Archbishop hits out at web-based media 'nonsense'
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent to The Times
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has criticised the
new web-based media for "paranoid fantasy, self-indulgent nonsense and
dangerous bigotry". He described the atmosphere on the world wide web
as a free-for-all that was "close to that of unpoliced conversation".
In a lecture to media professionals, politicians and church leaders at
Lambeth Palace in London last night, Dr Williams wondered whether a
balance could be struck between the professionalism of the classical
media and the relative disorder of online communication.
As predicted in my unsolicited finacial advice column a few days ago,
the markets have confirmed a sea change or at least the beginnings of
asea change in worldeide attitude toward fiat paper money. With the
cracking of confidence in the Euro money has poured into the dollar.
Normally this means gold weakens as gold has traded opposite the world
fiat standard for quite a while. Well, In the last week gold has gone
up as the dollar has gone up and today gold did it in a vig way over a
major trading hurdle. The amonnt of paper out there is so hugh and the
amount of gold so small that the world's central banks may not be able
to contain the prive of gold anymore. This will ultimately mean a loss
of power for the worlds governments that depend on the manipulation of
paper currency to fund the war and welfare monsters. Wven if you are
not on board, this is a terrific development and if contunued which it
will but not without a hugh fight, will hobble the leviathan.
I urge you all to at least diversify 20 percent of your net worth into
precious metals and precious metals tock. This was considered standard
good portfolio diversification for a very long time.+
As predicted in my unsolicited finacial advice column a few days ago,
the markets have confirmed a sea change or at least the beginnings of
asea change in worldeide attitude toward fiat paper money.
Perhaps.
Remember last fall when gold was trading around $450/oz and everyone was confidently predicting a run up to at least $500 very soon? And that the dollar was about to fall precipitously? Well, neither happened - it would have been better to bet against that particular "sea change."
The time to have bought was a few weeks ago when gold was down at $415 oz. I am confident that chance will present itself again in the next month or two. Don't chase the market!!
My guess is that the current move is more closely tied to the recent uptrend in oli prices rather than any major changes in the sentiment about fiat money.
Libertarians would be well-advised to read "Mean Markets and Lizard Brains" a new book I found quite enlightening in picking investments.
In the meduin term months to few yers anything can happen, however the
present monetary situation is highly unstable and completely
unsustainable. The emergence of concern over the Euro as an
alternatative to the dollar was a watershed event and the suhsequwnr
vreakout of the price of gold in all currencies, especially the urto
and yen, was unprecendented on recent years. The gold price in euros
was an all time high. No immediate rush. Best to buy on weakness. That
is correct. But the days of king dollar are numbered. In all of
recorded histry, fiat curriencies have failed and the governments that
sponsored them collapsed. There is no reason to ecpect that this time
is different. As for the price of oil, oil and gold are tied to eaxh
other by an immutable ration of around 10 to one,with brief spikes
plus or minus fofty percent. The price of oil in dollars has a very
large monetary component. Asa the dollar wekens the price of in
dollars goes up. The recent collapse int he euros value versus gold
has also resulted ina rapid rise oil prives quated in euros.The point
is tha tover the next fow years the dollar and denominated assets are
very risky and god and commodities are likely to bevery lucrative. It
would be nice to have a few rich libertarians in a few years so that
we have resources to explain to the public what the h happened. I tha
way er might be able to avoid the usual fascist v socalist scenario
inpost economic conflagration America. I can not tell you wether it
will be depression or hyperinflation that destroys the us or both, but
the point is , with debt levels far exceeding 29, a current account
deficit exceesing 2000 dollare per person this year, and warnings from
even establishment players such as Paul Volker, and Peter Peterson,
the handwriting is on the wall, and only a miracle ofintrelligent
leadership can save us. Fat chance. Diversification out of an
exclusive dollar based portfolio is a highly conservative strategy at
this point.
Diversification out of an
exclusive dollar based portfolio is a highly conservative strategy at
this point.
Absolutely.
Just be aware that over any given time period, squirreling away your wealth in gold carries with it the opportunity cost of missing out on other investments, which though denominated in fiat currencies nevertheless have a higher gold-denominated return.
There are periods when gold outperforms all other instruments. But they are very rare and overweighing your portfolio in anticipation of fiat currency crises seems unwise.
That being said I agree that the euro is giving the dollar serious competition. As a libertarian I think that's healthy. Correct me if I am wrong but I also don't think there has ever been a time in history where fiat currencies have had sufficiently global reach to actually compete for market share. Our work as libertarians ought to be to persuede the politicians to eliminate the capital gains tax on currency transactions to allow currencies to freely compete within the US.
ps: ricochetboy, you rpost would be much moe convincing if it didnt cantain a typo almost every other wod.
