– Gold Shortage, Worst In 21st Century, Sends 1Y GOFO To Lowest Ever… And India Just Made It Worse (ZeroHedge):
While we have covered the aberration that is a negative gold GOFO rate previously and in extensive detail in this post, an abridged version of what negative GOFO means comes courtesy of Deutsche Bank’s recent discussion on what a successful Swiss gold referendum. To wit: “It is interesting to note that benchmark gold-dollar swap rates have recently traded negative, meaning investors are paying to borrow gold. This is unusual as gold is traditionally used as a source of collateral for cash financing…. [A] number of factors may play a role, such as excess dollar liquidity or an increased demand for collateral on the back of the global regulatory developments.” In short a gold shortage at the institutional, read commercial and central bank, level. And not just a shortage but the biggest shortage in history, judging by today’s latest plunge in the 1 Month GOFO which just dropped to -0.5% and , worse, 1 Year GOFO that just hit its lowest print in the 21st century, and is also about to go negative: something that has never happened before further suggesting the gold shortage could go on for a long, long time!
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– Russian Warship Flotilla Enters English Channel For Military Exercises (ZeroHedge):
The French delivery of two Mistral ships to Russia may be postponed indefinitely (a move which ultimately would cost Hollande over $4 billion in contract breach penalty fees he simply can’t afford to pay), but that doesn’t mean the Russian navy has been hobbled or is hiding in the corner. To the contrary: according to the following tweet from the UK Ministry of Defense, Russia’s navy is getting quite bolder. “Four Russian ships escorted through Dover Strait from North Sea by @RoyalNavy HMS Tyne this morning. Ships have left UK waters.” What happened? As Bloomberg reports, at least 4 vessels which departed the Russian Northern Fleet main base on November 20, led by anti-submarine ship Severomorsk, entered English channel for exercises that include anti-sabotage training, damage control in case of fire and water intake, state-run news service RIA Novosti says, citing statement from Navy.
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– The 2014 Black Friday Frenzy: America Goes Shopping, In Photos (ZeroHedge)
– “An Unstoppable Zombie Holiday” – Humanity Shudders as America Exports Black Friday to the World (Liberty Blitzkrieg):
Greater Manchester Police said two arrests were made and injuries reported as police closed some stores to prevent more severe problems. One woman was injured by a falling television set.
The force tweeted “Keep calm, people!” at one point.
There were problems in many parts of Britain, including Wales and Scotland.
– From the Associated Press: Black Friday Chaos Hits Britain
Black Friday is one of those days when all the hope and optimism one possesses for the future of humanity is threatened by the gross, primal, in-your-face reality. I’ve written about the holiday before, specifically, in the piece, The SDR: The Same Demented Regime. Here’s an excerpt:
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– Government uses 225-year-old law to force companies to unlock phones (RT):
Revelations about how governments swallow up huge amounts of data have led to consumers and companies embracing encryption like never before, but feds may have found a hidden weapon within a centuries-old law now being used in court.
Late last month, a federal magistrate in New York approved a request filed by United States attorneys and compelled an unnamed cell phone maker to unlock a mobile device that had been seized by authorities pursuant to an investigation. In ordering the company to do as much, though, the judge agreed with an argument made weeks earlier by the US government in which its lawyers said the All Writs Act, a law first put on the books 225 years ago in 1789, should be evoked.
US attorneys told the court in an Oct. 10 filing that they had seized a mobile phone while investigating alleged credit card fraud and, despite obtaining a search warrant, had been unable to bypass the phone’s password-protection. With the data otherwise inaccessible, federal prosecutors said the court could order the manufacturer to provide “reasonable technical assistance” in unlocking the device by relying on the All Writs Act.
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– How Bloomberg’s Algo-Writers Serve The Cult Of Keynesian Central Banking (David Stockman’s Contra Corner):
If you ever needed proof that the financial press has been completely indoctrinated in the cult of Keynesian central banking consider the following…
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– WTF Chart Of The Day: Centrally Planned Confidence Edition (ZeroHedge):
Because nothing says “spend on Black Friday” like a fractionally positive Dow Jones Industrial Average close in the green… unrigged
– About Those Eyeball-Based Valuations: “Half Of Twitter Accounts Created In 2013 Have Already Been Deleted”(ZeroHedge):
Still paying a #Div/0 valuation for Facebook or Twitter based on expectations of exponential growth in eyeballs, or rather “eyeballs“? Then perhaps read this first. “.. many of the “users” on social media sites aren’t real people at all – they’re celebrity staff tweeting on behalf of their employer, or PRs promoting a company, or even fake accounts for people that don’t exist at all. In fact, half of all Twitter accounts created in 2013 have already been deleted.”
