Archive for October, 2009:
Forex Correlation Code $400 Rebate
Hello everyone. Yesterday I announced the availability of the Forex Correlation Code trading system (see this post) and although many people say the system is worth trying also a fair number of people have expressed concerns that the system is out of their price range. So that got me thinking, how about I try to get a discount for these people – and that’s exactly what I did!
So I’m glad to report that I can hook you guys up with a $400 discount off the regular price!!
The regular price is $1997, but with this discount that I’m offering the price will get knocked down to $1597.
To get this discount follow these easy steps:
1) Buy the Forex Correlation Code via this link
2) Send an e-mail to alan [at] alansforexblog.com Please put “forex correlation code discount” in the subject line and in the body please provide me with your name the PayPal address you’d like the rebate to be sent.
3) Collect your rebate after 45 days! *
*This is to protect me from refund fraud*
Please DO NOT choose payment option #2 (the 3 month payment plan) as you end up paying a total of $2391. Payment option #1 with my discount is the best deal you can get.
That’s all folks. If you decide to give Forex Correlation Code a try I wish you the best of luck!
Alan out.
Forex Correlation Code Is Live
Hello there fellow forex trader! You may have heard the buzz surrounding this new Forex Correlation Code trading system, and if you have not, it’s OK, because I didn’t find out about it myself until yesterday. I may be a little bit late but I just wanted to let you all know that this new trading system is now available for purchase!
The Forex Correlation Code was created by a gentleman by the name of Jason Fielder. Apparently Jason has been around the commercial forex trading systems block quite a few times. This is the guy who also created the “Triad Trading Formula” and a few others as well.
The concept at the heart of this trading system is known as “correlation.” Essentially it means the movement of certain forex pairs correlate with each to varying extends. The most evident example would be the correlation (negative correlation) between the EURUSD and the USDCHF. With an average of about 90% negative correlation (written as -0.9), the USDCHF would go up when the EURUSD goes down about 90% of the time. A positive correlation on the other hand is that between EURUSD and GBPUSD. I highly recommend to checkout the GBPUSD chart and look for a big spike in price. Now jump to the EURUSD chart – do you notice anything? You should! When GBPUSD makes a move more often than not EURUSD follows.
Here is how the negative correlation between EURUSD and USDCHF looks like:
Have a look at some trades this system takes:
Looks like some pretty good pips to me. I’d also like to add that I use the concept of correlation on a regular basis. Say for example if I enter into a long eur/usd position I also open a short usd/chf position.
One thing that did jump out at me when I visited the Forex Correlation Code homepage was the price. This product definitely is not your run-of-the mill cheapo product you so often find. Does the higher price mean it’s better than the rest? No it does not!
At the moment I do not own this system so I can’t offer further insights into it beyond what I’ve provided above. However if you purchased the system and have a useful comment to make, by all means please feel free to do so. Perhaps a bit later on I too will buy the system and add it to my long term testing portfolio, but for now I’m going to stay on the sidelines.
To share you opinion you can either comment here on the blog or visit this forum thread:
http://www.forexnirvana.com/f60/correlation-code-1172/
For further details though I recommend you visit the Forex Correlation Code homepage here:
The Most Valuable Commodity is Not Oil or Gold
First GM needed a bailout.
Then AIG.
Then the banks.
Now, the country that sits atop the world’s largest oil field says it needs one, too.
Saudi Arabia says it will lose $19 billion a year in oil revenue beginning in 2012. OPEC stands by the claim. Oil ministers fear that new environmental treaties that increase fuel efficiency for automobiles will cut into oil demand and their bottom line.
I know, I know. My heart bleeds, too.
And while increased fuel efficiency and electric cars — and higher costs that could result from legislation like the cap-and-trade bill — are all bad news for the Saudis, they represent a stunning opportunity for one company.
After all, it’s not like that $19 billion is just going to disappear. That money will still be spent. It will just go somewhere else. And a lot of it is going to be used to buy a commodity that will, in many ways, replace oil.
More than 70% of oil is used for transportation. President Obama, like his predecessors, wants to end that reliance on foreign oil. New regulations proposed by the Obama administration mandate new vehicles average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. This increased fuel efficiency will conserve an estimated 1.8 billion barrels of oil.
