Thursday, October 20, 2011

Occupy Wall Street Update 10/20/11


Submitted by: Francis Soyer

Dillon Ratigan... I remember watching him on Bloomberg TV back in 2000 when he would shout and yell about how rediculous this internet bubble was and how it would blow us all up. Hats off to Dillon Ratigan for having some guts and also for this video below. This video explains in a language that all can easily understand where we are and how we got here.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/44935992#44935992








Gold and Silver update 10/20/11


Submitted by: Francis Soyer

So we are almost done with Options Expiration. Tomorrow most call options on stocks and commodities will expire worthless as usual as the super sized players whip things around as best as possible in the quest to take as much money, from as many people as possible in the shortest period of time.

Gold and Silver of course are no exception except in that with Europe, the European Union and the Euro currency running out of time in spite of rumor after rumor of a proposed solution that will never happen. It will not happen because there is NO SOLUTION. They know it and are dragging this out as long as possible before the cat gets out of the bag so to speak...

So why are ESF funds (Exchange Stabilization Funds) hammering silver and gold? To send the signal to the markets that "all is well!, nothing to see here! please move along..." They know dam well that a shit storm is probably only a few weeks away.

That said take a look at the YTD VWAP (volume weighted average price) charts for PHYS and PSLV. Notice that in PSLV and PHYS we have basically had only 3 opportunities! to engage on the long side for both! Every time we dip at or below its just a matter of minimal time before we blast off it. Why? because it is during those times the Fed banks and their cronies cover shorts from their "all is well" programs and bag as much on the long side as possible. Think about it.




Market Update as of close 10/20/11

Rogue Government Traders


Submitted by Mike Krieger


Federal employees whose compensation averages more than $126,000 and the nation’s greatest concentration of lawyers helped Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area, government data show.  The U.S. capital has swapped top spots with Silicon Valley, according to recent Census Bureau figures, with the typical household in the Washington metro area earning $84,523 last year. The national median income for 2010 was $50,046...The flow of federal dollars in and around the nation’s capital helped the region weather the economic slump better than most areas and is contributing to its recovery. The unemployment rate in the Washington metro area in August was 6.1 percent, compared with 10 percent in San Jose, according to Labor Department figures. Nationally, joblessness was 9.1 percent in September for a third straight month.  “The region did experience a shorter, shallower recession than San Jose,” said Sara Kline, a Washington analyst at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “The federal government stepped in to take efforts to dampen the recession. It was focused to some extent in the D.C. area as well, given the presence of federal workers there and contractors. That insulated it from more of a downturn.”
- Bloomberg article from yesterday http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-19/beltway-earnings-make-u-s-capit...
As a result of an amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Government Accountability Office completed its second audit of the Federal Reserve. This report focuses on the enormous conflicts of interest that existed at the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis. 
Here is what the GAO found:
-    The affiliations of the Federal Reserve's board of directors with financial firms continue to pose "reputational risks" to the Federal Reserve System.
-    The policy of the Federal Reserve to give members of the banking industry the power to both elect and serve on the Federal Reserve's board of directors creates "an appearance of a conflict of interest."
-    The GAO identified 18 former and current members of the Federal Reserve's board affiliated with banks and companies that received emergency loans from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis including General Electric, JP Morgan Chase, and Lehman Brothers.
-    There are no restrictions on directors of the Federal Reserve Board from communicating concerns about their respective banks to the staff of the Federal Reserve.
-    Many of the Federal Reserve's board of directors own stock or work directly for banks that are supervised and regulated by the Federal Reserve. These board members oversee the Federal Reserve's operations including salary and personnel decisions.
-    Under current regulations, Fed directors who are employed by the banking industry or own stock in financial institutions can participate in decisions involving how much interest to charge to financial institutions receiving Fed loans; and the approval or disapproval of Federal Reserve credit to healthy banks and banks in "hazardous" condition.
-    The Federal Reserve does not publicly disclose its conflict of interest regulations or when it grants waivers to its conflict of interest regulations.
-    21 members of the Federal Reserve's board of directors were involved in making personnel decisions in the division of supervision and regulation at the Fed.
-  The Sanders Report on the GAO Audit on Major Conflicts of Interest at the Federal Reserve. 
You MUST READ THIS
Rogue Government Traders
Everything that is happening around the world right now reminds me of the  movie “Rogue Trader.”  In case you haven’t seen it, it is the 1999 film where Ewan McGregor plays the role of Nick Leeson, the Barings Bank trader whose trades gone bad brought down Barings Bank, the oldest merchant bank in London at the time.  The reason why this story is so compelling and why I recommend everyone go watch it is because it demonstrates what can happen when a small loss or mistake is ignored and then covered up in a futile attempt to get back to where you were.  In this case, Nick Leeson started losing money trading futures in Singapore and rather than cutting his losses he kept trading more and bigger.  Pretty quickly, the losses became so enormous he knew he would be forced to close them out if someone noticed and he might even be fired.  So what did he do?  He decided to transfer the losses to a hidden account.  The 88888 account.  He figured he would hide the losses there and then close the hidden account when he got back to even.  He never got back to even and Barings went bankrupt. 
Any of this sound familiar?  Yes of course it does.  Unfortunately for all of us, the story of Barings bank and Nick Leeson is merely happening on a global scale.  However, rather than one trader making bad bets what we are dealing with is a gigantic credit bubble ponzi scheme created by TBTF banks, or as Bill Black more appropriately refers to them, Systemically Dangerous Institutions (SDIs) that now needs to be covered up.  This ponzi first started unraveling back in 2008 and rather than deal with it the best we could, global “leaders” decided to bail them out with taxpayer money and guarantees.  What did we get for this act of kindness?  A dead economy, monstrous unemployment, 15% of Americans on food stamps and a frightening reality that shows Americans are having a much harder time than the Chinese putting food on the table.  See this article http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/startling-survey-americans-are-str... Meanwhile, what did the banksters get?  They consolidated even more power over their Washington D.C. puppets because now establishment politicians are “in” the doubled down Nick Leeson bet with Wall Street and of course they got record bonuses and no one was prosecuted.  
So here is the world as I see it at the moment.  You have a gigantic credit/derivatives ponzi scheme created by SDIs that cannot be settled or unwound without a lot of pain.  The banks know this but of course they don’t tell the serfs.  They did tell the governments this back in 2008, but with the caveat that if the politicians saved them they would save the economy and be considered heroes.  Given the financial ignorance, stupidity and massive egos floating around that cesspool called Washington D.C. they fell for it line hook line and sinker.  Well, nothing improved except for bank bonuses and now people are unsurprisingly out in the streets all over America.  Now what?
Well since the politicians are now “in the bet” with the banksters they are just doubling down and doubling down on past mistakes and making things worse and worse.  Except this time they won’t just blow up an old bank.  They will blow up the entire planet.  I mean did you see what Bank of America just did?  They purposely moved their derivatives in with the FDIC insured deposits subsidiary and away from the Merrill unit.  The FDIC is apparently not into this but the FED thinks it is a good idea.  They are purposely putting a nuclear bomb in bed with customer deposits so they have a gun to the head of everyone again.  Aren’t you glad we bailed them out?  Read this http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-18/bofa-said-to-split-regulators-o... and this http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/bank-of-america-deathwatch-moves-....
No Solution Announced in Europe.  Why?
One of the most hilarious and disturbing things that has dominated market related news lately is the lack of any “solution” in Europe but rather commentary/rumors every other day about some master plan that is to be unveiled any moment.  Of course nothing is ever unveiled and then they say oh it will be “next week.”  It’s always next week.  Just like every bankrupt country on the planet is supposedly going to have miraculous budget surpluses in 2020.  They are lying folks.  No solution has been announced in Europe because there is no solution.  I think it is actually pretty simple.  The extent of the debt problem is so enormous when you include Italy (which you need to do as yields reach back up to 6% on the 10 year bond and people are getting violent in the streets) that any “solution” would have to be so huge and involve a lot of new money/credit creation in the Eurozone that it would pass the buck entirely to Germany and lead to extremely high inflation in the Eurozone.  This is why Germany rightly has not agreed to the bazooka approach that France and Tiny Timmy Geithner is trying to shove down their throats.  While things may not be great in Germany, I don’t think they want a situation where their people have a harder time eating than the Chinese.  That is what Americans have gotten as a reward for pulling out the bazooka in 2008 and bailing out the criminals at the government-ward banks. 
Here is the other problem with the whole thing.  Germany seems to be pushing for greater private sector write downs on Greek debt.  The number floating around is 50%.  While this is the responsible thing to do it isn’t really workable as a “solution.”  Why?  Because why would ANY other nation ever perform austerity and agree to pay their debt burden after that?  They just saw that all you have to do is cheat and riot and the EU will give in because they will to do anything to save their precious little Euro project.  So if Greece gets away with not honoring its debts no nation will ever honor them and then you will either see the biggest chain reaction of debt default in human history or the biggest money printing episode since Zimbabwe.  This is completely binary and there are no good outcomes.  That is why nothing has been announced.  I still think the chance of Germany pulling itself out has a much higher probability than people realize.  To see some of the friction between Germany and France read this quick piece from yesterday http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/18/business/france-euro-summit/.
Life in a Looted United States of America
Let this message serve as a warning to Germany.  If you follow the path to mutually assured destruction with the rest of Europe you will end up with what we have here in America.  In a post looted America, the landscape is dominated by criminal oligarchs running around spouting lies via the media to the ignorant sheep.  You see states like Louisiana apparently banning cash for certain transactions.  You see Washington D.C., home of nothing productive or creative but rather a nest of immoral parasites take over as the highest household income from San Jose, home of companies like Apple and Cisco.  You have the only good news from our Nobel Peace Prize winner President this year being the murder of two people.  Osama Bin Laden (which I believe was a totally fake story) and now today Gadhafi.  Wow, America really is number 1.
This is how a nation descends from one of productivity and innovation to ruthless, corrupt feudalism in a very short period of time.  My message for Americans follows up from my email of two weeks ago.  The reason the liberal mainstream corporate media demonized the Tea Party is because it threatens the status quo.  The reason the conservative corporate mainstream media demonizes Occupy Wall Street is because it threatens the status quo.  These are textbook divide and conquer strategies being used on the American people.  Do not fall for it.  Yesterday I read a really interesting gallup poll that stated: “Not surprisingly, Americans who consider themselves supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement (26% of all Americans) are more likely to blame Wall Street than the federal government for the nation's economic problems. Supporters of the Tea Party movement (22% of Americans) are overwhelmingly likely to blame the government.”  What is most compelling to me is that 26%+22% = 48% so basically almost a majority.  All we need to do is teach people that Washington D.C. and Wall Street are now the same corrupt entity.  They are one gigantic rogue trader sucking the lifeblood out of America.  If we can unite these forces, which I can say with certainty agree on the important issues, we can put an end to the status quo and free ourselves of this bondage. 
Peace and wisdom,
Mike

