Thai Guru's Gold und Silber ... (Informationen und Vermutungen)

To give you some idea how aggressive The Gold Cartel selling has been, the large specs increased their net long position by 40,645 contracts and that was prior to Wednesday when they stopped the price rise dead in its tracks. This is the same fund buying which sent oil and soybeans soaring. But not gold, for it is a corrupt managed market.

We shall see on all this. All I know is you couldn’t pay me to be short gold.

OL' FOGGIE gives us some idea what kind of risk the gold shorts are looking at:

Bill;

Your median Gold price comparison $620, (1980) with CRB converted to the equivalent to today’s inflation adjusted labor dept. gold price would be $1434. We are being beat out of approx. $1000 on each ounce of gold we might own. Yikes!
OL' FOGGIE

The Gold Cartel is going to go all out to wipe the funds out again. For that not to occur, gold must clear $440 quickly and then take out $445 soon thereafter.

The John Brimelow Report

Could this time be different?

Friday, March 18, 2005

Indian ex-duty premiums: AM $6.49, PM $8.23, with world gold at $439.20 and $436.40. Adequate, and lavish, for legal imports. This is basis Bombay, usually said to be the biggest bullion entry point for the country. The other cities Reuters reports were not quite as exuberant (possibly because world gold was volatile during the Indian afternoon) but were generally quite conducive to importing. It appears India is a serious bidder for world bullion below $440.

Japan’s response to gold’s drop yesterday was minimal. On virtually unchanged volume equal to 13,428 Comex lots, open interest did edge up 422 Comex lots equivalent; Mitsubishi’s data implies the public added 1.1 tonnes to their long. The active contract closed down 8 yen, but world gold stood 65c above the NY close at the end. Japan is closed on Monday. (NY yesterday traded 82,581 lots - heavy, even netting out 10,580 for switches. Open interest slipped 398 lots to 335,132.)

Shanghai, if the data is to be believed, responded with more enthusiasm than Japan. Premiums of $3.32 - $3.50 were $2.50 or so above yesterday, with world gold $4.90 lower. Yesterday, of course, saw a serious assault on gold. As Rothschild reasonably remarked:

"Having failed to break through resistance at US$445 traders became weary of remaining long and took profit."

Scotia Mocatta’s version was:

"Funds and dealers were both sellers of the metal and there were very few bids around until we saw the 440.00 level. Gold found some support in this area, but soon broke through with stops being hit. From here, it traded down to a low of 437.10/437.60 with some decent physical buying going through."

Mitsui-NY explicitly says

"Yesterday the broker who was the featured buyer a weak ago turned seller of 2,500 contracts on the Comex."

The fact that open interest fell so little with such extensive (and plausible) talk of stops being hit suggests that, as suggested yesterday, predator funds were shorting in reaction to the large scale seller detectable this week c. $443. No doubt some longs were faltering too. Refco Research observes:

(Gold’s) "failure to pierce 445 resistance and subsequent retreat through 440 support suggests fund interest has waned for the moment in the face of some determined dealer selling."

All this being so gold’s recovery in the face of the dollar’s rally this morning (which followed a softening in gold in a pattern noticeably common nowadays) is rather surprising. Could it be that the cycle of liquidation which normally follows the re emergence of the resolute seller has been short-circuited? Reuters found a London trader this morning who appeared to think so:

"Yesterday fund liquidation took it down, but there were funds buying it as it came down. We're seeing a repeat of that …"

2005 seems likely to be a year to remember.

JB

CARTEL CAPITULATION WATCH

How about the DOW? Yet another Hail Mary rally in the last half hour. The PPT saved the day again just went it looked like the US market was going to break down in a substantial way. The DOW closed at 10,629 UP 3. The DOG finished at 2008, down 9, after making new lows for the year.

While I now hear this news was out all day, I only heard about it after the close:
Week of Horror for Doral

By Matthew Goldstein
Senior Writer
3/18/2005 3:58 PM EST

Puerto Rico-based mortgage lender Doral Financial (DRL:NYSE - news - research) has had a week to forget.

