Got Silver? You Should Think About Getting Some

Silver just rocketed past $30 USD. Rumor has it that JP Morgan is unwinding its silver shorts. If history is any example, anytime a commodity had shorts unwound, that commodity saw prices skyrocket.

This means that silver has just begun. But there's more!  


This just across my desk from the Mogambo Guru in his most recent (and always entertaining) article entitled, "Buying Silver While it's Still Relatively Cheap," and verified on Investment Rarities Incorporated: 



"....silver inventory held above ground totals 1 billion 400 million ounces.  Annual industrial use of silver is 900 million ounces.    Meanwhile, gold inventory above ground is 3 billion ounces while industrial use is only 20 million ounces.  Forty-five times more silver is used each year than gold.


That means the years of inventory remaining are amazingly different.  A year and a half supply of silver exists while one-hundred and fifty years of gold supply remains.  Here’s another shocker. In 2010, silver usage, year over year, was up 18% while gold was down 40%." 


Sometimes it’s hard to fathom all the bullish aspects credited to silver. "


Catch that? The entire world's existing supply of silver can only last us for one and one half years. Last year, silver useage soared by 18%! Very soon, we are going to have more and more hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indian workers enter the middle class and they are going to want electrical devices for the homes... Silver is a required compenent for almost every electrical device that you can imagine.

Mogambo Guru

What's this doing to the price of silver today? What's it going to do in the near future?


The Mogambo Guru continues:



"Theodore Butler writes that JP Morgan, apparently the biggest naked short-seller of silver futures and thus the biggest price suppressor, looks like it has decided to get out of the business of depressing the price of silver by creating and selling so much “paper silver” futures out of thin air, and has unexpectedly “covered roughly 4,000 contracts in the past month and 8,000 contracts in the last two months, the equivalent of 40 million ounces” of silver.


Familiar with the explosive results of suppressed prices that stop being suppressed, I am beside myself in Greedy Mogambo Glee (GMG) in anticipation of silver shooting to the moon, and I am humming the tune 'We’re in the money! We’re in the money! We got a lot of what it takes to get along!'”


Also, it is being reported that The US Commodities Futures Trading Commission says there have been "Repeated attempts to influence prices (suppress) in the silver markets." These have brought class-actions suits against HBSC and JP Morgan and these suits have been recognized and consolidated in New York! Could the silver fireworks be just beginning?


From the Gata homepage:

The CFTC has been investigating the silver market for two years, and 

Chilton said the "fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control" 

silver prices should be prosecuted.

The suits, which specifically allege violations of the Commodity 

Exchange Act and the Sherman Act, claim that the banks collaborated to 

suppress the price of silver futures and options contracts by amassing 

"enormous" short positions in Commodity Exchange Inc., or Comex, 

beginning June 1, 2008.

Many of the allegations in the suits come from information provided 

by a whistleblower who used to work in the London office of Goldman 

Sachs Group Inc., the suits say.

The whistleblower is not named in the complaints, but in testimony 

before the CFTC in March, Bill Murphy, chairman of the advocacy 

group the Gold Anti-trust Action Committee, said it was a metals trader 

in London named Andrew Maguire.

After Maguire went public in March, the defendants began to unwind 

their positions in Comex, the suits claim.

Since then, the net short position of silver futures that are held 

by commercial banks -- the vast majority of which are made up 

of JPMorgan and HSBC -- has dwindled by more than 30 percent, 

the suits say.

As that happened, the price of silver skyrocketed, reaching $24.95 an 

ounce in October, its highest level in 30 years, the suits contend.

JPMorgan and HSBC declined to comment on the suits.

I hope you have some precious metals. This is starting to get really interesting. 

In Japan and want silver click here? For gold, click here.


Thanks to Lew Rockwell

One Easy Step To Becoming a Better Parent and More Successful at Life

With all the worry and pressure in today's world, with the financial news going so bad, talk of taxes being raised, and more, who isn't feeling huge stress and trepidation in their daily lives? How could this stress and pressure not be affecting our businesses as well as our personal well-being and family lives? This sort of stress cannot be good for our mental health.