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Update on BAC 10/19/11



Submitted by: Francis Soyer

http://afoolandhismoney.blogspot.com/2011/01/surprise-surprise-bac-posts-abysmal_3013.html

It has been a while since I wrote about BAC. To be exact the last time I wrote about this POS of a stock was on Jan 21, 2011. Everything you need to know about BAC is in the original article at the link posted above. In short BAC is going to zero. Or if it does not achieve a $0.00 price target it will be nationalized at something far below it's current price of 6.40. When I wrote the article BAC was $14.25 a share. Now it is a single digit midget.

The question I had asked was, if the senior management who earned millions on an annual basis was not buying why should we? The answer is $14.25 in Jan 2011 to the current price of $6.40 and going lower.

Bank Of America's $8.5 Billion Settlement Deal Falls Apart

Tyler Durden's picture


While Morgan Stanley only recently became a second derivative for everything European-related (thank you financial short selling ban in Europe, and also thank you Mr. Gorman for updating investors on your firm's $39 billion gross derivative exposure to French banks (not France the country). What's that? You didn't provide one? Oh, our bad, just as it is "anonymous bloggers" bad that your CDS blew out this quarter and generated over $3 billion in "income" for your firm - you are truly welcome), Bank of America has, for quite a while, been a proxy for all that is wrong with America's mortgage industry, courtesy of that most value-destroying purchase of the insolvent criminal entity that was Countrywide Financials. For a while the market was content that the proxy would not be in need of a shallow grave, unlike the US housing market (go ahead, ask where PrimeX closed today), after the bank managed to bribe enough "plaintiffs" and proceed with a quick and painless $8.5 billion settlement on all of its mortgage putback claims. A settlement that, however, had a very weak link: "Article 77", a critical provision enabling the deal in its current form. And as we first reported and explained back on August 26, said weakest link was attacked by David Grais of Walnut Place, who "filed a request to transfer the lawsuit from State Court to Federal Court where everything basically begins a new." Well, today Grais won, and Bank of America lost after US District Judge William Pauley ruled that "Bank of America Corp.’s proposed $8.5 billion settlement with Countrywide Financial Corp. mortgage-bond investors must be considered in federal court instead of the New York state court where it was first filed." Not content with making a factual statement, the Judge proceeded to skewer the bank which, on top of evertyhing, recently decided to stuff its depositors with a bill as large as $53 trillion should things turn sour, added "The settlement agreement at issue here implicates core federal interests in the integrity of nationally chartered banks and the vitality of the national securities markets."  Integrity? From a bank which secretly, though with the Fed's blessing, has tried to put its client interests over those of depositors of over $1 trillion, and over the objections of the FDIC? Don't make us laugh.
The good news is that yet another rating downgrade is imminent once the rating agencies realize that as a result of the Article 77 clause elimination, BofA is now on the hook for tens, if not hundreds of billions in putback liabilities and civil liability exposure, and potentially the forced bankruptcy of its Countrywide unit. In other words: the financial meltup over the past 2 weeks was fun while it lasted.
While it is of secondary relevance, and interested readers can read more in the attached ruling, the specific reason for why Pauley demonstrated balls of brass is explained by Alison Frankel:
The settlement agreement at issue here implicates core federal interests in the integrity of nationally chartered banks and the vitality of the national securities markets," Pauley wrote. "A controversy touching on these paramount federal interests should proceed in federal court."…That sentiment infuses the judge's analysis of where BofA's proposed deal should be evaluated…before Pauley in federal court, where there's no analogous procedure for binding thousands of investors in 530 trustees to a settlement only 22 of them had a hand in negotiating. Pauley's decision to keep the case in federal court throws the settlement off the carefully-designed track the bank, the trustee, and the investor group that supports the deal hoped to keep it on.

