and South Asia. The Security Council cannot do anything about it because some of these NATO members also happen to be the major decision makers in the Security Council. In Africa, efforts are made to reestablish the relationships of the colonial era. By starting civil wars in large countries including Sudan, disintegration of those countries is planned in order to serve the interests of some corrupt powers. In case there is a national resistance, the leaders of the resistance are put under pressure by legal mechanisms created by the very same powers. In Latin America, people find their security, national interests and cultures to be seriously endangered by the menacing shadow of alien domineering governments, and even by the embassies of some empires. The lives, properties and rights of the people of Georgia and Ossetia and Abkhazia are victims of the tendencies and provocations of NATO and certain western powers, and the underhanded actions of the Zionists. The never-ending arms race and the proliferation and stockpiling of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and the threats to use them, and the establishment of missile defense systems, have made the situation unstable. With regard to Iran's peaceful nuclear program, despite the inalienable right of all nations including the Iranian nation, in producing nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes, and despite such facts as the transparency of all Iranian activities and our country's full cooperation with the inspectors of the IAEA and the Agency's repeated confirmation of the fact that Iran's activities are peaceful, a few bullying powers have sought to put hurdles in the way of the peaceful nuclear activities of the Iranian nation by exerting political and economic pressures against Iran, and also through threatening and pressuring the IAEA. These are the same powers that produce new generations of lethal nuclear arms and possess stockpiles of nuclear weapons that no international organization is monitoring; and, the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were perpetrated by one of them. Indeed, they are not against weapons, but they oppose other nations? progress, and tend to monopolize technologies and to use those monopolies in order to impose their will on other nations. But it is very natural that the great Iranian people, with their trust in God, and with determination and steadfastness and with the support of its friends, will resist the bullying and has defended and will continue to defend its rights. The Iranian nation is for dialogue. But it has not accepted and will not accept illegal demands. The time has come for the IAEA to present a clear report to the international community on its monitoring of the disarmament of these nuclear powers and their nuclear activities, and for a disarmament committee to be established by independent states to monitor the disarmament of these nuclear powers. The theories of development that are in line with the hegemonic system and not in accordance with the true needs of humankind and human societies, have turned into repetitive and bland tools for assimilation of economies, expanding hegemonic domination, destroying the environment and destroying the social solidarity of nations. There is no end in sight to this. Poverty, hunger and deprivation are hurting more than one billion of the world's population and have dashed their hopes for a decent life. The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support. This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will. Friends and Colleagues, All these are due to the manner in which the immoral and the powerful view the world, humankind, freedom, obeisance to God, and justice. The thoughts and deeds of those who think they are superior to others and consider others as second-class and inferior; who intend to remain out of the divine circle, to be the absolute slaves of their materialistic and selfish desires, who intend to expand their aggressive and domineering natures, constitute the roots of today's problems in human societies. They are the great hindrances to the actualization of material and spiritual prosperity and to security, peace and brotherhood among nations. I explicitly state that the Iranian people and the overwhelming majority of peoples and governments are against those deeds and perspectives of the world- domineering powers. Establishment of justice requires people who have achieved moderation and justice inside themselves, and have restrained their domineering attitudes and actualized their attributes of self-sacrifice and are at the service of humanity. The complete and full-scale manifestation of such characteristics can happen only under the rule of the righteous and perfect human being who is obedient to God and who is promised by the divine Prophets. Dear Colleagues, Of course with the grace of God Almighty a hopeful trend is flourishing in the heart and soul of human societies. The universal eagerness for justice, purity, and love for others, monotheism and the quest for perfection is clearly and increasingly on the rise. A universal resistance against the acquisitiveness, aggression and selfishness of the bullying powers is being formed. Today, the bullying powers' thoughts, practices and strategies are rejected by nations and governments, and all are seeking to establish new human relations based on justice with a view to attain prosperity, perfection, security, and sustainable welfare. This is the very auspicious phenomenon that all the traditions of creation and the ruling laws of the universe emphasize and support. Today, the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse, and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters. The Islamic Republic of Iran, while fully respecting the resistance of the oppressed people of Palestine and expressing its all-out support for it, submits its humane solution based on a free referendum in Palestine for determining and establishing the type of state in the entire Palestinian lands to the distinguished Secretary General of the UN. American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road, and its next rulers must limit their interference to their own borders. Today, the thought of hegemony quickly becomes a demerit. And now a few words with the expansionist governments ruling global relations: Be aware that living with obedience to God and carrying out His orders, compassion for people and striving for the fulfillment of justice is to your advantage too. I invite you to return to the path of God, the Prophets and to the path of the people of the world and to the truth and justice. The only route to salvation is a divine straight path. Otherwise, God's hand of power will emerge from the sleeve of oppressed nations and will make your life difficult, and will put an end to your hegemony. Let's love the people of the world and respect their rights. Rectify past behavior. This will benefit you and the human community. The Iranian people are prepared, along with other nations, to help you be rescued from your current situation and to establish peace and prosperity. My Friends, Fortuitously, opportunities are accessible. With the grace of God Almighty, the existing pillars of the oppressive system are crumbling. Great developments in favor of humankind as well as its true and real rights are on the way. A golden and brilliant future is awaiting mankind. A global community filled with justice, friendship, brotherhood and welfare is at hand, as I have elaborated. A community which will tread the path of beauty and love under the rule of the righteous and perfect human being, the One promised by all divine prophets and the One who is the true lover of humanity. A community that will be devoid of any fear, despair and privation. Such a community will soon be ours. The community promised by the great divine Prophets Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ and Mohammad (PBUH) is about to materialize. Let us, hand in hand, expand the thought of resistance against evil and the minority of those who are ill-wishers. Let's support goodness and the majority of people who are good and the embodiment of absolute good that is the Imam of Time, The Promised One who will come accompanied by Jesus Christ, and accordingly design and implement the just and humanistic mechanisms for regulating the constructive relationships between nations and governments. Oh great Almighty, deliver the savior of nations and put an end to the sufferings of mankind and bring forth justice, beauty, and love. Friends; Let?s have a proper share in the establishment of that illuminated and promised divine age

