McAlvany Weekly Commentary, Nov 18, 2009

Give Me Liberty: An Interview With Naomi Wolf

November 18th, 2009

Author of seven books including The New York Times bestsellers The End of America and Give me liberty, Naomi Wolf compels us to face the way our free America is under assault. She warns us—with the straight-to-fellow-citizens urgency of one of Thomas Paine’s revolutionary pamphlets—that we have little time to lose if our children are to live in real freedom.

Wolf shows that there are ten classic steps dictators or would-be dictators always take when they wish to close down an open society. Each of those ten steps is now underway in the United States today. End of America will shock, enrage, and motivate—spurring us to act, as the Founders would have counted on us to do in a time such as this, as rebels and patriots—to save our liberty and defend our nation.

Naomi Wolf is the cofounder of the American Freedom Campaign. You can learn more about her at: www.fallofamerica.net or www.endofamericamovie.net To purchase her latest book, go to: http://mcalvany.com/main/resources/books/

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HUMOR

Mobius Expects 40% BRIC Stocks Gain, Says Buy on Dips

Mark Mobius said stocks in Brazil, Russia, India and China are likely to rise by 30 to 40 percent within three to four years as higher economic growth and lower government debt spurs corporate earnings.

Mobius, chairman of Templeton Asset Management Ltd., said he’s increasing holdings in all emerging markets, with particular focus on the four biggest developing-nation economies collectively known as the BRICs.

“BRIC countries are really at the top” of our favorite holdings, Mobius, who oversees about $25 billion of emerging- market assets, said in an interview at the sidelines of a press conference in Istanbul today. “You can see BRIC countries have been best performing.”

Russia’s RTS Index has surged 135 percent this year, the biggest gainer among 89 equity gauges worldwide, and Brazil, China and India rallied more than 75 percent as the global economic recovery spurred demand for commodity exports. While developed countries may shrink 4 percent this year, emerging markets as a whole may avoid a contraction with zero change in gross domestic product, Mobius said. (more)

Local Currencies: The missing link in the quest for sustainability

Currency is the lifeblood of an economic system. Most people think that there’s only one type of money, because that’s all they’ve ever known. Cheques and credit cards etc. represent special-purpose forms of cash, but money is money, they think, regardless of the form it takes. Few realise that there are, potentially at least, many different forms of money, and each type can affect the economy, human society and the natural environment in a different way.

Bernard Lietaer, research fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Resources, California, and author of "The Future of Money" (2001), says

‘We create our exchange systems and then they create the world we live in.’

Richard Douthwaite, author of "The Ecology of Money" (1999), says

‘If we wish to live more ecologically, it would make sense to adopt monetary systems that make it easier to do so.’ (more)

The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society

The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S.
public and society is unraveling at an increased rate.
I: U.S. Societal Breakdown
You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Before exposing the root causes of this breakdown, let’s look at some vital statistics and facts:

* The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The US already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the middle class and poor much harder than the top one percent, the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99% of the US population has grown to a record high. (more)

Société Générale tells clients how to prepare for 'global collapse'

In a report entitled "Worst-case debt scenario", the bank's asset team said state rescue packages over the last year have merely transferred private liabilities onto sagging sovereign shoulders, creating a fresh set of problems.

Overall debt is still far too high in almost all rich economies as a share of GDP (350pc in the US), whether public or private. It must be reduced by the hard slog of "deleveraging", for years.

"As yet, nobody can say with any certainty whether we have in fact escaped the prospect of a global economic collapse," said the 68-page report, headed by asset chief Daniel Fermon. It is an exploration of the dangers, not a forecast.

Under the French bank's "Bear Case" scenario, the dollar would slide further and global equities would retest the March lows. Property prices would tumble again. Oil would fall back to $50 in 2010. (more)

Gold in the Face of the Fiat Fallout

Gold hit a new record yesterday. The price rose $22.50 to $1,139.

And today we take up a foul and disagreeable task. We ask ourselves: what if we are wrong?

If you bought gold when we first recommended it, ten years ago, you are in a very comfortable position. Gold sells for more than 4 times as much today. But what should you do now? And what if you didn’t go for broke on gold in the early ’00s? Is it too late to get in on the bull market?

To give you a warning, in the following windy ambulation we come to no conclusion we haven’t come to before. We say gold is going to the moon. If we are wrong about when…we will be delighted sooner than expected…self-satisfied…and insufferable for years. If we are right, we may have to wait a long time before saying “I told you so.” (more)

Gold "Offers Buying Opportunity" as Monetary Debauchment & Peak Output Make $5000 "Possible" by End-2010

THE PRICE OF GOLD retreated from its seventh new record high in 11 sessions early Tuesday, dipping 1.3% from Monday's late top as world stock markets also fell for only the fourth time in November so far.

Crude oil fell and the US Dollar bounced on the forex market after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke spoke of a "Strong Dollar" in his annual speech to the Economics Club of New York.

Citing 10% unemployment and weak GDP growth, however, he said the Fed "will calibrate the timing and pace of any future tightening [of interest rates from 0%] to best foster maximum employment and price stability." (MORE)