Need I Say More...

Lois "I'm Not Good At Math" Lerner - the IRS official who was in charge of the IRS' Tax-Exempt Division - will plead the 5th tomorrow at her Congressional investigative hearing tomorrow (not that this investigation will amount to anything of substance anyway, other than to provide forum for the Republicans grandstand for the benefit of voters).  Here's the report:  LINK

Good luck to you if you think this country can be saved...

Plausible Deniability

From Wikipedia:  "Plausible deniability is a term coined by the CIA during the Kennedy administration to describe the withholding of information from senior officials in order to protect them from repercussions in the event that illegal or unpopular activities by the CIA became public knowledge."

Now, as it applies to Obama, also from Wikipedia:  "The term most often refers to the denial of blame in (formal or informal) chains of command, where senior figures assign responsibility to the lower ranks, and records of instructions given do not exist or are inaccessible, meaning independent confirmation of responsibility for the action is nearly impossible. In the case that illegal or otherwise disreputable and unpopular activities become public, high-ranking officials may deny any awareness of such act or any connection to the agents used to carry out such acts. The lack of evidence to the contrary ostensibly makes the denial plausible, that is, credible. The term typically implies forethought, such as intentionally setting up the conditions to plausibly avoid responsibility for one's (future) actions or knowledge."   LINK

I work everyday with some very bright people.  Many of them have a higher IQ than me and most of them are more "book smart."  But sometimes it seems like I'm the only person out there who truly understands and sees just how thoroughly and irreparably corrupt this whole system is.

The people running this country in DC and NYC have made a complete mockery of freedom, free markets, Rule of Law and justice. There is no such thing as those principles as they apply to the United States. None. Gone. For anyone to have even a sliver of hope that I'm wrong is just sheer stupidity. There is no hope for this country. Period. It's in 5,000 years of history.  It's not my idea or original view. It's just a fact. All you have to do is think about how you would operate if you were in their shoes and you could basically do whatever you wanted without fear of being arrested or prosecuted. That's it.  I would do exactly what they are doing.

I can understand why people who have kids need to have some denial/hope, but it's just that. Nothing more. They are going to let Obama skate away from these scandals using the good old "plausible deniability." "They" refers to Congress and the public.  And then he'll have to endure a week or two of intense criticism for being "too detached."   And then it will be back to corruption as usual.

And I'm not just bashing Obama.  There are plenty of instances during W's term and during Bubba's term that the same concept applies.  It's not about Democrats vs. Republicans.  There's really not much difference between the two parties in terms of the degree of corruption allowed, enabled and committed.  It is "US" vs. "THEM" - with "THEM" being the people running DC and Wall Street. But then again, I guess it  depends upon what the meaning of the word "is," is.

Ultimate Contrarian Indicator: Gold Is Most-Hated Asset Class

                             
By now everyone who follows the metals pretty closely is aware of the stunning reversal the metals made today after the blatant smash in the silver market at yesterday evening's commencement of global electronic paper futures trading.  A massive number of silver contracts were sold into the Globex electronic trading system, taking the entire market by surprise and wiping out a whole series of stop-loss orders there set below the market.  The silver market was driven down $2.10 (9.5%) in less than 4 minutes.  It was without a doubt  the motivated, premeditated operation of someone who was trying to completely disrupt the silver market.  It was someone who was operating without any fear of being investigated by the market regulatory branch of the Government.

But a funny thing happened.  Once the initial shock had quickly worn off.  The market slowly moved higher the rest of the night.  By 10:00 a.m. Denver time, about 18 hours later, the price of silver was even with its Friday close.  Once that occurred, the market started to quickly run higher in frenzied short-covering.  As I write this, silver is up 2.4% from Friday's close and gold is up 2%.

So what happened?  To begin with, the enormous appetite for physical gold and silver was fueled even more by last night's lower prices.  Large premiums for gold bars, something rarely seen, are now being paid in Asia and India.  We are getting reports of up to 3-week delays for delivery.  But don't take that from me, if you go the Shanghai Gold Exchange website, you'll see for  yourself that no deliveries of gold have been reported for at least 2 weeks.  Unprecedented.  The deliveries are not being reported because the gold is not available to be delivered. Therefore there's nothing to report. This is going to end badly for anyone riding the coat tails of the manipulating banks by shorting this market, because I can guarantee you that they are covering their tracks and likely have shifted to the long side of the trade by getting long physical metal.  Certainly the net short position of the banks on the Comex is as low as its been in many years.

