- Peak Oil

Libya - The Real Reason

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:58:33 -0600

Excellent Analysis Of The Situation In Libya

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 22:05:50 -0600

Macondo Rises Again

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:48:30 -0600

Source: Stuart Smith - August 17, 2011

Oil from the Macondo Well site is fouling the Gulf anew – and BP is scrambling to contain both the crude and the PR nightmare that waits in the wings. Reliable sources tell us that BP has hired 40 boats from Venice to Grand Isle to lay boom around the Deepwater Horizon site – located just 50 miles off the Louisiana coast. The fleet rushed to the scene late last week and worked through the weekend to contain what was becoming a massive slick at the site of the Macondo wellhead, which was officially “killed” back in September 2010.

The truly frightening part of this development, as reported in a previous post (see below), is the oil may be coming from cracks and fissures in the seafloor caused by the work BP did during its failed attempts to cap the runaway Macondo Well – and that type of leakage can’t be stopped, ever.

Catch up on how this could possibly be happening – again – by reading or re-reading my July 25 post below. Stay tuned as we will be all over this story as it continues to develop.

Is BP’s Macondo Well Site Still Leaking? Fresh Oil on the Gulf Raises Concerns and Haunting Memories

Fresh oil is surfacing all over the northern quadrant of the Gulf of Mexico. Reports of slicks that meander for miles and huge expanses of oil sheen that look like phantom islands are becoming common, again. Fresh oil, only slightly weathered, is washing ashore in areas hit hardest by last year’s massive spill, like Breton Island, Ship Island, the Chandeleurs and northern Barataria Bay. BP has reactivated its Vessels of Opportunity (VoO) program to handle cleanup. It’s a sickeningly familiar scene that has fishermen, researchers and public officials searching for answers, as haunting memories of last year’s calamity come roaring back.

The fifty-thousand-dollar question, of course, is where is all the new oil coming from?

One theory: The Macondo Well site, located just 40 miles off the Louisiana coast, is still leaking untold amounts of oil into the Gulf. Some argue that the casing on the capped well itself is leaking. Others believe oil is seeping through cracks and fissures in the seafloor caused by months of high-impact work on the site, including a range of recovery activities (some disclosed, some not) as well as the abortive “top kill” effort.

In January 2011, a prominent “geohazards specialist” wrote an urgent letter to two members of Congress – U.S. Reps. Fred Upton, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and John Shimkus, chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and Economy – suggesting that the Macondo site is leaking oil like a sieve. Here’s an excerpt from that letter (see it in its entirety at link below):

There is no question that the oil seepages, gas columns, fissures and blowout craters in the seafloor around the Macondo wellhead… have been the direct result of indiscriminate drilling, grouting, injection of dispersant and other undisclosed recover activities. As the rogue well had not been successfully cemented and plugged at the base of the well by the relief wells, unknown quantities of hydrocarbons are still leaking out from the reservoir at high pressure and are seeping through multiple fault lines to the seabed. It is not possible to cap this oil leakage.

BK Lim, the letter’s author, has more than 30 years of experience working inside the oil and gas industry for companies like Shell, Petronas and Pearl Oil.

More from Mr. Lim’s letter:

The continuing hydrocarbon seepage would have long term, irreversible and potentially dire consequences in the GOM (Gulf of Mexico)…

The letter is dated Jan. 14, 2011 – and we’ve been seeing more and more evidence that the scenario Mr. Lim describes is indeed taking place deep below the Gulf’s surface.

For example, on March 28, 2011, Paul Orr and his team from the Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper – an organization I’ve worked with frequently over the course of the last year – conducted a 50-mile boat patrol and sampling tour of Breton Sound, which lies just off the southeast coast of Louisiana. The excursion was prompted by multiple, increasingly frantic, reports of oil in the area by fishermen and others, including On Wings of Care pilot Bonny Schumaker, who has dozens of Gulf flyovers under her belt.

Mr. Orr took a sample from the southern end of Breton Island National Park – and sure enough, lab-certified tests results established a fingerprint match to BP’s Macondo Well (see link to my previous post and test results below).

The most alarming part of the finding was not simply that the Breton Island sample had BP’s fingerprint on it, but that the test results were nearly identical to those from the fresh oil seen in the early days of the BP spill – instead of the heavily weathered and degraded oil we’ve come to expect in recent weeks and months.

