As The World Marches Towards The Kingdom
Of The Anti-Christ
The Forced Economic Collapse
& Coming Global Currency
The Global Financial Crisis & The Safety Of Gold?
Read Executive Order 6102
Gold Sales To Europe Jump On Crisis,
China & India Greedy For Gold
Central Bank Gold Holdings Expand
And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
(Rev. 13:15-18 )
“The Roman politicians had the brilliant idea that if a coin was 100% pure precious metal, they could slip a little base metal in and, over a couple of hundred years, they went from 100% pure precious metal to almost 0%. That’s where the term “debase” comes from….”
“Executive Order 6102 required U.S. citizens to deliver on or before May 1, 1933 all but a small amount of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve, in exchange for $20.67 per troy ounce. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, as amended on March 9, 1933, violation of the order was punishable by fine up to $10,000 ($166,640 if adjusted for inflation as of 2008) or up to ten years in prison, or both. …the authority of federal government to seize gold was upheld.”
“…Are you saying that the American Consumer Price Index (CPI) published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics is a lie? …In my opinion, yes, of course it is. Have you looked at it? They’ve changed their accounting several times in the past few decades. When housing was 20% to 25% of the CPI and housing was going up, they didn’t count it, saying rents weren’t going up, and then when home prices started going down, they counted it. It’s the same with many things….”
Executive Order 6102
June 6, 2010
Executive Order 6102
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
Executive Order 6102 is an Executive Order signed on April 5, 1933 by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt "forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates" by U.S. citizens.
Effect of the order: Executive Order 6102 required U.S. citizens to deliver on or before May 1, 1933 all but a small amount of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve, in exchange for $20.67 per troy ounce. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, as amended on March 9, 1933, violation of the order was punishable by fine up to $10,000 ($166,640 if adjusted for inflation as of 2008) or up to ten years in prison, or both. Most citizens who owned large amounts of gold had it transferred to countries such as Switzerland.
Order 6102 specifically exempted "customary use in industry, profession or art"--a provision that covered artists, jewelers, dentists, and sign makers among others. The order further permitted any person to own up to $100 in gold coins ($1,664 if adjusted for inflation as of 2008; a face value equivalent to five troy ounces of Gold valued at $4800 as of 2009). The price of gold from the treasury for international transactions was thereafter raised to $35 an ounce. The value of the dollar was thenceforth determined by its value relative to other national currencies. The regulations prescribed within Executive Order 6102 were modified by Executive Order 6111 of April 20, 1933, both of which were ultimately revoked and superseded by Executive Orders 6260 and 6261 of August 28 and 29, 1933, respectively.
Invalidation and reissue: There was only one prosecution under the order, and in that case the order was ruled invalid by federal judge John M. Woolsey, on the technical grounds that the order was signed by the President, not the Secretary of the Treasury as required. The circumstances of the case were that a New York attorney, Frederick Barber Campbell had on deposit at Chase National over 5,000 ounces of gold. When Campbell attempted to withdraw the gold Chase refused and Campbell sued Chase. A federal prosecutor then indicted Campbell on the following day (September 27, 1933) for failing to register his gold. Ultimately the prosecution of Campbell failed but the authority of federal government to seize gold was upheld. The case forced the Roosevelt administration to issue a new order under the signature of the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., which was in force for a few months until the passage of the Gold Reserve Act on January 30, 1934.
Abrogation and subsequent events: The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 made gold clauses unenforceable, and changed the value of the dollar in gold from $20.67 to $35 per ounce. This price remained in effect until August 15, 1971 when President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value, thus abandoning the gold standard for foreign exchange.
