In This Nuclear World, What Is the Meaning of "Safe"?

Barbara Rose Johnston is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Political Ecology and occasional lecturer at UCSC. Barbara is an environmental anthropologist who studies the relationships between environmental crisis and human rights.

...opening 'Pandora's box'... creating an evil that cannot be undone.

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Barbara Rose Johnston <bjohnston@igc.org>
Date: Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 2:42 PM
Subject: Re: In this nuclear world, what is the meaning of 'safe'? | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
To: bjarias@gmail.com

Some six decades ago, we humans opened Pandora's Box.  The immense energy, light, and heat that comes from toying with radioactive elements is power in its' rawest form. It is seductive. It is a powerful master. And, in its nature, it consumes.   I

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From:  bjarias@gmail.com

The way we currently operate nuclear power is inefficient and mind bogglingly dangerous.
You folks are allot more up to speed on this than the average individual.
Is it in the realm of possibility to make the entire process (start to finish) a safe one. Could we... should we... redirect resources, putting on a full court press, and make nuclear work.
If we can't, then it would appear we've got to stop and bury it... cause continuing on the way we are now is a sure fire recipe for disaster after disaster.



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On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 2:20 PM, Barbara Rose Johnston <bjohnston@igc.org> wrote:

I share your concerns. What is all the more worrisome is that "safe" reprocessing technology (taking old waste and reprocessing to use again as mixed (MOX) fuel) is what is now the biggest threat at Fukushima (content of reactor 3 that has partially melted and vented into the atmosphere, as well as many of those stored depleted fuel rods)...

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http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/nuclear-world-what-the-meaning-of-safe

From:  bjarias@gmail.com

Does our current use of nuclear power make sense?
At Fukushima each reactor has between 60 and 83 tons of spent fuel rods stored next to them.
In the US at Vermont Yankee Power Plant there are a staggering 690 tons of spent fuel rods on site...(left over from boiling water to create steam to generate electricity... brilliant).

How much potential disaster are we talking about?
It's said the atomic bomb that exploded at Hiroshima created about 2,000 curies of radioactivity.
Spent fuel pools at Vermont Yankee are said to hold about 75,000,000 curies of radioactivity (reportedly without backup cooling systems).

What's wrong with this scenario?
Running out of oil at an alarming rate, the world should be desperately seeking new sources of energy.
With hundreds of reactors spread around the globe, seems to be allot just lying around at the moment... unused & extremely dangerous!!
Why can't we come up with technology for reuse of this 'spent' material? What's stopping this initiative?

Spending hundreds of billions elsewhere... how much money is presently going to solve these critical issues?

Fuel rod pool - the US alone has 71,000 metric tonnes of spent nuclear fuel.

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Nuclear Kamikazes: A Morality Tale of Energy Madness

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...take 5: Two Choices

One of our neighbors up in Canaan sent an email with a pic of the road after a recent spring snowstorm...

Subject: Happy Spring from Shaker Ridge Drive

Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:33:57 -0400

On this first full day of spring sometimes a picture IS really worth more than a 1000 words
Sigh
Paulie

... it's typical spring up in the north country, but getting near the end of a long, long winter it just makes it seem that much longer.. it's as if winter will never end.

We tried it for a couple years once we both retired, but the short days and overcast skies drove us south... and then west.

Now winters are spent with increased sunshine and warm weather (of course warmer in Florida than out in Nevada).

... take 5: The Wave, Arizona

'The Wave'

(click on for slideshow)

The Wave is a sandstone rock formation located near the Arizona and Utah border on the slopes of the Coyote Buttes, in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, on the Colorado Plateau. It is famous among hikers and photographers for its colorful, undulating forms, and the rugged, trackless hike required to reach it.

Made of Jurassic-age Navajo Sandstone that is approximately 190 million years old. Scientists who study The Wave say that the old sand dunes turned into hard compacted rock over the ages, calcifying in vertical and horizontal layers. Erosion by wind and rain has created the spectacular landscape which appears now.

The soft sandstone of The Wave is fragile, one needs to walk carefully to not break the small ridges. In order to limit damage to the fragile area, the Bureau of Land Management -BLM limits access to the North Coyote Buttes Wilderness Area to just twenty permits per day.

Ten of the permits are available in advance by an on-line lottery conducted four months before the month for which the permit is sought. Remaining ten permits are made available by lottery the day before one's intended hike at the Paria Ranger Station on highway 89 west of Page, Arizona.

We have applied a couple of times for a permit, but so far have been unsuccessful.



The Wave, Arizona - Wikipedia

Nuclear Nightmare: Technological Optimism

As Japanese engineers struggle frantically to keep calamity from escalating into catastrophe, we cannot ignore the fact that nuclear fission is an inherently and uniquely toxic technology.
The problem with nuclear fission is that the stakes are unimaginably high.
There is no such thing as a fail-safe system... stuff happens.