Those test results seem to disprove the other theory surrounding this spate of recent “fresh oil” reports. That is: All the oil BP strategically sunk to the seafloor with nearly 2 million gallons of toxic dispersant is beginning to break free and rise to the surface en masse, and in turn, blacken the coastline with fresh oil. According to civil engineer and petroleum expert, Marco Kaltofen, oil that has been lying on the seafloor for several months would be much significantly more weathered than the fresh oil we’re seeing more and more of.

As you’ll notice from the histograms, the Breton Island sample mirrors the submerged oil sampled from Pensacola Bay on Nov. 5, 2010 (see link to original post with histograms below) and a sample taken from Panama City Beach on July 14, 2010. You don’t have to be a marine biologist to see that this is the same oil with nearly identical weathering.

So we had fresh oil with BP’s signature on it coming ashore in March – more than eight months after the Macondo Well was capped. And since then, members of my team and other researchers have reported fresh oil, of the “only slightly weathered” variety from Grand Isle to Pensacola. One charter boat fishing captain, who frequents the waters around Louisiana’s barrier islands, is describing the current, hauntingly familiar situation on the Gulf as the “second wave” of the BP disaster.

Fukushima Update - 50 Years To Clean - Power Rationing

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 23:40:44 -0600

USDA To Plant Giant Miscanthus Grass In Biofuel Project

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:35:36 -0600

Source: Reuters - June 15, 2011

According to a press release from the Department of Agriculture government website, the USDA has announced four more projects that will increase and promote crop production for renewable energy. The four projects are part of the Biomass Crop Assistance Program through the USDA and will include cropland in four different states, including Ohio, Arkansas, Missouri and Pennsylvania.

The cropland in the four states will be used to produce giant miscanthus, a hybrid grass that grows during warm seasons. This plant is ideal for biofuel production because of the large amount of biomass resulting per energy input into growing the crop. It is also currently grown and used in the European Union, especially England, for bedding, heat and electricity production, according to a paper from the University of Illinois Extension website. It is also becoming popular in Japan and China, which is where the plant is native to.

Google To Finance Residential Solar Projects

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:31:25 -0600

Source: Reuters - June 15, 2011

Google Inc will finance $280 million of residential solar power systems through a deal with startup SolarCity that is the Internet search giant's largest single clean energy investment to date.

The fund will enable thousands of homeowners who do not want to make a large upfront investment in a solar system to have solar panels installed on their roofs as part of SolarCity's leasing program, the companies said on Tuesday.

SolarCity's solar lease program enables its customers to pay a monthly fee for solar panels rather than a large up-front installation price. That monthly fee is often offset by the customer's savings on electric utility bills.

Google will own the systems, and will earn a higher return than what it would earn if the cash had been sitting in the bank, SolarCity Chief Executive Lyndon Rive said, though he declined to be specific.

Through the deal with Google, Rive said he hopes other corporations will come to see financing solar systems as a good use of their cash.

"It's been mainly banks that have focused on this, and what that has done is it hasn't broadened the market," Rive said in an interview. "With Google getting into this ... hopefully it will show other corporate companies that this is a smart investment."

San Mateo, California-based SolarCity recently bought groSolar, a solar power project developer and distributor, expanding its reach into 10 states. The company is privately held.

Google said in late 2007 that it would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in solar, wind and geothermal technologies to help make renewables cost competitive with coal.

The deal with SolarCity brings Google's total investments into clean technology to $680 million.

Jim Rogers: Politicians Will Make Things Much Worse

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 22:31:29 -0600

If Yemen Falls, So Does the Dollar Reserve?

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 10:54:24 -0600

Source: Gold Speculator - June 4, 2011

How is it that the world's fortunes hang on the life or death of a murderous thug that the US has been supporting for 30 years? And why, in fact, if Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh is so important, isn't it common knowledge? Saleh was wounded yesterday when opposition forces blew up his palace. But as I'll discuss, below, there's more to the story. (Isn't there always?)

In my opinion, this story is so big it should be on the front pages of the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal: "US dollar hegemony hangs in the balance." Or how's this: "Future of the world's monetary system may be decided in Yemen's Sana’a."

