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Turkey could be America’s most important regional ally, above Iraq, even above Israel, if both sides manage the relationship correctly.

  • Poor Richard- Greece can be Saved

    Poor Richard- Greece can be Saved

    Poor Richards Report

    Greece can be saved and so can the rest of world.
    If we forgive the interest rates and just ask that they repay. Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to regain the principal of a loan rather than losing everything?
    The major banks would be the losers because they lose the benefit of compound interest or even simple interest. It is those interest payments that add up fast.
    Another plus is that it would rein in the major banks as well. The loss of income for them means that they will be more careful making loans in the future, because many bankers would face salary pay cuts rather than living off government guarantees of deposits as they do now.

  • Armenian “Settled History Syndrome”: An affliction that runs deep in the media

    Armenian “Settled History Syndrome”: An affliction that runs deep in the media

    By Ferruh Demirmen

    Anyone who tries to see or instill a measure of balance or open mindedness in the Western media on the question of Armenian “genocide” will soon discover he/she is out of luck. For the phenomenon, which I call the “Settled History Syndrome,” is not only palpable, but also widespread. It runs deep in the media across Europe and America. It is not new, but deserves special recognition under a name of its own – hence the term coined here. It is the product of year-in, year-out incessant propaganda perpetrated by the Armenian lobby on the so-called “Armenian genocide.”

    The syndrome explains how a group of certain historians or scholars, supposedly open minded, gather to discuss Armenian “genocide,” but colleagues who disagree are kept away as misguided renegades.

    It explains why anyone who challenges the Armenian version of history is labeled “Genocide denier,” often citing a self-appointed group called ”The International Association of Genocide Scholars“ as the infallible arbiter.

    It explains how minds are frozen, debate is stifled, and freedom of opinion is trampled upon – truth being the ultimate casualty.

    It explains how money and influence, fed by prejudice, create a cadre of ill-informed politicians and general public. The media, itself thrown into deep freeze, commonly plays the role of the facilitator.

    Turks who want to fight unfounded accusations from the Armenian side must first deal with this mindset affecting the media.

    Examples are myriad. I will first relay an anecdote, then continue with a recent example, both from America. No doubt, what goes on in America also goes on in Europe, with some mutations.

    The PBS Episode

    Time is early 2006. PBS, the national Public Broadcasting Service in America, is planning to air on April 17 a supposed TV documentary called “Armenian Genocide.” The film, directed by Andrew Goldberg and bankrolled by more than 30 largely Armenian foundations in America, will surely be an anti-Turkish diatribe based on distorted history. I and a small group of Turks and Turkish Americans contact the PBS headquarters in Alexandria , Virginia, to protest the screening of a one-sided story. (As it turned out, the film shamelessly started with a macabre scene of human skulls taken from a 1871 painting by a Russian artist. For a fuller account, see F. Demirmen, Turkish Daily News, April 24, 2006). We argued that, if PBS decides to go ahead with the screening, it should also show, as a balancing act, “The Armenian Revolt,” a newly released documentary directed by Marty Callaghan.

    The PBS headquarters did not change its mind. And the screening of “The Armenian Revolt” was out of consideration.

    I then took my case to the affiliate of PBS in Houston Texas, which was also planning to air “Armenian genocide.” Commenting on the film, the channel’s website carried the statement: “The International Association of Genocide Scholars affirms that the number of Armenian deaths at the hands of Ottoman Turks …” It was a reminder to the viewers that the “genocide” was a shut case.

    Nonetheless, I thought I should still try to educate the Houston channel, that what they would be airing was a prejudiced and distorted story. To that end, I contacted the programming director and sent him some archival material. After back-and-forth correspondence, I had my fingers crossed. At the end, the channel didn’t change its plans, but the programming director made an admission, which was revealing. He remarked that until I contacted him, they had assumed that “genocide” was a “settled history.”

    It was a Lilliputian victory. But it showed what the Turkish side is against: a mindset more or less frozen on its track.

    Pasadena Star Episode

    Fast forward 9 years. On January 15, 2015, the Pasadena Star in California published a news article titled: “Ground broken on Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial.” It was an announcement that the monument would be completed on April 18, ahead of the “100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide on April 24.” Pasadena happens to be next door to Los Angeles, a hotbed of Diaspora activism.

    As the Star put it, the monument would take “the form of a 16-foot-tall tripod … with water drops dripping … to represent each of the 1.5 million lives cut short by the Ottoman Turks in the Armenian Genocide of 1915 to 1923.” The droplets would “fall every 21 seconds, so that 1.5 million drops will fall annually.” The tripod would represent “similarly shaped structures which Armenian leaders were hanged from during the Armenian Genocide.” Surrounding the tripod and stonework would be “12 pomegranate trees, representing each of the 12 lost provinces of Armenia.”

    Pictures of Armenian clerics solemnly praying at the ground breaking ceremony and an artist’s rendition of the tripod-shaped monument were included in the news.

    The description and symbolism were chilling; but infused in all was a prejudiced and distorted history. Particularly notable in the article was the absolutist tone in the language. “Genocide” was treated as a fact, with no hint as to its disputable character.

    Considering their mindset, I hesitated contacting the Star to express my disagreement that Armenian “genocide” is a fact. But the invitation at the end of the article, for readers to engage in “insightful conversations,“ was too good to resist. I also thought that, instead of sending a short blog, I should lay out my arguments in a full article so as to enlighten them. I informed the Star of my intention to submit a dissenting view, and proposed that they publish it as a stand-alone contribution by a guest writer. Their initial reaction was encouraging. They asked me to send in my article.