LATEST PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS ARTICLE

America Should Listen To Ahmadinejad By Paul Craig Roberts http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20897.htm 29/09/08 "ICH" -- - The full text of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech to the UN General Assembly last week was printed in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz (9-25-08). Although our Founding Fathers would have comprehended and endorsed Ahmadinejad’s speech to the United Nations, present-day Americans would find it strange should they happen to hear about it. Unlike their forbears, Americans today live a material life, not a spiritual one. Americans are far too likely to dismiss Ahmadinejad’s words about obeisance to God and justice as the mumbo-jumbo of an “Islamist extremist.” The hubris of Americans and their belief in U.S. “exceptionalism” would cause them to reject Ahmadinejad’s holding the US, its NATO puppets, and Israel accountable before the UN General Assembly. So successfully has Ahmadinejad been demonized by the propagandistic US media that his speech would be dismissed out of hand by the arrogance of those who regard themselves as the salt of the earth. Ahmadinejad echos the statements of other world leaders when he says that US power is rapidly waning. The US “superpower” is dependent on foreigners for its financing. The US cannot exist without Chinese financing, just as Europe cannot exist without Russian energy. America’s European puppet regimes are rethinking the consequences of serving US hegemony. A “superpower” that cannot subdue Iraq and Afghanistan cannot subdue Russia and China. Do Americans and their neocon leaders believe that China and Russia will lend the US the money to finance a war against themselves? Do they believe that Russia will keep America’s NATO puppets supplied with energy if American aggression against Russia intensifies? Warnings about America’s financial dependency on foreigners have been ignored. The bailout of the US financial system is entirely dependent on the willingness of the Chinese, Saudis, and other foreigners to use their trade surpluses with the US to purchase the US Treasury instruments that must be sold in order to raise the money for Bush’s bailout of the financial institutions. The bailout of the US government’s budget has been going on for years, and it takes place every time the US Treasury holds an auction of new American debt. But now the bailout by foreigners of the US government is starting to turn into much larger sums that carry much higher risks. Last week the Financial Times reported that Peer Steinbruck, the Finance Minister of Germany, said that the American financial crisis was “a fundamental rupture” and that “the US will lose its status as the superpower of the world financial system.” Steinbruck is being charitable. The US lost that status when it became dependent on foreigners to finance American consumption of foreign goods and US goods and services produced offshore in addition to the war-swollen budget deficits of the US government. Indeed, foreigners finance Americans’ home mortgages. The Chinese alone hold about $400 billion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds. Is Ahmadinejad correct in his view that, with the waning of American hegemonic power, the world is on the verge of a better, more humane, and more just world? I wonder. Many Americans think of themselves as hard-nosed realists. They believe that it is a dog-eat-dog world: We have to get “them” before they get us. This paranoid view is the basis of US foreign and military policy. It holds that America must not only have the military power to overwhelm any combination of possible enemies, but also America must prevent the rise of any country or countries that could challenge American power. This is a “diplomacy” without any concept of peaceful coexistence or good will among men. Yet, Americans think of themselves as a Christian nation. Neocons and macho Republicans think we don’t win our wars because we lack the balls to use enough force. They believe that the US should nuke every country that doesn’t follow our orders. Indeed, many American “conservatives” are lusting for the US to nuke a country in order “to teach the world a lesson.” To accommodate this blood-lust, the Bush Pentagon revised US war doctrine to permit preemptive nuclear attack even upon non-nuclear-armed countries. During the long cold war, preemptive nuclear attack was not a US option. Which vision of the future will win out? Ahmadinejad’s policy of peaceful co-existence or neoconservative desires for American world dominance? The chance is too high for comfort that the hubris and arrogance of the United States will lead to a nuclear confrontation that will destroy the world. People of good will hope that Ahmadinejad and Steinbruck’s views will prevail and that the rest of the world will wake up and ask if they want to continue financing America’s hegemonic ventures that threaten life on earth. The day the foreign bankers turn off the credit spigot to the US Treasury, American arrogance will be tamed.

LATEST MIKE WHITNEY ARTICLE

Black Monday? Global Investors vote "No" on Paulson's Bailout By Mike Whitney The bill is just Paulson's way of carving a silver canoe for he and his brandy-drooling investor buddies so they can paddle away to some island paradise while the rest of us drown in a bottomless ocean of debt. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20900.htm

WISE WORDS FROM THE PAST TO BE SHARED

"Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about his religion. Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place. Show respect to all people, but grovel to none. When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home." by: Tecumseh -(1768-1813) Shawnee Chief

