Eén van de mensen die ik al jaren volg ik de van oorsprong Indiase astroloog Mahendra. Hij zit al maanden mis met zijn korte-termijnvoorspellingen, maar zijn lange-termijnvoorspellingen komen vrijwel altijd uit. Het volgende komt uit zijn laatste nieuwsbrief die slechts $1200 per jaar kost. De huidige correctie van goud en zilver zal volgens hem uiteindelijk een klein blipje omlaag blijken te zijn.

Gold, Silver and Oil
For the TV interview of September 2001, GATA and 321gold.com published my prophecies about metals, oil, the dollar as well as the global geo-political events for the first time in February 2002. At the time, my outlook for metals and the oil sector was very confident. Indeed, I stated that gold would first move towards $1000 after which it would then go towards $1600; silver $14 and then to $50 while oil would first attain $60, after which it could hit $100.

I made three important statements that reflected my view at that period:
1- That there would be a 52 Year great cycle for metals and other things that come from nature;
2- That the USA was obliged to acquire GOLD as well as OIL in order to retain its superpower status; and
3- The very real possibility of war situations developing between the USA and Iraq, the USA and IRAN war as well as the USA and N. Korea.

This is just a brief glimpse into my views (between 2001 and 2003) and it is clear that I was quite upbeat about gold and oil. At this stage, I am however filled with sadness for regrettably, I was terribly wrong on metals and oil, even though my long term views have remained the same (rising in metals and energy).

I am not one to run away due to a faulting of my name following a negative cycle. After deep meditation, I am once again writing my prophecies concerning metals, oil, currencies and the world’s geo-political situation.
As a matter of fact, we are not yet late for GOLD TO MOVE TOWARDS $1600, WHILE SILVER IS READY FOR $36, AND $50 THEREAFTER.

Tocqueville Asset Management L.P.
Liar’s Poker*
How Central Bankers Fritter Away Their Time (and Ours)
*A trivial game of bluff. It is played using randomly picked currency from your wallet. The denomination does not matter.

Gold has topped $600/oz. for the first time in 25 years. Unfortunately, for real contrarians, it is making front page news. However, financial media commentary remains fairly ignorant on the subject. The preferred explanations for gold’s rise are mostly benign: it’s the Chinese and the Indians (ooh, they just love bangles, it’s part of their culture); it’s the allocation to commodities that has grown so popular (tangible assets are the rage with all the savviest hedge funds-the Chinese need so much more stuff); it’s the difficulty of bringing new mines into production (you know, the tree huggers hate mining so much); it’s the central banks who have decided that selling gold was not such a great idea in the first place and have now shied away from dumping their reserves (just a bunch of stupid bureaucrats, anyway). These “explanations” all have an element of truth. Any reader of our past website articles would have seen it coming.
However, the Wall Street Journal, CNBC and the equivalent will not tell you that gold is rising because there is a surfeit of paper assets. They will not tell you that a rise in the gold price has historically been a harbinger of bear markets in bonds and stocks and hard times for the financial business. The Pavlovian response of the financial media to the crossing of the $600 threshold was as predictable as their inability to comprehend or to portray the significance.

Ondanks het feit dat de aandelen – 30 % omhoog in de eerste handelsweek – nog nauwelijks worden verhandeld, gaat het kleine Nautilus Minerals serieus verder met zijn plannen om voor het eerst in de wereld op grote schaal met offshore-mijnbouw te beginnen.

Dit is het nieuw aangetreden management team:
Anthony O'Sullivan – COO
Anthony has joined Nautilus from BHP Billiton, where most recently he managed the company's exploration for bulk commodities.
Michael Johnston -- VP Corporate Development
Formerly General Manager for Exploration with Placer Dome, Mike oversaw Placer's exploration efforts in Australia and Asia, where he was a senior member of Placer's Exploration and Asia-Pacific operations management team.
Justin Baulch -- VP Exploration
Justin joins Nautilus from Placer Dome, where most recently he was Manager of the Solwara Project on the Nautilus offshore tenements, where he was involved with the project from due diligence onwards.
Glenn Creed -- VP Sustainability
Glenn joins Nautilus from Placer Dome where he was a global Safety and Sustainability Coordinator for Exploration and Construction.

Nautilus CEO David Heydon comments "At a time when it is difficult to recruit people in the mining industry, Nautilus has successfully managed to assemble a quality team. I think this reflects well on the potential of the company and the quality of its projects. With this team we are well placed to move forward to our goal of becoming the first company to economically produce metal from the seafloor."

Nautilus Minerals Inc. (NUS: TSX -V) is the first company to commercially explore the ocean floor for gold and copper seafloor massive sulphide deposits and is positioned to become a world leader in underwater mineral exploration. The Company's main focus for 2006 is the Solwara Project, which is located in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean.

disclaimer: Willem Middelkoop bezit aandelen in Nautilus Minerals. (NUS.V)

Russia is discussing opening an oil and nat gas market priced in rubles. "The Rouble must become a more widespread means of international transactions. To this end, we need to open a stock exchange in Russia to trade in oil, gas, and other goods to be paid for in Roubles," Putin.

Russia is playing a masterful game here. They are following the idea of Iraq and Iran in breaking the perto dollar monopoly. Even though the "gurus" claim this is a non-event, it will be a big blow to the $ and the ability of the US to declare war on a different nation every three years.

Lairds article yesterday is a must read:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/laird051706.html

Goldman Sachs voorspelt een goudprijs van $800 eind 2007 en JP Morgan maakt de computers gereed voor $1000.

