Exactly

Excellent post on ZeroHedge today: The GOP is dying because the Liberty Movement is thriving.

Gotta love it when Bernanke opens his mouth

Related posts:
FOMC: This Is The Beginning Of "The Big Print" - Unlimited QE [Dave in Denver]
QE To Infinity [Turd Ferguson]
The Punchline In His Own Words: Bernanke Advocates Blowing Asset Bubbles As The Antidote To Depression [Tyler Durden]
Gold Chart: The 'Cup' Has Formed As Confidence Continues to Erode [Jesse]
The Fed and the ECB determine to Destroy the Middle Class [Trader Dan]

AP Lets Loose With Both Barrels

Arctic Patriot has a pair of posts from yesterday and today that I must pass along.

Yesterday, he posted and commented upon a link to an exposé of the murder by the police of Jose Guerena. AP's comments echo my own convictions regarding the liberty that our Founding Fathers clearly claimed were granted by the Creator:

I do not intend to dishonor and insult The Giver by throwing away His gifts.

Then, yesterday, he posted an excellent piece on the wholesale slaughter of innocents perpetrated by this nation over the past 40 years or so. Excerpt:

If America was utterly destroyed and erased as a nation solely for this genocide / holocaust / extermination, I would consider it nothing more than pure justice.

I'm beginning to think AP and I were separated at birth.

Following in Rome's Footsteps

I've mentioned before the similarities between our political situation and that of the Roman Republic just prior to its conversion to an Empire under Julius and Octavian. I ran across a very interesting piece today on the economic similarities; it's a fascinating read and underscores Solomon's assertion that "there is no new thing under the sun." We're following the same patterns as those who have gone before us, and the result will inevitably be the same, assuming we continue down this road.

What Destroyed Rome was its Unfunded Government Employee Pensions

H/T Patriot Trading Group

The foundational priniciple of self-reliance

A lot of talk floats around the blogosphere about preparation for the looming economic and (God forbid) political collapse. Most of that talk focuses on trading your worthless paper dollars for something of value, particularly gold and/or silver. A lot of it is geared toward resistance to tyranny in various forms. A lot of people are talking about going "off-grid." My wife and I started working ten years ago on the path to self-reliance.

I should be clear in my definition of self-reliance: nobody can be completely self-reliant, unless they're willing to live an extremely bare-bones existence. As much as I hate to sound like the Abominable Pantsuit, it does "take a village" to live any kind of life higher in quality than that of a caveman's existence. Some specialization is a good thing: I'm good at making wine, and my neighbor is a gifted mechanic... that's just begging for future barter.

With that realization in mind, we still sought to minimize our reliance on other people as much as possible; furthermore, we are determined to limit our reliance on the System in favor of relying on trusted friends and neighbors. This requires the long-term development of a trusted network of like-minded people, folks you are reasonably certain will be there for you when it hits the fan. This is not something you can come up with overnight; trust must be earned. This, however, is another topic, perhaps for another time.

The subject of this post is self-reliance. I don't have a lot of deep thoughts on the subject, but I've spent ten years working on it, and I want to share what we believe is the foundational principle of self-reliance: you cannot be self-reliant if you are a slave. This has many practical corollaries, and here are a few:

And you thought it was just hyperbole

I've written on these pages before about the American dictatorship, twice: here and here.

Now our traitorous Senate is attempting to give even more power to the office of Caesar the President with S. 679. These are signs of the times, folks. I doubt this particular one will pass, but people need to understand that this threat is very real, and it just a question of statistics: sooner or later, legislation like this will pass, when the circumstances are right for it.

My Deepest Apologies

I've been remiss in my precious metals musings of late. Last week, when the silver/gold ratio was bouncing between 31-33, I should have said to swap a portion of your silver for gold. Alas, it's now too late, as the ratio is back up in the mid-40s.

I have not yet missed the opportunity, however, to encourage you all to take every piece of worthless paper you can spare and buy gold or silver all the way down until it bottoms out. This is not a bursting bubble, folks. This is a short-term correction. How short, I can't predict, but I can say with as much certainty as possible that these prices cannot persist as long as the Fed continues to dilute the value of their Monopoly money.

Rope, Tree, Politician...

Over at the Economic Collapse blog, an article about just how corrupt US politics has become. Americans need to wake up and stop voting for a candidate because of the letter after their name. It's already too late to avoid massive heartburn over the remedies, but the effects of the collapse could be mitigated if we had leaders with intelligence, fortitude, and a willingness to be a one-term candidate.

I Hate To Say I Told You So, But...

It's now so obvious that even the mainstream media is reporting it: CNBC reports Inflation Actually Near 10%.

Apparently somebody in the newsroom was surfing the IntarWebz for porn and ineptly stumbled across John Williams' Shadow Governement Statistics. Such quality and timely reporting.

"...going by recent strong comments from Federal Reserve officials, even members of the central bank must believe inflation is being underreported..."

Duh. Winning.

CPI as measured before the numbers were monkeyed with by the
Reagan and Bush administrations... courtesy of Shadow Stats

Silver not done yet

Today, the price of silver in worthless paper dollars is sitting at $40.91, about a 4% gain over yesterday's London PM fix. Silver is now up 44% since February 1. Here's today's chart, courtesy of Kitco:

Silver mining stocks are running up as well, particularly the junior stocks. Since February 1, Revett Minerals is up 40%, US Silver is up 53%, Canadian Zinc is now up 73%, and a new one I've recently added to my portfolio, Tinka Resources, is up 129%. If one had invested $5000 on February 1 in a balanced portfolio of silver and these four stocks, it would now be worth $8390, a 68% growth. Try getting a return like that in any instrument your bank offers. As I've said before, if you're not getting a 10% return, you're losing to inflation.

