China Catalyst To Send Gold Over $10,000 Per Ounce?

Jim Rickards is on record forecasting $10,000 gold.

But is China about to provide the catalyst to send gold even higher? And by how much?

Today, we fare forth in the spirit of speculation… follow facts down strange roads… and arrive at a destination stranger still…

China — the world’s largest oil importer — struck lightning through international markets recently.

According to the Nikkei Asian Review, China has plans to buy imported oil with yuan instead of dollars.

Exporters could then exchange that yuan for gold on the Shanghai Gold Exchange.

Not only would the plan bypass the dollar entirely… it would restore gold’s role in international commerce for the first time since 1971, when Nixon hammered the last nail through Bretton Woods.

If the rumors hold true, China’s plan could enter effect by the end of this year.

Billionaire business magnate and sound money advocate Hugo Salinas Price ran China’s plan through his calculator.

It turned up a basic math problem that spells drastically higher gold prices — if the plan is to work.

Details to follow.

But first some background on oil and gold… a brief detour down Bretton Woods Lane…

Price:

By 1970, it was evident to those running the U.S. that it would very soon be necessary to import large quantities of oil from Saudi Arabia. Under the Bretton Woods Agreements of 1945, the immense quantities of dollars that would shortly flow to Saudi Arabia in payment of their oil would be claims upon U.S. gold, at the time quoted at $35 an ounce. Those claims would surely deplete the remaining gold held by the U.S. Treasury in short order.

Washington found itself on the sharp hooks of a dilemma…

Dramatically raise the price of gold to limit redemptions — and devalue the dollar in the process — or repudiate its commitments under Bretton Woods.

Dishonor, that is… or dishonor.

It chose dishonor.

Price again:

To continue under the Bretton Woods monetary system would have meant that the U.S. would have been forced to raise the price of gold to an enormous figure in order to reduce the amount of gold payable to the Saudis to a tolerable level. But raising the dollar price of gold in that manner would have constituted a great devaluation of the dollar and collapsed its international prestige; that in turn would have ended the predominance of the U.S. as the No. 1 power in the world. The U.S. was not willing to accept that outcome. So Nixon “closed the gold window” on Aug. 15, 1971.

If China is willing to trade gold for oil under its latest plan, a similar dynamic enters play.

Consider:

China takes aboard some 8 million barrels of oil a day.

That’s 2.92 billion barrels per year — nearly 3 billion in all.

But China holds only a few thousand metric tons of gold (officially about 1,850. Some estimate the true figure much higher).

You see the problem, of course.

China rapidly depletes its gold reserves if too many oil exporters choose to exchange yuan for gold.

If the plan’s to be sustainable at all, gold must rise — drastically — in order to balance the vast amounts of oil it’s supporting.

As Price explains, “To balance the mass of oil received by China against a limited amount of available gold… it will be necessary for gold to skyrocket upward in yuan terms and, necessarily, in dollar terms as well.”

Price crunched the numbers…

One ounce of gold (about $1,300) currently fetches 26 barrels of oil (about $50 per).

One barrel of oil is worth 1.196 grams of gold.

Price calls this ratio “an unsustainably low purchasing power of gold vis-a-vis oil.”

Only a drastically higher gold price would render the plan plausible.

How far would gold have to climb before the relationship was stable in Price’s estimate?

Ten times. Thus, Price arrives at a reasonable gold price:

$13,000 per ounce.

Price:

At $13,000 per gold ounce, one barrel of oil, at $50, will be bought with 0.1196 grams of gold; perhaps we may see $13,000 per oz gold in the not distant future.

Here, a road map to $13,000 gold.

We don’t know if Price’s figure is correct.

But if not $13,000, it seems gold would have to rise dramatically if Price’s thesis is correct — or else China’s plan collapses.

We can only conclude that China knows the implications of the math.

$13,000 gold also means a massive devaluation of the yuan.

China prefers a weak yuan to goose exports. But a worthless yuan?

The plan may prove a mirage in the end for all we know.

But if the plan does proceed… Jim Rickards’ $10,000 gold prediction might be vindicated — fully and then some.