The world knows technologically, no country is more advanced than Japan... and therefore 'safe nuclear power' has to be understood to be an oxymoron.
Nuclear power is not safe there, nor should it be considered safe anywhere.

And in our country, like in Japan... you would think it would be a no-brainer that atomic reactors would not be built near quake fault lines, and close to the coast where they would be directly in the path of tsunamis ... but guess what, Japan has more than a few that were, and California's got several that are as well...
... and when ya do some checking, would bet there would be a bunch of others in the US in addition.

These plants are now releasing radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Be skeptical about the statements that the "levels are not dangerous."... made by the same people who said these meltdowns could never happen.

Over years, not days, there may be a thousand people, two thousand, ten thousand who will suffer from cancers induced by this radiation. The carcinogenic isotopes that are released at Fukushima are already floating to Seattle with effects we simply cannot measure.

So far, there has not been much reporting on problems with spent fuel storage pools, but these pools that hold used fuel rods could prove to be the most dangerous of all facets of the disaster.  They contain vast amounts of radiation, several times the amount in a reactor core. Spent fuel rod pools are actually highly radioactive, very unstable, extremely dangerous and, compared with reactors, not well supported, contained or looked over.
Expose them to air for a day or two, and they begin to combust, giving off large amounts of radioactive cesium-137, a very toxic, long-lasting, aggressively penetrating radioactive element with a half-life of thirty years. When cesium-137 it enters the environment, it essentially acts like potassium and is taken up by plants and animals that use potassium. (For the record, that includes you.)

If these spent fuel pools lose their cooling source, they could spew radiation into the atmosphere, creating a tragedy of even greater proportions than did the 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine.
Should the spent rods start to burn, huge amounts of radioactive material would be released into the atmosphere and would disperse across the Northern Hemisphere.
Note: At Fukushima each reactor has between 60 and 83 tons of spent fuel rods stored next to them. 
And in the U.S., Vermont Yankee has a staggering 690 tons of spent fuel rods on site. 
How much disaster are we talking about? 
The atomic bomb that exploded at Hiroshima created about 2,000 curies of radioactivity. 
Spent fuel pools at Vermont Yankee are said to hold about 75,000,000 curies of radioactivity.

With the risk of extreme events becoming greater as each day passes, it's really only a matter of time before a disastrous situation will occur in this country as happened in Japan.
The track record of the atomic energy industry in the United States—less so in Japan—is to spend as little money as possible and extend the life of old plants for as long as possible, no matter the risks.

Once again, all the government seems to have the stomach for and chooses to do in these matters is close its' eyes and 'hope for the best.'

Heaven help us... cause Obama won't.

Japan’s Nuclear Nightmare: The Price of Technological Optimism | Common Dreams

Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand

American democracy arose because those consciously locked out of the system put their bodies on the line and demanded justice.

We have tolerated the intolerant... and we are paying the price.
If enough say 'no'.... if enough refuse to cooperate... despots will be in trouble.

If there is no struggle there is no progress. The struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle.

Power concedes nothing without a demand.


Truthdig - Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand

...take 5: Canaan Neighbor

One of our neighbors up in Canaan sent out some pix of the local fox.

We've seen this guy quite a bit when we were last there, and we have a hunch he's making his home under the pool deck.. (from where he'll have to be 'evicted' sometime this spring).

(click on the image for a 4 pic slideshow)

Films You Should Watch

Wither you like them, or not... or agree with them, or not... there are certain films you should just make it a point of seeing...

(Netflix makes viewing easy... the majority of these films are in their 'Watch Instantly' category.)

NOTE:  Please see the HOME tab at the top of the main page of the blog for additional films.

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COLLAPSE

His detractors call him a conspiracy theorist and an alarmist.
The title refers to Ruppert’s belief that unsustainable energy and financial policies have led to an ongoing collapse of modern industrial civilization.
The obsession with the collapse of industrial civilization has led to the collapse of his life. In the end, it is a character study about his obsession.

Roger Ebert wrote...  "I don't know when I've seen a thriller more frightening. I couldn't tear my eyes from the screen. "Collapse" is even entertaining, in a macabre sense. I think you owe it to yourself to see it."

No matter what... there will be 'peak oil'... just a matter of when that day will come... and how much of a calamitous effect it will have on our civilization.

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Quake Could Irradiate Entire US

There's good cause to pay attention to what just happened in Japan... and what could happen on the West coast of the US.