One thing that will help America meet the new, higher fuel economy standard is more electric vehicles. Mr. Obama is pushing for a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. Obama is also fueling demand for electric cars by offering a $7,500 credit to buyers of electric vehicles, such as the Nissan Leaf, which can go 100 miles before using a drop of gasoline.
The secret to these vehicles is their batteries, which use an ultra-light metal that can store more energy than was ever imagined. The metal is “energy dense,” yet light enough to be used in cell phones, laptops or electric cars.
The metal is lithium. The price has jumped from $3 a kilogram in 2005 to $10 in 2009. Most of the price increase can be attributed to demand for lithium-ion batteries for portable electronics, which has driven demand for lithium up +25% a year.
Gadgets like the iPhone are expected to continue to drive such growth in the future. Electric cars will magnify the uptrend.
Obviously, a car uses significantly more power than a laptop and needs a larger battery — 100 times larger to be exact. As more electric cars roll out with lithium-ion batteries, prices for the metal should continue to increase.
Most of the world’s lithium supply is found in the Lithium Triangle, a small area in South America where Chile, Bolivia and Argentina meet. These three countries are home to more than 75% of the world’s lithium.
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Incredibly, Bolivia doesn’t produce any lithium, and it’s not willing to sell the rights. The government has made it clear that it is “not going to hand over [lithium] at the whim of the companies.” The Bolivian government itself plans to invest about $300 million in a plant that will go online in 2014.
Chile is the world’s No. 1 lithium producer. All of Chile’s production comes from plants on a salt flat called the Salar de Atacama, which is the second-largest lithium deposit on earth.
Three companies control 77% of lithium production. The rest is produced in China.
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Sociedad Quimica de Chile (NYSE: SQM) produces about 30% of the world’s lithium-carbonate, the grade of lithium that is used in batteries. Best of all, it does it at the lowest cost.
Brine is collected at Sociedad’s salt flats and dried in solar ponds, then the lithium is extracted, along with other valuable minerals. The company’s brine is especially desirable because of its high concentration of lithium. The site where the brine is dried is the hottest place on earth, and it stays hot all year. The combination of extreme heat and extremely high lithium concentration makes for lower costs and higher margins.
Low-cost producers always have an advantage when it comes to price. Sociedad said Wednesday it would cut lithium prices by -20%, which instantly sent share prices of its competitors lower. The company’s strategy is a shrewd attempt to boost its market share while deterring new producers from entering the business.
SQM is not a pure play on lithium; it’s a play on the best lithium producer.
Growth-oriented investors interested in profiting in the inevitable lithium boom should consider shares of Sociedad.
– Francisco E. Bermea
Staff Writer
StreetAuthority
Ron Paul – Anything Less Than Full Disclosure is Unacceptable
Last week a new bill was introduced in the Senate to audit the Federal Reserve. Some backers of my bill HR1207 and the existing Senate companion bill S.604 were a little miffed at this, but depending on how you think about it, this new legislation poses no great threat to our efforts.
With the economy in shambles, people are looking for answers – not just because of lost savings on Wall Street, but because of lost houses on Main Street. Because of the many problems we face, the Federal Reserve and its powers over the economy have come under scrutiny. This translates into a lot of political pressure on Congress. With all the House Republicans signed on as co-sponsors and over half of the Democrats, HR 1207 has enormous bipartisan support. It would be disingenuous for Washington not to embrace the principles behind this bill after all the promises for transparency. How can one credibly argue for more transparency in government in one breath and defend the secrecy of the Federal Reserve in the next?
However, there is still very powerful resistance to the disclosures that HR 1207 would require and efforts to weaken it will continue to pop up before this issue is settled.
The good news is that Washington is responding and the Federal Reserve has become the issue. Concerned Americans need to keep the pressure on by continuing to define what we want, and what we do not want.
One major concern is that HR 1207 constitutes some kind of power grab for Congress. Congress would not do a better job dictating interest rates or managing money supply growth than the Federal Reserve does for exactly the same reasons: Congress is not the free market. Any select group of people, no matter how wise and educated, simply cannot replace the wisdom of the market. HR 1207 does not seek to replace the wisdom of the Fed with the wisdom of Congress. That would be a giant step backwards. HR 1207 simply asks for full disclosure, and I am agreeable to allowing for a reasonable lag time to calm the fears that Congress intends to dictate monetary policy.
