CNBC joins MSM's PORE on 'Gold' and 'Gold Bulls'

Now, very quickly, CNBC has joined the MSMS’s PORE against Gold and ‘Gold Bulls’ and ALL things ‘Gold!’ Read our earlier Blog, this very day, to understand what is the PORE and other things.

These things really do become uproariously hilarious when you do see the ‘puppets’ and the ‘strings’ and the ‘Puppet Master!’  The former should be obvious, from all our Blogs and web pages, and the latter will be revealed long into the future in a totally different forum.

This MSM PORE on Gold will very soon be a ‘Full Court Press!'

Are you ready for the rest of the machinations that will follow the coming year's insanity (that will be represented as sanity) and that will most severely rock you, your company, this country and the whole world?

I would strongly suggest that your company consider subscribing to our services.  And, I will lament for all those unprepared “Sheeple” and the "Sheeple Companies” that will be caught totally by surprise - with what is now in store for all the world!

Gold Sheds 'Can't Lose' Status: Now, No One Wants It

CNBC – 1 hour 59 minutes ago

“In just three months, gold (Exchange: XAU=) has gone from the trade that works in every kind of market to the trade that doesn't work in any market.

Bullion is off more than 17 percent from an all-time high reached in September as strapped hedge funds and sovereign funds sell the metal to raise funds and the strong U.S. dollar (Intercontinental Exchange US: .DXY) strips it of its safe haven status.

For a time, gold rose with stocks and other assets as central banks added liquidity to stem off a global financial crisis. It also climbed in down equity markets as investors crowded into the trade for its traditional status as a store of value in tough times.

"Gold was a safe haven, a hedge and a speculative trade all at the same time," said Michael Murphy, CEO of Rosecliff Capital, a hedge fund. "Long gold has been a winning trade for years. We expect the selloff in gold to gain momentum into 2012. Traders are finding better hedges, better safe havens, and better speculative commodity plays than long gold."…

…. In just four days, the gold sell-off has turned violent, plummeting more than $100 to breach the $1,600 level. On Wednesday gold fell with stocks. The next day, the metal fell even as the equity market rose.

"When an asset is thought to work in any market, that is the surest sign of a bubble," said Stephen Weiss of Short Hills Capital. "I believe we will hear about massive central bank selling to put currency in markets."… “    

This is the ‘real deal’ now folks.  I really do pray for all those that will not be ready for the events that will catch almost all the world unawares AFTER the “Great Deception of 2012.”

See, our many, earlier posts and web pages to get a sense of the economic turmoil and chaos that is so soon (after winter 2013) to envelope all the world.

Scaring the S__T out of the "Sheeple"

Besides the stage being set by the MSM’s PORE for the collapse of Gold into 2012 (as covered in the immediately preceding Blog), ALL the world’s MSM is now rolling out a MAJOR PORE operation of the first magnitude.  This one is on the absolute necessity of a Fiscal union to mirror the weak monetary union of the nascent EU States, known euphemistically as the EU. 

And Ms Lagarde has the unmitigated gall to state categorically that this European Dilemma is the entire world’s problem?!?!!  To reemphasize her threat she repeatedly threatens ALL the world with Hitler and WWII!

Could there possibly be a better example – EVER – of the insidious evil of the MSM’s PORE campaigns of ‘disinformation?’

But after this “Charade,” now being set in motion, is fully completed in the spring/summer of 2012, then there will be an actual and a real and a tangible Monetary and Fiscal Union of States that will, henceforth, be known as the European Union of States (EUS).

Mark our words, and read all our Blogs to understand - very clearly - why this is so!

The stage is now being set up by the IMF’s Lagarde (a real live ‘Witch’ if there ever was one) for the “Surprise” that should be “NO Surprise!”  
And then what?   
Well, we do know that the path is VERY clear for ordained results, as clearly foretold by our BLOG of 11/21:

“…DOW  rise to 13,500 90% probability or to 14,500 50% probability (as noted in Blog of 11/18),

Gold   fall to $1,450  90% probability, or to 1,350  50% probability, or to $1,275  30% probability,

Dollar, Euro and all Fiat currencies magically float upward vs. each other & gold,

MSM in TOTAL celebratory mood,

“Sheeple” madly chasing the market,…”

Are you and your company ready for the fun of the “Great Deception of 2012?”

