As historical memory diminishes and the lessons of past centuries are forgotten, the practice of systematically destroying economic independence grows. Forget about real prosperity, the concept of interdependence, coined in popular parlances by the Trilateral Commission, has made the United States economy a post industrial dependency and a bankrupt debtor. The global corporatists despise protective tariffs because these excise taxes must be paid by foreign manufacturing enterprises. Since the rush to escape American shores, the transnational ventures seek not just cheap labor, but scheme to evade any effective regulations for the paradise of third world exploitation.

America’s economy was built under the shield of tariffs. The nation became the greatest industrial engine and traded profitably with the rest of the world, when reasonable excise and duties were charged on products entering this country. Just remember, the budgets of government were paid without an income tax under this system of tariffs. Who can logically argue that the deception of Free Trade benefits our population, when the current record of trade deficits continues unabated?

Tariffs for Survival or Profits for Multinationals provides evidence that tariffs are the best method to combat the deficiencies of the Free Trade ruse.

“There is nothing free about the loss of living wage jobs and the demise of independent production capacities. The notion that America is best served when multinational ‘stateless’ corporations are allowed to leave our shores and dump their foreign built products back upon the society that developed, financed and provided a ready market, is insane.”

The mumbo jumbo of corporate economists, employed by financial institutions is nothing more than jive by paid shills to defend an indefensible system. Use common sense. Any economy that is systemically stuck with mounting trade deficits is going broke. As long as the American marketplace has the desire to buy foreign made products and the money to pay for them, the game will last a little longer.

However, as a nation, the country is broke and the day when the dollar loses its reserve currency status is nearly upon us. Trading countries want to sell their goods to Americans. These countries will continue to do so even after adding a fair excise tax for the privilege of exporting their items to the largest market in the world.

Yes, the cost to consumers may rise, but the balance of deficits will fall dramatically and would push the buying power of the currency higher, which will allow for purchases in more valuable dollars. The other worthwhile consequence is that offshore manufacturers will want to build plants, create products and employ American workers here at home. The invigoration of domestic growth can and would develop when the labor force is able to get back to work.

The chart that shows world GDP when compared to trade under free trade agreements demonstrates that much of the world is not bound to the restrictions that favor globalist enterprises. Then ask why is it so important for the United States to have free trade agreements with other countries, which result in opening up our markets for dumping products that force out our own production and close domestic businesses?

The false argument that free trade and a cheap dollar foster American exports is one of the most destructive myths that the corporatists spin.

Domestic exports are a very low percentage of national output and even if the dollar was to lose, 90% of its international exchange rate value products will not be exported because the country is phasing out most manufactured goods. The notion that exporting our natural gas resources will help is extreme lunacy in an infinite asylum of national denial.

In the Varying Verity series the following, written ten years ago, remains true today.

“The method to adopt for restoring a viable domestic economy would require reforms that drastically lower, if not abolish, personal income taxation – be linked to the passage of Pro-Competitive ad valorem Tariffs in the form of a national import sales tax. We all share in the goal of smaller government, less regulation and free usage of our own money. We have a mutual interest in building a domestic economy that will create higher wage scales and more retained after tax income for the greatest number of our own population. When the best jobs become government work, our society is doomed and reduced to the median worldwide income levels.”

Surely, you must acknowledge that our country is desperately in need of a dramatic job growth strategy. Hopefully you will accept that private employment enterprises are preferable to public section government make work positions. Certainly you must see the sense in lowering the trade deficits that are bankrupting our economy. Need more proof?

Look at the steady rise in the trade deficit for the last two years. With a November 2011 trade deficit of -$47.8 Billion Dollars, just how much of our wealth and resources need to be transferred overseas to narrow this real world wealth destroyer? The answer is that the deficit curve will never turn down until rational protective tariffs are levied on imports.

How can America exist as a viable economy, when our money sinks in purchasing power and the country must import consumable goods, especially when we have no money to pay for the products?

Obviously going into further debt is no alternative if the economy is to survive. This current course guarantees a lower standard of living and a dismal future for your children.

