Meltdown: Book by Thomas Woods

Why the heck is this happening to us? What happened to mortgages, to banks, to large retailers, to retirement savings, to stock prices, to the availability of credit? How could so many errors have coincided?

To the media pundits and government officials, this is a market failing that requires the government to take trillions of dollars from you and run the money presses fulltime. Otherwise we are doomed.

But there another way to look at the collapse of 2008: the whole thing, including the bubble that preceeded it, is the fault of the government and the Fed. All attempts to "fix" the problem are like forcing the patient to swallow more of the poison from which he suffers.

Mises.org has been making this argument, and warn of the coming crash years ago. But where can you find the argument explained for the average person in a convenient package, without technical jargon and with logic and facts?

Enter Tom Woods with his blockbuster book Meltdown. It's all here, all the information you need to understand what is happening and what to do about it. It is billed as a free-market response to the crisis but it is more precisely an Austrian School response.

He covers the problem of housing subsidies, of low interest rate loans, of the absurdities of the boom times, and how it was inevitable that they would come to an end. He puts the fault right where it belongs: with the government and the Central Bank.

He further blasts the political establishment for taking exactly the wrong path in response. Interest rates should be raised, not lowered. Government spending should be raised, not lowered. Government spending should be cut, not increased. On the current path, the bozoz in Washington are going to wreck whatever hope for recovery there is.

Here is the video link re Meltdwn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=541bajR4k8g&feature=plcp&context=C3bfaee7UDOEgsToPDskJvfAVkjQTUvIUY5-h77deV

Real Estate Business Cycle

Link: http://www.martinarmstrong.org/files/Real%20Estate%20Global%20View%2001-23-2012.pdf

Silver Short-Squeeze Intensifies

We saw another over a dollar rally in Silver on Monday even though the US market was closed for the President's Day holiday.

At the current pace, Silver's $50 per ounce price is not far around the corner. As the short-squeeze intensifies, and the short-sellers panic or get liquidated, we may see a $3 to $5 daily price rise very soon, as long as key support of $29 - $30 per ounce is not violated on any pullback.

Looks like the bull is winning this one..

Crude Oil Market

To fully understand the intricacies of global crude oil market and prices, this PBS documentary about the House of Saud is a great one to watch.

Here is the link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4383835181717429209#

World Oil Reserve Ranking

Link here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves

1. Saudi Arabia
2. Canada
3. Iran
4. Irag
5. Kuwait

Money and Banking Documentary

Zeitgeist II - Addendum (a documentary about how the current fractional reserve banking monetary system works) is divided into four parts.

Video Link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gKX9TWRyfs

Part I

Part I follows on from Part III from the original film, citing the specific process of fractional-reserve banking as detailed in Modern Money Mechanics, released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. 

• In detailing the process of money creation, the film suggests society is manipulated into economic slavery through debt-based monetary policies by requiring individuals to submit for employment in order to pay off their debt, supported by the statement "In the United States neither paper currency nor deposits have value as commodities. 
• Intrinsically, a dollar bill is just a piece of paper, deposits merely book entries. Coins do have some intrinsic value as metal, but generally far less than their face value. What, then, makes these instruments - checks, paper money, and coins - acceptable at face value in payment of all debts and for other monetary uses is that money itself is debt", followed by "Money, like anything else, derives its value from its scarcity in relation to its usefulness.".

Part II

Part II is a documentary-style interview with The New York Times best-selling author and activist John Perkins based on his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, in which he describes his role as a self-described economic hit man. 

• In that capacity, he claims to have helped the CIA, as well as various corporate and political entities, to undermine or corrupt foreign regimes that put the interests of their populations before those of the transnational corporations. 
• In the film, Perkins denies the existence of a "conspiracy" because in what he carefully discusses as the corporatocracy there is no need for a "plot" when those in charge such as Cheney shared dual roles as the head of Halliburton and the Vice Presidency.

Part III

Part III is a documentary-style interview with futurist Jacque Fresco of The Venus Project. 

• The film suggests Jacque Fresco's proposal of a "resource-based economy" through intelligent management of resources is a sustainable way for humanity to progress, and it would eliminate the scarcity of resources. 
• He goes on to discuss technology as the primary driver of human advancement while politics as clearly being a flawed solution to our problem due to many factors including politicians lack of formal training in the fields in the problems they attempt to solve. 
• Jacque Fresco, in humility, claims that his approach is not the ultimate solution, but that "it's just much better than what we have. We can never achieve perfection.

Part IV

Part IV suggests the primary reason for the "irrational" behavior humans use is linked to a collective ignorance of "the symbiotic and emergent aspects of natural law." 

• The film suggests actions for "social transformation", some of which include boycotts of the large banks that make up the Federal Reserve System such as JP Morgan Chase and Citibank, the mainstream media by simply turning off the TV, the military, and energy companies in favor or renewable, clean, affordable energy resources. 
• It is further noted that boyoctting the military is due to ironies such as 1/4 of the homeless population being out so called honored veterans, not to disrespect the troops. It is also suggested that people reject the political structure in a peaceful manner so as to force the structures in control to conform to the will of the people. 
• It closes by asking everyone to question, to tear down those differences which strongly separate the human race, and if they feel it is right, to help in the Zeitgeist movement.

Empires On The Edge Of Chaos

Anther excellent presentation by Professor Niall Ferguson, "Empires on the Edge of Chaos". A timely release and very fitting as the American Empire is currently on the edge of chaos, just as Britain was in the early 20th century.

Here is the video link:
http://fora.tv/2010/07/28/Niall_Ferguson_Empires_on_the_Edge_of_Chaos#fullprogram