Uit betrouwbare bron:
Bob C., who works at JP Morgan, reports that their bullion department reports that they are in danger of exceeding their computer data capacity which "currently only caters for a gold price of $999.999999. We have been asked to cater for a possible $1000.00 gold price within the next few months." Very interesting!

Kabelbedrijf Casema neemt de Wimax-licentie van Versatel over en wil Nederland omtoveren in een grote hotspot met internet, televisie en telefonie in de lucht. Via de overgenomen communicatietechniek verviervoudigt Casema zijn potentiële doelgroep. Een felle tariefstrijd met mobiele telecomaanbieders lijkt vanaf 2008 onvermijdelijk.
Bron: emerce

Mijn wekelijkse column voor descopist.nl:
The end of Suburbia
Sinds de tweede wereldoorlog hebben Amerikanen veel van hun nieuwe rijkdom in de zogenaamde “suburbia” geïnvesteerd. In de overvloedig aanwezige ruimte, ver buiten de stad, onstonden enorme nieuwe steden en dorpen, met steeds grotere huizen.

De Amerikaanse overheid stimuleerde deze ontwikkeling door benzine belastingvrij en dus goedkoop te houden. Door soepele regelgeving konden de voorsteden bovendien worden opgetrokken van triplex in plaats van steen. Kijk maar eens naar al het wrakhout op luchtfoto’s na het overtrekken van orkaan Katrina.

Hierdoor werd het voor een steeds grotere groep Amerikanen mogelijk een groot vrijstaand huis buiten de stad te kopen. Enig nadeel, de totale dagelijkse reistijd van en naar het werk liep vaak op tot meer dan twee uur. Daarom waren de grote luxe achtcilinders een eerste levensbehoefte. Maar door de steeds duurdere benzine wordt deze levensstijl nu bedreigd. De New York Times schreef  dit weekend over de ingrijpende gevolgen van de steeds hogere rekening aan de pomp.

Global Oil Output to Peak in 2010 – Diapason
by Andrea Hotter
FRANKFURT - Global oil output could reach its production peak by 2010 leaving increasing emphasis on the use of agricultural products for energy supply, Stephan Wrobel, chief executive of Swiss-based asset management fund Diapason Commodities Management SA told the Dow Jones European Commodity Investment conference in Frankfurt Tuesday.
"Currently the world derives some 60% of its energy from fossil fuels but these supplies are limited - the global 'production peak' of oil could be reached by around 2010," Wrobel said.
Klik  hier voor het hele artikel. 

We're Stuck With The Mortgage Monsters
By Jerry Knight
Washington Post
After too many years tilting at Washington's windmills, there are few subjects left that can trigger my feelings of outrage.
Fannie Mae is one of them.
The fall of mortgage giant Fannie Mae -- and its counterpart Freddie Mac -- is the greatest financial tragedy I've witnessed in almost three decades of writing about Washington business.
Once the most respected companies in town, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fudged their bookkeeping for years, stretching accounting rules like bungee cords to create fiscal fiction, deceiving shareholders and manipulating the regulatory process.

We still don't know the truth about their finances, but last week we found out how much it is costing Fannie Mae to find out.
Would you believe $800 million?
Not $800 million in mistakes, $800 million just to review the records, find the phony accounting and come up with clean numbers.
Klik hier voor het hele artikel.

Ook de Japanse Centrale Bank is dollars aan het verkopen, wie volgt?

Shrinking central bank asset buys a worry for dollar
By Jamie McGeever
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States drew in more than enough foreign capital in March to cover the month's trade deficit, but a collapse in central bank demand for U.S. assets paints a potentially bleak picture for the dollar.

The combined private and public sector net purchase of U.S. securities in March, according to Treasury, was $69.8 billion, below forecasts and the previous month's upwardly revised $90.5 billion. But it was more than enough to cover the month's $62 billion trade gap.
Yet the total was almost exclusively from private sector investors, who bought a net $87.6 billion. This flow was mitigated by Americans buying a net $19.4 billion of foreign securities, the most since December last year.

"This proves that Bush arranged 9/11 so he could create a police state."
Vaste lezers kennen mijn waardering voor de geweldige analyses van http://www.stratfor.com/ die over de hele wereld op het hoogste niveau worden gelezen.

Civil Liberties and National Security
By George Friedman
USA Today published a story last week stating that U.S. telephone companies (Qwest excepted) had been handing over to the National Security Agency (NSA) logs of phone calls made by American citizens. This has, as one might expect, generated a fair bit of controversy -- with opinions ranging from "It's not only legal but a great idea" to "This proves that Bush arranged 9/11 so he could create a police state." A fine time is being had by all. Therefore, it would seem appropriate to pause and consider the matter.

De wereldgeschiedenis zit vol met 911 voorbeelden waarbij aanslagen en oorlogen zijn gebruikt, uitgelokt of in scène zijn gezet !

Fake Terror
The road to war and dictatorship
It's the oldest trick in the book, dating back to Roman times; creating the enemies you need.
In 70 BC, an ambitious minor politician and extremely wealthy man, Marcus Licinius Crassus, wanted to rule Rome. Just to give you an idea of what sort of man Crassus really was, he is credited with invention of the fire brigade. But in Crassus' version, his fire-fighting slaves would race to the scene of a burning building whereupon Crassus would offer to buy it on the spot for a tiny fraction of it's worth. If the owner sold, Crassus' slaves would put out the fire. If the owner refused to sell, Crassus allowed the building to burn to the ground. By means of this device, Crassus eventually came to be the largest single private land holder in Rome, and used some of his wealth to help back Julius Caesar against Cicero.