Gold prices are up more than 11% since bottoming last December. Their gains last week took the gold market right up to its 50-week moving average. In 2015, attempted rallies reversed at the 50-week moving average. Could this level once again serve as a barrier to further price advances?

Either way, long-term gold bulls shouldn’t sweat this particular technical level. Major bull markets need to pull back and reconsolidate periodically.

Whether that starts happening this week, or later on at higher price levels, a downturn of some magnitude is inevitable.

One indicator that may be pointing toward a pullback sooner rather than later is the negative divergence in gold mining stocks which are often leading indicators for the yellow metal.

Despite gold spot prices rallying along with the broader U.S. equity market last week, the HUI Gold BUGS (Basket of Unhedged Gold Stocks) Index fell by 3.8%. That suggests that some big institutional speculators are turning bearish on gold near term.

If you’re looking to accumulate bullion, a pullback should be welcomed as an opportunity to get in at lower levels. Long-term bulls will not want to see anything as severe as the drawdown that occurred in the second half of 2016, however. They will be looking for any coming correction to bottom out above the $1,125/oz low hit in December.

Higher highs and higher lows characterize a major bull market. The December 2016 low was a higher low than the one from 2015. A higher high will occur when gold prices can move above $1,375. At that point, the public might start taking notice of precious metals markets – which so far this year have been overshadowed by the series of record highs in the U.S. stock market.

President Donald Trump has taken credit for the rally in stocks. His vows to cut taxes and regulations have, no doubt, driven buying by investors.

Over the weekend, Trump sent out this tweet: “Great optimism for future of U.S. business, AND JOBS, with the DOW having an 11th straight record close. Big tax & regulation cuts coming!”

Trump also wants a weaker dollar to help boost U.S. manufacturing. That could put him in conflict with the Janet Yellen Fed if it moves to raise interest rates.

Trump will have the opportunity to appoint multiple new members to the Federal Reserve Board. It’s one of the reasons why top financial and geopolitical analyst Jim Rickards is so bullish on gold.

“If Trump follows through on the logic of the cheaper dollar, he’s going to appoint doves to the Board. The market’s going to get the signal immediately and the price of gold is going to soar,” Rickards said in a recent Money Metals podcast interview. “We’ve got some very short run headwinds, maybe between now and April, but for certainly the second half, even the last three quarters of the year, I’m extremely bullish on gold.”

There will be some bumps along the way. But those who hang on tight for the ride in gold and silver markets stand to be rewarded.

Stefan Gleason is President of Money Metals Exchange, the national precious metals company named 2015 “Dealer of the Year” in the United States by an independent global ratings group. A graduate of the University of Florida, Gleason is a seasoned business leader, investor, political strategist, and grassroots activist. Gleason has frequently appeared on national television networks such as CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC, and his writings have appeared in hundreds of publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Detroit News, Washington Times, and National Review.

The post Will Gold Prices Finally Pull Back or Continue Marching Ahead? appeared first on Gold Silver Worlds.

First published here: http://j.mp/2mqSaDh

Newly-declassified documents show that a senior CIA agent and Deputy Director of the Directorate of Intelligence worked closely with the owners and journalists of many of the largest media outlets:

The United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities found in 1975 that the CIA submitted stories to the American press:

Wikipedia adds details:

After 1953, the network was overseen by Allen W. Dulles, director of the CIA. By this time, Operation Mockingbird had a major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies. The usual methodology was placing reports developed from intelligence provided by the CIA to witting or unwitting reporters. Those reports would then be repeated or cited by the preceding reporters which in turn would then be cited throughout the media wire services.

 

The Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was funded by siphoning off funds intended for the Marshall Plan [i.e. the rebuilding of Europe by the U.S. after WWII]. Some of this money was used to bribe journalists and publishers.

In 2008, the New York Times wrote:

During the early years of the cold war, [prominent writers and artists, from Arthur Schlesinger Jr. to Jackson Pollock] were supported, sometimes lavishly, always secretly, by the C.I.A. as part of its propaganda war against the Soviet Union. It was perhaps the most successful use of “soft power” in American history.

 

A CIA operative told Washington Post owner Philip Graham … in a conversation about the willingness of journalists to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories:

You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month.

Famed Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein wrote in 1977:

More than 400 American journalists … in the past twenty?five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters.

 

***

 

In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America’s leading news organizations.