What we do want, what we insist upon, is that no longer will decisions that carry so much economic weight be made in absolute secrecy. We want to know what arrangements the Fed makes with other governments and central banks. We want to know who is benefitting from the actions of the Fed and what deals are being made. The Fed is already reacting to pressure by scaling back its liquidity facilities and returning to more traditional monetary policy through direct asset purchases. With nearly $800 billion in mortgage-backed securities on its books already, $800 billion in Treasury securities, and no real limit to what the Fed can acquire, there is a tremendous opportunity for malfeasance. We need to know who the Fed deals with, what they buy, how much they spend, and who benefits. As good as any step towards Federal Reserve transparency is, anything less than full disclosure at this point is unacceptable
Ron Paul
Brought to you by Alan’s Finance Blog:
What it’s Really Like to Expatriate
By Mark Nestmann
There are a lot more former U.S. citizens than there once were. Americans fed up with paying tax—and their government—are voting with their feet. And they’re doing it in much greater numbers than ever before.
Why might you wish to give up your U.S. citizenship? Primarily, because doing so is the only way that you can eliminate your lifetime obligation to pay U.S. taxes, no matter where you live.
But expatriation is a major decision. It means, for instance, that you no longer have the automatic right to enter or live in the United States. You’ll need to get a visa to do so, unless your non-U.S. passport qualifies you for visa-free entry. In all cases, the Department of Homeland Security can deny you re-entry to the United States, and is under no obligation to tell you why.
However, the actual process of expatriation isn’t as arduous as you might think.
You’re likely to encounter bureaucratic incompetence, unexplained delays, and rampant stupidity. But giving up your U.S. nationality is a legal right; one that even the inane employees of the Department of State understand.
Here’s one account my colleague Bob Bauman recently received from a now-former U.S. citizen on how the expatriation process really works:
As you wrote, the first step is to find alternative citizenship. After attending a Sovereign Society meeting, I decided that my best bet was to gain citizenship in St. Kitts & Nevis by purchasing a property there for an amount over $350,000. Then, I paid another $50,000 for two additional family members to apply for citizenship. This whole process, including closing on the property, application, review of paperwork, citizenship, then waiting for issuance of the passport, took about nine months.
After moving all of my assets whose title I could change or move offshore, I purchased a home and moved to Panama. Then it came time to surrender my citizenship. From everything I could find on-line or in any books, I was expecting the surrender process to be rather grueling, including meeting one on one with a consular official sitting me under a bright light, interrogating me about reasons and taxes, then almost beating me with a rubber hose. We are all aware of the onerous threats of what IRS can do if we have the nerve to try to escape the plantation.
Bob, I was absolutely dumbfounded at how EASY it really was.
No problems, no questions about anything, they were simply willing to cut me free. I had thought I wanted an attorney with me, so I would have some idea which questions I legally had to answer and which I could refuse to answer. It was just not necessary. I believe IRS and the State Department tries to scare the hell out of us so we won’t even try to surrender citizenship, but the process is far different than I envisioned.
There are a total of five forms needed. All are available on-line on the State Department Web site. The numbers for these forms are DS-4079 through DS-4083. You complete these forms, and then take them along with your U.S. passport, birth certificate, Social Security card and new passport to the embassy. If you are smart, you will also bring a typed letter explaining your reason for wanting to expatriate.
Do not say ANYTHING about taxes. My reasons were that I abhorred socialism, loved the Constitution, but was unbelievably sorry that we no longer followed it. Then a clerk will re-type all the forms. This took about two hours because of numerous typographical errors. It is important to proofread every answer and every single line. It took something like 10-12 different efforts to get all five forms finally completed correctly.
A consular representative then came to the window, asked for my U.S. passport, asked me if I was really the person who wanted to expatriate, and whether I understood the consequences. Then he signed a few papers, took my passport and said good-bye. That was it!
Oh, he also told me I should contact the IRS to inform them of what I had done. He said I would receive my certificate of loss of nationality in about four months. He never asked me ANYTHING about taxes or finances.
After a follow-up call to the embassy four months later, I was told I could return and pick up my official certificate of loss of nationality. They returned my U.S. passport with holes punched in it. The next day I returned to the embassy to apply for a 10-year, unlimited visit VISA to come to the United States. It was approved the same day. I also applied for Social Security because I was now old enough to receive it. You do NOT surrender your right to Social Security benefits by expatriating.