It is the unusual person, indeed, who can shake off the troubles down at the company or office and leave that luggage outside the front door when they come home to their loving family.

Could you inadvertently be taking this stress out on your children? Have you found yourself getting a bit short-tempered recently? Have you gotten angry with your wife and kids and shouted or raised your hand only to later regret that you couldn't control yourself better? Have you considered that this bad temperament at home could be due the inability to control stress from work? And that this stress is affecting you 24/7 whether you want to admit it or not?

Today's short article will be about a simple and quick way that I guarantee will help you to control your stress and temper at home and become a better parent. All you need to do is spend 2 minutes a morning, every morning, writing down some quick notes in a notebook. And, no, 2 minutes is not a lot of time compared to what happens when you lose your cool and make a scene.

I used to have a bad temper, and I would get mad and shout, sometimes even raised my hand to my children… But since starting this method, that I will recommend today, it has been well over 2 years since that last happened. I haven't even raised my voice once…. Every time that I did get irritated, something in my subconscious kicked in and I immediately calmed down. This worked for me and several other friends that I have recommended it to. It will work for you. Let me take a moment now to highly recommend a book that has actually led to all of this. This book helped me greatly at work (and now at home) since the first time I read it and that is Brian Tracy's Goals!

In Goals! Tracy talks about how, if you are to succeed in life that you need to write down your goals in order to be able to achieve them. "Sure!" A lot of people say they've heard this or know this, but few actually do this. Trust that writing down your goals down does help your subconscious to actually remember and activate your brain to achieve those goals you set forth for yourself.

I write down my goals every day religiously in the morning when I wake up and, not only does doing so help me to achieve them, it also helps me to relax and stay much more focused through the day. Who doesn't want to stay more focused in this day and age when our "in-box" includes, for most people, several e-mail accounts that are constantly filling up as the day goes by and consistently altering our priorities? Add on an Internet world filled with Social Media like Facebook and Linkedin accounts to attend? Twitter is no longer for just sending messages to your friends, but it too, has been co-opted into the business world and your boss orders you to use them, or blogs and SNS, to get the company message out...

How in the world can anyone today get ahead of the pile in the "in-box"? Any person in their right mind would be stressed.

Goals! promises that you will "Get everything you want, faster than you ever dreamed." Sounds like grandiose claims but let me point out that writing down your goals and purposes is like having a sort of road map to where you want to go. When you write them down, they enter your subconsciousness and they cause your inner brain to focus upon the Law of Attraction. If you do not write down where you want to go — if you do not have a map — then how will you know where you are going?

The publishers write:

Why do some people achieve all their goals while others simply dream of having a better life? Bestselling author Brian Tracy shows that the path from frustration to fulfillment has already been discovered. Hundreds of thousands — even millions — of men and women have started with nothing and achieved great success.

Using the twenty-one strategies Tracy outlines, you'll be able to accomplish any goals you set for yourself — no matter how big. You'll discover how to determine your own strengths, what you truly value in life, and what you really want to accomplish in the years ahead. Tracy shows how to build your self-esteem and self-confidence, approach every problem or obstacle effectively, overcome difficulties, respond to challenges, and continue forward toward your goals, no matter what happens. Most importantly, you'll learn a system for achievement that you will use for the rest of your life.Here Tracy presents the essential principles you need to know to make your dreams come true. Tracy presents a simple, powerful, and effective system for setting and achieving goals — a method that has been used by more than one million people to achieve extraordinary things. In this revised and expanded second edition he has added three new chapters addressing areas in which goals can be most rewarding but also the toughest to set and keep: finances, family, and health.

One of my goals is to become a multi-millionaire. Laughable? Maybe. But at least I have a road map and I am consciously working on that every day... And since I do have a road map, it alleviates a huge amount of stress and worry from my shoulders.