 

***

 

Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were [the heads of CBS, Time, the New York Times, the Louisville Courier?Journal, and Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include [ABC, NBC, AP, UPI, Reuters], Hearst Newspapers, Scripps?Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald?Tribune.

 

***

 

There is ample evidence that America’s leading publishers and news executives allowed themselves and their organizations to become handmaidens to the intelligence services. “Let’s not pick on some poor reporters, for God’s sake,” William Colby exclaimed at one point to the Church committee’s investigators. “Let’s go to the managements.

 

***

 

The CIA even ran a formal training program in the 1950s to teach its agents to be journalists. Intelligence officers were “taught to make noises like reporters,” explained a high CIA official, and were then placed in major news organizations with help from management.

 

***

 

Once a year during the 1950s and early 1960s, CBS correspondents joined the CIA hierarchy for private dinners and briefings.

 

***

 

Allen Dulles often interceded with his good friend, the late Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life magazines, who readily allowed certain members of his staff to work for the Agency and agreed to provide jobs and credentials for other CIA operatives who lacked journalistic experience.

 

***

 

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Time magazine’s foreign correspondents attended CIA “briefing” dinners similar to those the CIA held for CBS.

 

***

 

When Newsweek was purchased by the Washington Post Company, publisher Philip L. Graham was informed by Agency officials that the CIA occasionally used the magazine for cover purposes, according to CIA sources. “It was widely known that Phil Graham was somebody you could get help from,” said a former deputy director of the Agency. “Frank Wisner dealt with him.” Wisner, deputy director of the CIA from 1950 until shortly before his suicide in 1965, was the Agency’s premier orchestrator of “black” operations, including many in which journalists were involved. Wisner liked to boast of his “mighty Wurlitzer,” a wondrous propaganda instrument he built, and played, with help from the press.)

 

***

 

In November 1973, after [the CIA claimed to have ended the program], Colby told reporters and editors from the New York Times and the Washington Star that the Agency had “some three dozen” American newsmen “on the CIA payroll,” including five who worked for “general?circulation news organizations.” Yet even while the Senate Intelligence Committee was holding its hearings in 1976, according to high?level CIA sources, the CIA continued to maintain ties with seventy?five to ninety journalists of every description—executives, reporters, stringers, photographers, columnists, bureau clerks and members of broadcast technical crews. More than half of these had been moved off CIA contracts and payrolls but they were still bound by other secret agreements with the Agency. According to an unpublished report by the House Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired by Representative Otis Pike, at least fifteen news organizations were still providing cover for CIA operatives as of 1976.

 

***

 

Those officials most knowledgeable about the subject say that a figure of 400 American journalists is on the low side ….

 

“There were a lot of representations that if this stuff got out some of the biggest names in journalism would get smeared” ….

An expert on propaganda testified under oath during trial that the CIA now employs THOUSANDS of reporters and OWNS its own media organizations. Whether or not his estimate is accurate, it is clear that many prominent reporters still report to the CIA.

A 4-part BBC documentary called the “Century of the Self” shows that an American – Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays – created the modern field of manipulation of public perceptions, and the U.S. government has extensively used his techniques.

John Pilger is a highly-regarded journalist (the BBC’s world affairs editor John Simpson remarked, “A country that does not have a John Pilger in its journalism is a very feeble place indeed”). Pilger said in 2007:

We now know that the BBC and other British media were used by the British secret intelligence service MI-6. In what they called Operation Mass Appeal, MI-6 agents planted stories about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, such as weapons hidden in his palaces and in secret underground bunkers. All of these stories were fake.

 

***

 

One of my favorite stories about the Cold War concerns a group of Russian journalists who were touring the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by the host for their impressions. “I have to tell you,” said the spokesman, “that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV day after day that all the opinions on all the vital issues are the same. To get that result in our country we send journalists to the gulag. We even tear out their fingernails. Here you don’t have to do any of that. What is the secret?”

Nick Davies wrote in the Independent in 2008:

For the first time in human history, there is a concerted strategy to manipulate global perception. And the mass media are operating as its compliant assistants, failing both to resist it and to expose it.

The sheer ease with which this machinery has been able to do its work reflects a creeping structural weakness which now afflicts the production of our news. I’ve spent the last two years researching a book about falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the global media.

 

The “Zarqawi letter” which made it on to the front page of The New York Times in February 2004 was one of a sequence of highly suspect documents which were said to have been written either by or to Zarqawi and which were fed into news media.