    In the article I took special care to acknowledge Armenian sufferings and losses, but also mentioned sufferings and losses on the Muslim side. I pointed to certain facts, and made corrections to some of the allegations in the article. I also tried to strike a conciliatory note, referring to the calls of Armenian religious leaders in Turkey, and pointed to the poisoning effect such a monument would have on the Armenian-Turkish relations in America. It was an appeal for “peace.” While I did not expect they would agree with my views, my expectations were high that the Star would publish my article – if for no reason than journalistic curiosity and respect for dissenting views.

    The response from the Star was an eye opener:

    “Yes. We don’t print op-eds by Holocaust deniers, nor articles denying the settled history of the Armenian genocide, recognized now by 23 countries and by the vast majority of scholars and historians not in the pay of the Turkish government.”

    So, I was a “Genocide denier,” and Armenian “genocide” was a settled history, the arbiter presumably being the all-knowing International Association of Genocide Scholars. Case shut. Opinions and facts brought forward by others will not change anything.

    The response was the embodiment of a frozen mind. Frozen in time, frozen in space. Here was another example of the “Settled History Syndrome.”

  • The Geopolitics of U.S.-Cuba Relations

    The Geopolitics of U.S.-Cuba Relations

    Geopolitical Weekly

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    Stratfor

    By George Friedman

    Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro agreed to an exchange of prisoners being held on espionage charges. In addition, Washington and Havana agreed to hold discussions with the goal of establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries. No agreement was reached on ending the U.S. embargo on Cuba, a step that requires congressional approval.

    It was a modest agreement, striking only because there was any agreement at all. U.S.-Cuba relations had been frozen for decades, with neither side prepared to make significant concessions or even first moves. The cause was partly the domestic politics of each country that made it easier to leave the relationship frozen. On the American side, a coalition of Cuban-Americans, conservatives and human rights advocates decrying Cuba’s record of human rights violations blocked the effort. On the Cuban side, enmity with the United States plays a pivotal role in legitimizing the communist regime. Not only was the government born out of opposition to American imperialism, but Havana also uses the ongoing U.S. embargo to explain Cuban economic failures. There was no external pressure compelling either side to accommodate the other, and there were substantial internal reasons to let the situation stay as it is.

    The Cubans are now under some pressure to shift their policies. They have managed to survive the fall of the Soviet Union with some difficulty. They now face a more immediate problem: uncertainty in Venezuela. Caracas supplies oil to Cuba at deeply discounted prices. It is hard to tell just how close Cuba’s economy is to the edge, but there is no question that Venezuelan oil makes a significant difference. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government is facing mounting unrest over economic failures. If the Venezuelan government falls, Cuba would lose one of its structural supports. Venezuela’s fate is far from certain, but Cuba must face the possibility of a worst-case scenario and shape openings. Opening to the United States makes sense in terms of regime preservation.

    The U.S. reason for the shift is less clear. It makes political sense from Obama’s standpoint. First, ideologically, ending the embargo appeals to him. Second, he has few foreign policy successes to his credit. Normalizing relations with Cuba is something he might be able to achieve, since groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce favor normalization and will provide political cover in the Republican Party. But finally, and perhaps most important, the geopolitical foundations behind the American obsession with Cuba have for the most part evaporated, if not permanently than at least for the foreseeable future. Normalization of relations with Cuba no longer poses a strategic threat. To understand the U.S. response to Cuba in the past half century, understanding Cuba’s geopolitical challenge to the United States is important.

    Cuba’s Strategic Value

    The challenge dates back to the completion of the Louisiana Purchase by President Thomas Jefferson in 1803. The Territory of Louisiana had been owned by Spain for most of its history until it was ceded to France a few years before Napoleon sold it to the United States to help fund his war with the British. Jefferson saw Louisiana as essential to American national security in two ways: First, the U.S. population at the time was located primarily east of the Appalachians in a long strip running from New England to the Georgia-Florida border. It was extremely vulnerable to invasion with little room to retreat, as became evident in the War of 1812. Second, Jefferson had a vision of American prosperity built around farmers owning their own land, living as entrepreneurs rather than as serfs. Louisiana’s rich land, in the hands of immigrants to the United States, would generate the wealth that would build the country and provide the strategic depth to secure it.

    What made Louisiana valuable was its river structure that would allow Midwestern farmers to ship their produce in barges to the Mississippi River and onward down to New Orleans. There the grain would be transferred to oceangoing vessels and shipped to Europe. This grain would make the Industrial Revolution possible in Britain, because the imports of mass quantities of food freed British farmers to work in urban industries.

    In order for this to work, the United States needed to control the Ohio-Missouri-Mississippi river complex (including numerous other rivers), the mouth of the Mississippi, the Gulf of Mexico, and the exits into the Atlantic that ran between Cuba and Florida and between Cuba and Mexico. If this supply chain were broken at any point, the global consequences — and particularly the consequences for the United States — would be substantial. New Orleans remains the largest port for bulk shipments in the United States, still shipping grain to Europe and importing steel for American production.

    For the Spaniards, the Louisiana Territory was a shield against U.S. incursions into Mexico and its rich silver mines, which provided a substantial portion of Spanish wealth. With Louisiana in American hands, these critical holdings were threatened. From the American point of view, Spain’s concern raised the possibility of Spanish interference with American trade. With Florida, Cuba and the Yucatan in Spanish hands, the Spaniards had the potential to interdict the flow of produce down the Mississippi.

    Former President Andrew Jackson played the key role in Jeffersonian strategy. As a general, he waged the wars against the Seminole Indians in Florida and seized the territory from Spanish rule — and from the Seminoles. He defended New Orleans from British attack in 1814. When he became president, he saw that Mexico, now independent from Spain, represented the primary threat to the entire enterprise of mid-America. The border of Mexican Texas was on the Sabine River, only 193 kilometers (120 miles) from the Mississippi. Jackson, through his agent Sam Houston, encouraged a rising in Texas against the Mexicans that set the stage for annexation.

