Ron Paul 2012.

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

Jacob Riis

Gold had another up day with stocks, as it was ‘risk on’ with renewed hopes for fresh infusions of liquidity as we saw from the Bank of England.

I tended to view this action as more ‘technical’ than fundamental.

I don’t like the headline correlation between stocks and the metals like gold and silver which would normally function as a safe haven in a time of increased risk.

Notice the new lines of broad support and resistance levels on the gold chart. We have not yet broken to the upside, so caution is advised.

h/t Silver Doctors

Excerpt: “[fiat currencies] have no inherent value.”. Reminds me of Voltaire’s classic Paper money always returns to its intrinsic value — zero.

0811 the Greatest Trade of All Time-1

Via Zero Hedge and Sprott Management

Word is getting out. The establishment doesn’t like Ron Paul. That’s part of the reason I’m voting for him.

By the way, that was Drew Griffin of CNN with the “hold the Ron Paul stuff line”. Unreal.

“Ron Paul’s the real deal, and Fox News should love this guy” -Jon Stewart

Hayek: ”Six weeks later he was dead, and couldn’t do it. I believe he would have been fighting the inflationary policy”.

More on Hayek/Keynes in this must-read Reason.com article:

Reason: Of your bestselling The Road to Serfdom, John Maynard Keynes wrote: “In my opinion it is a grand book…. Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it: and not only in agreement with it, but in deeply moved agreement.” Why would Keynes say this about a volume that was deeply critical of the Keynesian viewpoint?

Hayek: Because he believed that he was fundamentally still a classical English liberal and wasn’t quite aware of how far he had moved away from it. His basic ideas were still those of individual freedom. He did not think systematically enough to see the conflicts. He was, in a sense, corrupted by political necessity. His famous phrase about, “in the long run we’re all dead,” is a verv good illustration of being constrained by what is now politicallv possible. He stopped thinking about what, in the long run, is desirable. For that reason, I think it will turn out that he will not be a maker of long-run opinion, and his ideas were of a fashion which, fortunately, is now passing away.

Reason: Did Keynes turn around in his later years, as has frequently been rumored?

Hayek: Nothing as drastic as that. He was fluctuating all the time. He was in a sort of middle line and he was always concerned with expediency for the moment. In the last conversation I had with him (about three weeks before his death in 1945), I asked him if he wasn’t getting alarmed about what some of his pupils were doing with his ideas. And he said,” Oh, they’re just fools. These ideas were frightfully important in the 1930s, but if these ideas ever become dangerous, you can trust me—I’m going to turn public opinion around like this.” And he would have done it! I’m sure that in the post-war period Keynes would have become one of the great fighters against inflation.

By Jesse of Jesse’s Cafe Americain

“It appears that there is an undeliverable force heading towards an unmanageable object.”

At some point the shysters will lose control of the monetary papier-mâché which they have created. And the subsequent reaction could be epic, with the almost inevitable force of nature, like a tsunami rolling in.

Only a few people understand this. So it could be quite the surprise to many.

In the meantime the bankers and politicians are scrambling for the goodies pouring out of the financial piñata which they cracked open in the financial crisis.

The banks have plenty of gold to lease into the bullion banks, and then on into the markets and as collateral for leveraged paper obligations. But they are running out of silver, which causes me to believe that the silver cartel will break first, and will lead the way higher, as it has been doing.  A handful of Too Big To Fail Banks seem to be short more silver than can possibly be delivered without incurring terrific losses, even by today’s distorted standards.  From the looks of it, it appears that there is an undeliverable force heading towards an unmanageable object. Further complicating matters is the possibility of a magnitude 9.6 sovereign debt earthquake in the markets.

Unless there is some forced settlement, some draconian government intervention, silver appears to be a leading candidate for the manipulated market most likely to go super nova.

If the equity market does not fall apart over Greece et al., I would imagine that the trading desks will try to stand on the metals until a little closer to quarter end, then its elevator going up. But watch out for a Greek related problem. I am not sure how the markets might react to this if it really is another Lehman like event. So as you might expect I am running a paired trade, and net short into the close.

The dollar chart is a big problematic. I can make a scenario for a break either higher or lower from the chart. I think we will know the move when it comes, but predicting it in advance is a dicey thing, except for the broken clocks.

If the sovereign default situation goes badly there *could* be a liquidation selloff that would impact silver, and to some extent gold. This is why I am holding paired trades that are short stocks and long bullion. I further adjusted the risk downward today, and lengthened the shorts.

Re-published with author permission.

Lawmakers and investors shouldn’t take comfort in low U.S. borrowing costs because markets are often “complacent” about the risk from excessive deficit spending, said James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

“When it does blow up it will be too late,” Bullard said in an interview last month in New York. “When markets lose confidence in the U.S. and say that they don’t trust us any more, rates will skyrocket and the crisis will be upon you.”

He’s right, of course. Interest rates can’t stay low forever. If (when) the world does start to lose faith in America’s ability to reign in spending and cut debt, things could get crazy for a while. And quickly.

Mr. Bullard points to Greece as an example. Just a year and a half ago, the Greek 10-year yielded around 5.5%. Today that number is closer to 17%. 18 months later.

Trying to raise more debt at those levels would be ludicrous. Like trying to run a national budget on a high-interest credit card. Unsustainable, impossible. Nobody wants to buy your debt, you’ve sold quite enough already. But thanks.

While it is somewhat refreshing to hear such talk from a sitting Fed president, let’s be real. It’s meaningless, and in actuality Bullard is just one of the more hawkish doves. Hoenig’s on the way out, and he was the closest thing to a senior power-wielding “quasi-hawk” we had.

To say that most of Bullard’s colleagues do not share his concerns would be an understatement. And unfortunately, they’re the ones who call the shots.

Bill Dudley, ex-Goldman director and current head of the powerful NY Fed, who continually reassures us about the recovery’s “self-sustaining” nature, is among the uberly-dovish leaders.

By the way, isn’t it difficult to imagine how one could possibly, in any way, call the current economy self-sustaining? Self-destructive would work. But to say this recovery is organic in any way, as the central bank simultaneously injects historically-unprecedented amounts of liquidity into the market, is borderline moronic.

Interest rates are prices, and they are screwing with this fundamental aspect of the economy in a very dangerous way.

And they’re not just “juicin things up a lil” or “primin’ the pump a bit” at this point. They’re sloshing gasoline all over the place. More fuel to come, right after they let things cool down for a little while. My guess: QE3 starts late fall, early winter at latest.

Dudley is only co-captain of the dove brigade, of course. He shares that honor with the Bernank and Janet Yellen, both dedicated printers with a natural, clueless optimism about them. And a knack for ignoring things that affect small people, like price inflation.

There are no extremists at the Fed. No major opposing schools of thought, or vigorously debated theories. Only varying levels of conformity, best I can tell. Those at the Fed who experience (much frowned-upon) bouts of “hawkish urges” are hopelessly outnumbered, and outgunned politically.