• Thatcher Mulled Northern Ireland Pullout in 1981

Margaret Thatcher considered pulling out of Northern Ireland in 1981 as hunger strikes by republican prisoners brought international condemnation, in contrast to her public position that she would “not flinch” from keeping the province in the U.K., previously secret papers show.

“Many people in Britain now believed that a settlement of the complex problems of the area would be more easily reached by the Irish on their own and that continued British involvement could only mean the futile sacrifice of further British lives.”

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• John Williams: The US Has $100 Trillion in Debts & Obligations

• Citing ‘financial repression,’ FT’s Gillian Tett sounds like Jim Rickards and Rob Kirby

• Princeton Brews Trouble for Us 1 Percenters: Michael Lewis

• Five Charts Useful for Framing the Economic Debate in 2012

• SOPA opponents may go nuclear and other 2012 predictions

When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA, you’ll know they’re finally serious.

I’m been saying for 10 years that copyright/patent rights are the lynchpin issue that binds all the protest movements and activists groups together in a global gambit to overthrow a major stronghold of the kleptocracy: Hollywood and the MPAA.

• Silver Price: Attention All Crybabies, Get the Checkbook Out!

Physical buyers will break the cartel, and not by Max Keiser’s gang of JP Morgan haters getting together to clean out the COMEX, though Keiser’s laudable efforts will aid the cause of protecting investors from the Fed’s insanity.

No sir. It will be China who will drive the silver price higher for all silver bugs. So relax, be patient and enjoy.

• Sopa Would DESTROY Jobs and the Economy … So Why are Unions Supporting It?

• Presidential Candidate Ron Paul Slams SOPA

• Von Greyerz – Gold Will Trade $3,000 – $5,000 in 2012

“But this is all a thin paper market, we have not seen one single physical seller of gold or silver at these prices. So it’s just manipulation and panic in a paper market at the year end. Of course, it’s easy for anyone who wants to intervene to push the price down even further in a thin market. So I think that’s what’s happening and I wouldn’t worry the slightest bit.

When asked about societal breakdown as gold eventually rockets higher, von Greyers remarked, “Well, Eric, that concerns me the most. Let me just take you through a couple of small examples because I’ve just spent Christmas in the UK.

Burglaries in the UK have doubled in 2011, doubled from the previous year. Theft of cattle and sheep has increased 2.7 times between 2010 and 2011. These are just are just small indications before anything has started to happen. People are poor, people are hungry.

This is just an early indication of what will happen in the next few years. People will have no money, people will be hungry, and therefore they will fight to get money, they will fight to get food. Sadly, we will have, in most countries, in European as well as the US, we will have serious social unrest. How far that will go is impossible to tell, but I am concerned.”

• Is Today’s Market Pricing A Forthcoming Reactionary-QE By The Fed?

Is the market starting to comprehend that the non-QE of the ECB’s LTRO and SMP is in fact QE and implies the currency wars just went to 11 – forcing the Fed’s hand?