Pauley seemed to find the settlement supporters' Article 77 gambit to have been too clever by half. He noted that his research uncovered only 28 Article 77 decisions in the last 40 years, many of which involved uncontested proceedings and garden-variety trust administration issues. He said, in fact, that he could find no authority to support the idea that a single Article 77 proceeding can be used to evaluate a decision affecting 530 trusts…Pauley concluded, however, that BNY Mellon was once again looking at form rather than substance, calling its argument "crabbed." Walnut Place, he wrote, was adverse to BNY Mellon, the Article 77 plaintiff, so it is a defendant for the purposes of removal…

If the Second Circuit upholds the ruling, it's very bad news for BofA. Given the harsh treatment Pauley has dished out to settlement supporters in two hearings and in Wednesday's ruling, it's clear the lawyers who crafted the $8.5 billion dollar deal have a long way to go before they get Pauley to sign off.”
While the clear loser here is Bank of America, and those who are long the stock and short the CDS, the winners are once again all those monolines whose full putback claims are about to see multiple expansion. Especially those with massive short interest, and whose core investors are in dire need of any form of short squeeze to bring their overall P&L higher.
Below is the full Pauley ruling blasting everything that is corrupt at Bank of America, and those collusive "plaintiff" who sought nothing less than to find a solution that barely dents Bank of America. You know who you are.

Gold and Silver Update evening 10/19/11

This pretty much sums up today's activity...

Bob Chapman : "as usual your government is attacking the market , it attacked commodities very hard as well , the reason is this Situation in Europe is Terminal , they said they are reorganize the banks which means they are going to save them all , the bankers in wall street and in the City of London they own your life they own your existence and it is going to get worse not better the manipulation will continue until they can't do it anymore , the inflation will continue until they can't do it anymore and you are going to have the media full of charlatans until they can't do it anymore and if Ron Paul is not elected you better get ready for a revolution ...."

OWS Update 10/19/11


Submitted by: Francis Soyer

And this it what things have come to... While Occupy Wall Street has received very little attention in the media or reported and marginalized and lied about, make no mistake that it is real, it is almost nation wide at this point, people are pissed off and voicing their anger at how terribly criminal our government has become. Specifically they are angry that the Fed Reserve Bank a private bank and their conglomerates have hijacted our constitution and put our well being in harms way. Enter the hired thugs, in this case the NYPD hired by this bank and others for overtime pay to push down the protest. They have been clubbing people, beating on them, macing them and you get the idea to quell this protest.

Enter a Marine SGT. a native of NYC who after coming back after his second tour in Afhganistan and Iraq witnesses protesters getting beaten on. He voices his anger. After all he has just spent two tours in hell,  98 degree heat toting 75 pounds of gear and facing down AK 47 toting people who would like nothing more than to kill him. He returns home after this duty of "defending freedom," defending the constitution to see this crap on the streets of Manhattan. What do you think his reaction will be?

Find out here.

http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/10/18/1-us-marine-makes-30-nypd-cops-back-down/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InfiniteUnknown+%28Infinite+Unknown%29


I once heard a description of what the word Patriot means. I can not recall the source but it said "The definition of a Patriot is one who is willing to defend the constitution from enemy's be they foreign or domestic." In this case I think it is clear who the enemies are...

Gold and Silver Update 10/19/11

 

Submitted by: Francis Soyer

This week Gold and Silver are in the throws of the same B.S. different day. Every month the Fed, Treasury departments, JPM, HSBC do basically the same thing. They hammer gold and silver as best as possible to signal to the market that all is well. This is especially true during options expiration which is this Friday and all those who are seeking the cash in on a bull move (novice investors) using options for leverage get their asses handed to them as their call options expire worthless. Those call options almost always written by the likes of the banking power houses JPM and HSBC not to mention the Fed and Treasury departments around the world especially this week with more spin, more B.S. of how:

  • MERKEL SPEAKS AT TRICHET FAREWELL IN FRANKFURT
  • MERKEL SAYS EURO IS STABLE, HAS PROVED ITSELF IN TURBULENT TIME
  • MERKEL SAYS IF THE EURO FAILS, EUROPE FAILS
  • MERKEL SAYS 'WE SHALL NOT ALLOW' EURO TO FAIL
  • MERKEL SAYS NEXT EU SUMMIT IS `NOT THE END POINT' FOR CRISIS

In reference to the above comments out of our Fearless leaders in Europe. Simply put there is not a snowballs chance in hell that the Euro will survive. They will continue to Spin, Kick the Can Down the Road and outright Lie rite to our faces up until the moment Greece defaults and the rest of the Union follows suit. The nail in the coffin will be when Germany announces they are abandoning membership to the Union all together. Bond Holders, Equity Holders and anyone and everything denominated in Euros will make a mass exodus and that exodus will be into the U.S.D. still the world reserve currency. This will cause a spike in relative val in the U.S.D. stocks will crumble initially. There will be a quiet before the next storm (about two or three weeks) when all eyes will focus on the USD and how the U.S. is also about to default on its debt i.e. debt ceiling increases needed in December 2011.

So what do you think will happen to gold and silver when that happens? They are going to go through the freaking roof is what is going to happen. So in the meantime let them play their games. Do not try to day trade the markets are way too rigged with HFT algos (High Frequency Trading Algorithms) and the likes of JPM and HSBC trying desperately to do the bidding of the treasury and Fed Banks around the world to try to send that signal that all is well.

Looking at the raw mechanics of the last few trading sessions enclosed the reports from someone I respect and the link.

http://harveyorgan.blogspot.com/2011/10/bart-ready-to-speak-his-mind-on-cftc.html
The total gold comex OI fell by a rather large 7652 contracts from 445,391 to 437,739 contracts as the bankers succeeded again in knocking out some weak gold longs.  However the front delivery month of October saw its OI RISE by 3 contracts despite zero deliveries yesterday.  We thus gained more gold standing and lost nothing to cash settlements.  The big December gold month saw its OI fall by almost 10,000 contracts from 275,361 to 264,187.  This no doubt pleased the JPMorgan higher echelon.  The estimated volume today was on a shallow end at 112,082.  The confirmed volume yesterday was huge at 206,356.
It seems that in order to manipulate the price lower they need massive non backed paper to do their dirty work.

The total silver comex OI surprised everyone by rising by 753 contracts to 103,357 from 102,604.
The JPMorgan boys are not enthralled with this development as they thought that they were gaining some headway in removing weaker longs.  It seems that the higher margin requirements have knocked out just about all of our leverage players leaving just the physical players who do not care about margin requirements and are ready to take delivery.  The front options expiry month of October surprisingly rose from 127 to 146 for a gain of  19 contracts.  We had 4 deliveries yesterday so we gained 23 contracts of silver standing or 115,000 oz and lost nothing to cash settlements.  The big December contract failed to go along with its older cousin gold by remaining relatively constant at 60,041.  The estimated volume today was still very low at 49,794.  The confirmed volume yesterday, the day of the big raid came in at 60,179.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Gold and Silver Update 10/07/11










Submitted by: Francis Soyer

In spite of the Fed and Treasuries ESF raid on gold and silver gold and silver have continued to be resilient and begin their upward climb again. Notice the charts below at how few and far between our opportunities to buy at below volume weighted price have been.






On another note it appears that the unrest we have seen overseas has begun to occur here in the U.S. The difference in the nature of protest agenda however is that the protests here are more direct and pointed directly at the Federal Reserve Monetary System. I have been getting reports from San Fran, Seattle, Boston and of course New York. It appears that with such high unenployment people are having more time on their hands to understand how the monetary world really works.. and they are pissed off.



