Posts Tagged ‘gold’

LinkSwarm for July 28, 2023

Friday, July 28th, 2023

The Hunter Biden scandals refuse to go away, California continues to hemorrhage taxpayers, Texas teachers behaving very badly, more Flu Manchu heart attacks, and a golden new parking aid. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal collapsed. Here’s former federal prosecutor Will Scharf discussing how the DoJ’s trickery backfired:

    Typically, if the Government is offering to a defendant that it will either drop charges or decline to bring new charges in return for the defendant’s guilty plea, the plea is structured under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(A). An agreement not to prosecute Hunter for FARA violations or other crimes in return for his pleading guilty to the tax misdemeanors, for example, would usually be a (c)(1)(A) plea. This is open, transparent, subject to judicial approval, etc.

    In Hunter’s case, according to what folks in the courtroom have told me, Hunter’s plea was structured under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(B), which is usually just a plea in return for a joint sentencing recommendation only, and contained no information on its face about other potential charges, and contained no clear agreement by DOJ to forego prosecution of other charges.

    Instead, DOJ and Hunter’s lawyers effectively hid that part of the agreement in what was publicly described as a pretrial diversion agreement relating to a § 922(g)(3) gun charge against Hunter for being a drug user in possession of a firearm.

    That pretrial diversion agreement as written was actually MUCH broader than just the gun charge. If Hunter were to complete probation, the pretrial diversion agreement prevented DOJ from ever bringing charges against Hunter for any crimes relating to the offense conduct discussed in the plea agreement, which was purposely written to include his foreign influence peddling operations in China and elsewhere.

    So they put the facts in the plea agreement, but put their non-prosecution agreement in the pretrial diversion agreement, effectively hiding the full scope of what DOJ was offering and Hunter was obtaining through these proceedings. Hunter’s upside from this deal was vast immunity from further prosecution if he finished a couple years of probation, and the public wouldn’t be any the wiser because none of this was clearly stated on the face of the plea agreement, as would normally be the case.

    Judge Noreika smelled a rat. She understood that the lawyers were trying to paint her into a corner and hide the ball. Instead, she backed DOJ and Hunter’s lawyers into a corner by pulling all the details out into the open and then indicating that she wasn’t going to approve a deal as broad as what she had discovered.

    DOJ, attempting to save face and save its case, then stated on the record that the investigation into Hunter was ongoing and that Hunter remained susceptible to prosecution under FARA. Hunter’s lawyers exploded. They clearly believed that FARA was covered under the deal, because as written, the pretrial diversion agreement language was broad enough to cover it. They blew up the deal, Hunter pled not guilty, and that’s the current state of play.

    And so here we are. Hunter’s lawyers and DOJ are going to go off and try to pull together a new set of agreements, likely narrower, to satisfy Judge Noreika. Fortunately, I doubt if FARA or any charges related to Hunter’s foreign influence peddling will be included, which leaves open the possibility of further investigations leading to further prosecutions.

  • More on how Hunter Biden’s sweetheart deal blew up.

    The Hunter Biden defense and the Biden Justice Department hid the sweeping immunity term, shielding Hunter from all future prosecution, in a “diversion agreement” related to the gun offense on which Hunter was not pleading guilty and is anticipated not to be prosecuted. (See here, p. 7, para. 15.) The “diversion agreement” is separate from the plea agreement to the misdemeanor tax charges (see here) — i.e., the only charges to which Hunter actually planned to plead guilty. The plea agreement is where one would ordinarily find the all-important immunity term (since the immunity is given by the government in exchange for the guilty plea). Both the diversion agreement and the plea agreement incorporate an outrageous statement of facts (which is appended to the tax plea agreement, linked above). This fictitious presentation, which appears to have been drafted by Hunter’s lawyers, is nevertheless endorsed by the Biden Justice Department, even though it is utterly inconsistent with the prosecutors’ face-saving protestations, under pointed questioning Wednesday by Judge Maryellen Noreika, that they are conducting a continuing investigation in which Hunter is a subject and could be charged.

    It could not be more obvious that, if the government were truly conducting a continuing investigation, prosecutors would never in a million years give one of the main subjects of that investigation a plea to minor tax charges — with the promise of a recommendation of no imprisonment — in the middle of that investigation.

    This corrupt episode happened because this case is not a legitimate case — it’s a sham. In legitimate prosecutions, the defendant and the Justice Department are adversaries, with defense lawyers looking out for the defendant’s interest and the prosecutors vindicating the public interest in seeing that lawbreakers are held to account. The Hunter Biden case, to the contrary, is a travesty, in which the defense and the prosecution are on the same side.

    That is why the prosecutors have never filed an indictment that lays out the case against Hunter in exacting, painful detail — the way the Justice Department typically does. To do that would be politically devastating for the president, who is implicated in his son’s conduct. Plus, if prosecutors fully describe the serious charges that appear to be supported by evidence already known, it would become politically impossible to settle the case on two trivial tax misdemeanors with no jail time, in addition to disappearing a gun felony carrying a potential ten-year prison sentence.

    That is why the plea agreement could not be a normal plea agreement. The point of an agreement is to outline in detail the full extent of the immunity the defendant is getting in exchange for his plea. Because the Hunter Biden defense and the Biden Justice Department are on the same side, the collective objective was to give Hunter as much immunity as possible, with as little said as possible about why he needs it.

  • Still more Hunter Biden news:

    Biden family business associate and President Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s “best friend in business” has canceled his scheduled appearance on Monday to give testimony before the House Oversight Committee for a third time. Well, something seems to really have this guy spooked, wouldn’t you say? Why in the world would this guy cancel not once, not twice, but thrice, er, I mean three times? It doesn’t take someone with an IQ north of 180 to see this.

    Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, spoke with Fox News and stated that Devon Archer canceled the deposition he was scheduled to participate in before the committee. Archer is currently under a subpoena from the committee but has now backed out three times, according to Breitbart News.

  • Speaking of the difficulties in prosecuting Democratic Party bagmen: “Charges DROPPED Against Dem Megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried.” 

    The Department of Justice (DOJ) has dropped campaign finance charges against alleged ‘crypto scammer’ Sam Bankman-Fried, who was accused of misusing customer deposits and who made $90 million in campaign contributions to around 300 predominantly left-wing political candidates or action committees (PACs).

    Prosecutors argued the United States “mishandled” the process of extraditing Bankman-Fried from the Bahamas, writing a letter stating, “In keeping with its treaty obligations to the Bahamas, the government does not intend to proceed to trial on the campaign contributions count.”

    Bankman-Fried, who had a net worth of around $26.5 billion at his peak, ranked behind only George Soros in donations to the Democrats last year.

