BSK daily log June 30, 2010

ITEM 1

BY: ANON – GOLD

I am not a financial expert BUT………… there is a description for gold called good delivery gold which means gold coins or bullion which havent been debased. If you buy coins and bring them home they loose this status which means you may have to go along an re prove their value at considerable cost. It is also worth noting that coins kept at home can be confiscated by the government in a national emergency as happened in the US in the 30’s whereby safe deposit boxes in banks were only allowed to be opened in the presence of government officials with an eventual outright ban on private gold ownership. The smarter Americans saw this coming and had their gold coins shipped to Europe before the ban was introduced. I would only buy gold stored in a vault in an offshore location. You can buy gold in the mint in Perth through a broker in Dublin as far as I know. If you buy gold in a vault (Switzerland, Hong Kong etc,) through the internet you should buy allocated gold as opposed to unallocated gold as allocated gold is your property. Unallocated gold is managed in trust for you by the institution and if the institution goes bust you just get in line with all the other creditors.

ITEM 2

BY: ANON

IA currency is based on the credibility of it’s financial authorities, the resources at it’s disposal, the hard work of it’s citizens, the transparency of it’s state, and the honesty inherent in it’s culture of autority.

ITEM 3

BY: ANON

Economic growth for who? And what do we mean by ‘growth’? What measurements do we use? We all know the issues around GDP V GNP, a rise of incarceration or increase in divorce leads to a rise in GDP….

Is it growth so that those who fiddle their expenses, literally elected criminals and those got who get firms/think tanks to release positive economic forecasts so they can justify their obscene salaries and positions?

We don’t live in a democracy, we live in a kleptocracy which is the Greek for ‘rule by thieves’:

“Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, from Greek: κλέπτης (thieve) and κράτος (rule), is a term applied to a government that takes advantage of governmental corruption to extend the personal wealth and political power of government officials and the ruling class (collectively, kleptocrats), via the embezzlement of state funds at the expense of the wider population, sometimes without even the pretense of honest service. The term means “rule by thieves”. Not an “official” form of government (such as democracy, republic, monarchy, theocracy) the term is a pejorative for governments perceived to have a particularly severe and systemic problem with the selfish misappropriation of public funds by those in power.”

NAMA would seem to fit under this description if the posts by McWilliams and other are anything to go by…..but then there was this in the Irish Independent:

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/nama-to-go-after-homes-of-wealthy-developers-2237354.html

II

Banking became corrupted here for the same reason massive bonus and salaries for lending money sourced in the wholesale money markets where total money lent is substantially more than 100% deposits taken and to unsustainable property development projects/syndicates etc. I dare say that if you were a mid ranking executive in an Irish bank up to the crash and did your job prudently you wouldn’t have had a hope in hell of ever being promoted! The corruption filtered down into the construction industry whereby money was lent to investors to buy and rent properties at unsustainable yields or as Mr McWilliams pointed out for the purposes of pure speculation whereby a syndicate would form for the purpose acquiring a property and flipping it for a massive profit based only on an increase in value due to the availability of even more financing available to the next syndicate in line. However the kleptocracy you are referring to I would suggest is being foisted upon us by the people doing the lending as alluded to in Mr McWilliams article and not Nama. Despite all the corruption in the construction industry at least the developers tried to produce something even if vastly overpriced. If Ireland gets turned into a debt servicing agency the kleptocracy will be complete as the people now doing the lending to Ireland if you take McWilliams at his word KNOW Ireland will default and simply want to keep us in a never ending debt servicing position. These people don’t produce anything either and all our raw materials, creative genius, etc, etc, etc will be completely subordinated to these people for who knows how long?

ITEM 4:

BY:

People only invest when there is a genuine prospect of a return in capital to justify the investment in the first place. When the majority of people and businesses are deleveraging there will be very little or no prospect of a return on investment until the deleveraging process is complete. We are fucked because of all perverse and pervase corruption in our banking, regulatory and administrative systems, not because of the velocity of money.

ITEM 5

BY: WILLS

economic system and cheating and can one get away with cheating and play the game.

Much like the world cup.

The world cup 2010 is the pits. Cheating has destroyed the game as a sport.

Cheating and the economic system is rancid and has destroyed society.