AND, much more importantly, are you and your company fully prepared for the aftermath of these evil machinations?  

IMF’s Lagarde: Europe Crisis ‘Escalating’

Bloomberg; By Nicole Gaouette - Dec 15, 2011 12:39 PM ET

“The European debt crisis is growing to the point that it won’t be solved by one group of countries, Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund said today.

Lagarde said that if countries don’t work together, the world will face a situation similar to the 1930s, before the world slid into World War II. (this is the Big Stick!)

“There is no economy in the world, whether low-income countries, emerging markets, middle-income countries or super- advanced economies that will be immune to the crisis that we see not only unfolding, but escalating at a point where everybody would actually have to focus on what it can do,” Lagarde said.

If the international community doesn’t work together, “the risk from an economic point of view is that of retraction, rising protectionism, isolation,” Lagarde said. “This is exactly the description of what happened in the ‘30s and what followed is not something we are looking forward to.”

Lagarde said the world economic outlook “is quite gloomy” with pervasive downside risk, downward revisions, slower growth than expected, higher deficits than predicted and public finances in shaky condition. “And that is pretty much true the world over,” Lagarde said. …’

 ‘Fiscal Solidarity’

Lagarde said international support would probably be channeled through the IMF for “organizing a collective financial responsibility, a fiscal solidarity and that element of risk-sharing that is expected, pretty much, around the globe.” ….”

Herding the "Sheeple" out of Gold

For foundational understanding of today’s Blog, you must carefully read our Blogs of 11/11, 11/18, 11/21 & 11/25/11. 

For, only then will the Mainstream Media (MSM) fog be ripped from before your eyes and only then will you just begin to see, really clearly when you read MSM 'stuff,' and to understand these incredibly complex matters, in which seemingly accidental things, issues and crises are NOT accidental at all but are quite obviously planned and executed so as to reduce the greatest number of people in all the world to the greatest levels of absolute poverty.  This process has been in play for many, many years and is covered in our inaugural Market Review in some detail.

This will be a most elucidative Blog.  In it we will identify, in a very limited fashion, the “Means and the Methods” (M&M) by which the “Sheeple” are herded and corralled and psychologically compelled by artificially and very artfully constructed ‘reporting’ and ‘editorializing’ in ALL the world’s MSM. 

Once such M&M is examined in retrospect, then and only then, are the artificial prompts of the “Sheeple,” to make them buy EXACTLY the wrong investments at EXACTLY the wrong time, revealed.  The process and mechanisms by which this process is accomplished we will now call MSM’s “Pys-Ops Reporting & Editorializing” (PORE).

As supported by the evidence below, we do strongly believe that MSM’s PORE is a carefully scripted stream of ‘disinformation’ that is meant to fashion a series of unwise and foolish investments on the part of the “Sheeple” and, thereby, ultimately reduce the “Sheeple” to poverty by the incredibly stupid investment decisions that have been ever so craftily and evilly prompted by PORE!

Namely, the PORE of the MSM contributes to creating the new POOR of this country and the world!

No better example exists than the examples that we will offer today of the power and the insidiousness and the evil of the MSM’s PORE strategy, as follows from just a few days ago:

#1 Around November the 1^st of this year, Dennis Gartman went long on GOLD , saying, “… the authorities have no choice but to inflate their way out of the morass that they’ve found themselves falling into and that shall mean the diminution of currencies generally and the advancement of gold as the only currency not diminished… “,

#2 around November the 8^th Gold analyst and newsletter writer, James Turk, predicted gold would rise to $11,000 per ounce,

 #3 Goldman Sachs reaffirmed on November the 14^th that their overweight position in gold and in commodities. On gold it says it will roll over its Dec 11 long to Dec 12.

"We expect gold prices to continue to climb in 2011 and 2012 given the current low level of  US real interest rates, and as a result recommend a long gold position.