    How convienent. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Texas Teachers Arrested for Sex Trafficking Children.”

    Two Texas teachers accused in separate sex crimes against children were arrested on the same day and each charged with sexually assaulting a child and trafficking a child for sex.

    Red Oak ISD teacher and coach Gershon Caston, 38, was arrested Thursday and charged with three first-degree felonies:

    • Aggravated sexual assault of a child
    • Trafficking a child to engage in sexual conduct
    • Compelling prostitution by a minor

    Snip.

    Former Nacogdoches ISD teacher Annaleigh Andrews, 24, was also arrested Thursday and charged with a dozen felonies:

    • Three counts of trafficking a child to engage in sexual
    • Three counts of sexual assault of a child
    • Three counts of improper relationship between student and educator
    • Three counts of enticing a child with intent to commit a felony
  • California has lost more than $340 million in yearly tax income as its wealthiest residents moved to lower-tax states, according to a study by national online real estate service MyEListing.” I suspect the real number is much higher. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • Eventbrite canceled Austin ‘Let Women Speak’ event for the crime of daring to point out the reality of two biological sexes. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Carroll ISD is the latest school district to ban transexual bathroom and pronoun madness.
  • New York City to motel guests: “Who cares about your reservation? We need these rooms to house illegal aliens.”
  • Crazy-eyed aide lipsyncs congresswoman’s speech. You really need to see this, as she’s giving off Bride of Chucky vibes here.
  • Biden regime to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: “How dare you consider running against Biden The Great And Powerful? No Secret Service protection for you!” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Senate Democrats Clear the Way for Boycott of Israeli Products.”

    Senate Democrats on Thursday blocked a measure that would have stopped the Biden administration from discriminating against Jewish-made Israeli products.

    The Democratic members of the Senate Commerce Committee rejected a measure from Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) that would have blocked the Federal Trade Commission from penalizing products produced by Israelis living in contested territories, including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights.

    (Hat tip: Ted Cruz’s Facebook page.

  • “Swiss study: heart injuries from COVID vaccine 3000x higher than thought.”
  • Speaking of unexpected heart attacks, LeBron James’ 18-year old son Bronny James suffered cardiac arrest during a basketball workout. He survived. You know, I never remember hearing about young athletes having heart attacks pre-Flu Manchu vaccines…
  • I suspect this Peter Zeihan video might count as trolling my readers: “Why Fiat Currencies Will Always Beat Gold.” I think it’s broadly true in the cases he articulates, but doesn’t take into account the possibility of hyperinflation and/or widespread social unrest.
  • Is Ferrari lying about the number of limited production cars made? “Ferrari officially admits to producing 400 Enzos total. I have, so far, 500 Enzo VINs.”
  • Old and busted: Smoking pot destroys your brain. The new hotness: Smoking pot destroys the brains of your children and grandchildren. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Secret Service Says Eight-Ball Of Cocaine Found In Courtroom Chair Hunter Was Sitting In Probably Left By Tour Group.”
  • “A little closer…a little closer…Good!”

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • LinkSwarm for July 15, 2022

    Friday, July 15th, 2022

    The Biden Recession continues to wreck the pocketbooks of Americans, EU economies are sucking even worse than ours, more Bidens Behaving Badly, and unlimited abortion is not nearly as popular among the American public as it is among New York Times staffers.

  • Another month, another 40 year inflation high.
  • More Biden economic magic: “New Job Openings Drop In 47 States, Nationally Down 17%.”
  • The Euro has now reached parity with the dollar for the first time in 20 years.
  • Cold comfort from Peter Zeihan: The economy and food security is going to get much worse, but Europe is going to suffer much worse than America.
  • Support for unlimited abortion is deeply unpopular:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Widespread criticism of Jill Biden’s failed hispander proves that Democrats are no longer interested in excusing Joe Biden’s many manifest failures.

    Democrats are just tired of Joe Biden and of having to explain away his poor performance. Since Biden was elected, the only thing that has gone right is that the Covid-19 pandemic effectively ended and the unemployment rate has remained low. Inflation is out of control, gas prices are at record highs, grocery bills are skyrocketing, the stock market is getting battered and people’s 401(k)s are shrinking, crime remains high, mass shootings keep bedeviling America’s public spaces, Russia’s invading Ukraine, there’s a global food and commodity crisis, and the Taliban is running Afghanistan and oppressing women again. Democrats are apoplectic that the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, a New York State gun law, and the EPA’s right to regulate carbon emissions without explicit approval from Congress. Parents are up in arms, the teachers’ unions look like callous fools who kept schools closed and harmed a generation of schoolchildren, and “abolish the police” looks like a suicidal public policy. Republicans notice that waves of illegal immigrants headed north shortly after Biden’s inauguration and haven’t stopped coming since.

    You didn’t even mention the Social Justice insanity and all the transexual madness.

    That New York Times poll found that 64 percent of Democrats want a different presidential nominee in 2024. Nobody’s willing to cover for this guy anymore; no one is inclined to avert their eyes when Biden or his wife blurts out something tone-deaf now.

    There are some of us who would argue that Joe Biden has always been an insecure, abrasive, presumptuous, disingenuous, demagogic, insufferable blowhard who was largely protected by a cozy, all-too-friendly relationship with a press inclined to airbrush his glaring character faults, presenting him as a wacky neighbor or a kindly, ice-cream loving grandpa.

    What we see now is what happens when much of the national media, the Democratic Party establishment, and liberal interest groups stop playing along with the narrative that Biden is a wiser, sharper, kinder, more energetic and sensitive man than he is. And the truth isn’t pretty.

  • Speaking of unwanted Bidens: “Hunter Biden could face prostitution charges for transporting hookers across state lines and disguising checks to them as payments for ‘medical services.'” I’ll believe Hunter Biden prosecution when I see it. Also, I’ve been treating the 4Chan “Hunter Biden iPhone leak” with a certain amount of skepticism. Certainly the Hunter laptop revelations were real, and Hunter is a big enough scumbag to do the the things alleged iPhone leak materials depict. But I try to be cautious about anything that fits too neatly into my preconceptions. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • “Left-Wing Nonprofit Scores $171.7 Million-$1 Billion Government Contract To Help Illegal Immigrants Avoid Authorities.”

    A liberal non-profit group has been given a taxpayer-funded government contract worth at least $171.7 million — which could potentially reach just under $1 billion — for assisting illegal immigrant minors in avoiding capture or incarceration by U.S. Border Patrol and state officials.

    The Department of the Interior was the awarding agency and “The Vera Institute of Justice,” based out of New York — which supports the “defund the police” movement and has lax views on immigration enforcement — was the beneficiary.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Is paper gold being manipulated?
  • China bubble update: Alibaba just just laid off one-third of its strategic investment team.
  • A look at the sniping war in Ukraine. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Houston demonstrates the case against zoning.