SOME TRUTH FROM MICHAEL MOORE

The Rich Are Staging a Coup This Morning By Michael Moore 29/09/08 -- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20891.htm Friends, Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies -- who must soon vacate the White House -- are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door. No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday's New York Times and you can see what the real deal is: "Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it. "Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages. "At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees. "Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury's proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions." Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to "consult" in the bailout. The problem is, nobody truly knows what this "collapse" is all about. Even Treasury Secretary Paulson admitted he doesn't know the exact amount that is needed (he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head!). The head of the congressional budget office said he can't figure it out nor can he explain it to anyone. And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! Y2K! Bird flu! Killer bees! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Falling for whom? NOTHING in this "bailout" package will lower the price of the gas you have to put in your car to get to work. NOTHING in this bill will protect you from losing your home. NOTHING in this bill will give you health insurance. Health insurance? Mike, why are you bringing this up? What's this got to do with the Wall Street collapse? It has everything to do with it. This so-called "collapse" was triggered by the massive defaulting and foreclosures going on with people's home mortgages. Do you know why so many Americans are losing their homes? To hear the Republicans describe it, it's because too many working class idiots were given mortgages that they really couldn't afford. Here's the truth: The number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is because of medical bills. Let me state this simply: If we had had universal health coverage, this mortgage "crisis" may never have happened. This bailout's mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been accumulated in the last eight years. It's to protect the top shareholders who own and control corporate America. It's to make sure their yachts and mansions and "way of life" go uninterrupted while the rest of America suffers and struggles to pay the bills. Let the rich suffer for once. Let them pay for the bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them end the war immediately and save us all another half-trillion dollars! I have to stop writing this and you have to stop reading it. They are staging a financial coup this morning in our country. They are hoping Congress will act fast before they stop to think, before we have a chance to stop them ourselves. So stop reading this and do something -- NOW! Here's what you can do immediately: 1. Call or e-mail Senator Obama. Tell him he does not need to be sitting there trying to help prop up Bush and Cheney and the mess they've made. Tell him we know he has the smarts to slow this thing down and figure out what's the best route to take. Tell him the rich have to pay for whatever help is offered. Use the leverage we have now to insist on a moratorium on home foreclosures, to insist on a move to universal health coverage, and tell him that we the people need to be in charge of the economic decisions that affect our lives, not the barons of Wall Street. 2. Take to the streets. Participate in one of the hundreds of quickly-called demonstrations that are taking place all over the country (especially those near Wall Street and DC). 3. Call your Representative in Congress and your Senators. (click here to find their phone numbers). Tell them what you told Senator Obama. When you screw up in life, there is hell to pay. Each and every one of you reading this knows that basic lesson and has paid the consequences of your actions at some point. In this great democracy, we cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens, and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platter. No more! Not again! Yours, Michael Moore MMFlint@aol.com MichaelMoore.com P.S. Having read further the details of this bailout bill, you need to know you are being lied to. They talk about how they will prevent golden parachutes. It says NOTHING about what these executives and fat cats will make in SALARY. According to Rep. Brad Sherman of California, these top managers will continue to receive million-dollar-a-month paychecks under this new bill. There is no direct ownership given to the American people for the money being handed over. Foreign banks and investors will be allowed to receive billion-dollar handouts. A large chunk of this $700 billion is going to be given directly to Chinese and Middle Eastern banks. There is NO guarantee of ever seeing that money again. P.P.S. From talking to people I know in DC, they say the reason so many Dems are behind this is because Wall Street this weekend put a gun to their heads and said either turn over the $700 billion or the first thing we'll start blowing up are the pension funds and 401(k)s of your middle class constituents. The Dems are scared they may make good on their threat. But this is not the time to back down or act like the typical Democrat we have witnessed for the last eight years. The Dems handed a stolen election over to Bush. The Dems gave Bush the votes he needed to invade a sovereign country. Once they took over Congress in 2007, they refused to pull the plug on the war. And now they have been cowered into being accomplices in the crime of the century. You have to call them now and say "NO!" If we let them do this, just imagine how hard it will be to get anything good done when President Obama is in the White House. THESE DEMOCRATS ARE ONLY AS STRONG AS THE BACKBONE WE GIVE THEM. CALL CONGRESS NOW.

THE PAULSON PLAN

The Rise Of The American Oligarch Class By Robert Wenzel http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20892.htm EXCERPTS: "Is the play for the Oligarchs to grab the banks, the assets and the mortgages and then inflate the money supply boosting the value of all these assets by trillions, while the rest of us simply get to deal with the price inflation as higher prices at the grocery store, the gas pump and everywhere else?" "Clearly, the new oligarchs have arrived in America. It will mean a lower standard of living for the rest of us as it is clear by the Paulson Plan that they are not afraid to think big when grabbing money from the populous at large. Further, they have the political skill and influence to get the legislation passed that will benefit themselves even when there is virtually non-existent popular support. Be scared, very scared. The new American Oligarchs now rule financial America and there is no such thing as enough with them. They will be back for another big bite from our wallets and income streams, all too soon."

Bush Wants To Bankrupt America: There is Method To His Madness

Bush Wants To Bankrupt America: There is Method To His Madness By Sam Hamod 07/01/03: "ICH" -- - Some have wondered if GW Bush knows what he's doing with his tax cut that benefits the corporations and the very rich, and cuts away the remaining money of the poor and the middle class. I say yes, he does know what he'd up to, as do his corporate advisors and his neo-con economist friends and theorists, chief among them Grover Norquist. Norquist has been the chief architect behind the dismantling of the American federal financial structure in terms of benefits for the common citizen, but has helped to create the superstructure of tax breaks for the very rich and the corporatocracy that now has a choke-hold on America. The plan is very simple, but not obvious on first blush. Make sure that all the money is gone from the U.S. treasury, make sure the deficits are so great that all social and educational programs are cut, increase the military and security budgets to "protect our nation" with all these monies going to corporations and security firms who are extra-national (not tied to any country, but actually more than multi-national in that they are outside the purview of any nation at any single moment) and stave in the social security fund by allowing it to go to private corporations for "investment"-and you have the perfect scenario for saying, "only the private sector can save us-we're broke and they have the money to run every program, fund every program, but of course, at huge costs and profits for the private corporations." Our only resource will be the corporate lenders, especially the large extra-national corporations who will have loyalty to no one except their corporate coffers and large share owners throughout the world. This plan is so obvious at this point that it is hard to believe because it is happening so fast and the Democrats and even conservative non- neo-con Republicans don't realize what Bush and his neo-con buddies are up to. Of course, this is easier to accomplish with all of our attention being focused on 9/11 matters, Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, the WMDs, threats to our nation, threats to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (where we lose troops everyday to Iraqis and Afghans fighting against our occupation), but we keep sending in more troops to basically protect Bechtel and Halliburton. Soon, we'll also hire private contractor troops, some from other countries and others from selected American security firms. All the time we are occupied with this, just as Orwell predicted in his novel, 1984, the Bush team will be destroying our civil liberties and taking away our social and educational programs in order to fund "security measures" and will keep blinking yellow, orange, and red codes at us. I want to make this article short so that you have time to think about this and alert your congressperson and senator as to what's really going on. Bush has already started pushing for privatization in Iraq and Afghanistan and in America-it's only a short step from this huge debt he has created from the great surplus he inherited. *God only knows what kind of deficit he's going to create as he lets the dollar drop freely, so that consumers have to pay more for goods and our balance of trade goes to hell, the national debt at its current rate will take over 100 years to pay off-if we can even then get a hold on it according to some economists who are upset (see articles by Paul Krugman and others)sat the Bush team's actions. But they fail to see the real motive behind all this seeming disaster. Yes, it's a disaster for us, but it's a windfall for Bush and his corporate friends who will soon be running everything. *Actually, through their lobbying, they are running most things at this point-simply see the astounding inflation in drug prices compared to the low national inflation rate, the false "shortage of natural gas"-a commodity that is endless in the world and in its supply in America-the artificial shortage of electricity (as done by Enron and others to jack up prices and now FERC saying that though California did sign contracts with utilities under duress, they are still bound by the contracts even though they were lied to when signing the contracts-which is fraud in any honest person's mind, but not in the mind of FERC) and now our need for added security that is endless because it will not be long before Bush brings terrorists to our shores by either his behavior, or allows some actors within the Republican camp to fake terrorist raids so that possibly martial law will follow. Friends, we are in a mess of catastrophic proportions on so many fronts that it will be difficult to unravel all the various strains of this explosive Bushian virus. I use the term virus, because Bush is trying to pack the courts with his appointees from the neo-con right, placing government officials in corporations and in some cases, in law schools so that the neo-con approach to the destruction of the federal government may have academic credentials and blessings. Yes, this is an artificially created virus intended to kill the patient-namely, our democracy and our formerly free and decent lives. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3977.htm

6:00AM PDST GOOD MORNING GOLD BUGS!