The limitation on gold ownership in the U.S. was repealed after President Gerald Ford signed a bill legalizing private ownership of gold coins, bars and certificates by an act of Congress codified in Pub.L. 93-373 which went into effect December 31, 1974. P.L. 93-373 did not repeal the Gold Repeal Joint Resolution, which made unlawful any contracts which specified payment in a fixed amount of money or a fixed amount of gold. That is, contracts remained unenforceable if they used gold monetarily rather than as a commodity of trade. However, Act of Oct. 28, 1977, Pub. L. No. 95-147, § 4(c), 91 Stat. 1227, 1229 (originally codified at 31 U.S.C. § 463 note, re-codified as amended at 31 U.S.C. § 5118(d)(2)) amended the 1933 Joint Resolution and made it clear that parties could again include so-called gold clauses in contracts formed after 1977.
China, India Greedy for Gold
June 4, 2010
China, India Greedy for Gold
2point6Billion.com
http://www.2point6billion.com/news/2010/06/04/china-india-greedy-for-gold-5887.html
Jun. 4 – Ever-soaring prices for gold did little to dent strong demand for jewelry in China and India during the first quarter as industry experts appeared confident in the yellow metal’s potential for growth throughout the shaky economic terrain of 2010. “The diversity of demand for gold, both by sector and geography ensures that the outlook for gold remains strong for the remainder of 2010,” said Aram Shishmanian, CEO of the World Gold Council, in a May 26 press release. “Despite increasing gold prices, consumers in China and India will continue to drive market growth, particularly in jewelry,” he added.
Gold prices averaged US$1,109.1 in the first quarter, a 22 percent year on year increase. Prices struck a record high US$1,248.9 in mid-May, when investors ditched the euro to seek the relative safety of gold following Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. Consumers in both India and China seemed nonplussed by the record high prices. During the first quarter, Indian consumer demand surged 698 percent to 193.5 tons. Chinese demand was more modest, rising 11 percent to 105.2 tons in the same period of time. The first four months of the year typically show a spike in demand for gold jewelry in both countries, as the Indian spring wedding season and the Chinese New Year spur consumption. India is the largest consumer of gold in the world, accounting for 25 percent of total jewelry sold and 19 percent net retail investment demand in 2009. China is the world’s largest producer of gold and second largest consumer, although its per capita consumption is quite low compared to India.
Gold Sales to Europe Jump on Crisis, Perth Mint Says
June 03, 2010
Gold Sales to Europe Jump on Crisis, Perth Mint Says
By Jason Scott
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-03/gold-sales-to-europe-jump-on-crisis-perth-mint-says-update1-.html
June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Gold sales to Europe from the Perth Mint surged in May as the Greek sovereign-debt crisis triggered a flight to haven investments, draining stockpiles at the producer of 6 percent of the world’s bullion. Buyers from the continent accounted for 69 percent of gold- coin purchases last month compared with 51 percent a year ago, said Ron Currie, sales and marketing director. Individual German investors also bought silver, seeking to protect their wealth with “poor man’s gold,” Currie said from Western Australia.
Greece’s fiscal crisis roiled financial markets worldwide, driving the euro lower. Gold reached a record in May as sovereign-debt risks escalated. The mint is working at full capacity with 20 percent more staff than a year ago, Currie said. “As soon as it was announced the European Commission was bailing out Greece, the German population decided they’d better hedge their Euros by buying precious metals,” Currie said in an interview yesterday. “We had stock before this blip in the market, then it all went.” Spot gold traded at $1,205.94 an ounce at 9:54 a.m. in Singapore today compared with last month’s record of $1,249.40 and $1,096.95 at the end of last year. The precious metal has gained for nine straight years. Silver, which peaked this year at $19.8275 an ounce on May 13, traded today at $17.9425.
Safety of Gold
“Anyone throughout Europe who understands how the euro is being debased is seeking the safety of gold,” said James Turk, founder of GoldMoney.com, an online gold-buying and storage service that has passed $1 billion of customer assets. The metal may advance further next week, a Bloomberg survey showed. European leaders have proposed an almost $1 trillion loan package to contain the region’s fiscal crisis, including funds from the International Monetary Fund. The euro has declined against all 16 major counterparts in the past three months, dropping the most against the dollar, with a 12 percent fall. “The gold market in Europe, and particularly in Germany, has just taken off,” Currie said from the 111-year-old mint, which was founded on the back of a gold rush in the state that accounts for 62 percent of the nation’s mineral production.