By Brian Maher, Managing editor, The Daily Reckoning

 

Gold Prices (LBMA AM)

28 Sep: USD 1,284.30, GBP 961.04 & EUR 1,091.40 per ounce
27 Sep: USD 1,291.30, GBP 963.83 & EUR 1,099.54 per ounce
26 Sep: USD 1,306.90, GBP 969.59 & EUR 1,105.38 per ounce
25 Sep: USD 1,295.50, GBP 957.89 & EUR 1,089.26 per ounce
22 Sep: USD 1,297.00, GBP 956.15 & EUR 1,082.09 per ounce
21 Sep: USD 1,297.35, GBP 960.56 & EUR 1,089.00 per ounce
20 Sep: USD 1,314.90, GBP 970.53 & EUR 1,094.79 per ounce

Silver Prices (LBMA)

28 Sep: USD 16.82, GBP 12.53 & EUR 14.28 per ounce
27 Sep: USD 16.89, GBP 12.58 & EUR 14.38 per ounce
26 Sep: USD 17.01, GBP 12.67 & EUR 14.43 per ounce
25 Sep: USD 16.95, GBP 12.57 & EUR 14.27 per ounce
22 Sep: USD 16.97, GBP 12.52 & EUR 14.18 per ounce
21 Sep: USD 16.95, GBP 12.58 & EUR 14.24 per ounce
20 Sep: USD 17.38, GBP 12.84 & EUR 14.48 per ounce

Recent Market Updates

- Financial Advice From Man Who Made $1+ Billion in 1929 – Importance Of Being Patient and “Sitting”
- “Gold prices to reach $1,400 before the end of the year” – GoldCore
- Commodities King Gartman Says Gold Soon Reach $1,400 As Drums of War Grow Louder
- Bitcoin “Is A Bubble” but Gold Is Money Says World’s Biggest Hedge Fund Manager
- Pensions and Debt Time Bomb In UK: £1 Trillion Crisis Looms
- Gold Investment “Compelling” As Fed May “Kill The Business Cycle”
- “This Is Where The Next Financial Crisis Will Come From” – Deutsche Bank
- Global Debt Bubble Understated By $13 Trillion Warn BIS
- Bitcoin Price Falls 40% In 3 Days Underlining Gold’s Safe Haven Credentials
- Gold Up, Markets Fatigued As War Talk Boils Over
- Oil Rich Venezuela Stops Accepting Dollars
- Massive Equifax Hack Shows Cyber Risk to Deposits and Investments Today
- British People Suddenly Stopped Buying Cars

Important Guides

For your perusal, below are our most popular guides in 2017:

Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Switzerland

Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Singapore

Essential Guide to Tax Free Gold Sovereigns (UK)

Please share our research with family, friends and colleagues who you think would benefit from being informed by it.

First published here: http://j.mp/2fyuw20

Via The Daily Bell

If you don’t feel free, chances are you don’t feel happy either.

Both of these words, free and happy, are pretty loose in their official definitions. Scientific studies have used various metrics to measure happiness; self-reporting, brain waves, psychological evaluations, and family member surveys. As for freedom, the studies mainly use the self-reported metric, how free a person feels.

When people feel less restrained by outside forces, when people feel that their life is their own to do as they please, they are happier.

Even when holding income, sex, education, race, religion, politics, and family status constant, we find that people who felt free were about 18 percentage points more likely than others to say that they were very happy.

Even people who think that the government should be less involved in daily life are happier than people who think society needs more rules. And it might be tempting to chalk this up to people who are poor feeling unhappy, regardless of freedom. It makes sense to think they would want the government to intervene in order to make them more wealthy, and thus happier.

But when you look at countries overall, you still find that freer countries are happier countries.

…in 1990, at the end of the Communist era, one cross-country survey found that 41 percent of Americans said that they were very happy—contrasted with just 14 percent of East Germans, 6 percent of Russians and Czechs, and 2 percent of Latvians. Of course, regimes behind the Iron Curtain were not just economically unfree; they were politically unfree as well.

Of course, this could also just point to the fact that the freer the country, the more prosperous the people. So you could say that being prosperous makes you happy. Except this would prove that free economies deliver more prosperity. So no matter how you slice it, more freedom means more happiness–even if prosperity is a necessary step in between.