Sorrry about the typos but I'm visually impaired and the yahoo edit
window is hard to use. The dollar is headed to zero and gold to
infinity in short order, next ten years IMHO> In either case, don't
forget that stocks have not moved for 5 yrats , bonds have done well
but can't get much higher, and gold has almost doubled since 2000,
while the gold stocks as measured by the Amex Index are up over 500
percent. Precious metals will be the number one performing asset
class of this decade unless the US and world banking and political
class make a radical departure from present policy, which is unlikely
as they are only now beginning to have a discussion among themselves
of what is wrong.CNBC still touts the soft landing theory. When the
former NY Fed chairman Peterson was on last week to discuss the
reality of the situation he was cut off by a commercial and never came
back. Very few in the establishment understand Austrian economics.
Even Cato does not touch it. The fiat system is the very heart of the
states powere. As Barron rothchild famously said, give me the power
to create the money and I do not care who makes the laws. The founders
railed against fiat money and central banking for they knew it was at
the heart of Britsh tyranny. But we are at the end game. The
inbalances exceed even 1029 with debt levels at 360 percent of gdp
exceeding the twenties peak by over 70 percent. The rate of monetaary
growth has accelerated dramatically with little effect on employment.
The speculation growws wilder and more unstable, with the housing
bubble in San Francisco a perfect barometer, peeople speculating on
second and third homes, interst only mortgages with begative
amortization, variable rates. Of interest rates go up, these blow up.
this prevents the fed from raising rats enough to stem inflation. and
save the dollar. While the dollar has regained considerable strength v
the euro in the past few monts, gold has held steady. The dolaar and
euro may in fact be heading toward parity as the market realizes that
both are junk and flees to the only real money that is not somebodies
liability Gold. Once gold reasserts itself as money and is treated as
such, it can be lent to good credit ridks for interest. Holding a
portion of ones's wealth for the few libertarians who have any wealth,
is prudent. Having some gold stocks is a good investment at this tiem
because the stocks, well chosen , have tremendous leverage, especially
as the price of gold in actual purchasing power has been held waaaay
below historical norms for twenty years by a the fraddulant comex and
cetral bank dehording. Eell the central banks may be running out of
physical, and the comes is a patent fraud, with far more gold short
than what is available in storage. Even the very words price of gold
is an incorrect way for an Austrian to talk. the appropriate
expression, is the price of the dollar. The price of the dollar in
terms of gold has been dropping steadily for four years. It took 32
grams of gold to buy the origina thaller from which the word dollar is
derived. In 2000 it took about .07 grams of gold to buy a dollar, now
it takes only .035 grams, math in my feeble head. The ooint is the
dollar is stadily becoming worth less.
If you go to the bookie sites, Ben Bernake is 5 to 4 odds to become
the next fed chairman. In 05 he made an infamous speach where he said
in effect the fed will prevent inflation by any means necessary, and
famously he said , even by dropping money out of helicopters. So the
fed has said thay will resort to unconventional means to prevent a
depression. In fact the TIC report, the treasury Internation
Commitment report which comes out monthly from the fed and trasury
jointly, shows foreign bank buying of treasuries by world region. In
the last six months China and Japan have largely dropped out tof
buying treasuries to be replaced by Britain, the isle of Man and the
Carribeab Banks, whose purchases have been hugh in the tens of
billions a month. It is thought that the Carribean banks res offshore
entities doing the unconventional work of the Fed, specifically the
Fed is doing in large scale the untimate monetary evil, buying large
quantities of long treasuries for it's own account. This is called
monetizing the debt. It is , when multiplied by the fractional reserve
system, highly inflationary. The Fed may have had to resort to this to
prevent long rates from rising , creshing the housing market and
throwing the entire house of ccards into chaos. No less than Paul
Volker, has made dire wrnings in the Washington post about the present
situation and the ability to prevent a finacial catastrophej. do a
google. So enjoy the last days of a very very long party, in the
epicenter of the boom. party on . But mzaybe a few will heed the
warnings and be ready, with some diversification into precious metals.
Those who do will be amont the few left standing. This issue is well
worth learning about. It is not too complicated. All you have to do is
view the details through a simople lens. There is no such thing as a
free lunch. everything has to be produced by an honest days work. ans
every abnoemal event reverts to the mean eventuallyj. enough. gotta go
swim.