Author Archives: Lila

Indian Flooding Caused by Climate Change?

Posted on by

The recent severe flooding in India has displaced millions of people, killed hundred, and seem to be a sinister portent of worse to come, in a country that already has a full plate of problems. Time Magazine, of course, tells us it’s due to climate change. How far that is true or not, I don’t know, but it’s also clear that government inefficiency (there is no systematic method of water storage), the destruction of small-scale farming leading to soil erosion, practices of deforestation by developers and nomadic herdsmen, have contributed a lot. However, I suspect there’s more to the story than meets the eye. When something shows up on a Time magazine cover in this way, whatever the merits of the issue, it’s usually been harnessed into state propaganda. Tell-tale signs of that may be the fact that the climate change expert quoted is a government outfit (IPCC), not an academic one, and that the ubiquitous Peterson Institute is also in the picture. Also connected to the Peterson Institute is Nandan Nilekani, ex-CEO of Infosys (India’s Microsoft), now the head of the Indian government effort to create a biometric ID (about which I blogged here).

More digging warranted….

From Time Magazine:

“Although flooding has recently become commonplace in India – in 2008, over 3 million people were displaced when the Kosi river in Bihar burst its banks – but this year’s deluge came as a shock because if followed a protracted drought, and a monsoon season branded a dud by the authorities. To experts who’ve tracked the effects of climate change, however, the flooding came as no surprise. In its fourth assessment report in 2007, the Inter- Government Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted that more extreme droughts, floods, and storms, would become commonplace in the future, and that these intense weather conditions would follow in close succession to each other, often in the same areas. ….Meager monsoons mean meager crops, and meager income, for Indian farmers. This year alone, the loss to crop yields and property in the two states has totaled almost $7 million. Dr. William Cline, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD) and the Peterson Institute for International Economics says that of all the potential damage that could occur from climate change, damage to agriculture is likely to be the most devastating. “In the southern parts of India, damage will be substantial and similar to that in other countries also located close to the equator,” he says. “In these locations, where temperatures are already at high levels, an increase in temperature will surpass crop tolerance levels.”
Already, food shortages have become a major concern for the government, as the retail prices of vegetables shoot up. Damage to the onion crop in the recent floods, for example, saw the vegetable’s price double within days.”

– More at Time Magazine.

Gold Commentary

Posted on by

I read this recently in a gold newsletter:

“More importantly, if I own gold, a peasant buying gold in China can directly affect the value of my holdings through the increase in demand when he buys it in his local village since we are both holding the same thing!”

Well, these are sweet thought to gold bugs, but the vast majority of peasants and rural workers in China can’t afford anything beyond subsistence. Gold may benefit from middle and upper class savings. But I am not sure Indian demand can keep up with the prices.

Tips for Buying Property In a Foreign Country

Posted on by

Having now lived in about a dozen countries (counting living as spending more time than a couple of weeks), and having window-shopped for property in all of them, here are a few things that I’ve learned.

1. Property websites differ widely. In some, the offerings are updated regularly and reflect current prices. Others are dated. Some carry photos for years after the property has been sold. So, if you write and don’t get an answer fairly promptly, move on.

2. Make a phone call whenever you can. Many sellers don’t take emails seriously. Or they’re tired of long explanations to scores of strangers who aren’t really interested. After the first few emails, get on the phone and talk to the owner or the broker.

3. Ask questions. But don’t ask just about what you’re interested in. Ask macro questions about the area, the market, other cities, demographics, employment.

4. Don’t ask so many questions that you don’t have time to listen to what the broker is telling you. Good brokers have a wide knowledge of the market and even a casual phrase can save you hours of research on your own.  Tap into professional knowledge whenever you can.

5. Don’t reveal too much of your own plans. It’s premature and can sabotage your ability to negotiate (this is often hard for me, being a rather open person). On the other hand, being too cagey provokes caginess in others too.

6. Don’t assume anything. Sometimes working directly with the owner does save you money. Sometimes, it can end up being costlier. Brokered properties are not necessarily more expensive. Brokers often have a better idea of a good sale price than owners. Many an owner has put his house on the market at an inflated price only to have it sit there for months. Then he has to reduce the price, and by then, the market has moved on.