If the video is blocked you can try here:

http://ampedstatus.org/report-from-the-frontlines-police-attack-protesters-more-occupy-wall-street-arrests-videos/

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Gold and Silver Update 10/05/11


Submitted by: Francis Soyer

 An inside source has revealed that the German Government has ordered the Deutsche Bank to begin printing Deutschmark. In spite of what we have been being fed by brain dead main stream media on a daily basis of how the Euro will be saved, the Euro zone in question the German's have no intention of staying in the Euro. The Fed and Treasury knowing this have pulled out the stops and have been hitting Gold and Silver as hard as they can.

European bond holders will get their heads handed to them on a silver platter. Anyone in Euros needs to buy Gold and Silver.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Gold and Silver Update 09/30/11


Submitted by: Francis Soyer

King World News interviews economist Martin Armstrong. Martin Armstrong the inventor of historical economic modeling techniques is probably one of the most accurate long term market cycle economists on the planet. Armstrong in the below interview answers one of the more central questions of late as to which currency will fail first the Euro or the US dollar.This interview is relevant in terms of Gold and Silver in that as fiat money fails and implodes on itself the only real safe havens for preservation of wealth is Gold, Silver and to some extent hard commodities in general.

“This is what a lot of people didn’t understand.  That is why a lot of people (Congressmen) ended up coming to me because I understand these markets, how they were created, I was there when they were created.”

When asked which currency will collapse first, Armstrong responded, “Americans tend to focus really just on the United States.  The United States is, among the Western countries, it’s actually in the best shape.  Europe is going to largely collapse first.  What you have to understand with the dollar is that the dollar is the reserve currency.  What that means is that about 40% of the interest that we pay goes overseas.

All of the foreign central banks hold US government bonds, not actually physical dollars, but they actually hold bonds as a reserve. So the reserve currency is not something that is going to crack first.  You have to understand that because if the dollar were to be the first thing to collapse, the rest of the world has to go with it.

In Europe, to put it into an American context, imagine if every state had the right to print dollars, it would be total chaos.  That’s what Europe did (by allowing individual country bonds to be issued) and that’s why I warned them that they were going to collapse, but politicians just didn’t want to hear it ten years ago.  They were more interested in creating a euro than they were in creating a (long-term functional) system.

...This is also why the banking system over there is in trouble.  They (European leaders) are going to try to hang on as long as they can.”


Original Article Here:
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/9/30_KWN_Special_-_Martin_Armstrong__Who_Will_Collapse_First.html

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Gold, Silver and Market Update 09/27/11

Good for them...


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8793010/Germany-slams-stupid-US-plans-to-boost-EU-rescue-fund.html


Germany slams 'stupid' US plans to boost EU rescue fund

Germany and America were on a collision course on Tuesday night over the handling of Europe's debt crisis after Berlin savaged plans to boost the EU rescue fund as a "stupid idea" and told the White House to sort out its own mess before giving gratuitous advice to others.


By
8:51PM BST 27 Sep 2011
 
German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble said it would be a folly to boost the EU's bail-out machinery (EFSF) beyond its €440bn lending limit by deploying leverage to up to €2 trillion, perhaps by raising funds from the European Central Bank.
"I don't understand how anyone in the European Commission can have such a stupid idea. The result would be to endanger the AAA sovereign debt ratings of other member states. It makes no sense," he said.
Mr Schauble told Washington to mind its own businesss after President Barack Obama rebuked EU leaders for failing to recapitalise banks and allowing the debt crisis to escalate to the point where it is "scaring the world".
"It's always much easier to give advice to others than to decide for yourself. I am well prepared to give advice to the US government," he said.
The comments risk irritating the White House. US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has been a key driver of plans to give the EFSF enough firepower to shore up Italy and Spain, fearing a drift into "cascading default, bank runs and catastrophic risk" without dramatic action.


The danger for Germany is that America will lose patience, with unpredictable consequences. The US Federal Reserve is currently propping up the European banking system in a variety of ways, including dollar swaps.
Markets across the world ignored the mixed signals about the true scope of EU rescue measures, convinced that EU leaders have a "grand plan" up their sleeves and will unveil the details after the Bundestag has voted on Thursday on the earlier July deal to revamp the fund.
France's CAC-40 surged by 5.7pc, led by a 17pc rise for Societe Generale. Germany's Dax was up 5.3pc. The FTSE 100 jumped 4pc in London, the biggest one-day rise this year. Oil jumped almost $4 in New York to $88 a barrel.
In Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel was fighting for her political life as the rump of lawmakers from her coalition vowed to reject the EFSF package, though the latest tally suggests she may squeeze by with her own majority. Angry dissidents suspect that secret plans are being withheld until after the vote.
Greek premier George Papandreou told German business leaders that his country would honour its austerity pledges, but also issued a veiled warning. "The persistent criticisms levelled against Greece are deeply frustrating, not only at the political level, where a superhuman effort is being made to meet stringent targets in a deepening recession, but frustrating also for the Greeks, who are making these painful sacrifices."
"Drastic measures have had a dramatic impact on the living standards of our citizens. Many Greeks feel they have little left to give. If people feel only punishment and scorn, this crisis will become a lost cause," he said.
Mr Papandreou's Pasok party passed a crucial vote on Tuesday to raise property taxes, but at a high political price. The party's approval rating has fallen to 15pc in the latest Mega poll.
Greece has a trump card in rescue talks with the IMF-EU "Troika". If it opts for a "hard default", it could set off a chain reaction. Lorenzo Bini-Smaghi, an ECB board member, said those arguing that Europe's banks could withstand a Greek default are misguided. "Similar views were held before Lehman. Those who say this have no idea how contagion works," he said.
Analysts say the Troika will have to approve the next €8bn tranche of aid for Athens in October whether or not Greece has complied fully with the terms. It cannot risk a showdown before Europe's banks have beefed up their capital base, or before the EFSF is fully equipped to defend the rest of the system.
Like a forced marriage, Europe and Greece must kiss and pretend.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Gold and Silver Update 09/22/11










Submitted by: Francis Soyer

Yesterday the day after the Federal Reserve gave the market a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when it was hoping for a steak continued its violent sell off. The Federal reserve in addition gave a pessimistic assessment of the US economy on a forward looking basis.

Commodities were sold with vigor. Algorithm selling by hedge funds and banks alike led to falls in precious metals and basically all commodities with funds scrambling to cut losses and using those sales to cover margin requirements and fly to safety in cash.

Expect a near term bounce in metals as shorts cover into the weekend and bargain hunters emerge, specifically China as they step in a buy with both hands. Note this is one of only 4 opportunities to buy at or below VWAP prices (volume weighted average price.) Gold on the other hand has been harder over the past year with virtually no opportunities to buy at or better than VWAP.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Gold and Silver Update 09/22/11


Submitted by: Francis Soyer

I came accross an article at Seeking Alpha from an analyst named Todd Johnson. To discuss this article and his thesis that you should sell your physical gold and silver specifically PHYS and PSLV here are my takes on his work.

