It took the FDA two years to finally send US Marshals to seize millions of tablets of the antidepressant Paxil CR, which had $725 million in sales last year and is used by 450,000 patients in the US each month; and Avandamet, a diabetes medicine, at facilities in Tennessee and Puerto Rico operated by Glaxo Smith Kline. The problems previously detected revealed that Paxil CR tablets tended to split, leaving patients with half a table with no medicine and another half with no buffering substance.
We want to talk about last week’s BLS report on non-farm payrolls, which supposedly increased in February 262,000.
Starting off, the 3/04 estimates have been revised upward by about 203,000 or 0.2%. Revisions have ranged from plus 0.2% to 0.5% over the past ten years. The BLS has factored in an 11/12ths increase into Fed numbers or 186,000. These new jobs were not 262,000 but 76,000. Then we must add in the hedonic adjustment of the BLS, so called birth/death model, which added 100,000 jobs. Consequently, we actually lost 24,000. This is pure accounting and pure manipulation of statistics and lies.
A factoid for you to ponder, America spends $4 trillion on government. Russia spends about $40 billion. George Bush has the audacity and hypocrisy to criticize Russian President Putin for consolidating Russian federal power. Incidentally, Russia has no equivalent legislation such as the USA Patriot Acts. Furthermore, our neocons act more like communists than the Russians do. Last election Russia had 20 political parties on the ballot, we really had only two. We have a political, financial and economic mafia running our country, which we call elitists. They collectively are no better than common criminals. Russians of every possible political opinion have representation in the Duma, which is their Congress, while tens of millions of Americans have no voice at all in government for their political opinions.
Pat Buchanan asked recently why are McCain and Lieberman bully ragging Russia but not China? After all, Putin was elected, but Hu Jintao was not. Could it be that Chinese exports hold-down US inflation and that China holds hundreds of billions of dollars of our Treasury paper? Russia has an elected legislature with opposition parties. China has never held a free election. The Russian people have freedom of religion, China persecutes Christians. Russia threatens no US ally or the US. China threatens Taiwan. Hu Jintao is one of the world’s worst dictators. Why would our elitist perpetually want to consort to dictators? It is because they want to be world dictators via world government? We do not see George Bush upbraiding the Chinese, but he took a special trip to see President Putin to warn him against selling arms and getting involved in the Middle East and to instruct him to stop putting oligarchs out of business to the detriment of European banking interests, particularly the Rothschilds. As you can see, Mr. Bush’s priorities are that European banking interests control Russia - not how many Christians the Chinese liquidate. As it turns out Mr. Putin is defending his country against the elitists and in defending Russia’s interests in defending the interests of the American people. Presently the two biggest roadblocks to the elitist’s new world order are Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez. Things have sure changed in 15 short years.
We are not here to judge the 65-year old Ernst Zundel. We are here to speak about the rule of law or lack of it in both US and Canada. Mr. Zundel was detained in the US, jailed, sent to Canada and again detained for a total period of two years, In Canada, as in the US, if you commit an offense you are arrested. If you are not a flight risk, you receive bail. You can be held in custody until trail. In Zundel’s case, only secret trials were held. That is the path usually taken when pursuing terrorists. Mr. Zundel was stripped of his constitutional rights and deported. It was probably a relief for Mr. Zundel because two years of solitary confinement was enough. We now have judges who are a threat to our civil liberties, not only Mr. Zundel’s. This is to put us all on notice that if we disagree with any elitist opinion we will be thrown in jail until we recant, even though we have committed no crime. This is thought control at its worst and Orwellianism at its best. Remember, you may be next.
We continue to hear how a revaluation of the yuan of 15% or 40% is going to solve America’s financial woes. Not on your life. We can never hope to compete with wages of $0.10 an hour even if they rise to $0.50 an hour. A strong yuan means goods exported to the US will be 15 to 40% more expensive and that means higher interest rates to try to counteract the higher inflation. The bottom line is a revaluation of the yuan will be very detrimental to our economy contrary to what those charlatans in Washington and on Wall Street tell us. You have nearly 10% inflation now; with a stronger yuan you might have 20%.
A rise in interest rates will collapse the bond, stock and real estate markets. America needs saving badly. Presently, we have almost none. Those who believe higher interest rates will encourage saving are mistaken. Americans are buried in debt. Instead of saving in a crisis, they will be struggling to pay off debt and keep from going into bankruptcy. A 35% further drop in the dollar will not do the job. It has to be accompanied by 15-20% interest rates. The system has to be purged if it is to survive and the chance survival is 10-20%.
We get the very worst. First it was Ashcroft, then Gonzales and now Michael Chertoff, who makes Gonzales look like a choirboy. Chertoff has been implicated in advising the CIA on the legality of various means of torturing detainees; not prisoners of war just anyone they choose. Needless to say, the White House lies and said he did nothing. We would not expect otherwise. According to the NY Times, Chertoff told the CIA that certain forms of torture were entirely permissible under the currently existing US anti-torture statute. That means the White House and the Justice Department approve unconditionally of torture. What this means fellow Americans is that very harsh interrogation techniques qualified as torture only if they were enough to cause organ failure or imminent death. These are the kind of monsters we have running our country. This is based on the Gonzales memo that approved the legal justification for the CIA and DOD to use brutal inhuman methods on suspects as documented by the FBI, CIA, the DIA, and the Justice Department. Aren’t you proud to be an American?