Whenever the topic of establishing reasonable protective tariffs comes up, you hear the claim that the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 deepened the depression. Ian Fletcher in Protectionism Didn’t Cause the Great Depression debunks this misnomer.

“The Smoot-Hawley tariff was simply too small a policy change to have so large an effect as triggering a depression. For a start, it applied to only about one-third of America’s trade: about 1.3 percent of our GDP. One point three percent! America’s average tariff on goods subject to tariff went from 44.6 to 53.2 percent — not a very big jump at all. America’s tariffs were higher in almost every year from 1821 to 1914. Our tariffs went up in 1861, 1864, 1890, and 1922 without producing global depressions, and the great recessions of 1873 and 1893 spread worldwide without needing the help of any tariff increases.

If Smoot-Hawley had caused a global trade disaster, it would necessarily have been by triggering a sharp decline in American imports of goods subject to the increased tariff. Did this happen? The data say no.”

Do not be deceived by the globalists. Sensible tariffs are a solution. Trade deficits are the problem. Liberate yourself from the Free Trade agreements that only produce high unemployment and perpetual poverty.

James Hall – January 25, 2012

http://www.batr.org/negotium/012512.html

The businesses that produce and service the everyday functions of society flounder in a sea of uncertainty and a desert of capital illiquidity. Within this context, the only realistic way to examine the prospects for 2012, must factor in the political component. Yet the promoters of the corporatist system build up false hope, while fudging the numbers.

Analyze the valid question; Can We Trust The Moderate Growth Forecasts?

“Another day, another economic forecast. The 35 economists polled for the latest Livingston Survey via the Philadelphia Fed project that real GDP for the U.S. will grow at an annualized 2.5% rate for the second half of 2011. That’s down from June’s 3.2% second-half 2011 forecast. Down, but still not out.

Looking ahead to 2012, the Livingston survey forecasters “see the growth rate of economic output slowing to 2.1 percent (annual rate) in the first half of 2012, and they predict that it will then increase to 2.5 percent (annual rate) in the second half of the year.” The economists also expect “a slow recovery in the labor market, with the unemployment rate at 9.0 percent in December 2011 and at 8.9 percent in June 2012.”

Lakshman Achuthan, chief operations officer of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, talks with Bloomberg about the next year in the U.S. Economic Outlook, Labor Market video.

Mr. Achuthan continues in a second video interview on the Daily Ticker – Says New Recession Unavoidable.

“It’s too soon to predict just how bad it’s going to get, but he expects another spike in unemployment and further expansion of the federal government’s $1 trillion deficit. This forecast has huge ramifications for the 2012 election and the already struggling U.S. consumer and Achuthan says a “mild” recession is the best-case scenario.”

This type of analysis is typical of traditional media. But, for a more daring and intense approach that factors political pandemonium into the economic projections, Gerald Celente fills the bill. Mac Slavo writes about Celente Warns Of 2012: Economy Will Crash, Banks Will Close, Chaos Will Ensue, Military Will Take Over.

“If you’ve followed trend forecaster Gerald Celente for any period of time you’ve probably realized he knows what he’s talking about. For the better part of two decades Celente and his Trends Journal have been forecasting political, financial, economic and social trends with an uncanny ability for accuracy.”

Celente provides his list of projection. Read them in the Top 12 Trends 2012.

1. Economic Martial Law:
2. Battlefield America:
3. Invasion of the Occtupy:
4. Climax Time:
5. Technocrat Takeover:
6. Repatriate! Repatriate!:
7. Secession Obsession:
8. Safe Havens:
9. Big Brother Internet:
10. Direct vs. Faux Democracy:
11. Alternative Energy 2012:
12. Going Out in Style:

Another perceptive publication projects The Economic Collapse in A Very Scary Christmas And An Incredibly Frightening New Year, sums it up this way.

“The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christian Lagarde, recently stated that we could soon see conditions “reminiscent of the 1930s depression” and that no country on earth “will be immune to the crisis”….