#4 Credit Suisse on November the 14^th that “gold may climb over $1,800 in the coming days with negative real interest rates as the ‘key driver’. ”

#5 Forbes, a leading player in the MSM, published on November the 9^th (http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2011/08/09/gold-hits-all-time-high-of-1778-as-jpmorgan-says-it-could-test-2500/) by which the “Sheeple” were ‘informed’ that Gold could hit  $2,500 per ounce by 12/31/11!

Now compare all of these (probably seen or read by tens of millions of "Sheeple") with Polestar Communications’ forecast of Gold that we made on 11/21/11, which was actually implicit in the Blog of 11/18                                                                     “…Gold   fall to $1,450  90% probability, or to 1,350  50% probability, or to $1,275  30% probability,..”

NOW, after yesterday's Gold collapse, the MSM has begun the opposite attack on the poor befuddled “Sheeple” as the MSM’s PORE will ever more strongly belittle all the “Gold BULLS” and ALL who are foolish enough to own Gold, with viciously scripted and quite disingenuously crafted screeds against Gold, such as the following beauty that is from the following article of just today:

 “With the dramatic moves of gold and the recent decline from its peak, I think some investors will be deciding whether they want to continue to invest in that share class,”

Paulson’s Bright Spot May Fade as Gold Plunges

Bloomber: By Kelly Bit - Dec 15, 2011 12:01 AM ET

Until this month, gold had been the bright spot for Paulson & Co. clients, who can choose to invest in gold-denominated shares of the hedge funds. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

John Paulson, the hedge-fund manager enduring the worst year in his career, may be facing a final blow from this month’s selloff in gold, an investment that mitigated losses at his $28 billion firm earlier in 2011.

The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) exchange-traded fund, of which Paulson was the largest shareholder as of Sept. 30, fell 10 percent from the end of last month, and all eight of his gold stocks slumped with a 9.6 percent decline for bullion. The declines would translate into a $672.1 million paper loss on those securities for Paulson & Co., assuming his holdings haven’t changed since the end of the third quarter, when the firm reported its equity stakes in a regulatory filing.

Until this month, gold had been the bright spot for Paulson & Co. clients, who can choose to invest in gold-denominated shares of the hedge funds. Gains in bullion had alleviated losses of 46 percent, in the dollar share class, for one of the firm’s biggest funds this year through November. Paulson also offers a dedicated Gold Fund, its best performer this year.

“With the dramatic moves of gold and the recent decline from its peak, I think some investors will be deciding whether they want to continue to invest in that share class,” said Don Steinbrugge, managing partner of Agecroft Partners LLC, a Richmond, Virginia-based firm that advises hedge funds and investors.

…Paulson cut the so-called net exposure in his main funds to 30 percent last month and reduced bullish bets across all his funds on stocks including gold companies.

…Armel Leslie, a spokesman for Paulson, declined to comment on the firm’s potential gold-related losses.

Paulson & Co. held shares of SPDR Gold Trust and eight gold companies in the third quarter, according to its 13F filing. The firm, which uses the ETF to denominate the gold share classes of his funds, pared its stake in the gold trust to 20.3 million shares from 31.5 million as of June 30.

The firm was the largest holder of American depositary receipts in AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (ANG), the third-biggest gold producer. Paulson also owned shares or ADRs of Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI), NovaGold Resources Inc. (NG), Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS), Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. (AEM), Iamgold Corp. (IMG), Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) and International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. (THM)

200-Day Average

Gold’s plunge to a five-month low sent it below its 200-day moving average for the first time in almost three years, signaling more declines to traders who follow technical analysis. Bullion fell below $1,600 an ounce yesterday to settle at the lowest level in five months as a stronger dollar curbed demand for the metal as an alternative asset. …”

Its just a 'Reality Show.' Isn't it?

It is quite obvious that the FED believes the incredibly questionable GDP data from the Commerce Department (US CD) and this explains quite clearly why their monetary responses have been ineffectual to a fault.  We cover these beguilingly misleading – IMO - economic machinations from the US CD in great detail in our inaugural Market Review and in a ‘passing fashion’ in many of these Blogs. 