But another study found that even prosperity might not matter as much as freedom when it comes to happiness.

Swiss economists Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer made this point convincingly in the 1990s, comparing happiness levels across various Swiss cantons, which vary dramatically in how much political participation they afford their citizens. Cantons that allowed citizens more direct democratic rights, as well as meetings with leaders to discuss political and financial matters, proved significantly happier than cantons where political access was more restricted.

Now there may very well be some very special people, who even in a prison cell would still mentally “feel free.” But for most of us, factors of our environment come into play as much as our mental attitude.

But then we get to the chicken or the egg thing. If you don’t feel free, is it because of your environment? Or does your environment not feel free because of your mentality? Either way, you can fix this. You can either change your environment, or you can change your attitude. But it takes recognizing the root of the issue.

If you don’t feel free, and it is making you unhappy, you should start getting specific. Identify exactly what is making you feel unfree. Not “government” but “high taxes or illegal marijuana.” You can legally set up your finances to drastically cut your tax rate. And you can move to a place where marijuana is legal.

And don’t say “society” makes you feel unfree. Is it watching the news or scrolling facebook? Stop. Living in a city with a country heart? Move. Is it Sunday dinner with terrible relatives? You’re under no obligation, although the choices they force on you may be tough. Still, it is their choice how to react. You have the ability to make yourself free of things that keep you constrained.

Let’s address the claim that people who have too many choices are less happy.

Some studies have found that when given too many options, people get freedom overload, and are more anxious, finding it harder to make any choice at all. In one instance, two sample booths were set up to sell jam. One gave away 24 samples, and that one attracted more tasters. Another booth gave away 6 samples, and even though fewer people stopped to try the jam, they actually sold more.

The idea is that people are attracted to freedom, but in the end, it makes them stagnate and shut down with an overload of choice.

But there are a couple factors to consider.

One is that people are naturally constrained by their circumstances to some extent. Maybe you are technically free to do anything you want. But at any one point in your life, there are really only a few choices to be made.

It gets overwhelming to think, I could move anywhere I want, start a business or get a job, find a lover or play the single life, or hike the Appalachian Trail and write a book. That train of thought makes it seem like there are too many choices. You may choose to stay in a situation that doesn’t make you happy because you have no idea what choice of the infinite possibilities will actually make you happier.

But you don’t really have that many choices right now. Do you want to move, or do you like where you are? That is only two choices.

If you choose to move, that clearly opens up more choices. You say, where should I move? Is every square inch of the earth truly an option? No. You should be able to identify why you want to move. Then you simply need to make another series of small choices that are not overwhelming when you take them one at a time. Warm or cold? City or country? Coastal or inland?

Second, most people are naturally constrained by their own unique morality. Some people adopt moralities from religion or spirituality, and some people create their own. It doesn’t really matter, there are some things you will be willing to do, and some things you definitely will not. You probably don’t truly have a choice between becoming a doctor, lawyer, teacher, meth dealer, or pimp. Some of those options probably don’t align with your morals–like becoming a lawyer.

When you break things down to a step by step process of where you are going from here, the choices for what to do with life become much less overwhelming. It is great to have a 5 or even 10-year plan, but things are going to change. Most choices don’t require a steadfast decision in the present. Your smaller choices in the present will instead present new opportunities to choose from later.

And if you have some general philosophy or morality that you live by, certain choices are off the table altogether.

So by if you limit your own choices, you may very well be happier. But if someone else limits your choices for you, you are likely to feel less free, and thus be unhappy.

But again, don’t let the feeling of being unfree convince you that you are actually unfree. If you aren’t convinced that you have this much control over your own life, start by reading the 1973 classic, How I found Freedom in an Unfree World, by Harry Browne.

First published here: http://j.mp/2xGH81K

From the Slope of Hope blog:

That's something I've got in common with Private Pyle: he wants to be different. For whatever reason, I'm a contrarian to the core. Indeed, one of the appeals of messing around with personal computers back in 1980 was that practically nobody else was doing it (in case you hadn't noticed, the unusualness of microcomputers vanishes decades ago, so that aspect of the appeal is likewise gone).