“There is no economy in the world, whether low-income countries, emerging markets, middle-income countries or super-advanced economies that will be immune to the crisis that we see not only unfolding but escalating”

The first six months of 2012 are going to be a very key time. National governments and big European banks are scheduled to roll over huge mountains of debt. But if they can’t find any takers that could bring the global financial system to a moment of great crisis very quickly.”

Reject the Marc Faber Gloom Boom & Doom Report viewpoint of analysis if you wish, but dismiss these forecasts at your peril. However, what you cannot ignore are the disastrous political consequences of failed public inept intrusions into the private sector that never turns the economy around. Even in an election year, the normal pump priming expenditures, just hit a dry hole. The enormous debt build up in the last three years has done nothing to revive Main Street business.

The partisan formula of an incumbent to buy off voters with an easy money injection into the economy, will not work this time. Yes, the dependency voters may cast their ballot for a second Obama term, but the engine of economic growth, namely; small business is slated for a fire sale under the corporatist prototype of the globalist economy.

Implementing constructive government policies that would unleash merchant small business will not happen in 2012 for a very simple reason. The goal of Wall Street and their handpicked political operatives want private independent enterprises to die on the vine. Social discontent grows daily because the public no longer believes that the political class can provide any viable economic future for the average family. Unfortunately, this attitude misses the mark. Government never produces prosperity. Nevertheless, most people who do voter want to trust in their elected officials. Maybe this fact explains why so many Americans refuse to vote anymore.

The break, with the nostalgia, that the next generation will have it better than the previous one is now shared by even the most optimistic romantic. This election cycle forecasts that economic salvation is illusory. Stock markets may rise, but inflation in stable goods is here to stay. Your money buys less so that the banks can speculate. Government policies and fiscal manipulation, by design, results in dire prospects for 2012. Remember this fact when you vote next November.

James Hall – January 4, 2012

——————————————————————————–

Source: http://www.vrijspreker.nl/….gold/

(Het Nederlands artikel volgt snel)

 September 18 we published these questions and here are the first answers.

We repeat the questions of the Dutch Socialistic Party with the answers of the Secretary, and follow up with first comments of the Vrijspreker. We think further questions are justified!
Question —Answer—Comment

1 Did the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) loan part of their gold? If yes, how much and to whom?

No. DNB has informed me that they have stopped loaning out gold as of 2008.

 Comments Vrijspreker: if so, why doesn’t DNB make that clear in the annual report? Why hide such crucial information.

2 Why are gold and gold loans stated as one line item in the annual report 2010 instead of mentioned as 2 separate items?

DNB follows the rules for valuation, determination of result and balance sheet presentation of the European system of Central Banks. The asset ‘Gold and Gold Receivables’ reflects the physical gold inventory.

 Comments Vrijspreker: good international accounting standards oblige companies to separate cash from receivables, as they’re clearly different. Why wouldn’t these standards apply to central banks? In times of increasing civil unrest because of opaque financial schemes being set up by governments, central and commercial banks and the demand for more transparency, how would you justify these special rules for central banks? Are they above the law?

3 Can you give an overview of the yearly yields of the gold loans during the past years?

No gold has been loaned out over the past years.

4 Where IS the physical gold of DNB? At which locations and how much is where? What is the reason that the gold is still at these locations?

DNB has a location policy, which means that the gold has been spread over the following locations: New York, Ottawa, London and Amsterdam.

 Comments Vrijspreker: why doesn’t the Secretary answer all the questions? What is the amount per location? And what exactly is the location policy?  Why New York instead of any random other city? Also it’s important to know how often and by whom the vaults are audited.

5 What was the most important reason for DNB to sell the gold in the past? Are the storage costs a reason? What are the actual costs to store the gold?

By selling gold in the past, DNB has tried to align its gold holdings with other gold holding countries. The storage costs were not a factor in the decision to sell the gold, because they are relatively low. Currently, DNB’s total annual storage costs paid to other central banks amount to a few hundreds of thousands of euros. The costs vary per location.