On PSLV: Article from Todd Johnson's Seeking Alpha saying to sell PSLV:


Original Article at Seeking Alpha Here:


http://seekingalpha.com/article/295093-sprott-insiders-are-selling-pslv-and-so-should-you#que=http%3A%2F%2Fa.collective-media.net%2Fadj%2Fsek.target%2Farticle%3Bsz%3D728x90%3Bx%3Dx%3Btile%3D1%3Bd%3Dtarget%3Bt%3Darticle%3Ba%3Dtodd-johnson%3Bt%3Dfinancial%3Bt%3Detf-long-short-ideas%3Bt%3Dus%3Bt%3Dinvestment-brokerage-national%3Bt%3Dsa-exclusive%3Baid%3D295093%3Bd%3Detfs%3Bd%3Dsectors%3Bs%3Dgtu%3Bs%3Dcef%3Bs%3Dgld%3Bs%3Dslv%3Bs%3Dpslv%3Bs%3Dphys%3Bp%3D1%3Br%3Df%3Bqc%3DD%3Bqc%3DT%3Bord%3D266261595%3F%22&par=article_dashboards%3D%40etfs%40sectors%40%26article_sectors_themes%3D%40financial%40etf-long-short-ideas%40us%40investment-brokerage-national%40sa-exclusive%40


From Todd Johnson at Seeking Alpha spoke with Carolyn at Sprott, phone number (888) 362-7172. "I asked why there was so much insider selling of Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV). Carolyn advised me that Sprott Asset Management, and perhaps Eric Sprott, were selling because of Sprott Physical Silver Trust's (PSLV) 20% premium to net asset value. Then bought physical silver and precious-metal-producing equities."


"I asked if there was a chance for a secondary. Carolyn said a one-year trading history is required prior to a secondary. Carolyn advised me November 1st would be the first time a secondary could be considered for a Sprott Physical Silver Trust secondary offering."


Todd Johnson’s sell recommendation, issued on July 24th, was to sell Sprott Physical Silver Trust at that time PSLV’s price was: 18.83 Close price as of Yesterday 9/21/11 was 19.04: a sell loss recommendation of 1%


Todd Johnson’s disclosure: “I am long GTU, CEF, GLD, SLV” The fact that he is long GLD and SLV to me says that he has not done his homework on 100% of his article stated holdings in that if he needed delivery of the metals he will not have a snow ball’s chance in hell of taking delivery of either GLD or SLV. Good luck Todd when JPM (The Custodian) goes belly up because of their short exposure to both and when the holders of GLD and SLV demand delivery. JPM has no audited holdings, has on paper holdings of 1 ounce for every 100 claims to that ounce for both GLD and SLV for equity shares and 1 ounce for every 1000 claims in derivates. Read the prospectus for GLD and SLV. As for Todd's "better alternatives" to PHYS and PSLV being his holdings of GTU and CEF as stated in his disclosure of holdings read on from these fund's stated fund summary here:


http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=GTU+Profile


Take notes on the following:


“Business Summary

Central Gold-Trust primarily invests in unencumbered gold bullion. As of September 30, 2003, the company’s gold holdings were 82,619 fine ounces of physical gold bullion and 4,581 fine ounces of gold bullion certificates. The trust is taxed as a mutual fund trust for income tax purposes, pursuant to which it distributes all taxable income earned by it to the unit holders and deduct such distributions for income tax purposes. Central Gold-Trust was established under the laws of Ontario in April 2003; and is headquartered in Ancaster, Canada.”


Todd, the bold red text above means by owning GTU, CEF that you will be taxed for capital gains at the nominal rates listed below:


Capital Gains Calculator
Capital gains rates are designed to encourage long-term investing. Most people can get a significant advantage from holding stock investments for more than one year:


Tax Bracket Capital Gain Tax Rate


Short Term Long Term

10% 10% 0%

15% 15%

25% 25% 15%

28% 28%

33% 33%

35% 35%


The Sprott Physical Silver trust is NOT TAXABLE because you CAN NOT TAX CURRENCY. Yes this means that Silver and Gold Bullion is considered CURRENCY. While the “22% premium” may seem extravagant if you are in the 35% tax bracket the 15% you will need to deduct from your returns and 35% to deduct for a short term gain on a sale to me hardly seems like you are in a losing proposition by owning either PHYS or PSLV.

Shoddy research man… How did you get that Job at Seeking Alpha anyway?

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Welcome to Boston, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Under Arrest

Welcome to Boston, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Under Arrest


http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26690

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been stripped of legal immunity for acts of torture against US citizens authorized while he was in office.

The 7th Circuit made the ruling in the case of two American contractors who were tortured by the US military in Iraq after uncovering a smuggling ring within an Iraqi security company. The company was under contract to the Department of Defense. The company was assisting Iraqi insurgent groups in the “mass acquisition” of American weapons. The ruling comes as Rumsfeld begins his book tour with a visit to Boston on Monday, September 26, and as new, uncensored photos of Abu Ghraib spark fresh outrage across Internet. Awareness is growing that Bush-era crimes went far beyond mere waterboarding.



Torture Room, Abu Ghraib



Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters in 2004 of photos withheld by the Defense Department from Abu Ghraib, “The American public needs to understand, we’re talking about rape and murder here… We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We’re talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.” And journalist Seymour Hersh says: “boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has.”


Rumsfeld resigned days before a criminal complaint was filed in Germany in which the American general who commanded the military police battalion at Abu Ghraib had promised to testify. General Janis Karpinski in an interview with Salon.com was asked: “Do you feel like Rumsfeld is at the heart of all of this and should be held completely accountable for what happened [at Abu Ghraib]?”


Karpinski answered: “Yes, absolutely.” In the criminal complaint filed in Germany against Rumsfeld, Karpinski submitted 17 pages of testimony and offered to appear before the German prosecutor as a witness. Congressman Kendrick Meek of Florida, who participated in the hearings on Abu Ghraib, said of Rumsfeld: “There was no way Rumsfeld didn’t know what was going on. He’s a guy who wants to know everything.”


And Major General Antonio Taguba, who led the official Army investigation into Abu Ghraib, said in his report:

“there is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”


Abu Ghraib Prisoner Smeared with Feces



Amazingly, the two American contractors in the 7th Circuit decision were known by the military to be working undercover for the FBI, to whom they had reported witnessing the sale of U.S government munitions to Iraqi rebel groups. The FBI in Iraq had vouched for Vance and Ertel numerous times before they nevertheless disappeared into military custody. They were held at Camp Cropper in Iraq where the two were tortured, one for 97 days, and the other for six weeks.

In a puzzling and incriminating move, Camp Cropper base commander General John Gardner ordered Nathan Ertel released on May 17, 2006, while keeping Donald Vance in detention for another two months of torture. By ordering the release of one man but not the other, Gardner revealed awareness of the situation but prolonged it at the same time.


It is unlikely that Gardner could act alone in a situation as sensitive as the illegal detention and torture of two Americans confirmed by the FBI to be working undercover in the national interest, to prevent American weapons and munitions from reaching the hands of insurgents, for the sole purpose of using them to kill American troops. Vance and Ertel suggest he was acting on orders from the highest political level.


The forms of torture employed against the Americans included “techniques” which crop up frequently in descriptions of Iraqi and Afghan prisoner abuse at Bagram, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib. They included “walling,” where the head is slammed repeatedly into a concrete wall, sleep deprivation to the point of psychosis by use of round-the-clock bright lights and harsh music at ear-splitting volume, in total isolation, for days, weeks or months at a time, and intolerable cold.


The 7th Circuit ruling is the latest in a growing number of legal actions involving hundreds of former prisoners and torture victims filed in courts around the world. Criminal complaints have been filed against Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials in Germany, France, and Spain. Former President Bush recently curbed travel to Switzerland due to fear of arrest following criminal complaints lodged in Geneva. “He’s avoiding the handcuffs,” Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.


And the Mayor of London threatened Bush with arrest for war crimes earlier this year should he ever set foot in his city, saying that were he to land in London to “flog his memoirs,” that “the real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again.”