Namely, the US CD’s aggregate economic data streams, but especially the GDP and CPI numbers, are so horribly inaccurate and outdated (in our opinion) that the "moderately" expanding US economy referenced below is a complete fiction, thus the subject line of this Blog.  Furthermore, the current US economy is in reality so very dismal (and everyone out here in the ‘Real World’ knows it) that all comments such as these from the US Fiscal and Monetary authorities only serve to distance them from their constituency, and ever more so every day.  Which result does severely limit the FED’s historical powers of “Moral Suasion.”

The real message from this article is that the FED is totally panicked with what they perceive out there (do they see the 3^rd and last of the “Kondratieff” Long-Waves?)  and are madly sending up “Trial Balloons“ for QE 3. However, the “Sheeple” don’t know that QE 3 already started with a $39,600,000,000 burst of buying from the Member Banks by the FED in early November that kicked off the equity rally in November, thus sustaining the hopes of the "Sheeple" into the Holidays!

Stay tuned folks.  Bernanke’s “Black Helicopter“ ‘money drops’ are just getting started!

And by the by, how much did your ‘bread’ or ‘apple’ or ‘gum’ or ‘insurance’ or ‘banking fees’ or  ‘Utilities’ or anything and everything else GO UP LAST MONTH?

According the US CD the ‘market basket’ of all that stuff that you bought last month went up only 0.2%.

Do you agree with their numbers?

Oh, and how is business on your street or in your town?

Oh, and how are your local businesses (NOT THE BIG BOX STORES) faring?

Lets’ hope the people ‘calling the shots’ start to see what the rest of us already do ‘see’ and do ‘know!’

Because, if this is a “moderately” expanding economy, then Bernanke and the rest of these Dudes are living in a “Reality Show!”

Bernanke Signals Fed Ready to Ease on EU Risk

Bloomberg; By Scott Lanman and Joshua Zumbrun - Dec 14, 2011 12:00 AM ET

Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve policy makers said the economy in the U.S. is expanding "moderately," notwithstanding some apparent slowing in global growth and an elevated unemployment rate. …

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke…  said the economy “has been expanding moderately,” compared with the Nov. 2 assessment that growth “strengthened somewhat.” …Bernanke and his colleagues may be considering more measures to aid growth and improve public understanding of Fed policy, which could be unveiled as soon as their next meeting taking place Jan. 25-26, …“They still see downside risks, so I still think they’re tilted toward easing,” said Coronado, a former Fed researcher who is based in New York. She said she expects a new round of asset purchases in the second quarter, or as soon as the January or March meetings should the economy deteriorate faster. …

Consumer Confidence

Improvement in some U.S. statistics suggests growth may be accelerating. The index of leading economic indicators rose 0.9 percent in October, (who do get to build these algorithms?)…A consumer confidence index from the Conference Board rose in November to the highest since July. (July of 2011 doesn’t matter, its comparisons with July of 2005 that counts – DOPES!) Manufacturing expanded in November at the fastest pace in five months(DITTO!!!), according to the Institute for Supply Management’s factory index.

..Policy makers acknowledged “some (What is some?) improvement in overall labor market conditions” after the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell by 0.4 percentage point in November to 8.6 percent.

…Three-month loans to the European Central Bank from the Fed surged last week to $50.7 (This is our money $50 Billion they just used to support the socialist GIIPS! Who gave them that right?) billion from $400 million after the Fed, ECB and four other central banks lowered borrowing costs by a half-percentage point in a coordinated action.

The "Great Deception' has begun in earnest!

As noted in this AM’s Blog, the ‘Sheeple’ are being set up again for the greatest ‘sheering’ of the last few decades, when the “Great Deception of 2012” is fully rolled out in just a few months.

And how could they be, you might ask?

Because the ‘Sheeple’ should NOT EVER be surprised that the economists are ‘surprised’ at the strength of the ‘fudged’ economic data that they are being fed.