 

This material is being generated, in part, by intelligence agencies who continue to work without effective oversight; and also by a new and essentially benign structure of “strategic communications” which was originally designed by doves in the Pentagon and Nato who wanted to use subtle and non-violent tactics to deal with Islamist terrorism but whose efforts are poorly regulated and badly supervised with the result that some of its practitioners are breaking loose and engaging in the black arts of propaganda.

 

***

 

The Pentagon has now designated “information operations” as its fifth “core competency” alongside land, sea, air and special forces. Since October 2006, every brigade, division and corps in the US military has had its own “psyop” element producing output for local media. This military activity is linked to the State Department’s campaign of “public diplomacy” which includes funding radio stations and news websites. In Britain, the Directorate of Targeting and Information Operations in the Ministry of Defence works with specialists from 15 UK psyops, based at the Defence Intelligence and Security School at Chicksands in Bedfordshire.

 

In the case of British intelligence, you can see this combination of reckless propaganda and failure of oversight at work in the case of Operation Mass Appeal. This was exposed by the former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter, who describes in his book, Iraq Confidential, how, in London in June 1998, he was introduced to two “black propaganda specialists” from MI6 who wanted him to give them material which they could spread through “editors and writers who work with us from time to time”.

The government is still paying off reporters to spread disinformation. And the corporate media are acting like virtual “escort services” for the moneyed elites, selling access – for a price – to powerful government officials, instead of actually investigating and reporting on what those officials are doing.

One of the ways that the U.S. government spreads propaganda is by making sure that it gets its version out first. For example, the head of the U.S. Information Agency’s television and film division – Alvin A. Snyder – wrote in his book Warriors of Disinformation: How Lies, Videotape, and the USIA Won the Cold War:

All governments, including our own, lie when it suits their purposes. The key is to lie first.

 

***

 

Another casualty, always war’s first, was the truth. The story of [the accidental Russian shootdown of a Korean airliner] will be remembered pretty much the way we told it in 1983, not the way it really happened.

In 2013, the American Congress repealed the formal ban against the deployment of propaganda against U.S. citizens living on American soil. So there’s even less to constrain propaganda than before.

One of the most common uses of propaganda is to sell unnecessary and counter-productive wars. Given that the American media is always pro-war, mainstream publishers, producers, editors, and reporters are willing participants.

It’s not just lying about Saddam’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction … the corporate media is still selling lies to promote war.

Former Newsweek and Associated Press reporter Robert Parry notes that Ronald Reagan and the CIA unleashed a propaganda campaign in the 1980’s to sell the American public on supporting the Contra rebels, utilizing private players such as Rupert Murdoch to spread disinformation. Parry notes that many of the same people that led Reagan’s domestic propaganda effort in the 1980’s are in power today:

While the older generation that pioneered these domestic propaganda techniques has passed from the scene, many of their protégés are still around along with some of the same organizations. The National Endowment for Democracy, which was formed in 1983 at the urging of CIA Director Casey and under the supervision of Walter Raymond’s NSC operation, is still run by the same neocon, Carl Gershman, and has an even bigger budget, now exceeding $100 million a year.

Gershman and his NED played important behind-the-scenes roles in instigating the Ukraine crisis by financing activists, journalists and other operatives who supported the coup against elected President Yanukovych. The NED-backed Freedom House also beat the propaganda drums. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “A Shadow Foreign Policy.”]

Two other Reagan-era veterans, Elliott Abrams and Robert Kagan, have both provided important intellectual support for continuing U.S. interventionism around the world. Earlier this year, Kagan’s article for The New Republic, entitled “Superpowers Don’t Get to Retire,” touched such a raw nerve with President Obama that he hosted Kagan at a White House lunch and crafted the presidential commencement speech at West Point to deflect some of Kagan’s criticism of Obama’s hesitancy to use military force.

***

Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is bigger than ever ….

Another key to American propaganda is the constant repetition of propaganda. As Business Insider reported in 2013:

Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a highly-respected officer who released a critical report regarding the distortion of truth by senior military officials in Iraq and Afghanistan ….

From Lt. Col. Davis:

 

In context, Colonel Leap is implying we ought to change the law to enable Public Affairs officers to influence American public opinion when they deem it necessary to “protect a key friendly center of gravity, to wit US national will.”