Former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief-of-Staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson surmised on MSNBC earlier this year that soon, Saudi Arabia and Israel will be “the only two countries Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest will travel to.”


Abu Ghraib: Dog Bites



 
What would seem to make Rumsfeld’s situation more precarious is the number of credible former officials and military officers who seem to be eager to testify against him, such as Col. Wilkerson and General Janis Karpinsky.


In a signed declaration in support of torture plaintiffs in a civil suit naming Rumsfeld in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Col. Wilkerson, one of Rumsfeld’s most vociferous critics, stated: “I am willing to testify in person regarding the content of this declaration, should that be necessary.” That declaration, among other things, affirmed that a documentary on the chilling murder of a 22-year-old Afghan farmer and taxi driver in Afghanistan was “accurate.” Wilkerson said earlier this year that in that case, and in the case of another murder at Bagram at about the same time, “authorization for the abuse went to the very top of the United States government.”

Dilawar


The young farmer’s name was Dilawar. The New York Times reported on May 20, 2005:



“Four days before [his death,] on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr, Mr. Dilawar set out from his tiny village of Yakubi in a prized new possession, a used Toyota sedan that his family bought for him a few weeks earlier to drive as a taxi.On the day that he disappeared, Mr. Dilawar’s mother had asked him to gather his three sisters from their nearby villages and bring them home for the holiday. However, he needed gas money and decided instead to drive to the provincial capital, Khost, about 45 minutes away, to look for fares.”


Dilawar’s misfortune was to drive past the gate of an American base which had been hit by a rocket attack that morning. Dilawar and his fares were arrested at a checkpoint by a warlord, who was later suspected of mounting the rocket attack himself, and then turning over randam captures like Dilawar in order to win trust.


The UK Guardian reports:


“Guards at Bagram routinely kneed prisoners in their thighs — a blow called a ‘peroneal strike’… Whenever a guard did this to Dilawar, he would cry out, ‘Allah! Allah!’ Some guards apparently found this amusing, and would strike him repeatedly to show off the behavior to buddies. One military policeman told investigators, ‘Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny. … It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes.’”


Dilawar was shackled from the ceiling much of the time, with his feet barely able to touch the ground. On the last day of his life, after 4 days at Bagram, an interpreter who was present said his legs were bouncing uncontrollably as he sat in a plastic chair. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.


The New York Times reported that on the last day of his life, four days after he was arrested:


“Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar’s face. “Come on, drink!” the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. “Drink!”


At the interrogators’ behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.


“‘Leave him up,’ one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.”


The next time the prison medic saw Dilawar a few hours later, he was dead, his head lolled to one side and his body beginning to stiffen. A coroner would testify that his legs “had basically been pulpified.” The Army coroner, Maj. Elizabeth Rouse, said: “I’ve seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus.” She testified that had he lived, Dilawar’s legs would have had to be amputated.


Despite the military’s false statement that Dilawar’s death was the result of “natural causes,” Maj. Rouse marked the death certificate as a “homicide” and arranged for the certificate to be delivered to the family. The military was forced to retract the statement when a reporter for the New York Times, Carlotta Gall, tracked down Dilawar’s family in Afghanistan and was given a folded piece of paper by Dilawar’s brother. It was the death certificate, which he couldn’t read, because it was in English.


The practice of forcing prisoners to stand for long periods of time, links Dilawar’s treatment to a memo which bears Rumsfeld’s own handwriting on that particular subject. Obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request, the memo may show how fairly benign-sounding authorizations for clear circumventions of the Geneva Conventions may have translated into gruesome practice on the battlefield.


The memo, which addresses keeping prisoners “standing” for up to four hours, is annotated with a note initialed by Rumfeld reading: “I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?” Not mentioned in writing anywhere is anything about accomplishing this by chaining prisoners to the ceiling. There is evidence that, unable to support his weight on tiptoe for the days on end he was chained to the ceiling, Dilawars arms dislocated, and they flapped around uselessly when he was taken down for interrogation. The National Catholic Reporter writes, “They flapped like a bird’s broken wings.”

Contradicting, on the record, a February 2003 statement by Rumfeld’s top commander in Afghnanistan at the time, General Daniel McNeill, that “we are not chaining people to the ceilings,” is Spc. Willie Brand, the only soldier disciplined in the death of Dilawar, with a reduction in rank. Told of McNeill’s statement, Brand told Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes: “Well, he’s lying.” Brand said of his punishment: “I didn’t understand how they could do this after they had trained you to do this stuff and they turn around and say you’ve been bad.”


Exhibit: A sketch by Sgt. Thomas V. Curtis, a former Reserve M.P. sergeant, showing how Dilawar was chained to the ceiling of his cell


Exhibit: Dilawar Death Certificate marked “homicide”



Exhibit: Rumsfeld Memo: “I stand 8-10 hours a day. Why only 4 hours?”


Dilawar’s daughter and her grandfather


Binyam, Genital-Slicing


Binyam Mohamed was seized by the Pakistani Forces in April 2002 and turned over to the Americans for a $5,000 bounty. He was held for more than five years without charge or trial in Bagram Air Force Base, Guantánamo Bay, and third country “black” sites.


In his diary he describes being flown by a US government plane to a prison in Morocco. He writes:


“They cut off my clothes with some kind of doctor’s scalpel. I was naked. I tried to put on a brave face. But maybe I was going to be raped. Maybe they’d electrocute me. Maybe castrate me…One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times, in maybe two hours. There was blood all over. ‘I told you I was going to teach you who’s the man,’ [one] eventually said.


“They cut all over my private parts. One of them said it would be better just to cut it off, as I would only breed terrorists. I asked for a doctor.


“I was in Morocco for 18 months. Once they began this, they would do it to me about once a month. One time I asked a guard: ‘What’s the point of this? I’ve got nothing I can say to them. I’ve told them everything I possibly could.’


“‘As far as I know, it’s just to degrade you. So when you leave here, you’ll have these scars and you’ll never forget. So you’ll always fear doing anything but what the US wants.’


“Later when a US airplane picked me up the following January, a female MP took pictures. She was one of the few Americans who ever showed me any sympathy. When she saw the injuries I had she gasped. They treated me and took more photos when I was in Kabul. Someone told me this was ‘to show Washington it’s healing.’”


The obvious question for any prosecutor in Binyam’s case is: Who does “Washington” refer to? Rumfeld? Cheney? Is it not in the national interest to uncover these most depraved of sadists at the highest level? US Judge Gladys Kessler, in her findings on Binyam made in relation to a Guantanamo prisoner’s petition, found Binyam exceedingly credible. She wrote:


“His genitals were mutilated. He was deprived of sleep and food. He was summarily transported from one foreign prison to another. Captors held him in stress positions for days at a time. He was forced to listen to piercingly loud music and the screams of other prisoners while locked in a pitch-black cell. All the while, he was forced to inculpate himself and others in plots to imperil Americans. The government does not dispute this evidence.”


Obama: Torturers’ Last Defense


The prospect of Rumsfeld in a courtroom cannot possibly be relished by the Obama administration, which has now cast itself as the last and staunchest defender of the embattled former officials, including John Yoo, Alberto Gonzalez, Judge Jay Bybee, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, and others. The administration employed an unprecedented twisting of arms in order to keep evidence in a lawsuit which Binyam had filed in the UK suppressed, threatening an end of cooperation between the British MI5 and the CIA. This even though the British judges whose hand was forced puzzled that the evidence contained “no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters.” The judges suggested another reason for the secrecy requested by the Obama administration, that it might be “politically embarrassing.”


