Gold Discussion for Investors and Market Analysts

Kitco Inc. does not exercise any editorial control over the content of this discussion group and therefore does not necessarily endorse any statements that are made or assert the truthfulness or reliability of the information provided.

mozel
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:03 - ID#153110)
@Nicodemus
Now, that we are agreed on the problem, to wit getting rid of a constant supply of heat in the insulating environment of a vacuum, and on the necessary mechanisms to prevent Space Toast, examine the actual equipment that was presented as doing the work.

EJ
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:04 - ID#45173)
MissingLink
Good gold news indeed. Sometimes I wonder if we're in a feedback loop. If I were a Reuters reporter looking for background for a gold story, I'd come here.
-EJ

sharefin
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:06 - ID#284255)
Mike Sheller (Kitco Kwestion)
I had heard around 12,000 - 14,000 hits a day.
But there would be a lot of duplication amongst those numbers.

My site which I have plugged here and is mainly viewed by Kitcoites has viewers from everywhere.
A diverse audience indeed.

http://www.cairns.net.au/~sharefin/Markets/Master.htm
Unique:2119
Total visits:2696
Top-domains ( Countries ) :
Networks ( .NET ) 1131 ( 41% )
Commercial ( .COM ) 692 ( 25% )
AUSTRALIA ( .AU ) 304 ( 11% )
Unknown ( .??? ) 170 ( 6% )
CANADA ( .CA ) 126 ( 4% )
NETHERLANDS ( .NL ) 49 ( 1% )
Educational ( .EDU ) 37 ( 1% )
NEW ZEALAND ( .NZ ) 36 ( 1% )
Organizations ( .ORG ) 19 ( 0% )
GERMANY ( .DE ) 18 ( 0% )
US Government ( .GOV ) 15 ( 0% )
CYPRUS ( .CY ) 13 ( 0% )
United Kingdom ( .UK ) 12 ( 0% )
US Dept of Defense ( .MIL ) 11 ( 0% )
SPAIN ( .ES ) 9 ( 0% )
SOUTH AFRICA ( .ZA ) 6 ( 0% )
ITALY ( .IT ) 6 ( 0% )
JAPAN ( .JP ) 6 ( 0% )
IRELAND ( .IE ) 5 ( 0% )
HONG KONG ( .HK ) 4 ( 0% )
MALAYSIA ( .MY ) 4 ( 0% )
SINGAPORE ( .SG ) 4 ( 0% )
SWITZERLAND ( .CH ) 3 ( 0% )
TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS ( .TC ) 3 ( 0% )
ISRAEL ( .IL ) 3 ( 0% )
TAIWAN, PROVINCE OF CHINA ( .TW ) 2 ( 0% )
FRANCE ( .FR ) 2 ( 0% )
Int. Organizations ( .INT ) 2 ( 0% )
THAILAND ( .TH ) 1 ( 0% )
RUSSIAN FEDERATION ( .RU ) 1 ( 0% )
UNITED STATES ( .US ) 1 ( 0% )
SWEDEN ( .SE ) 1 ( 0% )
----------------------------------------------
Email chatter:
Get to the CNN.FN website pronto...breaking news re:
Long Term Capital Hedge Fund who lost 50B in last couple weeks
getting fractional bailout engineered by the NY Fed
in the back room while Alan was doing tap dance on Capitol Hill today.

Shades of the late 20's and J.Pierpont Morgan, eh?

Rumor has it: LTCM is deriv short 375TONNES of gold...
and
guess what else...
Gold"Man" Sachs' on of lead consortium underwriters of Fed's Guaranteed 3.5
Bil Bailout!

And guess what else...
UBS securities...read Central Bank of Swisse is part of consortium also...

I know I'm just a babe in the woods, ...but
what I heard of Greenspan's testimony didn't have 267 Dow Points worth of
bullish punch in it.
Not to this ole timer's likin'

O/49r

lady_bug
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:06 - ID#320202)
missing link
thank you to bringing that to our attention, ......one month lease rates increased 130 basis points overnight to 1.70 %
......good news indeed ! now who was it who said he is waiting for the lease rate to increase before he jumps into the gold market?

.....looking forward for the coming action
l_b

IDT
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:06 - ID#228128)
APH
What is your take on the SnP for Monday to Tuesday. If you already posted something, my apologies. I just got back into town and have been busy getting ready for a possible hurricane hit on the ol homestead. So, I haven't had the chance to scroll back.

Lou_Jan
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:08 - ID#320136)
@ Jims re your 23:27
I would like to refer you to the 87 crash when
AG declared immediately thereafter that the
Federal Reserve will provide all the necessary
liquidity to support the affected brokerage firms.
Why would his position change today?

Why would you question New York Times reporter's
credibility? After all, the NY Times has got one
of the very best reputations of any American
newspaper?


Rack
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:13 - ID#411163)
LADY_BUG---THAT WOULD BE RHODYWHO SAID THAT


Suspicious
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:14 - ID#287312)
I'm getting a feeling that October is gona be another bad month for Slick
and the market. Read Drudge if ya havent already.

EJ
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:14 - ID#45173)
sharefin
Just checked out your site. Great links. Did you get my post to update my friend's stand on Y2K?
-EJ

TheMissingLink
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:17 - ID#373403)
Gold Shares vs. BEARX
If gold were to become a bull market simultaneous with a severe bear stock market, which investment would do better?

Earl
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:22 - ID#227238)
Mozel:
"No heat transfer by convection or conduction in a [complete] vacuum." .... Yes. ..... but not yer old man's ( partial vacuum ) thermos.

And since the only mechanism afoot here is radiant energy, the side not facing a source of radiation would lose heat ( by radiant cooling ) and be colder.

Earl
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:31 - ID#227238)
Sharefin:
I would guess that a Fed guarantee of the 3.5 billion or whatever the number is, should not be construed as a potential liability of the US taxpayer. ...... The major losers will just make it all good to the Fed. ..... Uh huh. You bet. Yes they will.

Earl
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:35 - ID#227238)
Lou Jan:
"Why would you question New York Times reporter's credibility? After all, the NY Times has got one of the very best reputations of any American newspaper?"

You meant that to be read as a tongue in cheek sort of thing. ........ Didn't you?

EJ
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:36 - ID#45173)
TheMissingLink
My bet is now on BEARX. I own no gold stocks, only physical. My reasoning is that BEARX has done well managing volatility while making gains on the down trend. I expect this to continue. However, BEARX is a derivative scheme with the same risks as any other so-called hedge fund. If the market makes a significant, sustained rally, BEARX is probably in trouble, but I am betting ( not my retirement money ) that won't happen. Gold physical is my hedge against inflation or worse and I have core money there. I will buy gold stocks speculatively ( ABX, PDG, BMG, NEM, TVX, and FSR ) when I see evidence of a gold bull market.

Hope that helps.
-EJ

mozel
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:43 - ID#153110)
@Earl
Well, me and my equipment are generating heat. Plus the surface part of me or my craft which is exposed to the sun is absorbing the heat arriving in waves or particles. The side away will radiate heat.

But, now isn't your experience that things have to get pretty hot before they radiate heat ?

gagnrad
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:47 - ID#43460)
re Auric's Zen dog
So Auric gave the hot dog vendor a $20 bill. The vendor said nothing but put the bill in his pocket and turned to help another customer. Auric stood and waited with true patience and inner peace. When the other customer was finished Auric asked him, "Haven't you forgotten to give me change?"

The vendor replied, "Change comes from within."

gagnrad
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:56 - ID#43460)
Mozel
If such conjectures were true then light bulb filaments would immediately melt as they'd be unable to radiate their heat through the vacuum surrounding them. Coffee in thermos jugs would stay hot forever and the satallites would all burn up, leaving the GPS you use to find your buried gold unworkable.

TheMissingLink
(Sun Sep 27 1998 00:58 - ID#373403)
EJ
You are a pretty conservative investor regarding gold stocks vs physical yet somewhat speculative with BEARX. What is wrong with gold stocks? It seems that getting in after evidence of a bull market will leave you in the dust as stocks seem to soar on the smallest of bullion upmoves.

Lou_Jan
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:07 - ID#320136)
@ Earl
Suggest you read the Sunday NY Times article entitled
"Stock Market Hero Stumbles...." Form your own
conclusions. I feel this situation could very well
lead to panic in the streets ( break the markets ) when
3.5 billion is just a stop-gap measure ( a drop in the bucket )
THEN WHAT?! To think that 1.25 is almost 25% of the entire
U.S. federal debt... ( and twice the Canadian gov't debt )
WOW!!!!

EJ
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:11 - ID#45173)
TheMissingLink aka AuStockFan : )
Yes, I have decided for now to speculate on BEARX rather than gold stocks, although gold stocks are starting to look interesting.
-EJ

mozel
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:14 - ID#153110)
@gagnrad
Is the light bulb filament in a vacuum ? Is it the vacuum which transfer heat from the coffee in the thermos or the material which holds the coffee plus imperfection in the vacuum ? The problems of heat absorption in satellites are known and must be engineered for with reflective and radiant panels and these conditions exist even in earth orbit and not in the vacuum of deep space.

EJ
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:15 - ID#45173)
gagrad
What's this about using a GPS to find buried gold? I prefer the low-tech ten paces north, twelve paces east method, assuming any event that made it necessary to bury gold in the first place is likely to knock out the GPS sats.
-EJ

Nicodemus
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:16 - ID#335379)
Hello mozel: NO. the instant that the heat power in can escape to radiant heat it will.
Witness again the light motor, Buy one from Edmond Scientific. aA miniscule amount of light can turn the thing. Heat in heat out. Delay of heat can cause heat power build up or thermal inertia. But the radiant side by choice of materials can regulate heat loss/ heat reserve.
Nicodemus

EJ
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:18 - ID#45173)
@gagnrad & all
What did the Zen master say to the hotdog vendor?

"Make me one with everything."

G'Nite.

