Stacy Summary: A Saudi Prince losing control of his Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, meanwhile, a nation where a man’s home is his casino castle, mortgage chip holders are now underwater and sinking fast.
Updates:
Tags: china · citi · imf gold · india · jpmorgan · KHC · moody's · prince alwaleed · state sales taxes · tarp · uk government deficit · uk houseprices · unemployment rate21 Comments
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Stacy,
When you say ‘You’ve been warned’, are you implying that guns/ammo are the next real estate bubble and should be avoided or do you feel there is legitimate concern for Americans to be stocking up on a means to defends themselves?
Thanks!
Stacy has been making stock recommendations for chocolate and whisky, but I think Max suggested taking a punt on some ammo.
Stimulus 2.0–when it comes; if it comes–should set aside money to buy up and destroy all of the AKs and automatic weapons. When the 2nd amendment was written, all we had were single-shot muskets. There is absolutely NO reason for Americans or any other civilian to have military-grade weaponry. If they can’t “protect themselves” with a baseball bat, a shotgun or a pistol, there’s something wrong with them. I’m so sick of Democrats bowing down to largely republican stupidity for fear of looking weak.
People in this country care more about their ability/”right” to kill a slew of people in as short of a time as possible than they care about anything else.
BTW, Obama was right about the uneducated “clinging to their guns and religion.”
Wow. Lookie here, the winner of the biggest real estate bankruptcy in US history has been named:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=apSnp51kWD4E&refer=home
Max and Stacy,
Can you talk about the ECB and the IMF selling their gold reserves on the next truth about markets? What implications does this have for joe bag of donuts?
Thanks, have a good one
Dr. Copper strikes again! copper the new gold? i’m a day behind on this story.
MEP-
I think I’d like to propose an alternate idea, that ONLY civilians should be able to buy military grade hardware, as most civilians would have a very limited need for military hardware and an even greater incapacity to purchase said military hardware.
I really can’t tell you the last time I “needed” to fly around in a F18 all day dropping 2 or 3 million dollars of ordinance on some random stranger I don’t know on the other side of the planet, so I don’t think the civilian market would call for any F18s. The most I could ever see needing personally is a baseball bat, but I’m trained in Kung Fu AND I believe literally everyone should be trained in the martial arts.
The biggest argument for this concept is the fact that history shows that when civilians misuse military grade hardware the consequences are much less dire than when an actual military force misuses military hardware.
In one case, some crazy loon kills a bunch of people in a public area (hence the reason I think literally everyone should know martial arts, you won’t always have a gun with you even if you own one and there are a lot of lunatics in the world) then the crazy lunatic gunman kills himself (usually, assuming the citizens or the police don’t kill him first). It’s critical to note that this happens even if they don’t have access to military grade hardware, people go on killing sprees even with knives and baseball bats. It’s also critical to note that these sorts of incidents are relatively rare, even in these hard times (I’m not afraid to go out to the mall).
In the other case killer recon drones can blow up dozens of people for no reason, AND continue to do so for years at a time! When a military soldier misuses a tank, a machine gun, or an airplane, one soldier can kill 10 to 15 times what his civilian counterpart could possibly achieve, and the soldier will frequently avoid any sort of punishment for the crime to boot. They’re far more likely to repeat their crimes, where as the civilians kill themselves specifically because of the certainty and severity of their punishment as criminals. What’s worse, often times military personnel are deceived or ordered into committing these crimes, so many people who would never in their life massacre innocent people end up doing so through ignorance (i.e. carpet bombing).
I’m not ever going to cling to a gun because I don’t need to… most of the time when you need to defend yourself you will not have the benefit of a weapon, and I’ve trained myself to deal with that situation (even though I may never need it). Never the less, I believe the concept I just outlined was the basis for the second amendment… if anyone is going to have military hardware, it should be civilians because they have far less capacity (or desire, for that matter) to misuse them. In fact, history shows society is much safer when civilians are well armed (which is really just a way of saying they can defend themselves effortlessly, literally anyone can defend themselves with a gun).
Shouldn’t the real target of the anti-gun movement be taking away assault rifles from military units (or for that matter, Police SWAT teams, FBI agents, CIA, etc)? How about F18s, and aircraft carriers? How about nuclear bombs, do you think many civilians could cough up the cash to develop one of those? Do you think that Bill Gates would buy one? What would be the point? People like him are probably the only individuals that could possibly afford one, and they already have everything they could every desire!
I think it’s pretty undeniable that the authorities kill MANY more innocents than civilians do, by factors that boggle the mind. Ever see the movie Platoon? Or Full Metal Jacket?
Why not spend your time ridiculing the military?
Adam,
Ridiculing the military, FBI, and CIA would mean spinning the context of the posted article. I spend enough time being critical of those institutions . . . just didn’t think it was relevant re: the topic of the hoarding of guns and ammo.