I may not be a millionaire yet, but I really do have proof that this works! I have evidence that Tracy's philosophy and ideas in Goals! are successful. I have shown myself that actually writing down goals are critical to achieving them. And my proof stands in something that, for me, is much more important than the Rat Race and making money: it's being the best, most wonderful dad I can be.

It used to be my #1 priority in life was to always make more money. I always thought about how to increase my cash flow and I constantly worried about the economy. What a fool I was. My children were growing up around me and all I could think of was money. Then, one day, a few years ago my son said something foolish and I got a sudden flash of extreme anger. Later on, while my son was sobbing, I quietly considered and reflected upon my actions, I regretted them; I wondered if I had overreacted. I wondered if stress was clouding my thinking.

After deep consideration of that incident, I realized that the most important thing for me was not money. By far the most important thing for me was to be a great dad to my son. How could I have thought differently?

Now my #1 priority goal that I write down in my pocket notebook every day is; "I am a kind, loving and patient father and husband today and every day" (with today's date added). Then, I write my next 9 goals, which have to do with making more money and being successful at work.

Folks, trust me. This really works! Since starting this habit, I have caught myself several times with a flash of irritation — that before would have caused me to get angry or upset at my son and perhaps raise my voice — but since I started writing down every day my goal of being patient and kind, my mind recalls that goal within a split second and has killed that flash of anger instantly its tracks. It is truly amazing.

Why ruin what could be a good learning opportunity with your children and a possible great memory with an outburst of irritability? What for? Life is too short to be getting upset at the small stuff all the time.

As the great writer C.S. Lewis wrote in Chronicles of Narnia, "Life is difficult, so let us be good to each other."

Writing down my goals every day has truly helped my family to have joy, love and peace. Your family can have it too. All you need to do is write down your goals every day. You'll be glad you did.

Doesn't your family - and you, yourself, deserve it?

This article originally ran on Lew Rockwell on July 29, 2010

New Article on Lew Rockwell!

I will have a new article on Lew Rockwell today with my comments concerning the mailing of packages from Japan to the USA.

I hope you enjoy it.

You can read it first here:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rogers/rogers241.html

More on Twenty Years of Failed Policies

My friend from Lew Rockwell, Mr. Bill Bonner, has an excellent article on Christian Science Monitor today talking about the very same subject that I wrote about yesterday: The Japanese government putting Japan (us) into debt oblivion with no positive results to show for it for these last twenty years. Also,  how our situation gets more and more desperate everyday with no new answers proffered by the fools in power in Japan.


The CS Monitor reports:

And now, their barks riding lower in the water than ever, the admirals grow desperate. The Japanese have vowed to use their QE more aggressively. The amount pledged so far – $60 billion – is trivial. But they say they’re going to target a wider range of financial assets…drive the key lending rate even closer to zero…and keep at it until deflation is defeated. The ECB is committed to spend $63 billion on QE too. It was forced to spend $1.4 billion of it last week to buoy up poor little Ireland, which is in danger of slipping beneath the Atlantic waves at any minute. And Ben Bernanke has told America that it should expect a more muscular approach to QE after the Fed meets on November 2nd.

“Central banks open spigot,” proclaimed The Wall Street Journal.

What else could they do? They think they face a choice: it’s the devil or the deep, blue sea.

Bonner's article also takes the US Treasury to task for following Japan's lead by enacting the so-called TARP stimulus:

The politicians didn’t hesitate for a minute. They passed their stimulus bills in a panic. And now they claim success. Steven Rattner, former advisor to the US Treasury secretary, argued in the FT that TARP “did more to keep America’s financial system – and therefore its economy – functioning than any passed since the 1930s.” Were it not for TARP, he says, AIG, Citigroup and Bank of America would have certainly sunk. Maybe GM and Chrysler too. And the recession would have “spiraled downward.”

Maybe he’s right about that. Even so, it seems like a small price to pay. Besides, how do Rattner, Geithner, Bernanke et al know who should survive and who shouldn’t? The trouble with degenerate, state-managed capitalism is that it lets politicians and policy makers decide these things. Why should a bank survive if it can’t weather a foreseeable storm? Why should an automaker stay in business if it can’t make cars at a profit? Why can’t willing buyers and sellers decide these things for themselves? That’s just how it’s supposed to work. It blows up gusts from time to time and sinks the unworthy and the unprepared. That’s what the deep, blue sea was made for.