And, if the ‘Sheeple’ are surprised that the economists are ‘Surprised,’ then they all deserve to be ‘Super Surprised” when the resurging ”Kondratieff” Long-Wave sweeps them all away, as surely as did the Great Flood sweep away all the sinners, in the rising waters known as “Noah’s Flood!”  

“…The Citigroup Economic Surprise Index, a daily measure of whether economic data is better or worse than economists’ projections, improved to 85.7 on Dec. 2, the highest since March 9, after the Labor Department reported an unexpected drop in the jobless rate.

Now, we must remind you that these are the very same economists that did NOT see the Credit-Crisis of 2007-08 before hand!

When we wrote this AM’s Blog, we absolutely had NO idea that it would get sooooo uproariously funny so very quickly!

Are you and your company going to follow these “deaf, dumb and blind” economists over the precipice  - yet again?

U.S. Economic Data is Surprising Forecasters

Bloomberg; By Joshua Zumbrun - Dec 12, 2011 10:45 AM ET

“U.S. economic data are outperforming expectations by the most in nine months, a trend Federal Reserve officials may incorporate into their policy statement tomorrow.

The Citigroup Economic Surprise Index, a daily measure of whether economic data is better or worse than economists’ projections, improved to 85.7 on Dec. 2, the highest since March 9, after the Labor Department reported an unexpected drop in the jobless rate. The index is calculated on a three-month rolling basis and weighted for the importance of the indicator.

“Most of the economists * are missing the underlying strength” in the world’s largest economy, said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, Inc. in Holland, Pennsylvania. The Fed will “modestly upgrade the economic outlook but change little else.”

*

“Most of the economists are (ALWAYS) missing the underlying strength (and everything else for the last forty years, and the will ABSOLUTELY miss and not see the onrushing cataclysmic Tsunami wave of the “Kondratieff” Long-Wave )”

Herding of the "Sheeple" and their money HAS begun!

In our Market Review we covered in great detail the need of ALL Marketing and Advertising executives to be ever vigilant as to the ‘mood of the land.'  And, quite unfortunately, the ‘mood of the land’ is virtually equivalent to the ‘mood of the markets.’  The only qualifier being; that one must be aware of which markets are affecting the ‘mood’ of the investor, consumer or public at large at any given time.

Then we identified the phenomena of a decades long continual ‘herding’ and ‘corralling’ of the ‘Sheeple’ into the wrong investments, thus enabling the easy ‘sheering’ of them.   After the most recent years, the ‘Sheeple’ are ever more desperate to conserve their precious few remaining financial assets, that they still have possession of, after the “Internet/Stock Market Crash of 2001” and the RE Crash of 2005 – 2022 and the “Credit-Crisis of 2007-08,” that precipitated the Stock Market Crash of 2008-09.

These were all especially traumatic events but will pale in comparison to the next ‘Surprise” (that should be NO surprise, to anyone) on the horizon, i.e a combined “Bond Market and Stock Market Crash of 201(-).

As readers of that analysis, and of all these Blogs, are quite well aware, there will be, before that outsize event, a “Great Deception of 2012,” which will witness a supposedly miraculous ascension of all equities on the “Surprise” solution to the EU crisis that will miraculously materialize in the early part of 2012.

That “Deception” will be engineered in conjunction with the strengthening U.S. economy (on fudged CD, and other US agency’s, data) and is even now being set up with “the biggest rally in Treasuries since 2008,” as the professional financial type “Sheeple” are fleeing a supposedly hopeless Europe (which it is NOT) and buying US Treasuries (which are hopeless IN THE EXTREME) at ridiculously insane prices and yields!

Will you and your company be fooled by these apparitions of recovery, and then engage in exactly the wrong (and suicidal) Marketing and Advertising and Inventory Builds at EXACTLY the wrong time – like next summer and fall?

Stay tuned folks, this is getting positively funny, for those of us who have witnessed these "Dupe" and "Dope" moving financial crises type machinations in past decades and do KNOW the quite predictable outcomes.