Heading into the close of trading Friday, shares of the bank were getting crushed, falling $6.34, or 24%, to $20.05. For the week, the bank, which is one of Puerto Rico's biggest mortgage originators, has plummeted 48%.

The selling in Doral has accelerated throughout the week, following a series of analyst downgrades because of concern about the bank's aggressive use of derivatives to hedge its mortgage portfolio against interest rate fluctuations. The downgrades were prompted by a series of disclosures in the bank's 2004 annual report, which revealed that Doral has been making more aggressive valuation assumptions than previously believed.

http://www.thestreet.com/_tscf…ketfeatures/10213971.html

-END-
Talk about waterfall charts (punch in DRL):

http://new.stockwatch.com/swnet/default.aspx

On that score talk is surfacing of some problems at Citigroup. Just talk at this point.
Crude oil continues its run for the heavens. It went up another 32 cents per barrel to $56.72.

The US economic news continues to be lousy:

17:58 Semi equipment book/bill 0.78 in February vs StreetAccount consensus 0.79
* * * * *

18:00 Follow-up: Semi equipment book/bill 0.78 in February vs consensus 0.79
February bookings rose 3.9% vs a StreetAccount consensus of (8.2%); billings rose 4.6% vs consensus (6.3%). January was revised to 0.78 from 0.80.
* * * * *

08:30 Feb. Import/Export Prices reported 0.8% vs. consensus 0.6%
Prior revised to 0.7% from 0.9%.
* * * * *
09:48 Univ. of Michigan Consumer Sentiment reported 92.9 vs. consensus 94.9
Prior 94.1.
* * * * *

GM and Fannie Mae both recovered somewhat today. AIG was hit for another buck. Commentary on AIG yesterday.

"AIG lost 2.10, or 3.3%, to 60.80, the worst performer on the Dow. The giant insurer said it wasn't able to file its annual report on time because of management changes and its continuing internal review of the accounting for some transactions. The management changes include Monday's naming of Martin Sullivan as the company's new chief executive, succeeding Maurice "Hank" Greenberg."…-END-

This means both AIG and Fannie Mae are not able to file their annual reports on time.

Chuck checked in earlier:

Bill:
I'll try to send something later. But you hit upon it yesterday with the declines in those three stocks. Now throw in Citipuke today. The technicals of this market have changed dramatically. The selling has been almost the mirror image of the high Tick figures that dominated the market even during the decline of 2001-2002. We could see something very scary soon. Stay on top of the financials and real estate related shares here and see if the very short-term rates continue to climb. Notice that no one is really bearish here even among the bears. Chuck

You will want to take a gander at Jesse’s charts:

A closer look at the market break of 1987. The case for Fed 'manipulation?'
http://www.100megsfree3.com/jessel/dow1987CrshTrk.gif

As always, those lesser known facts at Jesse's Charts
http://www.geocities.com/arthurcutten/jesse.html

-END-

One to keep an eye on:

SPEAKING FREELY
Resurgent Russia challenges US
By Jephraim P Gundzik

Washington's "war on terrorism" is designed to militarily establish United States economic and geopolitical hegemony on a global scale. Rather than subduing Russia, the "war on terrorism" is encouraging Moscow to strengthen its relations with Washington's prominent foes. The war is also supercharging Russia's economy. Over the next four years, Russia will increasingly challenge the foreign policy goals of the Bush administration.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GC18Ag01.html

-END-

Oil and gold:

Bill,
I think what has happened in the oil market is astounding and should have parallels in gold & silver soon. Only a few weeks ago energy analysts and OPEC were publicly blaming speculators for driving up the market and saying that there was ample supply in the market. Just a few weeks later this rhetoric has completed evaporated and there is admission of the stark reality that demand is rapidly getting ahead of supply. It is true that the parallel futures and derivatives paper market can affect the price because it affects the APPARENT SUPPLY but it sure as hell doesn’t affect the real supply because the speculators never take delivery nor do they have inventory.

