U.S. and Allies Say Syria Leader Must Step Down … The United States and several of its major allies on Thursday called on Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, to give up power. The carefully choreographed announcements came after months of popular protests and increasingly deadly reprisals that the United Nations commissioner for human rights said amounted to crimes against humanity by the Syrian authorities. … “We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way,” Mr. Obama said in a written statement released Thursday morning after coordination with allies in Europe. – NY Times
A Shaken Europe Looks for Bolder Fixes … A dramatic selloff in European financial markets on Thursday renewed fears that Europe’s banks are too weak to withstand the Continent’s debt crisis, increasing the chances that the region’s leaders will be forced to pursue radical steps toward fiscal union in order to preserve their common currency. … Germany and France presented the latest in a series of initiatives aimed at bolstering the euro zone’s architecture. Investors immediately criticized the plan, which included steps toward tax harmonization and stricter budget controls. – Wall Street Journal
Gold Jumps to Record in Longest Rally Since 2007 … Gold rose to a record above $1,860 an ounce, poised for the longest run of weekly gains since April 2007, as escalating concern the global economy is slowing drove equities lower and spurred demand for a haven. … “The drivers of the gold price at this point in time are all future expectations, such as more global liquidity and worsening of the status quo in global GDP,” said Bayram Dincer, an analyst at LGT Capital Management in Pfaeffikon, Switzerland. “Either the gold market has adopted a very negative, and in our opinion not justifiable, negative, Armageddon-like view, or it is building an irrational bubble.” – Bloomberg
U.S. and Allies Say Syria Leader Must Step Down
The United States and several of its major allies on Thursday called on Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, to give up power. The carefully choreographed announcements came after months of popular protests and increasingly deadly reprisals that the United Nations commissioner for human rights said amounted to crimes against humanity by the Syrian authorities. … “We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way,” Mr. Obama said in a written statement released Thursday morning after coordination with allies in Europe. – NY Times
Dominant Social Theme: The UN will make the world a better place, thanks to R2P.
Free-Market Analysis: We have covered this topic for some time now, as it became very clear to us that the global power elite, via the United Nations’ broad powers to depose leaders of nation states, is intent on fast tracking the implementation of “democracy.” Of course, prior to the UN adoption of R2P, nation states operated for the most part under the Treaty of Westphalia for centuries. In reality, R2P gives the Anglosphere enormous, worldwide powers. Any nation-state that does not obey the Anglosphere’s dictates can now find itself on the wrong side of a massed international “coalition of the willing” led by NATO and fulfilling the strategic desires of the City of London, Washington DC and perhaps even Tel Aviv.
A Shaken Europe Looks for Bolder Fixes
A dramatic selloff in European financial markets on Thursday renewed fears that Europe’s banks are too weak to withstand the Continent’s debt crisis, increasing the chances that the region’s leaders will be forced to pursue radical steps toward fiscal union in order to preserve their common currency. … Germany and France presented the latest in a series of initiatives aimed at bolstering the euro zone’s architecture. Investors immediately criticized the plan, which included steps toward tax harmonization and stricter budget controls. – Wall Street Journal
Dominant Social Theme: What we need is more centralization of power… more uniformity.
Free-Market Analysis: All of this illustrates amply that the EU fully intends to become a United States of Europe despite the long and ancient tradition of its member states, which, unlike the colonies, are cohesive tribal cultures that go back thousands of years. The parallels between the US, a political entity that has been around 200 years and Europe, which has been settled for some 10,000 years, are minimal at best. The more the EU bestrides Europe by trickery and legislative sleight of hand, the more it is likely resented by those it seeks to dominate. Initially, the EU was nothing more than a trading zone. Had its membership known that they were participating in the raising of an empire with 500 million inhabitants, chances are the EU would never have generated the level of cooperation necessary to survive, let alone thrive.
Gold Jumps to Record in Longest Rally Since 2007
Gold rose to a record above $1,860 an ounce, poised for the longest run of weekly gains since April 2007, as escalating concern the global economy is slowing drove equities lower and spurred demand for a haven. … “The drivers of the gold price at this point in time are all future expectations, such as more global liquidity and worsening of the status quo in global GDP,” said Bayram Dincer, an analyst at LGT Capital Management in Pfaeffikon, Switzerland. “Either the gold market has adopted a very negative, and in our opinion not justifiable, negative, Armageddon-like view, or it is building an irrational bubble.” – Bloomberg
Dominant Social Theme: Gold’s rise is irrational.
Free-Market Analysis: This is a constant theme being trumpeted by mainstream media. Earlier today, while watching the pom-pom show “CNBC Europe,” we listened in amazement as Joe Kernan arrogantly diminshed gold as something he “just wouldn’t want to own.” Instead, Kernan would rather take the gold and buy a car because, as he says, “he doesn’t have any cavities to fill.” Do mainstream media pundits like Kernan not realize how ridiculous they sound? Gold is only “building an irrational bubble,” as LGT’s Dincer says above, for those who have no rational understanding of Austrian economics and monetary history. We suggest Kernan and Dincer go spend an extended period of time at the Mises Institute. Perhaps it wouldn’t make any difference in what they say anyway.
