Is this what you want?

You are not a machine.
Your natural genetic design does not tolerate 2 to 4 hours of travel per day, 8 to 12 hours of slave labor 5 to 6 days per week.
For whatever monetary compensation.
On 5 to 6 hours of sleep.
In a system built on penalistic principle and a life under judgmental surveillance.
Like it or not your are human.
Stress, harassment, constant financial worries, fear and a sense of inadequacy destroys the health of any human being.
This is a scientific fact.
So why is it that we accept and tolerate a system that in actual reality demands that you erase your needs and in effect commit a slow joyless suicide for someone elses profit?

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Bread and Finance Games - Lyrics Looking for Musical Company

Twitter user @poorbystandard mailed these lyrics, looking for artists to turn this into a Youtube hit.

Would be great to have an artist perform it on youtube
there are many talented people out there! Feel free to fix bugs!
Acknowledgements and thanks for inspiration: Chris Duane, Trace Mayer, Mike Maloney, Doug Casey, James Rickard, Peter Boehringer, Sven Polleit, Hans J. Bocker, Longwave Group et alia
salute to: Max Keiser, hartgeld.com, Zerohedge, Satoshi Nakamoto, Juliana Richer, Jens Weidmann, the Austrian school and Nikolai Kondratiev

Viva panem et circenses
alternative lyrics best sung to Coldplay - Viva La Vida
by "poor by standard" (poorbystandard@gmail.com) CC-BY license
[Jan - Sept 2012, v1.08]

1. We used to rule the world
2. call a mighty empire our own
3. now in the morning markets open
4. trading the future until it's broken
5.  
6. We used to be the guide
7. industrial revolution full of pride
8. high finance now is all we have
9. making us the 51st state of the US
10.  
11. One minute we raise a loan
12. next stop debt trap danger zone
13. and we discovered that we've all depend
14. upon leverage of oil and leverage of gold
15.  
16. Bank of England's just printing money
17. soon it's gonna get really funny                      
18. no proper industry to defend us
19. just high finance here to suspend us
20.  
21. For some reasons we can't explain
22. lobbyism's our sovereign reign
23. credit with unbacked quid
24. it is funny it used to work
25.  
26. Repoed portfolios and derivatives
27. are banksters' top initiatives
28. Fiat is not but a failed car brand
29. it's quite the beginning of the end
30.  
31. Revolutionaries wait
32. for Exter's pyramid's increasing weight
33. cartel banksters not shy to rig
34. precious metals on any uptick
35.  
36. Paper paradigm is collapsing
37. sheeple savers in for a waxing
38. compound interest to suck us dry
39. welfare and peace here to say goodbye
40.  
41. For some reasons we can't explain
42. lobbyism's our sovereign reign
43. credit with unbacked quid
44. it is funny it used to work
45.  
46. Bank of England's just printing money
47. soon it's gonna get really funny                      
48. No proper industry to defend us
49. just high finance here to suspend us

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The Investor Sentiment Wheel

Graph courtesy of trustablegold.com. Click to enlarge.

Aka the sucker's cycle.

TOP SECRET: This is the ECB Bazooka

It's been a long blogging hiatus but actually nothing has changed in Eurozone monetary politics. If you have gotten confused about the monetary instruments the ECB threatens to deploy, this blogger is happy to have received this picture of the EUro-Wunderwaffe in action. Mind you: That's all the ECB has.

We are not one step further in the biggest crisis of this century

GUEST POST: This Incredibly Tiny Silver Market

Prices above $30/oz of silver as of today are only the first step for the expected explosion in silver prices due to the size of the market. This guest post by Sean, who I met first 2007 in Vancouver, confirms that the fundamental outlook projects a bottleneck for investible silver. 

--- by Sean Rakhimov ---

It has been a while since we had this nagging feeling that we’re witnessing something profound taking place before our eyes and the market doesn’t seem to grasp it yet. We are not talking about the smorgasbord of events effecting markets all over the globe that is receiving ample coverage elsewhere in the media. As readers might know, our particular interest is in the silver space, and that is where we see an elephant in the room that hasn’t made headlines yet.

No doubt most readers are aware of the recent developments in countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and others, with respect to what can be broadly classified as “resource nationalism”. Our general views on the subject were detailed a few years ago, here. As discussed by this writer and others, such developments are not new and certainly not limited to silver or even the mining sector. However, in our opinion, it is in the silver space that these events should have the most profound effect.

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VIDEO: "The Secret of Oz Raises" Serious Doubts About a Gold Standard

This is a must see video for all gold bugs as it raises the important question of who would ultimately benefit from a gold standard...and arrives at the answer that a silver standard would would be more benefactorial for the 99%.