We have had the same thing in gold and silver going on. The paper market controls the price by apparent supply and demand. The Cartel bombs the market by selling a bunch of promises to deliver gold making it look like they have plenty of gold to deliver. Of course they don’t but it works every time and the longs never call their bluff. The longs dump their promises to buy and the Cartel buy back their promises to sell at a profit. The difference with the oil market is that the speculators through CB leasing have had access to real supply to make their scam more effective. As we now know they have almost run out of available supply so they are very much into the same scenario as the oil market speculators. This supports what you have long said that it will be the physical market that does in the Cartel but I think it is interesting for Café members to see how fast one can move from the parallel paper market controlling prices to the actual supply shortage of the underlying physical market controlling prices AND being openly admitted.
Cheers
Adrian

Rhody on leasing:

Hi Bill:
Gold lease rates are out of backwardation courtesy of a slight fall in near term rates and a slight rise in middle term rates.

Silver rates fell across the board. I don't know if this is because the CABAL thinks leasing has done its job or they are stepping to one side to avoid a rushing silver train. I think it's the former. Silver is overbought and I think they will pile on the paper silver now to finish the cycle.

In reference to my comments yesterday about the possible leasing of COMEX silver, if done it would be in the one or two month terms and at the top of the 6 week paper silver cycle and bought back at the bottom of the cycle.

Most of the COMEX stockpile vault storage facilities are bullion bank facilities anyway, so it is not a stretch to imagine them leasing out the last big surface stockpile of silver for short periods. I wonder if the owners know or condone the practice.
Regards, Rhody.
http://www.kitco.com/market/lfrate.html

James Mc on our mainstream gold journalist friends:

Bill,
I thought I would make it easy for the brain dead journalists to report on the gold market so I have come up with a handy-dandy jingoism checklist they can refer to. Now they can have their story pre-written, and plug in the appropriate phrase(s) and not even have to THINK about gold. That way they too can be just as knowledgeable as Dennis Gartman.

Reasons given for gold strength:

dollar-related weakness
geo-political concerns
technical buying
speculative fund buying

Reasons given for gold weakness:

dollar strength
Central Bank selling
fear of Central Bank selling
fear of IMF selling
fear of Gordon Brown opening mouth
fear of any country on the planet selling
producer hedging
fear of producer hedging
commercial selling
gold no longer viewed as safe haven
non-interest bearing product
Fed might raise interest rates
Fed might lower interest rates
unwinding of hedge fund portfolios
Indian wedding season nearly over
any wedding season nearly over
overdone rallies
strong overhead resistance
technical selling every $2 above current price
inverse relation to anything bullish for stocks
inflation still tame (declares Kudlow)
inflation not as important as it used to be
gold performed poorly in a crisis
gold performed poorly anytime it should have shined
rappers prefer platinum jewelry
gold viewed as stodgy jewelry
WGC says high gold price hurting jewelry demand
fear of what WGC, GFMS might say

I'm sure you can come up with a few more to help these poor souls. Going through life myopic and dense ain't pretty. I would also suggest they might take a course on how NOT to spot a 10 ton elephant in a pack of poodles. More oblivious training never hurts.

James Cameron McShirley
(Scottish, but if free green beer is involved I turn Irish)

Talk about a lame title for yesterday’s gold drop:

Gold Prices Drop as Fewer
Jobless Claims Boost Dollar

By Pham-Duy Nguyen
Bloomberg News Service
Thursday, March 17, 2005

"The Fed is so far behind the curve so they'll have to start raising interest rates," said James Turk, founder of Channel Islands-based Goldmoney.com, which stores about $40 million of gold for owners in 102 countries.