I thought it might be helpful for you to know what they ACTUALLY do to those who wish to surrender citizenship. Regardless of how intimidating they want you to believe this process can be, at least in my case, NOTHING happened.
I am now a free, sovereign citizen of the world. St. Kitts & Nevis charges me zero income tax, zero capital gains tax, and zero death tax. I don’t even have to file a tax return any longer for ANYONE. Panama leaves me alone, so long as I pay my property tax and sales tax, and the U.S. no longer “owns” me.
My St. Kitts & Nevis passport gets me almost anywhere in the world that I could have gone with my former U.S. passport. With my 10-year visa, I can come back to visit the U.S. whenever I want. Believe me, I don’t want or need to come back very often, and there are lots of nice other places to see in this world. And, if we are both on the same plane hijacked by terrorists, they’ll kill you long before me.
I have the very best of all worlds. I live virtually tax-free in a beautiful country. I actually have more freedom and liberty as a guest resident of Panama than I did as a citizen of the United States.
I simply don’t understand why there are not MILLIONS of Americans giving up their citizenship. If only they knew how EASY it is, how practical it is and how much better for their financial health, there would be lines around the block at every U.S. embassy from those who realize there are better choices than remaining a U.S. citizen.
Sincerely,
Mark Nestmann
Greenspan Misapplied Free Market Theory
(My Comments on “Frontline; The Warning”)
Silver Stock Report
by Jason Hommel, October 23rd, 2009
Thanks to my wife, God bless her, I watched “Frontline: The Warning” night before last. It aired on Oct 20th, 2009. You can view it online, here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/
There are 679 comments on it already.
The show is about “the warning” given by Brooksley Born, who, while acting as Chair for the CFTC (the commodities Futures Trading Commission), warned of the dangers of “black box,” “over the counter” derivatives. After she was shut up by Congress and Alan Greenspan, 6 weeks later, LTCM (Long Term Capital Management) blew up in early 2000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management
Frontline shows that Greenspan was one of Ayn Rand’s top students, who believed in a philosophy that government is the problem, and that markets are the solution, and thus, self-regulating.
Frontline shows the absurd conclusion of Greenspan’s philosophy when it showed that Greenspan invited Born to a meeting, where Greenspan said something like, “I suppose you think fraud should be regulated. I don’t.” He thought the market would figure it out.
Shockingly, the film shows Greenspan painfully admitting that his philosophical views that he held for 40 years were wrong. He does not elaborate. Perhaps he’s still not exactly sure where he went wrong.
Perhaps I can help.
Being familiar with Ayn Rand’s free market views, here’s where I believe Greenspan went wrong.
Greenspan tried to apply the views of an atheist, Ayn Rand.
IN MY OPINION, Greenspan tried to let markets be free, but Greenspan did not understand the basic definition of markets, or freedom.
In my opinion, markets are where things are traded, not where people are traded by entering into contracts.
Markets are where multiple sellers compete with multiple buyers, in the open, and trade, and walk away, free to choose another trading firm tomorrow.
Black box, over the counter, derivatives, are not markets, even if they ever do trade in the open.
The spot market is like freedom. Futures contracts, and OTC derivatives, are like slavery.
In my opinion, futures contracts, like debt contracts, lead to compulsory performance, and thus slavery. And slavery is the exact opposite of freedom! That’s Greenspan’s big error, the failure to see that slavery is the opposite of freedom!
Again, as an example, allowing people the freedom to trade slaves does not promote freedom, it promotes slavery!
Allowing banks to enslave people with too much unpayable home loan debt is a fruit of that error.
Allowing banks to enslave one another so that if one topples, they all topple, is another fruit of that error.
Allowing people to enslave banks to perform what they cannot, so that they “need” bailouts, is another fruit of that error.
Silver Stock Report: World Government Lurches Forward
(How to Resist it!)
Silver Stock Report
by Jason Hommel, October 21st, 2009
People continually ask me about the plans for a North American Currency, or Amero. They ask, “Will the Amero devalue the dollar, will it be silver?” I’ve read the news on it for years, but nobody knows, it’s only theoretical and in discussions at this point.
But I do have several solid and well founded opinions.
