Tuesday 01-22-13

A new Gold Standard is being born

The world is moving step by step towards a de facto Gold Standard, without any meetings of G20 leaders to announce the idea or bless the project.
Some readers will already have seen the GFMS Gold Survey for 2012 which reported that central banks around the world bought more bullion last year in terms of tonnage than at any time in almost half a century.
They added a net 536 tonnes in 2012 as they diversified fresh reserves away from the four fiat suspects: dollar, euro, sterling, and yen.
The Washington Accord, where Britain, Spain, Holland, Switzerland, and others sold a chunk of their gold each year, already seems another era – the Gordon Brown era, you might call it.
That was the illusionary period when investors thought the euro would take its place as the twin pillar of a new G2 condominium alongside the dollar. That hope has faded. Central bank holdings of euro bonds have fallen back to 26pc, where they were almost a decade ago.
Neither the euro nor the dollar can inspire full confidence, although for different reasons. EMU is a dysfunctional construct, covering two incompatible economies, prone to lurching from crisis to crisis, without a unified treasury to back it up. The dollar stands on a pyramid of debt. We all know that this debt will be inflated away over time – for better or worse. The only real disagreement is over the speed.
The central bank buyers are of course the rising powers of Asia and the commodity bloc, now holders of two thirds of the world’s $11 trillion foreign reserves, and all its incremental reserves.
It is no secret that China is buying the dips, seeking to raise the gold share of its reserves well above 2pc. Russia has openly targeted a 10pc share. Variants of this are occurring from the Pacific region to the Gulf and Latin America. And now the Bundesbank has chosen to pull part of its gold from New York and Paris.
Personally, I doubt that Buba had any secret agenda, or knows something hidden from the rest of us. It responded to massive popular pressure and prodding from lawmakers in the Bundestag to bring home Germany’s gold. Yet that is not the end of the story. The fact that this popular pressure exists – and is well-organised – reflects a breakdown in trust between the major democracies and economic powers. It is a new political fact in the global system.
Pimco’s Mohammed El Erian said this may have a knock-on effect:
“In the first instance, it could translate into pressures on other countries to also repatriate part of their gold holdings. After all, if you can safely store your gold at home — a big if for some countries — no government would wish to be seen as one of the last to outsource all of this activity to foreign central banks.
If developments are limited to this problem, there would be no material impact on the functioning and well-being of the global economy. If, however, perceptions of growing mutual mistrusts translate into larger multilateral tensions, then the world would find itself facing even greater difficulties resolving payments imbalances and resisting beggar-thy-neighbour national policies.
“The most likely outcome right now is for Germany’s decision to have minimum systemic impact. But should this be wrong and the decision fuel greater suspicion – a risk scenario rather than the baseline – the resulting hit to what remains in multilateral policy co-operation would be problematic for virtually everybody.
As I reported on Tuesday, gold veteran Jim Sinclair thinks it is an earthquake, comparing it to Charles de Gaulle’s decision to pull French gold from New York in the late 1960s – the precursor to the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system three years later when Nixon suspended gold conversion.
Mr Sinclair predicts that the Bundesbank’s action will prove the death knell of dollar power. I do not really see where this argument leads. Currencies were fixed in de Gaulle’s time. They float today. It is within the EMU fixed-exchange system – ie between Germany and Spain – that we see an (old) Gold Standard dynamic at work with all its destructive power, and the risk of sudden ruptures always present. The global system is supple. It bends to pressures.
My guess is that any new Gold Standard will be sui generis, and better for it. Let gold will take its place as a third reserve currency, one that cannot be devalued, and one that holds the others to account, but not so dominant that it hitches our collective destinies to the inflationary ups (yes, gold was highly inflationary after the Conquista) and the deflationary downs of global mine supply. That would indeed be a return to a barbarous relic.
Hopefully, it will be nothing like the interwar system. That was a dollar peg that transmitted US deflation to the whole world when the Fed tightened too hard in 1928 and went berserk in 1930.
A third reserve currency is just what America needs. As Prof Micheal Pettis from Beijing University has argued, holding the world’s reserve currency is an “exorbitant burden” that the US could do without.
The Triffin Dilemma – advanced by the Belgian economist Robert Triffin in the 1960s – suggests that the holder of the paramount currency faces an inherent contradiction.

It must run a structural trade deficit over time to keep the system afloat, but this will undermine its own economy. The system self-destructs.
A partial Gold Standard – created by the global market, and beholden to nobody – is the best of all worlds. It offers a store of value (though no yield). It acts a balancing force. It is not dominant enough to smother the system.
Let us have three world currencies, a tripod with a golden leg. It might even be stable.


http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100022332/a-new-gold-standard-is-being-born/

Some (stuff they call) news i purposeful skip one of the recent articles was about how the NRA in an advertisement used an example of the putting guards in schools, saying  something like, well if it is good enough for the presidents kids it ought to be good enough for everyone's kids.  Well then some of the MSM get on the advertisement and say it is unfair (which was one of the more mild responses) well what hypocrites, they want to do as they have for so long, use the news and then shape it for you so you dont have to decide they do it for you.  You need to think for yourself.

Speaking of ignorant and not thinking just parroting what someone told we have the opinion of Danny Glover good actor but pretty stupid. imo. 