    But Spanish Cuba remained the thorn in the side of the United States. The Florida and Yucatan straits were narrow. Although the Spaniards, even in their weakened state, might have been able to block U.S. trade routes, it was the British who worried the Americans most. Based in the Bahamas, near Cuba, the British, of many conflicting minds on the United States, could seize Cuba and impose an almost impregnable blockade, crippling the U.S. economy. The British depended on American grain, and it couldn’t be ruled out that they would seek to gain control over exports from the Midwest in order to guarantee their own economic security. The fear of British power helped define the Civil War and the decades afterward.

    Cuba was the key. In the hands of a hostile foreign power, it was as effective a plug to the Mississippi as taking New Orleans. The weakness of the Spaniards frightened the Americans. Any powerful European power — the British or, after 1871, the Germans — could easily knock the Spaniards out of Cuba. And the United States, lacking a powerful navy, would not be able to cope. Seizing Cuba became an imperative of U.S. strategy. Theodore Roosevelt, who as president would oversee America’s emergence as a major naval power — and who helped ensure the construction of the Panama Canal, which was critical to a two-ocean navy — became the symbol of the U.S. seizure of Cuba in the Spanish-American War of 1898-1900.

    With that seizure, New Orleans-Atlantic transit was secured. The United States maintained effective control over Cuba until the rise of Fidel Castro. But the United States remained anxious about Cuba’s security. By itself, the island could not threaten the supply lines. In the hands of a significant hostile power, however, Cuba could become a base for strangling the United States. Before World War II, when there were some rumblings of German influence in Cuba, the United States did what it could to assure the rise of former Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista, considered an American ally or puppet, depending on how you looked at it. But this is the key: Whenever a major foreign power showed interest in Cuba, the United States had to react, which it did effectively until Castro seized power in 1959.

    The Soviet Influence

    If the Soviets were looking for a single point from which they could threaten American interests, they would find no place more attractive than Cuba. Therefore, whether Fidel Castro was a communist prior to seizing power, it would seem that he would wind up a communist ally of the Soviets in the end. I suspect he had become a communist years before he took power but wisely hid this, knowing that an openly communist ruler in Cuba would revive America’s old fears. Alternatively, he might not have been a communist but turned to the Soviets out of fear of U.S. intervention. The United States, unable to read the revolution, automatically moved toward increasing its control. Castro, as a communist or agrarian reformer or whatever he was, needed an ally against U.S. involvement. Whether the arrangement was planned for years, as I suspect, or in a sudden rush, the Soviets saw it as a marriage made in heaven.

    Had the Soviets never placed nuclear weapons in Cuba, the United States still would have opposed a Soviet ally in control of Cuba during the Cold War. This was hardwired into American geopolitics. But the Soviets did place missiles there, which is a story that must be touched on as well.

    The Soviet air force lacked long-range strategic bombardment aircraft. In World War II, they had focused on shorter range, close air support aircraft to assist ground operations. The United States, engaging both Germany and Japan from the air at long range, had extensive experience with long-range bombing. Therefore, during the 1950s, the United States based aircraft in Europe, and then, with the B-52 in the continental United States, was able to attack the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons. The Soviets, lacking a long-range bomber fleet, could not retaliate against the United States. The balance of power completely favored the United States.

    The Soviets planned to leapfrog the difficult construction of a manned bomber fleet by moving to intercontinental ballistic missiles. By the early 1960s, the design of these missiles had advanced, but their deployment had not. The Soviets had no effective deterrent against a U.S. nuclear attack except for their still-underdeveloped submarine fleet. The atmosphere between the United States and the Soviet Union was venomous, and Moscow could not assume that Washington would not use its dwindling window of opportunity to strike safely against the Soviets.

    The Soviets did have effective intermediate range ballistic missiles. Though they could not reach the United States from the Soviet Union, they could cover almost all of the United States from Cuba. The Russians needed to buy just a little time to deploy a massive intercontinental ballistic missile and submarine force. Cuba was the perfect spot from which to deploy it. Had they succeeded, the Soviets would have closed the U.S. window of opportunity by placing a deterrent force in Cuba. They were caught before they were ready. The United States threatened invasion, and the Soviets had to assume that the Americans also were threatening an overwhelming nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. They had to back down. As it happened, the United States intended no such attack, but the Soviets could not know that.

    Cuba was seared into the U.S. strategic mentality in two layers. It was never a threat by itself. Under the control of a foreign naval power, it could strangle the United States. After the Soviet Union tried to deploy intermediate range ballistic missiles there, a new layer was created in which Cuba was a potential threat to the American mainland, as well as to trade routes. The agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union included American guarantees not to invade Cuba and Soviet guarantees not to base nuclear weapons there. But Cuba remained a problem for the United States. If there were a war in Europe, Cuba would be a base from which to threaten American control of the Caribbean, and with it, the ability to transit ships from the U.S. Pacific Fleet to the Atlantic. The United States never relieved pressure on Cuba, the Soviets used it as a base for many things aside from nuclear weapons (we assume), and the Castro regime clung to the Soviets for security while supporting wars of national liberation, as they were called, in Latin America and Africa that served Soviet strategic interests.

    Post-Soviet Cuba

    With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Castro lost his patron and strategic guarantor. On the other hand, Cuba no longer threatened the United States. There was an implicit compromise. Since Cuba was no longer a threat to the United States but could still theoretically become one, Washington would not end its hostility toward Havana but would not actively try to overthrow it. The Cuban government, for its part, promised not to do what it could not truly do anyway: become a strategic threat to the United States. Cuba remained a nuisance in places like Venezuela, but a nuisance is not a strategic threat. Thus, the relationship remained frozen.