    Thanks in part to a lack of zoning, Houston builds housing at nearly three times the per capita rate of cities like New York City and San Jose. It isn’t all just sprawl either: In 2019, Houston built roughly the same number of apartments as Los Angeles, despite the latter being nearly twice as large. This ongoing supernova of housing construction has helped to keep Houston one of the most affordable big cities in the U.S., offering new arrivals modest rents and accessible home prices even amid seemingly endless demand.

    Houston is by no means a model for planning. Like every other Sun Belt city, it struggles with segregation and sprawl. Yet its continued success as one of America’s most affordable and prosperous cities reveals the workability—indeed, the desirability—of non-zoning. Houston is a profoundly weird place, resistant to seductive oversimplifications. But it provides insight into what comes after the arbitrary lines that have misshapen our cities—and how we might get there.

    So why didn’t Houston adopt zoning like every other U.S. city? The answer comes down partly to process. Unique among major cities, Houston subjected zoning to a citywide vote. While most city councils had, historically, quietly adopted zoning after a few perfunctory public hearings, the Bayou City invited voters to decide on zoning in 1946, 1962, and 1993. Voters rejected it each time—a reality that calls into question the often-postulated popularity of zoning.

    Zoning critics rightly dispensed with the comforting myths surrounding zoning—that its purpose was to merely rationalize land use—and zeroed in on its tendency to restrict new housing construction, limit access to opportunity, institutionalize segregation, and force growth outward. Far from being duped, Houston’s working-class residents exhibited a subtler understanding of the purposes of zoning than many contemporary planners and rejected it accordingly.

    But the answer to why Houston remains unzoned also comes down to politics. Zoning proponents didn’t merely lose the referendums—they were also tactfully bought off by being allowed to have something resembling zoning in their immediate vicinity. Indeed, the dark little secret of non-zoning in Houston is that it depends on a system of land-use regulations known as deed restrictions, which empower certain communities—principally middle- and upper-class homeowners—to effectively “opt out” of non-zoning, writing their own land-use rules for their own neighborhoods. In exchange, Houston is able to protect the vast majority of the city from the types of arbitrary-use distinctions, density limits, and raucous public hearings that cause so much harm in every other U.S. city. That is to say, in exchange for respecting pockets of private land-use regulation, Houston is able to grow, adapt, and evolve like no other city.

    Deed restrictions are private, voluntary agreements among property owners—typically the homeowners of a particular subdivision or neighborhood—regulating how they can and cannot use their land. These rules are literally tied to the deed, meaning that a property owner must agree to them as a condition of the sale. Since the failed 1962 zoning referendum, the city has enforced these agreements on behalf of the relevant parties, refusing to issue permits that run afoul of their provisions and bringing legal action against violators.

    Is this system of publicly enforced deed restrictions “basically zoning,” as some might argue? On the one hand, deed restrictions—like zoning—demarcate specified areas subject to a distinct set of stricter land-use rules. Both zoning and deed restrictions in Houston are enforced by the government, principally with the aim of propping up home values and maintaining a certain quality of life. Many deed restrictions even have rules banning apartments and enforcing a strict two-and-a-half-story height limit.

    Yet, the similarities end there, and Houston’s system of deed restrictions is a significant improvement over zoning. For starters, deed restrictions only cover an estimated quarter of the city, largely in areas with low-rise, detached, single-family housing. Industrial areas, commercial corridors, mixed-use and multifamily neighborhoods, urban vacant lots, and yet-to-be-developed greenfields are virtually never subject to their provisions. This means that roughly three-quarters of Houston—including its more dynamic sections—are largely free to grow without anything even resembling zoning holding them back.

    Another key difference is that deed restrictions must be voluntarily opted in to. This serves to discipline deed restrictions in a way that is rarely true of zoning: If the rules are stricter than what prospective homebuyers might prefer, or not strict enough, or simply focus on the wrong concerns, this may translate into lower home values. This in turn nudges homeowners to think through the optimal form of land-use regulation to a degree that rarely happens with zoning.

  • Speaking of Houston, a new poll shows Harris County judge Lina Hidalgo in a dead heat with Republican challenger Alexandra del Moral Mealer. November will be a good time to determine if the Hispanic realignment in Texas extends to America’s fourth largest city.
  • After deciding to let drug-abusing transients use their restrooms, Starbucks is now closing 16 stores because of rising violence, and the fact that transients are shooting up in their restrooms. Golly, who could have possibly seen that coming?
  • “White progressives do not have the moral authority to excommunicate a black man from his race because they disagree with him.”
  • Best gun oil? Project Farm does some testing, and Clenzoil and BreakFreeCLP come out on top.
  • Beto O’Rourke Lags in the Polls.” Try to contain your shock. And I bet the polls overstate his popularity…
  • Score another one for the good guys.

    Another Texas school superintendent has stepped down amid criticism from parents concerned about liberal indoctrination in their children’s classrooms.

    At a special meeting Monday afternoon, Clear Creek Independent School District’s board of trustees accepted the retirement of Superintendent Eric Williams, effective in January 2023.

    Conservative parents in the Houston-area district had complained that Williams, who started in early 2021, was subjecting their students to liberal ideologies he brought from his former job as superintendent of

  • Justice for Jim Thorpe.
  • Somebody didn’t listen to Jack Handy. (Hat Tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • “San Francisco DA Announces Innovative New Plan To Arrest People For Breaking The Law.”
  • Been super hot in Austin this week, but there are ways to keep cool:

  • Russo-Ukranian War Update for June 22, 2022

    Wednesday, June 22nd, 2022

    The general course of the Russio-Ukrainian War seems the same (Russia grinding out slow gains in the Severodonetsk front, while Ukraine gains back territory on the wings near Kharkiv and Kherson), but there are a lot of interesting stories out on the periphery of the conflict.

    First, the requisite map snap:

    (These snapshots are not the end-all and be-all of the situation, but back when I was covering the war against the Islamic State, I found that they were helpful in jogging my memory reviewing the course of the war at later dates.)

    Now some links:

  • ISW’s assessment.

    Members of the Russian military community continue to comment on the shortcomings of Russian force generation capabilities, which are having tangible impacts on the morale and discipline of Russians fighting in Ukraine. Russian milblogger Yuri Kotyenok claimed that Russian troops lack the numbers and strength for success in combat in Ukraine. Kotyenok accused Russian leadership of deploying new and under-trained recruits and called for replenishment of forces with well-trained recruits with ground infantry experience—though the Russian military is unlikely to be able to quickly generate such a force, as ISW has previously assessed. Despite growing calls for increased recruitment from nationalist figures, Russian leadership continues to carry out coercive partial mobilization efforts that are only producing limited numbers of replacements while negatively impacting the morale and discipline of forcibly mobilized personnel. Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) claimed that Russian authorities in Luhansk are arranging gas leaks in apartment buildings to force men who are hiding from mobilization into the streets. The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) additionally reported that Russian soldiers in occupied Tokmak, Zaporizhia Oblast, are appealing to local Ukrainian doctors to issue them certificates alleging medical inability to continue military service.