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Sustainable

Click to enlarge

Click here to go to the The Prudent Investor homepage for more interesting posts.

The EU's Hush-Hush Strategy For the ESM and Fiscal Compact March-Through

The European Union's (EU) hush-hush strategy to saddle taxpayers with ultimately trillions of Euros of debt seems to have run into some roadblocks as Eurozone finance ministers have not signed, but only "endorsed" the still unavailable European Stability Mechanism Treaty (ESM).
The EU presidency hopes the ESM will be formally signed at the next Eurogroup meeting on February 20, before it has to be ratified by national governments until June 30. Resistance to the ESM appears to grow in Slovakia and Austria, where political chit-chat circles around rumors that Austria's chancellor Werner Faymann has shaken off the short leash Germany's Angela Merkel had been holding so far, holding his posture in front of ueber-mighty Germany and not nodding off every one of Merkel's ideas.
So far the EU succeeds with its mission to establish the ESM, that will lead in combination with the "Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union" - shorthand: EU Fiscal Compact - into a EU financial dictatorship. European media carry not one word of criticism and politicians in most countries ignore this diabolic piece of legislation completely.

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Secret Document: Germany Wants To Put Greece Under EU Curatorship

In what will probably become a blueprint for the road to EU serfdom, Germany's government has written a so far unpublished document that requires Greece to put interest and debt payments ahead of all other needs and demands that Greece put itself under 'temporary' EU curatorship.
This event comes 2 days ahead of the official signing of the authoritative European Stability Mechanism (ESM) Treaty, whose text is not yet available in English. The setup of the ESM finds an analogy in the Federal Reserve Act, that was pushed through under the eyes of a sleepy legislative and I am most afraid that it will lead Europe in the same direction of curator ship of high finance as it has emerged in the USA.
Following the latest moves in the EU where the European Central Bank (ECB) is run by an unelected president and government heads in Greece (Papademos) and Italy (Monti) did not win power in elections but were somehow "nominated" by the EU Commission, itself an unelected body of the EU with far too wide reaching powers.

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AAA Rating or Not - Crowd Sourced Wikirating Values Your Input

Recent downgrades of European government and bank debt have fuelled the discussion on the establishment of a new European rating agency. This will bring no relief, as long as Euro politicians will be eager to exert influence in such a new entity, can be concluded after their accusations that S&P's move on January 13 was politically motivated.
Undisclosed rating processes on a 10-step ladder from AAA to D, salted with '+' and '-' signs, facilitate criticism about an opaque procedure that ultimately costs public borrowers billions in additional future interest rate payments.
Setting up another ratings agency along the same conflict-laden model will be futile as long as this economic down cycle is with us on a global scale. The strongly growing chaos in the Eurozone cannot be upheld by a new entity that follows old guidelines as this has shown the lack of effective transparency, efficiency and neutrality in an outdated system.
World Map Sovereign Debt Ratings by Wikirating

Click to enlarge

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RED ALERT: EU Finance Ministers Push Through ESM Treaty in Fishy Fly-by-Night Move

RED ALERT TO EVERYBODY INTERESTED IN THE ESM: THERE IS NO CURRENT VERSION OF THE ESM TREATY AVAILABLE!!!
Europe's most important treaty on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which will lead the EU into a financial dictatorship, has been pushed through by EU finance ministers late Monday evening.
But the latest version of the ESM cannot be found on English and German EU websites. A link on consilium EU only leads to a 'file not found' message and the German EU website "Europa von A - Z" does not mention the ESM at all. This reminds one of the secrecy around the Federal Reserve Act, that was pushed through in 1912. Is the EU Commission now playing the same fishy game 100 years later?
Media reports from last midnight only said that the ESM treaty was agreed on by EU finance ministers and mentioned January 30 as the date when the treaty will be officially signed.
Significant changes have been made, a few media reported.

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ECB Threatens Ireland with Bomb Terror, Ignores Journalist's Questions

In a superb example of hubris representatives of the European Central Bank (ECB) simply tried to ignore justified questions from the Irish public in the video below. Irish journalist Vincent Browne had a very simple question, "why are Irish taxpayers required to bail out the holders of unsecured bonds?" At issue is the repayment of a €1.25 billion bond by Anglo-Irish Bank that will be due on January 25.
Watch this 5-minute video to deepen your impression that the ECB is not only a bad bank with almost no reserves, but also a badly managed bank, whose arrogant representatives seem to forget that they do not dictate the Eurozone. Browne's question is truly justified. As the name of unsecured debt says, repayment should only happen if the debtor is in the position to do so. It is this difference that pays higher interest to such bond holders as the risk of default is higher than on guaranteed bonds.
Read on afterwards as the ECB Troika has truly threatened Ireland with bomb terror.