The Obama Justice Department’s active involvement in seeking the dismissal of the cases is by choice, as the statutory obligation of the US Attorney General to defend cases against public officials ends the day they leave office. Indeed, the real significance of recent court decisions, the one by the 7th Circuit and yet another against Rumsfeld in a DC federal court, may be the clarification the common misconception that high officials are forever immune for crimes committed while in office, in the name of the state. The misconception persists despite just a moment of thought telling one that if this were true, Hermann Goering, Augusto Pinochet, and Charles Taylor would never have been arrested, for they were all in office at the time they ordered atrocities, and they all invoked national security.


Judge Kessler’s findings point to yet another even more alarming aspect of the Bush-era crimes for which Rumsfeld is now being pursued for his part. And that is the emerging evidence that the tortures perpetrated were not designed to protect national security at all, but to obtain false confessions in order to score propaganda points for the War on terror.


Andy Worthington writes that:


“As it happens, one of the confessions that was tortured out of Binyam is so ludicrous that it was soon dropped…The US authorities insisted that Padilla and Binyam had dinner with various high-up members of al-Qaeda the night before Padilla was to fly off to America. According to their theory the dinner party had to have been on the evening of 3 April in Karachi … Binyam was meant to have dined with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Sheikh al-Libi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Jose Padilla. What made the scenario ‘absurd,’ as [Binyam's lawyer] pointed out, was that ‘two of the conspirators were already in U.S. custody at the time — Abu Zubaydah was seized six days before, on 28 March 2002, and al-Libi had been held since November 2001.’”


The charges against Binyam were dropped, after the prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, resigned. He told the BBC later that he had concerns at the repeated suppression of evidence that could prove prisoners’ innocence.


The litany of tortures alleged against Rumsfeld in the military prisons he ran could go on for some time. The new photographic images from Abu Ghraib make it hard to conceive of how the methods of torture and dehumanization could have possibly served a national purpose.


The approved use of attack dogs, sexual humiliation, forced masturbation, and treatments which plumb the depths of human depravity are either documented in Rumsfeld’s own memos, or credibly reported on.


The UK Guardian writes:


“The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources. The techniques devised in the system, called R2I – resistance to interrogation – match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.


“One former British special forces officer who returned last week from Iraq, said: ‘It was clear from discussions with US private contractors in Iraq that the prison guards were using R2I techniques, but they didn’t know what they were doing.’”


Torture Now Aimed at Americans, Programs Designed to Obtain False Confessions, Not Intelligence


The worst of the worst is that Rumsfeld’s logic strikes directly at the foundations of our democracy and the legitimacy of the War on Terror. The torture methods studied and adopted by the Bush administration were not new, but adopted from the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape program (SERE) which is taught to elite military units. The program was developed during the Cold War, in response to North Korean, Chinese, and Soviet Bloc torture methods. But the aim of those methods was never to obtain intelligence, but to elicit false confessions. The Bush administration asked the military to “reverse engineer” the methods, i.e. figure out how to break down resistance to false confessions.


In the 2008 Senate Armed Services Committee report which indicted high-level Bush administration officials, including Rumsfeld, as bearing major responsibility for the torture at Abu Gharib, Guantanamo, and Bagram, the Committee said:


“SERE instructors explained “Biderman’s Principles” – which were based on coercive methods used by the Chinese Communist dictatorship to elicit false confessions from U.S. POWs during the Korean War – and left with GTMO personnel a chart of those coercive techniques.”


The Biderman Principles were based on the work of Air Force Psychiatrist Albert Biderman, who wrote the landmark “Communist Attempts to Elecit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War,” on which SERE resistance was based. Biderman wrote:


“The experiences of American Air Force prisoners of war in Korea who were pressured for false confessions, enabled us to compile an outline of methods of eliciting compliance, not much different, it turned out, from those reported by persons held by Communists of other nations. I have prepared a chart showing a condensed version of this outline.”


The chart is a how-to for communist torturers interested only in false confessions for propaganda purposes, not intelligence. It was the manual for, in Biderman’s words, “brainwashing.” In the reference for Principle Number 7, “Degradation,” the chart explains:


“Makes Costs of Resistance Appear More Damaging to Self-Esteem than Capitulation; Reduces Prisoner to “Animal Level…Personal Hygiene Prevented; Filthy, Infested Surroundings; Demeaning Punishments; Insults and Taunts; Denial of Privacy”


Appallingly, this could explain that even photos such as those of feces-smeared prisoners at Abu Ghraib might not, as we would hope, be only the individual work of particularly demented guards, but part of systematic degradation authorized at the highest levels.


Exhibit: Abu Ghraib, Female POW



This could go far toward explaining why the Bush administration seemed so tone-deaf to intelligence professionals, including legendary CIA Director William Colby, who essentially told them they were doing it all wrong. A startling level of consensus existed within the intelligence community that the way to produce good intelligence was to gain the trust of prisoners and to prove everything they had been told by their recruiters, about the cruelty and degeneracy of America, to be wrong.


But why would the administration care about what worked to produce intelligence, if the goal was never intelligence in the first place? What the Ponzi scheme of either innocent men or low-level operatives incriminating each other DID accomplish, was produce a framework of rapid successes and trophies in the new War on Terror.


And now, American contractors Vance and Ertel show, unless there are prosecutions, the law has effectively changed and they can do it to Americans. Jane Mayer in the New Yorker describes a new regime for prisoners which has become coldly methodical, quoting a report issued by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, titled “Secret Detentions and Illegal Transfers of Detainees.” In the report on the CIA paramilitary Special Activities Division detainees were “taken to their cells by strong people who wore black outfits, masks that covered their whole faces, and dark visors over their eyes.”


Mayer writes that a former member of a C.I.A. transport team has described the “takeout” of prisoners as:


“a carefully choreographed twenty-minute routine, during which a suspect was hog-tied, stripped naked, photographed, hooded, sedated with anal suppositories, placed in diapers, and transported by plane to a secret location.”


A person involved in the Council of Europe inquiry, referring to cavity searches and the frequent use of suppositories, likened the treatment to “sodomy.” He said, “It was used to absolutely strip the detainee of any dignity. It breaks down someone’s sense of impenetrability.”


Of course we have seen these images before, in the trial balloon treatment of Jose Padilla, the first American citizen arrested and declared “enemy combatant” in the first undeclared war without end. The designation placed Padilla outside of his Bill of Rights as an American citizen even though he was arrested on American soil. Padilla was kept in isolation and tortured for nearly 4 years before being released to a civilian trial, at which point according to his lawyer he was useless in his own defense, and exhibited fear and mistrust of everyone, complete docility, and a range of nervous facial tics.


Jose Padilla in Military Custody



He was convicted by a Miami jury and sentenced to 17 more years. As of this writing, and meriting it’s own outrage, on Sept. 19, an appeals court threw out Padilla’s sentence as “too lenient” and has sent it back for review.


Rumsfeld’s avuncular “golly-gee, gee-whiz” performances in public are legendary. Randall M. Schmidt, the Air Force Lieutenant General appointed by the Army to investigate abuses at Guantanamo, and who recommended holding Rumsfeld protege and close associate General Geoffrey Miller “accountable” as the commander of Guantanamo, watched Rumfeld’s performance before a House Committee with some interest. “He was going, ‘My God! Did I authorize putting a bra and underwear on this guy’s head and telling him all his buddies knew he was a homosexual?’”