TODAY'S REPORTS: Retail chain index Case-Shiller home prices Chicago PMI Consumer confidence Didn't have my laptop by my bed because I restored it too and haven't had time to put my trading platform on it, so I had nothing to watch periodically to get my attention. Finally woke up about 5:07 with the alarm in my hand still pushing the snooze button. There hasn't been that much fast action overnight, just a slow sell off as the World digests the results of what Bush and his people have done to our Nation and Economic System. None of these pukes are EVER going to admit their stupidity and greed for power and money caused this mess and that all the suffering of millions of people is their responsibility. They'll just run to Paraguay and drink cocktails until their livers quit. The market is moving so fast that it is difficult to post a proper short term chart or even make a comment that's usable. This is a gambler's market, except you are gambling for your economic survival this time. It's hard to believe that the manipulators can still push gold down, but when you have the weak longs scared you can do lots of things to a market. The up move volumes aren't large enough to make me think this market can't have a quick sell off where the "elites" will buy more cheap gold for themselves while at the same time take the profit from their short positions while they drive the market down. Talk about having your cake and eating too! I'm going to post some articles I discovered last night while I was fixing computer problems. Much time was wasted doing that, and I know what I'm doing! More as I think of it.

OTHER BAILOUTS TOOK PLACE THIS WEEKEND

Did any of you notice that the auto makers got 25 BILLION in bailouts? That is 25 times what Chrysler got in the 1970s and 3 times what the airlines got a while back. There must be an article on it somewhere. Get ready to bailout every large company in the country. If we don't bail them out... or if we do... they are all going to collapse anyway!

5:12AM PDST GOOD MORNING GOLD BUGS!

NO REPORTS TODAY Spent the weekend restoring my main computer...What a chore. Lost of stuff didn't back up, but what I need is still here. Hopefully I got rid of all the crap and bugs that were slowing it down. Just read JSMINESET.COM, BOB CHAPMAN, AND ELAINE SUPKIS for details of the Weekend Comedy in D.C. Bush manages to sneak out again this AM and say "hard work"... when has that asshole every worked hard, except at lying? Until a BAILOUT bill is passed or not, gold will be uncertain in the PAPER MARKET.. As everyone should know by now, CASH GOLD IS GETTING HARD TO OBTAIN, and certainly not at spot prices. This means you better get what you can, while you can. Gold will always be available...AT A PRICE! Please notice that I am now attempting to put some current comments at the bottom of each chart, but it takes extra time to do and takes me away from my own trading, which is hair-trigger timed to take advantage of some of these gold swings... so my trading comes first. Only 37 days until we elect another IDIOT to run this fire drill.

LATEST BOB CHAPMAN ARTICLE 9/27/08

Wall Street Pirates Wont Get Unconditional Bailout Posted: September 27 2008 http://theinternationalforecaster.com/International_Forecaster_Weekly/Wall_Street_Pirates_Wont_Get_Unconditional_Bailout Planned profits for the elites, successive administrations set the stage for current market debacles, bailout plan set months in advance, threat of a depression from the bailout, Economy set to wither, Wall Street will not go unscathed, a stampede to safety is coming

FINANCIAL TIMES SUNDAY

European central banks cut sales of gold By Javier Blas in Kyoto Published: September 28 2008 18:30 | Last updated: September 28 2008 18:30 European central banks have cut their sales of gold to the lowest level in almost a decade, reversing the practice of recent years when hefty sales helped depress prices. Institutions bound by the Central Bank Gold Agreement – the banks of the eurozone plus Sweden and Switzerland – sold about 343 tonnes of gold in the year that expired on Friday, the lowest amount since the first CBGA was signed in 1999.

FROM RON PAUL'S CAMPAIGN FOR LIBERTY

Thursday, September 26, 2008 Dear C4L Member, Yesterday, Ron Paul sent out a letter warning of the dangers of the Paulson and Bernanke bailout plan and asking you to contact your representatives and senators. A vote on this bill could literally come at any moment, and it is crucial that you immediately express your opinion to Congress. The picture painted by the supporters of the bailout is dire. President Bush reinforced this notion in his address to the nation last night and again urged Congress to act immediately. Remember what happened the last time the executive branch warned of horrible consequences and rushed legislation through Congress? We got the Patriot Act, which to this day threatens our civil liberties on an unprecedented scale. We do know that our economy is in for a rough ride. These bad mortgage-related assets will have to be cleared out and the market will have to reset. The only question is how that will happen. The easy way out is to continue the same practices that got us to this point. We can put $700 billion, for starters, in the hands of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (a former CEO of Goldman Sachs) and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and let them spend the money on whatever they wish. This option will only delay the economic downturn, which will only be worsened. Or, we can take this opportunity to end the federal government's interference in the marketplace, truly embrace free market capitalism, and return to a sound monetary system. The Federal Reserve's practices of easy credit and monetary inflation have crashed our economy, and now they're asking us to trust them to fix it. When you call Congress to express your outrage at the bailout, tell them you want real solutions. It is time for Congress to: 1.) End the Bailouts - Congress must revoke the Federal Reserve's authority to bail out failed businesses at your expense. 2.) Cut Taxes and Curb Regulation - If we really want to stimulate businesses and revive the market, we need to cut corporate and capital gains taxes, spurring investors to come back to the market and making it easier to attract new workers and clients. It is also time to end failed legislation like Sarbanes-Oxley, which has crippled capital markets, diminished our competitiveness, and greatly harmed small businesses. 3.) Reduce Spending - We must freeze all non-entitlement spending by the federal government at current levels and eliminate wasteful spending both domestically and in our trillion-dollar overseas budget. Our debt has to come down, and it won't until we start living within our means. 4.) Reform the Monetary System - If we are to have long-term economic progress, we must end the system of printing money out of thin air. The current laws limiting the circulation of gold and silver-backed currency must be overturned. We can no longer base our money on the empty promises of bureaucrats that it is sound. The federal government is trying to scare us into accepting more tyranny. Don't stand for it. Check out our action alert, and let Congress know that you will no longer tolerate the Federal Reserve's stranglehold on our economy. Best Regards, John Tate President Campaign for Liberty

