Bolitics The New Condem Government

[JulieB]

George Soros warns of financial collapse and class warfare in a chilling interview with Newsweek's John Alridge.

“At times like these, survival is the most important thing,” he says, peering through his owlish glasses and brushing wisps of gray hair off his forehead. He doesn’t just mean it’s time to protect your assets. He means it’s time to stave off disaster. As he sees it, the world faces one of the most dangerous periods of modern history—a period of “evil.” Europe is confronting a descent into chaos and conflict. In America he predicts riots on the streets that will lead to a brutal clampdown that will dramatically curtail civil liberties. The global economic system could even collapse altogether.

“I am not here to cheer you up. The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career,” Soros tells Newsweek. “We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.”

These days Soros is holding mostly cash -- he calls gold "the ultimate bubble -- along with European bonds he picked up in the MF Global firesale -- judge for yourself whether they were a cutthroat investment or altruistic support for Europe.

In Davos this week, expect Soros to give the counterpoint to Angela Merkel and Mario Draghi's optimism on the eurozone.

LINK

[TrentVilla]

So isn't Soros saying gold isn't the answer and cash is contrary to your previous post?

[tonyh29]

India has bought a load of oil off Iran

must admit when I heard of the EU sanctions on Iran I figured it would be the Chinese that made that move .... seems India are on the ball as well though ...next step stock pile it and flog it to the Europeans at a huge profit

[JulieB]

I am not sure buying gold & silver is really going to solve our problems? Is it going to bring back all the dead from WWI? Is it going to bring back industry? Is it going to cure the common cold? Is it going to bring back grammar schools? Is it going to stop random acts of violence on our streets?

Will it make us happy?

No it won't of course not.

However it's about the only thing anyone can do to hedge IF the global financial system goes into meltdown. We were minutes away from it in 2008 when Lehman's crashed. Both Hank Paulson & Alistair Campbell have said as much. The time when the biggest Asset Manager on the planet admists he rang his wife to go immediately to the cash point and withdraw cash.

IIRC Belgium and somewhere else possibly Canada.. I can't quite remember have already banned in the last few weeks cash transactions over a limit of about £1,000.

[JulieB]

So isn't Soros saying gold isn't the answer and cash is contrary to your previous post?

Yes he is. However he's assuming the financial system will survive. THEN if it does recover GOLD will be overvalued, however long term look back Gold has been a good investment.

Listening to other commentators and analysts they disagree. If the US loses the Dollar Standard as the implement of international trade. Then the Dollar will collapse. The US government know that - which is why they're willing to go to war to stop it happening.

I think at this juncture buying a little Gold & Silver is a good option. You can always sell it later on. As I said Silver is up 20% on the year.

[TrentVilla]

No offence Julie but I think I'll take the advise of the billionaire on this one

[JulieB]

The bonus of buying silver also is hearing that JPMorgan took out huge short positions on Silver last year hoping the price would nose dive. It didn't - because more and more people are wising up to what's happening and buying the stuff. The more people buy silver the more the price will go up.

Bonus - JPMorgan - a financial terrorist LOSE!

Like I said in another thread these are predators - they know Greece & French Banks have masses of these toxic debts - because Goldman Sachs et al SOLD these CDOs to them. They know where the dead bodies are buried and they going after them big time. Last week saw the biggest trades in dervatives at anytime in history in the City of London! They don't care if Europe collapses - they're just interested in next years bonus!

Pity the big Solar Flare isn't heading straight for Wall St & the City of London. Perhaps it would dish out some automatic electro shock treatment to make them see sense!.

[JulieB]

No offence Julie but I think I'll take the advise of the billionaire on this one

Personally I don't think anyone knows what's going to happen next.

It might be volatile but judge for yourself what's happened to Gold.

Now just imagine what this graph will look like if the world abandons the Dollar Standard for Oil and International trade and moves to a new Gold Standard!

[peterms]

So isn't Soros saying gold isn't the answer and cash is contrary to your previous post?

Yes he is. However he's assuming the financial system will survive. THEN if it does recover GOLD will be overvalued, however long term look back Gold has been a good investment.

Depends what you compare it with. Gold is traditionally a thing people buy in times of great uncertainty, but that doesn't necessarily make it a good buy. Soros will have thought about this quite hard over a long period, I expect.

Here's a comparison (adjusted for inflation) of gold prices vs house prices over about the last 40 years. In the gold chart, the inflation-adjusted is the lowest of the three lines.