    Ukrainian forces conducted a drone strike (likely with a loitering munition, though this cannot be confirmed) on a Russian oil refinery in Novoshakhtinsk, Rostov Oblast, on June 22. Russian Telegram channel Voenyi Osvedomitel claimed that the strike, which targeted Russian infrastructure within 15 km of the Ukrainian border, originated from Donetsk Oblast. Ukrainian forces have not targeted Russian infrastructure for several weeks, and this strike is likely an attempt to disrupt Russian logistics and fuel supply to Russian operations in eastern Ukraine.

    Though they also note that Russia has been using its anti-air capabilities to better deal with Ukrainian drones.

  • Ukraine attacked long-occupied gas platforms off the coast of Crimea. It also reportedly hit occupied Snake Island, though there seems to be some dispute over this.
  • Did a Russian cyberattack trigger the Freeport LNG explosion on June 8?

    Well, a June 14 press release from Freeport LNG notes that “the incident occurred in pipe racks that support the transfer of LNG from the facility’s LNG storage tank area to the terminal’s dock facilities. … Preliminary observations suggest that the incident resulted from the overpressure and rupture of a segment of an LNG transfer line, leading to the rapid flashing of LNG and the release and ignition of the natural gas vapor cloud. Additional investigation is underway to determine the underlying precipitating events that enabled the overpressure conditions in the LNG piping.” The statement added that federal authorities were assisting with its investigation.

    However, what was not explained is how a critical overpressure event could have occurred without safety systems kicking into action. Two LNG pipeline experts I talked to, who both asked to remain anonymous due to potential retaliatory damage to their business interests, say that pipeline corrosion and other material failures can cause critical incidents. Still, the FBI’s investigative involvement, the specific nature of this explosion, and the scale of damage incurred do raise major questions. The experts suggested that piping from a storage tank to a terminal, as in this explosion, should have extensive safeguards to prevent overpressure events. One expert was highly confident that control of pipeline flows would be undertaken from a networked control facility.

    That brings us to the Russian cyber unit involved in the targeting reconnaissance against Freeport LNG.

    Named XENOTIME by researchers, the unit has utilized boutique TRITON/TRISIS malware developed by the Russian Ministry of Defense’s Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics. That malware is designed for the seizure of industrial control systems and the defeat of associated safety systems. In 2017, GCHQ (Britain’s NSA-equivalent signals intelligence service) outlined the need for network compartmentalization to protect safety systems against this malware better. In March 2022, the FBI warned that TRISIS malware remained a threat.

    XENOTIME is assessed by the U.S. and British governments as a critical infrastructure-focused, advanced persistent threat actor. The unit’s modus operandi involves targeting industrial control systems and supervisory control systems in order to effect unilateral control of a network. XENOTIME has caused specific concern in Western security circles for its targeting of safety systems that would otherwise mitigate threats to life during a cyberattack. XENOTIME’s activity has escalated in 2022. Evincing as much, an April 13 U.S. government cybersecurity warning noted, “By compromising and maintaining full system access to [industrial control system]/[safety] devices, [threat] actors could elevate privileges … and disrupt critical devices or functions.”

    Snip.

    While the Freeport LNG explosion remains under investigation, multiple sources told me they were struck by the overpressure event along a key pipeline transit route and the evident failure of safety systems to engage. This fits with XENOTIME’s modus operandi.

    That’s an “interesting but unproven” in my book… (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty at NRO.)

  • Switzerland Imports Russian Gold for First Time Since War.”

    More than 3 tons of gold was shipped to Switzerland from Russia in May, according to data from the Swiss Federal Customs Administration. That’s the first shipment between the countries since February.

    The shipments represent about 2% of gold imports into the key refining hub last month. It may also mark a change in perception of Russian bullion, which became taboo following the invasion. Most refiners swore off accepting new gold from Russia after the London Bullion Market Association removed the country’s own fabricators from its accredited list.

    While that was viewed as a de facto ban on fresh Russian gold from the London market, one of the world’s biggest, the rules don’t prohibit Russian metal from being processed by other refiners. Switzerland is home to four major gold refineries, which together handle two-thirds of the world’s gold.

    Almost all of the gold was registered by customs as being for refining or other processing, indicating one of the country’s refineries took it. The four largest — MKS PAMP SA, Metalor Technologies SA, Argor-Heraeus SA and Valcambi SA — said they did not take the metal.

    In March, at least two major gold refineries refused to remelt Russian bars even though market rules permit them to do so. Others, such Argor-Heraeus, said they would accept products refined in Russia prior to 2022, so long as there were documents proving that the gold had not been exported from Russia after beginning of the war, and that accepting them would not benefit Russia, a Russian person or entity anywhere in the world.

  • Though this piece is two weeks old, Frederick Kagan is not impressed with Russia’s Severodonetsk offensive.

    he fight for Severodonetsk is a Russian information operation in the form of a battle. One of its main purposes for Moscow is to create the impression that Russia has regained its strength and will now overwhelm Ukraine. That impression is false. The Russian military in Ukraine is increasingly a spent force that cannot achieve a decisive victory if Ukrainians hold on.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin is therefore trying to turn his invasion of Ukraine into a brutal contest of wills. He’s betting his army on breaking Ukrainians’ collective will to fight on in their country. His own won’t likely break. Fortunately, Ukraine doesn’t need it to. If Ukrainians can weather the current Russian storm and then counterattack the exhausted Russian forces they still have every chance to free their people and all their land.

    Putin amassed the wreckage of Russian combat forces into a lethal amalgam around the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk Oblast. That amalgam is crawling forward using massive artillery barrages to obliterate everything in its path allowing Russia’s demoralized and frightened soldiers to walk into the rubble.

    The Ukrainian defenders are wisely withdrawing in the face of this reckless barbarism, but at a high price to their own morale and their will to continue the fight. Ukrainian soldiers and citizens are criticizing their government for not supporting the troops on the front lines. Ukrainians are starting to doubt that they can prevail for the first time since they won the Battle of Kyiv. Delays in the provision of Western aid and refusals by the U.S. and other countries to provide certain needed weapons systems are helping to fuel those doubts. And now voices are rising in the West calling on Ukraine to offer concessions.