12:10PM PDST AFTERNOON COMMENT

Gold made a tremendous lurch upwards this morning only to be forced down by the elites' Central Bank allies. Gold cannot be allowed to go ballistic, or the Dollar would be instantly destroyed. Read Jim Sinclair and Dan Norcini's comments this afternoon. This BAILOUT situation is so explosive, that if an agreement is not reached by Sunday, ALL HELL COULD BREAK LOOSE! I'm afraid to have open futures contracts over the weekend that I can't do anything about if the situtation changes when I can't trade the contracts... Cash gold holders have nothing to worry about. Gold is getting harder to find retail. As I type, gold is moving up pas the first 75% retrace point after selling off after the close to a lower low than this morning at 887. It's now back up to 893 and could keep going the rest of today until 2:15pm pdst when Comex gold closes until Sunday at 3pm pdst. These are becoming very interesting times to live in. Can you imagine what it would have been like in the 1920s and 30's having the markets crashing and having to wait for the news in a newspaper instead of our INTERNET? People lived on farms back then and had to work hard in the fields only to come in for dinner and hear the news on the radio and that was also mostly bullshit like now, only not nearly as technically corrupt as our current propaganda. More tonight after I digest all this.

DID'JA CATCH BUSH'S LITTLE APPEARANCE?

The Son of a Bitch (literally) came out of his office about five feet, and babbled "hard work". Then he scurried back in before a sniper could sight him in. I think it is simply WONDERFUL that this is all occurring four months before George "Worst President in History" Bush can escape to Paraguay.

4:15AM PDST GOOD MORNING GOLD BUGS!

TODAY'S REPORTS: GDP Consumer sentiment The Economic Collapse of 2008-9 is in full progress. McCain (maybe our next Prezidunce)finally managed to bomb something. The BAILOUT NEGOTIATIONS. I say good for getting the bailout to fail and expose our "political masters" for what they are...self-serving thieves at the public trough. Washington Mutual goes down, and all the talking heads are transmitting the "company" line (read Guv'mint) that your deposits are safe..hahaha! I am only leaving just enough in my checking account to pay a few immediate bills online, as the mails waste time. And I'm ready to lose that little bit, or have it tied up I have managed to tie up all the banks I use with low interest loans and pay them off in inflated money (I did this in the 1970s stagflation too) and if they screw with me in any way, I will default on the loans. Let them get blood out of a stone. They deserve the same treatment they have given their "customers"! A fool and his money are soon parted. The dollar is tanking, the Euro has been down but is coming back up right now, oil is at 105, stocks should collapse today, bonds are down so long term interest rates are up (not helpful for the economy) and the Chinese Fire Drill in D.C. continues at a rapid pace. Should be an interesting trading day. Gold has been down over night, so it appears that gold has to be bombed as part of the "smoke and mirrors" manipulations by the Guv'mint to keep their necks out of a noose. Stay tuned for the details of this bloody slow motion train wreck.

COMPLIMENTS OF JSMINESET.COM

6:25PM PDST GT FEELS THE NEED TO COMMENT

Dear Readers, The events of the last week are merely the preface to what I, and many others, have attempted to predict for you over the last months and years. I am late to the publishing arena, but not to the prediction of the disaster that has finally materialized 35 years after I thought it would happen. My feelings this evening, after watching the various cable and main stream media events produced for our dining and entertainment pleasure by those with THE MONEY, and A HIDDEN AGENDA, make me think that this country, AND MOST OF THE WESTERN WORLD, deserves exactly what we are getting... RULE BY PSYCHOPATHIC KILLER, GREED MONSTERS! There simply is no other conclusion to arrive at given the severity of the CONSEQUENCES of what they have done to our economy and culture. What does it take to get people, who are being driven in to their early graves one heinous act at a time, to get off their obese, lazy, self-indulgent asses, to turn off the TV and form a NATIONAL MOB to go to the White House and yank this scum out of there and execute them on the front lawn of said White House? The posings of our so-called "representatives" in the news media, and the questioning of them by our so-called "journalists" is nothing short of the most colassal FARCE ever perpetrated on human beings since history has been recorded. You have all been duped by the scuzziest of the scuzzy amongst us because you all CHOSE to watch sports and gossip TV instead of fulfilling your CITIZEN'S DUTY to monitor your LOCAL GOVERNMENT, and ultimately, your NATIONAL GUV'MINT! YOU NOW HAVE WHAT YOU HAVE REAPED. It will be one long time before you ever get to enjoy living in this country. The struggle is about to begin in earnest as the Guv'mint will pass this BAILOUT FOR THE BIGGIES...AT OUR EXPENSE! Once it's passed...it will NEVER be rescinded...the price of DICTATORSHIP. Welcome to HITLER'S HELL RE DUX. The only thing you can do now, is to use those CAPITOL SWITCHBOARD NUMBERS listed below and call your THREE 'REPRESENTATIVES' (two Senators and one Representative) and voice your DISGUST with what they have done, are doing, and will continue to do, for THEIR OWN BENEFIT....TO YOUR PERSONAL DETRIMENT! Speak up before you are UNABLE to speak up. That time is merely days, if not HOURS, away.

TOLL FREE NUMBERS FOR CAPITOL HILL SWITCHBOARD

CREDIT TO geist for these numbers. I should have thought to post these long ago. Apparently, the Citizens are in an uproar about this Criminal Bailout of the "Biggies". COPY THESE DOWN AND SAVE THEM ON YOUR COMPUTER WHERE YOU CAN FIND THEM... THEN USE THEM...FREQUENTLY...! Let's attempt to "communicate" to our "representatives" with WORDS... before we resort to BULLETS AND SPEARS! Capitol Hill Switchboard TOLL FREE: 1-877 851-6437 (THIS ONE WORKED FOR ME) 1-800 828-0498 (THIS ONE DIALED AND THEN SEEMED TO DISCONNECT) 1-800 614-2803 (THIS ONE IS NOT IN SERVICE) 1-866 340-9281 (I DIDN'T TRY THESE LAST TWO NUMBERS) 1-866 338-1015 Main number: 202 225 -3121 - ask for your elected officials in D.C.