1. A North American Currency will NOT be planned to be gold or silver. Silver’s price (and gold’s) is way too low still.
2. A North American Currency will probably not be accompanied by a rapid or massive 50-75% devaluation of dollars. That’s not how they introduced the Euro, it was smooth, well planned, and prices were quoted in both Euros and national currency for two years during the transition.
However, The introduction of the Euro, if any guide, also marked the bottom of the gold market, and the start of the bull market in gold, around the year 2000. Thus, a common currency will probably boost gold’s appeal. Why? When multiple nations each have the power to print the same currency, he who prints fastest, benefits the most! Thus, it stimulates inflation, and the devaluation of the currency. Also, with fewer currencies to trade one for another, gold looks like a more viable option, or the only other option (and silver, of course).
If you think the Amero is a fantasy, or a hoax, please be aware of the following news reports calling for a common currency for South America.
News Reports begin to mention the plans of a new Currency for all of, and to unite, South America.
ALBA sanctions Honduras, moves towards new currency
10/18/2009
http://www.ww4report.com/node/7840
Leftist Regimes Agree to New Currency
20 October 2009
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/south-america-mainmenu-37/2123-leftist-regimes-agree-to-new-currency
South American Union Will Also Have Common Currency
June 21, 2008
http://www.naturalnews.com/023480_America_South_America_North_American_Union.html
But that’s not all this week.
I’ve warned of the fraud and dangers of global warming, saying it will be used as a convenient excuse for a global government.
See some of my warnings:
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=001032847424902327838%3A7dcj3rzkht0&ie=UTF-8&q=global+warming&sa=Search
Other more respected people, are now warning: Obama is set to give up US Sovereignty, by signing a treaty in December, over false fears of “Global Warming”.
http://www.globalclimatescam.com/
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/10/action-alert-obama-to-cede-us-sovereignty-in-december.html
Now here’s a potential solution that may help to halt this development.
The reason why a foreigner is not supposed to be elected President, is because he may be a traitor to US interests, and favor foreign interests, such as the globalist agenda.
News came out last week that Obama was openly reported to be born in Kenya!
AP declared Obama “Kenyan-Born”
The Post & Email
October 16, 2009
http://www.infowars.com/ap-declared-obama-kenyan-born/
Here’s the web archive of the AP article:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040627142700/eastandard.net/headlines/news26060403.htm
Many AP articles on Obama were scrubbed entirely off of the internet, some claim, as history is being revised before our eyes, Orwellian-style, as in the book, 1984. Looks like they missed a few.
President Obama Admitted He Was “Kenyan-Born”.
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/president-Obama-admitted-he-waskenyan-born/
I read that one Federal Judge will hear one case over Obama’s birthplace, sometime in January. I told this news to a friend, who used to be in the military. He replied, “They’ll just kill the judge.” Please pray for his protection, and for Orly Taitz. It tends to frustrate the plans of the enemy, when the ones exposing them are protected by God, and the prayers of righteous people can do a lot!
James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
After you pray, consider following it up with action. I did.
The key person fighting this battle against Obama’s birthplace is a woman named Orly Taitz.
To donate to her cause, see
http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/
Silver investors have a unique sense of integrity. We are perhaps some of the only people around who will make an investment into something like silver, and then work to prevent its rise. After all, I have to give Obama credit, he is the silver salesman of the year now, for two years running. As an investor in silver, it works against my benefit to do what is right, and to fight Obama and his highly inflationary, wild spending policies, and globalist agenda, which will only push people more into silver and gold. But I do what is right anyway, regardless of the personal cost. I suppose that’s why they call it “standing up” for what is right, rather than “lying down” for what is right. Doing what is right always comes at a personal cost.
People tell me to not talk politics. It angers people, polarizes people, and reduces the size of the potential audience.
But it’s not always important to “reach out” to those who are not listening! I think it’s more important to continue to inform those who are listening! If I anger a few readers, that’s part of the “cost” of doing what is right.
Besides, the best way to fight the global socialists is to buy silver! It reduces the power of their printing presses to buy anything in the world that they want, which funds their agenda. It exposes their games of fraud, and helps to bring it to an end.
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I strongly advise you to get real gold and silver, at anywhere near today’s prices, while you still can.
How to Detect Fake Gold!
(Readers reply with more tips on how!)