“People in Germany are buying silver, which leads me to believe it’s the moms and pops stocking up on ‘poor man’s gold’,” said Currie. “They could be storing it in their homes or burying it in their gardens.” The mint, controlled by the Western Australian government, has 300 staff and doubled capacity in the past 18 months, Currie said, declining to give a total output figure for coins and bars, or the value of the bullion stored on behalf of buyers. Investors can opt to buy and store gold at the mint, or buy coins to hold themselves.
Greeks Changed Everything
“We came off the highs of the global crisis, we were rolling along at a steady pace for a while and the Greeks changed everything,” said Currie. Standard & Poor’s cut Greece’s rating to junk status on April 27. The rush for bullion in May at the Perth Mint was matched overseas. The U.S. Mint sold 190,000 ounces of American Eagle gold coins last month, the most since December. Rand Refinery Ltd., the world’s largest gold-smelting facility, has raised weekly production of Krugerrand coins to a 25-year high, Treasurer Debra Thomson said yesterday. CME Group Inc., the world’s largest futures market, said gold-futures trading rose to a record in May. Gold trading on the Comex unit was 4.82 million contracts, exceeding the 4.57 million record set in January, the Chicago-based CME said this June 2.
Financial Crisis
“Sales have come off the highs of the global financial crisis, but they haven’t fallen anywhere near to where they were before the crisis,” Currie said. In the 12 months to June 30, sales of the mint’s 1-ounce Kangaroo and other gold coins may fall by about 16 percent to about 350,000 ounces from the year before, Currie said. Silver will match that drop even as sales of that metal spiked in the past two months, he said. “It’s a volatile market and you can’t pick what’s going to happen from day to day,” Currie said. “The Indian market isn’t what it was, jewelry sales are down, but the ETFS are up and the overall gold price is still high. Our assumption is that volatility will continue.”
Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest exchange- traded fund backed by bullion, rose to 1,289.84 tons yesterday. India’s gold imports may reach a 12-month low of 15 tons to 17 tons in May as rising prices slowed imports, the Business Standard reported yesterday, citing Suresh Hundia, president of the Bombay Bullion Association. Western Australia produces 6 percent of the world’s gold, valued at A$5 billion in the year to June 30, 2009, according to state government figures. The mint processes all the gold mined in Australia as well as imports of scrap from overseas, Currie said.
Central
Bank Gold Holdings Expand at Fastest Pace Since 1964
March 18, 2010
Central Bank Gold Holdings Expand at Fastest Pace Since 1964
By Nicholas Larkin
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-18/central-bank-gold-holdings-expand-at-fastest-pace-since-1964.html
March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Central banks added the most gold to their reserves since 1964 last year amid the longest rally in bullion prices in at least nine decades, data compiled by the World Gold Council show. Combined holdings rose 425.4 metric tons to 30,116.9 tons, an increase worth $13.3 billion at last year’s average price, according to the data. India, Russia and China said last year they added to reserves. The expansion was the first since 1988, the data from the London-based council show. Central banks, holding about 18 percent of all gold ever mined, are expanding their holdings for the first time in a generation as investors in exchange-traded funds amass bullion as an alternative to currencies. Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest ETF backed by the metal, are at 1,115.5 tons, more than the holdings of Switzerland.
“There’s clearly been a renaissance of gold in central bankers’ minds,” said Nick Moore, an analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London. “It’s not just been central banks taking on gold, but a general shift for physical gold in the investment sector.” Official reserves of central banks and governments may expand by another 187 to 218 tons this year, CPM Group forecast last month. The council’s data also includes the holdings of the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and other international and regional bodies. Gold climbed 24 percent last year, reaching a record $1,226.56 an ounce in December. World holdings rose 527 tons in 1964 and climbed 832.7 tons the year before that, according to the London-based industry group.