Gold As The Economic Reference Point

Friend of Friend of Another posted an excellent article the other day about gold as an economic reference point. It's a long read, but by the time you're finished, you'll hopefully understand why I encourage everyone to trade their worthless paper dollars for physical gold bullion as soon as possible, and at any cost. This is the only way to permanently capture the economic value, or purchasing power, of those worthless paper dollars. As I have stated before, gold (and silver, to a lesser degree) should never be considered an investment. It's true savings.

Seriously: long-term savings absolutely should not be in the form of a bank account, stocks, bonds, money markets, mutual funds, or anything that can go to zero overnight (and the US Dollar can go to zero overnight). Long-term savings should be in the form of the precious metals I've mentioned before: gold, silver, iron*, or copper.

Out With A Whimper

Some folks may have thought I was overstating my case a while back when I wrote about the American dictatorship. More evidence is piling up, however, that supports the notion that we have indeed finally crossed the Rubicon and are ruled by a Julius. If this historical reenactment continues to unfold (God forbid), the next administration may very well be our Octavian.

Wait A Minute... I Thought We Were All Supposed To Be Dead By Now

EPA's radiation monitoring is online here.

Private radiation monitoring network here.

Webcam feed of a Geiger counter in Los Angeles here.

Webcam feed of a Geiger counter in Tokyo here.

Weather and radiation levels in Tokyo here.

Instead of blowing all that money and energy on freaking out over the "fallout" that was going to kill us all, maybe we should have been more focused on praying for the millions of Japanese affected by the massive earthquake, the subsequent massive tsunami, the loss of 20% of the nation's power generation during winter, and the economic meltdown that's currently taking place in Japan. Black Swan event, indeed.

If You're Not Angry, You're Not Paying Attention

On Friday, in a federal trial, a United States Attorney claimed in court that Bernard von NotHaus is guilty of domestic terrorism. The jury deliberated less than two hours and found von NotHaus guilty of conspiracy against the government. The FBI, the Buncombe County Sheriff, and the Secret Service were all involved in taking down this dangerous terrorist. He's expected to get 25 years in prison.

So was von NotHaus a Muslim convert plotting to carry out jihad? Was he Hutaree or affiliated with those wackos in Fairbanks? Did he threaten judges or police officers? Did he shoot someone? Was he plotting to blow up a federal building?

Nope. He was bartering. With silver. You read that correctly. This vile terrorist needs to be sent to Gitmo ASAP.

Now think how many times the idea of another gold seizure is scoffed at.

Silver breakout cont'd

The price of silver in US dollars has now made a 25% gain since the first of February. As mentioned in my last post on the same subject, this has an even bigger impact on junior silver miners: in the same time period, Canadian Zinc is up 67%, and U. S. Silver is up 36%. The conservative silver bulls' predictions have already come to pass: silver is already trading well over $35 per ounce. A lot of other bulls are still targetting $45-$75 by the end of the year.

Always remember that precious metals should not be considered an investment. They only "grow" relative to the collapsing purchasing power of the dollar. In other words, precious metals retain their true value, and thus, they can inflation-proof your savings. As I've been saying for a long time: convert your dollars to something else now, before they lose even more purchasing power. Heck, go buy a half-dozen gas cans and fill them up with gasoline at the current low prices. Inflation is hitting us in a big way, despite what the talking heads on the idiot-box say, so every day they convince you to hold onto your worthless paper dollars, is another day you are losing money.

In the interest of full disclosure, I own silver bullion, CZICF, and USSIF and have no intention of selling any of them any time soon. I don't have gas cans full of gasoline, but I may soon.

The American dictatorship

An amazing thing has happened. I'm not certain when this took place, and it remains to be seen if it will be challenged, but it appears we have completely ceased to be a Republic or even a functional Democracy. We are now a full-fledged dictatorship. Don't believe me? Check out this Department of Justice memo. Pay careful attention to the fourth paragraph, in which the Attorney General states:

The President has ... concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute in such cases. I fully concur with the President’s determination.

What's wrong with this? Anyone? Oh, that's right... they haven't taught civics in school for decades, so if you mention "separation of powers" to anyone under the age of 40, you're more likely than not to get a funny look and asked, "You mean separation of church and state?"

Well said

Gold Subject on reasons to buy gold. Gold is not an investment; it's inflation-proofing your savings. Sell your dollars while they're still worth something. Get something tangible, and gold should be at the top of that list of tangibles.

Concerned American: "The rule of law in this country is dead."

A somewhat depressing article by Concerned American that you need to read. It's his response to a Rolling Stone article entitled Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? which is also worth reading, as long as you don't mind getting pissed off.

Arctic Patriot's initial reaction. Then he slept on it and wrote something a little more measured.

I'm not optimistic about this stuff at all. That's why we've been working so hard on getting out of debt (only a couple months left) and learning to live a simpler life for the past several years. I'd encourage you to do the same.

Freedom isn't free (and it isn't for the morally degenerate)

John Philpot Curran (although frequently misattributed to Thomas Jefferson):

The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.

Edmund Burke:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

and:

All who have ever written on government are unanimous, that among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.