ECB Says "A Bomb Will Go Off in Dublin"

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Germany to Begin Abolishing Cash Transaction in August 2012 Step by Step

According to a report in German alternative media Kopp online Germany will begin to abolish cash transactions step by step from August 2012, putting the EU directive 2009/110/EC (PDF) into practice. Germany is the next country after Greece, where the ECB recommended such cash payment limits in May 2010 , and Italy, where cash transactions above €1,000 have been limited since December 4, 2011.
While the official reasoning says this is to combat tax fraud, it is actually another step towards total surveillance in the European Union. All forms of electronic payments can be traced completely.
Ironically a study from the German Bundesbank (PDF) from 2009 arrives at the conclusion that cash fulfills all functions of a payment device in the best way.
Germans still conclude 60% of their transactions with cash.

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Paper: Will a Fed Economist Become Slovenia's Prime Minister?

Egon Zakrajsek, FRB

Is Europe slowly becoming a colony of the Federal Reserve and its bankster friends? Will a Federal Reserve Economist become the next Prime Minister of Slovenia after the Goldman Sachs colonization of the ECB (Draghi), Greece (Papademos) and Italy (Monti)?

Austrian daily "Kurier" had a snippet in its Sunday edition, saying that Slovenian Fed economist Egon Zakrajsek is at issue to become Prime Minister. The paper did not cite a source but reasoned that the stalemate betweeen leftist election winner Zoran Jankovic and conservative Janes Jansa has sprung calls for a "third man."

Facsimile from Austrian daily Kurier.

Translation: After the political stalemate between the left- oriented election winner Jankovic and conservative opposition leader Jansa calls for a 'third man" are getting louder. At issue as new prime minister is Egon Zakrajsek. He belongs to the innermost leading circle of the US central bank Fed.

According to his official bio from the Fed's website, Zakrajsek is an economist on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve system since 1999.

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Unseen in Main Stream Media: Ron Paul Warns of International Currency

As these words from a Ron Paul speech given on January 12, 2012 in South Carolina, have not made it into MSM (mainstream media), here is another chance to catch up on his warnings about an International Monetary Fund (IMF) led intiative to usher in a global currency following a fabricated dollar crisis.
The IMF had first advocated a new global fiat currency in a paper from April 2010 (PDF) where the new currency was titled "Bancor".
UPDATE: The video has been removed recently. Ron Paul's message is transcripted below.



Transcript of Ron Paul's speech:

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S&P Now Spelling AustriA Correctly With Downgrade to AA+

A multiple downgrade of sovereign ratings by Standard & Poor's (S&P) has also reached Austria after the country had been put on the watchlist on December 6, 2011.
Austria was downgraded to AA+ from AAA on Friday with the negative outlook remaining. 

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8.5 Trillion Bullion vs. 750 Trillion Derivatives

Click graph for complete display.

From: Number Sleuth

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Read Here What Comes Next in the Eurozone Crisis

Parsing the multitude of ruminations about rating agency Standard & Poor's threat to downgrade all Eurozone members I am left wondering how this announcement comes as a surprise to many market observers while failing to see the bigger picture that was drawn so far in 2011.
Ring-fenced by exploding deficits, rocketing yields, stubbornly rising unemployment especially among the youth and a true inflation closer to 10% than official figures of three percent, the long term negative outlook for the Eurozone has not changed in the past 11 months.
This action was overdue but again serves more to highlight the deficiencies of an opaque rating process than act as a reliable guideline. After all, most of these Eurozone countries have smaller debt/GDP ratios than the USA, which passed the 100% mark this week and rises faster than EU deficits.

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The Next Steps in the Eurozone Crisis Will Lead into the ESM Dictatorship

A downward spiral of short-lived political announcements that have declined from the superficious to the meaningless may fill the headlines of dutiful 24/7 news outlets.
But while attention is wasted on political gobbledygook, leading Eurocrats manage to steer the train wreck aka Eurozone towards greater centralization in Brussels that will ultimately lead to a political ambush in order to push through the true monster in the backyard, the European Stability Mechanism ESM.
Published in English only, depriving 85% of Europeans of their possibility to inform themselves, it is no exaggeration to say that the ESM will lead the Eurozone into a technocrat dictatorship without any democratic oversight at all.

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Take the Money and Run

Irish finance expert Eddie Hobbs appeared on Irish TV on 11/11/11 and paints a compelling picture that the Euro is toast. His advice: Take the money (out of the bank) and run. I would add: Convert your paper savings into gold.
Watch this 6-minute video for a complete overview of the last stage of the Euro currency.