How can one silly, little and desperately poor country full of people in ankle-length white robes be in the position to shake the foundations of the current monetary system of the Anglo-American empire?

First, context. It hasn't been a good year for the West's power elite. Yemen is only one country in tumult. Other countries verging on civil war are Bahrain and Syria. (Libya is already convulsed.) But in fact there are hundreds of places in the Middle East, Africa and Europe now where people are demonstrating and marching – or fighting with various levels of efficiency and organization.

In Afghanistan, the Obama administration is said to be desperately searching for Mullah Omar, the one-eyed leader of the Taliban, now and again reported dead or missing. US officials, in turn, wish to find Omar so that they can work out a deal where the US declares victory and Omar retains the territory. Some victory.

Libya is currently in a stalemate; China is Pakistan's new best friend; Pakistan's generals are again denying what Ms. Hillary Clinton – US Secretary of State – said only a week ago, that the Pakistan army was about to launch a significant attack against the Pashtun/Taliban. It's not true, the generals say.

Meanwhile, Egypt's youths sleep on the streets; Tunisian youth are no happier; Iran is gaining considerable regional influence because of the "color revolutions" that the CIA apparently triggered. Iraq is destabilizing again, and even the Palestinians are resurgent.

The Arab Awakening is truly a regional if not global phenomenon. Of course, we have our own name for it: The Internet Reformation. It's really the same thing. Just as the Gutenberg press spawned the Renaissance and Reformation, so the Internet has now spawned a truly significant social convulsion. The world will never be the same.

America's CIA-sponsored AYM youth movements were behind the initial color revolutions. But notice how the mainstream press has stopped celebrating them. Perhaps they haven't worked out as planned. Either Western elites are encouraging a series of Arab Islamic Republics (so as to buttress what seems to be an essentially phony "war on terror") or they are trying to create controllable regulatory democracies that will likely be run by dependable militaries with a constitutional façade. Neither of these options looks to be feasible in the near term.

Alternatively, the West seeks generalized chaos for some reason – or, more intriguingly, it has simply lost control of the situation. As we've stated before, Yemen is important because it may well indicate how much control the West actually has over the Arab Awakening. So far, what's been most apparent is dithering. The West hasn't shown a firm hand. There are reasons why.

Yemen may be spinning out of Western control. After Saleh was wounded, he was quoted as saying, "I salute our armed forces and the security forces for standing up firmly to confront this challenge by an outlaw gang that has nothing to do with the so-called youth revolution." It's interesting that the words Saleh used were "outlaw gang" as the tribal opposition to his rule denied making the attack. Apparently, it was what one might call "an inside job."

That means that individuals nominally allied with Saleh tried to knock him off. And why not? He is a thoroughly despicable man. He has ruled Yemen for about 30 years through a mixture of truculence and torture; like Gaddaffi, his favorite method of staying in power is one of "divide and conquer" in which he set various tribes against each other.

Yup ... Yemen is another "tribal backwater" like Afghanistan – a place where the Anglo-American elite (exaggeratedly) has no interest. It is like a kid kicking a stone past the house of a pretty girl. He just happened along the way ... and thus the US just "happened' into Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, the US is intensely interested – mesmerized in a kind of Ted Bundy (bad) way.

How seriously does the Anglo-American empire take Afghanistan (as a speed-bump on the way to world government)? Try, probably, say ... US$2 trillion in expenditures, thousands killed and tens of thousands wounded. True the total all-in cost hasn't been as much as Vietnam (50,000 dead and 500,000 wounded) but there's considerable evidence that the US has been undercounting the dead and wounded through a variety of manipulations.

Yemen has never presented the same kind of problem as Afghanistan. In part that's because Yemen is even more difficult to subdue militarily than the stiff-necked Pashtun Taliban. The West has wanted as little to do with Yemen as possible (outside of controlling the coastline). Here's a description of Yemen by Paul Herman of the New Zealand Post in a recent article entitled "Cry, cry and cry again for my beloved Yemen."

So now my beloved Yemen is on the verge of going up in flames, on the verge of a cataclysmic civil war. I say "my beloved" because I had such an extraordinary time there on an Intrepid Journey a few years back Not a lot of people actually know where Yemen is. I don't think I really did until I checked a map before we went there. It is essentially the bottom left portion of the Arabian Peninsula. And what I certainly didn't realise about the entire Arabian Peninsula is that a massive mountain range runs north to south down its western side, sloping down eventually to the Red Sea.