Comments Vrijspreker: why would DNB want to align its gold holdings with other central banks’ holdings? Is there a coordinated central policy amongst all central banks? Has this been prescribed by the Bank of International Settlements? Are the recent gold purchases by developing countries’ central banks not conflicting with this international policy. Could you outline the details of this policy?

6 Can you confirm that since 1991 of the 1700 tons of gold about 1100 tons have been sold? Is the remark of journalist Peter de Waard correct that because of these historic sales there is a loss of about 30 billion euro? If not correct, what is the right amount?

Since 1991, 1,100 tons of gold have been sold. Back then it was concluded that DNB held relatively much gold compared to other central banks. Decided was to align the amount of gold with other important gold owning countries. Sales proceeds have been added to DNB’s general reserves and have been invested in interest generating investments. Comparing the actual, as a result of the financial crisis, higher gold price with the historical gold price does indeed lead to more or less the amount as mentioned by Mr. De Waard. However, one has to take into account the investment income generated since selling the gold and the fact that the result of said calculations heavily depend of the strongly fluctuating price of gold.

Comments Vrijspreker: again, why align the gold holdings with that of other central banks? What exactly is the purpose of that policy?

7 How much of the National Debt has during the past 20 years been paid off with the proceeds of the gold sales? Are you of opinion that the sustainability of the national debt will be improved by paying off the debt and at the same time selling the gold?

Gold is an asset of DNB. The sales proceeds have been invested in other assets and have hence not been used to reduce the national debt. The return on investments will flow back to the Dutch government as a result of DNB’s dividend payments.

8 What is in your opinion the present function of the gold stock?

DNB’s physical gold holdings function as the ultimate reserve and anchor of trust in times of financial crisis. Further, gold is being held for diversification reasons.

 Comments Vrijspreker: clearly DNB sees value in gold. For that reason, it needs to be more transparent, and so should all central banks.

9 What is the relation between the size of the market of the gold stock and the size of the market of gold derivates? What are the possible consequences of this?

The size of the physical gold market and derivatives market cannot easily be compared because of diverging measures for the size. For the trade in physical gold the turnover is measured: in the most important market (London) this amounted to USD 136 billion in the second half of 2010 according to the London Bullion Market Association. For the derivatives market the underlying value of outstanding derivatives (swaps, future contracts and options) is of importance. For the second half of 2010 these amounted to USD 396 billion according to the Bank of International Settlements. In general one can say that the availability of derivatives markets promote efficient price discovery.

 10 Can you confirm that recently a number of countries have even enlarged their physical gold stock? Do you have an explanation for this development?

Buyers are developing economies that show strongly growing official reserves or where gold traditionally only constituted a small portion of the reserves. There is also a wide group of countries that have sold gold the past decade (including France, Spain, UK and Switzerland)

Source: http://www.goldcore.com/

GATA

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver):

GATA’s Gold Rush 21 conference in Dawson City, Yukon Territory, in August 2005 marked an upward turn in the gold market, showing the world that Western central banks were suppressing the price of the monetary metal through largely surreptitious and even fraudulent means — but also that they would lose.

Now GATA plans to accelerate that realization by reprising Gold Rush 21 with a conference from Thursday-Saturday, August 4-6, in London, home of the London Bullion Market Association and the gold-dumping Bank of England, which now are fairly warned. The conference will review where gold has gone on GATA’s watch and examine where it might go as it returns to its rightful place at the center of the world financial system.

The Gold Rush 2011 conference in London will be held at the famous Savoy Hotel on the Thames River —

http://www.fairmont.com/savoy/

– and will feature many of the speakers from the Gold Rush 21 conference in Dawson City, plus some who have become sensations in the gold and silver world over the last few years:

– James G. Rickards, senior managing director for market 4-8-trans-intelligence at consulting firm Omnis Inc. in McLean, Virginia.

– London silver trader and whistleblower Andrew Maguire, whose complaint about silver market manipulation, presented by GATA to the public hearing of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Washington a year ago March, sent the price of silver soaring.

