Posted by Rolfe Winkler on Cryptogon:

Alice Schroeder wrote a great column for Bloomberg yesterday that I’m just getting to. The best stuff comes at the end, where she describes why some people are buying gold even though inflation doesn’t seem to be a big risk. (Apologies in advance for block-quoting lots of stuff in this post, but I think it’s worth it…)

[Gold bugs] aren’t just betting on inflation, as is the conventional wisdom. Gold has a wicked history of being an unreliable inflation hedge. It has, though, at times been a haven against sudden currency depreciation.

In all the talk of inflation because the Treasury is printing so much money versus deflation because it may not print enough, there is one type of inflation that is rarely discussed. This is the mega-inflation caused by a sudden currency devaluation. Currency is like any financial innovation, an obligation secured by assets. When the obligation is perceived to have increased far beyond the level justifiable by the assets, which in this case make up a country’s economy, a bubble has formed.

Schroeder is describing, in much simpler terms, what economist William Buiter has called a “sudden stop” event.

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Saudi Bank governor denies talks to replace dollar

Saudi Arabia hasn’t held talks with China and other countries on dropping the dollar as the currency for pricing oil, Saudi Central Bank Governor Muhammad al-Jasser said, denying a report in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper.

The Independent report is “absolutely incorrect” and there has been “absolutely nothing” of that nature discussed between Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, and other countries, al-Jasser told reporters in Istanbul, where he’s attending an International Monetary Fund summit. The dollar pared losses after his remarks.

The London-based newspaper said today that Gulf oil producers and nations including China, Japan, Russia and Brazil had held secret talks on a nine-year plan to phase out the dollar in oil trade, and move toward pricing the fuel in a basket of currencies plus gold. It cited unidentified Gulf officials and unidentified Chinese bankers.

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Independent journalists speak out about G-20 suppression (VIDEO)

For OpEdNews: R. A. Louis - Writer

These interviews with a number of journalists speak for themselves. The police were out of control and the violation of rights in Pittsburgh is being completely ignored by the mainstream corporate media. The following video expresses one of the most cogent and important statements on the subject. You may or may not find the statements in the following video very shocking, but you will probably find them to be just a wee bit disturbing.

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New York pair accused of directing protesters during G-20 in Pittsburgh

State police have accused two anarchists from New York of using cell phones and the Internet messaging service Twitter to direct the movements of protesters during the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh.

Police arrested Elliot M. Madison, 41, and Michael Wallschlaeger, 46, both of Jackson Heights, N.Y., after they found them Sept. 24 in a Kennedy Township hotel room full of computers, police scanners and Pittsburgh-area maps, according to a state police criminal complaint.

FBI agents spent 16 hours Friday raiding the home of Madison and his wife, Elena, according to a federal court motion filed in Brooklyn, N.Y., by Madison's attorney Martin R. Stolar seeking the return of Madison's possessions that were seized in the raid.

Stolar did not return a message seeking comment Saturday. No one answered the phone at a number listed for Madison.

Wallschlaeger and Madison wore headphones and microphones as they sat in front of computers they used to send Twitter messages to protesters in Pittsburgh to help them move about the city "and to inform the protesters and groups of the movements and actions of law enforcement," the state police complaint states.

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Nobels ripe for overhaul?

The Nobel Prize system is dated and in desperate need of an overhaul, a group of top scientists and engineers said today (September 30) in a letter to the Nobel Foundation.

In their letter, addressed to the foundation's executive director, Michael Sohlman, the researchers recommend that the awards should be broadened to include advancements in environmental issues, public health, and new fields of basic research such as neuroscience and ecology.

The researchers were assembled by New Scientist to discuss whether the scope of the prizes is still relevant to science and how the criteria for selection might be improved. Their letter, published online at New Scientist, argues that awards in Medicine, Physiology, and Chemistry are no longer enough to cover the wide spectrum of research happening today.

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Stalin returns to the Moscow Metro

[ link ]

Autism explodes as childhood vaccines incease

Cases of autism amongst children have doubled since 2003 according to a government survey out today, highlighting once again the direct link between vaccines containing mercury and the brain disorder, as millions more parents give the green light for their kids to be injected with the thimerosal-containing H1N1 shot over the coming weeks.

“While research has suggested that the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders in American children was about 1 of every 150 children, a new government study estimates that the prevalence is more likely about 1 in every 91 children,” reports U.S. News & World Report.

“The study, which is published in the October issue of Pediatrics, estimated that 110 of every 10,000 U.S. youngsters will be diagnosed at some point in their lives with an autism spectrum disorder. That currently translates to about 673,000 American children with some form of autism, according to the study.”

Claims by the CDC and the Institute of Medicine, following a whitewash study that ignored previously verified evidence, that thimerosal, a mercury based preservative, has no causal relationship to skyrocketing cases of autism have been soundly rejected by top doctors and scientists ever since.

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Coverup: Behind the Iran Contra Affair (1988)

Coverup exposes a tale of politics, drugs, hostages, weapons, assassinations, covert operations and the ultimate plan to suspend the US Constitution.