Gold prices may test $442 an ounce and reach $450 by the end of the month, Turk said. "A lot of short-term traders dumped today," when gold failed to stay above $442, Turk said. "Gold has a lot of catching up to do with other commodities. Gold has to be considered the best way to play the commodities boom at the moment."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…nmfh4s4GE&refer=australia

-END-

Euro oil:

http://stockcharts.com/webcgi/perf.html?$GOLD,$XEU,$USD,$OIX
Looks like oil hasn't gone up at all, when you price it in Euros. Oil was sold in dollars starting in 1945, and the conversion to selling oil in Euros started in 2003. This chart really reflects that switch.
See you later
Tim Taylor

Intriguing – the Russians know what is in store for the gold price:

http://www.russiajournal.com/n…ws-article.shtml?nd=47723

Gold mining industry goes under control
March 17, 2005 Posted: 15:50 Moscow time (11:50 GMT)

MOSCOW — The government of Yakutia Republic, Russia, considers the possibility of the state control strengthening over gold mining industry by increasing the state’s stake in gold mining companies...

-END-

Why is it that not a week goes by when there is not a scandal of some kind over one of The Gold Cartel crew? Morgan, Goldman, Citi. It is unreal how this keeps occurring:

China Aviation Oil sues Goldman unit

By Chan Sue Ling and Haslinda Amin Bloomberg News
Friday, March 18, 2005
Fuel provider accuses J. Aron of negligence in options transactions

SINGAPORE China Aviation Oil (Singapore), which last year sought protection from creditors after incurring a $550 million loss from derivatives trading, has filed a court action against a Goldman Sachs Group unit, J. Aron...

This one surprised me:

China Takes Over as Leading Consumer -- An ENN Commentary

March 17, 2005 — By Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute

Although the United States has long consumed the lion's share of the world's resources, this situation is changing fast as the Chinese economy surges ahead, overtaking the United States in the consumption of one resource after another.

Among the five basic food, energy, and industrial commodities -- grain and meat, oil and coal, and steel -- consumption in China has already eclipsed that of the United States in all but oil. China has opened a wide lead with grain: 382 million tons to 278 million tons for the United States last year. Among the big three grains, the world's most populous country leads in the consumption of both wheat and rice, and trails the United States only in corn use…

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=7347

-END-

Would love to see the Kebbles and Durban Deep reconcile and get back together. Brett (there would not have been a GATA without him) is GATA’s hero and Durban Deep has been very gracious towards GATA.

SA- MINING
DRDGold rejects audacious North-West offer
Posted Thu, 10 Mar 2005

Mining entrepreneur Brett Kebble has made made an audacious offer to ailing gold-miner DRDGold in which he proposes a halt to legal hostilities between his company, JCI, and DRDGold, in favour of the establishment of a new management team, under his father, Roger Kebble.

Kebble junior argues that this new team could implement emergency measures, together with labour, to create sustainability and put forward a proposal for the revitalisation of the South African assets. Should such a proposal be accepted, Kebble said "we would be prepared to withdraw all claims against DRDGold and its CEO Mark Wellesley-Wood".

But DRDGold reacted angrily to the offer, with spokesperson Ilja Graulich arguing that the proposal was nothing more than a lot of "noise". He said the scheme was nothing more than an attempt by Kebble to detract from the fact that JCI owed DRDGold R37-million, a cheque for which was due by Monday.

Nonetheless, observers continue to speculate about potential suitors for the ailing North West Operation. Some believe that, despite Kebble's advances, there are strong indications that few of the usual suspects are in the running. Instead, it has been suggested that a mining junior or a small black economic-empowerment (BEE) entity could emerge as the eventual buyer. Since announcing that it would have to restructure the three loss-making mines that make up its North West assets, at Stilfontein, DRDGold said it received several offers from parties interested in taking over the operations.

The group reported last month that the mines recorded a R279,2-million loss for the second half of 2004 – 75% of DRDGold's total loss of R370,1-million during the period – and are currently losing some R20-million a month.