The economic system will only stand a chance when cheating is routed out as the (to quote dunphy) “cancer that it is’.

To do this, money creation must be handed back to the citizenry.

ITEM 6

BY: ANON

e government does NOT create growth. It does not produce wealth. EVER!

The money it spends come from somewhere else – either from taxes or from debt to be paid by future taxes or from currency debasement = printing. Show me one government in 10,000 years of human history which was a successful wealth-creator. You can not. It has NEVER HAPPENED.

The role of the government and the only role of the government is to provide Security and Law. Government are by definition PEOPLE WITH GUNS. They are necessary, but guns do not create wealth.
Guns may create conditions in which wealth MIGHT be created (and not stolen from its creators). It requires a personal freedom, personal safety the rule of law – including commercial law and a stable currency. Nothing else is required. Not even a government Pension Plan. Not even a government Health Care.

A government run Health Care creates conditions in which you can not buy Aspirin because it is too cheap. It creates condition where population is force-fed Lipitor because it is profitable.

When the government borrows the money it means these money can not be used by someone else and it is a GUARANTIE of higher future taxes and/or unstable devaluing currency. Do not forget the fact that these people have already proved to be inept and corrupt.

There will be a recovery and there will be growth. It will happen in the countries which will limit the SIZE of their governments.

Here is the primary LAW of ECONOMY

MORE GOVERNMENT = LESS PROSPERITY
LESS GOVERNMENT = MORE PROSPERITY
TOO LITTLE GOVERNMENT = BARBARIANS AT THE GATES
TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT = GRADUAL ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

BSK daily log June 29, 2010

ITEM 1

BY: SOVEREIGN MONEY

YouTube – Renaissance 2.0: Lesson 6 (part 3 of 3) – Brightening the Future

Lesson 1 The Rise of Financial Empire next lesson | COUNCIL on SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGICAL & ECONOMIC RENEWAL | Damon Vrabel

ITEM 2

BY: MICHAEL HUDSON / MAX KEISER

YouTube – Press TV-On the edge with max Keiser-06-25-2010(Part1)

BSK log in June 26, 2010

ITEM 1

BY: NIALL FERGUSON

FT.com / Reportage – The people’s banker

BSK log in June 25, 2010

ITEM 1

BY: TOM DOWLING – IRELANDS AND MOVIE BUSINESS

The following article appeared in The Sunday Times on June 20th 2010 written by Brian Carey. I was one of those who contributed to this article.

For a very long time most within the industry have refused to acknowledge that all in the Irish film industry is not well and requires a good shake up. Years of tax incentives have failed to develop a stable sustainable industry.

And who’s role is it to ensure we get the best return for investment? Should it be the film board, producers or….? At the moment the industry has almost come to a standstill without focus or vision.

I would very much welcome any comments you may have on our industry…more/…..

Tom Dowling

ITEM 2

BY: MICHAEL HUDSON

Europe is committing fiscal suicide – and will have little trouble finding allies at this weekend’s G-20 meetings in Toronto. Despite the deepening Great Recession threatening to bring on outright depression, European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet and prime ministers from Britain’s David Cameron to Greece’s George Papandreou (president of the Socialist International) and Canada’s host, Conservative Premier Stephen Harper, are calling for cutbacks in public spending.

The United States is playing an ambiguous role. The Obama Administration is all for slashing Social Security and pensions, euphemized as “balancing the budget.” Wall Street is demanding “realistic” write-downs of state and local pensions in keeping with the “ability to pay” (that is, to pay without taxing real estate, finance or the upper income brackets). These local pensions have been left unfunded so that communities can cut real estate taxes, enabling site-rental values to be pledged to the banks of interest. Without a debt write-down (by mortgage bankers or bondholders), there is no way that any mathematical model can come up with a means of paying these pensions. To enable workers to live “freely” after their working days are over would require either (1) that bondholders not be paid (“unthinkable”) or (2) that property taxes be raised, forcing even more homes into negative equity and leading to even more walkaways and bank losses on their junk mortgages. Given the fact that the banks are writing national economic policy these days, it doesn’t look good for people expecting a leisure society to materialize any time soon.