The most definitive recent study of the 1986  disaster puts the Chernobyl death toll at 985,000. The accident irradiated a remote rural area. The nearest city, Kiev, is 80 kilometers away.
Heavy radioactive fallout spread from Chernobyl blanketed all of Europe within a matter of days. It covered an area far larger than the United States. Fallout did hit the jet stream and then the coast of California, thousands of miles away, within ten days. It then carried all the way across the northern tier of the United States.

San Luis Obispo is some ten miles directly downwind from Diablo Canyon. The region around San Onofre has become heavily sub-urbanized.
Two huge atomic reactors at San Onofre and two at Diablo Canyon are not designed to withstand powerful shocks. All four are extremely close to major faults.

All four reactors are located relatively low to the coast... and vulnerable to tsunamis.


Japan's Quake Could Have Irradiated the Entire US | NukeFree.org

Gulf spill sickness wrecking lives

Steven Aguinaga of Hazlehurst, Mississippi and his close friend Merrick Vallian went swimming at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in July 2010.

Aguinaga's health has been in dramatic decline since that day.
"I have terrible chest pain, at times I can’t seem to get enough oxygen, and I'm constantly tired with pains all over my body," Aguinaga explained, "At times I'm pissing blood, vomiting dark brown stuff, and every pore of my body is dispensing water."

Merrick Vallian has since died from his exposure to contaminants.
"After we got back from our vacation in Florida, Merrick went to work for a company contracted by BP to clean up oil in Grand Isle, Louisiana," Aguinaga said of his 33-year-old physically fit friend.
"Aside from some gloves, BP provided no personal protection for them. He worked for them for two weeks and then died on August 23. He had just got his first paycheck, and it was in his wallet, uncashed, when he died."

Scores of sick people across the Gulf Coast attribute their illnesses to chemicals from BP's oil disaster.

'Aftermath of Disaster' - 8 part series

Gulf spill sickness wrecking lives - Features - Al Jazeera English

Decline of bees - a global phenomenon

A warning sign for all mankind...

Leading honey-bee experts, issue a stark warning about the disappearance of bees, which are increasingly important as crop pollinators around the globe. Without profound changes to the way human beings manage the planet, they say, declines in pollinators needed to feed a growing global population are likely to continue.

The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century.... of the 100 crop species that provide 90 per cent of the world's food, over 70 are pollinated by bees.

Human beings have fabricated the illusion that in the 21st century they have the technological prowess to be independent of nature. Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less, dependent on nature's services in a world already under severe strain with a population of seven billion people.

Decline of honey bees now a global phenomenon, says United Nations - Nature, Environment - The Independent

HealthDay - Overworked Nurses

Anyone having friends or relatives in the nursing profession know first-hand how taxing the work is both mentally and physically... the toll it takes can be very high.

The question-post below sums up the sentiments of many in the profession.

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http://allnurses.com/emergency-nursing/over-worked-er-512644.html

Over worked ER Nurses

Oct 27, 2010 06:52 PM written by Code_VSA | 5 Comments

Print   Email   Follow  

I could have swore I read somewhere that ENA recommends no more than three 12 hour shifts as an ER Nurse. Has anyone else heard or read this? And if you have, can you give a reference?

Our ER currently has us working four 12 hour shifts a week. Sometimes two days off and then scheduling another 12 hour shift.

I am getting old and tired fast. 

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HealthDay Articles

The Questions Continue

Your read these kinds of reports and wonder how are we ever going to recover from this mess.
Without some form of regulation over these kinds of highly speculative transactions, those who are continually willing to make the markets a crap shoot, will over and over keep trying to beat the odds and hit another jackpot.

And when (not if) they fail, the way they've got it set up and are manipulating the system, the government will step in and bail them out.. more money gets printed...and they stay in charge to do it all over again.

Eventually this mother of all super-ponzi schemes has to come to a catastrophic ending... all we have left to take bets on, is when (not if) that actually is going to happen.


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The Questions Continue MatrixSentry | March 9, 2011 at 10:44 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/pYjo8-10j

Each day this week, silver has been hammered down at approximately 9:00 am EST. Now, we all know that this isn't atypical...the EE have been doing this for years and we did see copper sell off at roughly the same time. However, several readers have brought to my attention the little nugget below and I think it requires your serious consideration.
First things first, here's a 15-minute May silver chart to peruse. Keep in mind that today's smackdown was in the face of ongoing strength in gold and crude, so, silver acted somewhat independently.

OK now, with this chart in mind, read this. Dated last November, our friend "Wynter" wrote the following:
"WB: JPM is in worse shape then we ever dared to hope 20-Nov-10 07:06 am
Blythe,
This is what I am now hearing from traders on the floor. These traders are not even sure if Blythe knows the full extent of JPM's silver exposure.
When I first started to realize that JPM has shorted far more silver than they could ever hope to cover, my first question was "why would they do that?" Not only that, why do it with a commodity where you must report your positions through the COT and Bank Participation Report? After all,the whole world can see what you are doing. [my added comment: Ted Butler included!]
Now I know the answer. According to Max Keiser and now a couple of other independent sources, it seems the reasons why first Bear Stearns and now JPM are so desperate to manipulate the price of silver down is due to the fact that BS and JPM shorted billions (yes billions not millions) in ounces of silver through their derivatives.
Just like Joe Conason at AIG, silver shorting through derivatives have caused literally billions in losses not the millions that we know about publicly. That is why JPM has been so desperate to manipulate the price of silver downward so blatantly. If I am right about this, then JPM will be dead when silver hits $60 or so. Based upon the COT and BPR, if silver hits $60, JPM will lose around an additional $6 billion dollars, a large number but not nearly large enough to bring down mighty JPM.
But what is not known is that due to the way that its derivatives are written, JPM's losses are exponentional once silver breaks $36 or so. Rumors has it that JPM could be losing as much as $40 billion once silver is above $50. It has something to do with how the derivatives are written with payment tied to the price of silver.
Since JPM was a price manipulator with respectt to the price of silver, JPM assumed that any derivative payments tied to silver would be less than they would be tied to some other index like the CPI or TIPS implied inflation index. JPM's inability to hold down the price of silver relative to other measures of inflation will cause unbelievable losses due to a mismatch in their derivative structures.
In essence,JPM has bet (a huge amount)through derivatives that silver will never outperform inflation. And why not,since JPM assumed that it will always be able to manipulate the price of silver. We have now come to understand that JPM's loss exposure to silver is much greater than we have ever dared to hope.
WB: In an effort to clear up some recent confusion regarding my latest posting, I will try to explain what I have recently uncovered.
JPM's current short silver position is estimated to be approximately 150 million ounces down from the recent 180 million ounces in August. The losses from these positions are easy to figure out. For every $10 rise in the price of silver, JPM will lose $1.5 billion. But what I have recently discovered is that through its derivative positions, JPM will lose about 5 times that amount ounce the price of silver is above $36. And ounce silver is above $45 dollars, JPM's losses will increase to 8 times the amount of losses in their short positions. The reason is that as the price of silver increases, certain provisions get activated which multiplies the losses.
One reader asks the question why isnt the price of JPM going down to reflect the lossesd in silver. My answer is that the price of silver is not high enough to begin to trigger losses in their derivative positions. But once silver approaches this critical level say around $36, then you should begin to see the price of JPM stock begin to reflect these losses.
In fact, traders are saying that once the price of silver surpasses the stock price of JPM, then for every dollar the price of silver go up, JPM should lose around 70 cents or so. This means that if silver hits $60, JPM will be a single digit stock.
JPM market cap is around $170 billion. If silver losses are as great as $40 billion in cash , then JPM will be insolvent. Period.
From your former traders (whom you dismissed so callously)"
Look, I still have absolutely no idea if this whole "WB Group" thing is real or imagined. There are, though, a lot of coincidences and in a rigged and manipulated "market" such as silver, the old phrase about "there are no coincidences" certainly rings true.
Lastly, I had planned on rolling my April 105 crude calls into some May 110s today. However, for now, the chart gives the appearance of another, impending up move. For now, I'm sitting tight.

As I publish this, I have lasts of:
April gold $1432.20
May silver $36.09
April crude $105.21
Lets go have a fun day! TF
http://tfmetalsreport.blogspot.com/2011/03/questions-continue.html
Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

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Gmail - [New post] The Questions Continue - bjarias@gmail.com

...take 5: Mall At Sea...

I really get satisfaction from cruising... but this is about as far away from what I find enjoyable about cruising as possible.
This is like vacationing in a gigantic floating 'Mall of America' for a week... I have no idea where the attraction is in that... personal opinion... it's really not enticing at all.
Is bigger always better?

Most folks have seen images of the ship by now, but if you have not, take a 5-minute look here:

Oasis of the Seas
• ...  1,180 feet long, 208 feet wide, and 236 ft. high above the waterline, with a draft of only 30 ft.
• ...  accommodates over 5,400 guests in 2,700 staterooms, with a crew of 2,165.
• ...  that's almost 8 times more passengers than the Regent 'Navigator' we'll be sailing on this August.
• ...  actually accommodates over 6,296 total guests.
• ...  225,282 gross tons,...over four times the size of the Titanic.
• ...  15 passenger decks, 24 passenger elevators placed both forward and aft.
• ...  art work on board is eclectic and numerous, with 9,800 pieces.
• ...  took 5,800 man-years to complete.
• ...  most expensive cruise ship ever built, at a cost of $230,000 per berth.
• ...  upright, dwarfs the One Canada Square building at Canary Wharf and NYC's Chrysler Building.
• ...  one and a half times taller than the O2 Arena... longer than four football fields.
• ...  almost one-and-a-half times the length of London's Tower Bridge, which spans 800 feet.
• ...  stands taller than Nelson’s Column at 240 feet high.
• ...  accommodates more guests per sailing than the capacity of the Royal Albert Hall (5,544 seats).
• ...   several venues: a Flow Rider for surfers, an 82 ft long Zip Line Ride, an Aqua Theater (600 seat) Pool, a Central Park (with 2,178 trees), a Boardwalk complete with Carousel, and a myriad of other attractions in its Seven Neighborhoods.



Additional ship facts and information.

Part of the mix...

Hey...don't think with each and every trip, world craziness does not enter into the equation, everyone traveling regularly today has it in the back of their mind.
We have some folks we know visiting Jordan at the moment, and right up to the time they left, we were talking about the situation over there with them. Anyway, in the end they went because several people they knew living in the country all assured them it would be okay to visit.

It was several years ago we made the direct decision to travel as much as we can, visiting as many places in the world as possible. First of all, while we are still relatively healthy and in shape to still do pretty much anything (Antarctica ain't easy dealing with a walker)... and while the political situation and state of the world permits. In the recent past we have had several trips affected (a visit to Egypt in the late 90's, and more recently India come immediately to mind).
It's one of the driving forces to visit the Amazon next year...  even a year down the road makes it a more risky proposition, who knows what will happen in that length of time.

In the future there's no doubt more and more places are going to be 'restricted' in one way or another, for one reason or another. In addition, with the huge numbers of baby boomers now retiring each day, the cabins and rooms throughout the world are getting filled even that much quicker. They can't build those 5,000+ passenger ships fast enough to meet the increased demand... as for the smaller ships, forget about it, at times we've booked cruises up to two years in advance.

And it's going to get to the point cost will increasingly matter more in the mix. Prices for everything are going to skyrocket unimaginably over time.. and those now looming energy shortages will become more of a reality... (planes require jet-fuel, solar power's not an option).

So the time's gonna come (hopefully not for a few years) when our journeys will be more local than international... until then, I keep telling Bern, stay on the lookout for a new trip, and... BOOK IT!

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On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 8:49 PM,  <@optonline.net> wrote:

Plan for your next vacation early BJ !!!   LOL   Thinking About Taking A Cruise? If you're "bored" with cruises to Alaska, the Bahama's, You're going to love this cruise!  THINKING ABOUT TAKING A CRUISE?   L u x u r y    C r u i s e    L i n e s Now Accepting Reservations! Additional cruise information available below.   To The Point Cruise Lines is excited to offer the ultimate adventure cruise, along the pirate-infested coast of Somalia   Ultimate Adventure Cruise Route Rates and Availability  Ship Name Starting Price Days Availability  Sun Splendor $5,200.00 5 Fully Booked  Grand Voyage $6,150.00 7 Reservations Available  Horizons IV $7,091.00 10 Reservations Available  Horizons III $5,200.00 7 Fully Booked  Grand Voyage II $6,300.00 7 Fully Booked  Grand Voyage III $5,200.00 5 Reservations Available  Coastal  Paradise $5,200.00 7 Reservations Available  Coastal  Paradise II $8,200.00 10 Reservations Available  Peril Princess $5,200.00 7 Fully Booked  Peril Princess II $5,200.00 7 Reservations Available We board our luxury cruise ships in Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden near the entrance to the Red Sea , and disembark in Mombasa Kenya , seven adrenaline-charged days later. Reservations start at only $5,200 per-person (double occupancy, inside room) and $6,900 (veranda complete with bench rest).   You'll relax like never before! That's because you are welcome to bring your own arsenal with you. If you don't have your own weapons, you can rent them from our onboard Master Gunsmith. Enjoy reloading parties every afternoon, with skeet and marksmanship competitions every night! But the best fun of all, of course, is...   ...Pirate Target Practice! The object of our cruise is to sail up and down the Somali Coast waiting to get hijacked by pirates!   Weapons rentals:   Weapon Selection Price Description AK-47 Light Assault $12.00 Per Day On a budget? Rent a full-auto scope-mounted AK-47 for only $9/day with 7.62 ball ammo at $12 per 100 rounds: M-16 Full Automatic $25.00 Per Day Rent a full auto M-16 for only $25/day with ammo attractively priced at $16 per 100 rounds of 5.56 armor-piercing: Barrett M-107 50 Caliber $59.00 Per Day Hello! Nothing gets a pirate's attention like a Barrett M-107 50-cal rifle; only $59/day with 25 rounds of armor-piercing ammo affordably priced at only $29.95. RPG Launcher $175.00 Per Day Want to make a real impact? Rent an RPG for only $175/day with three fragmentation rounds included! A true favorite among pirates, rent one today and show you care!   Customer Testimonials "Six attacks in 4 days were more than I expected. I bagged three pirates, my wife nailed two, and my 12-year old son sank two boats with the mini-gun. This wonderful cruise was fun for the whole family"-- Fred D., Cincinnati , OH "Pirates 0, Passengers 32! Well worth the trip! Can't recommend it highly enough!" -- Ben L., Bethesda , MD BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!Twin mounted mini-guns are available for rental at only $450.00 per 30 seconds of sustained fire!   Additional Cruise Line Services ·  Need a spotter? Our professional crew members can double as spotters for only $30/hour. (spotting scope included, but gratuities are not) ·  Also included: Free complimentary night vision equipment - and throughout the night, coffee, pastries and snacks are always available on the main deck from 7pm until 6am ·  Our deluxe package comes complete with gourmet meals and all rooms offer a mini-bar   OUR SATISFACTION GUARANTEE!   We guarantee you will experience at least two hijacking attempts by pirates or you'll receive an instant $1,000 refund upon arrival in Mombasa . How can we make that guarantee? We operate at 5 knots just beyond 12 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia , thus in international waters where pirates have no rights whatever. In fact, we make three passes through the area's most treacherous waters to ensure maximum visibility by Somali mother ships. We repeat this for five days, making three complete passes past the entire Somali Coast . At night, the boat is fully lit and bottle rockets are shot every five minutes, with loud disco music directionally beamed shore side to attract maximum attention.   ACT NOW! Cabin space is limited so you need to respond quickly. Reserve your package before Feb 28th and get a great bonus - 100 rounds of free tracer ammo in the caliber of your choice! So sign up for the Ultimate SomaliCoast Adventure Cruise now!   BUT THERE'S EVEN MORE! Reserve Now -and be automatically entered to win a 5 minute time slot on the Captain's own Twin Browning 50 Caliber M2HB installation! "I haven't had this much fun since flying choppers in ' Nam . Don't worry about getting shot by pirates... they never even got close to the ship with the crap they shoot and their lousy aim... Come on board and bag your own clutch of genuine Somali pirates!"

For Serious Consideration...

Wither or not you believe it will come to pass to the degree described below.. it really has to be believed that we cannot go on forever & ever in this abandonment of rationale... avoiding looking at and acting upon what we do not want to see.
If anything, be prepared and expect the worse case scenario.. in that approach there is downside, but you've done what you can... and it just might make the future somewhat less painful.

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Happy days are here again! 
Stock markets are strong, company profits are up, bankers are making record profits and bonuses, unemployment is declining, and inflation is non-existent. Obama and Bernanke are the dream team making the US into the Superpower it once was.

Yes, it is amazing the castles in the air that can be built with paper money and deceitful manipulation of all economic data. And Bernanke will do anything to keep King Obama happy, including flooding markets with unlimited amounts of printed money. They both know that, in their holy alliance, they are committing a cardinal sin. But clinging to power is more important than the good of the country. 
An economic and social disaster is imminent for the US and a major part of the world and Bernanke and Obama are praying it won’t happen during their reign.

Moral and financial decadence
A deluge of an unprecedented magnitude is both inevitable and imminent. The consequences of the economic and political mismanagement will have a devastating impact on the world for a very long time. And the consequences will touch most corners of the world in so many different areas; economic, financial, social, political and geopolitical. The adjustment that the world will undergo in the next decade or longer, will be of such colossal magnitude that life will be very different for coming generations compared to the current social, financial and moral decadence. But history always gives us lessons and the one that is coming will be necessary and eventually good for the world. But the transition and adjustment will be extremely traumatic for most of us.

We have reached a degree of decadence that in many aspects equals what happened in the Roman Empire before its fall. The family is no longer the kernel of society. More than 50% of children in the Western world grow up in a one parent home, either being born by a single mother or with divorced parents. Children are neither taught ethical or moral values nor discipline. Many children consider attending school as optional and education standards are declining precipitously. Most families do not have a meal around the dinner table even once a week. Sex and violence are common place on television and in real life. Both press and television create totally false values and ideals. Everyone must be young and beautiful often enhanced by surgical or digital means. Old people have little value and their wisdom is not benefiting the younger generations.

The Golden Calf or materialism is the ultimate value that is worshiped and no means are eschewed to attain material goals. Since most of the prosperity that has been achieved in the last 40 years is based on printed money and debt, it is totally false and unsustainable. A major part of the Western world has improved their living standard, by exchanging services and swapping houses at ever rising prices financed by printed paper and credit. The perceived wealth that is created out of this is illusory and ephemeral. We have created a world economy which is based on debt and thin air.

