STORMY SEAS

"Stormy season the Atlantic" by John Browne www.321gold.com 4/4/2010

"The European Union's debt crisis, the threatened collapse of its fledgling 'euro' currency, and the uncertainties created by the UK elections may seem very far removed from the American ship of state, but, in reality, this turbulence threatens to capsize our fragile economy.

Greece is in the most immediate danger of default, followed closely thereafter by Portugal, Spain, and perhaps Italy. As the European Union overrides its own treaty agreements to offer bailouts to these 'PIGS,' global financial markets have panicked. Essentially what has happened is that the covenants and assumptions underlying one of the bedrock reserve currencies of international finance - and the presumed successor to the US dollar as primary reserve - have been broken. This requires a global re-rating of purchasing power risk. The problem is today's investors have few havens left.

The essential political model of most of the developed world has been to promise, promise, promise, and push any costs on to the next generation. These Mediterranean countries are starved for growth because their coddled union laborers sit around waiting to hit age 50, so they can collect a pension that pays as much as their working wage. It wasn't always this way, but politicians always find it safer to add benefits than take them away. Only a taxpayer revolt can install a reformer like Lady Thatcher or Ronald Reagan, and in Club Med, the belief is that only suckers pay taxes." [emphasis added]

Doug Wakefield,4/30/2010 www.safehaven.com

"When the Federal Reserve System was founded in 1913, the national debt stood at $2.91 billion, approximately 10% higher than the debt level in 1865; 48 years earlier. The generations living prior to the founding of the Federal Reserve (the entity whose purpose according to their own website "provides the nation with a safe, flexible, and stable monetary and financial system") elected leaders at the national level who believed that if your outflow exceeded your inflow, then that was the signal to stop spending and reevaluate your programs. So what happened in the two generations AFTER the Federal Reserve was founded

By 1964, the birth of the baby boomer generation was complete. The national debt now stood at $311 billion, more than 100 times what Americans had seen in 1913. Now I ask you, is this a "stable monetary and financial system"?

Just look at us.

Everything is backwards; everything is upside down. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information and religions destroy spirituality."
-Michael Ellner

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN