JustThinking.us

You can observe a lot just by watching

I never said most of the things I said.

Half the lies they tell about me aren't true.

If the world was perfect, it wouldn't be.

If you come to a fork in the road, take it.

If you ask me anything I don't know, I'm not going to answer.

If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.

There are some people who, if they don't already know, you can't tell 'em.

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.

I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia.  Let them walk to school like I did.

I think Little League is wonderful.  It keeps the kids out of the house.

Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.

If people don't want to come out to the ball park, nobody's gonna stop 'em.

You better cut the pizza into four pieces.  I'm not hungry enough to eat six.

The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase.

A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.

The future ain't what it used to be.

It gets late early out there.

It ain't over till it's over.

I'm a lucky guy and I'm happy to be with the Yankees.  And I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary.

From Bianco Research who claim "more than 300 institutional clients worldwide including official government agencies, central banks, public and private pension plans, institutional money managers and hedge funds".

Which claim has caused me to never bother pricing them out.

Take note of the year 1916 which incorrectly holds the line marking the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank.

The New York offices of which are the official summer home of Satan himself and the source of all evil in this world.

The Federal Reserve Act was voted into existence December 23, 1913.

Click on the chart if you have an interest in pricing out Bianco Research, someone around here might partner up with you.

Take a hard look at 1940 through 1984 if you own or are planning to own bonds anytime soon.

The value of your bonds rise as interest rates fall, and subsequently fall as interest rates rise.

One of our favorite sites, Space.com or "Dobb's Folly" as it is known around here, offers up a nice photo essay of this years Quadrantid Meteor Shower along with a little science about meteor showers in general and the yearly Quadrantid Meteor Shower in particular.

The following photo by Robert Porto taken in the Canary Islands will link you to the entire piece.

Im guessing that attitude hasn't changed much in 120 years.

From THE GOLDEN TRUTH and Dave in Denver, here's a bit of holiday cheer.

Click anywhere below for the entire piece ... recomended as it makes perfect sense.

At least to us.

Think Your IRA Is Safe?  Better Think Again

The MF Global bankruptcy is a blueprint for how the Government and wealthy bankers will begin to take everything that is kept within the confines of the financial system.

Ten years ago I tried to tell many friends and acquaintances that housing prices would collapse and this country was headed for disaster and that the only only way to protect themselves financially was to load up on gold and silver.   Almost everyone looked at me like I needed my own floor in the mental health wing at Belleview Hospital in NYC.  Of course, that was back when gold was around $300/oz. and housing prices were on average about 50% higher than they are now.

As I run into these folks these days, they compliment me for my ability to see into the future and immediately want to know what I think will happen next.   My only logical response is to say that they don't want to know what I think because, just like 10 years ago, they'll think I'm crazy.   I add that I hope I'm wrong this time about what I think is coming but that I doubt that I am.

I bring this up because one of the things that I believe will eventually happen is that the Government will find a way to confiscate all retirement assets (IRA's/401k's).   But rather than outright taking them, they'll substitute them with some kind of retirement "annuity" that is funded with good old Treasury bonds.   Of course, by that point in time, the Treasury bond printing press will be working overtime to print currency the Government can use to stay afloat.

John Mackay's The Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness Of Crowds is widely considered the place to begin one's study of economic bubbles and societies run amok.

While subsequent researchers have accused Mackay of exaggeration with regards to the Holland's famed "Tulip Mania" of the 1630s, the work remains highly regarded by social scientists of all stripes, from the economists to the social shrinks.

Best of all it's a fun read as Mackay knows how to tell a story.

Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper.

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and then one by one.

In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.

Let us not, in the pride of our superior knowledge, turn with contempt from the follies of our predecessors. The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive. As the man looks back to the days of his childhood and his youth, and recalls to his mind the strange notions and false opinions that swayed his actions at the time, that he may wonder at them; so should society, for its edification, look back to the opinions which governed ages that fled.

Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder's welcome.

An arrow may fly through the air and leave no trace; but an ill thought leaves a trail like a serpent.

“The doctrine of habeas corpus goes back to before the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. 

It [Magna Carta] was an ancient Anglo-Saxon limitation on the power of government. If the feds held a prisoner, a writ of habeas corpus required them to ‘produce the body.’ The government had to either release the person or charge him with a crime. For more than 800 years, this gave people some protection against government.

But now, in the Year of Our Lord 2011, the Congress of the United States of America, with the complicity of POTUS, himself, has seen fit to deny the right of habeas corpus to American citizens.

Henceforth, the feds can capture you, put you in prison and waterboard you every day for the rest of your life. 

They don’t have to charge you with murder or jay-walking or any crime at all. They don’t have to let you talk to a lawyer. Or to your spouse. Or to your Congressman.

They don’t have to read you your rights or provide any evidence against you. Like the Argentines in the ’80s, they just ‘disappear’ you. And you’re gone forever…

We’re talking about American citizens who can be taken from the United States and sent to a camp at Guantánamo Bay and held indefinitely. 

It puts every single citizen American at risk.

Really, what security does this indefinite detention of Americans give us?

The first and flawed premise, both here and in the badly named Patriot Act, is that our pre-9/11 police powers were insufficient to stop terrorism.

So now the feds, whose salaries we pay, can spy on us with drones we paid for too.

They can send a swat team to disappear us ... and keep us in prison.

The genius of modern democracy is that it makes the citizen a party to his own enslavement.

Rather than give up 10% of his output to his feudal lord and master, he gives up 30% to 50% to his democratically-elected bosses.

They tell him what to do. And he believes he is giving the orders!”

Bill Bonner 12/20/2011

Click anywhere above for the entire Bill Bonner piece title "Power Corrupts"

Click on the above photo for a very quick and simple site on the Magna Carta.