Accusations are levied that a "shadow government" regularly carries out covert activities at home and abroad, and the CIA is implicated in dealing in huge shipments of cocaine and with the profits supplying weapons to the right-wing activities of the Nicaraguan Contras. Also examined are the actions of Oliver North, who willfully ignored the Constitution in masterminding covert weapons deals with Middle-Eastern governments to additionally fund the Nicaraguan Contras. This documentary raised more questions than answers in a post-Watergate political climate where the public had become desensitized to scandal.

Illuminated are the delays by the Reagan-Bush ticket in releasing the American hostages until after the election -- after outgoing President Jimmy Carter worked tirelessly to free them.

This is the only film which presents a comprehensive overview of the most important stories suppressed during the Iran Contra hearings.

Watch the videos here.

Stealing the Afghan election with the blessings of the U.N.

Before firing me last week from my post as his deputy special representative in Afghanistan, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon conveyed one last instruction: Do not talk to the press. In effect, I was being told to remain a team player after being thrown off the team. Nonetheless, I agreed.

As my differences with my boss, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, had already been well publicized (through no fault of either of us), I asked only that the statement announcing my dismissal reflect the real reasons. Alain LeRoy, the head of U.N. peacekeeping and my immediate superior in New York, proposed that the United Nations say I was being recalled over a "disagreement as to how the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) would respond to electoral fraud." Although this was not entirely accurate -- the dispute was really about whether the U.N. mission would respond to the massive electoral fraud -- I agreed.

Instead, the United Nations announced my recall as occurring "in the best interests of the mission," and U.N. press officials told reporters on background that my firing was necessitated by a "personality clash" with Eide, a friend of 15 years who had introduced me to my future wife.

I might have tolerated even this last act of dishonesty in a dispute dating back many months if the stakes were not so high. For weeks, Eide had been denying or playing down the fraud in Afghanistan's recent presidential election, telling me he was concerned that even discussing the fraud might inflame tensions in the country. But in my view, the fraud was a fact that the United Nations had to acknowledge or risk losing its credibility with the many Afghans who did not support President Hamid Karzai.

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The prison-industrial complex takes over a Montana town

Five years ago, the city government of Hardin, Montana decided to build a large jail — 144,000 square feet, 464 beds — in an attempt to capitalize on the detention boom. A development agency called the Two Rivers Authority (TRA) was created; it issued $27 million in bonds to pay for the project.

The jail was built. It remains empty. The bonds have gone into default.

Several months ago, the TRA negotiated a deal — the details of which remain secret — with a private security firm called American Police Force (APF), which was incorporated in Santa Ana, California last March.

The deal reportedly includes $2.6 million for APF to run the jail, plus $23 million to run a 30,000-square foot training facility for military and police personnel on property managed by the TRA.

In addition, APF promises to shower the city will all kinds of amenities — computers for the local schools, donations to the local food bank, tricked-out cars for the local police force…. Whoops, did I mention that last item out loud?

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Police State - The militarization of the police force in USA

Judge says CIA can cover up destruction of interrogation tapes

A judge cited national security concerns in ruling Wednesday that the CIA does not have to release hundreds of documents related to the destruction of videotapes of Sept. 11 detainee interrogations that used harsh methods.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said he believed he had an obligation to let the CIA director decide what should be released when it pertains to methods used to make uncooperative detainees divulge information.

“The need to keep confidential just how the CIA and other government agencies obtained their information is manifest, and that has to do with the identities of the people who gave information and who were questioned to obtain information,” the judge said from the bench.

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Meet your Meat

The video that all meat-eaters should watch and every vegetarian should own, "Meet Your Meat", narrated by Alec Baldwin, covers each stage of life of animals raised for food.

The Drug War in six acts

Ben Wallace-Wells reports for Mother Jones:

... On September 29, 1994, a former DEA agent named Joseph Toft, well known in Colombia for his starring role in Pablo Escobar's death the previous year, sat down with some TV reporters in Bogotá. Toft had just retired, and felt newly free to speak his mind. Escobar's takedown, he said, was a sham; the whole operation—its politics, its execution—was designed to benefit the Cali cartel, whose leaders had enlisted the government to murder their top rival. The country, Toft said, was a "narcodemocracy." American taxpayers had spent billions to transfer wealth from one thug to another.

Colombians from Gabriel García Márquez on down were outraged, but president Ernesto Samper, whom Toft had accused of corruption, was strangely, almost poetically plaintive. "Our tragedy," he said, "is that we live in Technicolor, and the United States judges us in black and white." Washington's response was similarly measured: Toft no longer worked for the government, officials explained, but they declined to address the substantive point. Over time, the reason became clear: Samper, it is now alleged, had taken $6 million in campaign contributions from the Cali cartel, while Los Pepes, the patriotic hit squad formed to hunt Escobar, was chiefly composed of Cali soldiers, who got back to business once the unit disbanded. One, a notorious enforcer called Don Berna, would become one of the world's most powerful cocaine kingpins.

Toft retired to Reno, disillusioned. His former bosses had always talked a two-prong strategy: policing to stem drug imports, and hard domestic work—rehab, economic initiatives—to cut demand. "It's not a matter of the government putting out a few booklets, sending a few CDs to the schools," Toft told me. "I've been very disappointed in the fact that we've never had a true effort where the US as a whole says, 'We're going to reduce demand.'" ...

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Regarding Greece's dead-end elections

"...clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right,
here I am, stuck in the middle with you..."



Stealers Wheel - Stuck In The Middle With You (1972)