Actor Danny Glover tells students 2nd Amendment was created to protect slavery

The Constitution's Second Amendment was created to bolster slavery and capture land from Native Americans, award winning actor Danny Glover told a group of students at a Texas A&M sponsored event on Thursday.

“I don’t know if you know the genesis of the right to bear arms,” he said. “The Second Amendment comes from the right to protect themselves from slave revolts, and from uprisings by Native Americans.”
“A revolt from people who were stolen from their land or revolt from people whose land was stolen from, that’s what the genesis of the second amendment is,” he continued.
Glover, best known for roles in the “Lethal Weapon” franchise and “Angels in the Outfield,” was addressing students at an event being held in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Director of Texas A&M’s Memorial Student Center, Luke Altendorf, told Campus Reform on Friday that the university was unaware of Glover’ talking points prior to his speech.
“I had no idea, we really didn’t know that topic was coming up,” he told Campus Reform. “Someone was asking a question about activism, I think that’s where some of that came from.”
Altendorf declined to say if, or how much the school had paid for Glover’s speech, but said student fees were not used.

(excerpt from article)

http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?ID=4582

Easier Flashlight Mod Increases Run Time 3.6X    

We are going to take a long run time flashlight (65 hours) and turn it into a longer run time flashlight (Update: The title of this Instructable says 3.6x run time but actual run time ended up being over 360 hours).

 Yes it is another long run time flashlight hack. This one is easier than my other one. All you need a resistor, a soldering iron and this flashlight.
This Eveready flashlight (model number 5109LSH7 or 5109LS) costs $4.97 at Lowes:
(This is a great long run time flashlight to have even if you don’t do the modification.)
Where to buy:

http://www.lowes.com/pd_355538-346-5109LSH7_0__?productId=3413164&Ntt=flaslight&Ns=p_product_price|0

I just picked up another one at my local Lowes. I like this flashlight because as is it has a long run time before the battery needs to be replaced (65 hours). It is bright. It is cheap and it is easy to hack. You can do this hack in 10 or 15 minutes and most of that time will be waiting for your soldering iron to heat up.
The only thing about this flashlight that is less than optimum is that the 3 LEDS have a little too much current going through them. The LEDS appear to be “straw hat” type (20 milliamp) LEDS. Each LED has about 60 milliamps running through it.

Here is a data sheet for a straw hat LED:

http://lighthouseleds.com/downloads/dl/file/id/113/5mm_straw_hat_led_cool_white_datasheet.pdf
The LEDS in this flashlight may be specially made to handle more current but in case they are not, this modification will bring the current down to a level that will insure tens of thousands of hours of LED life.
I chose to add a 56 ohm resistor to the circuit so each LED runs at about 16.5 milliamps. This will increase the run time by 3.6 times.
The other step by step instructable to make a long run time flashlight is here:
http://www.instructables.com/id/20-Cent-Upgrade-350-Flashlight-500-Hour-Run-/?allstep

Either one will be good to have in an extended power outage.

Step 1

Un-solder

You will need to unscrew the black ring that hold the clear plastic cover on the front of the flashlight. Then remove the assembly shown in the picture above. Install the battery and re-assemble the flashlight. Test the flashlight to make sure it works. Remove the rind and assembly shown in the picture above. Un-solder one of the two red wires from it’s metal contact. I chose the one on the left.

Step 2

Solder The Resistor

Now lets select a resistor. I chose a 56 ohm resistor which reduced the current in the circuit going to the 3 LEDS to 50 milliamps (it was 180 milliamps before the modification). Here are some other resistor values and the currents I measured:
44 ohms (two 22 ohm in series) = 56 milliamps

You may want to try out some other resistors for longer run time or higher brightness. I was going for 200+ hours of run time which is about a month of use if used 6 hours a day.
100 ohms = 31 milliamps
Solder one end of the resistor to the metal contact and the other end of the resistor to the wire that was originally attached to the metal contact.

Step 3

Testing

The first picture shows the light from an unmodified flashlight on the left and a modified flashlight on the right. Note that the light on the right is produced using 3.6 times less power or about 28% of the power to produce the light on the left. The picture of the warning sign was taken using only the light from the modified flashlight at a distance of 18 feet (camera on zoom).

Long run time flashlights make great gifts. Make several for the people on your gift list. They are also great for emergencies. This one is good for a 3.6 x bigger emergency.
Update 11-10-12.
I started a test to see how long the batteries would last running 24 hours a day. The test started on the morning of 10-26-12. I was expecting a 200 hour run time. After 15 days (360 hours). The flashlight still puts out a usable amount of light. I can still read with it without any problem. I also got the opinion of a fellow flashlight enthusiast who thinks the flashlight is still useful for its intended purpose which is for the user to be able to easily see their way around the house in the dark and be able to easily read. The flashlight is noticeably dimmer than it was at the beginning of the test so I would conclude that this is a 360 hour flashlight. It has exceeded my expectations because the run time has been increased 5.5x. If I was using this flashlight 6 hours a day the test would have taken 60 days to get to this point.
If this had been a real emergency I would gladly use this flashlight several more days.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Flashlight-Mod-Increases-Run-Time-36X/step3/Testing/