    All of which is exactly what Putin needs. He cannot defeat Ukraine militarily as long as Ukrainians retain the will to fight and the West the will to back them. So he attacks the will of both by forcing his own troops into the most vicious and brutal offensive of this war, hoping to persuade everyone that he’s finally harnessed the mass and power of Russia that Stalin wielded to defeat Hitler—and thus that resistance to his demands is futile. Putin also holds hostage critical export supplies of Ukrainian food and fuel, hoping to impose high enough costs on the West to persuade it to abandon Ukraine.

    Neither Ukrainians nor their friends around the world must give in to Putin or be deluded by the current mirage of Russian success and power he is presenting in the Battle of Severodonetsk. For mirage it is. Russia’s drive in Luhansk is the desperate gamble of a dictator staking the last of the offensive combat power he can scrape together in hopes of breaking his enemies’ will to continue the fight. and let him claim that he’s taken all of Luhansk Oblast. It is a historical rhyme with Hitler’s determination to seize Stalingrad in 1942 or to hold Kharkov in defiance of his commander’s advice. There are no Russian large reserves coming behind this force to carry its successes forward. On the contrary, Putin has created it only by denuding other key axes of the forces they need to defend against Ukrainian counterattacks. This offensive will likely culminate soon because even this slow, grinding advance will exhaust the forces conducting it. Putin will then be unable to launch another for quite some time.

  • I thought this would be a longer update, but I’m running out of day…

    LinkSwarm for June 11, 2021

    Friday, June 11th, 2021

    Joe Manchin, controlling the border, and Soros-backed DA’s doing their best to bring back the high crime rates of the 1970s top this Friday’s LinkSwarm:

  • Seems like this should be a bigger story than it is: Mexico just had it’s midterm elections. But that’s not the big part: “97 politicians had been assassinated. Along with almost a thousand being attacked in some way, shape, or form. Just in this election cycle!”
  • West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin says that he will refuse to vote for the Democratic Voter Fraud Enablement Act of 2021. “I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For The People Act.”
  • Indeed, Manchin just crushed two anti-democratic Democratic power grabs:

    Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) will oppose the Democratic Party’s legislation that would federalize elections, the For the People Act, citing the bill’s overtly partisan nature.

    Manchin declared his position in an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail. According to Manchin, “voting and election reform that is done in a partisan manner will all but ensure partisan divisions continue to deepen.”

    “I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act,” Manchin wrote.

    Manchin also laid to rest the possibility he would ever support ending the filibuster.

    “Furthermore, I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster,” he said. “For as long as I have the privilege of being your U.S. senator, I will fight to represent the people of West Virginia, to seek bipartisan compromise no matter how difficult and to develop the political bonds that end divisions and help unite the country we love.”

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Manchin is thwarting The Will of The Party, so naturally Jemele Hill is calling him a racist.
    

  • Remember how Democrats were sure Hispanics would usher them into permanent majority status? Not in Texas:

    Republicans swept key races for mayor in Texas on Saturday, setting back Democratic hopes that the state’s urban areas will deliver statewide majorities for them in the future. Most shocking: In McAllen, Texas, a border city of 150,000 people of which 85 percent are Hispanic, Republicans elected their first mayor since 1997.

    Other cities with strong Hispanic populations also elected Republicans to replace retiring mayors. Fort Worth is the twelfth-largest city in the country and has more than 1 million people. Only a third of them are Anglo. But 37-year-old Republican Mattie Parker easily defeated Democrat Deborah Peoples, becoming the youngest mayor of a major Texas city.

    The race was ostensibly nonpartisan, but the divisions were clear.

    “We’ve never had a race that was this partisan,” Kenneth Barr, the former Democratic mayor of Fort Worth, told Politico. “This particular election has moved as far in the partisan direction as any we’ve ever had.”

    Voters also elected Republican Jim Ross as mayor of Arlington, a suburb of 400,000 people that borders Fort Worth and is only 39 percent Anglo. Ross, a former Arlington police officer, was endorsed by several police associations who liked his anti-crime platform. He defeated Michael Glaspie, a former city-council member who was endorsed by the Dallas Morning News and leading Democratic politicians.

    But it was the victory of Javier Villalobos in the overwhelmingly Democratic Rio Grande Valley bordering Mexico that shook political observers.

    Villalobos, a former chairman of the Hidalgo County Republican Party, defeated Democrat Veronica Vega Whitacre, a fellow McAllen city council member, to become mayor. He campaigned as a conservative and said he wanted to cut water and sewage fees. He called for compassion for undocumented migrants but said the safety of local citizens had to be the first concern. His supporters questioned Whitacre’s wooly-headed claim that if migrants were flowing the other way, toward Mexico, they would be treated with as much compassion by Mexican authorities.

    Whitacre’s loss was only the latest sign for Democrats that the Rio Grande Valley is slipping away from them. Biden won the region by 15 points last November, a far cry from Hillary Clinton’s 39-point margin in 2016. At the same time, Congressman Vicente Gonzalez won reelection by only 51 percent to 48 percent over Republican Monica De La Cruz-Hernandez in a district Democrats always carry.

    “Democrats have a big problem in Texas,” Rio Grande Valley congressman Filemon Vela told the Texas Tribune in January, shortly after he became vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “For the first time in generations, or maybe ever, we lost . . . South Texas counties with significant Hispanic populations,” he said. “And we are going to have to . . . wrap our arms around exactly why that happened. It may be a difficult issue to reconcile.”

    It’s not at all difficult to reconcile: The modern Democratic Party’s core policies of racist social justice, anti-police, soft-on-crime and pro-illegal alien are anathema to ordinary middle class Hispanic American citizens. Your ideas are unpopular and you’ll continue to lose as long as you let the radical social justice warriors set the agenda for the party.

  • Indeed, illegal border crossings hit 180,000 in May. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Governor Greg Abbott has announced plans to build the border wall in Texas the Biden Administration stopped work on.
  • Meanwhile, since being put in charge of the border crisis, Kamala Harris not only hasn’t visited the border, she laughs off questions about it. (Hat tip: Texas Public Policy Foundation.)
  • Speaking of illegal aliens, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision that those who entered the country illegally and were allowed to stay for humanitarian reasons are not allowed to apply for a green card. Also note the Justice Elana Kagan-penned decision makes no mention whatsoever of the “undocumented.” She refers to them, using the standard statutory language, as “aliens.”
  • “LA Sheriff Attributes Crime Surge To Soros-Backed DA Gascón, Supports Recall.”

    The city of Los Angeles saw a sharp 36 percent increase in homicides in 2020—but the L.A. County sheriff said this year is looking even more grim, and he’s blaming the widespread uptick in crime on District Attorney George Gascón.