    Since the Louisiana Purchase, Cuba has been a potential threat to the United States when held by or aligned with a major European power. The United States therefore constantly tried to shape Cuba’s policies, and therefore, its internal politics. Fidel Castro’s goal was to end American influence, but he could only achieve that by aligning with a major power: the Soviets. Cuban independence from the United States required a dependence on the Soviets. And that, like all relationships, carried a price.

    The exchange of prisoners is interesting. The opening of embassies is important. But the major question remains unanswered. For the moment, there are no major powers able to exploit Cuba’s geographical location (including China, for now). There are, therefore, no critical issues. But no one knows the future. Cuba wants to preserve its government and is seeking a release of pressure from the United States. At the moment, Cuba really does not matter. But moments pass, and no one can guarantee that it will not become important again. Therefore, the U.S. policy has been to insist on regime change before releasing pressure. With Cuba set on regime survival, what do the Cubans have to offer? They can promise permanent neutrality, but such pledges are of limited value.

    Cuba needs better relations with the United States, particularly if the Venezuelan government falls. Venezuela’s poor economy could, theoretically, force regime change in Cuba from internal pressure. Moreover, Raul Castro is old and Fidel Castro is very old. If the Cuban government is to be preserved, it must be secured now, because it is not clear what will succeed the Castros. But the United States has time, and its concern about Cuba is part of its DNA. Having no interest now, maintaining pressure makes no sense. But neither is there an urgency for Washington to let up on Havana. Obama may want a legacy, but the logic of the situation is that the Cubans need this more than the Americans, and the American price for normalization will be higher than it appears at this moment, whether set by Obama or his successor.

    We are far from settling a strategic dispute rooted in Cuba’s location and the fact that its location could threaten U.S. interests. Therefore, opening moves are opening moves. There is a long way to go on this issue.

  • Poor Richards Report

    Poor Richards Report

    Chapter 21 Ted Butler Research LLC.
    This is a research report is from Ted Butler who is often quoted in various internet articles and has been quoted in the Financial Times.

    The Congressional solution to this problem is for Congress to enact a law where the fines go to reduce Social Security debt and the division fined is spun off to a competing financial institution. The former employees and supervisors and banned from the industry.

    With both houses of the same party in the United States, I foresee in the near future(3-6 months) a Congressional investigation.

    Please read Ted Butler’s letter with interest.- ed

    It has now been 14 years since I first started writing articles on silver for Investment Rarities, a precious metals dealer in business for more than 40 years. It was an association I originally assumed would last a couple of months. In mid-2000, I received a call from James Cook, the president of IRI. There had been a surge in precious metals sales for a number of years preceding Y2K and when no great disaster befell the world’s computers at the start of the millennium, sales fell dramatically. Cook had gotten my name from a friend of his who told him that I had been writing on the Internet about reasons to buy silver different than what others were writing.

    After discussing silver from how I viewed its supply/demand fundamentals to how I had tried to end its price manipulation for the past 15 years (up until then) and seeing how bullish I was for the future price, Cook asked me if I would write something that he could send his clients. I told him that my prime purpose was to end the manipulation, but since I didn’t see how getting people to buy silver (then under $5) would be counterproductive to my main objective, I agreed to write an article or two. The first articles did persuade enough folks to buy silver and 14 years then went by in a flash. The amazing thing is that the issues I wrote about on the Internet before my association with Cook’s company are essentially the same as the issues I’ve written about up until today.

    Over the years, since I wrote so many articles for IRI, Cook took it on himself (but certainly with my approval) to produce booklets from time to time which were compiled of various previous articles of mine and he offered them to his prospective clients. A year ago, Cook compiled a new booklet, the title of which is “How JPMorgan Manipulates and Controls the Gold and Silver Market.” Having run out of published copies, he’s contemplating publishing another batch and asked me if I thought an update would be appropriate. Considering the momentous changes in the silver market over the past year, particularly concerning JPMorgan’s role, I told him a postscript was certainly in order.

    What follows is my proposed postscript for the booklet. Afterwards, I’ll comment on recent market activity.

    Postscript – December 2014

    This book has been a compilation of previously published articles, some dating back more than a decade. My discovery of the silver price manipulation goes back much further than that – almost 30 years. All market manipulations must have a kingpin or main player. While the title of this book is centered on JPMorgan, it was not until late 2008, that I discovered that this bank was the prime silver manipulator, by virtue of the Bear Stearns takeover. Since that discovery, I have focused extensively on the actions of JPMorgan in the silver market.

    JPMorgan has dominated and controlled the silver market to an extent that I may have actually underestimated. Recent actions by the bank indicate the long expected end to the silver manipulation may be at hand. Not only is it consistent that the prime manipulator would be most responsible for prolonging a market manipulation that has lasted longer than any other in history, no such manipulation could end absent the role of the central player.

    As much as I would have preferred a different outcome, the flow of data suggests that JPMorgan not only profited mightily on the historic silver price decline from nearly $50 in 2011 to under $15 recently; the bank is now positioned to reap the rewards of a soaring silver price. Simply put, over the last three and a half years, JPMorgan has completely reversed its previous position of being the world’s largest silver short holder to now being, in my opinion, the largest silver long in history.

    I would have preferred, in a fair or just world, JPMorgan being punished either by the market or by the market regulators for manipulating the price of silver to such depressed levels, but instead it appears that the bank has avoided any reprisals for pushing prices first lower and will profit immensely on any upside move. What flow of data can I point to that would back up my assertions?