Silver Stock Report
by Jason Hommel, October 21st, 2009
Paper silver is fake silver at the COMEX, as the sellers of paper silver don’t have the silver they are selling, and are leveraged by a factor of 12, or more, assuming sellers own 100% of the silver available for delivery against paper contracts. (Silver on deposit may also be owned by longs who have not sold futures, and who therefore have no delivery obligations). Less than the 55 million oz. of silver on deposit, supposedly backs 659 million oz. in futures contracts.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/167773-silver-futures-show-markets-are-acting-strangely
October 21, 2009
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Dear J Hommel:
Over the last 3 weeks I have had people try to twice sell to me a fake Maple Leaf gold coin. It had all the proper designs but it was too smooth and the heft (weight/density was wrong) gave it away as made of brass. It did test properly with acid using just a streak test but not when a groove was filed. I make jewelry and would have melted the gold so nothing is lost by cutting a groove.
Last week, in a friend’s coin shop, a Chinese made counterfeit US $20 gold coin was brought in. These are difficult to detect and are usually copies of valuable numismatic coins. The seller is known to us and stated that he believed it was a counterfeit made to fool collectors. Coin World had an article about the counterfeiting of valuable US coins in China this summer. Link to that article:
www.coinworld.com/articles/ChineseCounterfeit/Part1.aspx
(subscription only)
The coin contained a full ounce of gold when refined. (So it was a fake numismatic!)
I have also encountered aluminum gold plated flat wafer type bars marked with various Swiss Bank designations. Only gold plated, of course, but the source is unknown.
With the 400 oz bars I have no personal knowledge of counterfeits. There have been news reports that some bars held in British repositories and by the Bank of England were very old and did not meet standards of today. It was implied in those articles that the gold had to be refined before it would be known how much gold was really in the old bars.
Sincerely,
G. Walter Boucher
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread442271/pg1
–Over 100 manufacturers in China are making fake gold and silver coins!
3-3-2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7294665.stm
Fake fears over Ethiopia’s gold
By Elizabeth Blunt
BBC News, Addis Ababa
March 13th, 2009
http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2008-03/how-make-convincing-fake-gold-bars
–by Theo Gray, + 18 comments
3-14-2008
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/how_to_make_fake_gold_bars/
–references Theo Gray’s article.
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Jason, I think, even though the specific gravity between gold and tungsten is so close, accurately weighing a bar and measuring its volume (by water displacement) should determine its true nature.
The difference determined this way would surely exceed the permissible volume variance of gold bars. Anyway, that wouldn’t make any difference – as long as the accurate weight and the accurate volume can be determined, the accurate specific gravity will be arrived at.
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Jason, You might also want to advise your readers to use a magnet to test anything that purports to be an ‘old Chinese’ silver coin. With a little experience one can also spot the fakes, as they are light, thin, and usually have very poor workmanship. But the magnet test is quick and simple.
LC
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Hi Jason,
Are you familiar with the hand-held Xray analyzer that can tell you exactly which metal you have.
They are over $30,000, but for an operation with significant volume, I certainly would have one. I have a friend that has one made by Oxford Instruments, and he wouldn’t do business without it. They are also made by Innovex and others.
http://www.directindustry.com/industrial-manufacturer/alloy-analyzer-73647.html
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Jason, there is a simple gauge to detect fake gold coins, it measures the dimensions the coin must fit through:
Fisch Fake Coin Identification Gauge
http://www.fisch.co.za/orderonline.htm
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A simple google search brings up:
4 Home Remedies to detect fake gold
http://reviews.ebay.com/How-to-spot-fake-gold_W0QQugidZ10000000001659647
There are 4 home remedies for spotting fake gold or just plated items that maybe marked 14k. 1st-Place a magnet next to questionable piece. If item is pulled towards magnet-it’s just plated or fools gold. 2nd-Take a jewelry cleaning cloth and rub it on piece in question. This usually will take the plating right off with a couple hard rubs. 3rd-If it’s a chain with lobster clasp in question, real gold will most likely be marked on the part of the clasp that moves open for other end of clasp to attach to-not the part your finger moves-the part that actually opens. 4th-Plated brass can look like solid gold until you put it in sterling silver cleaner solution. At first it looks very shiny but the next day it oxidizes and will be dull again. This doesn’t happen to real gold. There are also more advanced ways to test gold like a gold test kit with a special testing stone and there are some electronic testers as well.