7. Don’t be pressured into buying. If the broker has other offers coming in, don’t rush to beat them. Offer what you think you’re willing to pay, and if someone else offers more, then that’s the way the game went. There’ll be another chance some where else.

8. When you have done your research long enough, make your move. Endlessly nitpicking something is a dead-end. There’s likely to be some draw-back to buying any piece of property. You get the architecture you want, but along with it comes plumbing problems; the location with good rental returns might not have as good capital appreciation as the location with the good rentals; the glorious facade might open into a boxy lay-out; you love the terrace, but the bathrooms are pokey. That’s life.

9. Read up on real estate procedure and verify with locals exactly what needs to be done at each step. It would be a shame to lose a property because you didn’t get a piece of paper right.

10. Be very clear about your goals. Are you buying it for rent or for profit or because you always wanted to own a piece of beautiful architecture?

11. Be very clear about your feelings. Some people might be willing to lose money fixing an old building. Would you? On the other hand, would you enjoy owning something cheaper and plainer in a frumpy area? Only you know your tolerance level for different things.

GOLD: IMPORTANT: Watch the Prices Not the Theories…

Posted on by

My position is that the dollar bear is being over-hyped (despite the bad fundamentals) and manipulated, and as a consequence, I’ve been a dollar contrarian. I still kick myself for selling my initial gold long position way back in 2006 (I bought some in 2004) and then never regaining it because I was still convinced it would go lower. It did, but I wasn’t paying attention when it did. In trading, you can’t go long stretches doing other things and not watching the prices. The bullion banks both short and go long gold, in ways calculated to pick the pockets of the naive. Here’s a good analysis by Stewart Thomson at 321gold:

“The key point is that the US dollar bear market is now entering the stage of a publicly recognized and PROMOTED bear market. As of right NOW, you will start to hear from business owner investor acquaintances about the US dollar bear market. These idiots will parrot the Bloomberg stories, nodding their heads up and down, completely ignoring the fact that the dollar is down about 35% from the highs set about 7 yrs ago. NOW they show up and notice there’s a problem with the US dollar? We are in the later, most horrific stage of the US dollar bear market. The stage where the banksters begin buying USD with their infinitely deep pockets, while the institutions and public bail in terror and accelerate their doomed-to-fail leveraged carry trade scheme. Soon the banksters will be selling OTC derivatives on the US buck shorts, collecting, fees and interest before finally burning the thing into the ground via a new gold standard that will end the US dollar short party like a tomato hitting a cement wall.

15. It’s very important to stay focused on what the charts are indicating and buying gold weakness and selling gold strength only. This is the largest bankster play ever, as they load up on the US dollars sold by the bustout dollar bag holders worldwide who follow the bankster propaganda that the USD is “finished for the long term.”

16. We even have the head of the World Bank calling the USD a sell now, 7 years after the top. Then he says, “by the way, I’ve bankrupted the entire world bank, but I know the US Dollar is now in a bear market, 7 years after the top.” Gee, I wonder why his bank is worthless. He says what he’s paid to say to create WORLDWIDE panic and hysteria concerning the USD. The banksters are ready for the next stage of profit booking on their giant gold long positions as part of their plan to take over the major holdings of the US dollar.

17. They are looking to create fear in the US dollar market, and succeeding tremendously in terms of time and in terms of volume of fear. All it takes is for a tiny portion of the US dollars to make their way towards the gold market, a tiny portion of allocation by the institutions, and you have immediate mindblowing volatility in the gold market. There are hundreds of institutional traders handling vastly more money than that held by all the GCMs. If you are shorting gold, you must be prepared to handle price moves of $100, even $200 during a single day’s trading.

18. My strongest suggestion if you ARE short gold, is that you move towards trades drastically smaller than you are trading now. Few investors alive today understand what is coming in the gold market. The gold community has called almost every single top and bottom wrong. There’s one thing not a single person in the gold community has called wrong: The Big Picture. That makes you smarter in many ways that 99% of the world’s largest money managers. Take your credit. It is due.

