To quote Richard Russell

Submitted by Roanman on Fri, 12/30/2011 - 17:14

 

From today's installment of Richard Russell's Dow Theory Letter.

 

Below are the last day of the year quotes for gold.

2000 -- $273.60
2001 -- $279.00
2002 -- $348.20
2003 -- $416.10
2004 -- $438.40
2005 -- $518.90
2006 -- $638.00
2007 -- $838.00
2008 -- $889.00 

2009 -- $1096.50
2010 -- $1421.40
2011 -- $1566.80

This year's close for gold marks the 11th year for higher year end gold closing.

To my knowledge this is the longest bull market of any kind in history in which each year's close was above the previous year.

This fabulous bull market will not end with a whisper and a fizzle. I continue to believe that the upside gold crescendo of this bull market lies ahead.

We are watching market history.

 

A message from Just Thinking

Submitted by Roanman on Thu, 12/29/2011 - 08:38

 

While we've gone through this before, this seems a good time to revisit our past and offer an explanation by way of a short history of how Just Thinking came to be.

Just Thinking enjoys two distinct constituencies.  This thing began as a chain letter between a small group of friends that met and started out in life at the University of Michigan ..... or more accurately in bars near the University of Michigan.   This group has grown over many years with the addition of new friends, and the subsequent partners, secretaries, associates, customers, clients, competitors, vendors, attorneys, financial professionals, bankers up the wazoo, the occasional judge, at least one ex wife (It wasn't me) and the many others that have come into our lives, during the course of our lives.

Some years ago I was sitting in my office reading one Saturday morning (as usual) while simultaneously debating something via email with Terry D. when I said,  "We ought to get us a blog” Terry agreed enthusiastically saying, "Yeah.  You need to get right on that."

So I did.

We already had the logo as many years ago I had decided that it probably wasn't smart to be putting some of my thinking down on the company stationary.  So I spent a little money and had an associate of one of our vendors whip us up a logo.  That logo will never be changed as the young man who created it died tragically right after he delivered it.  There is reason to think it's the last creative work he ever completed.

I thought/think it's perfect.

The second group is made up of facebook types, of which I am one.  As one would expect, this group is far more diverse in every way than the originals.  In addition to Americans and Canadians of every size, shape and political affiliation, we now have close to seven hundred people who come around and visit our site in India and about that many throughout the nations of South America, along with a healthy scatterring from all over Europe and Asia.  As you would expect, interests, tastes and opinions are wildly diverse, which was kind of the point. 

We are probably going to open up the comments here so you no longer have to register to comment, which nobody does anyway as it seems much more fun to harangue me personally.  I'll post a notice when it happens.

While I continue to whine about it I do appreciate and read all the emailed commentary and ideas.  I am pleased to say that I have yet to fail to read a single message although I'm starting to bump up against thresholds.

 

Have a Safe and Happy New Year.

 

And please remember the immortal words of Sargeant Phillip Esterhaus.

 

 

That's still good advice.

 

To quote General Douglas MacArthur and the Terminator

Submitted by Roanman on Wed, 12/07/2011 - 08:20

 

We're going to be slowed down a bit over the next couple of weeks as I have agreed to take on kind of an open ended project and will be resetting up my setup yet again.

The minions as usual are a lot like the cops ... never around when you need em.

 
 

 

 

 

 

Howlin Wolf

Submitted by Roanman on Mon, 12/05/2011 - 18:53

 

 

Conceived by German jazz publicist Joachim-Ernst Berendt, The American Folk Blues Festival was an annual fall tour of Europe by American blues musicians. 

Jazz having become very popular in Europe, and with rock and roll just beginning to gain a foothold there, the fact that both genres drew influences from the blues caused Berendt to think that European audiences would jump at the chance to see live performances by American blues artists.

Promoters Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau brought Berendt’s idea to fruition by entering into a relationship with the great Willie Dixon that would enable them to book the greatest and most influential of America’s blues musicians.

The first festival was held in 1962.

It continued mostly annually until 1972.

After an eight year hiatus it was revived in 1980 and ran until 1985. 

During the course of these tours, Lippman and Rau were able to arrange very high quality, live in the studio performances by these great artists for German television.

One of which follows here. 

Famed German poster artist Gunther Kieser did the poster art and show bills for the 1964 tour from which the following performance was taken.

Click on the poster to link up to Amazon’s offering of Reelin in the Years Productions’ DVD collection of these historic performances.

Outstanding stuff.

Here’s the great Chester Burnett, also know as Howlin' Wolf on vocals and accoustic guitar, the equally great Hubert Sumlin on the electric guitar, Sunnyland Slim on piano, along with Willie Dixon (who you never see) playing bass, with an introduction from what appears to be a fairly well buzzed Mae Mercer.

Shake for Me.

 

 

 It seems we've just completed our second unpaid product endorsement.

 

The death of Allen Klephart

Submitted by Roanman on Mon, 12/05/2011 - 08:58

 

Another one that is tough to watch.

Six months later, investigations continue as official stories change.

Nobody is under indictment.

One would think that a police department populated by people of even average intelligence would, if only for the sake of their own safety, be eager to rid themselves of abusive/murderous police officers and ingratiate themselves into the community.

This doesn't seem to be the case here.

Our strongly held opinion is that what you have here is a perfect example of the sense of entitlement and contempt for the citizenry of this country by them that are being paid far better than good money to serve and protect the citzenry of this country.

This contempt extends from the highest offices in the land to the local departments of formerly safe and peaceful California mountain communities.

Which communities would be safe and peaceful still were it not for government thuggery.

 

 

The 2010 World Corruption Perceptions Index

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 12/03/2011 - 10:59

 

Transparency International has released it's 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index.

The results as always are interesting ... at least to us.

One must understand that this index is based on a methodology wherein the "perception" of a nations public sector corruption is measured, rather than some defined measure of corruption itself.

We read through the methodology section and have had very few quibbles and as a result are mostly buying it.

As always click on the map below for TI's complete list.

We would encourage you to spend a minute with Transparency International's fine site as we always find it to be well worth the time.

 

 

Tsk, Tsk, USA.

 

Your government at work for the banks

Submitted by Roanman on Wed, 11/30/2011 - 07:15

 

From Bloomberg News who had to go to court with the Fed and a consortium of banks in order to obtain the following story under the Freedom of Information Act.

Click on the photo below of Goldman Sachs' personal bag boys for the entire story.

Way super double highly recommended ... READ IT ... you need to understand this stuff.

 

Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion Undisclosed to Congress

The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.

The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.

Saved by the bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse.

A fresh narrative of the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 emerges from 29,000 pages of Fed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and central bank records of more than 21,000 transactions. While Fed officials say that almost all of the loans were repaid and there have been no losses, details suggest taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret funding helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger.

 

What really irritates me about all of this is the fact that I could have gone and got that MBA, maybe a JD, moved to New York and become a thief, but noooooo.

 

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