QUOTES TO THINK ABOUT

"Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that The State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied." Arthur Miller playwright "For most Americans the Constitution had become a hazy document, cited like the Bible on ceremonial occasions but forgotten in the daily transactions of life." Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. - (1888-1965)

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS EXPLAINS IT VERY CLEARLY ONCE AGAIN

Has Deregulation Sired Fascism? By Paul Craig Roberts 24/09/08 "ICH" http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20854.htm EXCERPT: "The US Treasury does not have $700 billion on hand with which to buy the troubled assets from the troubled institutions. The Treasury will have to borrow the $700 billion from abroad. The dependency of Treasury Secretary Paulson’s bailout scheme on foreign willingness to absorb more Treasury paper in order that the Treasury has the money to bail out the troubled institutions is heavy proof that the US is in a financially dependent position that is inconsistent with that of America’s “superpower” status. The US is not a superpower. The US is a financially dependent country that foreign lenders can close down at will."

BRUCE FEIN...MORE REASONS TO IMPEACH BUSH/CHENEY

FEIN: Impeachable offenses? Bruce Fein Tuesday, September 23, 2008 http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/sep/23/impeachable-offenses/ EXCERPT: "Under the law of impeachment, Mr. Bush is responsible for the misdeeds of his agents in the executive branch, including the vice president. James Madison, father of the Constitution, amplified in the House of Representatives that the president would be subject to impeachment, "if he suffers [his subordinates] to perpetrate with impunity high crimes and misdemeanors against the United States, or neglects to superintend their conduct, so as to check their excesses." Vice President Cheney, in contrast to other executive branch officials, does not serve at the pleasure of the president." "Article II, section 4 of the Constitution declares the, "president [and] vice president ... shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of ... high crimes and misdemeanors." Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 65 that impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors are "political" offenses because "they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to society itself." James Iredell, later appointed to the Supreme Court by President George Washington, made explicit at the North Carolina ratification convention that presidential duplicity with Congress over war or comparable matters of great national moment would be an impeachable offense."

MESSAGE FROM RON PAUL EMAIL

Dear Friends: The financial meltdown the economists of the Austrian School predicted has arrived. We are in this crisis because of an excess of artificially created credit at the hands of the Federal Reserve System. The solution being proposed? More artificial credit by the Federal Reserve. No liquidation of bad debt and malinvestment is to be allowed. By doing more of the same, we will only continue and intensify the distortions in our economy - all the capital misallocation, all the malinvestment - and prevent the market's attempt to re-establish rational pricing of houses and other assets. Last night the president addressed the nation about the financial crisis. There is no point in going through his remarks line by line, since I'd only be repeating what I've been saying over and over - not just for the past several days, but for years and even decades. Still, at least a few observations are necessary. The president assures us that his administration "is working with Congress to address the root cause behind much of the instability in our markets." Care to take a guess at whether the Federal Reserve and its money creation spree were even mentioned? We are told that "low interest rates" led to excessive borrowing, but we are not told how these low interest rates came about. They were a deliberate policy of the Federal Reserve. As always, artificially low interest rates distort the market. Entrepreneurs engage in malinvestments - investments that do not make sense in light of current resource availability, that occur in more temporally remote stages of the capital structure than the pattern of consumer demand can support, and that would not have been made at all if the interest rate had been permitted to tell the truth instead of being toyed with by the Fed. Not a word about any of that, of course, because Americans might then discover how the great wise men in Washington caused this great debacle. Better to keep scapegoating the mortgage industry or "wildcat capitalism" (as if we actually have a pure free market!). Speaking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the president said: "Because these companies were chartered by Congress, many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government. This allowed them to borrow enormous sums of money, fuel the market for questionable investments, and put our financial system at risk." Doesn't that prove the foolishness of chartering Fannie and Freddie in the first place? Doesn't that suggest that maybe, just maybe, government may have contributed to this mess? And of course, by bailing out Fannie and Freddie, hasn't the federal government shown that the "many" who "believed they were guaranteed by the federal government" were in fact correct? Then come the scare tactics. If we don't give dictatorial powers to the Treasury Secretary "the stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet." Left unsaid, naturally, is that with the bailout and all the money and credit that must be produced out of thin air to fund it, the value of your retirement account will drop anyway, because the value of the dollar will suffer a precipitous decline. As for home prices, they are obviously much too high, and supply and demand cannot equilibrate if government insists on propping them up. It's the same destructive strategy that government tried during the Great Depression: prop up prices at all costs. The Depression went on for over a decade. On the other hand, when liquidation was allowed to occur in the equally devastating downturn of 1921, the economy recovered within less than a year. The president also tells us that Senators McCain and Obama will join him at the White House today in order to figure out how to get the bipartisan bailout passed. The two senators would do their country much more good if they stayed on the campaign trail debating who the bigger celebrity is, or whatever it is that occupies their attention these days. F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for showing how central banks' manipulation of interest rates creates the boom-bust cycle with which we are sadly familiar. In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, he described the foolish policies being pursued in his day - and which are being proposed, just as destructively, in our own: Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion. To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about; because we are suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further misdirection - a procedure that can only lead to a much more severe crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end... It is probably to this experiment, together with the attempts to prevent liquidation once the crisis had come, that we owe the exceptional severity and duration of the depression. The only thing we learn from history, I am afraid, is that we do not learn from history. The very people who have spent the past several years assuring us that the economy is fundamentally sound, and who themselves foolishly cheered the extension of all these novel kinds of mortgages, are the ones who now claim to be the experts who will restore prosperity! Just how spectacularly wrong, how utterly without a clue, does someone have to be before his expert status is called into question? Oh, and did you notice that the bailout is now being called a "rescue plan"? I guess "bailout" wasn't sitting too well with the American people. The very people who with somber faces tell us of their deep concern for the spread of democracy around the world are the ones most insistent on forcing a bill through Congress that the American people overwhelmingly oppose. The very fact that some of you seem to think you're supposed to have a voice in all this actually seems to annoy them. I continue to urge you to contact your representatives and give them a piece of your mind. I myself am doing everything I can to promote the correct point of view on the crisis. Be sure also to educate yourselves on these subjects - the Campaign for Liberty blog is an excellent place to start. Read the posts, ask questions in the comment section, and learn. H.G. Wells once said that civilization was in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have. In liberty, Ron Paul