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New Tests to Defeat Gold Fraud
http://reactor-core.org/~djw/myblog/archives/2008/10/24/T12_14_56/
Lists and describes:
Electrical Resistance
Thermal Conductivity
Spectrometer
Magnetic Field Test
X-Ray Density
Acoustic Resonance
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CORRECTION:
I wrote, (Very strong acids, such as cyanide, will dissolve gold.)
I was right and wrong. Very strong acids can dissolve gold. But the form of Cyanide used in gold mining is a base, not an acid, and is also used to “dissolve” gold.
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There is a very strong acid that will dissolve gold, it’s actually a combination of two strong acids. Nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, when mixed together they form was is called, “Aqua Regia”, or “Royal Water”, because they will dissolve gold.
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I am a gold refinier. You stated:
(Very strong acids, such as cyanide, will dissolve gold.)
Please be aware, the form of cyanide used to dissolve gold is usually sodium cyanide or potassium cyanide, which are both SALTS, not acids. They form a solution that is very basic, pH of 11-12 (the other end of the scale from acids, which have a pH in the rangeof 0-6.9).
If sodium or potassium cyanide is accidentally mixed with an acid, it produces hydrogen cyanide, the deadly gas used in the gas chamber. Cyanide and acid are NOT two good words to have in the same sentence, in my opinion.
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Jason, interesting article on gold and tungsten but a slight correction is needed. This sentence is not correct: “(Very strong acids, such as cyanide, will dissolve gold.)” Cyanide is not an acid but an anion; HCN is hydrocyanic acid and it is a very weak acid. Cyanidation occurs cyanide donates electron pairs to the gold to make a very stable, soluble complex. It does not dissolve gold the same way as an ordinary acid, such as hydrochloric acid, dissolves most metals.
You are correct that tungsten has almost the same exact density as gold which is why it would be hard to tell by regular methods such as specific gravity (or density). China produces most of the world’s tungsten, so I suspect there is a connection there somewhere.
Enjoy your articles.
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I strongly advise you to get real gold and silver, at anywhere near today’s prices, while you still can
FRONTLINE: The Warning – Video
Hi everyone. I’ve got a really cool documentary that I’d like to share with you. It’s called The Warning.
In The Warning, veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk unearths the hidden history of the nation’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. At the center of it all he finds Brooksley Born, who speaks for the first time on television about her failed campaign to regulate the secretive, multitrillion-dollar derivatives market whose crash helped trigger the financial collapse in the fall of 2008.
“I didn’t know Brooksley Born,” says former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, a member of President Clinton’s powerful Working Group on Financial Markets. “I was told that she was irascible, difficult, stubborn, unreasonable.” Levitt explains how the other principals of the Working Group — former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin — convinced him that Born’s attempt to regulate the risky derivatives market could lead to financial turmoil, a conclusion he now believes was “clearly a mistake.”
Born’s battle behind closed doors was epic, Kirk finds. The members of the President’s Working Group vehemently opposed regulation — especially when proposed by a Washington outsider like Born.
“I walk into Brooksley’s office one day; the blood has drained from her face,” says Michael Greenberger, a former top official at the CFTC who worked closely with Born. “She’s hanging up the telephone; she says to me: ‘That was [former Assistant Treasury Secretary] Larry Summers. He says, “You’re going to cause the worst financial crisis since the end of World War II.”… [He says he has] 13 bankers in his office who informed him of this. Stop, right away. No more.’”
Greenspan, Rubin and Summers ultimately prevailed on Congress to stop Born and limit future regulation of derivatives. “Born faced a formidable struggle pushing for regulation at a time when the stock market was booming,” Kirk says. “Alan Greenspan was the maestro, and both parties in Washington were united in a belief that the markets would take care of themselves.”
Now, with many of the same men who shut down Born in key positions in the Obama administration, The Warning reveals the complicated politics that led to this crisis and what it may say about current attempts to prevent the next one.
“It’ll happen again if we don’t take the appropriate steps,” Born warns. “There will be significant financial downturns and disasters attributed to this regulatory gap over and over until we learn from experience.”
Watch the documentary here:
I’d like to thank PBS for putting out this informative documentary. Please folks remember to support your local PBS station.
Take care,
Alan
The Federal Reserve Is Openly Telling You to Buy Gold and Silver
At the end of last year, I began writing about what I saw happening as the Federal Reserve started assuming the liabilities of the investment banks and the federal government began deficit spending at an unprecedented pace.