19. Once the banksters have pointed terrified institutions towards gold, they will then seek to alternate bullish and bearish news to create massive whipsaw action. The banksters’ “grand slam” will be announcing that the “recovery” was in fact a warm-up act for their Trillion Dollar OTCD Main Act. “OTCD” being Over-The-Counter Derivatives. Once the economy is announced to be imploding via a truckload of new multi trillion dollar OTCD failures, the US Dollar bear market will not reverse. It will accelerate at hyperspeed. Gold’s rise will create terror amongst institutional investors that financial Armageddon is upon them. They understand full well what happens to gold if they all charge in at the same time. Many will turn to gold stocks to appear less panicked than they are.

20. There will be no “gold rush” for the public. They will be too busy screaming for President Obama to print more money to save them from the financial black hole they are in. In the meantime, it is more important that you continue to watch the charts for REAL overbought and oversold conditions. Don’t tell yourself excuses to buy or sell gold when the clear picture on the charts is not what you are pretending it is, what you want it to be.

21. I’ve heard a million reasons from many investors WHY gold will go up or down for the next leg. Who cares. Place your buys and sells in response to whether it IS up or down. All else will fail you….”

It Takes a Woman….

Posted on by

Sometimes identity does matter. I notice that in all the public commentary from France on Polanski, only a woman took into account the feelings and wishes of the victim:

“Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie was one of the few leading figures here to mention Polanski’s victim in her appraisal of Polanski’s case. The former justice minister said it “poses a problem” that the U.S. is still seeking his extradition – since Geimer herself wants to move on…”

For me, the issue is one of privacy – intrusion into both Polanski’s and Samantha G.’s privacy, at a point when any public interest in the matter has vanished long decades ago. Polanski’s “genius” is irrelevant or very little relevant; American puritanism is even less relevant. Americans are free to be as puritanical as they wish to be.

The State and Pedocide

Posted on by

More extensive child abuse than any committed by Polanski is the child abuse committed by Madeleine Albright:

“Did Maddow ask about Albright’s help in the starvation of a million Iraqis because of Saddam Hussein’s “WMDs”? Nope. Her statement that the killing of 400,000 Iraqi children through murderous Bush I-Clinton I sanctions was “worth it”? Nope. Meanwhile, Albright hopes to help kill Iranian children and adults because of Iranian “WMDs,” and Maddow is helping her. Can you believe I was dumb enough, when I listened to her old radio show, to think Maddow was pro-peace? Is she a neocon like Albright? No. Like virtually all progressives, she is a bloodthirsty warmonger when the Democrats do the murder.”

Blog post from Lew Rockwell.

My Comment

I’d correct the “all progressives” part. I think many progressives were unhappy with the sanctions, but didn’t know where else to go but the Democrat party. They’re just not convinced that the right is sufficiently critical of the corporate part of the corporate-state. I’ve always thought Rachel Maddow was smart. But she’s too much a part of the academic-government complex to criticize it effectively.

Blogger Credibility…(links added, updated, correction)

Posted on by

I. A Question About Zerohedge:

Felix Salmon raises some questions about the blog, Zerohedge, which rose to swift prominence recently, following the TARP bail-out.

He notes that one of the principals, Daniel Ivandjiiksy has a record of insider trading.

I hardly think that this undermines the credibility of what Zerohedge posts. A drunk driving violation doesn’t disqualify you from credibly digging up information on auto industry lobbying. What’s more germane to my mind is the fact that none of these bloggers seem to have been so visible before the Goldman-AIG bailout story broke (ahem…taking a bow here..). Is that coincidental? Perhaps.

II. Other Bloggers:

Here are some of the bloggers or names that have suddenly become attached to the story – Max Keiser, Goldman666, Matt Taibbi, Zerohedge.

They’ve all contributed a lot of legitimate material. But one thing strikes me as odd. None of these names were notable for critiquing any of the main culprits of the financial crisis, before September 2008. But now they’re the blogosphere’s leading voices on the kleptocrats.

Yet, Taibbi, as I’ve noted, isn’t all that informed about a number of things. And in some of his writing, at least, seems to be steering opinion away from what I consider the prime suspects. I initially thought he might be spreading a bit of disinformation. Now, I wonder if it’s just that he doesn’t know enough. In any case, they’ve all done good and useful work that I hope won’t be discounted because of occasional slip-ups.