-EJ

TheMissingLink
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:25 - ID#373403)
EJ (AuStockFan) NOT!
I am what I am. The Missing Link.

http://www.familyjeweler.com

1200 user sessions per month

Nicodemus
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:31 - ID#335379)
Hello pdeep: That is correct. Heta is not so much "temperature as "watts" or "jules"
Heat is also generaly measured as a flow or delta. Radiant heat that travels is in essence light, Infrared. It is a natural phenominon for elctrons to slow in matter with reduced energy input. All of this means that it is possible to do the moon shot.
Goodnite all.
Nicodemus

Auric
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:35 - ID#240288)
LTC Bank to be Nationalized, gagnard

gagnard-- Saw Mr. Greenspan in line. Said to
him, "Pardon me, do you have any grey poop
on"? And here is the Long Term Credit Bank
story. I still don't think the extent of the
debt is known about that bank yet. They are
still examining it. I'd bet its much worse
than has been estimated so far.
http:/biz.yahoo.com/rf/980927/e.html

sharefin
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:39 - ID#284255)
EJ
No I never saw the post.
Could you please point it out to me.
I have been up in the hills for the last week and just catching up.

Earl
Seems like the tip of the iceberg to me.
On big card falling amongst all the dominoes.

----------
J Stack
This is truly a DEflationary bear market at this point.
Action by the Federal Reserve this week, to pressure 16 major
banks/brokerages to bail out what's left of a $5 billion hedge fund ( even
holding the meetings AT the New York Fed ) show a much higher degree of fear
and risk than even we imagined. Forget about the fact that 2 Nobel laureate
economists PLUS the former vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve Board are
wrapped up in it, this fund still has $100 billion of derivatives to
unwind... and only $2.3 billion in capital. That's a 43:1 leverage ratio...
compared to 10:1 in 1929. Our concern, naturally, is that this is not an
isolated situation... not with the size of the derivatives market today.
It's no wonder that gold and gold stocks soared this week.
Bottomline, it's still a confirmed bear market with absolutely NO evidence
of a bottom... other than 3 bounces off the critical 7500 support level. And
after this week, we have a pretty good guess as to where those mysterious
"buy programs" came from whenever the market LOOKED like it might break down
and experience panic selling. Over the past 4 weeks, short-term Treasuries
have fully discounted a whole 1/2% cut in interest rates at the next FOMC
meeting next Tuesday. Between THAT and this past week's unprecedented
bailout, the Fed has suddenly been left with no option but to ease. Anything
less than 1/2% could send shock waves through the financial markets. But
even WITH such an aggressive cut, it does not guarantee a new bull market
under a DEflationary cloud.
---------------------------
Whispers from the Mean Streets
http://www.brushtail.com.au/nick.possum/whispers.html
The slaughter of the bulls is nigh ...

gagnrad
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:40 - ID#43460)
EJ re GPS
Well, you're right. The traditional pirate method is to measure things in paces, carving strange symbols in trees et cetera. But in a large area like Banff National Park or Alps a GPS would help one get close to the right mountain to start with. ( In fact some mountains come with convenient survey markers attached to make the task easier. ) Then once the loot was buried ye compleat pirate would transcribe the coordinates into a suitable pirate code, or perhaps teach the ship's parrot the numbers.

If the GPS later failed one could always use traditonal survey instruments as no livable disaster would change lattitude and longitude of a fixed point on the earth to any great extent.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

( P.S. I used to know of an elderly lady who believed that when the Apollo astronauts went to the moon they waited until it set and walked there. I suppose that the ocean would have cooled off their excessive heat were that true. ( 8-^ ) )

Auric
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:43 - ID#240288)
Corrected Link to LTCB Story

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/980927/e.html

fiveliter
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:46 - ID#341312)
Missing Link
Now THAT's an interesting article. From Reuters no less. The central banks want their gold back. Like NOW. This LTCM deal looks like it very well could be the BRE-X for derivatives and hedge funds as one poster has already pointed out.
And now I'd like to dedicate a few tunes to our friends on the other side of the golden fence:
"Paper in Fire" - John Mellenkamp
"Live and Let DIE" - Wings

and to the rapidly destabilizing fiat currency system itself:
"When the Levee Breaks"- Led Zeppelin

AG: Listen, Bob, we gotta do something quick. The whole thing's breaking up! What the hell was that? I keep hearing these drums in my head!
( boom ... pok boom bu bu pok boom ... pok boom bu bu pok )
RR: What did you say? I can't hear you over this noise!
( boom ... pok boom bu bu pok boom ... pok boom bu bu pok )
AG: I said, we gotta do...
( BOOM ... POK BOOM BU BU POK BOOM ... POK BOOM BU BU POK )
RR: Huh?
( BOOM ... POK BOOM BU BU POK BOOM ... POK BOOM BU BU POK )
AG: Oh, the humanity!

And so the fiat currency system died and the gold and silver bugs lived happily ever after. The end.

gagnrad
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:46 - ID#43460)
Auric, bad puns getting worse. I did like your original joke, BTW!
Gray poop, eh? Was it onion him?

gagnrad
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:52 - ID#43460)
Goodnight all, must go to bed.
So I can gain the strength to go swimming tomorrow or at least wading. Anticipate the coast will be underwater all the way to Alexandria. http://www.intellicast.com/weather/usa/hurtrac/

mozel
(Sun Sep 27 1998 01:59 - ID#153110)
@Nicodemus
I agree the "Apollo spaceship" at the proper angle absorbing radiant heat on one side and radiating heat on the other would respond like the light motor, turning like a barbecue spit.

Maybe I have an exaggerated sense of how just much heat the sun actually throws off.

Auric
(Sun Sep 27 1998 02:12 - ID#240288)
UBS-LTCB Merger Story

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/980922/cs.html

tolerant1
(Sun Sep 27 1998 02:14 - ID#31868)
fin that shares...Namaste'
Truly I wish I could send the look in the eyes of those who hear me speak of you and your family...good would be a word splashed properly on canvas pal...Cheers to ya until I drop and gravity ain't that strong...

always glad to see any representation of ya...anywhere...anytime...

Nicodemus
(Sun Sep 27 1998 02:22 - ID#335379)
mozel: It would not spin. no axis. just heat transfer. Does anyone know if debri on the moon is
visible from an earthbound teloscope? That would answer a lot to the disbelief.
My guess is it would be. unless it's on the dark side of the moon.
Nicodemus

Nicodemus
(Sun Sep 27 1998 02:23 - ID#335379)
That's telescope. sorry tis late.


Nicodemus
(Sun Sep 27 1998 02:26 - ID#335379)
The sun radiates GOBS (scientific term) of energy, but not realised until absorbed.


Retearivs
(Sun Sep 27 1998 02:27 - ID#403195)
Deep rumble.
It has not been possible to read all the recent postings so someone may have raised this matter but, if so, there has been little discussion.

It is a supreme and delicious irony that the U.S., which evidently directly and indirectly, has lectured "lesser" nations on operating their financial markets in a free and open manner should instantly intervene in the matter of L.T.C. What else is going on but simply a U.S. version of the Japanese "convoy" system? In the U.S., the catch phrase "systemic risk" is invoked to excuse this activity in the same way that the magical phrase "the national security" is used to justify some violent, extralegal action. Well what, pray tell, do the Japanese see when the suggestion is made to them that their banking system should be permitted to become unraveled and that their entire economy should suffer the consequences? They see a path other than the "Japanese way", they see "systemic risk".

As others on this board have observed, after some premonitory rumblings, an earthquake has occurred in the world's financial markets. There is a /second order/ effect to the L.T.C. and New York Fed. matter that we should all consider, however. Acute observers have had suspicions for years that U.S. markets were not operating quite as "freely" and openly as public officials might like us all to believe. Cynicism in that regard will now spread and many more people will begin to trust less. Governments elsewhere have already induced this distrust in their markets, of course, most nosily in Malaysia. Hong Kong, the free enterprise bastion of the East, has changed but at least has been open about the matter. That growing awareness that "something is going on" in U.S. markets and that the fat cats have the power to and will guard themselves will begin to have its own long term, profound effect on where and how people place their money.

Squirrel
(Sun Sep 27 1998 02:30 - ID#280214)
10-grain coin news and help needed from fellow Goldbugs
Without some considerable help and ideas from fellow Kitcoites - we will have a hard time meeting Grants question of Sun Sep 06 1998 14:53: squirrel, will you trade a Maple leaf + minting costs for an ounce's worth of your little coins or perhaps a Maple leaf for a little less than an ounce of the Wee Ones? Grant - if you are back from buying Phillies in Austria, we need your help. Your post of Sat Sep 05 1998 08:16 indicated you had a lot of expertise in tooling and such.

Mike Sheller has a point about standardizing on one product. If we focused on a packaged coin - similar to the way the little Maple Leaf's are packaged, then thinness would not matter as much and actually would help by keeping a card of coins slim enough that several cards could be carried along with our credit cards, etc. Fifteen coins could be arranged 3 by 5 in a card 2" by 3.5" ( 16mm squares ) . 150 grains of Gold worth about US$200 {bullion value of $100 - double for minting}. The card could even be mailed for one ounce - 32 cents plus insurance. Actually it would be so light and thin nobody would notice just like the envelopes in which we get new credit cards.

I still like Charlies idea of 10 grains rather than 1/100th ounce or some other fraction. In my experience people are baffled by fractions. Unfortunately they're also baffled by decimals. Thus grains may be best. Maybe they can figure with 10 grains, 20, 40, 100, and multiples, etc.

Mozels great post of Sat Sep 26 1998 16:36 On The Necessity & Practicality for Americans of Gold Coin in Circulation has a point about minting even tinier coins because of {hopefully someyear} Gold may be worth 3 times its present value. Thus even a 1-grain wafer might eventually buy a 6-pack of Pepsi, a quart of good beer or a couple dozen eggs.