    My primary data source is the government published Commitments of Traders Report (COT) which is released weekly. Along with the companion monthly Bank Participation Report, what the data show is that JPMorgan over the past nearly seven years, increased its massive concentrated short position in COMEX silver futures whenever silver prices advanced and closed out much of its short position on silver price declines. That may sound like plain old-fashioned good trading, but that description doesn’t apply when you hold such a large and controlling short position in a market so as to manipulate prices. Manipulation, after all, is nothing more than dominating and controlling prices.

    Since JPMorgan never bought back its COMEX silver short positions as prices rose, but only when prices fell, its control of the market was complete and it always and only bought back shorts at a profit. At the extreme, on a number of occasions JPMorgan held more than 40,000 contracts of COMEX silver futures net short, the equivalent of 200 million ounces of silver. As a result of what only can be called market control, JPMorgan has closed out enough shorts to whittle down its silver short position to less than 7500 contracts. Clearly, even though JPMorgan has reduced its COMEX silver short position by more than 80%, that’s a far cry from the bank being long silver, to say nothing of being the world’s largest silver long.

    One must look away from the COMEX to understand how JPMorgan could be the world’s largest silver long (owner) since the data indicate that the bank still holds a short position on the exchange, albeit the smallest such short position in 7 years. The evidence suggests that JPMorgan used its control of silver prices by virtue of its dominant COMEX market share to depress prices, not only to accrue profits on its short position, but even more for the express purpose of accumulating physical silver on the cheap. What evidence?

    The evidence lies in the intentionally poor price performance of silver over the past nearly 4 years and the fact that the world has produced as many as 300 million ounces of new silver that has been excess to total fabrication demand. This extra silver had to be bought by the world’s investors and those investors did not appear to be aggressive buyers. In other words, someone had to buy the silver and since the world’s investors did not appear to be ready buyers, the metal was most likely bought by a non-traditional buyer. JPMorgan most closely fits that description for two reasons. One, buying physical silver was the most practical and efficient manner of closing out JPM’s documented COMEX short position and two, the silver purchases would be kept confidential since no reporting requirements attach to physical ownership. By buying physical silver, JPMorgan could cover its massive COMEX short position absent prying eyes.

    Based upon deposit/withdrawal patterns in the world’s largest silver ETF, SLV, a pattern of physical silver accumulation emerges. In the big silver price takedown beginning in May 2011, some 60 million ounces of silver were redeemed from the trust as investors reacted to sharply falling prices by selling shares. The silver sold at this time was, obviously, bought by someone else; as there must be a buyer for every ounce sold. Who better a buyer than the world’s largest short holder at that time, JPMorgan? And over the past three and a half years, JPMorgan, by continuing to hold, albeit at a declining rate, the largest short silver holder becomes the de facto logical buying candidate.

    Additionally, over the past 4 years, an unusually large amount of Silver Eagles have been produced and sold by the US Mint, some 160 million ounces, in a steadily declining price environment. Nearly as many Silver Eagles were sold by the US Mint over the past 5 years as were sold in the previous 23 years of the program. For the past four years, the Mint struggled to keep up with demand for Silver Eagles and frequently resorted to rationing coins. However, consistent reports from the retail dealer community indicated a falloff in broad retail demand for Silver Eagles.

    The only plausible answer to this conundrum of record Silver Eagle sales and tepid retail demand was that a large entity or entities were behind the buying demand. Based upon the above, JPMorgan appears to me to the big buyer, accounting for 60-75 million coins over the past four years. All told, based upon SLV transaction, Silver Eagles and other forms of silver that could have been purchased, it is my guesstimate that JPMorgan could have accumulated 300 million oz of physical silver over the past four years; or three times what the Hunt Brothers were said to have bought by 1980. And please remember – there was a heck of a lot more silver in the world in 1980 than exists today; approximately 3 billion oz back then versus close to a billion oz today.

    What this means is that the Hunt Brothers were found to have manipulated the price of silver by holding roughly 3% of the world’s silver bullion inventory, while JPMorgan has accumulated close to 25% of the world’s visible silver bullion inventory (adjusting for the 400 million Silver Eagles in existence). The Hunt Brothers buying caused silver prices to rise nearly ten-fold, while JPMorgan’s buying has been on steadily declining prices as much as 70% off the price peak of 2011. In my opinion, this could only be accomplished through an intentional downward price manipulation and by having the power and political connections of an organization like JPMorgan.

    The intent of this postscript is to describe how JPMorgan has now gone full circle, by manipulating the price of silver lower for nearly 4 years for the designed purpose of profitably closing out its massive short position and of accumulating the largest physical silver position in history. As and when the bank has purchased what it feels is all silver it can accumulate, it follows the price should rise mightily. Certainly, if I am close to being correct about the amount of silver accumulated by JPMorgan, the potential profit to the bank is potentially epic. At $50, JPMorgan would be ahead by $10 billion compared to current prices; at $100, the bank would gain another $15 billion on top of that.

    I confess to having some mixed feelings about JPMorgan owning as much physical silver as I suspect because there is a possibility that I may have (inadvertently) influenced them in their accumulation. After all, I have sent them more than 500 of my articles over the past six years in which I openly alleged that JPMorgan was the big silver manipulator. Of course, I did this to be upfront and give the bank every opportunity to object to or disagree with anything I had written. I’ve never heard back from JPMorgan.

    As is always the case, the timing of the coming liftoff in silver prices is unknowable. But the odds of a big silver move up in time are overwhelming. And to all the favorable supply/demand realities that make up the odds, if my speculation about JPMorgan is correct, the most bullish factor of all has just been added to the mix.

    End of postscript.

    There have been a number of developments over the past few days that I’d like to comment on. First, sales of Silver Eagles from the US Mint continued to surge and yesterday it was reported that more than 43 million of the one ounce coins were sold this year, the most in the program’s 28 year history. The daily run rate increased (despite my observations on Saturday) and the Mint announced it will be ending sales for this year, probably by next week. As I indicated above, I still think JPMorgan has been the big buyer this year and for the past few years.