– Ben Davies, CEO of Hinde Capital, who has been making the case for gold and silver on financial news television programs throughout the world.

– Market Force Analysis editor and GATA Board of Directors member Adrian Douglas, whose research studies have documented gold and silver market manipulation.

– And Cheviot Asset Management Investment Director Ned Naylor-Leyland.

Speakers returning from Gold Rush 21 will include:

– GATA Chairman Bill Murphy.

– South African gold mining industry expert Peter George.

– Sprott Asset Management Chairman Eric Sprott.

– Sprott Asset Management Chief Investment Strategist John Embry.

– GoldMoney founder James Turk.

– Hugo Salinas Price, president of the Mexican Civic Association for Silver.

– Gold price suppression litigator Reginald H. Howe.

– Kirkland Lake Gold CEO Brian A. Hinchcliffe.

– Gold market analyst John Brimelow.

– Samex Mining Corp. President Jeff Dahl.

– And your secretary/treasurer.

Admission to the conference will be $800, which also will cover an opening night reception and some meals and refreshments during the conference. Starting in about a week, the Savoy Hotel will offer conference participants a special discounted daily room rate of £225 ($360 or so at the moment). We hope to offer some family outings in London as well.

Gold Rush 21 conference organizer Janet Lee has returned to organize the London conference.

The invitation to GATA’s London conference has been posted here:

http://www.gata.org/goldrush2011-london

For more information about the conference or to register, please write to:

LondonConference@GATA.org

We’ll let you know next week when room reservations at the conference rate are being offered at the Savoy.

We hope to see many of our old friends and to make many new ones in London.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer

Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

James Turk, Director of the GoldMoney Foundation and founder of GoldMoney, interviews GATA’s Secretary/Treasurer Chris Powell. The 34-minutes interview, recently shot in London, offers deep insights into the workings of the gold market. Chris discloses in detail all of the different actions that GATA is currently taking. The gold price suppression scheme is being explained from A to Z. This video is a must-watch for anyone with a clear interest in gold and free monetary markets.

Digital Currency Systems: Emerging B2B e-Commerce Alternative During Monetary Crisis in the United States C…

By Evan Weinberger
Law360.com, New York
Tuesday, February 8, 2011

http://www.law360.com/securities/articles/224556

According to the order, six of the seven cases pending against JPMorgan and HSBC were filed in the Southern District of New York, while the seventh is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The panel found that consolidating the litigation would “eliminate duplicative discovery; prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings on class certification, discovery, and other pretrial issues; and conserve the resources of the parties, their counsel and the judiciary.”

The suits were spurred in part by a statement in October by Commissioner Bart Chilton of the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission saying there had been “repeated attempts to influence prices in the silver markets.”

The CFTC has been investigating the silver market for two years, and Chilton said the “fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control” silver prices should be prosecuted.

The suits, which specifically allege violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and the Sherman Act, claim that the banks collaborated to suppress the price of silver futures and options contracts by amassing “enormous” short positions in Commodity Exchange Inc., or Comex, beginning June 1, 2008.

Many of the allegations in the suits come from information provided by a whistleblower who used to work in the London office of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the suits say.

The whistleblower is not named in the complaints, but in testimony before the CFTC in March, Bill Murphy, chairman of the advocacy group the Gold Anti-trust Action Committee, said it was a metals trader in London named Andrew Maguire.

After Maguire went public in March, the defendants began to unwind their positions in Comex, the suits claim.

Since then, the net short position of silver futures that are held by commercial banks — the vast majority of which are made up of JPMorgan and HSBC — has dwindled by more than 30 percent, the suits say.

As that happened, the price of silver skyrocketed, reaching $24.95 an ounce in October, its highest level in 30 years, the suits contend.

JPMorgan and HSBC declined to comment on the suits.

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP is representing HSBC.

Counsel for JPMorgan was not immediately available.

The MDL is In re: Commodity Exchange Inc., Silver Futures and Options Trading Litigation, MDL number 2213, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.