Michael Hudson: Europe’s Fiscal Dystopia: the “New Austerity” Road

ONE ACRE FOR ONE PERSON FOR ONE CENT

ONE PERSON ONE CENT ONE ACRE

Interesting article at David McWilliams site on Brehon laws and introducing realigned ideas to open up the debating of ideas and solutions going forward.

My take on the crux of the article, which is debt and its true nature and reality, is the following.

PROPERTY AUTOMATICALLY BELONGS TO EVERYONE.

EVERYONE POSSESSES AN INHERENT INALIENABLE RIGHT TO OWN A PATCH OF LAND FOR SHELTER.

ONE ACRE OF A “PATCH OF LAND” FOR EACH OF US ALL FOR EACH PERSON TO LIVE IN A PEACE PROSPERITY AND HARMONY.

DENYING A PERSON THE INHERENT INALIENABLE RIGHT FOR SHELTER  PUTS HUMANITY IN THE DEBT TOILET.

Go back to our true roots before invasions etc and immediately distribute a *patch of land* for one cent for every citizen of Ireland for shelter and start allocating under a new social reform program bringing in Public Credit.

Shortcircuit  ethics deficiency by distributing a piece of land and for every citizen of Ireland with only one condition which is it cannot ever be resold.

Every citizen, over the age of 21 a piece of land for one cent to be used for shelter indefinitely.

Anyone wanting for profit from buying and selling land and of homes okay, but first, everyone has a set acre of land and a roof over their head first.

This private property link up with banking bastardization going on since the tudor times set the ball rolling on the manufacture of a Jailor economic hijack of the free market system which has been an unmitigated disaster for the world.

It is the cause for untold misery and bloodshed destruction of the family and man – woman relations.

PUBLIC CREDIT – BANKING RESTORED June 24, 2010

BY: LYNDON LAROUCHE

And so, by having Glass-Steagall system, and having a banking system which works on the basis of public credit, which is an important feature of our Constitution, when the Constitution is observed, we are now at a point where we’re going to have to take the possibility of developing a banking system as a healthy one again, get rid of all this garbage, and we’re going to have to, at that point, start with an infrastructure program, in areas like water, power, and mass transportation—these will be the key drivers.

We’re going to have to invest, quickly, largely in these areas, we’re going to have get government credit to back to the regular banking system, that is, the mercantile banking system, as well as the Federal means themselves, we’re going to have to use that credit to get mass employment started in production of basic economic infrastructure. By using infrastructure as the leader, we then require ourselves to restore industries, productive industries, of manufacturing and agriculture, in areas where they have been destroyed. Because we can not build the infrastructure, without industrial production and agricultural production.

So therefore, we use the Federal credit and the combination of a Glass-Steagall system and a global fixed-exchange-rate system—Roosevelt’s conception—we use that as the driver to create credit to build infrastructure; we use the building of infrastructure as the incentive and prompting for development of industry and agriculture, and also, of course, local communities. So, that’s the way we are going to have to proceed.

BSK daily log June 21, 2010

ITEM1

BY: THE ECONOMIST – ECB BAZOOKA

AT two in the morning on May 10th, European Union finance ministers agreed a huge increase in their political will to defend Europe’s single currency, backed by a stunning €750 billion in aid for weak links in the 16 member eurozone. Simultaneously, the European Central Bank took a revolutionary shift away from its inflation-fighting mission, announcing a scheme to buy up government bonds on the financial markets.

That new sense of resolve is good news. The more troubling news is that it took 11 hours of bitter wrangling to get the ministers to that point, and—thanks to continued German anxiety about undermining eurozone discipline by bailing out the profligate—there will be three separate mechanisms to deliver that €750 billion, of such fiendish complexity that EU officials are still not quite sure how it will all work. In a nice irony, the ministers—who have spent weeks denouncing financial markets as wicked speculators—only stopped arguing and agreed a plan in the early hours of this morning because they knew markets were about to open in Asia, well-informed sources say.

Does the good news trump the troubling news? Yes: as long as lingering disagreements and uncertainties do not hold up the rescue plan. Europe is building its own financial bazooka to warn off the markets, to borrow Hank Paulson’s image. If it is ready to fire when needed, then complexity probably does not matter for now.

What has been agreed?