Forgive me for being concerned that people are stockpiling automatic weapons while violent crimes are on the rise and the right-wing is busy whipping up hate and paranoia to exploit an economic crisis for political reasons. We have politicians who are pissed about the recent homeland security memo about rising right-wing extremism, yet there they are talking about revolutions, succession, and imploring their constituents to get “armed and dangerous.”
Just some observation from here in Los Angeles.
I was at LA Gun Club this past weekend, and I could not believe how many people are into shooting now. We had to wait for 1.5 hours for a lane.
I have been shooting all my life, and I have never seen anything like this.
While the Democratic platform calls for the elimination of the 2nd amendment through legislation, it is quite clear to me their stance has failed, and people (particularly more women, and people who voted for Obama!) are doing the exact opposite of what they want, that is, they are going out and buying more guns, training, and becoming more interested in the purpose of the 2nd amendment.
Good luck people…
I contacted the IMF a couple of days after the possible gold sales were announced at the G20. I asked about the gold sales and where do I send my money because I’d like to buy… perhaps all of it or at least around 3,000t. I think they think I was joking. I wasn’t. But anyway, the response I got was that they ‘DO NOT PLAN TO SELL ANY GOLD’ and that they do not deal with individuals etc. What a bunch of nice people. So, it seems it was just a stunt that will piss of the Chinese. The Chinese will only be happy once they have >their< 3,000t of gold.
As far as US gun sales are concerned, it seems to only point to one possible outcome:
A collapsed US economy and social structure where cannibalism is necessary to survive.
The US can’t sustain 300 m people, at best — going by Canadian metrics: 150m is its maximum capacity.
Canada = 30m
US (warmer gradient differential) = 2.25 … 3.25
US supportable population = 67.5m to 97.5m
Optimistically the US can support 100 m people.
The rest are luch, so to speak (there will not be enough grain to make toast)…
Bill Stewart:
Guns, Food and population.
Its Soylent Green time!
Re: China buying copper and other things (Bancor).
This should make Jim Rogers proud; perhaps he is advising the Chinese?
Unfortunately copper isn’t GOLD damn it. Maybe they have taken a chapter from that nice Adolf guy:
“Gold is not necessary. I have no interest in gold. We will build a solid state, without an ounce of gold behind it.”, then he muttered something about gas chambers.
Funny that China doesn’t want gold, just copper.
In ancient times they had all of Rome’s gold because of the Silk Romans cherished. Tiberius went as far as banning silk, except maybe for himself.
China is way ahead of the US, they are thinking strategically.
About three years ago I was out eating, Chinese food, and ran into a Chinese Scientist I knew.
What sup, say I.
Well I’m looking into sources of Indium, says he.
Hum, says I.
Know what this is, says he.
Sure do, says I.
It’s the rare base metal which is key to making electronics lead free, among other uses. It is also only produced in a few spots around the world.
- I might add it goes well with Copper.
The Chinese, when they can, take the long view…
…woe be those who focus on quarterly results
… the end game is for the whole world.
Max, all,
Think about this one:
Remember that video on the mayan calendar?
(http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8689261981090121097&ei=f3PGSfDcIcTC-AbXoZnCAQ&q=ervaar+ziel&hl=en)
I’m not into arguing on believing it or not, but it got me thinking.
Remember that the guy said money will disappear, that there would only be respect (or something like that)?
There is a possibility for that. Internet allows us to use all sorts of digital meeting places (like social network sites) and from all those places we might be able to discover fairly easily whether someone is respectable or not.
If it is about respect everything done in that “system” could be monitored, and everyone can control each other. We hence all print our own, digital credits limitlessly, and others will either respect or not respect us for doing so. We are hence able to inflate or disinflate our trustwurthyness.
Ebay and others have already shown us the light in the product side, we have come to trust total strangers. All we need to do is to invent the other side, the “monetary” one that distributes our efforts.
Anyone can start a site offering this, the only difficulty would off course be obtaining the required critical mass for it to work.
However, the pressure for that mass to join seems to be rising…
@Max and Stacy
I was talking about open source money. And by calling is something like “friendship expressions” people using it would not have to pay tax, since taxes only hold for official currency spendings.
This idea, although having to exceed a critical mass, might be as powerful as pirate my movie.
Befare!
Mep,
Just a response to your ‘no one needs military grade weapons to defend themselves’ comment.
It is my understanding of the 2nd amendment that citizens are afforded the ability to own weapons in the event they should need to defend themselves against a tyrannous govt, of which they would be fighting against military grade weaponry, of which we should be able to keep on par with our “enemies”.
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Your links to Bloomberg in this days’ post have died — Bloomberg is unreachable as of 0933h FRI Adelaide time. As webmasters you have to distribute your links globally for related news stories to keep links from going South. The global finance crisis has put a strain on any and all finance related content on the web — so websites going walkabout for important stories will be commonplace for the next 2 years.