This says to me that unless you know when gold is about to start climbing and when it has peaked, then you are unlikely to have done better by buying gold than by investing in property, except by sheer fluke; and most people will have done better through property than they ever could have through gold. So when Soros calls gold the ultimate bubble, he's perhaps overstating - that prize might go to property. Though you can at least live in a house. ie it's a consumption good as well as a speculative investment.

[JulieB]

[JulieB]

Here's a comparison (adjusted for inflation) of gold prices vs house prices over about the last 40 years. In the gold chart, the inflation-adjusted is the lowest of the three lines.

1. That graph doesn't take into account that the banks have been deliberately caught manipulating the prices of Gold & Silver as well during that period.

2. The Investment Banks and the monetary system do not want people to invest in precious metals. They don't make any money - Instead they want them to invest in their speculatives to falsely inflate their balance sheets so that they can claim bigger bonuses.

3. 40 years ago derivative trading was tightly regulated. We're in a whole new world now and we're dealing with the REAL power houses here.

Forget Labour, Conservative or Liberal, Republican, Democrat politics... it's all meaningless.

[LondonLax]

I think we may have missed the boat with buying gold and silver.

As with all these things, if the man in the pub (or on the football forum!) is talking about the investment then you have missed out on the correct time to buy.

[JulieB]

Listening to Mervyn King today whilst deriding the bankers & elite bonus culture - he's vowing to give them MORE welfare - in the shape of Quantative Easing - it's like Breastfeeding the terrorists!

If you and I went out and printed money we'd be arrested as enemies of the state.

Yet the US & UK government are doing it by the Trillions. It's no different.

Quantative Easing = Printing Money with NO assets to justify it.

Welfare Benefits V Quantiative Easing what's the difference? The Recipient that's WHO. One is the peasants the other is the Banksters.

Guess which side is getting cut - and which side is being increased?

EVERY time the Bank of England hands out more QE to these rogues it devalues the Pound and makes us pay more for everything in the long run.

[JulieB]

I think we may have missed the boat with buying gold and silver.

As with all these things, if the man in the pub (or on the football forum!) is talking about the investment then you have missed out on the correct time to buy.

And THAT is exactly what the financial terrorists wants us to beleive. That it's all too complicated for average Joe and we should just leave it to the experts.

The very experts who are in the meantime raping and pillaging the financial system behind the bike sheds for all it's worth.

It's disgraceful what's going on - but people don't realise.....how many are aware of what's happened for instance in the bankruptcy of MF Global in the US? JPMorgan have gone to first the bankruptices court then the legislators in Washington to change laws - to make the investment bank a preferential creditor. The investor therefore will be the last party to be paid out if one a financial company fails.

Instead the Investment Bank who has probably hastened their downfall and will profit by it like Lehman's competitors, if it has any assets within the company - will gain yet again!

It's financial immorality being perpetrated on a massive scale!

WE ALL need to get educated and SEE what's happening!

[peterms]

1. That graph doesn't take into account that the banks have been deliberately caught manipulating the prices of Gold & Silver as well during that period.

They have manipulated the price of property, commodities and other things as well. But in respect of the point that gold is not necessarily the best place to put your money, surely the point is what the price is, has been over a long period, and is likely to be in the future, rather than which organisations have most influenced it?

2. The Investment Banks and the monetary system do not want people to invest in precious metals. They don't make any money - Instead they want them to invest in their speculatives to falsely inflate their balance sheets so that they can claim bigger bonuses.

Yes, I'm sure banks would rather people bought the financial "products" they push than other things. (Inverted commas because these things are not products. Tools, loaves, houses and things like that are products. A better word for what banks sell might be mirages, or scams, or Ponzi schemes).

3. 40 years ago derivative trading was tightly regulated. We're in a whole new world now and we're dealing with the REAL power houses here.

Forget Labour, Conservative or Liberal, Republican, Democrat politics... it's all meaningless.

These power houses are still, to their dismay, wholly dependent on governments. Some governments seem not to realise that. We need to choose politicians who will question the nonsense about "you can't buck the markets", rather than sliding into the cesspit of lunches, directorships and speaking tours. Impose some proper regulation. Ignore the tears, threats, and foot-stamping. Do something that benefits ordinary people, not the parasitic skivers who suck the lifeblood from the economy.

[JulieB]

These power houses are still, to their dismay, wholly dependent on governments. Some governments seem not to realise that. We need to choose politicians who will question the nonsense about "you can't buck the markets", rather than sliding into the cesspit of lunches, directorships and speaking tours. Impose some proper regulation. Ignore the tears, threats, and foot-stamping. Do something that benefits ordinary people, not the parasitic skivers who suck the lifeblood from the economy

I'm sorry but I disagree - the saying is "Goldman Sachs rules the World" and I can't really argue against it.