But we have hit a wall in trying to have the cost of minting low enough to keep the coins price within a reasonable premium over bullion. Our best estimates of minting, marketing and distribution are putting the coin at three times its bullion content. With a smaller coin {1/100th ounce or 5 grains} the minting cost would be even higher. Thus a 5-grain {or 4.8 grain} coin would need to have a trade value several times its bullion value. Its trading value today would have to be equivalent to a US$20 note. We immediately run into competition with the 24-grain Maple Leaf which is selling for about US$25 {if you can find them in quantity}.

Mozels great idea of a tiny coin can fly only if we could get financing to mint a million coins {one ounce would make 100 coins thus we need 10,000 ounces just for the Gold}. Today a 5-grain coin would contain about $3 in Gold. We have to get the minting cost down to a few dollars each to permit the coin to sell for under US$10. Minting only a few thousand coins wont accomplish this goal. Does anyone here have any ideas. Please e-mail them to me at swyers@amigo.net

sharefin
(Sun Sep 27 1998 02:38 - ID#284255)
Tol1
Thanks mate.
T'is good to be back.

Swing chart updated.
http://www.cairns.net.au/~sharefin/Markets/Swing.jpg

John Disney
(Sun Sep 27 1998 02:38 - ID#24135)
Looking for clients ..
Regarding Tourism in Aids-ridden Zambia ..

I've run this through my Black and Sick Marketing
Department .. They came up with ..

"See Zambia and Die " ..

I said that I didnt think it would go down. They've
gone back to preparing Moon Walk Documentaries in
Namibia ( but having trouble keeping those spacesuits cool ) .

John Disney
(Sun Sep 27 1998 02:49 - ID#24135)
Sgoly and Harmony
For Erle ..
Sgoly declared semi annual at 2 rands to sharesholders
as of August 10 .. Should be paid out about now ..
Id be surprised if Harmony pays out anything until
they have bought up all gold resources available here
at less than 10 $ an ounce.. I think they have about
110 million oz .. five years ago they had 20 million..
... These guys are the Microsoft of Gold Mining ..
the market and the industry are too stupid to realize
what they've been doing.
... AngloGold the monster only has about 200 million
as I recall.

HighRise
(Sun Sep 27 1998 03:02 - ID#401460)
Asia is Upset over LTCM Bailout!


By Sarah Davison


HONG KONG, Sept 25 ( Reuters ) - A huge U.S. bank bailout for a major U.S. hedg fund threw salt in Asia's financial wounds on Friday, where economies continue to collapse due to lack of cash.

``There's no denying the system works in favour of the advantaged,'' said Peter Perkins, strategist at Daiwa Research Institute. ``At the end of the day, the big boys get to say what the rules are.''

At the behest of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a group of mainly Wall Street banks coughed up $3.5 billion for Long-Term Capital Management after a bet went badly wrong.

LTCM is believed to have borrowed as much as US$100 billion, threatening losses exceeding the entire foreign debt of Thailand or nearly two-thirds of that of South Korea, once the world's 11th largest economy.

The banks agreed to recapitalise LTCM, a hedge fund typical of those that fuelled the Asian crisis, while Asia struggles to negotiate debt writedowns from many of the same banks.

``Merrill Lynch or Citibank, they have more flexibility because not many of those guys can go before the whole system crumbles,'' said Perkins. ``But the further out on the periphery you are, the most expendible you are, and places like Thailand are out on the periphery.''

LTCM is already being called a watershed for its dramatic reminder of the force of the global financial crisis, and the severity of the global credit crunch it portends.

Once burned by LTCM, banks will be twice shy about investing in hedge funds -- or anything else, for that matter.

And the fears of another ticking timebomb a la LTCM will add to that reluctance to lend, fuelling an already critical credit squeeze in those parts of the world worst affected by this global financial crisis.

``Banks will begin to look ( more warily ) at hedge funds again and we'll have a contraction in global liquidity. We were going to have that anyway, but this will speed it up,'' said another strategist, who declined to be identified.

Andy Xie, economist at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, estimates at least 20 percent of $380 billion in total foreign loans to Asia will go bad, and Europe is especially exposed.

So far, banks are rolling over foreign debt and refusing to accept writedowns, but soon writedowns will become inevitable.

``These companies just cannot pay back these loans,'' Xie told Reuters Television. ``As soon as you recognise this, that you are not going to be paid back, you have to write it down. It will take a huge bite out of your capital.''

But the unnamed strategist argued that while credit will certainly become even more scarce in Asia, this region now has less to lose than other regions and could, therefore, benefit.

``Bizarrely, Asia one of better places to be because how can you contract credit any further here? We don't even have a banking system,'' he said. ``The only thing that can happen from here is to rebuild capital and the lending process from here.''

Using Bank for International Settlement figures, this strategist estimated that the world's biggest banks lent more than 129 percent of their capital to global emerging markets, and so far about 30 percent of those loans are non-performing.

``If it's 30 percent, we've just wiped out half the world's bank capital,'' he said, to stress the severity of the impending credit crunch.

Asian analysts said U.S. banks bailed out LTCM because they were told to by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which abides by a strictly domestic mandate.

There is no-one capable of forcing a similar recapitalisation in Asia.

``What the Federal Reserve coordinated was sensible from a U.S. point of view,'' said Dong Tao, economist at Credit Suisse First Boston. ``And the banks have to listen to the Fed.''

-- Hong Kong Newsroom ( 852 ) 2843 6441; Fax 2845 0636

Nick@C
(Sun Sep 27 1998 03:21 - ID#386245)
Look out for the little green men
in the back garden. It is sad to see another of our posters ending up in the 'lunar' bin. Must be something about the pressures of today's markets. Someone needs a long vacation.

I'm going to have to remember to renew my membership of the Flat Earth Society. BTW--did you know that the rumour of intelligent life in the Americas is all a hoax perpetrated by Europeans?? It seems that the Euros have floated a huge amount of paper called the US dollar that everyone actually believes is worth something. They had to have a fictitious country called the USA to continue the hoax. What a fraud!! It's not possible to print that much money.
.......................
fiveliter said it well
................
Date: Sat Sep 26 1998 14:42
fiveliter ( Apollo 11 is a hoax? ) ID#341312:
Copyright  1998 fiveliter/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved
C'mon guys, get real. The Saturn V was every bit as real as Hitler's V2, the Soviets' SS-18's and 20's and our own Minutemen, Peacekeepers, Redstones et al. Once you possess the vehicle technology to place a nuclear warhead anywhere on earth in 30 min or less getting to the moon is just a somewhat more complex exercise in orbital mechanics with the additional complications of human life support thrown in. The goal was achieved gradually over a decade at tremendous expense in both labor and even 3 astronaut's lives. Believing Apollo 11 is a hoax belongs in the same category as pyramid power, global warming, and borrowing your way out of debt. It's ludicrous beyond description. Yes, conspiracies do exist but this is not one of them. Not even close.

aurator
(Sun Sep 27 1998 03:34 - ID#250121)
Nick@cabinfever
well it's not that there's any shortage of wierd and whacky on the web
http://www.forteantimes.com/link/default.htm#Humor

free kiwi
we've heard that the cold weather is continuing in Victoria and now you've got a problem with gas reticulation. Do you have any more info?


HighRise
(Sun Sep 27 1998 03:34 - ID#401460)
Edited News

Sorry for the two day old edited news. I have been under a lot of pressure recently. If I try to do more than one thing at once I screw up.

Sunday September 27, 2:35 am Eastern Time

CORRECTED - CORRECTED
- CORRECTED-Asia grim as
hedge fund wins bailout

In Sept 25 story headlined ``Asia grim as U.S.
hedge fund wins bail-out'' please delete part of
analysts' quotes in paragraph 17 and all of
paragraph 18 which incorrectly estimated bank
capital at risk and as a percentage of U.S.
gross domestic product.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/980927/k.html

Press releases appear to be different recently.
Many are just alerts or are changed later. Also not as much news coming out of Indonesia and other third world countries as ther was several months ago.

Good night

HighRise


Spock
(Sun Sep 27 1998 03:39 - ID#210114)
Birthday Message
Greetings all!! Your Birthday best wishes will be appreciated.

Nice to see gold doing better...... but the $US300 barrier remains.

The next month should be very interesting.

Live Long and Prosper.

Eldorado
(Sun Sep 27 1998 03:41 - ID#173274)
@the scene
KIP -- Yup. It has been taking awhile. I guess 'everything in its own time'. And as you say, timing is everything. Interesting thing about having physical metal buried about is that it just plain doesn't care about the time. It'll be there for that particular day, probably while you and/or I are off chasing a buck or two in 'equities', and s__t happens overnight. When you have your 'foxhole' dug, none of the rest matter quite as much! Make it so.

Leland
(Sun Sep 27 1998 03:41 - ID#31876)
Fiend's Newest Link.....
http://www.tulipsandbears.com/opinion.htm

tolerant1
(Sun Sep 27 1998 03:42 - ID#31868)
fin that shares, Namaste' tried to send a message back at ya
if it did not get there...write me in your morn...nite all...

aurator
(Sun Sep 27 1998 03:46 - ID#250121)
Why do we say "many happy returns?" I suspect the illuminati have something to do with it..;-^}
Spock

Happy Birthday..It reminded me of an email I recd a couple of days ago...

They're things people actually said in court, word for word
.
Q: What is your date of birth?
A: July fifteenth.
Q: What year?
A: Every year.
---------------------------------------------------
Q: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
A: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
---------------------------------------------------
Q: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
A: Yes.
Q: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
A: I forget.
Q: You forget. Can you give us an example of
something that you've forgotten?
---------------------------------------------------
Q: How old is your son the one living with you.
A: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
Q: How long has he lived with you?
A: Forty-five years.
---------------------------------------------------
Q: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke
that morning?
A: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
Q: And why did that upset you?
A: My name is Susan.

ravenfire
(Sun Sep 27 1998 04:05 - ID#333126)
HK property developers facing defaulting customers
http://www.scmp.com/news/template/Front-Template.idc?artid=19980926003702032?=front&template=Default.htx&maxfieldsize=2473

similar story in s'pore a few days ago. hmm...

property boom is *definitely* over.