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Financial optimism ‘delusional’, analyst says
By Stephen Long for PM and staff
Updated Thu Apr 16, 2009 6:04am AEST
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/15/2543916.htm
Wall Street shed 1.7 per cent overnight after an unexpected drop in retail sales. (REUTERS: Brendan McDermid)
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Audio: ‘Glimmers of hope’ fade, ‘green shoots’ shrivel (PM)
Related Story: Obama sees ‘glimmers’ of economic hope
Related Story: Retail slump drags Wall St down
A prominent risk analyst says optimism about economic recovery is delusional because the economic growth in America and much of the world was a mirage built on debt.
The warning comes as Americans turn to their leaders for reassurance that the chill of recession is giving way to the green shoots of recovery.
US President Barack Obama says he can see “glimmers of hope” on the horizon, despite the country battling its deepest depression in decades.
New figures released today showed US retail sales in March went backwards by more than 1 per cent, after two months of recovery.
In January and February, real dollar sales were still tens of billions of dollars below the levels of late 2007 – to mid 2008.
Risk analyst and author Satyajit Das says despite the rate of change, the aggregate total dollar amounts are still 10 to 15 per cent lower.
“That’s 10 to 15 per cent of demand that doesn’t exist in the consumer sector which translates into lower investments and therefore lower growth,” he said.
Mr Das says one of the main reasons optimism about recovery is delusional is because banks have no capacity to lend on the same scale they did before.
“One way to look at it is banks need to have about $1 of money in terms of capital to create $10 of credit,” he said.
“The banking system is now running, after all the losses and even after the recapitalisation, with a shortfall of between $1 and $2.5 trillion of capital.
“That translates into a reduction in the amount of credit available to the global system of somewhere between 20 to 30 per cent.”
‘Double subsidy’
In turn, this translates into a massive hit to demand, consumption and economic growth.
Markets rallied this week on news that some of the biggest names in American banking were once again making profits, most notably Goldman Sachs.
But for those looking for signs of sustainable economic recovery, the accounts did not bear close scrutiny.
“The first thing, the profits are still down 20 to 30 per cent on last year and if you look at their traditional core businesses, they’re all down 20 or 30,” Mr Das said.
All the profit growth for Goldman’s came from its fixed income, currency and commodities business.
Part of that came from clever but risky trades; and part, it seems, from underwriting bonds issued by other banks, that were already guaranteed by the US Government.
Mr Das says the first factor was all the government-guaranteed banks around the world issued a lot of debt to actually raise money and the second was that corporate could not raise money from bank-issued bonds.
“Traditionally government debt isn’t underwritten and the interesting thing here is … it is being underwritten,” he said.
“It’s almost a double subsidy. One from the guarantee, then a transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to the underwriters, like Goldman Sachs, and the major investment banks were underwriting the bonds.”
“So it’s a double subsidy in effect.”
Anybody know why gold is falling? It’s at 876 $/oz.
From the new LEAP/2020:
“This last aspect is indeed the ultimate requirement of the Chinese government: to avoid by any means a
collapse in the value of US Treasuries and the Dollar before it has escaped the « Dollar trap ». LEAP/E2020 believes that, in the coming months, China will reveal the exact meaning of this requirement.
Is it a goal or a necessity? If it is a goal, then Washington, London and the international financial media
are right: Beijing will follow in Washington’s footsteps, merely trying to enhance its influence on US
decisions. On the contrary, if it is a necessity, then our team is right and Chinese leaders will strive to sell
off their US-Treasuries and Dollars at the best « possible » price, choosing the best « possible » moment,
avoiding creating turmoil likely to lower the value of these assets for as long as « possible » (of course,
China has been thinking about all the « possibilities » before launching its « escape » plan). But, in
contrast to the first option, once all “possibilities” have expired, Chinese leaders will all of a sudden
contribute to accelerate the end of the Dollar-era; or, more likely, they will calmly announce that for a
number of reasons beyond their control, they can no longer continue to play the role of US imbalances’
stabilizers. “
Do you realize that there is a North American ammo shortage?
CBC News (Canada) has had several video as well as text news stories on how ammo has to be rationed with its Federal, Provincial and Municipal police forces.
The North American ammo shortage is not new, and dates to 2002-2004 depending on the ammo type.
Canada is not as gun crazy as the US, so if Canada is having problems getting ammo this means something…
A lot of small arms ammo comes from — of all places — China. I don’t know why this is so, but has to do with the supply chains. Even “US origin” ammo has parts dependencies that outside NATO (China, Russia, …).
In ths US, unless one is using ammo dating from 1940 – 1990 … said ammo will probably not be of domestic origin.
In the 1st Gulf War, battleship shells were used to shell the Iraq coast that were commissioned 1943-1946.
Some 1940s battlehsip shells are still in service, as recent US conflicts have not used them all up.
Max Power: par for the course, isn’t it? If the US ever goes to war with China, it had better not need to service any of its helicopters, as some parts in their assault chopper supply chain are manufactured only in China at this point.
All the same, I don’t think we Canadians are in danger of being overrun by Caribou for lack of ammo… yet anyway