    “In 2021, that 36 percent has now become 92 percent, which is a huge statistical jump,” Sheriff Alex Villanueva told The Epoch Times.

    “We’re seeing increases in all the categories – assault with a deadly weapon, arson, rape… these things are continuing upward unabated.”

    The widespread uptick in crime is the direct result of Gascón’s election as DA of L.A. County and his failure to prosecute offenses, according to Villanueva. Since Gascón took office, 2,690 cases—about 30 percent—“that normally would have gone through were rejected,” he said.

    While Gascón has defended his reform policies, criminals in prison are toasting the DA to celebrate their early release, according to officials—and the sheriff said the DA’s policies are making it more difficult for him to do his job.

    “You’re supposed to have a district attorney who represents the people … but [he’s] acting like a public defender,” Villanueva said.

    “There’s no one left representing the people. I need to work in partnership with the person who’s representing the people. I don’t have that right now.”

  • Speaking of Gascón: “Double murderer approved for parole at third hearing; prosecutors barred from attending under Gascón’s reform.” “Howard Elwin Jones has been imprisoned at San Quentin state prison since 1991 for the December 1988 shooting and killing of 18-year-old Chris Baker and another boy at a party in Rowland Heights.” It appears that there’s nothing Soros-backed DAs enjoy more than putting violent, dangerous felons back on the street.
  • Dozens of Baltimore businesses plan to go Galt:

    It comes as no surprise to readers that dozens of Baltimore City businesses, located in the Inner Harbor, in a stretch called “Fells Point,” are threatening the new city government, run by Mayor Brandon Scott, with not paying their taxes because they’re “fed up and frustrated” with the outburst of violence.

    In a letter titled “Letter to City Leaders From Fells Point Business Leaders,” addressed to Mayor Brandon Scott, Council President Nick Mosby, Councilman Zeke Cohen, Madam State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, and Commissioner Michael Harrison, the 37 restaurants and small businesses are threatening to stop paying city taxes and other fees until “basic and essential municipal services are restored.”

    What’s happening in Fells Point, known for its hipster pubs and taverns, as well as delicious seafood from the Chesapeake Bay, is experiencing an overflow of violent crime from other troubled areas.

    The letter comes after three men were shot in Fells Point over the weekend.

    “What is happening in our front yard — the chaos and lawlessness that escalated this weekend into another night of tragic, unspeakable gun violence — has been going on for far too long,” said the letter.

    The 37 businesses are planning to place their city taxes in an “escrow account” and released them until these demands are satisfied:

    • Pick up the trash
    • Enforce traffic and parking laws through tickets and towing
    • Stop illegal open-air alcohol and drug sales
    • Empower police to responsibly do their job

    The letter continued to say that minor crime that police “ignore” is what is contributing to more violent crime. So Marilyn Mosby’s halt on prosecuting petty crimes appears to be backfiring.

    You don’t say. Baltimore has had a problem with open-air drug markets for over three decades. And the last Republican mayor left office in 1967…

  • “DeSantis Signs Bills Combatting Chinese Communist Party’s Influence In US.””The first bill is intended to safeguard public institutions from ‘undue foreign influence,’ DeSantis said at a press conference, noting that the bill will prohibit ‘agreements between public entities and the Communist Party of China or Cuba or any of these malignant forces.’ The second bill criminalizes theft and trafficking trade secrets under Florida state law.” If Trump doesn’t run again in 2024, right now DeSantis would be the early favorite for the GOP nomination.
  • More words from the man in question:

  • Things that make you go “Hmmmm”: “Obama Administration Lifted Block on “Gain of Function Research” Just Eleven Days Before President Trump Took Office, January 9, 2017.”
  • Own any of the estimated 40 million guns in America with a pistol brace? Congratulations! The Biden Administration wants to make you a felon.

    “Today’s proposed rulemaking on pistol-braced firearms represents a gross abuse of executive authority,” said Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs for Gun Owners of America, in a statement.

    [Pistol brace inventor Alex] Bosco said the rule would outlaw the vast majority of braces on the market and read like it was “reverse-engineered to make braces illegal.” He called it “arbitrary and capricious.”

  • How’s that socialized medicine working out for you, UK? “Hospital waiting list tops 5m in England.”
  • Old and busted: Young families buying homes. The new hotness: Pension funds buying homes. “The consulting firm found Houston to be a favorite haunt of investors who have lately accounted for 24% of home purchases there.”
  • The Kung Flu lockdowns were a war on the working class:

  • Fake Florida coronavirus “whistleblower” Rebekah Jones suspended from Twitter.

  • Charles C. W. Cooke wonders what use Chris Cuomo is to CNN?

    Andrew Cuomo’s little brother is a continuous embarrassment to the cable-news network that employs him. So why does he still have a job?

    At this point in the proceedings, one is tempted to conclude that Chris Cuomo must have laced CNN’s corporate offices with dynamite and informed the powers that be that, if he goes, they go, too. What else could explain the network’s eternal tolerance for being embarrassed and degraded by the man? Here, at the tail end of his long experiment in deficiency, Cuomo resembles nothing more keenly than the inadequate tee-baller who gets to stay in past eight or nine strikes because his uncle coaches the team. His ratings are poor. His insights are vacuous. His conduct is a permanent source of ignominy. All the perfumes of Albany could not sweeten this little man. “What’s in a name?” inquired Shakespeare. Little did he know.

    It is unclear why Cuomo was selected by CNN to begin with. He’s a lawyer who knows nothing of the law; a journalist who knows nothing of journalism; an American who knows nothing of America. His temper is third-rate, his interests are bewilderingly narrow, he possesses no discernible sense of shame or self-knowledge, and the opinions he proffers are so ruthlessly subordinated to expedience that hypocrisy is his default mode. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s maxim that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” was meant as an extolment of the virtues of personal growth. Cuomo seems to have taken it literally.

    On no single topic has the man’s unique set of professional and personal shortcomings been more obvious than COVID-19. In April of last year, Cuomo’s attempt to fake a two-week quarantine was ruined by his failure to remember that, just a week earlier, he had admitted on the radio that he had left the house to visit a property he owns in East Hampton and gotten into an argument with a stranger. And yet, rather than demote him for telling such a galling and obvious lie, CNN encouraged him to inject his peculiar brand of mendacity into a series of interviews with his own brother. Thus it was that while Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York was making the single worst mistake of the entire coronavirus crisis — herding the elderly into nursing homes and then covering up the death toll — Television Host Chris Cuomo of New York was using America’s most famous cable-news channel to portray him as a national hero. What America needed last year was a dispassionate examination of Andrew Cuomo’s official messaging. What America got was a smirking nepotist brandishing a comedy-sized nasal swab and tweeting obsequious fluff about his sibling. New York, Chris Cuomo concluded, was “doing way better than what we see elsewhere & no way that happens without the Luv Guv dishing the real 24/7.” In exchange, the “Luv Guv” dealt Chris in on a series of private, government-funded COVID tests that were unavailable to everybody else.