 

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 appears to serve this purpose by allowing for the American public to be a target audience of U.S. government-funded information campaigns.

 

Davis also quotes Brigadier General Ralph O. Baker — the Pentagon officer responsible for the Department of Defense’s Joint Force Development — who defines Information Operations (IO) as activities undertaken to “shape the essential narrative of a conflict or situation and thus affect the attitudes and behaviors of the targeted audience.”

 

Brig. Gen. Baker goes on to equate descriptions of combat operations with the standard marketing strategy of repeating something until it is accepted:

 

For years, commercial advertisers have based their advertisement strategies on the premise that there is a positive correlation between the number of times a consumer is exposed to product advertisement and that consumer’s inclination to sample the new product. The very same principle applies to how we influence our target audiences when we conduct COIN.

And those “thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs” appear to serve Baker’s strategy, which states: “Repetition is a key tenet of IO execution, and the failure to constantly drive home a consistent message dilutes the impact on the target audiences.”

Government Massively Manipulates the Web, Social Media and Other Forms of Communication

Of course, the Web and social media have become a huge media platform, and the Pentagon and other government agencies are massively manipulating both.

Documents released by Snowden show that spies manipulate polls, website popularity and pageview counts, censor videos they don’t like and amplify messages they do.

The CIA and other government agencies also put enormous energy into pushing propaganda through movies, television and video games.

Cross-Border Propaganda

Propaganda isn’t limited to our own borders …

Sometimes, the government plants disinformation in American media in order to mislead foreigners. For example, an official government summary of America’s overthrow of the democratically-elected president of Iran in the 1950′s states, “In cooperation with the Department of State, CIA had several articles planted in major American newspapers and magazines which, when reproduced in Iran, had the desired psychological effect in Iran and contributed to the war of nerves against Mossadeq” (page x).

The CIA has also bribed leading foreign journalists.

And CNN accepted money from the brutal Bahrani dictatorship to run pro-monarchy propaganda.

Everyone Who Challenges the Status Quo Is Labeled As a Purveyor of “Fake News” … Or Worse

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the freedom of the press from censorship by government.

Indeed, the entire reason that it’s unlawful for the government to stop stories from being printed is because that would punish those who criticize those in power.

Why? Because the Founding Father knew that governments (like the British monarchy) will always crack down on those who point out that the emperor has no clothes.

But the freedom of the press is under massive attack in America today …

For example, the powers-that-be argue that only highly-paid corporate media shills who will act as stenographers for the fatcats should have the constitutional protections guaranteeing freedom of the press.

A Harvard law school professor argues that the First Amendment is outdated and should be abandoned.

When financially-savvy bloggers challenged the Federal Reserve’s policy, a Fed official called all bloggers stupid and unqualified to comment.

And the government is treating the real investigative reporters like criminals … or even terrorists:

• Obama has gone after top reporters. His Department of Justice labeled chief Fox News Washington correspondent James Rosen a “criminal co-conspirator” in a leak case, and for many years threatened to prosecute Pulitzer-prize winning New York Times journalist James Risen

• The Obama administration also spied on Risen, Rosen, the Associated Press, CBS reporter Cheryl Atkinson and other media

• In fact, top NSA whistleblowers tell Washington’s Blog that the NSA has spied on reporters for well over a decade … to make sure they don’t reveal illegal government programs

• The Pentagon smeared USA Today reporters because they investigated illegal Pentagon propaganda

• Reporters covering the Occupy protests were targeted for arrest

• The government admits that journalists could be targeted with counter-terrorism laws (and here). For example, after Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, journalist Naomi Wolf, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and others sued the government to enjoin the NDAA’s allowance of the indefinite detention of Americans – the judge asked the government attorneys 5 times whether journalists like Hedges could be indefinitely detained simply for interviewing and then writing about bad guys. The government refused to promise that journalists like Hedges won’t be thrown in a dungeon for the rest of their lives without any right to talk to a judge

• In an effort to protect Bank of America from the threatened Wikileaks expose of the bank’s wrongdoing, the Department of Justice told Bank of America to a hire a specific hardball-playing law firm to assemble a team to take down WikiLeaks (and see this)

• The NSA and its British counterpart treated Wikileaks like a terrorist organization, going so far as to target its employees politically, and to spy on visitors to its website

Postscript: See this and this.