Auric
(Sun Sep 27 1998 04:08 - ID#255151)
aurator (or Anyone Else)-- OLD UBS-Gold Story

A few months back, wasn't there a Swiss bank that had some Gold discrepancy on its books, and had to give up a Gold trading or storage function? I recall a transfer of Gold to another Swiss bank. Does this sound familiar?

aurator
(Sun Sep 27 1998 04:20 - ID#255284)
sorry about lack of formatting, out of me archinve....
auric
I found this, it's a case of the lame propping up the infrim??

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/980130/>http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/980130/
britain_ub_1.html
[ Business | US Market | Industry | IPO | S&P | International | PRNews | BizWire |
Finance Home ]
Friday January 30, 4:28 pm Eastern Time
UBS draws line under derivatives black hole talk
By Alexander Smith
LONDON, Jan 30 ( Reuters ) - Switzerland's UBS ( UBS.S ) appears to have have drawn a
line under speculation of a far larger ``black hole'' in its accounts by admitting the scope
of its derivatives losses on Friday, bankers said.
After months of speculation which have clouded the bank's merger preparations with
former rival SBC ( SBVZn.S ) , UBS said it had taken a 150 million Swiss franc ( $102
million ) hit in equity derivatives.
The bank also said it had taken a 100 million Swiss franc loss in equity proprietary
trading as a result of trading positions in Japanese banks' convertible bonds which
turned against it after a price collapse.
``These figures are very precise,'' one investment banker told Reuters. ``They appear to
have come clean.''
Friday's losses came on top of a 200 million Swiss franc equity derivatives loss in
November, but the combined total fell far short of the billions of Swiss francs which
have been rumoured.
While embarrassing for the firm, bankers pointed out that the losses could easily be
borne by a firm the size of UBS, although they would have brought down a less well
capitalised or smaller bank.
But the losses have echoes of the Barings debacle, which remain fresh in the mind of the
City of London financial district almost three years on from the collapse of the
blue-blooded British merchant bank under 860 million pounds of derivatives losses.
Last year UBS said it was confident the 200 million Swiss franc losses were a one-off
but rumours and newspaper speculation persisted, with the figures growing ever larger.
While rumours have swirled around within UBS, some employees have suggested the
inflated losses could have been circulated by a disgruntled member of staff unhappy at
http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/980130/
britain_ub_1.html
the prospect of redundancy as a result of the merger with SBC, which will see around
3,000 job cuts.
Combined with the rumoured losses, this uncertainty has drained morale at the firm in
London where UBS employees are expected to bear the brunt of the change.
Staff are not expected to hear their fate until the end of next week at the earliest, with
the end of February tipped as a more likely date by some. They have already been
informed of their bonuses and many say they are now sitting it out until these are paid
in March.
Investment bankers in London said it was important for UBS to make 100 percent clear
exactly what its losses and exposure were ahead of the SBC and UBS shareholder
meetings next week to vote on the merger.
``Shareholders must have been pressurising them to come clean on what the losses
were,'' said one.
UBS blamed ``difficult worldwide market conditions with record high volatility'' for the
later losses, which it said were notched up in the ordinary equity derivatives business
during the closing months of 1997.
Changes in British tax law and an error in a computer model to price options were
blamed for the losses in the first half.
The saga has dogged UBS since November when it said the head of its equity derivatives
trading operations in London and three New York traders had left the firm following
losses.
Despite the problems, UBS was bullish about its overall performance. In its statement on
Friday it said client-driven trading and equities borrowing and lending had produced
``highly satisfactory results.''
The bank also said commission income from the equities trading and sales business had
turned in a record result, with combined earnings of 1.4 billion Swiss francs.
But the overall earnings from the bank's equities and equities derivatives business came
to around a billion Swiss francs, a fall of around 25 percent on the previous year's
figure.
( $ equals 1.476 Swiss Francs )
Help

aurator
(Sun Sep 27 1998 04:47 - ID#255284)
more history, courtesy of kiwi & moa
Oww, more on UBS


Date: Thu Apr 16 1998 17:17
kiwi ( Huge Jewish Gold Claim vs UBS....any comments Andy Smith? )
ID#194311:
Copyright  1998 kiwi/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved
American claims 500 billion dollars from Swiss Bank
GENEVA, April 15 ( AFP ) - Carey Portman, a US businessman, has
written to President Bill Clinton and his Swiss conterpart Flavio
Cotti alleging that a major Swiss bank, UBS, had illegally
confiscated 500 billion dollars of assets.
Portman, chairman of Commerce International Incorporated of
Illinois, made his claim in letters last month on behalf of four
persons, accusing Union de Banques Suisses ( UBS ) of having
confiscated assets.
The businessmen wrote to the two heads of state in support of
his claim. He has made similar charges against the British bank
Barclays for 200 billion dollars, and against another Swiss bank,
Credit Suisse.
The claim states that UBS allegedly failed to pay gold
certificates to its clients. But a UBS spokeswoman denied that UBS
had ever issued gold certificates, stating: "It is a story without
foundation."
Portman has also asked Daniel Zuberbuehler, head of the Swiss
banks commission, to prevent a planned merger between UBS and
another Swiss bank, Societe de Banque Suisse ( SBS ) until his
complaints have been cleared up.
The merger requires clearance by several authorities before
going into effect.
In his letter, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, the
plaintiff says he has proofs that UBS confiscated assets deposited
by clients.
The bank spokeswoman said UBS did not have the text of the claim
lodged in the United States but she said she was astonished at the
tenor of the letter which, she said, contained major errors.
In his letter the plaintiff said Swiss banks had plotted to
acquire major assets of clients and victims of the Holocaust.
Switzerland's three biggest banks are being sued in US courts by
thousands of Holocaust survivors seeking billions of dollars in
compensation over Nazi-era assets lying dormant on their books.

=======

Date: Thu Sep 24 1998 21:10
moa ( UBS spin...now where did Andy Smith get to? ) ID#269128:
Copyright  1998 moa/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved
I recall poster kiwi alerted UBS derivative troubles a few moons back
.....the irony is Black & Scholes only got their "nobels" last year...just before the miracle "equation" undoes the whole world financial system...hahahahahahahahaha.... a little knowledge is a lot dangerous and an equation is only as good as it's weakest assumption...... It goes like this...."Assuming we have a risk free investment yielding a
small interest...."


display_short.cgi#start
UBSstill profitable, risk controls intact
By Alice Ratcliffe
ZURICH, Sept 24 ( Reuters ) - UBS AG remains profitable and risk
controls are working, despite news of losses and write-downs resulting from emerging market exposure, securities market volatility, and ties to a U.S. hedge fund. UBS, Europe's largest bank, said Thursday at a hastily called briefing that it expected an after-tax loss in the third quarter of between 500 million and 1.0 billion Swiss francs.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/980924/bgu.html

Auric
(Sun Sep 27 1998 05:27 - ID#255151)
aurator--Archivist Extraordinaire!

Thanks.

Envy
(Sun Sep 27 1998 05:36 - ID#219363)
Matter of Trust
Here's an interesting problem for Kitco to chew on, I thought of it as I read the posts about buried pirate treasure and GPS *grin*. Here's the problem, let's see who can come up with the best solution - Say one thousand years from now, in the year 2998, you wanted something to happen, say you wanted someone to go into the streets of New York ( or where New York used to stand ) and sing a song - how would you pull it off. Think about it - think about all the things that could change in the world in the next 1000 years, empires would have risen and fallen, banks would have went under, religions would have changed, civilization as we know it would no longer be the same, and could be in fact be completely different. We could be in an age of super-technology, or we could have regressed back into the stone ages. What could you do, as a living person right now, to make sure that your wishes were carried out 1000 years in the future, and exactly 1000 years in the future. These are the sorts of problems that Trust organizations have to deal with, though I doubt they sell their services out 1000 years into the future, and I doubt anyone would ever believe that the organization would last that long anyway. So how would you pull it off - what flawless plan could you possibly put together that could pull off such a trick. For all we know - the pharoahs of Egypt established trusts that have yet to be acted out *grin*.

aurator
(Sun Sep 27 1998 05:37 - ID#257151)
Auric
my pleasure. I am wondering though whether you are thinking about a US bullion dealer at Comex that one poster@kitco used, and he asked for help I recall that Monex picked up the business, and accepted its guarantees but I can't remember the other party.

I've been reading one of those analog paper things about Barlow Clowes "Gilt Fund Managers" that went belly up in 1987 after more than a decade of a fraudulent ponzi scheme, that allowed our mr Clowes to buy his turbo bentleys, chateaux and luxury yachts from Old Age Pensioners..


aurator
(Sun Sep 27 1998 05:47 - ID#257151)
If you are talking a Westminster legal type trust, they are of finite duration, ??I life in being + 25 years?? claims my imperfect memory, Islam does have a true perpetual trust, it is regarded as Morte main, The dead hand, because any land placed therein ( to secure one's place in the Gardens of Pleasure ) is given to Mosques to care for, and quickly loses its productive capacity.

If you are talking a kind of inherited trust passed down in secret within the family like some kind of secret martial, perhaps akin to the spawn of the Red Shield who some claim here want to rule the world, you're up against the great vagaries of history. Better call in Asimov's principles of Psychohistory, anyone seen the Mule?

aurator
(Sun Sep 27 1998 05:52 - ID#257151)
More Toast
Auric
did you see this from my earlier?

"..and an error in a computer model to price options were blamed for the losses in the first half."