    Watching Chris Cuomo work is a little like watching a man jump out of an airplane without a parachute and then become irrationally angry at those who tell him he’s going to die.

  • Speaking of CNN, they also brought back Jeffrey “lubin his” Toobin. Proving yet again that the the Democratic Media Complex will alwaqys refuse to apply its rules to their own.
  • Jon Del Arroz wins his lawsuit against Worldcon for calling him racist:

    The snowflakes at Worldcon are having a very bad weekend. On Friday, the San Francisco chapter of Worldcon settled a lawsuit and agreed to pay restitution and to issue a public apology for banning conservative author Jon Del Arroz from their convention in 2018 and for besmirching him as a “racist.” Del Arroz is the most dangerous Hispanic voice in science fiction because he refuses to back down in the face of political bullies. He has also written an amazing series, The Saga of the Nano Templar, that my teen daughter is reading for the second time—that’s how good it is—and I don’t have to worry about garbage culture or leftist politics sullying her mind. The Adventures of Baron Von Monacle, a steampunk series, is also highly entertaining. (Always support freedom-loving artists!)

    At the time of the banning, Del Arroz was under serious mob attack from social justice warriors trying to drive him out of the sci-fi community. SJWs even sent a spring-loaded exploding can of penis-shaped glitter to his home, which scared his wife and children. The ban came about when Del Arroz asked Worldcon for security measures because he feared for his safety due to the mob-like attacks on him and his family from industry insiders. Instead of helping him, Worldcon banned him and made public statements claiming the author was a “racist” and a “bully,” with no substantiated evidence to back those statements up. I’ve known Del Arroz personally for many years. He is a devout and kind man with a good sense of humor and a love of the art of the troll. He is not vicious, but provocative in a way that is necessary for freedom of speech to be preserved. He’s the one brave enough to exercise the First Amendment in ways that ensure we will keep it. We all need people like Del Arroz in the fight to preserve liberty.

    Now we only need about a hundred such lawsuits to force institutional science fiction to regain its sanity… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Not-so-much news: Gun control bill fails. News: In California.
  • For all the disappointments of the Texas 87th legislature’s regular session, a number of pro Second Amendment bills were passed.
  • Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman resigns, said to be interested in running for Attorney General against incumbent Ken Paxton and George P. Bush.

    This is probably the wrong Eva to use as clip art here.

  • French France’s Emmanuel Macron Urges G-7 To Sell Gold Reserves To Fund Bailout For Africa. I imagine that the other G-7 members responses to this proposal ranged from “Are you high?” to “Die in a fire.” (Plus an “Is Matlock on yet?” from Biden.)
  • Chinese Police Storm Rare Student Protest Inside Nanjing Normal University.”
  • “50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists To Point Blame At Fat.”
  • Demolition Ranch’s Matt Carriker has his truck broken into while he was in San Antonio. The Democratic Party’s soft-on-crime stances just keep reaping their rewards…
  • Speaking of Carriker, he just hit 10 million subscribers.
  • Three reporters at the New York Post are breaking the first rule of Fight Club. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • The world’s creepiest McDonalds is an abandoned barge.
  • Crazy criminals, UK edition:

  • Babylon Bee counts down genders:

  • How to Protect Your Shopping Trolley From Improvised Explosives.” However, I feel compelled to point out a technical error: The Trophy active protection system is not yet available on the British Challenger tank, making it deeply unlikely that the system would be made available for a Tesco shopping cart.
  • Hi Ho Silver, Away to the Moon!

    Monday, February 1st, 2021

    Evidently the WallStreetBets crowd that carried out the Great GameStop Short Squeeze have decided that silver is their next target for making money:

    Silver Bullion Market is one of the most manipulated on earth. Any short squeeze in silver paper shorts would be EPIC. We know billion banks are manipulating gold and silver to cover real inflation. Both the industrial case and monetary case, debt printing has never been more favorable for the No. 1 inflation hedge Silver.

    Inflation adjusted Silver should be at 1000$ instead of 25$.

    Signs that the silver market was about to get hit by a GameStop-style short squeeze emerged Wednesday.

    That’s when comments began appearing on the Reddit forum r/wallstreetbets — the investor board now famous for tripling the video game company’s shares this week. People started egging each other on to pile into silver’s largest exchange-traded product. Banks have been keeping silver prices artificially low, they said, masking an actual shortfall of supplies. Help put an end to “THE BIGGEST SHORT SQUEEZE IN THE WORLD,” one poster said.

    To say there was a strategy would be overstating things. At about 8:30 a.m. New York time on Thursday, day traders bent on teaching some banks a lesson began flooding iShares Silver Trust. Their buying drove up prices of the underlying metal by as much as 6.8%, the most since August. And just like that, an ETF became the Trojan horse that helped the Reddit hoards break through the gates of the commodities world for the first time since they began upending equities.

    It rippled across the entire silver complex. Miners of the metal rallied. Futures gained. A record 3.1 million iShares Silver Trust options contracts traded. The volatility was unlike anything James Gavilan, a commodities market consultant with over two decades of experience in precious metals, had ever seen.

    It was “mind-boggling, breath-taking, it’s shocking really,” he said as prices continued to rise further.

    Another sign that they’re having a real effect is yesterday’s email missive from gold and silver dealer APMEX:

    In the last week, we have seen a dramatic shift in Silver demand from our customers. For example, the ratio of ounces sold per day was running about two times earlier in the week and closer to four times the average demand by the end of the week. Once markets closed on Friday, we saw demand hit as much as six times a typical business day and more than 12 times a normal weekend day. Combined with the extremely high demand levels, we are also seeing a surge in new customers. On Saturday alone, we added as many new customers as we usually add in a week.

    This morning spot silver is up over $30 an ounce, various stock brokers are evidently breaking down on the volume, and physical silver rounds are sold out at various silver dealers, even at $6 over spot (which is nuts).

    Another sign that the effect is real is that silver is rising but gold remains flat, an unusual circumstance that never seems to hold long for precious metals whose prices have historically risen and fallen together.

    Silver has always been populism’s precious metal of choice, with the bimetallist “Free Silver” movement of the late 19th century culminating the William Jennings Bryant’s famous “Cross of Gold” speech in 1896.

