To: isopatch who wrote (23005 ) 12/7/2002 11:08:14 AM From: SliderOnTheBlack Read Replies (5) | Respond to of 36161 Iso re: the structure of the Gold move Agree on the slow, methodical, stairstep - uptrend for the Gold Bull. PS: I went to Chicago to a Big 3 Airline Air Cargo center recently and in a Peter Lynch - Man on Main Street-esque moment received a bit of a shock. 1st - we have HUGE security problems at our airports. - airline "passengers" are being screened thoroughly and the likelihood of a repeat of multiple-terrorists boarding as passengers and hi-jacking an airliner with box-cutters are remote... via the new reinforced cockpit doors, increased security at check-in and armed skymarshals; let alone the fact that passengers will never allow another US Airliner to be flown on route to a target as a guided missle. BUT ! - airline passengers are NOT safe from terrorists and our Homeland security PR is just that PR... It is a daunting task no doubt and the US Govmt has no other choice than to paint a pretty picture for the public and to promote air travel. But, there are literally gaping holes all over our infrastructure including airports. I went to conduct some business at a Chicago O'Hare, Air Cargo Terminal with a Major/Big 3 Airline. 18 mos or so ago, prior to 9/11 at this same Cargo Center on 3-4 prior trips I always encountered 7-8 forklifts continually loading freight onto waiting trucks - usually 7 to 12 trucks lined up at bays simultaneously and viewed approx 20+ employees at this center. On my trip here recently; there were no, as in zero forklifts moving. There were 2 employees and the Cargo Center looked empty, literally like a ghost town. While I was there for 2-3 hours; I saw 2 trucks loaded with small single pallet loads. But, what was shocking was that there was absolutely NO SECURITY what so ever... NONE ! I was never checked, or screened. My "cargo" was not checked, or screened and I viewed no security of any type. This outbound cargo is primarially loaded on outgoing Chi O'Hare passenger flights... nearly all of it goes on passenger flights ! Yet, I had free access to move around the entire center, I could easily have walked up to ANY of the waiting "Baggage Carrier Cars" waiting to be taken to the flight line and loaded - with no screening from there to the plane; just directly hand loaded right onto the plane; I could have hand placed anything inside some of those containers. There appeared to only be 2-3 "back office" supervisory personnel; whom I assume would be monitoring the center via security camera's, but they for the most part were walking around "BSing" about the impending BK of another airline, chit-chatting about whatever and in general and I saw no visible deterrent of security camera's openly visible ? It was also apparent that there is a terrible overall morale problem due to the slowdown in the airline business; but there has been ZERO - NO NEW visible security measures instituted on the "back door" side of these passenger flights - that being the Air Cargo that is loaded on virtually every US passenger flight. I've left out a few details here... but, this access to US Passenger Flights is not just easy... it is a WIDE OPEN complete and total cakewalk entre' for anyone who wishes to do harm to a US Airline Flight. I recently also talked to some Teamster Union friends about NAFTA and the situation with new regulations allowing greater access for Mexican Truckers and learned of yet another shocking thing; that being that many Mexican Trucking Companies can apply for a type of permit that allows "known" major carriers to have their Trucks basically just routinely "waived thru" Customs without any border checks... Our borders are a mess and our Sea Ports with their mind-boggling amount of container/cargo shipments that are coming thru; are another complete and total open gateway for terrorism. To be fair; I don't think we can expect the US Govmt to close all of these "holes" in Homeland Security immediately - as it is literally impossible from a people and funding standpoint. But, private industry - like the airlines have a responsibility to close all the holes to airliner access.... not just the media covered front door - check in gate. This veil of safety is a media hype job... airliners are sitting ducks when, or if terrorists ever decide to take one out... they won't need stinger missles; just have someone walk right in the damn front door of any Air Cargo Center and plant simple explosives shipped via air cargo. And as many media pundits have been pounding the table on... we need to use the military to guard & patrol our borders. This lunacy with NAFTA & Mexico with their trucks just waltzing thru our borders is insantity... from both a drug standpoint; as well as a terrorism, security standpoint. I guess their is some solace in the sheer size of the USA and in