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– Flood leaves Gaza in ruins, UN declares state of emergency (RT):
An estimated 100,000 homes have been destroyed or damaged as the streets of Gaza City. They were flooded with water and sewage after a week of torrential downpours, prompting the UN Palestinian refugee agency to declare a state of emergency in the area.
Forced out of their homes, thousands of Palestinians are now sleeping in classrooms and makeshift shelters after a massive weeklong storm ravaged the region, reports the Ma’an News Agency. This includes the nearly 30,000 who had been staying at emergency housing after Israel’s 51-day summer offensive.
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– The Price Of Oil Exposes The True State Of The Economy (The Automatic Earth):
We should be glad the price of oil has fallen the way it has (losing another 6% today as we write this). Not because it makes the gas in our cars a bit cheaper, that’s nothing compared to the other service the price slump provides. That is, it allows us to see how the economy is really doing, without the multilayered veil of propaganda, spin, fixed data and bailouts and handouts for the banking system.
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– The First Oil-Exporting Casualty Of The Crude Carnage: Venezuela (ZeroHedge):
What best shows that for Venezuela it is essentially game over, is that as the chart below shows, Venezuela’s international reserves declined $1.3 billion in the week after President Nicolas Maduro transfered $4 billion of Chinese loans to the central bank. In other words, the scrambling oil exporter was forced to burn one third of its Chinese bail-out loan to keep itself solvent. The country’s reserves dropped to $22.2 billion today, according to central bank data. As Bloomberg also notes, Maduro on Nov. 18 ordered the Chinese loan proceeds to be moved from an off-budget fund, so that they would show up in reserves and help boost investor confidence in an economy beset by the world’s highest inflation and widest budget deficit. The following day, Venezuelan bonds rose the most in six years in intraday trading. “If the plan was to calm the bondholders, then burning through a third of that money in five working days doesn’t do it in any way,” Henkel Garcia, director of Caracas-based consultancy Econometrica, said in a telephone interview.
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– ‘Disturbing’: Arms firms dine at Tower of London days after ‘sea of poppies’ closed (RT):
The Tower of London hosted a networking dinner for global arms manufacturers, mere days after the extremely popular ‘sea of poppies’ remembrance installation closed. Tower managers have been accused of “crass insensitivity.”
The event, co-sponsored by Lockheed Martin – the world’s biggest defense firm – was billed as an “acclaimed and influential … chance to make new business connections” for senior defense manufacturers.
The guest of honor at the £240-per-head event was Chief of Defence Staff General Sir Nicholas Houghton.
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– What Americans Celebrate On Thanksgiving Day — Paul Craig Roberts:
When Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, they don’t know what they are celebrating.
In American folklore, Thanksgiving is a holiday that originated in 1621 with the Pilgrims celebrating a good harvest. Some historians say that this event is poorly documented, and others believe that the Thanksgiving tradition travelled to the New World with the Pilgrims and Puritans who brought with them the English Days of Thanksgiving. Other historians think the Pilgrims associated their relief from hunger with their observance of the relief of the siege of Leiden.
The Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving, if it happened, might not have been the first in the New World. Historians say the Virginia colonial charter declared a Day of Thanksgiving in 1619, and other historians say the first Thanksgiving was observed by the Spanish in Florida in 1565.
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– ‘Disturbing’: Arms firms dine at Tower of London days after ‘sea of poppies’ closed (RT):
The Tower of London hosted a networking dinner for global arms manufacturers, mere days after the extremely popular ‘sea of poppies’ remembrance installation closed. Tower managers have been accused of “crass insensitivity.”
The event, co-sponsored by Lockheed Martin – the world’s biggest defense firm – was billed as an “acclaimed and influential … chance to make new business connections” for senior defense manufacturers.
The guest of honor at the £240-per-head event was Chief of Defence Staff General Sir Nicholas Houghton.
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– School Expels Child Over Vaccine That Even the Doctor Refuses to Give (The Daily Sheeple):
An 8 year-old Long Island girl has been kicked out of school, and the reason is outrageous.
Ceili McNicholas was told not to return to Long Island’s Laddie A. Decker Sound Beach School after her mother Jamie refused to let her receive the T-Dap booster, which protects against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis.
The decision to skip the booster wasn’t solely Jamie’s idea – her daughter’s pediatrician won’t administer the shot because it is labeled for children ages 10 and over. Ceili is only 8.
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– Fukushima Engineer: Officials covering up how badly groundwater is contaminated — Scientist: “We’re measuring higher levels off Japan” — Radiation near California already exceeds expectations, will be rising for years to come — TV: “Cleanup can’t be done… They lied from the start, Tepco is a den of inequity” (VIDEOS) (ENENews)
– Fracking toxins may be as dangerous as tobacco, asbestos & thalidomide – UK chief scientist (RT):
The effects of fracking could be as dangerous as asbestos, thalidomide, or tobacco toxins, the UK’s leading scientist has warned, claiming the government has adopted the process without considering the side effects.