This contrarian view of the world extends to the "cover curse", a theory to which I strongly subscribe. Any bold declaration made by a prominent publication seems to invariably mark an inflection point. There's this cover, for instance, which came out immediately before the demise and near-bankruptcy of Apple:

This cover from The Economist (itself quite famous for its covers being so often dead wrong) when oil was $10 per barrel and was about to explode hundreds of percent higher.

This homoerotic image of the strength of the US dollar, just before it commenced its very steady slide promptly at the start of 2017:

Barron's decided Facebook was a lousy stock, just before it started a gargantuan run up to "blue chip" stock status, almost exactly to the day......

And, perhaps the most famous of all, Business Week decided just before 1980 began that stocks were doomed, after which time literally trillions of dollars of new wealth were created.

So, time and again, newspapers and magazines get it wrong - - but plenty of other media does too. This book, for instance, was all about the coast-to-coast millionaires in the United States, and it came out June 2007, precisely at the apex of the housing bubble.

So with mountains of other anecdotal evidence, it would seem that only a fool would declare loudly, on a public stage, anything definitive, since major announcements from prominent publications or thought leaders so often represent the collective consciousness at the point that it's utterly saturated with some particular notion. Even though they say that no one rings a bell at the top, if you look historically at major turning points, there were always bells ringing - - just in a contrarian, hidden form.

Thus, when Trump was elected, inaugurated, and soon thereafter started bragging about the stock market, it seemed like a major reversal signal. After all, this is the President of the United States, and he's crowing to the world about a stock market for which he gives himself full credit. So that's bound to be some kind of peak, right? Surely after a tweet like that, the gods above will shame the man, just like they've embarrassed anyone showing hubris since the times of the ancient Greeks. Right?

.......Right?........

And yet there they are. Tweet after tweet, month after month, about high after high. And yet the market just keeps going higher..........which, let's face it, is just going to egg the man on even more. It's one thing for an old biddy like Yellen to yammer on about no more crises in her lifetime. But the POTUS is another matter altogether.

It really wasn't that long ago that acts of hubris, either in the form of cover stories or political braggadocio, were met with swift reprisal from the universe. The biggest question facing us today - - far greater than where interest rates are going, or what the dollar is going to do, or even whether Kim is ever going to launch any of those missiles he's so proud of - - is whether market forces...........normal market forces..............are gone for good. They might just be, and if so, hubris is not only back in style, but it's going to be here to stay for a long, long time.

First published here: http://j.mp/2yfB69k

Editor Mark O'Byrne

- Gold climbs over 12% in YTD, matching S&P500 performance
- Palladium best performing market, surges 36% 2017 YTD
- Gold outperforms Nikkei 225, Euro Stoxx 50, FTSE and ISEQ
- Geo-political concerns including Trump and North Korea supporting gold
- Safe haven demand should push gold higher in Q4
- Owning physical gold not dependent on third party websites and technology remains essential

Click to enlarge. Source Finviz.com

In the year-to-date the gold price performance has matched the S&P 500, climbing over 12%.

Gold's matching of the S&P 500 is particularly impressive when you consider the record-breaking performance of the benchmark stock market index in the last year. Yesterday it advanced 0.1% to 2510.06, a new all time record high price.

It is also impressive considering sentiment towards stocks is shall we say "irrationally exuberant", while sentiment towards gold remains muted despite gold eking out gains in 2016 and now again in 2017.

The precious metal has performed well predominantly due to rising uncertainties regarding North Korea, Trump and the political mess in the U.S. and other geopolitical tensions.

Its strong performance is despite noise from the US Federal Reserve regarding its alleged plans to tighten money supply and increase rates. Other major central banks have also provided similar indications.

Elsewhere, gold has outperformed both the Euro Stoxx 50 and Nikkei 225 which are 8.5% and 6.5% higher respectively. The UK's FTSE and Ireland's ISEQ are underperforming and have the hallmarks of markets that are topping out.

The FTSE and the ISEQ are 2.5% and 4.25% higher year to date.

Silver, platinum and palladium up 5.5%, 2% and 37%  YTD respectively

Gold wasn't the only precious metal that performed well in the last three quarters. All four precious metals have climbed in price.