LATEST BOB CHAPMAN ARTICLE 9/25/08

The unbelievable breakdown in American lending standards, market instruments no more than a worthless pile of paper, note how market elitists are using the market crash to put pressure on Congress, the plan to bail out fraudsters, the vicious circle of printing more and more currency, more wild speculation to come after a bailout http://theinternationalforecaster.com/International_Forecaster_Weekly/A_700_Billion_Bailout_With_No_Review_or_Oversight_Whatsoever

DURABLE GOODS REPORT

Orders for durable-goods down 4.5% Capital spending is weaker than expected as outlook grows grimmer By Greg Robb, MarketWatch Last update: 9:16 a.m. EDT Sept. 25, 2008 WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- New orders for U.S.-made capital goods decreased in August by the largest amount since the beginning of the year, signaling that businesses may be getting more cautious in their outlook. New orders for durable goods fell 4.5% in August, pushed lower by weak demand across the board, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch were looking for durable goods orders to fall 2% in August.

JOBS REPORT

Hurricanes lead to spike in U.S. jobless claims Weekly initial claims highest in seven years By Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch Last update: 8:47 a.m. EDT Sept. 25, 2008WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. weekly jobless claims shot to their highest level in seven years in the latest week, the Labor Department said Thursday, as people in the hurricane-hit states of Louisiana and Texas filed for benefits. First-time filings for unemployment benefits jumped by 32,000, to 493,000 for the week ended Sept. 20, the Labor Department reported. The higher number reflects claims following the damage wreaked by Hurricane Gustav in Louisiana and Hurricane Ike in Texas

3:30AM PDST GOOD MORNING GOLD BUGS!

TODAY'S REPORTS: Jobless claims Durable goods orders New home sales The Idiot in Chief spoke last night and proved once again what a criminal liar he is. This simpleton has destroyed in eight years what it has taken us over 200 years to create, although the last 70 years at least have been a process of deconstructing the Founding Fathers' Original Plan. The Markets seem to be waiting for the "Paulson/Bernanke Miracle" to be created. No such luck, folks. It's all down hill from here for years to come. Gold will probably spike up on the opening, or just before it, then sell off and trade in a range for the day. However, any day now it is going to explode and simply keep on going. It's going to amaze you, and you will be too afraid to buy it too high, or sell it not high enough... DO NOT SELL IT! BUY IT NOW, if you can find it. GET THOSE SURVIVAL SUPPLIES IN before the population panics and the shelves are bare. DON'T FORGET TO HAVE CONTAINERS FOR LOTS OF DRINKING WATER! If the town water pumps go off for lack of power, your water won't flow. Five gallon containers are the best for portability at home. One gallon containers WITH A HANDLE for your car will let you carry two while you walk to safety in an emergency on the road. Don't forget they will FREEZE AND SPLIT in the winter even if they are inside the car and not in the trunk, so don't fill them completely. Leave room to expand. Think about having one defrosted by the home front door to take with you fresh every day when you pick up your car keys. Fill it in the morning with HOT WATER while you make your coffee, so it won't freeze as fast in your car during your work day.

6:05PM PDST GT's COMMENTS ON BUSH'S SPEECH

THE MAN IS COMPLETELY FULL OF SHIT!

FROM RON PAUL 2008 EMAIL

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 Dear Friends, Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike. The events of the past week are no exception. The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress' throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters." That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we're being told it's unavoidable. The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics - are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess! • The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us. • Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of the Government." This is the New Deal to end all New Deals. • Then there's this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process. There goes your country. Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this "sadly necessary." Sad, yes. Necessary? Don't make me laugh. Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people. The two major party candidates for president themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind - another example of the big choice we're supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they're not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really. Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we'll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity. The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care? When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media? Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be. In liberty, Ron Paul

FROM DEMOCRACY NOW VIA JSMINESET.COM

Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic Operations http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/22/headlines Beginning in October, the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time to serve as an on-call federal response in times of emergency. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent thirty-five of the last sixty months in Iraq, but now the unit is training for domestic operations. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. The paper says the Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The soldiers are learning to use so-called nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals and crowds. GT sez: Get your weapons cleaned and re-learn how to use them effectively for self-defensive purposes, and possibly other situations.

4:50AM PDST GOOD MORNING GOLD BUGS!

TODAY'S REPORT: Existing home sales 7AM EASTERN The deck chairs are being moved every day now. Sometimes hourly. But the Ship of State is still taking on water. I'm sure you have all noticed that the markets don't react rationally at all. This is the result of MANIPULATION. The manipulation is about as obvious as a bad magic trick. There is nothing to say about the individual markets that will help you. The dollar is down, but does gold go up? NO! The euro sinks (or goes up) intra-day, and gold doesn't react, or reacts illogically. This is where THE FUNDAMENTALS of GOLD vs. FIAT MONEY has to be understood. We should all BELIEVE WITHOUT RESERVATION by now, that GOLD IS THE MONEY... and FIAT MONEY is fire starter at best and toilet paper for sure. Time wounds all heals... And the people who perpetrate(d) this MASSIVE FRAUD will have their judgment day. The anger in people is mounting, appropriately, right at the end of George Bush's term as the most DESTRUCTIVE president in our short history as a nation. He, and his crew of idiots, have managed to destroy, in less than eight years, what it has taken many lives and over two hundred years to create, even though we stole the land from its original owners and then killed and tortured them, and continue to humiliate them to this day. We are all now getting what we COLLECTIVELY DESERVE for our unwillingness to PARTICIPATE in our Guv'mint at all levels. We have become a hateful, xenophobic and gluttonous people who pray to mythical beings for salvation and forgiveness and make THINGS OUR IDOLS rather than have real human interactions with our fellow human beings, and have become human "doings". The gold market this morning is doing its usual pre-NY opening "dance", having just done a "head fake" rally only to rapidly sell off down to the white trend line (see charts). Where it will go today, I do not know. There will be trading opportunites galore, all very risky if you are not lightening quick and take your profits at the first opportunity. Long term CASH buyers should buy in on strong sell offs, and then go back to bed. Those unable to buy gold and silver should be fixing up their survival area and stocking it with supplies to last a long time.