The Gini coefficient of income and wealth is now reaching extremes in many countries. This measures  inequality between rich and poor. In the US the Gini coefficient is now at the same level as in the 1920s before the depression. In countries like the US, the rich are getting richer whilst 45 million people live below the poverty line, 43 million receive food stamps and over 700,000 are homeless. With a real unemployment rate of 22% or higher, with urban youth unemployment much higher, the US will soon experience social unrest.
But it is not only the US that will experience financial misery, famine and social unrest. This will also hit most European countries and in particular the UK, southern Europe, Eastern Europe and the Baltic States as well as African countries, the Middle East, Asia, yes in fact the whole world.

Are boom and busts inevitable?
Cycles or ebbs and flows are a natural part of both economic life and nature. And right at the point when something could be done to limit the damage, most nations seem to have the uncanny knack of selecting the political individuals who will put fuel on the fire and make the situation catastrophically worse.

Greenspan was one such individual. During his 19 years as Chairman of the Fed, he could have limited the economic and social damage that the US would suffer. Instead he took every single measure possible to ensure that there would be a catastrophe with uncontrollable consequences. But we shouldn’t just blame the incompetence of Greenspan. It was sickening to watch every sycophantic congressman and senator licking Greenspan’s boots and praising his wisdom.
Because Greenspan’s money printing and incompetent interest rate management created one of the biggest financial bubbles in world economic history. But the politicians loved this. It made the stock market boom, and house prices surge. Thus the politicians were all loved by their voters who did not understand the dire consequences that were looming.
And Bernanke is continuing the same disastrous policies of creating money out of thin air. When will they ever learn that creating money out of nothing and running astronomical deficits that never will be repaid with real money leads to the road of total ruin?
The very sad answer is they won’t and therefore they are leading the world into a hyper-inflationary depression that will have uncontrollable and cataclysmic consequences for current and future generations.

Empty stomachs are rioting.
We have for years been warned about hyperinflation leading to famine, misery and social unrest. Well, this is exactly what is happening in many parts of the world. The protests and overthrowing of regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are primarily due to a major part of the peoples of these nations having no job, no money and little food. It is their empty stomachs that are rioting. In addition they are protesting against the leaders of these countries stealing from the people.

It is virtually certain that these riots will spread to many countries in the Middle East, Africa and the developing world. This will lead to new regimes and new political orders that could either be far left or far right politically or religious extremists. But the new regimes will not be in a position to change the root of the problem which is famine and poverty. In Egypt for example there has been a quiet military coup. It is unlikely that a democratic regime will take over from the military. So the people will protest again and again. And this will be the same in most countries. Eventually the people will take the law into their own hands since no regime will be able to give them the food they need.

The hyper-inflationary deluge is imminent.
Although food and fuel inflation is rampant worldwide already, we are only seeing the very beginning. Massive oil price rises are likely to continue as a result of the geopolitical situation as well as peak-oil. The Middle East is a time bomb waiting to go off. Israel is in an extremely precarious position and the involvement or non-involvement of the US in this conflict would both have dire consequences for Israel and peace in the world. Food prices will continue to rise dramatically. Major parts of the world are living below the poverty line today and this will increase exponentially.

The lethal concoction of rising food and fuel prices is already affecting the Western world. The Continuous Commodity Index – CCI, (60% food, 17% energy and 23% metals) has almost doubled since the low in early 2009 and has gone up 42% in the last 12 months. The almost vertical rise of the CCI is one of the best indicators of hyperinflation being imminent. 
A catastrophe of astronomical proportions is looming. This will hit the world at a time when there is no capacity whatsoever to take any real measures that could alleviate the problems.

Most countries are already running major deficits which will increase dramatically in the next few years. The banking system is bankrupt and is only holding together due to false valuations of toxic debt and derivatives. This is done with the blessing of governments since virtually no major bank could face an honest valuation of its assets.
Unemployment and especially youth unemployment is currently a problem worldwide and it will get much worse. In 2010, the US government spent 60% more than its revenues. In order to balance the budget individual and corporate income taxes would have to double.
Never before in history has the world run out of real money as well as (affordable) food and fuel simultaneously. But his is exactly what is happening now and it will get substantially worse in the next few months and years.

Financial misery, famine and high unemployment combined with governments that will not be in a position to give real help are a recipe for disaster that will lead to social unrest and revolutions not only in developing countries but also in the West. Hungry people are desperate people and desperate people do desperate deeds.