Palladium has been the headline grabbing asset in the last year. In the year-to-date the industrial precious metal is up by nearly 37%. Holdings in exchange-traded funds backed are close to the highest since the beginning of the year.

This week for the first time since 2001, palladium topped the platinum price. Palladium is predominantly used in pollution-control devices for gasoline-powered cars and trucks. In contrast platinum is used in diesel-powered engines.

Governments have been slowly clamping down on diesel due to concerns over its role in pollution and emissions scandals. Platinum is up by only 2% this year. Some believe the metal has been oversold in recent days and there is too much heat in the palladium market.
Meanwhile silver is refusing to go below $16/oz. Some investors may feel disappointed that it has failed to break above $19/oz this year, despite strength in gold.

Investors in silver must continue to take heart that silver does still stand to gain whenever the U.S. dollar loses strength or concerns about the stock market creates demands for assets to hedge risk with.

Geo-political concerns with North Korea and elsewhere fuel demand

In a recent Bank of America Merrill Lynch survey the biggest 'tail risk' seen by investors was North Korea's missile risk.

This was ahead of policy missteps in central banks of the US and China, and credit tightening in China.

However, worries over nuclear war are not the only concern fuelling the price of gold. Uncertainty regarding political haggling and stalemate in Washington are also providing key support.

Critics of President Trump are concerned that he and his team have achieved very little since his inauguration. Any plans that have been proposed are seemingly poorly devised and quickly shot-down.

This week the Republicans failed once again to defeat Obamacare, a key component of Trump's election promises. Also the White House announced a plan for a lower corporate tax rate and to cut the highest individual income tax rate.

Critics argued however that the plan was awash with cronyism and helped the wealthy. There was also little indication given as to how the tax cuts would be funded amid risks that deepening U.S. deficits may further weaken the dollar.

Expect more safe haven demand next quarter 

As we all know, gold is a barometer for uncertainty. With a 12% climb in the last year and no sign of risks abating, there is little reason to not expect the price to continue to climb.

Should gold reach $1,400, then this will be a four-year high and a sure sign of a bullish breakout for the precious metal.

We shouldn't invest in gold because of some ambulance-chasing punt on geopolitical disaster. Gold should play a key role in your investment portfolio as a tool for protecting against risk and hedging declines in stock and other markets and currency devaluations.

In truth, there is still a huge amount of uncertainty regarding the outlook for the global economy and global markets.

No one knows how central banks' attempts to unwind the last decade of monetary policy will play out, nor does anyone know how President Trump's government will survive in an America that will continue to feel more pressure from the likes of Russia and China.

Investors need to stay focused on the medium and especially the long-term and the bigger picture.

Editors Conclusion

Sentiment in the gold market remains quite poor. Most of the public remains on the sidelines  and there is very little positive coverage of gold.

Nor is there an appreciation of the scale of economic, geo-political and monetary risks facing investors and savers today.

There remains a fundamental lack of knowledge of the still very strong supply and demand factors driving the physical gold market and a lack of understanding as to why gold remains a vitally important asset to own in a portfolio.

Many stock markets are at record highs. Many bond markets are at record highs. Many property markets are at record highs. This makes gold which is remains nearly 33% below its record high very attractive from a hedging and diversification perspective.

Real diversification through owning allocated and segregated gold not dependent on third party websites and technology remains essential.

The old Wall Street adage to always keep 10% of your wealth in gold and hope that it does not work remains prudent.

Lets hope for the best but be prepared for less benign financial scenarios...

