naked capitalism Wed 2010-04-07 19:53 EDT

Throwing in the towel on policy makers

Edward Harrison

...Early on in this crisis, I had advocated a number of policy paths which I think would have been infinitely superior to the ones actually chosen by the Bush and Obama Administrations, especially in regards to limiting the socialization of losses. I am talking about massive fiscal stimulus, big bank pre-privatization, a move away from the asset-based economy and the accumulation of debt, and a reallocation of resources. Quite frankly, none of these suggestions have been taken on...

naked capitalism; policy makers; throws; Towel.

zero hedge Wed 2010-04-07 18:26 EDT

The Latest Gold Fraud Bombshell: Canada's Only Bullion Bank Gold Vault Is Practically Empty

Continuing on the trail of exposing what is rapidly becoming one of the largest frauds in commodity markets history is the most recent interview by Eric King with GATA's Adrian Douglas, Harvey Orgen (who recently testified before the CFTC hearing) and his son, Lenny, in which the two discuss their visit to the only bullion bank vault in Canada, that of ScotiaMocatta, located at 40 King Street West in Toronto, and find the vault is practically empty..."The game ends when the people who own all these paper obligations say enough and take physical delivery, and that's when the mess will occur."...It is funny that central bankers thought they could take the ponzi mentality of infinite dilution of all assets coupled with infinite debt issuance, as they have done to fiat money, and apply it to gold, in essence piling leverage upon leverage. They underestimated gold holders' willingness to be diluted into perpetuity - when the realization that gold owned is just 1% of what is physically deliverable, you will see the biggest bank run in history.

Bullion Bank Gold Vault; Canada's; Latest Gold Fraud Bombshell; practically empty; Zero Hedge.

Culture of Life News Tue 2010-04-06 10:23 EDT

Ireland And US Will Be Devoured By Derivatives Beast

Elaine Supkis

The banking mess in the West continues. It has rather deep roots. That is, we decapitalized our own banking system long, long ago. The fix for this was to create a fake banking system with virtually no real capital reserves at all. This was possible thanks to the floating fiat currency created when Nixon suddenly cut the gold standard back in 1971. By 1987, the banking collapse was tremendous during a deflationary time that followed a hyperinflation era. This fix created conditions that caused the near-total collapse in Western banking...So far, governments in the West are being bailed out by Asia. And this is being done so Asia can continue to rapidly expand its own industrial base. This savage business gets worse and worse over time due to the self-feedback system of this debt expansion: you get more credit from export powers via letting them export even more to your own home base. So as capital vanishes, the need for debt shoots upwards and the system continues to get more and more unbalanced...Sure, we have little inflation except in important commodities but this is due to the Goddess of Zero slashing away at the mountain of debt, using the default tool to fix this mess in a very brutal way. Unfortunately, the bankers still control our `democracy' so they are moving all their losses onto our books and far from things going to zero, it is actually heading towards infinity: infinite debts owed by the taxpayers who want to continue stupidly cutting taxes while increasing credit based on virtually no capital at all! Sheesh.

Culture; Derivative Beast; devouring; Ireland; Life News.

Debtor's prison Sun 2010-01-03 10:37 EST

Would a Single World Currency be GOOD for the world?

MAAA

...One Single World Currency (SWC) is a topic that we have discussed many times from the very early days of this blog. For months, our discussions have focused on the causes behind the eventual collapse of the current USD-backed financial system, the apparent INEVITABILITY of this collapse and the very high LIKELIHOOD that the proposed solution to this will be a global monetary system backed by a single currency unit -- perhaps a modified version of an IMF SDR as Jesse suggests, or something new altogether. While most of our energy has been spent demonstrating the high likelihood (in our opinion, inevitability) of a SWC, we have been cowards when it comes to taking a stance on a SWC either way. Our apparent neutrality thus far has been largely motivated by a desire to remain unbiased while we explored some of the Numbers/definitions first. Having set these foundations and thought about the matter for some time, the gloves finally come off and we declare ourselves to be VEHEMENTLY OPPOSED to a SWC, both technically and in principle and spirit...we argue that the significantly increased trade granularity of the past few decades diminishes the need for a SWC, and in fact, creates ideal situations for the establishment of more localized currencies, which would be infinitely more stable than a SWC...increased trade granularity (which is a fact) increases the pheasibility and stability of local, floating currencies, to the point that they might be a preferable alternative to a SWC.

Debtor s Prison; good; Single World Currency; world.