In a flagship report produced by Professor Sir Mark Walport, the government’s chief advisor on science policy, it is warned that fracking could have serious negative impacts on health and the environment that could last for decades.
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– Foreigners ‘like seeing our children die’, can’t help with Mid-East, says Erdogan (RT):
Muslim countries are able to solve their problems on their own, the Turkish president believes. He says far from offering help, the West is actually exploiting “conflicts in the Middle East” and only cares about the region’s riches.
Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has urged Islamic countries to unite in order to solve “the biggest humanitarian and political crisis in their history,” according to AFP, citing the Turkish president’s speech in Istanbul on Thursday.
“The only condition to overcome the crisis in the Islamic world is unity, solidarity and alliance,” he said. “Believe me, we can resolve every problem as long as we are united.”
Erdogan says there is no use counting on help from the Western world.
“I speak openly, foreigners love oil, gold, diamonds, and the cheap labor force of the Islamic world,” he said. “They like the conflicts, fights and quarrels of the Middle East. Believe me, they don’t like us.”
“They look like friends, but they want us dead, they like seeing our children die,” the president went on.
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– Switzerland Hands Out Iodine in Case of Nuclear Disaster (Blooomberg):
Switzerland is distributing iodide tablets to more than half the country’s population for use in the event of a nuclear disaster.
– Pennsylvania snowfall shatters 114-year-old records (Ice Age now):
Obliterates record for both the day and the month.
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– Ice already forming on Great Lakes (Ice Age now):
Earliest in at least 40 years.
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– Tamir Rice Video Shows Cop Opening Fire On 12-Year-Old (Huffington Post):
CLEVELAND (AP) — The police officer who fatally shot a 12-year-old boy carrying a pellet gun fired within 1½ to 2 seconds of pulling up in his cruiser, police said Wednesday. During those few moments, he ordered the youngster three times to put up his hands, they said.
The city released a surveillance video that shows the shooting of Tamir Rice, who was carrying an airsoft gun that shoots non-lethal plastic pellets.
Much of the footage shows what appears to be a bored kid alone in a park on an unseasonably warm November afternoon. Tamir is seen pacing, occasionally extending his right arm with what appears to be a gun in his hand, talking on a cellphone and sitting at a picnic table with his head resting on his arms.
The gun wasn’t real. It can be bought at sporting goods stores for less than $20. Tamir’s was lacking the bright orange tip that is usually put on such weapons to indicate they’re not real guns.
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BS propaganda: Thanksgiving attack: Syrian hackers strike U.S. media websites (Examiner):
American,Canadian and European news organizations claimed on Thanksgiving Day that their websites were hacked by a group identifying themselves as the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a cyber-terrorist group that is allied with Syria’s Assad regime.
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– Half-blind UK widow commits suicide after incapacity benefit cut (RT):
A partially-blind widow, who suffered crippling back pain for over a decade, committed suicide after her incapacity benefit was cut because state assessors claimed she was fit to work.
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– As Japanese Bankruptcies Soar, Goldman Warns “Further Yen Depreciation Could Be A Net Burden” (ZeroHedge):
It is no secret that one of the primary drivers of relentless S&P 500 levitation over the past two years, ever since the start of Japan’s mammoth QE, has been the use of the Yen as the carry currency of choice (once again as during the credit bubble of the early-2000s), whose shorting has directly resulted in E-mini levitation. One look at the intraday chart of any JPY pair and the S&P500 is largely sufficient to confirm this. Those days, however, may be coming to an end, at least according to Goldman which overnight released a note saying that the Yen is “Almost at breakeven: Further yen depreciation could be a net burden.”
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– Activists advocate criminal charges for child porn possession (RT)
And if you remember what Barrie Trower said, then you know that it is our governments who will upload child porn onto our computers if “need be”:
– Former Royal Navy Microwave Weapons Expert And UK Intelligence Services Agent Dr. Barrie Trower: Dangers And Lethality Of Microwave Technology (Video – 2:19:36)
– Former Royal Navy Microwave Weapons Expert: NWO TECHNOLOGY UPDATE – Deadly Mobile Phones & The Worst Genocide Ever Committed – The Dangers Of Wi-Fi To Women And Children (Video)
– A Thanksgiving Message (Liberty Blitzkrieg):
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I ended the 2012 piece with the following quote, which I want to share again today.
“Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about his religion.
Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.
Seek to make your life long and of service to your people.
Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend,
or even a stranger, if in a lonely place.
Show respect to all people, but grovel to none.
When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light,
for your life, for your strength.
Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.
If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.
Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools
and robs the spirit of its vision.
When your time comes to die,
be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death,
so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time
to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.”
– Tecumseh
(1768-1813) Shawnee Chief
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Who’s Making Money Off The War On Drugs?