 

Gold and Silver Bullion - News and Commentary

Gold steady, on track for first monthly loss in three (Reuters.com)

Dollar Pressured After Strong Week; Bonds Advance: Markets Wrap (Bloomberg)

India May Have a Spot Gold Exchange in 12 to 18 Months (Bloomberg)

Gold rebounds from 6-week low as dollar drops (Reuters.com)

U.S. trade deficit shrinks in August, but the gap has widened in 2017 (Marketwatch)

 Source: Zerohedge

Gold and cash reign as U.S. fund investors sell stocks: Lipper (Reuters)

Is This The Real Driver Of Gold's Recent Weakness? (Zerohedge)

Here’s what this “old school” investor thinks of bitcoin… (Stansberry CH)

You're Likely A Lot Less Prepared For Crisis Than You Realize (Peak Prosperity)

Rickards Warns "Cracks In The Dollar Are Getting Larger" (Zerohedge)

Gold Prices (LBMA AM)

29 Sep: USD 1,286.95, GBP 963.15 & EUR 1,090.82 per ounce
28 Sep: USD 1,284.30, GBP 961.04 & EUR 1,091.40 per ounce
27 Sep: USD 1,291.30, GBP 963.83 & EUR 1,099.54 per ounce
26 Sep: USD 1,306.90, GBP 969.59 & EUR 1,105.38 per ounce
25 Sep: USD 1,295.50, GBP 957.89 & EUR 1,089.26 per ounce
22 Sep: USD 1,297.00, GBP 956.15 & EUR 1,082.09 per ounce
21 Sep: USD 1,297.35, GBP 960.56 & EUR 1,089.00 per ounce

Silver Prices (LBMA)

29 Sep: USD 16.86, GBP 12.60 & EUR 14.27 per ounce
28 Sep: USD 16.82, GBP 12.53 & EUR 14.28 per ounce
27 Sep: USD 16.89, GBP 12.58 & EUR 14.38 per ounce
26 Sep: USD 17.01, GBP 12.67 & EUR 14.43 per ounce
25 Sep: USD 16.95, GBP 12.57 & EUR 14.27 per ounce
22 Sep: USD 16.97, GBP 12.52 & EUR 14.18 per ounce
21 Sep: USD 16.95, GBP 12.58 & EUR 14.24 per ounce

Recent Market Updates

- Gold Standard Resulted In “Fewer Catastrophes” – FT
- Financial Advice From Man Who Made $1+ Billion in 1929 – Importance Of Being Patient and “Sitting”
- “Gold prices to reach $1,400 before the end of the year” – GoldCore
- Commodities King Gartman Says Gold Soon Reach $1,400 As Drums of War Grow Louder
- Bitcoin “Is A Bubble” but Gold Is Money Says World’s Biggest Hedge Fund Manager
- Pensions and Debt Time Bomb In UK: £1 Trillion Crisis Looms
- Gold Investment “Compelling” As Fed May “Kill The Business Cycle”
- “This Is Where The Next Financial Crisis Will Come From” – Deutsche Bank
- Global Debt Bubble Understated By $13 Trillion Warn BIS
- Bitcoin Price Falls 40% In 3 Days Underlining Gold’s Safe Haven Credentials
- Gold Up, Markets Fatigued As War Talk Boils Over
- Oil Rich Venezuela Stops Accepting Dollars
- Massive Equifax Hack Shows Cyber Risk to Deposits and Investments Today

First published here: http://j.mp/2xFA7hK

Via The Daily Bell

Everything you do and think is racist, you probably just don’t realize it because you’re so super privileged.

You can’t just sit back and hide in your white supremacist neighborhoods anymore. There’s no more abstaining from taking a side on this one. The sins of your ancestors have caught up to you! (Or at least the sins of the ancestors of people who look like you, considering most white Americans are descended from post-Civil War immigrants.)

You may think that standing for the national anthem is a normal thing to do. You may have even gone on standing for the national anthem, ignoring the rest of the controversy surrounding the NFL. But it turns out that behaving in a standard traditional fashion is racist.

Yep, it’s the old, “you’re either with us or against us,” philosophy. You cannot sit out this manufactured controversy. The Huffington Post says that when you stand, you stand for white supremacy. For white people, the anthem represents freedom. White Americans are full citizens, and black Americans–especially extremely successful millionaire athletes–are second class citizens.

You probably just didn’t know that because your life has been lived in a bubble of white privilege. It’s okay, you didn’t know any better. But you’re still a terrible person. You should give your house away to a black family, since “You’re bound to make that money in some other white privileged way.”

Oh, Dr. Suess is also racist, by the way.

And here’s another way we know that President Trump is racist. His wife actually sent 10 Dr. Suess books to a school in Massachusetts. Can you believe it? That’s like, ten times the racism!