Even if individual posts or documents are unreliable, vetting from the blogosphere should keep everyone honest.

Note: In relation to the attacks on my own credibility by a pseudonymous stalker, Tony R, here is a link to a settlement with the NASD (the securities dealers association).

Correction: Villasenor denies that he is the same as Tony R. I’ll accept his denial, though both he and TR use the same message boards, employ the same invective, use multiple aliases – some of them overlapping or very close – and both attack the same figures.

Villasenor Ry–ls continuously slanders me with accusations that I’m a “stock fraudster.” The only reason he gives is that I co-wrote “Mobs” with a financial newsletter publisher, one of whose innumerable publications has fallen afoul of the SEC, and some of whose associates have had admittedly very questionable histories. (I’ve blogged about them before). But none of them ever had any kind of contact with me. So why the persistent posting (since 2007)?

Villasenor Ry–ls seems to have been a reader of mine who thought I was on the far left side of the political spectrum, and became incensed when he found I was a supporter of Ron Paul instead. Having seen some of his rants before I’d taken up the book project, I briefly questioned him about them. I found his responses incoherent, so I went ahead and wrote the book. That seems to have set him off.

Scroll down the webpage I’ve copied below, and you’ll see his real name, Roberto G. Villasenor. (He has scores of aliases). [Correction: Villasenor denies that he is Ry_ls. Both use multiple aliases, both post on similar issues, in similar venues, both have been attacked for libel, both are traders/speculators, so it was an error, it was a good faith one, easily made, I think, unless one were familiar enough with the stock underworld to tell all these characters apart at once]

Villasenor’s Ry–s role in the “captured media” story (the thesis that Wall Street media coverage is manipulated by powerful financiers) is a minor one and can be found at Patrick Byrne’s Deep Capture blog, one of the main advocates of that thesis. It’s a bit role in the story of the ‘Easter Bunny’ (the character who, Byrne says, first drew his attention to the naked-shorting businesss). Byrne deserves a great deal of credit for going after the story early on, despite brickbats, and for detailing exactly how the  Russian-Jewish mafia came to Wall Street.

[Note: Byrne’s company, Overstock, an internet discount retailer, has again come under investigation by the SEC. Byrne thinks that it’s retaliation for his campaign against naked short-selling].

On the other hand, Gary Weiss, a former Forbes journalist and perpetual sparring partner of Byrnes’, says that the Overstock investigation is legitimate. He says it proves that Byrne was all along using his Wall Street short-selling-conspiracy campaign to divert attention from his own massaging of company earnings. Weiss and Sam Antar (a convict turned white-collar crime fighter, who has criticized Overstock’s accounting) argue that Byrne harasses his critics over personal matters.

[Both sides seem to make some good points, but on the issue of personal attacks, neither side comes off well. There’s stuff that’s fair game for criticism. There’s other stuff – family or medical matters, physical appearance, sexual history – that shouldn’t be, because they’re completely irrelevant to the issue – financial fraud. Some of the back and forth ends up being plain nasty].

To return to the story of my web-stalker, Villasenor is also connected to an allegedly extortionist website that has shady connections. I don’t want to get into all that here, though. (this is Villasenor but it’s not R__ls)

[Update: I just got a critical comment from this website, claiming that “extortionist” is not accurate. I deleted the comment, because in my post I’ve used the word “alleged”; my focus is on Villasenor’s activities, not on the website. Nonetheless,  I’ve now added a link to back up the term, “extortionist”].

Where does Villasenor Ry–ls write about his targets? Apparently from Guatemala, hiding out in a hut. Being penniless, unemployed, and on the run from whoever is suing him for libel this time round (as you can guess, he gets sued a lot), he spends all his time posting long screeds on Indymedia, which has no standard about what it’ll publish.

Other journalists whom he’s latched onto in his screeds include well-known members of the major media, like Carol Remond, Roddy Boyd, Jesse Eisinger, Christopher Byron, Gary Weiss. You can see their names, as well as private correspondence of theirs, posted publicly by Ry__s Villasenor. This strongly suggests a degree of attention-seeking.

As an example of his activities, Villasenor has also attacked a CEO named Michael Zwebner for stock-pumping. Zwebner sued him several times and seems to have lost, as he was likely to under US law, which requires the plaintiff to establish “malice” – something quite hard to do. Still, I know nothing about the merits of the case. I’m merely pointing out that Villasenor has a history of attacking people.