At any rate, I wanted to link an article written by the proprietor of the Acting-Man blog.  This guy lays out the contrarian indicator case for gold and explains why the western Central Banks are so desperate to try and discredit gold and discourage anyone from converting their fiat paper money into gold and silver: 

It is a good bet that if gold had continued to rise in the face of money printing being accelerated all over the world, the inevitable loss of faith in central banks would have happened sooner rather than later. That it will eventually happen is unavoidable – the modern monetary system was fated to self-destruct the moment it was conceived. This is so because central planning and price controls cannot work in the long run, even though central banks are socialistic institutions adrift in a capitalist sea, so to speak.

Here's the LINK.  I highly recommend taking the time to read this short, well-written and documented commentary, as it will shine a bright light on the truth for anyone who was equivocating about fact vs. fiction.

The Sell-Off In The Precious Metals and Mining Stocks Is Just Plain Silly Now

Currently, I don't think it's possible for the media reporting and investor sentiment to get any more negative toward gold. But quite frankly, given the extreme negative sentiment, in addition to the numerous other contrarian indicators I've outlined in previous articles, I have never in my life seen a market set up technically for a big bull move as gold/silver and the mining stocks are now.  - Dave Kranzler, Seeking Alpha:  LINK

Let's be clear here, if I thought the fundamentals of the global financial system were improving in a way that was negative for gold, I would go short gold and load up on stocks and junk bonds.  No question about that.  When I came out of business school in 1991, I was one of two top-10 b-school grads who went into junk bonds. That's 2 people out of about 5000 grads.  No one was interested in junk bonds in 1991.  But I had examined the fundamentals and determined that it was still a valid form of corporate finance.  Recall, Drexel had just collapsed and everyone was screaming that junk bonds were dead.  In fact, 1992 marked the start of a new bull market in junk bonds.

The key to understanding relative value is not found in charts, "technical" indicators, CNBC, Bloomberg News, any Wall Street research, Barron's, chat board, etc.  Realistic and honest assessment and study of fundamentals is nowhere to be found in any of those sources.  None.  Zero.

The key to understanding value is doing your own research, which includes knowing where to look to find the best possible information available.  Since 2002, when I first really understood just how corrupted and doomed the U.S. financial and political system is, I have yet to run into anyone, and I mean anyone, who can answer this simple proposition:

Please tell me - I'm all ears and open mind - how the U.S. Government can possibly start reducing and eventually balance the amount of money of that it takes in vs. the amount of money that it spends - not just on a cash-in/cash-out basis but include the rapidly growing future liability payments connected with Federal pensions, social security and all the legacy entitlement programs.  Then tell me how it can accomplish this feat plus start to reduce the enormous load of Government debt.

Remember, back in 2002 the U.S. Treasury debt outstanding was only about $6 trillion, about 60% of GDP.   Now, it's close to $17 trillion now - about 108% of GDP -  and the economy, inflation-adjusted, has not grown at all since then, especially in relation to the amount of growth in overall debt in system and in relation to the trillions in wealth being consumed by the Government.  Furthermore, the spending deficits were measured in the low $100's of billions.  Every year since and including 2009 the deficit has been over one trillion dollars.  See any trend here?  And notwithstanding the deceptive headlines recently proclaiming that the deficit will smaller this year, the truth is - the cold hard fact - that the Treasury has issued $100 billion of new debt for the first 7 months of this fiscal year - $700 billion.  The trend is still the friend of my fundamental analysis.

Every single time I've presented anyone with that proposition, I get nothing but blank stares.  No can map a solution.  Not only that, but since 2002, the systemic predicament in the U.S. has gotten inexorably worse every single year, especially when you peel away all the deceitful reporting designed to hide the interminably growing problem.   When someone can tell me how the above proposition will not only be accomplished but will be put into definitive action, then I will sell all my gold, silver and mining stocks, go short gold and load up on real estate, stocks and risky bonds.