the numbers game of it all... but, all we are getting here is a duct-taping of the most visible holes in the system and a PR-Media Spin job for the masses. We aren't secure, not even close. Airline travel isn't even close to being safe. Our borders are basically wide open... drug traffickers are still getting in 95% of their shipments... why would the odds be less for terrorists ? And our seaports and major Mexican & Canadian Border Crossings are a joke. This is going to require using military personnel and assets - otherwise the cost and personnel demands are a funding impossibility. Sadly, it's going to take yet another major terrorist event, before we go from duct-taping the holes in the front door; to securing the perimiters including closing the wide open side & back doors. ...then, there is the question on the bio-terrorism side with smallpox ? Why is the US Govmt not allowing the public to make up their own mind on whether, or not they wish to be vaccinated ? The Govmt keeps putting out these 1/10th of 1 percent negative reaction/death stats..... but, yet there are millions of people in this country who were routinely vaccinated as school children (for whom immunity would now be low, to non-existant) who have proven to have had no prior adverse reactions to these vaccines ? Why can't THESE people choose to be re-vaccinated ? ...something doesn't smell right in this mess ? All these FEMA models on responding to an outbreak in a major US City don't work... pre-emptive mass vaccinations are the only obvious solution ? The only thing I can think of; is if the US Govmt realizes that terrorist would, or already have gentically altered many of these bio-terror substances and perhaps they know ALL of our potential vaccines are irrelevant... and can't create the panic that would follow by telling the public why it would be a waste to vaccinate ? I sadly think it is when, not if; we become the victim of a bio, or dirty-nuke event domestically and it is also becoming readily apparent that this "War on Terrorism" is going to be a decade+ long build up of funding and personnel that the public and maybe even the US Govmt & Politicians and surely the market, have yet to fathom... And the costs involved with addressing these inevitable disaters with REAL security "solutions" not just duct-tape PR jobs... will create a decade+ long drain and huge "misallocation" of Government & Private Industry funds that is going to weigh on both the economy and the market for sometime yet to come... These costs are obviously not reflected in the market, or earnings estimates, or the US Deficit. You have to almost think that inevitably the US Govmt is going to be blackmailed by Terrorists; basically having to choose to play the game that the Saudi's obviously do... ie: pay some form of "extortion money" to the terrorists; putting on one public front, while privately living quite another... You wonder if George H Bush received some type of direct bio, or nuclear threat from Saddam and if that wasn't the real reason we didn't keep marching thru Baghdaad ? We'll never know what our US Intelligence Sources know... and it's likely that George W Bush realizes that we can not allow these Terroist regimes to use their Petrol-Dollar empires to fund the next level of technical, bio and nuclear build ups for these terrorist organizations, or states. And the potential seizure of the Mid-East Oil Fields by Terrorist States; or more realistically, the control of the poltical will of OPEC, by Terrorist regimes who will use Oil as the weapon of choice in the future; has now become a reality that GW can no longer ignore. ...not a pretty picture folks and I believe the inevitabilites of what must be done are going to bring some collateral damage that the public and the markets are not prepared for; before this "War" on terrorism is complete. Looking at the news of Saddam sending a Billion Dollars to Lybia, or Syria (?) to insure the safety of his immediate family along with the other realites of his obvious mental instability; a nothing to lose -scorched earth type of unleashing of everything he has... seems inevitable at this point. One must also wonder if he could unleash a "taste" of what he has in his arsenal in a non-US bio, or dirty-nuke attack; in a tourist mecca, or major global city with a pre-emptive message being sent to the US Intelligence & Military Community; of this is what you will experience if you commit to War... The cleanest, most effective immediate solution would appear to be a direct assasination of Saddam via the CIA, or Special Forces - with, or without the cooperation of other Iraqi political forces. G.W. Bush is facing perhaps what will be humanity's greatest challenge of this century... and then when we are done with the Terrorist Regime's of the Middle East... the rising power and Economic might of China lies dead ahead...