First off, a €60 billion rapid reaction stabilisation fund, controlled by the European Commission, and able to send ready money to eurozone countries that are in a financing crunch. The mechanism is modelled on an existing scheme for non-euro economies, the “balance of payments facility”. The money is borrowed by the commission on the markets, using the EU budget as collateral. Because the EU budget cannot legally go into the red, that means that all 27 EU members are on the hook if money from this €60 billion pot is disbursed and not paid back: to simplify, all members would have to pay extra into the budget to top it up. Britain, for instance, would be on the hook for 12% of any losses: Alistair Darling, still the British chancellor of the exchequer, approved this after consulting his Tory counterpart, George Osborne, by telephone.

Secondly, a “special purpose vehicle” (don’t call it a fund or Eurobonds, or the Germans will be very cross), which will be created in the next few days by an intergovernmental agreement among eurozone members, and which will raise up to €440 billion euro on the markets using a blend of loans and loan guarantees from the 16 members of the single currency club. The European Commission wanted formal control of this warchest, using a clause of the Lisbon Treaty, Article 122 that allows the commission to rush emergency aid to countries hit by natural disasters or exceptional crises beyond their control (Article 122 will be used for the €60 billion pot).  …./ more

The euro crisis: Europe’s 750 billion euro bazooka | The Economist

ITEM 2

BY: YAHOO – CNN DROP AP

CNN drops AP wire service – Yahoo! News

BSK daily log June 20, 2010

ITEM 1

BY: THE GUARDIAN

Everything you need to know about the internet | Technology | The Observer

ITEM 2

BY: ANON

“While economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources, the online world is distinguished by abundance.”

The thing we’re beginning to realise with technological progress is that resources are in fact not scarce but abundant – it’s our outdated economic system which makes them necessarily scarce by design, thereby producing poverty, war, crime, and actually the vast majority of social problems. Until we start to redesign our economic system into one which replicates the system of abundance of the online world, these social problems will never go away. The internet is one of the technologies that will unleash us from our outdated and sick traditions and problems.

A resource based economy does exactly that, and we need to start talking about it before it’s too late. Mr Naughton, your article was so in touch and free thinking I suggest you write about it, it will blow your mind.

BSK daily log June 19, 2010

ITEM 1

BY: NAOMI KLEIN

GULF OIL SPILL _ HOLE IN THE EARTH

Gulf oil spill: A hole in the world | From the Guardian | The Guardian

ITEM 2

BY: ELLEN BROWN –  DEFICIT TERRORIST STRIKES

last week, England’s new government said it would abandon the previous government’s stimulus program and introduce the austerity measures required to pay down its estimated $1 trillion in debts. That means cutting public spending, laying off workers, reducing consumption, and increasing unemployment and bankruptcies. It also means shrinking the money supply, since virtually all “money” today originates as loans or debt. Reducing the outstanding debt will reduce the amount of money available to pay workers and buy goods, precipitating depression and further economic pain.

Deficit Terrorists Strike In The UK – USA Next?    : ICH – Information Clearing House

Abiotic Oil June 18, 2010

BY: WILLS

BP Oil rig in Gulf maybe drilling for Abiotic Oil. Strata Oil from magma requiring super deep drilling.

Abiotic Oil — Reserves Replenished by Process in Earth’s Mantle?

ITEM 2

BY: WILLS

‘engineers becoming burger flippers and then landlords/’ idea comes down to the incentive driving the person forward. I know engineers who are redundant but stick to business as an activity in wealth creation.

Yes we have high numbers of people in business chasing a ‘buck’ but I hold the view if credit provision saw its elemental reality in full flow and in use as a ‘utility’ slowly gradually business activity would return to utilitarian center and see a transactional culture blooming in wealth creation and flow of ideas moving fluidly in the right direction enhancing the community sense of well being and prosperity for everyone and buliding a community of tactile living guided by an incentive to do business in pursuit of wealth creation first and profit following through on its own steam generated from the basics of business practice and free market principles been adhered to.

ITEM 3

BY: RTE

‘It added Anglo was told by Irish Life and Permanent it had held discussions with ‘senior/middle management’ at the Financial Regulator and Central Bank about ‘being facilitated and facilitating transactions’ to ensure market confidence in the shape of the balance sheets of both Irish Life & Permanent and Anglo Irish Bank.’

RTÉ News: Anglo believed €7.45bn loans had approval