Despite having spent R200-million in the last 18 months to return the North West assets to profitability, rising costs and the strong rand have cut into the mines' earnings, with the company currently mining gold at a cash cost of R95 000/kg, against a spot gold price of R81 000/kg.

Johannesburg-based junior gold producer Centurion Gold, which currently operates three shafts in Primrose, has also been linked to a possible bid for the North West mines, given the group's recent acquisition of Chemwes and Mine Waste Solutions; companies that specialise in mine-dump clean-ups and rehabilitation. It has been suggested that these businesses, located in Klerksdorp, near the North West Operations, could fit well with the DRDGold assets.

http://www.businessinafrica.ne…outhern_africa/423140.htm

-END-

I can’t stress how important it is for you to call, email and send letters to your gold companies re Gold Rush 21. The more the merrier. It works. If enough shareholders get on their case, it greatly enhances the probability they will come. Here is some feedback on two major gold companies:

Dear Mr S.
Thank you for your e-mail attached below. We were already aware of this conference as Sprott themselves had alerted us to it. Nearer the time we will be seeing how our diaries are panning out and deciding who will be attending.
Regards

"XYZ is listening, but a bit tied up.
It's also good than 10 other XYZ shareholders have asked, so we are trying!"

***

Remember, GATA's Ed Steer has done the work for by writing a letter you can use. All you have to do is properly address the letter. Here is the URL again:

http://www.gata.org/ACallToArms.html

Good points by the highly regarded Bob Bishop:

GMSR Alert #335 - March 18, 2005

While uranium, and most other commodities, are what are traditionally viewed as supply/demand markets, gold continues to be a market that is facing declining production and increased demand, both as an anti-dollar trade and as a proxy-for-wealth driver emanating from China, India, and all places Asian. The variable in the supply side of this market continues to be largely a function of how much gold central banks wish to sell. Whether they are actively selling or merely facilitating lending and tacitly supporting market activities that serve to help manage the gold price downward, it has become a fact of life in the gold market, business as usual, but not business for all time. While I have learned not to spend money on anything gold-related when the yellow metal is on the high end of its range, my view of gold when it's down is that it represents a virtual "free trade." The best analogy, one that those with exposure to junior resource stocks can probably relate to, is that stocks that are being artificially suppressed should be purchased: after the options have been priced, the financing completed, the block trade completed, when whatever it is that accounts for the artificial depression of the price has been removed, the stock in question inevitably rises. Gold should be equally responsive to the same phenomenon. Just make certain you're spending your money on the down days, and with special emphasis when gold is trading at the lower end of its range.

-END-

As well as the gold shares fared yesterday, they did just as poorly today. The XAU gave up 1.05 to 100.55. The HUI lost 2.93 to 217.22, closing on its lows and well below 220 support.

The history of gold trading over the past many years re the spec longs build-up and the continued dismal action of the shares suggests gold is going to get slammed next week. That probability is off the charts too. However, smoke is starting is beginning to billow from various quarters of serious derivatives problems in the US financial system. The depth of the problems might just surface in time to save a spec liquidation this time. If not now, we will get one soon. That I am convinced of.

GATA BE IN IT TO WIN IT!

MIDAS

Appendix

MORGAN STANLEY
<>Global: America Smells the Coffee

Stephen Roach (from Beijing)

Tipping points are a great concept, but virtually impossible to identify ahead of time -- let alone when they are occurring. It is only with the great luxury of hindsight that we can look back and know that the proverbial bell has rung. In my view, March 16, 2005 could end up in the running as a possible tipping point for America. Suddenly, the US has taken on a very different aura in an increasingly unbalanced world: The confluence of a record current account deficit, a disaster from General Motors, and yet another new high for oil prices all speak of an increasingly precarious role for the global hegemon. World financial markets have barely begun to sniff that out.