    Unlike GameStop stock, I actually own physical silver as an emergency hedge against hyperinflation, so the Reddit raiders already made me a little money. And there’s more than a grain of truth to inflation being higher than government indexes are letting on, largely thanks to the huge liquidity the Federal Reserve and other central banks have pumped into the world economy. I do think it is prudent for anyone with sufficient capital (i.e., you’ve paid off your car and credit card debts and have, at an absolutely bare minimum, three months of living expenses in the bank) to keep a certain amount of physical gold and silver in a secure location (and I suspect at least half of you are immediately going to think “gun safe”) you can easily access, just in case.

    But color me skeptical that not only can they get silver up to $1,000 an ounce (barring a runaway hyperinflation takeoff), but that they can have any long-term effect on the market. Tangible commodities are fundamentally different than shorted stocks. A big rise in the price of silver would trigger the reopening of dozens of currently shuttered silver minds around the world to meet demand.

    Silver is a truly global commodity in a way that GameStop stock is not. I am skeptical that the WallStreetBets crowd has an adequate grasp of the size of the global silver options picture. Traders in Tashkent and Singapore probably never heard about GameStop until this year, but they’ve watched the rise and fall of silver prices for a long, long time.

    I’m old enough to remember that there have been several rounds of apocalyptic bullion hype over the years. My father lost quite a bit of money betting on gold futures in the early 1980s, sure than inflation would continue to rise, but instead Paul Volker and Ronald Reagan managed to kill it dead.

    This was about the same time the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market. Silver started 1979 around $6 an ounce, and briefly peaked above $49 in January of 1980. By June of 1981 Silver was back to trading in single digits, and the Hunt brothers lost their shirts. (There are some parallels with the GameStop squeeze, namely that the Hunt brothers were doing a lot of their buying using options and credits, like some (but not all) of the WallStreetBets crowd.)

    The bullion market also has a way of defying your expectations. I was sure that the subprime meltdown in 2008 would send gold and silver soaring. Gold jumped in September, then settled back down below it’s September rates before ending up modestly up for the year. Silver actually ended the year down.

    The world economy is an enormously complex organism. You can temporarily jolt some parts of it, but then other parts compensate. Rising and falling prices are timing signals that constantly shift money around to make sure supply meets demand. Investing in silver means opportunity cost in not investing in index funds, Apple stock, or even Dogecoin (way up for the year, but down off last week’s peaks).

    By all means, hold gold and silver as a hedge against inflation. But don’t bet the farm on silver hitting that moonshot target of $1000 an ounce anytime soon.

    Edited to add: Read the comments. A lot of people are saying this is jamming from the hedge fund backers to take the pressure off GameStop and AMC, and not an organic push for silver from the WallStreetBets core crowd.

    Greece Getting Ready to Default?

    Monday, September 12th, 2011

    According to Seeking Alpha last week: “Yields on two-year Greek government bonds reached 46.84% recently. This is roughly comparable to yields on Argentine bonds in early December 2001 – only a month before the country defaulted on its debt.”

    Other signs of the Euro crisis: The Euro hit a six month low against the dollar, and a ten year low against the yen.

    Now Walter Russell Mead is reporting that markets around the world have a serious case of the jitters due to the possibility of a European meltdown. “Creating a monetary union without a true federal government is looking more and more like the biggest European policy mistake since Britain and France let Hitler have the Sudetenland.”

    It’s not just Greece. Investors are now worrying about the potential solvency of French banks.

    Last week, Powerline linked to this cheerful piece over at Zero Hedge, which outlines some consequences of a Euro breakup: “Were a stronger country such as Germany to leave the Euro, the consequences would include corporate default, recapitalisation of the banking system and collapse of international trade.” Lovely. Other possibilities: The rise of authoritarian or military governments to contain the crisis, or civil war.

    Despite all this, the EU itself, when not pushing for further austerity, denies it’s preparing for a Greek default. Should we be more worried that the Eurocrats running the show are liars or idiots?

    Here’s Peter Morici calling Greece to default and abandon the Euro, although comically, he’s saying that it’s Greece that is the exploited nation “at the mercy of Germany and other rich states who exploit European unity to live well at the expense of their poorer brethren.” Of course this is an inversion of the actual situation, with wastrel cousin Stavos living high on the hog off of Uncle Fritz and Aunt Helga’s credit rating.

    But that might be coming to an abrupt end. Despite a slew of austerity measures introudced over the weekend, the Greek government only has enough money to last through the middle of October. There are technical obstacles to still more bailouts from Germany, assuming Uncle Fritz was even willing to extend more credit. Signs are that he isn’t. Indeed, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is openly discussing “an orderly bankruptcy of Greece.” The bond market is already treating a Greek default like a near certainty. It seems like the plan to prop up Greece until banks can stick European taxpayers with the bill may be coming undone.

    So, you think gold prices would soar, right? Wrong. “Gold futures slumped as traders cashed out of the perceived refuge asset to cover losses in other markets while Europe’s debt crisis seemed poised to take a turn for the worse.” So it’s gotten so bad that traders need to sell gold in order to cover losses in everything else but gold.

    Hang on, folks. We could be in for a very rough ride…

    LinkSwarm for July 19, 2010

    Monday, July 19th, 2010

    A few random links to kick off your week:

    • Wondering how congressional candidates are doing in the fundraising sweepstakes? This handy chart provides the lowdown.
    • If you wanted to make conservatives and libertarians paranoid, how would you go about it? How about sneaking a provision into ObamaCare requiring dealers to report all gold and silver purchases? But what’s the big deal? It’s not like a Democratic President ever ordered the seizure of American’s gold before. Oh wait, yes he did.
    • Europe is even more screwed than most of us think.
    • For a look at where ObamaCare is leading us, take a look at Massachusetts.
    • This story is about a guy’s horrible experience buying a used Saturn. I’m linking to it here because along the way it provides a pretty sobering look at the parts of the Hope and Change Economy that the usual media sources don’t cover:

      I immediately began looking for work, but by this point the recession was in full swing and over half the yards on our street had ‘For Sale’ signs up. In fact, the town of Marion, SC has lost nearly 30% of its residential population since January, 2009. There were no jobs within two hours of the town and any jobs that were available were swamped with applications. The high school put up a notice that they were looking for two custodians. They had over 600 people show up for applications. The unemployment rate was over 50%, but people like myself, who didn’t qualify for unemployment benefits, and people on welfare, don’t go on the national unemployment statistic. It’s only for people receiving unemployment checks. Those who didn’t comprised such a huge chunk of that ratio, that the official statistic only stated a 19% unemployment rate for the PeeDee region of South Carolina. Yeah, MSNBC didn’t mention the fine points of that statistic, did they?

    (Hat tips: Instapundit, Real Clear Politics, Fark)

    LinkSwarm for Sunday, June 13

    Sunday, June 13th, 2010

    A few random links to while away your day:

    (Hat tips: Instapundit, Real Clear Politics, NRO’s The Corner)