Kinda wierd when you think that Scholes of the Blacks-Scholes Options model is deeply immersed in the LTCM "difficulties"

Could it be that, if these "experts" have stuffed up the mathematics in option pricing TOTALLY?


aurator
(Sun Sep 27 1998 05:59 - ID#257151)
Away; to slip on a jersey....:-).....
nytolTeddo

grant
(Sun Sep 27 1998 06:04 - ID#433422)
test
test

Greenstone Gold
(Sun Sep 27 1998 06:07 - ID#428218)
testing
testing

grant
(Sun Sep 27 1998 06:07 - ID#433422)
I'm not gettin through
ssssshhhhhhhiiiiiiittttttttttt

grant
(Sun Sep 27 1998 06:10 - ID#433422)
I'm not gettin through
I wrote a response to squirrel's earlier, it's not posting................TEST

grant
(Sun Sep 27 1998 06:15 - ID#433422)
OK, figgered out the problem, a naughty word. Im back from Austria

( and Germany and England )
Squirrel. Youve raised some more good points about the 10 grainers. I'm not sure it matters what weight standards you use. Another possibility is 1 gram. = 1/31 oz, or about 9 or 10 dollars.
What about a bimetal coin? I don't know what all metals will go into alloy solution with gold, but perhaps a 50/50 mix of gold with some other metal will boost the size while still retaining the worth. I know this is sloppy and less than romantic, and perhaps the tiny size of the 24k item is a positive thing for those with good eyes and deft fingers. Just a thought.
The technical aspects of coining, especially a metal as ductile and soft as gold, are pretty straight forward ( although I am by no means claiming to be an expert ) . I will do some tentative research and give it some further thought. I'm sure I can make a few phone calls and get some good info. I already know at least one outfit that offers a good selection of used stamping presses ( I did not say a selection of good used stamping presses ) . I also am aware of outfits that provide "pre-stampings" ie the coin blanks connected by webs that come in huge rolls,20 or 50 wide or whatever ya want, so you can index em through your stamping line automatically.
Squirrel, this is an interesting idea, I'd like to be involved if it goes anywhere, but I'm afraid, unless something changes ( pog up alot ) I'll not be much use in the capital department.
I think you have what could potentially be a huge idea. When public awareness of Y2K comes on strong, and the date draws near, you could sell the shoot out of a 1gr or 10 grain coin. I think you could get alot of your initial raw gold from the folks here at Kitco with an offer of
1oz maple=29 1 gram coins. I know I'd do it to the tune of several ounces.
Glad to be back, Europe was great, but there ain't no place like Texas. gb

Auric
(Sun Sep 27 1998 06:16 - ID#255151)
aurator

If you are still up-- I remember that a Swiss bank had to transfer some Gold keeping function to another Swiss bank. I think the London Metals Exchange was involved somehow. .

grant
(Sun Sep 27 1998 06:19 - ID#433422)
Imagine that a four letter word can stifle you

Methinks Bart's censormatic is a little hyperactive
gb

Johan
(Sun Sep 27 1998 06:48 - ID#253288)
Perot & Clinton
Perot gave no indication of whether he would seek his party's nomination in 2000, but in a scathing attack on Clinton, he said, "The part of the brain that controls morality and honesty never got connected."

HaHa!

Greenstone Gold
(Sun Sep 27 1998 06:59 - ID#428218)
"See Zambia and Die".........

Remember what happened to David Livingston.........

Not much in the way of GOLD production either, some 9000 oz per year. First gold production recorded in 1906 from the Sasare mines located in eastern Province. Cumulative production to date in approximately 90 000 oz, the largest producer being the Dunrobin mine located 150 km west of Lusaka.

There is potential, but the question is ... what is the point of doing business there ?

Now, Namibia on the other hand.......

Greenstone Gold
(Sun Sep 27 1998 07:01 - ID#428218)
A challange for all Goldbugs...........

Where is, and what is the name, of the largest GOLD mine in the world ?

Donald
(Sun Sep 27 1998 07:06 - ID#26793)
@Auric
I recall the occasion. There was a dispute when some bars were transrerred to Republic National Bank of NY as I recall. The bars were missing, not necessarily stolen, just administratively missing. There was no publicity after that. I seem to recall they were part of the Comex inventory.

jims
(Sun Sep 27 1998 07:09 - ID#253418)
Greenstone Gold
Largest gold mine in the world - don't know sould I suppose. Wish it were one that Greenstone Resources had - your handle always remeinds me of that though I take it that your Greenstone might be related to a mine in Australia.

Have any ideas or opinios on Greenstone Resources.???

Greenstone Gold
(Sun Sep 27 1998 07:14 - ID#428218)
Jims.................

The largest gold mine in the world is the MURUNTAU MINE in UZBEKISTAN, with resources of 1 billion tonnes @ 3 g/t gold, and annual production of 2 million ounces gold.

Are Greenstone Resources involved ion the Bonanza ( Pis Pis ) mining area in Nicaragua ? Nice property....

Haggis

Greenstone Gold
(Sun Sep 27 1998 07:21 - ID#428218)
An after thought......

The LTCM fiasco, in perpective......

the 375 tonnes ( 12 000 000 oz ) of GOLD on which they may have defaulted, is equivalent to 6 TIMES the annual production of the largest gold mine in the world........

How many other "hedge funds" will default ? Time will tell ......

I wonder if the additional "punts" undertaken by the LTCM management, or should I say computer model, are in GOLD DERIVATIVES. Perhaps it is these additional "punts" that has the FED worried ???

Bully Beef
(Sun Sep 27 1998 07:27 - ID#259261)
Ok ... so if you were in say Jersy and the world is what? 20'000 miles around...
and you could travel 20000 miles per second and you travelled west over Cleveland ( and didn't stop at the rock and roll hall of fame ) and went around the world ( assuming the world is indeed, round ) then you would arrive back in Jersy in a second.NOW....what would happen if you could go around the world in 40000 miles per second. Would you go back in time or what? This is a ten point question. You have two minutes. Go gold!

Leland
(Sun Sep 27 1998 07:29 - ID#316193)
Which Way Will the Federal Reserve Turn on Tuesday?
"A greater threat lies ahead for Long-Term Capital. If the
Federal Reserve cuts interest rates next Tuesday, as many
expect, that would further hurt many of Long-Term Capital's
trades, which were bets on higher rates."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nypostonline.com/business/6124.htm

Squirrel
(Sun Sep 27 1998 07:32 - ID#280214)
Grant - Welcome back and thanks for the response to my 02:30 plea!
The US Mint is selling a few thousand 1/10oz Golden Eagles per month
and in all of 1997 they only sold 39,000.{I tried 1998 - no go}
http://www.usmint.gov/Bullion/sales1997.cfm
I can buy 'em for US$35 which is $6 over bullion cost.
What are they selling 'em for? A few dollars over bullion?
THAT is our target for the 10-grain {or similar size Gold coin}.
The Australian mint wants over US$13 per coin for 10,000 which is
US$7 over the bullion cost. We are paying for the "certification as to weight and purity" by a reputable mint.
Somehow we have to break through this logjam in order to mint a piece that truly can be a circulating Gold coin - as we all believe is Gold's true role. Maybe a mint run of 100,000.

The world's largest collection of Goldbugs is right here.
If we can't muster the interest needed to put Gold back into circulation then the days of circulating Gold coin may truly past. But "we have not yet begun to fight!"

I wonder what a used press would cost so that I can make homebrew coins.

P.S. I just mixed up a 5 gallon batch of Golden Honey and Welch's Grape Juice with just a pinch of wine yeast. One dozen 12-ounce cans of juice and 14 pounds of Golden Honey. The saccharometer says I have a potential alcohol of 17%. I'd rather it quit fermenting before that since I like a sweet wine. It should be ready for raw sampling by Halloween {I'm impatient!}. Two or three siphonings and lots of time to rest and mellow and it should be ready to bottle by spring.

Greenstone Gold
(Sun Sep 27 1998 07:35 - ID#428218)
G'Nite..........

What is the sign of a well balanced Irishman.......

He staggers down both sides of the road.........

================

What is the sign of a well balanced Scotsman......

He has holes in both pockets.......

Have a nice day...go GOLD.....

Donald
(Sun Sep 27 1998 07:36 - ID#26793)
Reuters is correcting LTCM numbers but still much shy of the NY Times $1.25 trillion
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/980927/k.html

Greenstone Gold
(Sun Sep 27 1998 07:42 - ID#428218)
Two Irishmen, Mick and Paddy, see a sign.......

"Bungie Jumping - All welcome"........

So.... off they went into town to find the nearest pet shop....

"Two Buggies please", they ordered, and again set off, to find the nearest cliff......

So.... Paddy puts one buggie on his left shoulder, the other on his right. He stares over the cliff, and says to Mick:

"I'm off", and jumps off the cliff...........SPLAT, dead......

Mick looks down in disbelief:

"To be sure, this Buggie Jumpin is f**ken dangerous".........

Och aye the noooooooooo

MiloTrdr
(Sun Sep 27 1998 08:03 - ID#350358)
Squirrel (It will be sweet wine)
Basically the yeast will only flourish in 12-13%. 12% is about the max, and will be reached if there is enough sugars for the yeast. Once 12% is reached, the little critters just get drunk and quit working. Distilling is the only way to increase it from there, and Port wine is 'fortified' by adding spirits to it to raise the proof.

Donald
(Sun Sep 27 1998 08:05 - ID#26793)
Sinking When Bubbles Burst. Why U.S. and Japanese cures won't work.
http://www.smithers.co.uk/standard47.html

Flash
(Sun Sep 27 1998 08:17 - ID#340366)
Physical Gold
All of the coin shops in my area are having problems stocking physical gold in the form of American Eagles, Maples etc. ( espacialy smaller sizes ) is this a universal problem?

Mr. Mick
(Sun Sep 27 1998 08:19 - ID#345321)
Nicodemus, thanks for trying to educate Moze on the laws of physics............
The thermos analogy only goes so far. I had a roommate once who said "Ignorance always wins." Sad, but often true.

jims
(Sun Sep 27 1998 08:31 - ID#253418)
LTCM's 1.25 Trillion
I remain skeptical that LTCM has exposure of 1.25 Trillion unless some very creative math is used to come up with it. In these days when dramatics are increasing needed to get attention, fictionalized and exacerated numbers find their way into news piece.

There will be plenty of backing away from the 1.25 number as the week unfolds. In this way the 100 Billion, the 3.5 billion won't seem so bad; the nature of LTCM positions will been found to be vague and uninteresting.