Luckily, the librarian at the school knew that the books were racist, and rejected them. She wrote Mrs. Trump a letter to explain her white supremacist folly.

Another fact that many people are unaware of is that Dr. Seuss’s illustrations are steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes. Open one of his books (If I Ran a Zoo or And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, for example), and you’ll see the racist mockery in his art. Grace Hwang Lynch’s School Library Journal article, “Is the Cat in the Hat Racist? Read Across America Shifts Away from Dr. Seuss and Toward Diverse Books,” reports on Katie Ishizuka’s work analyzing the minstrel characteristics and trope nature of Seuss’s characters. Scholar Philip Nel’s new book, Was the Cat in the Hat Black? The Hidden Racism of Children’s Literature, and the Need for Diverse Books, further explores and shines a spotlight on the systemic racism and oppression in education and literature.

Thought those were just innocent cartoon images? Think again!

I mean it’s so obvious that Dr. Suess was a racist. He clearly thought star-bellied Sneetches were better than plain-bellied Sneetches. They were so privileged walking around with those stars on their bellies. And then, when the plain-bellied Sneetches started acting all star-bellied, the privileged star-bellied Sneetches culturally appropriated the plain-bellied Sneetches’ style!

The point of the story certainly wasn’t that a third party came into town and exploited the natural differences of the Sneetches for personal profit! Dr. Suess couldn’t have been calling attention to the fact that people will seek to exploit divisions in society for their own motives.

So nice try attempting to sit this one out! Unless you swear fealty to demolishing white privilege, then you are racist. And don’t try to end any race problems in your own way! It has to be through government intervention, and acquiescence to the demands of Black Lives Matter. If you do nothing, you are racist.

First published here: http://j.mp/2fY50E5

Below looks at Gold and Silver patterns on a “Monthly basis” over the past 7-years. The rally in Gold and Silver since early 2016, has taken both of them back to test levels that were heavy for each of them over the past few years.

CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE

Joe Friday Just The Facts Ma’am– Gold and Silver created “Monthly Reversal” pattern this month at each (2), just under key overhead resistance at (1). These monthly reversals are the largest monthly reversals for both metals in the past few years.

One-month reversals at resistance in time could be concerning to Gold & Silver bulls. A one-month reversal pattern doesn’t prove that the 18-month rally is over. The reversal pattern could be something to pay close attention too, since Gold and Silver traders have created crowded bullish trades, as resistance tests are in play at each (1).

Metals bulls would LOVE to see both break out at (1). If you would like to stay abreast of these patterns in Gold & Silver, we keep Premium and Metals members updated each week on these patterns.

First published here: http://j.mp/2k9xmQj

By Chris at http://j.mp/22bDW4a

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Liked this article? Then you'll probably like my other missives on

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

Ethereum (ETHUSD) Weekly/Daily

Ethereum (ETHUSD) is showing fatigue after about 2 weeks of bouncing off roughly 200, with the selloff today intensifying after failing to hold the psychologically key 300 whole figure level.  300 also represents the 50% Fib retrace of the fall from roughly 400 to 200.  With daily RSI and Stochastics tiring, and the weekly Stochastics and MACD turning down, the weekly Tombstone forming is increasingly ominous for bulls.  ETHUSD continues to be relatively weaker than Bitcoin (BTCUSD), with ETHUSD serving as a leading indicator for BTCUSD price momentum.  Risk:reward will further improve for bears once the daily MACD blue line flattens and begins tilting lower.

 

 

 

 

Bitcoin (BTCUSD) Weekly/Daily

Bitcoin (BTCUSD) is showing fatigue after about 2 weeks of bouncing off roughly 3000, with the selloff today intensifying after failing to hold the 61.8% Fib retrace of the fall from roughly 5000 to 3000.  With daily RSI and Stochastics tiring, and the weekly MACD trying to negatively cross, BTCUSD could be in the early stages of forming a downchannel (on the daily and weekly chart).  Risk:reward will further improve for BTCUSD bears once the daily MACD blue line flattens and begins tilting lower.

