Watching Grass Grow... and Paint Dry

Today's first story is zerohedge.com piece which is courtesy of 'David in California'. The headline reads "No End In Sight To Equity Outflows As Stock Boycott Persists Despite Largest Bond Outflow Since Lehman Failure". For the 33rd week in a row there has been an outflow from domestic equity mutual funds. It's a short read... and the two graphs are worth the trip all by themselves. The link is here.

The next item is a Reuters story that's courtesy of reader Scott Pluschau. The headline states that "Government liabilities rose $2 trillion in Fiscal Year 2010: Treasury". The United States is bankrupt. This isn't a long story, either... and the link is here.

Here's a Bloomberg story imbedded in a GATA release. The headline reads "Bloomberg Sues ECB to Force Disclosure of Greece Swaps". Chris Powell has his own headline, which reads "If only Bloomberg believed in a transparent gold market too"... and the link is here.

Here's another GATA release, with a preamble written by Chris Powell. There's no reason for me write a word about it, when Chris has already done the heavy lifting for me. The headline reads "Interviewed on CNBC, CFTC's Chilton defends position limits". This is worth the five minutes of your time that it takes to watch. The link to Powell's preamble... and Chilton's interview... is here.

Washington state reader, S.A. was kind enough to forward the following graph that was posted over at agorafinancial.com. The chart is titled "Gold Demand, Then and Now".

Silver analyst Ted Butler provided another report to his clients yesterday... and I'm stealing one paragraph out of it in order to answer a question that a few of my readers had about JPMorgan's short positions being transferred to foreign banks. This is what Ted had to say about this issue... "Another story readers have questioned me about concerns a report suggesting JPMorgan is transferring its concentrated short position in Comex silver to foreign banks. I've studied the data closely... and do not come up with that conclusion. JPMorgan is clearly reducing its Comex silver short position... and that has contributed to the recent price rise, but there is no compelling evidence that it is merely a transfer of the short position to foreign banks. In the most recent Bank Participation Report, the US banks [JPMorgan] did reduce their net short position by around 4,000 contracts as previously reported, but the foreign banks only increased their net short position by 1,200 contracts. Besides, if there were such an arrangement in place, it would require overt false statements to the CFTC on large trader reporting requirements, something almost unimaginable for reporting financial institutions."

Since this is my last column until next Tuesday, I thought I'd unload the rest of the stories that I've been saving in my in-box. There are only four of them, but all are fascinating reads.

The first is a story that got posted late on Sunday evening in The Wall Street Journal. That's a wonderful time to post an important story that they don't want noticed. The headline reads "Gaddafi's Threats or Treats". Sean Connery, the actor and longtime Scottish nationalist, said that "I doubt we will ever know the full story" of why the Libyan agent who helped blow a Pan Am airliner out of the sky in 1988 was freed. Well, thanks to WikiLeaks... the world knows a lot more about it now. Nothing surprises me anymore... and this didn't either. I've also heard rumours that there was a big oil deal involving BP... and if they wanted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to sign on the dotted line, it was conditional on the release of Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi. It's a very short read... and a lot of the unsavoury details are linked here.

The next fascinating story is courtesy of reader G.G. This one was posted in the Friday edition of The New York Times. The short headline... "Granting Anonymity"... belies the intrigue in the story itself. I'd bet that "The Tor Project" doesn't mean much to you. It's a deliberately byzantine system of virtual tunnels that conceal the origins and destinations of data, and thus the identity of clients on the Internet. Tor has been around since 2001, when programmers from M.I.T. and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory introduced it at a California security conference. Well, WikiLeaks knows all about it. This is a journey into the 'twilight zone' of the increasingly difficult art of keeping secrets online... and how it can be done. It's worth the read... and the link is here.

This next piece is by foreign affairs expert Srdja Trifkovic... a writer whose work I have all the time in the world for. The headline of this particular article reads "Belarus: Still No Country For Sold Men"... and it's posted over at chroniclesmagazine.org. Belarus is one of the countries that the U.S just loves to hate. President Alexander Lukashenko’s key early move was the closing of the Belarus Soros Foundation in 1997, followed by a ban on other NGO-clones. This prevented the replay of Belgrade, Tbilisi and Kiev in Minsk— and turned him into a “dictator” in Washington. Lukashenko’s popularity, and the key to the inability of various color-coded would-be emulators to gain support, is due to the fact that he has resisted foreign attempts to subvert him [or else to buy him] and to open the country to “privatization” and “post-communist transition” with predictable results for millions of common folks. Let's face it, dear reader... the guy's a hero at home. This success story is well worth your while... and you'll never see commentary like this out of the main stream media in North America... and the link is here. Once again I thank reader G.G. for providing this story.

Lastly today is this inspirational Christmas story headlined "The Christmas Truce" from reader Roy Stephens. I know that the story is factual, because my grandfather... who fought in Belgium and France during the 'Great War'... told me all about it from personal experience. It was December 25, 1914... only 5 months into World War I. German, British, and French soldiers, already sick and tired of the senseless killing, disobeyed their superiors and fraternized with "the enemy" along two-thirds of the Western Front [a crime punishable by death in times of war]. German troops held Christmas trees up out of the trenches with signs, "Merry Christmas." And the rest, as they say, is history. This is a must read... and the link is here.