First published here: http://j.mp/2llVlqK

By EconMatters

We discuss the flaws of Soft Data Economic Reports which basic come down to surveys based largely on psychology, and the fudge factor is off the charts. Investors should just ignore the survey based soft data economic reports. These economic reports are largely backward looking and too much sentiment based on behalf of the respondents in far to small a sample size to be indicative and scientific in regards to forecasting future economic trends in the economy.

© EconMatters All Rights Reserved | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Email Digest | Kindle   

First published here: http://j.mp/2mqvjYz

Let me be clear about this, the trend over the last year in Crude Oil, is up, as it has created a series of higher lows and higher highs.

In 2015, Crude kissed the underside of falling resistance line (1) for weeks and weeks, not making much progress up or down (very narrow range).

While it continued to kiss the underside of resistance, the Crude Oil fear index continued to fall. After weeks of not being able to break above falling resistance  line (1), sellers came in and Crude fell hard, while the fear ratio rallied nearly 50%.

Currently Crude Oil has been kissing the underside of line (1) for weeks and weeks, trading again in a very narrow range, similar to what it did in 2015.

At the same time it has been kissing the underside of line (1) for weeks and weeks, the fear index has continued to fall.

The patterns of today (kissing the underside of falling resistance), looks very similar to what took place in 2015. In times like this, one of my favorites quotes comes to mind; “Its not the odds of an event happening that is important, its the impact if it does.”

The odds are low that Crude Oil repeats again. The impact if it does, could be large, as Crude Oil and the broad have been fairly correlated since 2015.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First published here: http://j.mp/2lTJqSX

Globally inflation is on the rise.

On Monday Spain reported a year over year 7.5% jump in its PPI reading (a measure of inflation). Take a look at that chart.

Spain is just the latest major economy to join the inflationary tide.

German also saw a recent spike in PPI.

 

In the US, inflation is now well above the Fed’s target 2%, having ripped over 3% higher in the last six months alone.

This is much bigger than Trump or any single factor. After eight years of low interest rates and Trillions of Dollars in QE spent, global Central banks have finally unleashed inflation…

The big problem with this is that inflation is like ketchup in a bottle. It always takes longer to get achieve than you'd predict... but once it hits, you usually get more than you hoped for.

This is the sort of environment in which a major market event could happen. Over $100 trillion in bonds are at risk of entering a bear market if inflation REALLY takes hold.

And while the odds are low that we get an actual Crash… this environment is more conducive to Black Swan events than any other in the last seven years.

On that note, we are already preparing our clients for this with a 21-page investment report titled the Stock Market Crash Survival Guide.

In it, we outline how the coming crash will unfold…which investments will perform best… and how to take out “crash” insurance trades that will pay out huge returns during a market collapse.

We are giving away just 1,000 copies of this report for FREE to the public.

To pick up yours, swing by:

http://j.mp/1TQxHwv

Best Regards

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

 

 

First published here: http://j.mp/2l8U23c

Subway's prides themselves on serving the 'freshest' ingredients. The main question is, what exactly are in the ingredients?

According to DNA tests conducted by Trent University and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Subway's chicken fillets, found in their Oven Roasted Chicken sandwich, had just 53.6% chicken in it, while their sumptuous strips, found in their delicious Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sandwich, contained only 42.8% chicken.

In case you're wondering, the remainder of the 'chicken' substance is made from soy.

Subway's Canada responded to the findings with the following statement.

“SUBWAY Canada cannot confirm the veracity of the results of the lab testing you had conducted,” the company said, adding, “Our chicken strips and oven roasted chicken contain 1% or less of soy protein. We use this ingredient in these products as a means to help stabilize the texture and moisture. All of our chicken items are made from 100% white meat chicken which is marinated, oven roasted and grilled.”

Related: CBC and Trend also tested the chicken from fast food chains, including A&W, McDonald's, Tim Horton's and Wendy's -- most of which contained 80-90% chicken.

Here's a video of the results below.