In fact, the Saudis move their capital up to the mountains, to Taif, during the ferocious Arabian summers. The Yemeni capital Sana'a sits in this same mountain range. The thing about Yemen is the architecture. There is nothing like it in the world. They seem to have engineering in their genes. They built skyscrapers when no one was doing it.

Osama Bin Laden's father, who got rich building roads in Saudi Arabia, was Yemeni. He got so rich he rebuilt the mosque at Mecca with his own money. Old Man bin Laden came from one of the most spectacular parts of the world I have ever seen, the Wadi Hadromaut. It is probably as vast and as breathtaking as the Grand Canyon. And all through this great and ancient valley are villages perched on high, impossible sites, above steep cliffs, and you look at them and marvel because they have been there hundreds and hundreds of years.

How in God's name did they do that, you find yourself asking time and again, round every corner. It's the same through the entire country, especially in that great mountain range, villages with slim, square buildings six or seven storeys on the most unreachable ridges and peaks. And, of course, that was the point. Defensively, they are brilliantly sited. The truth is, neither the Turks - of whom there are still some 10,000 in Yemen - nor the British ever really conquered anywhere but the Yemeni coast. You couldn't get near those mountain villages. The Yemenis simply rolled great rocks down on you.

As Afghanistan is the key to Middle Asia, so Yemen is the key to "Arabia." The tribes of Oman and the Arab Emirates flowed out of Yemen. And today Yemen is no less important than before in terms of the Great Game. It is perched on the edge of one of the most important waterways in the world and fronts the soft underbelly of Saudi Arabia – the part where many of the most profitable oil wells are located.

Yemen is formidable, and strangely important. But because of the mountains, because of the tribes, because of the weaponry (three rifles for every Yemeni), because boys are expected to be proficient with weapons from an early age, Yemen has not been high on the list of the Anglosphere's "civilizing" influences.
Ironically, the Yemenis are very similar culturally to the Somalis – from the same Somalia that Western newscasters like to call a failed state. (A failed state is any country that stands in the way of the West's dash toward One World Government.)

What Western mainstream media isn't bothering to report, however, is that the Anglo-American power elite could already have done away with Saleh if it wanted to. He's their man and has been for all of his violent existence. It is reprehensible that that Western elites would rather let Yemen drift into civil war than cease to support Saleh. There have been no moves made in the UN to put pressure on Saleh, no sanctions – only apparently regular ammo and tear gas refills, which he has used to slaughter hundreds of Yemenis.

The Western elites have not moved to do away with Saleh because they cannot apparently find a thug to put in his place that will garner a modicum of tribal support. The result of all this is growing antipathy. Possibly, because Yemen is another funny "impoverished backwater," the US has handled the Yemen very badly. The whole country is inflamed. Saleh, now wounded, will likely never get his power back and the chances that the CIA will have the opportunity to create a new Saleh are growing slimmer by the minute.

The Saudis worked desperately to move Saleh out of power. It is easy to see why now; that was their leverage. But now the nightmare scenario has occurred: increasingly the Saudis are perceived as propping Saleh up (which they are doing actually by not removing him). Ultimately all this returns to the US and the Pentagon, which in turn does the bidding of the City of London. So, here is the answer to the question asked at the beginning of this article. The answer is ...

SAUDI ARABIA!

The corrupt and vicious Saudi regime lies at the heart of Money Power. Without Saudi willingness to support the continued dollar-oil exchange (forcing the rest of the world to hold dollars) the dollar reserve currency system seriously degrades.

The current system was put in place in the 1940s, but it was elaborated on in 1971, when the US severed the last link between gold and the dollar and substituted oil. How did the Anglosphere elites manage this trick? Using Mao's observation: "power springs from the barrel of a gun."

The Saudis were willing accomplices, but in reality they didn't have a choice. The world's economy, when you come down to it, is a product of American military force. Use the dollar to buy oil or else ... But if the US and Saudi Arabia cannot control the spiraling disaster in Yemen, the next stop on the revolutionary train is Bahrain. And after that ... Saudi Arabia. And THIS time, events may not be easily salvageable. The Internet has educated the Arab world about its history.

