Date: Thu Jun 29 2006 10:43
trotsky (mozel@tally sticks) ID#248269:
Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved
the point was that the tally sticks began to be used as a form of money - a secondary market developed when the King's treasury began to sell tallies at a discount instead of borrowing money outright. so it came that wooden sticks that cost nothing to produce began to be used as a means of payment even outside the tax system. in short, they were a form of fiat money - and the fact that tax payments involved tallies is what made them acceptable as money. i only mentioned this because it's a strong parallel with the current fiat money system - which imo mainly survives because the state accepts nonly fiat money for payment of taxes ( thus all producers and consumers are forced to use it, whether they like it or not ) .
Date: Thu Jun 29 2006 10:19
trotsky (Hambone@GSS) ID#248269:
Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved
it looks like it. in fact, while there has been very good reason to criticize management of GSS for its capital raising right at a major low for gold share prices, i think other than that they have simply had a streak of bad luck. consider that only a scant 4 years ago this was an explorer with ZERO production. in two years time, they will produce 700K oz. p.a. - i'd say this is a pretty impressive feat.
the major stroke of bad luck was the engineering company that was supposed to build the Prestea underground mine and Wassa initially ( i think its name was MIM ) . this contractor was responsible for big delays at several gold mine development projects, including GOLD's Loulo, NSU's Tabakoto, and GSS's projects.
this is now out of the way. in adition, GSS has used the recent gold price plunge to cover most of its ill-fated short call positions, and if you read the last earnings report carefully, they appear to have pulled some costs forward by stockpiling ore, so the last quarter should bring a big earnings turnaround. once that is achieved, the market may well begin to focus on GSS's large resource base - note that they have a number of large undeveloped deposits not far from their major mine infrastructure. imo that makes them a potential takeover target ( there have been rumors in the past that NEM is interested because it wants to expand in Ghana. GFI and AU are big players in Ghana as well ) .
Date: Thu Jun 29 2006 10:07
trotsky (@GDP) ID#248269:
Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved
in government's data jungle, this is the the biggest joke by far. it begins with the number itself. when they say '5.6%!' they really mean, '25% of 5.6%'. they annualize the growth recorded in the quarter by multiplying it by 4. it sounds much better...after all, who would be impressed by the ACTUAL 1.4%?
that's not all of course. similar to the other data that have seen enormous revisions in the past two decades ( is anyone surprised that every single one of those revisions makes the data look BETTER? ) - to the extent that reality is here, and the data allegedly describing it are somewhere else entirely, GDP stands out as a sort of crowning achievement. it counts dollars no-one ever spent or received, you could say they have hedonically indexed reality to death. this is the major reason why 'recoveries' these days are curiously 'jobless', and go hand in hand with declining real wages and tepid capital investment. shadowstatistics.com estimates that the data distortions have led to a 3% annualized overstatement of GDP growth , so '5.6%' REALLY means '2.6%' ( overstatement deducted ) and that REALLY means '0.65%' ( divided by 4 to get actual number ) . in other words, the last quarter seems to have barely scraped by in terms of real growth.
here is a somewhat dated, but extremely interesting primer on OTHER aspects of GDP's anatomy ( i.e., this one isn't focusing on the data distortion per se, but rather on the composition and what is omitted and what isn't. the most interesting aspect here is how extremely important the manufacturing sector in fact is, in spite of its relative decline in recent years and the downplaying of its importance in the official statistics. the bulk of the spending in the economy are in fact business-to-business flows, not consumer spending:
mises.org
Date: Thu Jun 29 2006 09:44
trotsky (@GSS) ID#248269:
Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved
this appears to be great news:
"Golden Star Confirms Its Expansion Project at Bogoso/Prestea is Ahead of Schedule"
biz.yahoo.com
Date: Thu Jun 29 2006 09:18
trotsky (Bleuler@the Fed) ID#248269:
Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved
the whole point of the 'tough talk' period we've just been in has been to dampen inflation expectations in order to resume the inflation. the fiat money experiment DEPENDS on inflation for its continued existence ( one should also note, a major reason why fiat money hasn't perished on the spot upon introduction is that the state accepts it for payment of taxes; 'tally sticks' also survived 100ds of years because of this ) . it should be made clear, once and for all, what it is that the Fed is 'fighting against'. it is NOT inflation per se, since without the Fed there wouldn't be any. it is the fact that from time to time, people NOTICE that they are inflating. they don't want them to notice, since that upsets the apple cart. the last time this happened in the 1970's, Volcker could come in and hike rates to stratospheric levels without collapsing the system because the extant debtberg was much smaller. the current debtberg is larger than anything before seen in history - by an order of magnitude. the last time debt-to-GDP soared above 200% was in the Great Depression due to a huge contraction in output after the credit boom of the 20's keeled over. however, now we are looking at roughly 340% of GDP while output is still EXPANDING. they can't afford to 'do a Volcker' - it can't be done, unless they want to risk the mother of all busts. so they have to talk tough and hope that will give them leeway to pause ( there's nothing they would rather do - since they know very well the housing bubble is coming undone ) .
everything these jokers say and do is aimed at preserving the fraudulent fiat money system. has anyone ever wondered why the government has set up this complicated system whereby it issues debt that is then 'monetized' by the Fed? why doesn't it simply print up whatever 'money' it needs? after all, that IS what it is doing in the final analysis, if in a roundabout way. the answer should be obvious - such a simple system would be regarded as a complete fraud from day one. the current system is by comparison not understood by the man in the street ( you'd be surprised about the misconceptions that exist even in otherwise educated circles ) , it's a far more sophisticated fraud. i'm not sure which one of the moneychanger dudes said it, but it went along the lines of 'the people we're robbing with this system won't understand it, and those who do understand it will either profit from it or depend on its favors and can be counted upon not to denounce it'.
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