Stop eating fast food.
Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

First published here: http://j.mp/2mB2Snr

Importance of Hiding Gold Creatively and Securely If Taking Delivery

• Why gold retains value?
• Interesting unknown gold facts
• "Prepare your jaws for a sizeable drop!"
• History, finite, rare and peak gold
• "It is beautiful to look at..."
• 'Heavy metal' - Thud sound of a gold bar (kilo)
• 'Going for gold' - Olympic gold medals to Chelthenham 'Gold Cup'
• Peak gold ... "Hard work to get gold out of the ground..."
• How much an Oscar is actually worth?
• Importance of hiding gold creatively and securely if taking delivery
• Owning a safe - "hidden away and bolted down"
• Owning gold in secure storage in Zurich, Singapore and Hong Kong

Talking all things gold with @MarkTOByrne, the #Oscars statue is only worth €600! This gold bar however is worth €35,000! #DermotAndDave http://pic.twitter.com/nFrzrucDZS

It's the day after the Oscars and we've got gold on our minds!

Mark O'Byrne from Goldcore Ireland popped in to chat to Dermot & Dave this morning.

Mark told us lots of interesting facts that we didn't know and revealed how much an Oscar is actually worth...

The entire statue is actually only sprayed with gold and is therefore worth a measly €600.

Interview can be listened to on Today FM here

Gold and Silver Bullion - News and Commentary

Gold falls from 3-1/2 mth high, Trump speech on the radar (Reuters)

Gold prices eke out 3rd gain in a row (Marketwatch)

Fed may need to raise interest rates in ‘near future’: Kaplan (Reuters)

Trump seeks 'historic' U.S. military spending boost, domestic cuts (Reuters)

Gold fingered for distorting Brexit Britain’s trade balance (FT)

Trump and Elections Angst Combine to Boost Europe Gold ETFs (Bloomberg)

Buffett: No, we never said stocks are ‘forever’ (Marketwatch)

"Everything Will Grind to a Halt in 2017" - Stockman (YouTube)

Losses of £58 Bln since the 2008 bailout – how did RBS get here? (The Guardian)

American Eagle silver bullion coins struck at three facilities in FY 2016 (Coinworld.com)

Gold Prices (LBMA AM)

28 Feb: USD 1,251.90, GBP 1,006.90 & EUR 1,180.79 per ounce
27 Feb: USD 1,256.25, GBP 1,011.16 & EUR 1,187.41 per ounce
24 Feb: USD 1,255.35, GBP 1,000.89 & EUR 1,185.18 per ounce
23 Feb: USD 1,237.35, GBP 992.97 & EUR 1,173.13 per ounce
22 Feb: USD 1,237.50, GBP 994.21 & EUR 1,178.22 per ounce
21 Feb: USD 1,228.70, GBP 988.86 & EUR 1,166.16 per ounce
20 Feb: USD 1,235.35, GBP 991.49 & EUR 1,163.21 per ounce

Silver Prices (LBMA)

28 Feb: USD 18.28, GBP 14.70 & EUR 17.24 per ounce
27 Feb: USD 18.34, GBP 14.77 & EUR 17.33 per ounce
24 Feb: USD 18.27, GBP 14.56 & EUR 17.23 per ounce
23 Feb: USD 18.00, GBP 14.42 & EUR 17.06 per ounce
22 Feb: USD 18.00, GBP 14.47 & EUR 17.14 per ounce
21 Feb: USD 17.89, GBP 14.41 & EUR 16.97 per ounce
20 Feb: USD 17.98, GBP 14.42 & EUR 16.92 per ounce

Recent Market Updates

- Oscars Debacle – Movies More Costly As Dollar Devalued
- Gold Up 9% YTD – 4th Higher Weekly Close and Breaks Resistance At $1,250/oz
- The Oscars – Worth Their Weight in Gold?
- Gold To Benefit from Rising Inflation and Higher Than “Official” China Gold Demand
- Russia Gold Buying Is Back – Buys One Million Ounces In January
- Gold The “Ultimate Insurance Policy” as “Grave Concerns About Euro” – Greenspan
- Sharia Standard May See Gold Surge
- Gold Price To 2 Month High As Fiery Trump Declares World Order
- Gold’s Gains 15% In Inauguration Years Since 1974
- Turkey, ‘Axis of Gold’ and the End of US Dollar Hegemony
- Gold Up 5.5% YTD – Hard Brexit Cometh and Weaker Dollar Under Trump
- Bitcoin and Gold – Outlook and Safe Haven?
- Physical Gold Will ‘Trump’ Paper Gold

Interested in learning more about physical gold and silver?
Call GoldCore and speak with a Gold and Silver Specialist today!