If the Anglosphere elites had only used their tremendous industrial and monetary advantages to build a free-market instead of a phony one (disguised as a free one)! But the elites chose to propagate a central banking economy in order to chase after world government, and now they are in danger of an eroding dollar reserve, which could eventually result in the creation of an entirely new (and uncontrollable) currency. Anyway, if Saudi Arabia falls, the dominoes may simply keep tumbling. Who pays any attention to funny little countries like Yemen anyway?

BBC HARDtalk: Jim Rogers Interview

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sun, 29 May 2011 10:22:15 -0600

The UPS Composite Car

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sat, 28 May 2011 20:35:21 -0600

Source: Fast Company - May 24, 2011

UPS has the unfortunate task of figuring out how to deliver packages without bleeding cash in our resource-constrained world. Last year, UPS announced an ambitious goal: The company planned on increasing its package-delivery fleet fuel efficiency by 20% between a 2000 baseline and 2020. The obvious path to those goals is combination of hybrid electric vehicles and natural gas-powered trucks (both are technologies that the company is exploring). But UPS is also going for a more revolutionary solution: The shipping giant is testing plastic trucks that are supposedly both lighter and more fuel efficient than their sheet-aluminum counterparts.

According to UPS, the diesel trucks come with body panels made out of ABS plastic, which makes them 1,000 pounds lighter than standard trucks. This lightness--and the smaller engine it allows--makes the trucks 40% more fuel efficient, a feature that could save the company 84 million gallons of fuel each year if the technology becomes widespread.

The Race To Carve Up The Arctic

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Mon, 16 May 2011 20:40:41 -0600

(Click Image For Video link)

Marcin Jakubowski On Open Source Manufacturing

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 21:55:33 -0600

U.S. Sen. John McCain Calls For U.S. To Arm Rebels

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:49:52 -0600

Libya is being set up as an arms sales bonanza, another Vietnam for the world, only this time involving an entree of European flavour, making the whole endeavour rather a coming out, or a who's who in the world of global arms trafficking. The UN/NATO military force will wisely direct the war, always insuring a pretty even playing field, heavy losses on both sides, but not so much as to deplete the long term objective too quickly (see Gaddafi's gold horde). Many missiles, and many more lives later the show is rolled up, the invaded country is divided, and that which remains is carved up and taken by those whose power of force allows them to do so. I can only imagine what Russian and Chinese power brokers think about this cascade of audacious maneuvers throughout the Middle Kingdom....

Source: International Business Times - April 22, 2011

Sen. John McCain, who visited the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi on Friday, called for the United States and every other nation to recognize the rebels fighting against forces led by Col. Muammar Gaddafi and for "responsible" nations to arm them.

McCain is the most senior U.S. official to visit Libya since the conflict began, said Friday's visit was "one of the most exciting and inspiring days of my life" and applauded the rebel leadership for "their remarkable progress in this struggle for liberation."

"First, I would encourage every nation, especially the United States, to recognize the Transitional National Council as the legitimate voice of the Libyan people. They've earned this right, and Gaddafi has forfeited it by waging war on his own people," McCain said in a released statement.

"Second, governments that have frozen assets of the Qaddafi regime should release some of that money to the Transitional National Council so that they can sustain, improve, and expand their capacity to govern justly," he added.

McCain also said NATO - which is in charge of protecting civilians in Libya from Col. Muammar Gaddafi's forces - should "urgently step up" the air campaign, especially in Misurata, the site of intense fighting in recent days.

He said more close air support in the form of A-10 and AC-130 jets were needed. He also applauded the recent use of Predator drone aircraft to help in the effort. U.S. defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday that the aircraft would allow for more precise airstrikes from low altitudes in populated areas.

McCain also called for nations to provide help to the TNC through command and control support, battlefield intelligence, training, and weapons.

"I have met with these brave fighters, and they are not Al-Qaeda. To the contrary: They are Libyan patriots who want to liberate their nation. We should help them do it," he said.

Highly Recommended - Jim Sinclair On Gold And The World Financial System

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 19:36:45 -0600

Source: Goldseek - April 15, 2011

The Hera Research Newsletter (HRN) is pleased to present an in-depth interview with Jim Sinclair....