The current account deficit probably says it all. As I have noted ad nauseum, it is an outgrowth of America’s biggest problem -- an unprecedented shortfall of national saving. The US net national saving rate -- the combined saving of individuals, businesses and the government sector (all adjusted for depreciation) -- has fallen to a record low of 1.5% since early 2002. Lacking in domestic saving, America must import foreign saving from abroad in order to keep growing at what the body politic judges to be acceptable growth rates. And so the US must then run massive and ever-widening current account deficits to attract that foreign capital. And ever-widening it is: America’s broadest measure of its external shortfall was just reported to have hit an all-time record of 6.3% of GDP in 4Q04 -- an astonishing 1.8 percentage point deterioration from the 4.5% deficit a year-earlier in 4Q03. Not only is this a record current-account deficit for the US, but it is also a record financing burden for the rest of the world. Based on the annualized current account deficit of slightly more than $750 billion in the final period of 2004, America now requires an average of $2.9 billion of capital inflows each and every business day to keep the magic going.

"What’s good for General Motors is good for America." I realize that dates me, but I’m old enough to remember when that was the battle cry of a once mighty Smokestack America. So when GM throws in the towel on earnings (again) and its bonds trade at near-junk status, maybe there’s more to this story than a quick flicker on the screen. The ever-cynical comments on chatrooms were quick to minimize the significance of this event: "What do you want from a healthcare provider dressed up as an auto company?" Yes, Detroit is now a shadow of its former self -- US automakers currently employ only 0.8% of all workers in the US. In many respects, that’s emblematic of the fate of the factory sector as a whole, where the job share has plunged from 33% of private nonfarm payrolls in 1960 to around 13% today. The demise of US manufacturing is now taken as a given and most simply dismiss GM’s latest travails as a non-event.

I think there is a deeper meaning to all this -- especially coming on a day when the current-account deficit was reported to have taken yet another ominous leap into uncharted territory. Not surprisingly, the US trade deficit on goods accounted for fully 98% of America’s total current account deficit in 4Q04. That’s right, a once proud Smokestack America has borne the brunt of the unprecedented US saving shortfall. And just as GM led the charge in the heyday of America’s manufacturing prowess, it is now on the "bleeding edge" of its darker days. Coincidence? I doubt it. It may well be that the accelerated erosion of America’s manufacturing base in recent years is the most painful outgrowth of a record US saving shortfall. Washington, of course, wants to pin the blame on unfair foreign competition. Instead, it ought to take a look in the mirror: It is the budget deficit, of course, that has been crucial in pushing national saving to record lows in recent years. And it is the capital inflows -- and the trade deficits behind those flows -- that are required to compensate for these budget deficits and give a saving-short America the foreign aid it needs to keep on growing.

March 16 was also a day of record oil prices. No, this is not just America’s problem. But in a falling-dollar climate, other nations enjoy a cushion from this blow as their currencies rise. Not so in the US as the current account deficit keeps the greenback under pressure. The press, of course, is filled with commentary about how oil no longer matters. All I can say is -- been there, done that. My experience tells me that this is precisely the rhetoric we always hear in the midst of an oil shock. And shock it is: In real terms, $56 oil represents more than a quadrupling from the lows of late 1998 -- putting this price spike very much on a par with those devastating blows of the 1970s. The apologists will tell you not to worry -- that the real price of oil is still below record levels hit in the late 1970s. That is poor macro, to say the least. Impacts to economic growth are not about levels -- but about changes. The sharp run-up of oil prices in these past few years is the functional equivalent of a tax on household purchasing power that only puts further pressure on an already over-extended American consumer. The fact that consumers haven’t caved yet doesn’t mean the Holy Grail of a new immunity to rising oil prices has been discovered. It could mean that something else has temporarily deferred the endgame.