I’ve been calling these changes the “End of America” because I believe the fiscal policies of the U.S. will result in a massive devaluation of the dollar and the end of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency
To get an idea of why I’m concerned, have a look at a chart James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, included in a recent presentation to the National Association for Business Economics.
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What you see here is Bullard’s estimate of the future growth of Federal Reserve assets.
A lot of people seem to have forgotten something that is very much on Bullard’s mind: The growth of the Fed’s balance sheet isn’t nearly finished. In fact, the Fed has only completed purchasing about half of the $1.75 trillion worth of assets it has promised to buy. The assets are mostly mortgages and mortgage-related securities.
Even though these direct purchases are unprecedented, that’s only about 10% of the story. Since the beginning of the crisis, the Fed has lent, spent, or guaranteed $11.6 trillion.
That includes providing a backstop on the entire system of mortgage finance in the United States, a system that currently shows nearly a $1 trillion loss.
Since the expansion of its balance sheet got started in earnest last fall, the trade-weighed value of the dollar has fallen -15%. Keep in mind, the Fed’s assets form the base of our monetary system. The more it grows, the more money and credit become available to the banking system. And the faster the money supply grows, the more likely the value of the dollar will continue to fall.
As Bullard points out, a doubling of the monetary base won’t necessarily cause an immediate doubling of inflation… But suppose it takes 10 years? The average inflation rate would still be 7% a year. If inflation does grow to this average level, at least a few of those years will see inflation running at or near double digits.
Nothing in our financial markets is prepared for this kind of inflation. Inflation at these rates would cause the average multiple of earnings for equities to fall by at least -50%. Likewise, we would see high-yield corporate bonds yielding at least 20% — double what they are now. And U.S. Treasuries would probably see their yields triple. The destruction of wealth in the bond markets would be unprecedented in modern finance.
It’s going to happen. I guarantee it.
My forecast only assumes the Fed’s actions don’t continue past what’s been announced so far. My bigger concern is what happens if Congress decides the Fed did such a good job fixing the housing bubble that perhaps it should lend a hand on health care or the entitlement time bomb? Although a small handful of people have been writing about the enormous fiscal challenges that all the Western democracies face over the next decade, I’m sure most of today’s equity investors don’t really understand what lies ahead.
Consider these numbers: Right now, today, without counting any of the unfunded liabilities of our government (which are very real obligations, by the way), our national debt is $12 trillion. There are roughly 100 million American households. So that’s a national debt of roughly $120,000 per family. That’s more than the average American owes on his mortgage.
Think about what this means in terms of interest payments. Even with interest rates at all-time lows around the world, the U.S. will spend almost $400 billion on interest to service our existing national debt — that’s a 3.3% interest rate. Currently, the U.S. takes in roughly $2 trillion in taxes, half of which come from income taxes. So the interest on our debt is already consuming 20% of all tax receipts, or 40% of all income taxes.
It seems obvious to me this money will never be repaid — could never be repaid. The only real question is how much of a “haircut” our creditors are willing to accept in terms of the loss of purchasing power of the U.S. dollar. So far, inflation remains relatively benign. Our creditors don’t seem to be losing very much. But we know this will change and could change rapidly, as the Fed continues to expand its balance sheet with less and less creditworthy assets. At what point will our creditors finally decide they can’t finance any more of our deficit spending because we’re simply not worth the risk?
No one in Washington realizes you can’t borrow money endlessly. By the time Barack Obama leaves office (assuming he is reelected), the national debt will likely exceed $20 trillion. What will our creditors charge us to finance this debt? How will our debts compare to the value of our economy? It is impossible to know what will happen. But here’s the one thing that seems most obvious: Our borrowing costs will go up, a lot.
At some point in the next few years, our creditors are going to stop believing in our ability to pay our debts in honest money. I don’t know what will break first, but we can’t go on printing money to prop up our banks and spending money we don’t have to prop up our culture of entitlement.
And I don’t believe there’s any way to avoid it — certainly not with the political system we have in place right now. To protect yourself, you’ll have to be very good at managing your assets. You also need to make sure to take the advice we’ve been issuing for years: Buy and hold plenty of real, honest money that cannot be debased by the government. Buy and hold plenty of gold and silver.
– Porter Stansberry
Founder
Stansberry and Associates Research