First published here: http://j.mp/2lSySDB

First published here: http://j.mp/2mnEdWM

By EconMatters

We discuss the valuation question in this video, and Warren Buffet`s assertion that stocks are not in a bubble. Warren didn`t you say to buy when there is Blood in the Streets? Warren Buffet says a lot of contradictory things, take everything he says with a massive grain of Salt. Nobody, professional or amateur investor should be buying stocks at these bubble levels, period!

© EconMatters All Rights Reserved | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Email Digest | Kindle   

First published here: http://j.mp/2li6RTZ

In a brand new book, the son of Medellín drug king Pablo Escobar says that his father worked for the CIA (English translation).

Sound crazy? Maybe …

But Time reports:

The U.S. government allowed the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel to carry out its business unimpeded between 2000 and 2012 in exchange for information on rival cartels, an investigation by El Universal claims.

 

***

 

Dr. Edgardo Buscaglia, a senior research scholar in law and economics at Columbia University, says that the tactic has been previously used in Colombia, Cambodia, Thailand and Afghanistan.

“Of course, this modus operandi involves a violation of public international law, besides adding more fuel to the violence, violations of due process and of human rights,” he told El Universal.

 

Myles Frechette, a former U.S. ambassador to Colombia, said while that the problem of drug trafficking in Colombia persists, the tactic of secret agreements had managed to reduce it. The period when the relationship between the DEA and Sinaloa was supposed to have been the closest, between 2006 and 2012, saw a major surge of violence in Mexico, and was the time when the Sinaloa cartel rose significantly in prominence.

Business Insider writes:

There have long been allegations that Guzman, considered to be “the world’s most powerful drug trafficker,” coordinates with American authorities.

But the El Universal investigation is the first to publish court documents that include corroborating testimony from a DEA agent and a Justice Department official.

Fox News reports:

According to the motion, the deal was part of a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy, where the U.S. helped finance and arm the Sinaloa cartel, through Operation Fast and Furious, in exchange for information that allowed the D.E.A. and FBI to destroy and dismantle rival Mexican cartels.

 

***

 

“Under that agreement, the Sinaloa Cartel, through Loya, was to provide information accumulated by Mayo, Chapo, and others, against rival Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations to the United States government. In return, the United States government agreed to dismiss the prosecution of the pending case against Loya, not to interfere with his drug trafficking activities and those of the Sinaloa Cartel, to not actively prosecute him, Chapo, Mayo, and the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, and to not apprehend them.”

 

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The motion claims Mayo, Chapo and Zambada- Niebla routinely passed information through Loya to the D.E.A. that allowed it to make drug busts. In return, the U.S. helped the leaders evade Mexican police.

 

It says: “In addition, the defense has evidence that from time to time, the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel was informed by agents of the DEA through Loya that United States government agents and/or Mexican authorities were conducting investigations near the home territories of cartel leaders so that the cartel leaders could take appropriate actions to evade investigators– even though the United States government had indictments, extradition requests, and rewards for the apprehension of Mayo, Chapo, and other alleged leaders, as well as Mr. Zambada-Niebla.”

Salon notes:

Under the remit of the War on Drugs, millions of U.S. citizens have faced arrest and jail time for minor, nonviolent charges. All the while, it has been revealed, the U.S. government has been enabling billions of dollars worth of drugs to flood into the country from Mexico because of shady deals with the notorious Sinaloa cartel.

 

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Sinaloa (believed to supply 80 percent of Chicago’s street drugs) has been working with U.S. authorities since 2000 to provide information in return for immunity and undisturbed drug trafficking. Court documents obtained by El Universal show testimony from DEA and DOJ officials affirming the relationship.

Indeed, top U.S. government officials say that that the government has long PROTECTED drug cartels.

Watch the Following Videos, and Decide For Yourself …

From a 60 Minutes special with Mike Wallace reporting:

And see these short video clips:

And see this and this.

Even if you don’t believe that the agencies as a whole engaged in hanky panky, there were certainly rogue agents who did.

For example, agents for the Drug Enforcement Agency had dozens of sex parties with prostitutes hired by the drug cartels they were supposed to stop (they also received money, gifts and weapons from drug cartel members).

And Drug Enforcement agents also RAN New Jersey’s sleaziest strip club – using illegal, undocumented girls – which included a prostitution ring

Postscript: Interestingly, Nixon’s chief policy officer – John Ehrlichman – said that the war on drugs was launched as an excuse to attack the antiwar left and blacks.

First published here: http://j.mp/2mnod7e