Exactly! Why the stupid US government would want to copy tried and failed policies Japan used is a mystery. 


On that note, why is the government allowed to decide what businesses succeed or fail? If, in Japan's case, these Zombie banks were allowed to fail back in the late 1980's we could have washed all this bad debt from the economy. But we didn't and now we are still paying the price. By bailing out failed institutions with public monies, the government saves the jobs of their friends. 


Had the companies been allowed to fail, the factories, buildings, assets, would still be there and that would allow new, fresh management to come in a fix the situation. The way it is now, the incompetents that bankrupted these companies are left in charge.


Is this what we elect these government officials for? To use public money to save private company officials position's?


Why does a private company get to keep all profits, but when they take a loss, the public pays for it?


It's time to demand a stop to twenty years of bad policies.   

Economic Crisis and the Actualization of Zen

Those who have visited Chinatown, any Chinatown, will observe statues of a stout fellow carrying a linen sack. Chinese merchants call him Happy Chinaman or Laughing Buddha. 

This Hotei lived in the T'ang Dynasty and he had no desire to gather disciples around him. Instead, he would carry around the sack filled with gifts of candy, fruit, or doughnuts. These he would give to the children of the streets who gathered around him in play. 

Whenever he met a Zen devotee, he would say, "Give me one penny." If any asked him to return to the temple to teach others or pray, he would say, "Give me one penny." 

Once, as he was about his play-work, another Zen master happened along and inquired, "What is the significance of Zen?" 

Hotei slouched and immediately dropped his sack down to the ground in silent answer.
Then, another Zen master asked, "What is the actualization of Zen?" 

At once the Happy Chinaman swung the sack over his shoulder and continued on his merry way.

~ Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

It's been decided; the US economy is crashing... or it isn't. The Great Depression is quickly coming upon us... or it's not. We'll all soon be poor, out of work, with no money or food... or we won't.

To me, it seems pretty clear what's going on, what's happening, and what's going to happen... I think it will really matter to all of us and be very painful, or it won't.

Actually, what difference does it make what words the government uses to describe what's going on? The only thing that matters is what we think and what we do about it. We can panic and worry all we want; it won't change anything.

I know, upon reading this next part, most might consider me crazy but I ask you to consider the coming events in a positive light. Look forward to that which we cannot change. Of course I don't mean to allow yourself to be like a leaf on the ocean being blown every which way by the whim of the wind or currents; of course you must prepare as best you can. But once you have made preparations, then look for the positive things.

Things I look forward to is spending more time with my children, not spending money, but thinking of more ways that we can grow closer together in a sort-of "old fashioned way." Aren't people always saying that, especially when it comes to family, "things used to be better." They were. Long ago, people didn't have to spend money to bring their families closer together. Nowadays, people don't know what to do with their leisure time if they don't spend money.

Why do I need to pack the family up in a car and drive them to Disneyland, spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, to be entertained when I can pack a picnic basket and take them to a park and come closer together by entertaining them with reading a book or stories from my youth, conversing, or playing catch? What family wouldn't this type of activity benefit? It would benefit all families both psychologically as well as economically. 

And speaking of psychological benefits, I wondered the other day what it would be like to have to walk around all day, go to work (thankfully still having a job), with absolutely no money in my pocket when I left my home? Up until recently, I would spend about $25 a day on food and at convenience stores. On July 1st, I stopped. I didn't have to. I just wanted to see what it would be like.

I told my wife to put no money in my wallet everyday. I couldn't spend money I didn't have in my pocket. I would get up 10 minutes early and eat leftovers; I would buy no coffee at Starbucks; I would drink tap water at work, then go home to eat leftovers. If I were fortunate, my wife would have cooked something new by then. I've done this now for almost one month.