For this reason - the reason that the fundamentals supporting a significantly higher price of gold than the current manipulated price - gold remains not only the best store of wealth but also, because it is tremendously undervalued in relation to the fundamentals, but the best possible investment.

Have a great weekend and remember:  sit tight and be right.

Obama Is Destroying What's Left Of The First Amendment

     
No need for commentary - in reference to Obama's response to the illegal Press taps that it's his job to "balance" national security and the 1st Amendment:

"That's what every president says. Every president, whether it's Nixon with the Pentagon Papers or George W. Bush with the NSA wiretapping story, every president exerts, 'I'm doing this to keep you safe.' A lot of people in the public, they say that's enough, and they believe it, but the truth of the matter is that it's not enough of an answer in and of itself. That's why there is Congressional oversight of the executive branch. It's not enough just to say we're doing it to keep you safe, because the moment the American people cede that territory, then presidents can do whatever they want."

Here's the CNN video:  LINK

"Give me liberty or give me death"  - Patrick Henry, a Founding Father
   and signor of the Declaration of Independence

Top Constitutional Law Experts: Obama Makes Nixon Look Like An Amateur

                            
For all you die-hard Obama defenders, please note the experts cited in this article are primarily liberally oriented in their views.  Here's some golden truth:  Obama Considered Worse Than Nixon

                             

IRS Director of Tax-Exempt Organizations: "Like, Sorry Dude"

 Thank you.  I'm not good at math
- Lois Lerner, IRS Director of Tax-Exempt Organizations  LINK

Hmmm.  Sorry?  I'm not good at math.  It would seem that at least one of the qualifications for working at the IRS in a managerial position would be simple math skills.  Her comment was in response to an inquiry that included a basic 5th grade math calculation.

I know knee-jerk liberal Democrats are saying "serves the bastards right."  But then what do these same people say when the Government illegally raids the private information of the media - the same media that has protected and defended Obama?  Look people, the fact that Bush essentially lifted his leg on the Bill of Rights and let the Government trample all over our rights was bad enough.  But wasn't the guy that's in there now supposed fix all the damage Bush inflicted on our Constitution and Civil Rights?  I know he made those promises because I watched one of his speeches in person in 2008 in which he promised to clean up Capitol Hill and Wall Street.  How's his scorecard there?

Not only has Obama NOT even attempted to fix things, he's taken the baton handed to him by Bush and run laps around the crimes committed by the Bush Administration.  How can any person who voted for Obama POSSIBLY defend this guy?  And it's beyond laughable that Eric Holder has recused himself from the AP scandal - his dirty fingerprints are all over it.  He should be held accountable in a court of law.  But then again, it appears as if Obama skipped the class that covered Rule of Law at Harvard  - that is, assuming Harvard Law even bothers to teach that subject matter...

From the liberally-oriented Huffington Post today:

Tuesday also saw James Goodale, who was the lawyer for the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case, flatly say that Obama was worse than Nixon in his dealings with the press..."Obama has all these things that he's done to the press on national security matters that Nixon never did," Goodale told the New York Observer  LINK

The golden truth of the matter is that our Government has become excessively large and omnipotent.  No wonder the Government-directed public education system no longer teaches the history of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights - it would be too dangerous to the livelihood of politicians and Governmental lifers for kids these days to learn why Thomas Jefferson and  his colleagues expressly put in the mechanisms required to prevent the kind of Government we have now.   These days Jefferson might be subjected to oppressive tactics by the IRS and the Justice Department.  And if that didn't stop Jefferson, under the guise provided by the Bush-legislated - and Obama-strengthened - Detainee Bill, Jefferson could be arrested and detained without the right to a hearing in front of a judge to determine if the detainment was warranted.

Back in 2003, I was having a conversation with a colleague and we both agreed that eventually we were going to see things happen in this country with corruption and fraud and unchecked Government oppression that would "blow our minds."  What's happened during the Bush era was bad enough.  But the fact that guy who was supposed to rescue the system from all of the above has actually enabled the problems to get worse truly blows my mind.