Inglorious Bastards!

How about some straight economic news, forgetting the budget crisis.

I was at  Jesse's Café Américain
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2011/04/net-asset-values-of-certain-precious.html

08 April 2011 
Net Asset Values of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds 

Good start, eh? Let's forget about the government mess, and get right into asset values.

The premiums to net asset value are interesting.
Notice that the Canadian dollar continues to strengthen against the US dollar, and the gold/silver ratio has dropped to the 36 range.

Only, things change.....

 I watched Inside Job last night and I strongly recommend that you see it, and show it to others. It is a very well done, concise, and understandable depiction of the US financial crisis, and how the failure to reform continues to cripple the real economy and the currency, to the detriment of the great majority of the people for the benefit of a relative few who have bent the government, the financial sector, and even the universities to their will.

As an aside, I finally watched No End In Sight, which is another documentary by Charles Ferguson and his team on the Iraq War, concentrating on the blundered occupation and the roots of the insurgency. It is also well worth watching.  

 Then....

I have seen whole companies lose the sense of meritocracy, and become like an oligarchy run by a few strong personalities, and their inner clique, stooges and girlfriends, and effectively destroy themselves while those running it line their pockets.  There is an elite that is wreaking havoc on the US national level, and it is affecting the global economy.

And to cap the evening, I finally watched Bush Family Fortunes by Greg Palast, which was not nearly so well done as Ferguson's two documentaries, but certainly capped off a discouraging evening's viewing...

I totally forgot about asset values, so interested was I in this story...

What struck me the most is the sheer banality and lack of honorable character, much less virtue, in these financial men and politicians. The financial sorts such as Blankfein and Fuld are like caricatures of human beings. And the politicians are obviously phony and beneath contempt, without honor, lacking even the common virtues underneath a cultivated facade, 'whited sepulchres, which appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.'

“False greatness is unsociable and remote: conscious of its own frailty, it hides, or at least averts its face, and reveals itself only enough to create an illusion and not be recognized as the meanness that it really is. True greatness is free, kind, familiar and popular; it lets itself be touched and handled, it loses nothing by being seen at close quarters; the better one knows it, the more one admires it.”
Jean de la Bruyere

When justice finally comes, hell is coming with it.

Interesting take on things.

--