U.S. Growth No Deterrent for Rally in Treasuries

Bloomberg; By Daniel Kruger and Liz Capo McCormick - Dec 12, 2011 5:37 AM ET

 “As the concern around the euro zone continues to worsen, the money is flowing into the U.S.,” Terry Belton, the global head of fixed-income strategy at JPMorgan said. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

The strengthening U.S. economy is proving no deterrent to the biggest rally in Treasuries since 2008, and America’s largest bank says it may get even better for bond investors.

U.S. government debt has returned 8.9 percent this year, including reinvested interest, Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes show. That compares with the 1.8 percent gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index of stocks when dividends are included. The rally in Treasuries accelerated since October even as reports showed improvements in everything from consumer confidence to jobless claims to manufacturing.

While government debt usually suffers as a strengthening economy spurs inflation and encourages investors to take bigger risks with their money, this recovery has been different because Europe’s sovereign debt crisis has elevated the stress in the global financial system, bolstering demand for the safest assets. …

Dollar Appreciation

The dollar has appreciated 8.5 percent since its low this year on Aug. 1...

Swap-Yield Correlation

Even with the moves, two-year interest-rate swap spreads, a measure of stress in the financial system, ended last week little changed at about 42 basis points. That’s more than 50 percent greater than its average this year.

… “In the environment that we’re in, which is fear of Europe, those fears are overwhelming any movement in the economy,” Thomas Roth, a senior trader in New York at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities USA Inc., said in a Dec. 8 telephone interview.

…

Policy makers led by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke pledged on Aug. 9 that the central bank would hold its target rate for overnight loans between banks at about zero (This insane ZIRP is right now causing enormous financial dislocations and severe misallocations of capital that will eventually KILL us - all) for at least the next two years and said Sept. 21 they would extend maturities of the Fed’s Treasury holdings by purchasing $400 billion of long- term debt and selling an equal amount of shorter-term securities. That was after buying $2.3 trillion of government and mortgage securities from November 2008 through June 2011…The said Roth at Mitsubishi UFJ. … economy is “not strong enough to generate a big move up in yields given the fear that’s out there,”… “

We've ALL Crossed the Rubicon Now

As Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River on his way to Rome to maneuver his way to the top as Supreme Leader (Emperor) of what had been a Republic until his move, he famously remarked to the officers around him that the “die is cast!”  

At that time his remark was weighted with the mystery of a new adventure with totally unknown consequences, because until that moment Roman Generals were clearly and unequivocally proscribed from leading their Legions, fully armed and at their command, when they returned to Rome.  As we all know, he did not fare so well in his quest for ultimate power, but at that moment when he crossed the Rubicon, it very much looked that he was unstoppable.

IMO - the moment at hand is equally portentous of deadly and mortal consequences for all the world, as our Fiscal and Monetary authorities have “ALL CROSSED THE RUBICON!”  

Namely, Bernanke’s ZIRP (See our Blog of 11/15), now guaranteed until 2013 or later, is much more foolhardy, suicidal, insane and hugely reckless than was Julius’ move on the Senators of Rome.  

I am rather certain that this country’s, and the entire world’s, economic and political future will prove to be just as disastrously mortal to us with Bernanke’s ZIRP moves, as did the Roman Republic fail to survive the years of disastrous economic and political chaos that followed Julius Caesar’s foolish endeavor.

A sense of the shifting psychological and cultural and societal tides is apparent in the following two articles, which do clearly illustrate the growing fear of loss of one’s financial assets in Europe and the loss of one’s life in the United States.

The “New Normal” is now enveloping the entire world and its impact will become ever more apparent to all, as the ”Kondratieff” Long-Wave breaks over all the earth in the relatively near future.  Of that we are certain.  Review our thoughts about these arising phenomena on the New Normal web page or subscribe to our Market Review for much greater details.

Are you and your company ready?

Gold Traders Most Bullish in Month on Debt Crisis: Commodities

By Nicholas Larkin - Dec 9, 2011 1:10 PM ET

“….Gold traders are more bullish as investors buy metal at the fastest pace in a year to protect their wealth from Europe’s escalating debt crisis. …

Investors are now making a $130.2 billion bet on gold ….“People are buying out of concern, out of fear,” said Mark O’Byrne, executive director of Dublin-based GoldCore Ltd., a brokerage that sells everything from quarter-ounce British Sovereigns to 400-ounce bars. Central banks “are all pursuing extremely loose monetary policies and we still have negative real interest rates. That makes gold attractive.”