HISTORY YOU SHOULD KNOW

"What no one seemed to notice. . . was the ever widening gap. . .between the government and the people. . . And it became always wider. . . the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway . . . (it) gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about . . .and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated . .. by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. . . Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures'. . . must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. . . .Each act. . . is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone. . . you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' . . .But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. . . .You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father. . . could never have imagined." : From Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955) http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11845.htm

AN EMAIL FROM DENNIS KUCINICH

Protecting the public interest in any economic "bailout" Dear Friend, The U.S. government has been turned into an engine that accelerates the wealth upwards into the hands of a few. The Wall Street bailout, the Iraq War, military spending, tax cuts to the rich, and a for-profit health care system are all about the acceleration of wealth upwards. And now, the American people are about to pay the price of the collapse of the $513 trillion Ponzi scheme of derivatives. Yes, that’s half a quadrillion dollars. Our first trillion dollar compression bandage will hardly stem the hemorrhaging of an unsustainable Ponzi scheme built on debt "de-leverages." Does anyone seriously think that our public and private debts of some $45 trillion will be paid? That the administration's growth of the federal debt from $5.6 trillion to $9.8 trillion while borrowing another trillion dollars from Social Security has nothing to do with this? Does anyone not see that when we spend nearly $16,000 for every family of four in our society for the military each year that we are heading over the cliff? This is a debt crisis, not a credit crisis. Just as FDR had to save capitalism after Wall Street excesses, we have to re-invigorate our economy with real - not imaginary - growth. It does not address the never-ending war on the middle class. The same corporate interests that profited from the closing of U.S. factories, the movement of millions of jobs out of America, the off-shoring of profits, the out-sourcing of workers, the crushing of pension funds, the knocking down of wages, the cancellation of health care benefits, the sub-prime lending are now rushing to Washington to get money to protect themselves. The double standard is stunning: their profits are their profits, but their losses are our losses. This bailout will not bring real jobs back to America. It will not bring back jobs that make things. It does not rebuild our schools, streets, neighborhoods, parks or bridges. The major product of this financial economy is now debt. Industrial capitalism has been destroyed. In the next few days I will push for a plan that includes equity for every American in any taxpayer investment in this so-called bail-out plan. Since the bailout will cost each and every American about $2,300, I have proposed the creation of a United States Mutual Trust Fund, which will take control of $700 billion in stock assets, convert those assets to shares, and distribute $2,300 worth of shares to new individual savings accounts in the name of each and every American. I will also insist that all of the following issues be considered in whatever Congress passes: Reinstatement of the provisions of Glass-Steagall, which forbade speculation Re-regulation of the finance, insurance, and real estate industries Accountability on the part of those who took the companies down: a) resignations of management b) givebacks of executive compensation packages c) limitations on executive compensation d) admission by CEO's of what went wrong and how, prior to any government bailout Demands for transparencey a) with respect to analyzing the transactions which took the companies down b) with respect to Treasury's dealings with the companies pre and post-bailout An equity position for the taxpayers a) some form of ownership of assets Some credible formula for evaluating the price of the assets that the government is buying. A sunset clause on the legislation Full public disclosure by members of Congress of assets held, with possible conflicts put in blind trust. A ban on political campaign contributions from officers of corporations receiving bailouts A requirement that 2008 cycle candidates return political contributions to officers and representatives of corporations receiving bailouts And, most importantly, some mechanism for direct assistance to homeowners saddled with unreasonable or unmanageable mortgages, as well as protection for renters who have lived up to their obligation but fall victim to financial tragedy when the property they live in undergoes foreclosure. These are just some thoughts on the run. You will hear more from me tomorrow. Dennis J Kucinich www.Kucinich.us 216-252-9000 877-933-6647

10:10AM PDST GT's COMMENTS ON THE PAULSON/BERNANKE HEARINGS

Everyone at the Hearing is being very polite to one another, as is expected in the old saw "honor among thieves!" The only thing these Senators are doing is asking some very well thought out questions in an attempt to show the Public that they are there in an attempt to seek the best for the Publiic's Welfare. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their pose is merely to absolve them later when they WILL VOTE TO GIVE PAULSON THE AUTHORITY HE SEEKS! Paulson is starting to stammer (an effect he uses to keep people from hearing what he is saying, and also an affectation of liars) more an more as the questions become more probing. The most important element is whether or not he will be afforded COMPLETE IMMUNITY from later investigation or prosecution. Read Bob Chapman's articles to understand the implications of this obscene manipulation of Congress (who is in on it) and this blatant attempt to destroy our Constitution, and gain Complete Dictatorial Control of the country. Bernanke, who hasn't had to answer many questions, simply resorts to complexity and intellectual ramblings to obfuscate his criminal involvement in this disaster. Chris Cox seems to be pretty straight forward for now, but is most certainly a part of the whole nefarious cover up of the criminal actions of the Guv'mint. Lockhart, the new head of Fan/Fred, is simply a walking disaster looking for a place to happen.

7:00AM PDST

WATCH THE PAULSON/BERNANKE HEARINGS ON CSPAN3 RIGHT NOW

NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE

A BAILOUT ABOVE THE LAW http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/business/23sorkin.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1222156803-yR/WRQbegKiMBMALJVexVA&oref=slogin

4:47AM PDST GOOD MORNING GOLD BUGS!

TODAY'S REPORT: Retail chain index 5:45AM PDST As Hanky Panky Paulson and Helicopter Ben head to Congress today to try to capture the flag and gain EMPERORSHIP of the country, all Markets are on hold to see what is going to happen with THE BIG BAILOUT (aka THE DEATH OF THE REPUBLIC/CONSTITUTION) All I can suggest is to thoroughly read CHAPMAN, SUPKIS, AND SINCLAIR/NORCINI to be able to understand how this mess is proceeding. In any event, WE ARE ALL IN BIG TROUBLE NOW! There is simply NO SOLUTION to this WITHOUT PAIN! The big decision now, is how much of the pain can these CRIMINAL BANKERS AND POLITICIANS/WAR CRIMINALS foist off on the Citizeny of the World, and still remain free to enjoy their loot without being hung. Gold is not trading in any recognizable pattern in the short term, and most up moves have been aborted through MANIPULATION. The best you can do is to BUY CASH GOLD/SILVER on the pull backs. As Bob Chapman has stated..."without gold, you will be vaporized" in the future economic collapse. Happy thoughts!