Not one single bankster has been held accountable by a regulator or a government for the global financial collapse ANYWHERE in the world as far as I am aware. They own the political parties in both the US & the UK and across the globe.

Cameron and Obama got elected on a tide of promising to bring the bankers to heal. Instead they've both failed miserably. And what's more Obama has put in place the same people who were on the watch with George Bush when the 1st global financial crisis took place in 2008.

Nothings changed...it's just the chess pieces have been shuffled around the board.

Because they are powerless in the face of these global megolithic financial instituitons who make massive donations and pay government advisers and lobbyists to make sure they put in place the right people who they require to be in power to halt any form of regulation of the derivatives markets.

THIS is what Occupy Wall Street has been protesting against. Whilst their onlookers toast them at lunch on their plush balconies with champagne!

Perhaps if a forecasted "bank holiday" really does come upon us all, similar to what happened in Argentina in 2002 people will finally wake up!

[PauloBarnesi]

Well lets go back to what I said, which prompted your original comment.

Is buying gold and silver going to lead to the reintroduction of grammar schools?

No wonder the US and Israel are itching for a War with Iran. Both Iraq, Libya (and we all know what happened to them) and now Iran are trying to move away from a Dollar Standard Oil price to a Gold Standard.

So the US and Israel (or most of Western Europe) aren’t threatened by the possibility of nuclear proliferation? And in fact they are scared of something else. The Jewish state isn’t really fearful of the most prominent anti-semitic state getting nuclear weapons? All these hits on nuclear scientists are in fact to do with the economy? I am confused? Do you know something I don’t? And are you suggesting that the US was behind the collapse of Gadaffi and that the Libyan people weren’t really involved?

You seem to be deriding the world of bankers, wall street & the city, yet you

Listening to more and more analysts that this Eurozone crisis is getting serious and I can see the day getting nearer & nearer that the West will have no choice but to abandon paper currency and we'll all be dealing instead in a standard of Gold & Silver

Who are these analysts? Do they work outside of the system? Do they work for the credit agencies?

I think also people voted for Cameron and Obama because they weren’t the other guy. I doubt many people voted for them to change the system, and if they did they are naïve...

[tonyh29]

the saying is "Goldman Sachs rules the World"

it was said by one man ( maybe two if you count Mel Gibson) who may or may not have been part of the "yesmen " hoax group

that hardly makes it a "saying" and hardly makes it true

[peterms]

No wonder the US and Israel are itching for a War with Iran. Both Iraq, Libya (and we all know what happened to them) and now Iran are trying to move away from a Dollar Standard Oil price to a Gold Standard.

So the US and Israel (or most of Western Europe) aren’t threatened by the possibility of nuclear proliferation? And in fact they are scared of something else. The Jewish state isn’t really fearful of the most prominent anti-semitic state getting nuclear weapons? All these hits on nuclear scientists are in fact to do with the economy? I am confused? Do you know something I don’t? And are you suggesting that the US was behind the collapse of Gadaffi and that the Libyan people weren’t really involved?

The concern for the US is partly about the fears of Israel, which wants to be the only nuclear power in the region, and its consequent manipulation of US domestic politics via its extensive lobbying operation.

Probably a bigger concern is the existence of countries which have enough economic power to act independently instead of being a client state of the US. The US really doesn't want to see a currency other than the dollar become the global reserve currency. When states like Iran, Iraq, Libya not only trade their oil elsewhere but also look to use a currency other than the dollar, that is most unwelcome. It's much better that they keep their populations docile while ensuring a steady supply of oil to the West and a continued acceptance of the dollar as the world's currency.

If the US were not the world's reserve currency, and countries like China continued to become less willing to keep on and on buying US debt, that could be extremely unwelcome news for the US. If Iran is in any respect a threat to the US, then it's in respect of being one of the factors in this gradual economic shift rather than nuclear power. Though nuclear power is thought to make countries less susceptible to being bullied.

[peterms]

the saying is "Goldman Sachs rules the World"

it was said by one man ( maybe two if you count Mel Gibson) who may or may not have been part of the "yesmen " hoax group

that hardly makes it a "saying" and hardly makes it true

I agree. If governments want to become less dependent on these firms, they should do away with the pretence that in order to fund public spending we have to "borrow" from money markets. Take back the power of money creation to the government, where it should always have stayed, and we would see the banks through the correct end of the telescope.