Bullion rose 21 percent to $1,717.80 an ounce this year on the Comex in New York, and reached a record $1,923.70 in September. The Standard & Poor’s GSCI gauge of 24 commodities rose 1.8 percent and the MSCI All-Country World Index of equities retreated 8.9 percent. Treasuries returned 9.3 percent, a Bank of America Corp. index shows. …

The ECB also said it would offer banks unlimited cash for three years and loosened the collateral criteria it imposes when lending by making credit claims such as bank loans eligible and reducing the rating threshold on asset-backed securities.

Gold bar and coin demand in Europe more than doubled to 118.1 tons in the third quarter from a year earlier, data from the London-based World Gold Council show. European Union clients opened a record number of accounts with GoldCore last week and that may be exceeded this week, O’Byrne said.

Central banks are adding to their gold reserves for the first time in a generation. South Korea said last week it bought 15 tons in November to diversify its foreign-exchange reserves. The World Gold Council expects central banks to buy as much as 450 tons this year. Official holdings stand at 30,708 tons, data from the council show. …”

In the Untied States, a much more pronounced and prominent fear and loathing of the unknown prompted by the total erasure or lowered thresholds of all moral codes has now engendered a level of FEAR that is totally new and very unwelcome to us who remember the 50’s.  

The following article also reveals the shifts in demographics that now have produced an atomized society of fearful and apprehensive Americans that simply did NOT exist in the 50's. Those days are indeed gone, forever.  And, President Obama revealed EXACTLY why they don't exist in this country anymore, when  he so cogently,proudly, defiantly and foolishly proclaimed in his first days in office:

“This is no longer a Christian Country!”

As a fervent Christian, who does KNOW Almighty God and His Son – The Christ – I am in total agreement with the President on this one!

 

Buddhist Packing Bond Pistol Shows American Embrace of Guns

Bloombeg; By Ken Wells - Dec 9, 2011 5:37 PM ET

 “…Violet Blue poses for a photo in San Francisco in this still photo taken from the documentary "A Girl and her Gun." Source: Cathryne Czubek via Bloomberg

Robin Natanel picks up a compact black pistol, barrel pointed down range. Gripping the gun with both hands, left foot forward, she raises the semi-automatic and methodically squeezes off five shots. The first one creases the left edge of a red bull’s-eye on a target 25 feet away. The four others paint a three-inch pattern around the first. If the target were a person’s head or heart, he’d probably be dead.

Natanel is a Buddhist, a self-avowed “spiritual person,” a 53-year-old divorcee who lives alone in a liberal-leaning suburb near Boston. She is 5-foot-1 (155 centimeters) and has blonde hair, dark eyes, a ready smile and a soothing voice, with a hint of Boston brogue. She’s a Tai Chi instructor who in classes invokes the benefits of meditation. And at least twice a month, she takes her German-made Walther PK380 to a shooting range and blazes away.

Two years ago, an ex-boyfriend broke into her house when she wasn’t home. The police advised a restraining order. Instead, she bought pepper spray and programmed the local police number on her cell phone’s speed dial. “I was constantly terrified for my safety,” she says.

Ultimately, she got the Walther, joining a confederacy of people who might once have been counted on in the main to be anti-handgun -- women, liberals, gays, college kids. They are part of a national story: Domestic handgun production and imports more than doubled over four years to about 4.6 million in 2009, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun-industry trade group.

‘Societal Change’

The surge has been propelled by shifting politics and demographics … Events like yesterday’s fatal shootings on the Virginia Tech University campus reinforce a feeling that the world is an unsafe place,… Natanel found it was no trouble to purchase the Walther, a brand favored by movie superspy James Bond, or to locate experts to train her “I’d never considered a gun,” Natanel says. “I thought they were scary. I wanted nothing to do with them. I didn’t think anyone should have them.”