 

 

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

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

A recent report published by a U.N. commissioned organization concludes that America’s history of slavery justifies reparations for African Americans. The report by the 'Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent' - which one might assume would study 'People of African Descent' around the world, notably fails to opine on other nations which have engaged in the practice – considering that less than 10% of African slaves were brought to North America, or the fact that arabs operated the slave trade for over 1300 years – a practice which continues to this day, primarily in India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia.

The group presented its findings on Monday, pointing to what they say is a “continuing link between present injustices and the dark chapters of American history.”

“In particular, the legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent,” the report stated. “Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching.”

The report cites last year’s spate of blacks killed by police officers around the United States, which the panel says has created a “human rights crisis” that “must be addressed as a matter of urgency.”

“Despite substantial changes since the end of the enforcement of Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, ideology ensuring the domination of one group over another, continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of African Americans today,” it said in a statement. “The dangerous ideology of white supremacy inhibits social cohesion amongst the US population.”

Mireille Fanon-Mendes-France, chairwoman of a United Nations working group for people of African descent, reads findings about institutionalized racism after an official visit to the U.S. (Youtube/UN Human Rights)

What about the rest of the story?

Conspicuously absent from the U.N. report is the fact that the slavery in the United States was facilitated by 1300 years of Arab slave trade. According to Wikipedia:

Some historians assert that as many as 17 million people were sold into slavery on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, and North Africa, and approximately 5 million African slaves were bought by Muslim slave traders and taken from Africa across the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara desert between 1500 and 1900.^[5]  

The captives were sold throughout the Middle East. This trade accelerated as superior ships led to more trade and greater demand for labour on plantations in the region. Eventually, tens of thousands of captives were being taken every year.^[4][6][7]

Will this report pave the way for universal basic income for blacks in America?

Ignoring modern slave trade

Meanwhile, the U.N. has been quiet on the topic of countries which haven’t cracked down on the slave trade, including UN Human Rights Council member Saudi Arabia. There are an estimated 21 – 46 million slaves around the world today, with India dominating the top of the list.

source: http://j.mp/2x0A4h0

Perhaps we can look forward to a followup report from the U.N. on reparations owed by the other 90% of the world which participated in the slave trade, as well as their thoughts on what’s owed to the 48 million modern slaves around the world.

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First published here: http://j.mp/2fBmt8s

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

The liberal science community has a moral dilemma on its hands following today’s announcement that the United States is partnering with Russia on a NASA-led project to build an orbiting lunar station.

On one hand, the international base for lunar exploration will serve as a “gateway to deep space and the lunar surface,” according to NASA.

On the other hand, Russia is involved – which means they’ll undoubtedly slit our throats in space, populate the surface of the moon, build a moon cannon (having read a U.S. astronaut's Heinlein collection), and fire silicon, magnesium, and aluminum-rich moon rocks at the United States. Once we are obliterated, Russia will invade the country and enslave all surviving Americans in moon-rock crushing factories.

Pretending not to be evil, Igor Komarov - Roscosmos’s general director, stated that Russia, the United States and other participants agreed it was important to work using unified standards to avoid future problems in space, citing Sandra Bullock’s movie “Gravity” in the process.

“Roscosmos and NASA have already agreed on standards for a docking unit of the future station,” the Russian space agency said.

AFP reports:

“Taking into account the country’s extensive experience in developing docking units, the station’s future elements — as well as standards for life-support systems — will be created using Russian designs.”

NASA said it planned to expand human presence into the solar system using its new deep space exploration transportation systems, the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft.

– ‘Better to fly together’ –

Russia and the United States also discussed using Moscow’s Proton-M and Angara rockets as well as other spacecraft to help create the infrastructure of the lunar spaceport, the Russian statement said, adding that the main works were slated to begin in the mid-2020s.

“The station will be a serious platform for future research,” said Komarov - concealing his seething Red ambition, though boasting “That is a rather significant contribution.”

Igor Lisov, editor at Space News, told AFP of Russia’s potential contribution: “We are offering carriers for flights to a lunar orbiting station, we are offering our docking units or their components,” he said, adding Russia had vast experience in creating life-support systems.

Unfortunately, this will be our doom…

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