    The new short interest report for stocks indicated a reduction of 2 million shares in the short positions of both SLV, the big silver ETF and in GLD, the big gold ETF. The cut-off date for the short report was Friday, Nov 28, when silver and gold prices fell sharply on high trading volume. I won’t call it a prediction, but in the weekly review of Nov 29, I wondered aloud if the sell-off that day might be related to short covering and the new report would seem to conform to that thought. In any event, it’s always good, as far as I’m concerned when the short positions in the hard metal ETFs goes down. https://shortsqueeze.com/?symbol=slv&submit=Short+Quote%99

    I’m pretty sure that those of you who tuned into the CFTC’s public hearings yesterday on position limits came away fairly underwhelmed. The meeting wasn’t so much about position limits but more about specific agricultural issues related to position limits. As I remarked on Saturday, this is somewhat odd, seeing as position limits have been firmly in place in agricultural futures contracts, in some cases for more than 80 years. The main concern with Dodd Frank was getting position limits in place for the 28 physical commodity futures currently not subject to position limits, but nothing was covered in the meeting pertaining to that. However, this was a meeting of the agricultural committee (in which the US Secretary of Agriculture put in an appearance) and was advertised as such.

    A number of readers have asked for direction in how to respond to the CFTC’s solicitation for public comments, seeing how we’ve been down this road before. My reading of the situation is that the CFTC is only interested in comments related to agricultural position limits and would most likely disregard comments on silver. I may change my mind, but I’m not inclined to submit a comment at this time and I’d like to explain why. It has nothing to do with the issue not being as important as I’ve represented in the past and everything to do with the signals the Commission has been sending on position limits.

    Five years ago, I could hardly contain myself on the issue because it seemed that every time I turned around there was Gary Gensler, the former CFTC chairman, giving a speech or holding town hall meetings on the matter of position limits on the 28 markets lacking such limits. In contrast, today it seems the agency is just going through the motions. Whereas Gensler (correctly) hammered the issue to death, the current chairman seems to only include position limits as one issue among many more important issues. Judge for yourself with the prepared testimony of Chairman Massad today before a Senate committee.

    I continue to believe that the issue of position limits in the 28 physical commodities will be resolved, but that it will have nothing to do with public comments. As I said, let me think it over as I may change my mind.

    The price of gold and silver surged yesterday and held those gains through today’s trading. In silver, it was the first upside penetration of the important 50 day moving average in six months. I would imagine there was further technical fund buying, including both additional short covering and most likely new buying as well. The key question, of course, is who were the sellers and more specifically, how much additional short selling occurred by the 4 and 8 largest commercial shorts in both silver and gold. Because yesterday was the cutoff for the reporting week, this Friday’s COT should go a long way to answering the question.

    While I’m resigned to some disappointment in increased concentrated short selling by the big commercials, I am still more interested in what has occurred over the past five reporting weeks, namely, the unprecedented outcome of the technical funds cashing in massive profit chips on the short side of silver and a good number of commercial longs (raptors) tapping out. Nothing close to this has occurred previously and I’m still convinced that this shocking turnabout portends important changes ahead, including a potential loss of trading liquidity. A loss of liquidity generally translates into bigger price moves and yesterday’s large price moves in gold and silver would tend to support my conclusion.

    Even if the big gold and silver commercial shorts added aggressively to short positions yesterday that doesn’t mean they will be as successful as they have been in the past in capping prices, if as much commercial liquidity has been lost as I believe. Despite the rally, silver prices are still stupid cheap and destined to move sharply higher. Concentrated and manipulative additional short selling may create some serious price bumps (up and down) ahead, but at current depressed price levels for silver, there is a much greater risk of worrying about minor selloffs from here and missing the big move to come. If ever there was a time to hold a full load of silver and damn the torpedoes, that time would appear to be at hand. In any event, COMEX futures positioning remains the prime price determinant.

    Ted Butler
    December 10, 2014
    Silver – $17.15
    Gold – $1229
    http://www.butlerresearch.com

  • THE MAN WHO SNIFFED PARADISE

    THE MAN WHO SNIFFED PARADISE

    la-fg-turkey-erdogan-gender-equality-20141124-001

     

    Some like the perfume from Spain

    I’m sure that if,

    I took even one sniff,

    It would bore me terrifically, too,

    Yet I get a kick out of you.

    Cole Porter, I Get A Kick Out Of You

    As a boy, he used to kiss his mother’s feet and it made her nervous.

    No, no, Mama, the book says so.

    Huh? What book? You shouldn’t read such things.

    Yeah, it says heaven is under your feet.

    My feet? Stop…this tickles. Stop! It’s like what the dog does.

    Aw come on Mama, don’t be shy. I’m seeing Paradise.

    Paradise? What Paradise? You’re seeing calluses and split toenails and a hole in my stockings.

    Please, please, stop wiggling your toes, Mama. I’m having a spiritual experience. They smell like heaven.

    Not with the feet! Not with the feet! Wait until I tell your father! You’ll be seeing the back of his hand!

    Aw pleeeeze….Mamaaaaaa…..now I’m seeing a mosque in Havana. And Fidel abluting his cigar.

    Allah! Allah! Why don’t you go out and play football like the rest of the boys, my son.