You know what? It wasn't so hard. In fact, when I changed my thinking and began to calculate that the money I saved was going to feed my children, it was easy. I'm fortunate; I still have a job. But I might not next month.  Why should we wait to prepare for what might be coming when we can get ready now? Why shouldn't I walk before I am forced to run?

Since I started this, I've saved about $250 dollars. Not a lot of money, but $250 dollars is $250 dollars. One year of doing this will have saved one month's of mortgage payments. Think about that.

Perhaps we have come to live too accustomed to the so-called "Good Life." When we want something, we buy it. But do I really need that new gadget or game soft? Do I really need to eat lunch out at a restaurant 250 days a year? No, I don't think so. Living this way makes me appreciate more the simple things. In fact, I used to eat dinner out about 350 nights a year. Now I don't. When I ate out every night, I didn't look forward to it. Now, I do. It has become special again.

Now I look forward to coming up with new ideas and ways that I can spend time with my kids and not spend money. I feel, in a way, like I live in a Time-Machine and I am taking them back in time to when life was simpler and families actually spent time together and a kid's best friend was actually his own dad.

What's changed, actually? Nothing. Just my way of thinking changed.

The economy is ruined and things are becoming scarce... What can I do about it? I've prepared as best I can so now I'm going to pick up the sack, swing it over my shoulder, and continue on my merry way.

Finally, consider this:

Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, a thief visited the hut only to discover that there was nothing to steal. 

Ryokan returned and caught him. "You may have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift."
The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away. 

Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could give him this beautiful moon."  

                    
~ Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

This article originally appeared on Lew Rockwell 

Hilarious Collection of 12 Most Anti-American Anime

Here is a hilarious collection of the "12 Most Anti-American Anime." It's from one of those ultra-nerdy tekkie sites called Topless Robot.

(下にビデオがある！）

I just got this across my desk from Lew Rockwell. Thanks Lew!

From the article:

There's nothing wrong with hating the United States of America. In fact, that's one of the things that make America great. And anime, being the product of a nation that lost a war to America not so long ago, sometimes hates America an awful lot. In fact, a number of anime creations hate America with such hilarious, overwrought gusto that it's hard not to sit back and laugh.

Sakigake! Otokojuku

 We've dug up the 12 most obvious and insane cases of America-bashing in anime, and we had only one requirement: they must somehow be commercially available in America. This means we've disqualified a lot of infamous World War II propaganda as well as '80s masterworks like Sakigake!! Otokojuku. 




But think of it this way: In order to truly hate America, an anime production must actually be released in America. That way it can drive home its hatred by exploiting America's market and the racist, scheming, genocidal, gun-toting, football-playing, war-declaring, country-invading, base-stealing, hamburger-gobbling, nuke-dropping, pants-pissing psychic assassins who run it.


Some people who watch this cartoon might just laugh it off, but I suspect that the guy who made this has hung around Roppongi more than a few times because I've met guys like this before. And I mean guys  like these Japanese and these idiot foreigners.


The very first time I ever went to Roppongi was with two girls who wanted to show me around. We walked up the stairs to the Hard Rock Cafe and there was this US military goon standing at the top of the  stairwell. When we got close to him, he said in his crappy Japanese to the girls,


"Issho ni nemashou ka?" (Shall we sleep together tonight?)


The girls were very surprised and looked at me incredulously. His accent was so bad that I thought we had misunderstood and I said to him,


"Pardon me?"


Then he furiously growled to me (with nostrils flaring), "I ain't talking to you, boy!"


I think I melted and slithered back down the stairs to the street below in fear of getting beat up by a 225 pound gorilla. 


Needless to say, I don't go to Roppongi for, er, "fun."





If you want to see more funny anti-American cartoons, click here. 


Read Lew Rockwell daily for the best in real, practical, anti-state, anti-war, pro-market commentary here.


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Keywords: Lew Rockwell, Marketing Japan, Mike in Tokyo Rogers, anime, Anti-American, Mike Rogers, Hard Rock Cafe, US Military

Marketing Japan: More Proof that Hatsune Miku is Becoming a World Wide Star!