[Correction: Villasenor has indeed attacked Zwebner, but not, apparently, Ry__s]

Before that, Villasenor Ry__s also used to post on Amr Elgindy’s message board – Elgindy being a near-legendary Wall Street fraudster involved in naked shorting and also in the 9-11 story.

I’m guessing that might be the reason that Villasenor Ry__s defends naked shorting and claims its critics are people with vested interests in laundering money – penny-stock pumpers, for instance.

Having read through nearly all his extremely involved statements (some achievement, as they go into hundreds of webpages), I’ve come to the conclusion that some parts of his rants are not beyond credibility, even though is he isn’t the most credible person to be making those points.

For instance, it’s certainly true that there is a lot of money being laundered through the stock market, and that penny-stock pumping is one avenue. It’s also obvious that Cox and the SEC didn’t do their jobs – whether as part of an overarching conspiracy is something that has to be established. I suspect that the venture capital firm the CIA set up in the 1990s – In-Q-Tel, which I’ve mentioned in my book on Abu Ghraib – might have some connections that are also worth pursuing. And off-shore firms and banks play a large role in what’s happened over the last 25 years. All that is true.

But whatever accurate moments Villasenor’s Ry__s’ rants have, they get muddied by his tendency to attack anyone who’s ever crossed his path, even casually, and weave them all into a galactic conspiracy directed at his trading/speculating losses.

Well, even as an amateur, I’ve probably lost more than he has. And for a sometime school-teacher, that’s a lot. But I don’t blame anyone for those losses except myself.

Yes, the market is rigged. Yes, it’s manipulated. Yes, it’s not your fault and yes, you got conned. But those are factual truths. In trading, you have to learn to deal with emotional truths, which are different things. The emotional truth you have to “own” is that it’s always your fault…no matter how much it isn’t. That’s the only road to mastery.

Update:

I’ve pasted a copy of the message-board that alleges that Rip-Off Report is associated with extortion. I’m pasting the whole page, in case the link gets lost. As you can see from it, Villasenor, is/has been charged with racketeering, conspiracy, invasion of privacy, defamation and other crimes (you can verify by googling Roberto G Villasenor and NASD, as well as Villasenor and Zwebner, and also any of Villasenor’s aliases – which are variations on wolfblitzer, pin, worm, and many others. I’m not mentioning his most frequent alias, because any time it’s mentioned he shows up on this blog and starts spamming me and reduplicating his posts all over the web.

1. FALSE: I attended Freedom Fest (TRUE: I did not attend and never have attended, although I fail to see why that’s a crime, even if I did)

2. FALSE: I have sold stock (TRUE: I never have. You need a license to sell stock and I don’t have one, nor am I interested in getting one. I only trade my my own savings – and that, rather infrequently. I did research Goldman Sachs, with the intention of using that material in “Mobs,” but that was vetoed and I turned the research into an investment report, suggesting shorting GS. I didn’t own GS at the time, have never owned it, and didn’t know anyone else who owned it. I advocated shorting it because I thought it was a corrupt company, knee-high in derivative contracts – and I was proved quite correct. I later turned that into a story that was used by my co-author’s company. The research on that is thorough and I stand by it. The report was later sold by the company under someone else’s name without my permission – that was one of many things that led to my leaving. I had no say in any of that. Besides some very brief analyses (a few paragraphs) of the Indian market where I recommended nothing I held (or anyone I knew held), that is the extent of my involvement with recommending anything in a newsletter. You can find that writing on my blog and check for yourself).

3. FALSE: I am closely associated with/covering for Porter Stansberry, James Davidson, Mark Skousen.

(TRUE: They are associates of my co-author’s. I do not know them except by hearsay and was quite critical of two of them to senior people – to my detriment – and on this blog. I’ve been blurbed by left-wing writers like Ward Churchill and I don’t know them personally either).

4. FALSE: I wasn’t born in India (TRUE: I was born there and completed my first two university degrees there. I speak two Indian languages and return there frequently. Most of my family lives there).