Seems to me, while unfashionable to so think, the hedge fund activity of borrowing US funds to buy various debt instruments of foreign companies and governments may have been a positive for world economic growth and prosperity. The impression given by the press accounts is that the central strategy the hedge funds have been engaged in is the abandoned shorting of weak foreign currencies and wrecking only havoc in the process. Seems instead some attention might be given to their having bought some risky debt insturments and thus provided capital and liquidity where less would have otherwise existed. This recent problem was caused by Russian defaulting - had their mafia economy not come completely undone the investment community and almost every newspaper reader would never have heard of Long Term Capital Mismanagement or the figure 1.25 Trillion casually being hazardously tossed about.

skinny
(Sun Sep 27 1998 08:35 - ID#28994)
Squirrel
I cannot see why a gold coin is any advantage over any other type of coin. Is not a pure gold coin too soft a metal for everyday use? They talk of fiat currency being of no real value, but if someone hands me a gold coin, how do I know its purity or even if it is real gold?
At one time, I was interested in purchasing and taking physical delivery of 2 kilos of gold, but was told not to do so because when I wanted to resell, the bars would have to be melted down and re-analyzed at an excessive cost. Ironically, had this been done, the value placed on the gold would be in fiat currency. I'm confused. What is your take on this?

powmain
(Sun Sep 27 1998 09:03 - ID#21275)
Greenspam saving of LTCM
After the hedge funds have pillaged the Asian capital markets Isn't it strange that the countries aren't screaming at the US about bailing out LTCM

Trinovant
(Sun Sep 27 1998 09:06 - ID#359316)
Vacuum, Silver & Gold
A vacuum is a pretty good medium for radiation, whether radio waves,
microwaves, heat, light, UV, X-Rays or whatever. In fact, a vacuum
is the best medium for radiation. Air is little different except for
certain absorption bands. Your car, in weather above freezing, when
there are no clouds in the sky, can
develop frost on the windows. You may notice that the sloped windscreen
develops frost and the side windows, that are not sloped, do not. This
is because the sloping windows are radiating their heat into the sky,
which has a temperature of about 4 degrees Kelvin, or 4 degrees above
absolute zero, which by the way is -273.15 degrees Celsius, and there
can be no lower temperature, since it is simply the temperature at
which all atomic motion ceases. If however there is a cloudy sky, your
windows do not develop frost coating with the air temperature above
freezing. Why does a thermos work when vacuum is such a good medium
for radiation? Because it is silvered. Here is a good industrial
use for a precious metal. Being in the vacuum part, the silver coating
does not tarnish, and acts as a very efficient mirror. It reflects
most of the thermal radiation that would otherwise pass through the
vacuum layer. So, hot liquids stay hot because the heat can not
pass through the silver mirror, except very slowly because of the
finite residual leakage. Cold liquids stay cold because the outside
heat is similarly reflected from the silver mirror and can not get
into the interior. The main function of the vacuum has nothing to
do with radation, but it suppresses the conduction and convection
that would transfer heat in an air layer. A good mirror surface
is also used in insulating thermal blankets, you know the thin
silvery type that athletes use? Spacecraft are wrapped in gold
plated film to stabilise the temperature from extremes of sunlight
and heat loss to the dark sky because silver would tarnish down on the
ground.

How do you discredit a gold forum, and so dissuade sensible conservative
investors from turning to gold as a safe haven? You infiltrate the
forum with nutcases who believe in all sorts of conspiracy theories,
people who think that the future is 'cyber punk', people who believe
in making market decisions based on 'mumbo jumbo', people who think
that gold is going to $30,000 sometime soon, people who think that
gold is going to $150, people who are obvious stock market bulls
and people who go to great lengths to ridicule and attack anyone
who suggests that gold might once more play a fundamental role
in the circulation of money. To what extent the proportion of nutcases
exceeds that to be expected from the normal behaviour of the internet
medium, depends on whether you believe in conspiracies against gold...

grant
(Sun Sep 27 1998 09:22 - ID#433422)
Squirrel, I'll look into the punch presses for ya


sharefin
(Sun Sep 27 1998 09:24 - ID#284255)
A golden choice
Poem oft tells more than poet knew
And time confirms that this is true
Mayhap of all - of me and you
Our visions are but dimly seen
Who can well tell the fleeting dream.

But every soul born to this earth
Has inner sense of his life's worth
This is the artists hidden goal
To make us feel our own true soul.

That each his own true spirit find
This is the unsearched goal of mind
Of poetry and of all art
All lovely things, life's better part
Teach love - our true our inmost heart:

sharefin
(Sun Sep 27 1998 09:26 - ID#284255)
Snipped from csy2k newsgroup
"It looks like we're in the midst of a full-blown liquidity crisis that is
unlike any we've seen since the end of World War II," declares Stephen Roach,
chief economist for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter

Says Alan Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price: "It means we're closer
to the brink than I had thought."


Catastrophe may have been averted for the moment, but the rescue of LTCM by
Wall Street giants raised a host of vexing questions. Why, critics asked,
should a bunch of superwealthy speculators be taken off the hook for bets gone
bad when economically troubled emerging nations are being asked to fend for
themselves? And how could such a high-risk fund--leveraged to the hilt and
based on computer programs so complex that even financial savants were in the
dark--become too big to fail?

The problem isn't just that LTCM made big bets on the wrong horses, but that
it did so with borrowed money--tons of it, in fact.

The difference with LTCM is the scale of its losses, which are so big as to
become everybody's problem. It owes so much to commercial banks and Wall
Street investment houses that its failure could set off a chain reaction.
That nightmare scenario may have been forestalled--at least for now--when the
16 financial institutions pledged to keep LTCM solvent. The plan is to avoid
liquidating all of LTCM's assets now ( a move that would further depress their
already depressed prices ) and hope that markets recover enough in the future
to leave creditors at least close to whole.

More to come? But the fear that other hedge funds may soon be lining up for
similar bailouts has left many market observers severely shaken. According to
Joe Nicholas, president of Hedge Fund Research, a Chicago firm that tracks
the hedge fund industry, there are as many as 4,000 hedge funds controlling
roughly $400 billion in investor equity. By comparison, hedge funds
controlled about $20 billion in 1990. Says David Mead, chief investment
officer of Harris Bank in Chicago: "Investors are shocked. People are saying,
'What's going on out there?' The problem is that no one knows what they did
to get that leverage, and people are afraid there are more of these out
there."

Many Wall Street observers are alarmed by the precedent the New York Fed may
have set by brokering the LTCM bailout. "Terrifying" is how Jim Rogers, the
private international investor, describes the government's response. "The Fed,
which is supposed to protect the sanctity of the dollar, is now stepping in to
bail out hedge funds," he asserts. "Who will be next, the Beardstown Ladies?"

As it turned out, the hedge fund would have been unable to meet its margin
calls last week, meaning it would have failed.

In one instance, the fund used Treasury bond futures to bet that U.S.
interest rates would rise. Instead, they plunged dramatically.
=================================


This is only the tip of the iceberg. Like I have been trying to get across,
it is a house of cards. LCTM only raised enoug dough to pay off it's margin
calls. They ONLY get out of the woods if the markets go in their favor from
this point on, so that they can unwind their positions profitably.

Guess what? They won't.

You are watching the beginning of the end.

Y2K is not happening in a vacuum. It is happening in a terribly shaky
financial context. Even without Y2K the world's financial systems will
collapse.


http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/981005/5hedg.htm
--
Paul Milne
"The road to TEOTWAWKI is paved with good expectations"

ROR
(Sun Sep 27 1998 09:28 - ID#412286)
Lease Rates
The dramatic rise in gold lease rates friday indicates an increase in borrowing probably to defend a short position. I would bet that the REAL gold short position is above what CBs hold. It would truly be nerve racking to be short not knowing what morning a shoe could drop and you could be wiped out because some fund cant maintain its position because of tightening credit. We should get some early weakness but I wonder if this hedge fund psychology is going to frustrate and ultimately kill the bears. Will be interesting.

Auric
(Sun Sep 27 1998 09:28 - ID#255151)
jims @ 08:31

Just e mailed the writers of that NY Times article claiming 1.2 trillion dollars in leveraged positions by LTCM. Asked if they could give their source, and if they still stand by that figure. Will report back to forum if I get a reply.

grant
(Sun Sep 27 1998 09:43 - ID#433422)
Sqirrel

I posted too soon. As I was sayin', I'll be glad to look into the punch presses for ya, but I'm pretty confident that a used punch press of moderate size is gonna be a small fraction of the initial investment.
The custom tooling, the die sets and automation stuff, are gonna be the big ticket items. My instincts tell me that we oughtta consider the absolute finest coining dies available, no corners to cut there.
I'll ask my tooling guys if they have any experience with coining dies, or know anyone who does...........
Have you considered coin designs yet? I personally prefer the multi-sided coins like the Mountie or the English 50 pence. I wonder if there are copywrights on the various bald eagle designs on past US coins.
E- mail me with your general location so I can limit my press search to your general area, as frieght for these monsters is substantial.
I'm in central Texas, Stephenville area,, ......
Gotta go spend the Sun. with the family at the lake.........
later
gb

CPO@AU
(Sun Sep 27 1998 09:54 - ID#329186)
Flash Physical gold(ID#340366)
your 08:17
Her in the UK
no problem in the UK with Gold maples smaller sizes a bit more difficult and I avoid due to the premium for smaller I have started on sovereigns @49. net ( .2354 grams )
PS
Contacted the canadian Mint re UK suppliers of Gold Mountie and on receipt of list the first i called quoted for silver which i had not heard of and when i said i wanted Gold mounties was told they are not made in gold!!! my reply there is one on my screen with a guarentrrd repurchase price of US$310 before 2000.
Having said that i have not heard mention of the Silver Mounties.
Guess if i wanr them will have to call germany ( Zero rated for VAT )
happy hunting

cpo


sharefin
(Sun Sep 27 1998 09:57 - ID#284255)
Martial law from Liberty? - Y2K and the Feds
http://www.well.com/user/declan/pubs/liberty.0898.txt

Senate Committee Leader Cautious on Y2K
http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/0,2326,201980925-14643,00.html
----------------
Snipped from csy2k
--
You're right about LTCM needing six months to unwind positions ... and
that they WILL be unwound, which means lots of selling at some point.
Wonder if the market can handle the jitters there?