    No, no, please Mama, those boys are different…

    Many are criticizing the Turkish president for his remarks at a meeting of a group called, with great irony, the Women and Democracy Association. The name is like something they made up in the lobby. At the meeting the president again shared his wide-ranging, penetrating insights from his lifelong study of Anti-Feminology, namely that women are in no way, no how, equal to men. It’s “against nature,’ he said. Although he did offer the fascinating concept that women, if they tried real hard, could be “equivalent” to men. He also declared that feminists reject motherhood, adding something about breast-feeding women should not work in communist factories. Predictably, feminists and communists, and particularly feminist-communists, were unified in an outrage equivalent to the firestorm bombing of Dresden. As a male feminist, uncertain about motherhood issues, I find the president’s ideas inspirational, perplexing and perfectly suitable to his adoring audience. And his charm and sunny disposition have won my heart, perhaps forever.

    Some people think that the Turkish president is a strident troublemaker. Not me!

    Some say he is spiteful, hateful and full of anger, particularly towards breast-feeding mothers and their communist significant others. Not me!

    Some even say that he is a complete……well……I can’t even think about this one, no less say it, no less write it.

    I stridently, but respectfully, disagree with all of his critics.

    The president of Turkey deserves our gushing respect and undivided attention.

    Here’s why.

    He said that the characters, habits and physiques of women are different from those of men. This is a brilliant insight! This is true! I hope his audience rose as one to render a standing ovation of loving applause. I immediately thought of Marilyn Monroe and Woody Allen. It would indeed be “against nature” to put these two on an “equal footing.” The president is correct in his assertion about character and habit, but especially about physique. I mean, whose feet would you rather kiss?

    And as far as breastfeeding women and non-breastfeeding communists working together in some Soviet-era tractor factory, well, again the Turkish president is perfectly correct. Breastfeeding women couldn’t even hold the wrenches properly. Think about it and you will instantly grasp the president’s wisdom. Holding a baby to one’s breast is a completely different motion and habit than the complicated, manly habit of turning a wrench. And even if men could lactate, could they handle having a baby sucking at their breasts every few hours while those tractor axles kept on coming? No, of course not. And where would they stash the babies in between feeding time? It would be so unnaturally confusing, wouldn’t it? The commissar would send them all to Siberia. Besides, if I understand the Turkish president’s deeper meaning, communist men are always looking to start revolutions. It’s their nature. Just look at history! And to make revolutions they need free hands, that is, no screaming, hungry babies interfering with their secret meetings. This is what the clever Turkish president meant. And he is absolutely correct. And that’s why he buys more and more tear gas and more and more TOMA monsters. It all makes sense, doesn’t it? Thank you Mr. President! Your applauding audience is proud of you.

    He also said that women being equal to men is “against nature.” Bravo! Brava! This is true too. I mean, what women would cultivate nature like the Turkish president, a man, does? He has leveled millions and millions of trees so that nature can breathe freely. No woman would dream of doing that. He has leveled mountains to free marble from its lifelong imprisonment so that villas and hotels and palaces can have shiny walls and slippery floors. And the president knows how women, by nature and habit, like to clean things. So women now have something to do. And marble also now has something to do, rather than just stay inside some dumb mountain. And women can clean and polish all of it, doing what comes naturally to them. No woman could even come close to thinking of such a perfectly complex idea. Only men can do that. The president of Turkey is very smart and deserves loud acclaim until the end of recorded time.

    And I completely agree with the Turkish president that women should be equal among women and men should be equal among men. Such a great social philosophy, though it seems to border on that nasty communism thing. Nevertheless, I agree with the president. For example, when we are alone, my wife and I never argue unnaturally about whether we are equal to each other, she being a woman and I a man. I am perfectly content to be a man equal to myself and, so far, she is happy to be a woman equal to herself. It proves the president’s intelligently argued point regarding the natural law that men are men and women are women. On this issue, peace prevails. The argument as applied to gay couples has yet to be addressed. Perhaps at the next meeting of the Women and Democracy Association the brilliance of the Turkish president can enlighten us further.

    The natures of men and women are different, too. Right again, Mr. President! And the following shows how true that is and how correct you are.

    Who brought us religion? Men.

    Who invented prostitution? Men.

    Who spent millennia hunting and killing animals? Men.

    Who spent millennia hunting and killing each other? Men.

    Who invented armies? Men.

    Who created historical catastrophes such as genocides? Men.

    Who invented, and continue to invent, weapons of mass destruction? Men.

    Who dropped the atomic bomb on innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Men.

    Who destroyed native populations in Africa and the Americas for profit and power? Men.

    Who finance and organize bestial mercenary hordes to murder, rape and plunder? Men.

    Who cannot produce children? Men.

    Who are condemned to extinction because of their characters, habits, physiques and natures? Men.

    Indeed, there is nothing like a man.

    James C. Ryan

    Istanbul

    November 26, 2014

  • Former Mossad chief: For the first time, I fear for the future of Zionism

    Former Mossad chief: For the first time, I fear for the future of Zionism

    The nation of Israel is galloping blindly toward Bar Kochba’s war on the Roman Empire. The result of that conflict was 2,000 years of exile.

    By Shabtai Shavit

    Menachem Begin before an image of David Ben-Gurion
    Menachem Begin before an image of David Ben-Gurion

    From the beginning of Zionism in the late 19th century, the Jewish nation in the Land of Israel has been growing stronger in terms of demography and territory, despite the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. We have succeeded in doing so because we have acted with wisdom and stratagem rather than engaging in a foolish attempt to convince our foes that we were in the right.

    Today, for the first time since I began forming my own opinions, I am truly concerned about the future of the Zionist project. I am concerned about the critical mass of the threats against us on the one hand, and the government’s blindness and political and strategic paralysis on the other. Although the State of Israel is dependent upon the United States, the relationship between the two countries has reached an unprecedented low point. Europe, our biggest market, has grown tired of us and is heading toward imposing sanctions on us. For China, Israel is an attractive high-tech project, and we are selling them our national assets for the sake of profit. Russia is gradually turning against us and supporting and assisting our enemies.

    Anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel have reached dimensions unknown since before World War II. Our public diplomacy and public relations have failed dismally, while those of the Palestinians have garnered many important accomplishments in the world. University campuses in the West, particularly in the U.S., are hothouses for the future leadership of their countries. We are losing the fight for support for Israel in the academic world. An increasing number of Jewish students are turning away from Israel. The global BDS movement (boycott, divestment, sanctions) against Israel, which works for Israel’s delegitimization, has grown, and quite a few Jews are members.

    In this age of asymmetrical warfare we are not using all our force, and this has a detrimental effect on our deterrent power. The debate over the price of Milky pudding snacks and its centrality in public discourse demonstrate an erosion of the solidarity that is a necessary condition for our continued existence here. Israelis’ rush to acquire a foreign passport, based as it is on the yearning for foreign citizenship, indicates that people’s feeling of security has begun to crack.

    I am concerned that for the first time, I am seeing haughtiness and arrogance, together with more than a bit of the messianic thinking that rushes to turn the conflict into a holy war. If this has been, so far, a local political conflict that two small nations have been waging over a small and defined piece of territory, major forces in the religious Zionist movement are foolishly doing everything they can to turn it into the most horrific of wars, in which the entire Muslim world will stand against us.

    I also see, to the same extent, detachment and lack of understanding of international processes and their significance for us. This right wing, in its blindness and stupidity, is pushing the nation of Israel into the dishonorable position of “the nation shall dwell alone and not be reckoned among the nations” (Numbers 23:9).

    I am concerned because I see history repeating itself. The nation of Israel is galloping blindly in a time tunnel to the age of Bar Kochba and his war on the Roman Empire. The result of that conflict was several centuries of national existence in the Land of Israel followed by 2,000 years of exile.

    I am concerned because as I understand matters, exile is truly frightening only to the state’s secular sector, whose world view is located on the political center and left. That is the sane and liberal sector that knows that for it, exile symbolizes the destruction of the Jewish people. The Haredi sector lives in Israel only for reasons of convenience. In terms of territory, Israel and Brooklyn are the same to them; they will continue living as Jews in exile, and wait patiently for the arrival of the Messiah.

    The religious Zionist movement, by comparison, believes the Jews are “God’s chosen.” This movement, which sanctifies territory beyond any other value, is prepared to sacrifice everything, even at the price of failure and danger to the Third Commonwealth. If destruction should take place, they will explain it in terms of faith, saying that we failed because “We sinned against God.” Therefore, they will say, it is not the end of the world. We will go into exile, preserve our Judaism and wait patiently for the next opportunity.

    I recall Menachem Begin, one of the fathers of the vision of Greater Israel. He fought all his life for the fulfillment of that dream. And then, when the gate opened for peace with Egypt, the greatest of our enemies, he gave up Sinai – Egyptian territory three times larger than Israel’s territory inside the Green Line – for the sake of peace. In other words, some values are more sacred than land. Peace, which is the life and soul of true democracy, is more important than land.

    I am concerned that large segments of the nation of Israel have forgotten, or put aside, the original vision of Zionism: to establish a Jewish and democratic state for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. No borders were defined in that vision, and the current defiant policy is working against it.

    What can and ought to be done? We need to create an Archimedean lever that will stop the current deterioration and reverse today’s reality at once. I propose creating that lever by using the Arab League’s proposal from 2002, which was partly created by Saudi Arabia. The government must make a decision that the proposal will be the basis of talks with the moderate Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

    The government should do three things as preparation for this announcement:

    1) It should define a future negotiating strategy for itself, together with its position on each of the topics included in the Arab League’s proposal.

    2) It should open a secret channel of dialogue with the United States to examine the idea, and agree in advance concerning our red lines and about the input that the U.S. will be willing to invest in such a process.

    3) It should open a secret American-Israeli channel of dialogue with Saudi Arabia in order to reach agreements with it in advance on the boundaries of the topics that will be raised in the talks and coordinate expectations. Once the secret processes are completed, Israel will announce publicly that it is willing to begin talks on the basis of the Arab League’s document.

    I have no doubt that the United States and Saudi Arabia, each for its own reasons, will respond positively to the Israeli initiative, and the initiative will be the lever that leads to a dramatic change in the situation. With all the criticism I have for the Oslo process, it cannot be denied that for the first time in the conflict’s history, immediately after the Oslo Accords were signed, almost every Arab country started talking with us, opened its gates to us and began engaging in unprecedented cooperative ventures in economic and other fields.

    Although I am not so naïve as to think that such a process will bring the longed-for peace, I am certain that this kind of process, long and fatiguing as it will be, could yield confidence-building measures at first and, later on, security agreements that both sides in the conflict will be willing to live with. The progress of the talks will, of course, be conditional upon calm in the security sphere, which both sides will be committed to maintaining. It may happen that as things progress, both sides will agree to look into mutual compromises that will promote the idea of coexisting alongside one another. If mutual trust should develop – and the chances of that happening under American and Saudi Arabian auspices are fairly high – it will be possible to begin talks for the conflict’s full resolution as well.

    An initiative of this kind requires true and courageous leadership, which is hard to identify at the moment. But if the prime minister should internalize the severity of the mass of threats against us at this time, the folly of the current policy, the fact that this policy’s creators are significant elements in the religious Zionist movement and on the far right, and its devastating results – up to the destruction of the Zionist vision – then perhaps he will find the courage and determination to carry out the proposed action.

    I wrote the above statements because I feel that I owe them to my parents, who devoted their lives to the fulfillment of Zionism; to my children, my grandchildren and to the nation of Israel, which I served for decades.

    Haaretz, 24.11.14