Fifty percent of working America has only their house and Social Security at age 65. Of the other half, only half have a 401(k) plan and for those age 55-64 the average balance is $42,000, as an annuity that would pay $300 a month. That means people have to work as long as possible. The under-funding of private defined-benefit pension plans exploded between 1999-2004 from $300 billion to $450 billion on a termination bases, or in bankruptcy. You have seen the steel companies, other companies and now airlines go under. We believe the auto industry is next.GM is so under-funded that if it went under, the liability to PBGC, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. would be $9 billion; GM’s bonds are soon to be rated as junk. In order to cover ongoing under-funded corporate failures the PBGC would need a 58% increase in premiums or an increase from $19 to $30 a worker.
If you want the government to know less about you use cash. Every time you use your credit card, ATM, use your library card, rent a movie or log on to the Internet you increase the size of your surveillance portfolio held by private intelligence companies that are compiling personal information about you. Due to your activities, they are also able to profile you. They have all your tax information and they often, for a fee, provide our government with files on you. What this amounts to is you have no privacy. In order to deprive these data collectors use cash whenever possible. Cash checks mailed to you for cash. Only use credit cards, ATM or debt cards when absolutely necessary. Write as few checks as possible. Live in a cash existence.
Thursday’s 10-year US Treasury note auction was a disaster. The world’s foreign central banks brought only 11% of the $9 billion in notes offered. That is down from 29% last month. Are you all getting the message, buy gold and silver related assets.
The presidents of Iran and Venezuela, two major oil producers pushing to maintain high prices and at odds with US global policies, met this week for talks that will stoke tensions with Washington. Iranian President Mohammad Khatami was received in Caracas on Thursday. All we can say is President Hugo Chavez Frias has plenty of guts. If he really wants to upset Washington he can next visit North Korea.
This visit elevates tension and takes the battle to George Bush who is grappling with war in Iraq and a homosexual-pedophile scandal in Washington. Mr. Chavez has called the US a terrorist state and unfortunately he is right.
Both Iran and Venezuela are oil price hawks in OPEC. They want prices over $50 a barrel and we agree with them. The price of everything has gone up, why should oil be immune?
Mr. Khatami will inaugurate a $35 million Iranian joint venture to assemble farm tractors in Venezuela. This is the Islamic republic’s first major direct investment in Latin America.
Oil demand is outstripping supply. Gasoline, diesel and heating prices continue to rise. There is still much turmoil in the Middle East, as well as ongoing war in Iraq, as well as problems in Venezuela regarding to whom they will sell their oil. The Saudi oil minister last week forecast oil prices in the $40 to $50 range. The OPEC secretary general said oil could rise to $80 a barrel in the next two years. The dollar continues to weaken and will soon test 80 on the dollar index. Iran is opening an oil exchange in two months that will trade oil in dollars and euros. We hear stories of peak oil and its consequences. It looks like high oil prices are here to stay, which will cut consumer spending and increase inflation. All big oil consumers are in a free for all scramble seeking future supplies. The US government is conquering and stealing some of these sources. Eventually major war will break out over the issue. Demand could drop 50% if we engage in nuclear war, which is where we believe this is all headed.
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GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM, PALLADIUM AND DIAMONDS
Fresh in from the Continent is that France has ceased its gold sales. That means France and Germany are not sellers and the Swiss selling has probably run its course.
Australia’s gold output fell to a nine-year low in 2004 at 261 tons or 6.5% less than in 2003. Fourth quarter output was 66.6 tons or 9.5% less than in the fourth quarter of 2003. Exceptionally heavy rains were part of the problem. Production is 50 tons less than in the peak year of 1997. There has not been a significant discovery in five years.
We find it ludicrous that South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel would agree with the elitist gold sellers to sell IMF gold when gold producing companies are laying off. What else would you expect?
Mining costs and shortages of equipment have Australian mining companies walking way from development of gold mines in favor of base metals. There is also a shortage of skilled workers. There are 18-month waits for equipment, replacements and second-hand equipment prices are soaring. Orders are being taken for 2007. Steel prices have doubled and diesel costs are out of sight. Companies are pirating staff from other companies bumping up wages and salaries 15 to 60%.
This is just another positive for gold prices. The gold production shortfall is going to grow, which will force the Central Banks to have to sell more gold to control prices. If they do not sell more, the price of gold will move higher.
In Canada, up to 50% of the workforce could retire in the next few years. There already is a growing shortage of skills. A 20-year recession in mining and a negative public perception of the industry has left the industry stripped of qualified people, and there are few qualified people in the pipeline. These problems will fuel higher prices on a very fundamental basis in gold, silver and base metals.
Now that $440 and ounce for gold has been breached, the gold suppression cartel will do everything in its power to smash it back down to $425. If it stays above $440, a test of $455 will come soon after. The chances of a move to $480 to $512 an ounce should not be long in coming.
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AFRICA
Its official, Pretoria, South Africa is to be renamed Tshwane. It means, “We are the Same.” That is similar to saying, each according to his ability and each according to his means, by Karl Marx.
The South African Defense Department has spent R36 billion on military hardware they do not have the capacity to use. Now that so many white South Africans have left the country there are huge vacancies in airspace control, with 650 positions to be filled, only 470 are filled and only 13 replacements are in training. They buy what they are told to buy by the UK government.
Stock theft in South Africa is a major problem with farmers losing R1.2 billion a year. Since 1993 it has gotten so bad that 13,000 of 58,000 farms have shut down, that has caused employment to drop 150,000. The value of farming assets fell R41 billion. Agriculture’s contribution to GDP fell from 4.2% to 3.4%. At the rate the situation is deteriorating you can expect farming to end up as it has in Zimbabwe, nowhere.
The white farmers who were driven out of Zimbabwe and resettled in Zambia have managed to record an all-time high bumper harvest of tobacco in Zambia. That is more than 52 million kilograms versus last year’s 14.3 m/k. Zambia made $83 million from the sale of the crop, up from $26 million last year.
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International Forecaster March, 2005 (#2) - Gold, Silver, Economy + More