At the Edge: “Gold is quietly, at the edge, becoming the world’s second
reservable currency, supplanting the euro and rivaling the dollar,” Dennis
Gartman, a Suffolk, Virginia-based economist and
hedge-fund manager, said in his Gartman Letter today. “The trend shall
continue months, if not years, into the future.” Gold is up 2.7 percent this
year and traded at $1,126 an ounce at 11:29 a.m. in London. The U.S. Dollar
Index, a six- currency gauge of the greenback’s value, is up 2.7 percent
this year after slipping 4.2 percent in 2009. Bullion
typically moves inversely to the U.S. currency. Higher prices for
gold, especially in Euros and sterling, may deter countries from adding
further to reserves, RBS’s Moore said. Bullion climbed to a record 838.43
Euros on March 5, Bloomberg data show. “Central banks might feel somewhat
embarrassed to be buying gold at records” in some currencies, Moore said.
“When you have an asset trading at an all-time high, the temptation is not
to purchase more.”
Interview: Jim Rogers on Currencies and Inflation
June 3, 2010
Interview: Jim Rogers on Currencies and Inflation
By Ron Hera Hera Research, LLC
http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1275591660.php
The Hera Research Newsletter (HRN) is pleased to present the following exclusive interview with legendary international investor, best selling author, adventurer and family man Jim Rogers, Chairman of Rogers Holdings and founder of the Rogers International Commodity Index (RICI). Jim Rogers’ commentaries on economics and finance have been featured in Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and other major publications, and he appears regularly on television networks around the world.
After growing up in Demopolis, Alabama, and earning degrees from Yale and Oxford Universities, where he studied politics, philosophy and economics, Jim Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund in 1970, which gained 4200% over a 10-year period, during which the S&P advanced approximately 47%. After retiring at age 37, he managed his own portfolio while serving as a guest professor of finance at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business and as the moderator of WCBS’ “The Dreyfus Roundtable” and host of the Financial News Network’s (FNN) “The Profit Motive with Jim Rogers.”
Between 1990 and 1992, Jim Rogers fulfilled his lifelong dream of motorcycling across six continents in a 150,000 kilometer journey that won him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. He also undertook a Millennium Adventure in which he traveled around the world in 1101 days, passing through 116 countries and traversing more than 245,000 kilometers. Jim Rogers’ English language books include Investment Biker: On the Road with Jim Rogers (1994), Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip (2003), Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market (2007), A Bull in China (2008), and A Gift to My Children: A Father's Lessons for Life and Investing (2009).
Hera Research Newsletter (HRN): Thank you for speaking with us today. Let’s start with the world reserve currency. What do you think about the International Monetary Fund (IMF) replacing the US dollar as the world reserve currency with Special Drawing Rights (SDRs)?
Jim Rogers: The world didn’t have an IMF for a few thousand years. The IMF was founded after the Second World War to take care of any short-term currency needs that countries might have. It turned out pretty quickly that they didn’t have very many as the world recovered from the war, so the IMF found other things to do. They now have thousands of employees and have manufactured jobs for themselves. They’ve not had much success, if you look back over the past 60 years. Nearly everything they’ve done was wrong. Why do we need the IMF? It’s not 1945 anymore.
HRN: Rather than using a national currency as the world reserve currency, what about a global central bank?
Jim Rogers: That’s not what the IMF is, first of all, but even if they were, we certainly don’t need a central bank for the whole world. We never had one and the world got along pretty well for thousands of years without bureaucrats taking the world’s money. I’ve never added up how much the IMF has spent during the last 60 years but it must be a staggering amount, and for what good? I mean, we certainly haven’t gotten anything out of it. We haven’t gotten nearly as much for our money as they have spent.
HRN: So, you wouldn’t agree with using IMF SDRs as the world reserve currency?