That "something else," in my view, goes right back to America’s biggest hole -- the current account deficit and the capital inflows from abroad that keep funding it. Recent US Treasury data suggest this is not a problem -- net portfolio investment of $91.5 billion in January 2005 that was more than enough to cover the $58 billion trade deficit that month. The Washington spin is that foreigners can’t get enough of dollar-denominated assets and the returns they offer in an otherwise return-starved world. Don’t kid yourself. This rush of foreign capital is not about private investors plunging back into US assets. It is a conscious policy move on the part of foreign central banks. The US Treasury data do not accurately reflect the obvious -- an extraordinary build-up of dollar-denominated official foreign exchange reserves held by the world’s monetary authorities. By our estimates (based on IMF data), total reserves increased by about $700 billion from year-end 2003 to year-end 2004. Assuming that the dollar share of such holdings held steady at around 70% (an official BIS estimate as of late 2003), that implies an increase of nearly $500 billion in dollar-denominated holdings of the world’s central banks -- confirming that foreign central banks financed about 75% of America’s current account deficit last year. That policy-driven financing is a bold effort on the part of foreign central banks to keep their currencies from rising and defer what could be an otherwise painfully classic US current account adjustment -- complete with a further decline in the dollar and sharply higher US interest rates. The resulting subsidy to US interest rates -- and the asset-driven consumption that engenders -- goes a long way in cushioning the blows of stagnant real wages and surging oil prices that might have otherwise clobbered the American consumer.

But the message from overseas is that this game is just about over. One by one, Asian central banks -- America’s financiers at the margin -- have dropped the not-so-subtle hint that they are saturated with dollar-denominated assets. From Korea and Japan to China and India -- not to dismiss Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore -- there is a growing protest to massive dollar overweights in official reserve portfolios. The standard American response borders on arrogance: "What choice do they have?" The presumption is that the US has externally driven Asian economies over a barrel -- unwilling to accept a deterioration in export competitiveness that currency appreciation might bring. This misses a key cost-benefit tradeoff -- weighing the hit to exports against the fiscal cost of a portfolio loss on holdings of dollar-denominated assets. The bigger the build-up of dollar reserves, the more this tradeoff is likely to tip toward dollar diversification -- spelling the end of America’s cut-rate foreign financing.

In the end, of course, there’s far more to this story than economics. As I noted recently, history is replete with examples of leadership tests that pit a nation’s military prowess against its economic base (see my 28 February dispatch, "The Pendulum of Global Leadership"). Yale historian Paul Kennedy has long argued that great powers typically fail when military reach outstrips a nation’s economic strength. In that vein, there’s little doubt that America is extending its reach in this post-9/11 world. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were the opening salvos. The Bush Administration’s recent nomination of two leading neocons to key global positions -- John Bolton as America’s ambassador to the UN and Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank (also announced on March 16) -- are more recent examples of a White House that is upping the ante on its "transformational" projection of global power. In Paul Kennedy’s historical framework, America is extending its reach at precisely the moment when its economic power base is weakening -- a classic warning sign of the fall of a Great Power.

Was March 16, 2005 America’s tipping point? Only time will tell. The optimist can hope that it was a wake-up call for a saving-short US economy to put its house back in order. For once, call me an optimist. It’s time for America to smell the coffee.

-END-

KAIMU NURSERY
12-4765 PAHOA-KALAPANA ROAD
PAHOA, HAWAII USA 96778
800-676-7244
http://www.kaimuflowers.com/

A LoHa BiLL !!
How's life there in Dallas? My brother lives in Dallas out by Lake Roy Hubbard, in Heath. His kids to Rockwall Schools ...

I know Le Cafe is all about GATA and gold/silver and financial data ... I thoroughly enjoy the info and the ChatBoard ...It seems to me that all us GATA and LeMetropole members are in this together to the end.

I have noticed that you promote the work of Alain Despert. In essence we are all much like a "community" like EBAY refers to their members as a community.

I would like to offer a suggestion ... Many of the GATA/Cafe members are entrepreneurs. I myself own an orchid nursery based in Hawaii(since 1993). Would it be possible to put together a list of members and their companies and/or services. If I needed to buy a car Is that possible?

I appreciate your time and input ... As always you have done a wonderful job of building this "community" ...
Best Regards,
Stephen Wellman

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