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

I had one of the best articles that I had written in a very long time published on Lew Rockwell two days ago about Hatsune Miku. Thanks Lew!

From that article:

Move over Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson, roll over Beethoven; the next superstar of music has been born and she is going to revolutionize the way we think about music and ourselves… And, no, I am not talking about Lady Gaga. "Artists" like Lady Gaga will pale in comparison to the cultural impact that this lady will bring.

The artist that I wish to introduce today will not only reshape our culture, she is also going to reshape the music business and music publishing for decades to come, perhaps even for centuries.

In one-hundred years from now, when artists like Lady Gaga, Madonna, Britney Spears, even the Beatles are long since forgotten, I suspect today’s artist, or her prodigy, will still be going strong. Big claims? Read on.

Even though this artist is unknown in the west, many of her videos on YouTube have well over a million views. Some over two million! That’s not bad for someone who has no recording contract and is only three years old.

Very well done for someone who is not even human.

Meet Hatsune Miku. She is the next generation of superstar musician. Hatsune Miku is Japanese; but she is not a woman. She is not even a human; Hatsune Miku is an android. You read correctly. The next superstar of music is not of flesh and bones.

Read the entire article here.

Well, it's a case of reverse imports!... I wrote about Hatsune Miku in the United States and now, someone in Japan, on Dempa 2-Channel "Flash UP VIP News", has picked up that article and re-imported it into Japan.

Click here to see blog (in Japanese and in English)

Wow! I'm impressed!

See that blog here: http://bit.ly/9eG4je 


Thanks to my friend Graham Carpenter for the heads up!

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Keywords:

Hatsune Miku, android, Lew Rockwell, Dempa 2-Channel, Mike Rogers, Marketing Japan, Mike in Tokyo Rogers

Marketing Japan: Introducing the Next Rock Superstar: Hatsune Miku - Pre-view Feature on Lew Rockwell

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

Introducing the Next Rock Superstar: Hatsune Miku.

I will have another new article on Lew Rockwell (LRC) Monday. The article will be about something that is happening in Japan that has to do with culture and music. It's implications are frightening.

I have the article, links, and videos all ready for your pleasure.

Seriously, be prepared for a shock. Remember the name Hatsune Miku... She is going to turn our world upside down. She is huge in Japan, becoming big in Europe and I hear popular in France already!

People over 30 will probably misunderstand her. People over 50 will hate her. But here's the problem!Teenagers go crazy over her - and it is not a flash in the pan! Some of her videos have more views in Japan than Lady Gaga does... Some are nearing 10 million views!

My Facebook friends and blog followers get to pre-view read the entire article here. This is one of the best pieces I have ever written. Frightening in its implications. Beautiful for today's lonely youth.

CLICK ON THIS LINK TO PRE-VIEW ARTICLE ABOUT HATSUNE MIKU.

Lew Rockwell is the spiritual leader of a massive an anti-war, anti-state, pro-business web site that is the most read Libertarian news site in the world. I am most honored to be a columnist there. Lew Rockwell  (www.lewrockwell.com) is one of three sites that I read religiously everyday. You should too.

At LRC, you can get the real news and not some government sponsored propaganda.

LRC podcasts are also a must listen!

Some famous writers at LRC are Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Patrick Buchanan, Gary North, Fred Reed and so many other great writers that I just cannot mention them all.

Check out LRC everyday!

-----

Keywords:
LRC, Mike Rogers, Mike in Tokyo, Lew Rockwell, Gary North, Fred Reed, Ron Paul, Patrick Buchanan, Libertarian

Article on Lew Rockwell: How Stupid Are People?

For my latest article on Lew Rockwell I received many e-mails from good folks telling me that my guess of 70% - 90% of the people being stupid" was way under estimated... 
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rogers/rogers238.html

See this for proof...

You've just got to watch this: One guy (a US congressman no less) thinks Guam might capsize. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9R-cQ_A_6w&NR=1

And this Dilbert comic that was sent to me. Hilarious! 
(click on image to enlarge)