All the same, I don’t think we Canadians are in danger of being overrun by Caribou for lack of ammo… yet anyway

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.

“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. “

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.”
 

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”.

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!

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…

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.

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)…

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…

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.”