But General Taguba said of Rumsfeld: “Rummy did what we called ‘case law’ policy — verbal and not in writing. What he’s really saying is that if this decision comes back to haunt me I’ll deny it.”


Taguba went on: “Rumsfeld is very perceptive and has a mind like a steel trap. There’s no way he’s suffering from C.R.S.—Can’t Remember Shit.”


Miller was the general deployed by Rumfeld to “Gitmo-ize” Abu Ghraib in 2003 after Rumfeld had determined they were being too “soft” on prisoners. He said famously in one memo “you have to treat them like dogs.” General Karpinski questioned the fall of Charles Graner and Lyndie England as the main focus of low-level “bad apple” abuse in the Abu Ghraib investigations. “Did Lyndie England deploy with a dog leash?” she asks.


Exhibit: Dog deployed at Abu Ghraib, mentally-ill prisoner



Abu Ghraib prisoner in “restraint” chair, screaming “Allah!!”


Rumfeld’s worry now is the doctrine of Universal Jurisdiction, as well as ordinary common law. The veil of immunity stripped in civil cases would seem to free the hand of any prosecutor who determines there is sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed based on available evidence. A grand jury’s bar for opening a prosecution is minimal. It has been said “a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.” Rumsfeld, and the evidence against him, would certainly seem to pass this test.


The name Dilawar translates to English roughly as “Braveheart.” Let us pray he had one to endure the manner of his death. But the more spiritual may believe that somehow it had a purpose, to shock the world and begin the toppling of unimaginable evil among us. Dilawar represented the poorest of the poor and most powerless, wanting only to pick up his three sisters, as his mother had told him to, for the holiday. The question now is whether Americans will finally draw a line, as the case against Rumsfeld falls into place and becomes legally bulletproof. Andy Worthington noted that the case for prosecutors became rock solid when Susan Crawford, senior Pentagon official overseeing the Military Commissions at Guantánamo — told Bob Woodward that the Bush administration had “met the legal definition of torture.”


As Rumsfeld continues his book tour and people like Dilawar are remembered, it is not beyond the pale that an ambitious prosecutor, whether local, state, or federal, might sense the advantage. It is perhaps unlikely, but not inconceivable, that upon landing at Logan International Airport on Wed., Sept. 21st, or similarly anywhere he travels thereafter, Rumsfeld could be greeted with the words such as:


“Welcome to Boston, Mr. Secretary. You are under arrest.”


Massachusetts District Attorneys Who Can Indict Rumsfeld, Please Email them this post and call them.SAMPLE INDICTMENT TEXT, BASED ON GERMAN CRIMINAL COMPLAINT


Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley:

email: ago@state.ma.us

One Ashburton Place

Boston, MA 02108 -1518

Phone: (617) 727-2200

Here is the contact info for members of the Boston City Council, which could pass a resolution directing the Police Commissioner to arrest Rumsfeld on sight (google Brattleboro Resolution, George W. Bush):

http://www.cityofboston.gov/…


And Gov. Duval Patrick has an obligation to order the state police to do the same: CONTACT FORM

Local District Attorneys

Berkshire County: District Attorney David F. Capeless

Elected November 2006

OFFICE ADDRESS: P.O. Box 973

888 Purchase Street

New Bedford, MA 02741

PHONE: (508) 997-0711

FAX: (508) 997-0396

INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.bristolda.com


Bristol County District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter

Appointed March 2004

Elected November 2004

OFFICE ADDRESS: 7 North Street

P.O. Box 1969

Pittsfield, MA 01202-1969

PHONE: (413) 443-5951

FAX: (413) 499-6349

Internet Address: http://www.mass.gov/…


Cape & Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe

Elected November 2002

OFFICE ADDRESS: P.O.Box 455

3231 Main Street

Barnstable, MA 02630

PHONE: (508) 362-8113

FAX: (508) 362-8221

INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.mass.gov/…


Essex County: District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett

Elected November 2002

OFFICE ADDRESS: Ten Federal Street

Salem, MA 01970

PHONE: (978) 745-6610

FAX: (978) 741-4971

INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.mass.gov/…


Hampden District Attorney Mark Mastroianni

Elected 2010

OFFICE ADDRESS: Hall of Justice

50 State Street

Springfield, MA 01103

PHONE: (413) 747-1000

FAX: (413) 781-4745


Middlesex County: District Attorney Gerard T. Leone, Jr.

Elected November 2006

OFFICE ADDRESS: 15 Commonwealth Avenue

Woburn, MA 01801

PHONE: (781) 897-8300

FAX: ((781) 897-8301

INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.middlesexda.com


Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey


Elected 2010

OFFICE ADDRESS: 45 Shawmut Ave.

Canton, MA 02021

PHONE: (781) 830-4800

FAX: (781) 830-4801

INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.mass.gov/…


Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan

Elected 2010

HAMPSHIRE OFFICE ADDRESS: One Gleason Plaza

Northampton, MA 01060

PHONE: (413) 586-9225

FAX: (413) 584-3635


FRANKLIN OFFICE ADDRESS: 13 Conway Street

Greenfield, MA 01301

PHONE: (413) 774-3186

FAX: (413) 773-3278

WEBSITE:

Northwestern http://www.mass.gov/…


Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz

Appointed November 2001

Elected November 2002

OFFICE ADDRESS: 32 Belmont Street

Brockton, MA 02303

PHONE: (508) 584-8120

FAX: (508) 586-3578

INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.mass.gov/…


Suffolk County: District Attorney Daniel F. Conley

Appointed January 2002

Elected November 2002

OFFICE ADDRESS: One Bulfinch Place

Boston, MA 02114

PHONE: (617) 619-4000

FAX: (617) 619-4009

INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.mass.gov/…


Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early, Jr.

Elected November 2006

OFFICE ADDRESS: Courthouse – Room 220

2 Main Street

Worcester, MA 01608

PHONE: (508) 755-8601

FAX: (508) 831-9899

INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.worcesterda.com/


Global Research Articles by Ralph Lopez

Political Perspectives 09/21/11

From Rick Ackerman 9/21/11

http://www.rickackerman.com/2011/09/for-a-corrupt-and-decadent-congress/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RicksPicks+%28Rick%27s+Picks%29

When we talk about how our Government is corrupt and decadent to the core, it is items like the following in particular that raise our ire. I received this as an e-mail with the suggestion that I recirculate it to 20 others. I’ll recommend that you do so by copy-and-pasting it to friends. Here’s the message:


“No one has been able to explain to me why young men and women who serve in the U.S. military for 20 years, risking their lives protecting freedom, only get 50% of their pay while politicians who hold their political positions in the safe confines of the Capitol, protected by these same men and women, receive full-pay benefits after serving just one term.

“It just does not make any sense.

“From Fox News on Monday, we also learned that the staffers of Congressional family members are exempt from having to pay back student loans. This will get national attention if other news networks broadcast it. When you add this to the facts noted below, you wonder where it will all stop. Thirty-five states have filed lawsuits against the Federal Government for imposing various, unlawful burdens upon them. It only takes 38 states to convene a Constitutional Convention. This will take less than a minute to read. If you agree, please pass it on. This is an idea that we should address. For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws.

“The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform… in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn’t seem logical. We do not have an elite that are above the law. I truly don’t care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever; their self-serving ways must stop. If each person who receives this message forwards it to 20 others, most Americans will see it within three days. This is one proposal that should be circulated: a 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution, written as follows: “Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.”