Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
A silver lining in a the gathering storm clouds
The linked story at the end of this post is an excellent summary of the growing China vs. USA cold war and how China is trying to shield itself from any blow back that may come as part of any financial attack it launches on the US.
In reference to silver the article does mention that China was once one of the world's largest exporters of silver and now they are a minimal exporter, although it doesn't say why China had all this silver in the first place. Whilst there is some primary (defined as more than 50% of the income of the mine is derived from the sale of silver ore) silver mines in China the fact is almost 80% of the world's silver is derived from by-product smelting of base metal ores (mostly zinc, lead, copper). Whilst China does produce such ores locally overwhelmingly they obtain their base metals in the form of concentrates (ie ore that has had the surrounding rock removed, but has not been refined to separate out the constitute elements). China has over the last decade has become the refiner for the world, taking concentrates from countries such as Australia, Canada and Brazil refining them and then re-exporting some of the resulting metal back to the rest of the world. It is not surprising that China has become the refiner of choice, smelters are dirty environmental nightmares. Acid rain (from sulfur emissions causing the creation of sulphuric acid (H2SO4) when mixed with water vapour - many base metals are found as sulphides, ie contain sulphur) and lead poisoning being the most notable issues. Just look at a photo of Queenstown Tasmania, Australia to see what acid rain from a tin smelter can do to a formerly forested valley HERE and a report on how Chinese lead smelters HERE can affect the local children.
China has been promoting silver investments to their populations from at least early 2009 (reported on this blog on 24 Oct 2009 HERE). History repeats itself in this instance as China was once the greatest holder of silver prior to becoming a vasil state of the British Empire and the resultant Opium Wars. It fact it has been postulated the Great Depression was in part initiated by Britain to force China off their silver standard. Let us not forget that silver has been used in more places for a longer periods of time as money than anything else, at least 5,000 yrs. Even Jesus was sold out for 30 pieces of silver, not gold, and that Jesus kicked out the "money changers" from the temple for running a Jewish silver coinage scam.
One day silver will return to world coinage and a new age of reason will be ushered in, just as happened in ancient Greece and Rome when they instituted a standard set of weights, measures and purity of the metal contained in their money - leading to unprecedented growth in science and knowledge. Only when these great empires debased their coinage did they fall – very reminiscent of the unparallelled issuance of money from the last great empire, the USA....see the latest Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis graph of monetary expansion to see the shocking truth HERE.
A silver lining
In reference to silver the article does mention that China was once one of the world's largest exporters of silver and now they are a minimal exporter, although it doesn't say why China had all this silver in the first place. Whilst there is some primary (defined as more than 50% of the income of the mine is derived from the sale of silver ore) silver mines in China the fact is almost 80% of the world's silver is derived from by-product smelting of base metal ores (mostly zinc, lead, copper). Whilst China does produce such ores locally overwhelmingly they obtain their base metals in the form of concentrates (ie ore that has had the surrounding rock removed, but has not been refined to separate out the constitute elements). China has over the last decade has become the refiner for the world, taking concentrates from countries such as Australia, Canada and Brazil refining them and then re-exporting some of the resulting metal back to the rest of the world. It is not surprising that China has become the refiner of choice, smelters are dirty environmental nightmares. Acid rain (from sulfur emissions causing the creation of sulphuric acid (H2SO4) when mixed with water vapour - many base metals are found as sulphides, ie contain sulphur) and lead poisoning being the most notable issues. Just look at a photo of Queenstown Tasmania, Australia to see what acid rain from a tin smelter can do to a formerly forested valley HERE and a report on how Chinese lead smelters HERE can affect the local children.
China has been promoting silver investments to their populations from at least early 2009 (reported on this blog on 24 Oct 2009 HERE). History repeats itself in this instance as China was once the greatest holder of silver prior to becoming a vasil state of the British Empire and the resultant Opium Wars. It fact it has been postulated the Great Depression was in part initiated by Britain to force China off their silver standard. Let us not forget that silver has been used in more places for a longer periods of time as money than anything else, at least 5,000 yrs. Even Jesus was sold out for 30 pieces of silver, not gold, and that Jesus kicked out the "money changers" from the temple for running a Jewish silver coinage scam.
One day silver will return to world coinage and a new age of reason will be ushered in, just as happened in ancient Greece and Rome when they instituted a standard set of weights, measures and purity of the metal contained in their money - leading to unprecedented growth in science and knowledge. Only when these great empires debased their coinage did they fall – very reminiscent of the unparallelled issuance of money from the last great empire, the USA....see the latest Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis graph of monetary expansion to see the shocking truth HERE.
A silver lining
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
911 pics
Got to love that pyroclastic flow. That's not smoke in downtown NY, it is talcum powder sized particles of cement, steel, office furniture, aeroplanes oh and people. Gravity is sure a destructive force, thank god gravity was only this amazingly strong on this one day in September 2001, otherwise we would likely all turn to dust every time we fell over. 911 pics
Globally delivered soup kitchens
The poor in America are queuing in line on the phone instead of the street. I can imagine how much sympathy some fat American gets from a operator in a country were people starve if they are unemployed. Food stamping goes 3rd world
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Nixon closing the Gold Window
Recently came accross this video of President Nixon delcaring he was suspending convertibility of the US $ into gold by foriegn govts.
Some background:
De Gaulle instructed the Banque de France to increase the rate at which new dollars were converted to gold bullion and sent the French navy across the Atlantic to hand over dollars and pick up gold bullion in exchange. In 1965 alone, the French navy ferried back over $150 million of gold bullion thereby increasing the proportion of French national reserves held in gold from 71.4% to 91.9%.
Due to inflationary pressures on the US $ as a result of printing $ and foriegn borrowing to fund the Indo China war on August 15, 1971, President Nixon imposed a 90-day wage and price freeze, a 10 percent import surcharge, and, most importantly, “closed the gold window”, ending convertibility between US dollars and gold.
Some background:
De Gaulle instructed the Banque de France to increase the rate at which new dollars were converted to gold bullion and sent the French navy across the Atlantic to hand over dollars and pick up gold bullion in exchange. In 1965 alone, the French navy ferried back over $150 million of gold bullion thereby increasing the proportion of French national reserves held in gold from 71.4% to 91.9%.
Due to inflationary pressures on the US $ as a result of printing $ and foriegn borrowing to fund the Indo China war on August 15, 1971, President Nixon imposed a 90-day wage and price freeze, a 10 percent import surcharge, and, most importantly, “closed the gold window”, ending convertibility between US dollars and gold.
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