Hera Research Newsletter (HRN):Thank you for speaking with us today. You are one of very few people who have tried to warn investors about OTC derivatives. Why are OTC derivatives a problem in your opinion?

Jim Sinclair:Over the counter (OTC) derivatives are the reason we are going through what we are going through now. An OTC derivative is a kind of wager on what something will do. Up until 2009, most of these wagers had very little, if any, money behind them and, if the direction you bet on didn’t come to fruition, the amount of leverage resulted in extraordinary losses. There was a major rollover in derivatives tied to real estate in 2008, as well as in other types, such as those tied to sub-prime auto loans.

HRN:Did OTC derivatives destabilize the financial system in 2008?

Jim Sinclair:Absolutely.

HRN:Don’t financial institutions use risk cancellation models to hedge risks using OTC derivatives?

Jim Sinclair:Before the failure of Lehman Brothers, OTC derivatives losses would have almost netted out to zero. You can consider derivatives like a string in a circle with various knots representing all the derivatives transactions. When Lehman went broke, the string broke. When Lehman couldn’t meet its obligations on derivatives, they could no longer be netted out to zero. That’s why the banks went down, and that’s why you had the government bailouts and quantitative easing (QE).

HRN:OTC derivatives are the real reason for the bank bailouts?

Jim Sinclair:That is a fact which can in no way be argued away.

HRN:Hasn’t the problem been cleaned up by the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act?

Jim Sinclair:The pile of OTC derivatives is over $1 quadrillion. After 2008, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) adopted a new method of valuing them called value to maturity. Value to maturity assumes all of them will function, which is a cartoon. The derivatives pile hasn’t contracted. Basically, it has expanded, but value to maturity reduced the notional value from over $1 quadrillion to under $700 trillion. The amount outstanding is the same as it was in the first place.

The flavor of the present moment is credit default swaps against the solvency, or lack thereof, of sovereign nations. New derivatives have some margin behind them, but they only work if they are not called upon. If a nation’s debt was in fact to default, it would happen very quickly without a great deal of run up before. Most people would expect a rescue to be coming. Let’s say a rescue didn’t come, those credit default swaps would simply not be able to function and down again would come the banking system.

HRN:Are you saying that the financial system is less stable today than it was in 2008?

Jim Sinclair:It appears more stable but that’s only an appearance. The entire equity rally took place almost to the day from when the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) relaxed the mark to market rule. It allowed financial institutions to make up whatever value they wanted for their worthless pieces of paper. If they used the real values, the banks would have come down.

HRN:Wasn’t the FASB change a temporary measure to halt the decline in mortgage-backed securities?

Jim Sinclair:It wasn’t just mortgage-backed securities. It was all the paper on bank balance sheets. The balance sheets of banks appear to be in good shape but they’re not. In fact, they will need a lot more funds.

HRN:Then the financial system is still vulnerable?

Jim Sinclair:They’ve kicked the can down the road. The purpose of QE, in other words the printing of money, is to maintain some degree of integrity in the financial system. Bear in mind that the grease for the wheels of equity markets is liquidity, meaning that if you create a lot of money, it goes into the hands of banking institutions and international investment houses. So, the equity out of thin air market has been sustained by QE.

HRN:What can the government do to prevent another crisis?

Jim Sinclair:You can assume that what’s been done already will be done again. There are no other tools in a practical sense. The idea that there won’t be a continuation of QE is nonsense.

HRN:Can the government bail out the banks again?

Jim Sinclair:The central banks will buy the government debt. That’s called quantitative easing.

Continue reading "Highly Recommended - Jim Sinclair On Gold And The World Financial System"

Britain, France, and Italy Send Military Advisors To Libya

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:45:26 -0600

Source: The New York Times - April 20, 2011

The French and Italian governments said Wednesday that they would join Britain in sending a small number of military liaison officers to support the ragtag rebel army in Libya, offering a diplomatic boost for the insurgent leader, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, as he met with President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris.

After the meeting, The Associated Press reported, Mr. Sarkozy pledged to intensify French airstrikes that started in March.

The announcements came as the international community searched for a means to break a bloody battlefield deadlock that has killed hundreds in the contested cities of Misurata and Ajdabiya and left the rebels in tenuous control of a few major coastal cities in their campaign against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.