5. FALSE: I am concealing my birth-date because I’m a fraud (TRUE: Revealing personal information on the net exposes you to frauds/threats of all kinds. It’s sensible to put the minimum possible out in public).

4. FALSE: I am “covering” for the company. (TRUE: I have never “covered” for any one. I asked about the Stansberry case, as well as about Davidson, at the time I was approached to help write the book. I was told by two senior people that the problems were in other divisions and in the past, and I would have no involvement with them. I did my work almost completely over the net and was most of the time out of the country. I have several times expressed my dislike of the “hard-selling” employed by some newsletters published by the company. I have criticized that, and other things, not only directly to senior people, but also in my blog posts. I have suffered the consequences for that in my career. I do not think more can be asked from a citizen journalist. After having left the company in 2007, I came across published material on the web that confirmed that I was right to leave. In so far as that material has any relation to my own interests as a citizen journalist, I have posted it. Beyond that, it would be both incorrect and injudicious for me to venture, for many reasons that would be immediately apparent to anyone with an ounce of intelligence or integrity).

5. FALSE: I am “pretending to fight Byrne.” (TRUE: My posts support Byrne’s findings, as they confirm my own research into the engineering of media coverage. I have, however, criticized some of the tactics he’s used to go after his critics. That’s in keeping with my general dislike for “personal attacks” on the web that use material that’s irrelevant to the public interest involved. I cannot “fight” anyone over subjects I cannot verify or disprove. I believe (with Byrne) that naked short-selling had a serious role in the financial crisis. I also believe (with Byrne’s critics) that the market is used to launder money. That opposition roughly coincides to Republican-Democrat, and as always, both sides seem to have got different parts of the story right. Which of the two is the more important part, I don’t know).

*****
WEBSITE POST
Google search 9/29/09

From: edmagedson@ripoffreport.com
Subject: Group of Criminals behind ripoffreport (badbusinessbureau) and easybackgroundcheck (modelingscams)
Date: 16 Jun 2005 13:52:03 -0600

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.

Classification: Query

Message Board URL:

http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/3U.2ADE/1636

Message Board Post:

Ed Magedson demanded over $50,000 from a company that is also suing him and the Rip-Off Report
Ed Magedson demanded $5,000 from a small business owner in return for a positive testimonial.
Complaint filed by an Arizona law firm that was victimized by the same Rip-Off Report extortion scheme.

Criminal Ed Magedson is working with the group of criminals that formed the easybackgroundcheck aka modelingscams

List of companies paying extortion money –
Consumer Health Network
National Health Network
World Benefits
National Grants
Incredible Discoveries
MVI – Mini Vacations
Harvard Professional Group
Alyon

Group of Criminals behind ripoffreport (badbusinessbureau) and easybackgroundcheck (modelingscams) –
Ed Magedson – Conspiracy and Racketeering (RICO) proceedings as well as claims for defamation
Les Henderson – Under the guise of helping protect her from “scam” companies he tries to lure a 17 year old girl to his hotel room to do coke
Edward Bloedow – has convictions for flashing women (misdemeanor) and receiving stolen goods (felony)
Frank Torelli – is so afraid his lies, conspiratorial and illegal activities will eventually catch up with him he never discloses his whereabouts
William Rosenberger – Conspiracy and Racketeering (RICO) proceedings as well as claims for defamation and invasion of privacy filed
Madelene Rosenberger – Conspiracy and Racketeering (RICO) proceedings as well as claims for defamation and invasion of privacy filed
Roberto Villasenor Jr. – Conspiracy and Racketeering (RICO) proceedings as well as claims for defamation and invasion of privacy filed
Stephen Howe
Michael Potter – attorney in California who acts as a front for Bloedow and Noll
Klaas DeVries Jr. – named in RICO lawsuit filed with FBI and U.S. Attorney General’s office
Ted Peterson
Stick Bogart
Robert Kirchman
Pamela Kirchman
Amr Elgindy- FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office link Easy background Check Founder Amr El-Gindy (along with Criminal Les Henderson) to 9-11.
Robert Noll – owner of Monster Talent management an unlicensed photo mill in California
Patricia Gewartowski- under investigation by federal authorities for revealing confidential financial information to criminal Frank Torelli and Criminal Les Henderson

********