Jim Rogers: I’m sure the world does need to replace the US dollar. I’m not the only one who knows that. The US dollar is a terribly, terribly flawed currency. The US is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world. Something has got to be done. We cannot continue with a currency which is so deeply flawed and something is going to have to be changed. Special Drawing Rights, I don’t know. It could work. I don’t know what’s going to work. Most people, however, want to have something in their hands that they think they can spend. A Special Drawing Right is pretty amorphous and, while some professors and some bankers may understand them, I suspect that most people in the world will not understand Special Drawing Rights and will not be terribly enthusiastic, if that’s what happens. So, I would suspect it wouldn’t last. You know, I cannot imagine that a Special Drawing Right, which has no real existence, could survive a crisis or two. Human beings just don’t think that way, I’m afraid.
HRN: Would you advocate a commodity-backed reserve currency instead?
Jim Rogers: Reserve currencies can be anything that you want. The problem with paper money is that it’s easy to debase and abuse. As I said, the US is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world. They keep printing the stuff. The UK, once upon a time, had the world reserve currency. They abused it mightily. Eventually the world just said “no, we’re not going to take sterling anymore” and rightly so. So, in my view, that’s the problem with paper money. Now, gold has its own problems too. Gold didn’t survive very long either as the world reserve currency since politicians kept changing the rules. Unfortunately, politicians know how to abuse and destroy. One can think of various and sundry solutions. My only worry is that, no matter what mankind has come up with in the past, politicians have always found a way to abuse it and debase it.
HRN: Do you think a return to the gold standard would constrain government abuse?
Jim Rogers: Well, it never has. The Romans had precious metals as their currency and do you know the term “debase”? The Roman politicians had the brilliant idea that if a coin was 100% pure precious metal, they could slip a little base metal in and, over a couple of hundred years, they went from 100% pure precious metal to almost 0%. That’s where the term “debase” comes from. So, we’ve tried it.
HRN: You mentioned that the US is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world. Do you think that will lead to high inflation or hyperinflation in the US?
Jim Rogers: Well, there will be inflation. First, you have to have inflation before you can have hyperinflation. I mean, we have inflation now. If you go to the shop, whether it’s groceries, or education or insurance or health care, prices are going up for everything. The government lies about it in the US. Some countries lie, many countries don’t: Australia, China, India and Norway. Many countries don’t lie about it and acknowledge that we have inflation. Others lie about it, the UK and the US, but if you go shopping you know prices are up.
HRN: Are you saying that the American Consumer Price Index (CPI) published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics is a lie?
Jim Rogers: In my opinion, yes, of course it is. Have you looked at it? They’ve changed their accounting several times in the past few decades. When housing was 20% to 25% of the CPI and housing was going up, they didn’t count it, saying rents weren’t going up, and then when home prices started going down, they counted it. It’s the same with many things. It’s staggering some of the tortuous reasoning that the BLS has used over the past 25 or 30 years. When the price of gasoline goes up, they say it’s not really going up because it’s better gasoline, better quality; therefore you’re getting more for your money. I mean, it’s endless, the stuff that they say and for some reason people sit there, although more and more people are catching on, and accept what the government says. As I said, in other countries, they acknowledge that there’s inflation. I don’t know how there could be inflation in Australia and not in the US; how you can have inflation in Norway or India and not in the US, but the US says there’s no inflation.
HRN: An article in the Telegraph by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reported this week that the US Federal Reserve’s M3 monetary aggregate is estimated to be contracting at an accelerating rate, in other words, deflation.
Jim Rogers: What’s going down in price in the US economy? I’d like to know where you shop. We know home prices are down. Oil prices are down to $73 per barrel, if you’re talking about a monthly or quarterly basis, or even an annual basis. I’m talking about what’s going on in the big picture. Where is the deflation in the US?
HRN: Some people believe a contraction of M3 indicates deflation.
Jim Rogers: Is M3 something you buy in a shop? M3 can lead to changes in the price structure, but M3 is not price inflation or deflation.