And there's lots more where they came from. Do you get the feeling
that this is the tip of an iceberg?

Bad, bad, bad: Floating currencies, no ties to gold anywhere.

Bad #2: Credit, credit everywhere.

Bad #3: Foolish traders that want to take advantage of the above to
get filthy rich on worthless paper.




From Intermoney's website:
---------------------------------
In normal times, LTCM would simply have gone bust, and those banks who had
lent it money would have written off their loans. The scene this week on the
tenth floor of the New York Federal Reserve shows how far these are from
normal times.

Present were the heaviest of New York's heavyweight bankers. Among them were
Goldman Sachs chairman Jon Corzine, Merrill Lynch chairman David Komansky,
JP Morgan chairman Douglas Warner, Morgan Stanley chairman Philip Purcell,
Travelers president James Dimon, Chase chief executive Thomas Labreque,
Credit Suisse First Boston chief executive Allen Wheat, Bear Stearns chief
executive James Cayne and New York Federal Reserve president William
McDonough.

These men weren't there because they were worried that John Meriwether might
lose a couple of billion dollars. Rather, they were petrified about the
consequences of LTCM going bust. ...

If LTCM were to collapse and liquidate its positions, it would send US
financial markets reeling. ...

LTCM's $80bn of positions need to be unwound. Thursday's action just means
that the process will take six months rather than six days. Still, the Fed
is very worried about the state of US banks and their own leveraged
positions. ...

--------------------------------------------

y2k or not, we are in dire straits, folks. Sorry to play the Milne game here
with my post, but this derivative stuff is bad ... staggeringly bad. If you
want to read the original story, you gotta register for free at
http://www.intermoney.com --article's easily found.

cherokee
(Sun Sep 27 1998 10:00 - ID#343449)
@...the,markets..pm's...are.fixing.to.do.what.THEY.said.THEY.would.not.do...fly.baby.fly.

they say everything you need is in the charts.......

http://www.digisys.net/futures/chart/ts_cha51.gif

this chart is screaming.immb......the s&p......

power-ful moves close at hand.....my call?...freefall.


Spud Master
(Sun Sep 27 1998 10:06 - ID#288235)
adding to Cherokee's comments, Globex paper awash in red...
http://www.cme.com/cgi-bin/gflash.cgi

Spud, ejecting from the X-33 software fiasco. Where is NASA oversight when you need it?

Oak
(Sun Sep 27 1998 10:18 - ID#240241)
Grant
I spent my high school years in Gorman,TX. just 30 miles from you.
Graduated in 76. Now S. of Houston

GoldnBoy
(Sun Sep 27 1998 10:20 - ID#434273)
LTCM - Lower Than Cow Manure...heh...heh...heh...
Go Gold!

Michael
(Sun Sep 27 1998 10:27 - ID#346404)
CNN email news for today includes this beauty....

MORE FEAR FINANCIAL MELTDOWN

More than 30 percent of Singapore-based multinational corporation managers
believe a regional and global meltdown is likely, according to a survey by The
Economist Conferences. In a statement it said the figure had risen from 5
percent in July. "It is telling that so many believe in the likelihood of a
meltdown," Christopher Nailer of The Economist Conferences said.

Mindset moves towards government intervention
.... http://cnnfn.com/hotstories/economy/wires/9809/25/meltdown_wg/

sharefin
(Sun Sep 27 1998 10:41 - ID#284255)
Do lawyers like derivatives?
An attorney was sitting in his office late one night, when
the Devil appeared before him. The Devil told the lawyer, "I have a
proposition for you. You can win every case you try, for the rest of
your life. Your clients will adore you, your colleagues will stand in
awe of you, and you will make embarrassing sums of money. All I want
in exchange is your soul, your wife's soul, your children's souls, the
souls of your parents, grandparents, and parents-in-law, and the souls
of all of yourfriends and law partners."

The lawyer thought about this for a moment, then asked,
"So, what's the catch?"

Gollum
(Sun Sep 27 1998 10:47 - ID#43349)
Janet Reno collapses
http://www.infoseek.com/Content?col=NX&arn=a0692rontl-19980927&kt=A&ak=news1486&svx=home_headline

JTF
(Sun Sep 27 1998 10:47 - ID#254321)
Thoughts for a Sunday Morning -- Nature/Weather
All: Just spent the night at our little lake cottage. A Great Blue Heron shared the beach with us -- about 4 feet tall with over 6 foot wingspan -- very graceful when it flys, with wingtips nearly touching the water. Not very graceful when it squawks, but can't have everything! I can't wait till later in the fall when a Bald Eagle is expected to nest. Ospreys around here I have seen already.

Last night the stars were especially brilliant - about 30 miles from nearest city. Saw the milky way -- a rare occurrence for me.

Fish jumping out of the water at sunrise to escape the bigger ones -- fresh water bass about 18 inches, carp about 4 feet in the cool clear water. Refreshing experience -- and about the only way I get get away from my work, which is usually 7 days a week. Was able to handle an emergency last night without coming in.

Beautiful but cloudy this morning -- mist over the lakes like the Adarondacks in upper New York State. Anyone been in Keene Valley, or Ausable Club? Worth a visit, especially in leaf season. Hope to get back there someday.

Expect to see rain here sometime tonight or early tommorrow from Hurricane Georges. Will be soggy for several days.

Parents of one of my lab associates refused to evacuate New Orleans with the rest of the crowd. They live just behind the 6 foot levy on Lake Ponchartrain. Now they have panicked, and want to leave. My associate suggested that they drive instead to a local hospital and park 2 or 3 stories up -- and wait in the waiting room for Georges to blow over. Hope the emergency power is not on the ground floor -- it often is. Could be interesting even at the hospital if the tidal surge floods out the emergency generators. Remember a hospital during Hurricane Hugo that had that problem. The other problem was that the reserve fuel tanks only had electrial pumps. When the emergency power went down due to flooding, they has two problems -- flooded generator basements, and no fuel. One unsung hero kept the hospital open by setting up some water pumps, and got them going my mechanically pumping some jury rigged fuel supplies. Took hours to get the water level down so that the regular system started up again.

Good thing the other 3 hurricanes may not reach the West Indies or continental US. Guess La Nina has hit us with a vengeance.

May be worth while to look back in history to years when La Nina especially bad to see the effect on the subsequent winters. Unusually cold and snowy? I don't know -- might also be unusually cold and dry.

Cage Rattler
(Sun Sep 27 1998 10:50 - ID#33184)
Globex quotes
An elementary question ... Am I correct in assuming that the 'LAST' is the ruling price at present and the 'CHANGE' is the amount by which the previous 'LAST' changed in order to arrive at the current 'LAST'?

cherokee
(Sun Sep 27 1998 10:59 - ID#288231)
@...deciet....

can the past relegate the future?

http://www.aci.net/kalliste/part19.htm

vince foster....mr.suicide.my.@ss....

Rising Sun
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:00 - ID#411331)
http://www.nypostonline.com/business/6119.htm


cherokee
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:01 - ID#288231)
@.......chop-asaki........

more aboot mr.suicide.......

http://www.aci.net/kalliste/part7.htm

NOBODY KNOWS AS MUCH AS YOU think they do!!!

ALBERICH
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:04 - ID#254112)
@Mike Sheller: Thank you for your response yesterday.
Most of what you wrote I liked.
But the following statement made me kind of sad: " And I find European pretension to superior cultural attitudes boorish."

Sad, because there is a very wide gap in understanding. It's not just the European culture which I'm talking about. I find all true cultures worldwide endangered. And I like to treat them all like precious jewels.

When I find this attitude hurt, to treat cultures with great sensitivity and respect, like something very fragile and precious, I take a protecting stand. I don't think Americans are incapable of this cutural sensitivity. But this cultural sensitivity is not at all characteristic for how America, as a cultural/political entity, acts towards other countries and cutures. America has inherited a lot of British tradition in her ongoing attitude towards other peoples and cultures.

Try not to perceive what I'm saying as a kind of "European cultural arrogance" towards these "American techno-civilized barbarians", try not to perceive what I'm saying as any attempt to show off or to rival with "cultural heritage".
Because of the incredible infuence and importance which this American society has on this globe, I think the best thing what individual Americans can do, is to become modest towads these old cultures on this globe and to treat them like precious jewels.

Mike Sheller
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:05 - ID#347447)
John Disney
I was truly disappointed to have to pass up the Zambia pitch. I already had planned the creative for a campaign where Zambian heads of state, business leaders, and cultural figures set up dinner parties for large groups of tourists and potentially influential visitors, so that they can experience the national hospitality and go back home and ( you'll pardon the expression ) spread the word about Zambia. I had the tag line all worked out: "Zambia - we'd love to have you for dinner!"

cherokee
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:05 - ID#288231)
@..

1990 chart during 6 planet alignment and subsequent
LUNAr eclipse.........

http://www.ucc.uconn.edu/~jpa94001/3000.gif

coincidence or relative....or just fact.

cherokee
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:08 - ID#288231)

icing for the ice..

http://www.inforamp.net/~jwhitley/


cherokee!;..there.are.plans....and.then.there.are.plans...

cherokee
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:09 - ID#288231)

alberich.the.midget....

what happened to the dwarf nomer??...!; )

Mike Sheller
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:14 - ID#347447)
ALBERICH
Since you put it that way, I can hardly disagree. While I believe we are rapidly moving into a new and rare world-culture ( babel? ) of sorts, and welcome it in the spirit of the Aquarian Age it will represent, I esteem the rich elements of the individual cultures that still remain, if only in remnant, on the Earth today. Yes, you are correct - they ARE precious. They should not blind us to our wider humanity and the deeper issues of life, but there is no reason why we cannot unravel our shared understanding and reality while savoring and treasuring the unique aspects of our varied human roots. I was merely misperceiving your motives, judgement of which I always considered a metaphysical crime. Guilty as charged. Forgive me if I was boorish myself. Towad a new day!