Hyperinflation Watch
The following are indisputable facts:
    The US dollar is down 82% against gold since 1999
    The US dollar is down 49% against the Swiss Francs since 2001
    The Dow Jones is down 81% against gold since 1999
    The Continuous Commodity Index is up 100% since 2009

The above facts are clear evidence of an economy that has been totally mismanaged. But more importantly most of these trends are now starting to accelerate – a clear sign that hyperinflation is just around the corner.
With years of negative net worth and negative cash flow, the US is bankrupt today. The Federal deficit is forecast to increase by at least another $ 5 trillion in the next 5-7 years. Add to this the State deficits, the Municipal and City deficits that are rising at a galloping rate and we have a country that is going to hemorrhage to death in the next few years. One wonders when the totally ineffective and clueless rating agencies are going to fathom this. Not that it will matter if they once do. 
One also wonders what Bernanke and his coterie are thinking. They should have above average intelligence and could not possibly have avoided seeing the facts we all see today (of course, it's been discernibly 'coming' for over a decade). But he must please his master Obama and devotion to the King goes above all reasonable common sense, or rationale. So the two of them will continue to crank up the printing press and drown their people and the world in worthless paper.

Stock Market
To believe that the current money printing liquidity boom is real and sustainable would be a very serious and expensive mistake. The temporary and illusionary pickup that we are now seeing in the economy and stock market is the normal initial phase of a hyper-inflationary economy. It must not be mistaken for a real improvement in the economy.

The normal pattern at the beginning of a hyper-inflationary period is that stock markets surge. This is the result of the increased liquidity and a flight to more inflation proof assets. This was the case in for example the Weimar Republic and Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe stock exchange that went from 1,420 in January 2005 to 5.4 trillion in June 2008, a 3 billion per cent increase. That was of course in Zimbabwe dollars. In US dollars the stock exchange went sideways with major volatility.
So in hyper-inflationary terms stock markets could continue to rise initially thus making them a better investment than cash. However, measured against real money, the Dow has gone down 82% against gold since 1999 and 86% against silver since 2001. We are currently seeing a dead cat bounce but expect the Dow to decline a further 90%, at least, against gold in the next few years.
So even if stock market investments will initially give the illusion of protecting investors, it will be a very poor hedge against the ravages of hyperinflation in real terms.

Bond market
Beginning in January 2009, long term interest rates were bottoming. Since then the 30 year bond yield is up from 2.6% to 4.6% an 80% rise. But more importantly the 30 year is currently in the process of breaking a 17 year downtrend line which dates back to 1994. This confirms that rates will now start a major and rapid rise which is likely to reach the mid-teens or higher. Governments will attempt to keep short rates low due to weak economies but eventually the rising long rates will put strong upward pressure on the short rates. 
So the flight to government bonds that we have seen in the last few years will soon reverse into a massive rush for the exit. This will coincide with rapidly increasing financing requirements by the US, UK, EU and many other governments. The poisonous concoction of rising rates and rising financing needs will create a vicious circle of collapsing bond markets and unsustainably high financing cost. This will continue to drive interest rates even higher which will further increase deficits and necessitate even faster running printing presses. Add to that a collapsing currency and the hyper-inflationary picture is complete. Investors should exit bond markets entirely if they want to avoid a total destruction of their assets.

Currency Market
Hyperinflation is created by the government destroying the currency as a result of money printing to finance deficits. This leads to the cost push inflation that we are now experiencing. Add to that, shortages in commodities worldwide, thus creating the perfect hyper-inflationary scenario. The Dollar, the Pound, the Euro and many other currencies will continue to decline. They can’t all decline against each other at the same time so the market will take turns in attacking one currency at a time. But all currencies will continue to decline against gold. 
The dollar will soon start a very rapid fall against gold and against many currencies. Investors should exit the Dollar and also the Pound and the Euro. There is no currency better than gold or silver but for any small amounts of cash prefer the Swiss Franc, the Norwegian Krone, the Singapore dollar and the Canadian dollar.

A hyper-inflationary depression will destroy the value of money as well as most assets that were financed by the credit bubble (property, stock market). Wealth protection is now critical and urgent. The best method of protecting assets against total destruction is physical gold and silver stored outside the banking system. Thereafter, precious metals, energy and food stocks are preferred.
But it must be remembered any asset including stocks held through a bank is dependent on a sound and surviving banking system.
The real move in precious metals is still to come. Less than 1% of investors own gold. Before this economic cycle is over we are likely to see a mania in physical precious metals that will drive prices exponentially higher. Luckily for investors, this is a mania which is unlikely to end in a collapse since gold most probably will be part of a future reserve currency.

Stating the inevitable:
“There is no means of avoiding a final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”
-Ludwig von Mises

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This Time We're Taking The Whole Planet With Us!

"Civilizations in the last moments embrace a total severance from reality, a reality that becomes too bleak to be absorbed....  the greater the extent of the deterioration the less they are able to comprehend what is happening around them.... this time it will be global, there are no new lands to pillage, no new peoples to exploit."