HRN: That’s a good point. Inflation is a concern in Europe and the Euro seems to be in trouble. Can the Euro survive?
Jim Rogers: I certainly expect the Euro to be around in 2012 or 2013, but whether it’ll be around in 2023, I don’t know. It’s becoming more and more a political currency. It wasn’t always. In the beginning, it wasn’t a political currency. It was designed to be a rock solid currency, but, since then, it’s become a political currency and most political agreements or political institutions don’t last. No currency union has ever lasted. It’s been tried before. I wish the Euro would survive. The world needs something to compete with the dollar. The Euro, on paper, makes enormous sense, but, unfortunately, the people who wrote that contract back in 1992 are all gone now and the new guys all want to buy votes. So, I would like to see the Euro survive, but, in reality, I don’t see how it can.
HRN: So, you expect more inflation in Europe?
Jim Rogers: Yes. Printing money has always led to inflation, eventually. When things go wrong, governments have always printed money, at least in the last few decades. That’s all they know and they will do it again. There will be times, obviously, when the printing presses slow down or even stop but when things get bad again they start over, and that’s all they know.
HRN: I’ve read that China is experiencing high inflation.
Jim Rogers: There is inflation in China. There are many places that are reporting inflation. It’s dumbfounding to me that many countries have inflation and the US doesn’t. That’s because some governments lie and some governments don’t.
HRN: It’s been widely reported that Chinese real estate is in a bubble. Do you think that’s true?
Jim Rogers: In urban, coastal real estate there certainly was a bubble. That’s not the whole of China. Have you ever looked at a map of China? Do you consider urban, coastal real estate the Chinese economy? Where’s the bubble? Other real estate in China has, for the most part, had very little movement.
HRN: Do you think China’s economic growth is sustainable?
Jim Rogers: Is it sustainable, yes; every quarter, every year, of course not. You know, in the United States in the 19th century, we had 15 depressions, a horrible civil war, no human rights, massacres in the streets and very little rule of law, and yet, out of that, we had a pretty successful 20th century. China is going to have many, many problems as they rise. I don’t know what and I don’t know when, but I know it’s going to happen. I don’t see any other country on the horizon that is going to have, long term, a sustainable, good future in the 21st century.
HRN: You’ve talked about inflation, pointed out problems with the US dollar and the Euro, and described the rise of China. How can citizens of Western countries protect their wealth?
Jim Rogers: Historically, the best way is to own commodities. Throughout history, the way you protect yourself when currencies are being debased is that you own real goods. Whether that’s silver or cotton or natural gas or whatever it happens to be, you own something that’s a real good. As the value of money is debased, some things will maintain their value and some will even increase.
HRN: Investors seem to be turning to gold as a way to preserve their wealth.
Jim Rogers: Gold has been, historically, a good way to preserve wealth, but so have other things as well. I own gold. Gold is making all-time highs. It certainly has been a way to preserve wealth in the last decade. Whether there are better things in the next decade or not, and I suspect that there will be better things, I do own gold.
HRN: You mentioned silver as a way to preserve wealth but gold seems to be in the spotlight.
Jim Rogers: Let’s put it this way, silver is about 70% below its all-time high. Gold is making all-time highs. Often, one is better off investing in things that are down 70%, rather than things that are making all-time highs.
HRN: Thank you for being so generous with your valuable time.
Jim Rogers: Thank you very much. Contact me any time.
After Words: Jim Rogers doesn’t mince words. When a person as remarkably
successful and accomplished as Jim Rogers, and having long experience,
states that the official statistics produced by government economists and
views expressed in mainstream financial news outlets are incorrect, or
disingenuous, one must take pause. Objectively speaking, for a majority of
investors, views that are at odds with those of Jim Rogers are probably
wrong.