Cage Rattler
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:18 - ID#33184)
Zambia and AIDS
My company has one of the top AIDS modelling units in South Africa. The situation with its influence on the population is far more devastating than reported by the popular press. Even in South Africa, there are areas where 1 in 4 are HIV positive - its seems to have affected the non-Black 'groups' far, far less than the Black 'group'.

JTF
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:19 - ID#254321)
What is our greatest challenge?
All: Another thought for Sunday.

What are some of the greatest problems facing the human race that we

must surmount to survive?

I. Financial -- destructive effects of fiat currency eating away at our

economic fabric. Result -- no resources for needed projects.

II. Social -- Our inability to resolve our differences peacefully - war or threat of war increasing. Our tendency to greed and selfishness.

III. Environmental -- Overpopulation, inefficient use of limited

resources.

IV. Isolation -- We live only on one small blue planet. Unwise given

human nature.

These topics are too broad for a brief discussion, but it suffices to say that a major problem with us humans is that we let corrupt leaders guide us, rather than guide ourselves. Humans tend not to object to slowly creeping loss of freedoms, as long as the process is slow. We have the disturbing tendency to adapt to higher taxes, and hour-long commutes, and working two jobs day and night, with spouse having to work too. We must become more active in the political forces that shape our lives, and prevent the fiascos all over the world that our leaders are forcing upon us.

Many nations look to the United States for spiritual leadership, and guidance -- as we are one of the most longer lasting and successful democracies of the world. I am embarrassed to be an American given who inhabits our White House. Even more unfortunate when I know that he is a very talented individual -- probably one of the most well-read and facile presidents we have ever had. Too bad he has no integrity.

Most of our problems could be resolved if we insisted on electing responsible leaders with integrity, and made a 'Manhattan project' out of developing alternate energy and 'free energy'. Our future is in the stars, for more reasons than one. One being that we are running out of resources on this little planet, and we are at risk for ruining the world we have.

Our window to the stars would probably open in 10-20 years after we focused on studing the 'free energy' technology, as this seems to be the secret to the alien technology which drives the craft that occasionally visit this earth. Our governments refuse to release these secrets due to the desire to control. It will not be until these secrets are freely distributed over the net that the future of the human race will be assured.

Interesting, isn't it that if we can overcome our tendency toward greed, and generously release secrets over the net, we can reach the stars? I think there is a lesson there for us, if we can only learn it. The universe is ours -- to be shared with other intelligences, no doubt. But we cannot have it until we grow up a bit more. Hope I will be part of this, and I can see us overcome our problems before I die.

The intelligence and spirit of we humans should not be wasted, bottled up on this little planet. All we need to do is freely share information around the world, and wake up to the fact that our leaders can only do what we let them do. We can shape our future to be whatever we want it to be -- we always could. All we need to do is grow up -- and we need to do it very soon.

Donald
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:22 - ID#26793)
@Jims, Auric
I am a bit skeptical of that $1.25 trillion number myself. Seems to be impossible; I paid 3 bucks for a copy of the Sunday NY Times today and it is on page 1, and they are still using that figure.

CPO@AU
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:26 - ID#329186)
Sharefin( Do lawyers like derivatives ?)ID284 255
Now that is what i call humour really fitting
take car

cpo

Donald
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:27 - ID#26793)
@JTF
If the NY Times story is correct you should change "eating away" to the past tense. Something as basic as the Division of Labor is at stake.

Mike Sheller
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:28 - ID#347447)
cherokee
As I have said many times before - I am not an eclipse man. Nor do planetary alignments ( so-called ) grab my attention necessarily either. I put my astrological faith in planetary transits to corporate horoscopes. So for instance, what would go unnoticed by most scientists, astronomers, and even astrologers is this very interesting bit of chopasaki regarding that chart of the 1990 Dow you called up -

In the first week of August 1990, transiting Jupiter at 27 Cancer made an exact square ( 90 degree aspect angle ) to NYSE Neptune at 27 Libra. As all traditional astrologers know, a square is generally classified as a "tension" or "crisis" angle. Usually "bad news." The key to the equation here was the pressure on NYSE Neptune, which of course occultly symbolizes Oil and Gas ( among other things ) . In the process, that Jupiter in Cancer was also OPPOSING Kuwait's Saturn ( leadership ) in Capricorn, while squaring Iraq's Mars ( planet of War as all mythology buffs know ) . My, my, what coincidences, ey? This is what told a "story" to me. This is the kind of stuff I look for. But then, I'm just an ol' shade-tree astrologer. I leave the eclipse stuff, which I realize has a logic of its own, to the experts like Puetz.

sharefin
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:32 - ID#284255)
JTF
Time out to smell the roses.

Ah! Such a lovely passtime.
I too have been star gazing out in the hills.

T'is a different perspective, one has
When surrounded by such nature.

As for La Nina
Here in OZ we are having a warmer and wetter climate upon us.
And our cyclone frequency has been raised from an average 5 per annum to 12.


sharefin
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:33 - ID#284255)
Japanese Sepuku - still to come?
Japan and the Y2K Dilemma
http://year2000.dci.com/articles/1998/09/23japan.htm

Donald
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:34 - ID#26793)
Korean bailout is coming apart "as useless as Chinese dikes against the Yangtze River"
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/980926/ba.html

JTF
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:35 - ID#254321)
Janet Reno hospitalized -- no surprise
Gollum: I thihk she must be under tremedous pressure these days, as for some reason she has chosen to blindly support WJC in recent years. I have never been impressed by her intelligence, but she did seem at first to be an honest person.

I suspect that a major factor in her behavior has to do with her desire to get continued medical coverage for her Parkinson's. The US government has very generous pensions for career workers. Someone like Janet Reno, and many others are undoubtedly trying to 'hang in there' long enough to get the retirement packages that they think they can get.

I would not let my illness get in the way if I had to compromise my integrity. Not worth it. If you have integrity, and you do not obey your own internal compass, you will destroy yourself, healthcare or no.

I would gladly pay my share for Janet Reno's medical care, if I could be assured that she would do the right thing, and stop getting in the way. I'm not so sure anymore that she has the integrity herself that merits my support. Still some questions about Waco. Did she contribute to that fiasco, or was it out of her control? Don't know, but I don't think history will take kindly to her actions to protect WJC, and block investigations of criminal activity.

Cage Rattler
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:35 - ID#33184)
Japan: Banking system or welfare state?
For foreigners, Japan is a topsy-turvy land where economic theory stands on its head. Nowhere more so than in the banking sector, a gravity-defying edifice which appears to be propping up the entire economy. If you were to rebuild it, you wouldn't start from here. But it has a terrifying logic, eloquently defended by Japan's elite. And remember, they wouldn't be in this mess if the Basle committee had been tougher 10 years ago.

Article ( choose Japan ) : http://www.euromoney.com/index.html

Mike Sheller
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:37 - ID#347447)
Cage Rattler
You are unfortunately right on the mark about the devastation rampant in Africa at present. My research led to comparisons of Zambia with other, neighboring nations, and the results uncovered were frightening. I know one bow-tied ( but not tongue tied ) market commentator who visits on CNBC Friday mornings who a couple of years ago expressed his bullishness on Africa as the "next" low-wage pool for business development. Contrarian that he is, he saw the continent as the next "asia" or "Latin America." Given Africa's resources, there is, on one side, logic to this. But add the aids devastation which seems now unstoppable to the chronic political corruption of these nations and things are indeed dark for the dark continent.

Petronius
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:39 - ID#226273)
JTF - journey to the stars
"Our future is in the stars, for more reasons than one. One being that we are running out of resources on this little planet, and we are at risk for ruining the world we have. "

I really liked your message. I KNOW that if the government got out of it we would be much closer to accomplishing this dream.

Why would anybody try to stop it? It is quite simple. The dream of the promised land outside control of the sick shadow powers is the greatest danger for them. Even worse if it becomes reality. United States was such a dream. It allowed people ( for some time at least ) to break away from feudalism of Europe, to escape the physical or economical slavery.

Now that the shadow powers managed to bring that despicable maverick ( the USA ) under control and kill the dangerous heresy that it is an individual ( and not the government ) that owns and controls the individual's body and actions, why would they let it happen again?

Dreaming of stars? You are insane, very much indeed!

Mike Sheller
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:41 - ID#347447)
Donald
I somehow miss the correlation of Asian lesbians with flood management!!??

Mike Sheller
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:43 - ID#347447)
Petronius, JTF
If we do not address the mangement of our affairs on this "little planet," then we have no future in the stars.

Mike Sheller
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:45 - ID#347447)
Alas, Petronius...
the fault lies not in shadow powers
or in the stars
but that each man canst not see
that when he is true to himself
he is true to thee and me

Donald
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:47 - ID#26793)
@Mike Sheller
Due to the recent Chinese floods they have had to do a lot of repair work on the flood control system. It has been a Bull Market in dikes. Now do you understand?

Earl
(Sun Sep 27 1998 11:48 - ID#227238)
JTF:
It's difficult to read your major sources of concern without relating them to a primary cause. A loss of sense of value.

It seems to me that fiat money and easy credit have, and remain, prime movers in why we find ourselves in our current predicament.

We can measure the situation in a simple fashion. By products whose novelty exceeds their fundamental utility and which possess a half life measured weeks. By the usurpation of quality farm land to build housing far in excess of individual need. By an inordinate personal desire to preen our bogus social position via the clothes we wear and the latest pair of SUVs in the driveway.

All of this and more would be impossible without the extraordinary availability of credit. For only when personal desires are circumscribed by resources available, is it possible to develop and maintain a realistic system of values. Moral as well as financial. IMHO.