Twenty years ago, 76 percent of women felt that way about handguns, and 68 percent of all people in the country were wary enough of firearms of any kind to tell Gallup pollsters that they backed laws more strictly limiting their sale. Then what Gallup calls “a clear societal change” began.

Democrats, Women

In October, a Gallup poll found record-low support for a handgun ban -- at 26 percent among all, and 31 percent among women. The poll, which has tracked gun attitudes since 1959, documented a record-low 43 percent who favor making it more difficult to acquire guns and record-high numbers of women and Democrats saying there is a firearm at home. Forty-seven percent said someone in the household owns at least one gun, the highest reading in 18 years.

The growing acceptance of guns echoes a transformation in the politics of weapons. In 1987, Florida joined a handful of states that by law or tradition allowed people to carry hidden guns; now Illinois is the sole conceal-carry holdout, and the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 16 sent to the Senate a bill advocated by the NRA that would require those that issue concealed gun permits to recognize licenses from other states.

... Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, which claims 45,000 adherents on Facebook, sprang up in response to the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings.

….The advent of the 24/7 news cycle and its steady thrum on violent crimes may also be helping to drive people to handguns. Deciding to acquire one is part of “a broader feeling of helplessness that doesn’t come out of any kind of thoughtful calculation of risk,” says Homsher. “People buy guns to get rid of their phantoms.”

Women, too, may be liberalizing gun attitudes, because of the unprecedented numbers of them who have trained on firearms in the military and law enforcement in the past 30 years. Some 250,000 women have served in combat zones -- and often in combat roles -- in Iraq and Afghanistan, returning with a familiarity of firearms their mothers never had.

….Besides Students for Concealed Carry, there are the Pink Pistols, Mothers Arms, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, the Second Amendment Sisters, the Women’s Firearm Network and the International Defensive Pistol Association, among others....

The public face of the 11-year-old Pink Pistols, which claims 1,500 members across 29 chapters, is Nicki Stallard, a 52-year-old, San Jose, California, medical technician who has a Colt .45 and a conceal-carry permit. She recruits under the group’s motto, “Armed gays don’t get bashed.”

Stallard, who had a sex-change operation in 2007, is in a documentary being made by HEYbabe Productions, a group of independent film makers, that amounts to a call to arms for gays. The title, “Arming Laramie,” derives from Laramie, Wyoming, the site of the 1988 murder of Matthew Shepard, a 21- year-old gay college student, that led to the passage of a 2009 federal hate crimes law named after him.

‘It’s Emotional’

As Gwen Patton, a former spokeswoman for the Pink Pistols, says in the trailer: “We teach queers to shoot -- then we teach everybody that we’ve done it.”...

Women Living Alone

Natanel is emblematic of a demographic bulge that may help explain why women are drawn to handguns: More and more of them are living alone. The number of one-person households in America increased to 27 percent of the population in 2010 from 13 percent in 1960, according to U.S. Census data. Including single mothers, about half of all women now live without spouses, up from about 35 percent in 1950, based on census estimates. …

 ‘You’re Done’

Over lunch at a Friendly’s restaurant in Springfield, Massachusetts, Robin Natanel marvels at her changed attitudes. A half-hour earlier, she was browsing the Smith & Wesson retail store and, she says, “drooling over guns -- it’s like shoe- shopping to me now.”

She was considering a smaller pistol because she’d become enamored of a new conceal-carry holster called the Flashbang that attaches to the underwire of a bra. The wearer simply pulls up her blouse or T-shirt and with a single swipe downward can free the gun and fire, hence the archly descriptive name. The Walther, she says, “is just too big to fit the Flashbang.”

The topic turns serious. Natanel recalls the Oct. 12 shooting rampage at a Southern California hair salon in which eight people died. “If people couldn’t get guns at all, yes, maybe that would have prevented the shooting. But that’s not the world we live in,” Natanel says. “And what if I had been there with my gun? What if I could have intervened? Slowed him down. Would people judge me then?”

She adds: “I wake up every day saying, ‘Please, I never want to shoot.’ But make no mistake about it -- you try to hurt me and you’re done.”