According to Jim Rogers, the US dollar is deeply flawed because the US is the biggest debtor nation in the history of the world and, although an alternative currency is needed, the Euro will not survive in the long run because it has become political and IMF SDRs will probably not last as a reserve currency in the face of significant global economic crises. Long-term trends point to inflation and to the sustainability of China’s economic growth, as well as to China’s ascent as a world power. As prices inevitably, eventually rise due to inflation, real goods stand out as a time tested way to preserve wealth and to profit from changing economic conditions. In simple terms, currencies can be printed but real things cannot.
25
Questions To Ask Anyone Who Believes The Economic Recovery Is Real
May 25th, 2010
25 Questions To Ask Anyone Who Believes The Economic Recovery Is Real
By Michael Snyder
BlackListed News
http://www.truthistreason.net/25-questions-to-ask-anyone-who-believes-the-economic-recovery-is-real
If you listen to the mainstream media long enough, you just might be tempted to believe that the United States has emerged from the recession and is now in the middle of a full-fledged economic recovery. In fact, according to Obama administration officials, the great American economic machine has roared back to life, stronger and more vibrant than ever before. But is that really the case? Of course not. You would have to be delusional to believe that. What did happen was that all of the stimulus packages and government spending and new debt that Obama and the U.S. Congress pumped into the economy bought us a little bit of time. But they have also made our long-term economic problems far worse. The reality is that the U.S. cannot keep supporting an economy on an ocean of red ink forever. At some point the charade is going to come crashing down.
And GDP is not a really good measure of the economic health of a nation. For example, if you would have looked at the growth of GDP in the Weimar republic in the early 1930s, you may have been tempted to think that the German economy was really thriving. German citizens were spending increasingly massive amounts of money. But of course that money was becoming increasingly worthless at the same time as hyperinflation spiraled out of control.
Well, today the purchasing power of our dollar is rapidly eroding as the price of food and other necessities continues to increase. So just because Americans are spending a little bit more money than before really doesn’t mean much of anything. As you will see below, there are a whole bunch of other signs that the U.S. economy is in very, very serious trouble. Any “recovery” that the U.S. economy is experiencing is illusory and will be quite temporary. The entire financial system of the United States is falling apart, and the powers that be can try to patch it up and prop it up for a while, but in the end this thing is going to come crashing down. But as obvious as that may seem to most of us, there are still quite a few people out there that are absolutely convinced that the U.S. economy will fully recover and will soon be stronger than ever.
So the following are 25 questions to ask anyone who is delusional enough to believe that this economic recovery is real….
#1) In what universe is an economy with 39.68 million Americans on food stamps considered to be a healthy, recovering economy? In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that enrollment in the food stamp program will exceed 43 million Americans in 2011. Is a rapidly increasing number of Americans on food stamps a good sign or a bad sign for the economy?
#2) According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in the month of March. This was an increase of almost 19 percent from February, and it was the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report back in January 2005. So can you please explain again how the U.S. real estate market is getting better?
#3) The Mortgage Bankers Association just announced that more than 10 percent of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment in the January-March period. That was a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago. Do you think that is an indication that the U.S. housing market is recovering?
#4) How can the U.S. real estate market be considered healthy when, for the first time in modern history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together?
#5) With the U.S. Congress planning to quadruple oil taxes, what do you think that is going to do to the price of gasoline in the United States and how do you think that will affect the U.S. economy?
#6) Do you think that it is a good sign that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of the state of California, says that “terrible cuts” are urgently needed in order to avoid a complete financial disaster in his state?
#7) But it just isn’t California that is in trouble. Dozens of U.S. states are in such bad financial shape that they are getting ready for their biggest budget cuts in decades. What do you think all of those budget cuts will do to the economy?
#8) In March, the U.S. trade deficit widened to its highest level since December 2008. Month after month after month we buy much more from the rest of the world than they buy from us. Wealth is draining out of the United States at an unprecedented rate. So is the fact that the gigantic U.S. trade deficit is actually getting bigger a good sign or a bad sign for the U.S. economy?
#9) Considering the fact that the U.S. government is projected to have a 1.6 trillion dollar deficit in 2010, and considering the fact that if you went out and spent one dollar every single second it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend a trillion dollars, how can anyone in their right mind claim that the U.S. economy is getting healthier when we are getting into so much debt?
#10) The U.S. Treasury Department recently announced that the U.S. government suffered a wider-than-expected budget deficit of 82.69 billion dollars in April. So is the fact that the red ink of the U.S. government is actually worse than projected a good sign or a bad sign?
#11) According to one new report, the U.S. national debt will reach 100 percent of GDP by the year 2015. So is that a sign of economic recovery or of economic disaster?
#12) Monstrous amounts of oil continue to gush freely into the Gulf of Mexico, and analysts are already projecting that the seafood and tourism industries along the Gulf coast will be devastated for decades by this unprecedented environmental disaster. In light of those facts, how in the world can anyone project that the U.S. economy will soon be stronger than ever?
#13) The FDIC’s list of problem banks recently hit a 17-year high. Do you think that an increasing number of small banks failing is a good sign or a bad sign for the U.S. economy?
#14) The FDIC is backing 8,000 banks that have a total of $13 trillion in assets with a deposit insurance fund that is basically flat broke. So what do you think will happen if a significant number of small banks do start failing?
#15) Existing home sales in the United States jumped 7.6 percent in April. That is the good news. The bad news is that this increase only happened because the deadline to take advantage of the temporary home buyer tax credit (government bribe) was looming. So now that there is no more tax credit for home buyers, what will that do to home sales?
#16) Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recently told the U.S. government that they are going to need even more bailout money. So what does it say about the U.S. economy when the two “pillars” of the U.S. mortgage industry are government-backed financial black holes that the U.S. government has to relentlessly pour money into?
#17) 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement. Tens of millions of Americans find themselves just one lawsuit, one really bad traffic accident or one very serious illness away from financial ruin. With so many Americans living on the edge, how can you say that the economy is healthy?
#18) The mayor of Detroit says that the real unemployment rate in his city is somewhere around 50 percent. So can the U.S. really be experiencing an economic recovery when so many are still unemployed in one of America’s biggest cities?
#19) Gallup’s measure of underemployment hit 20.0% on March 15th. That was up from 19.7% two weeks earlier and 19.5% at the start of the year. Do you think that is a good trend or a bad trend?
#20) One new poll shows that 76 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is still in a recession. So are the vast majority of Americans just stupid or could we still actually be in a recession?
#21) The bottom 40 percent of those living in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth. So is Barack Obama’s mantra that “what is good for Wall Street is good for Main Street” actually true?
#22) Richard Russell, the famous author of the Dow Theory Letters, says that Americans should sell anything they can sell in order to get liquid because of the economic trouble that is coming. Do you think that Richard Russell is delusional or could he possibly have a point?
#23) Defaults on apartment building mortgages held by U.S. banks climbed to a record 4.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010. In fact, that was almost twice the level of a year earlier. Does that look like a good trend to you?
#24) In March, the price of fresh and dried vegetables in the United States soared 49.3% - the most in 16 years. Is it a sign of a healthy economy when food prices are increasing so dramatically?
#25) 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 – a 32 percent increase over 2008. Not only that, more Americans filed for bankruptcy in March 2010 than during any month since U.S. bankruptcy law was tightened in October 2005. So shouldn’t we at least wait until the number of Americans filing for bankruptcy is not setting new all-time records before we even dare whisper the words “economic recovery?”
Synopsis
The global banks and politicians are engineering a global currency meltdown. No matter how much gold you own it will be eventually called back in to the central bank. If you refuse you will be sent to jail (and branded a terrorist trading on the black market) under the Trading With the Enemy Act. You will be forced to sell your gold back to the government at deflated prices when the new union currency, and then global currency is established. The ultimate goal is to establish a global, electronic cashless society for the kingdom of the anti-Christ.
And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
(Rev. 13:15-18 )
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