[gold or silver] as long as it's commodities

Sackerson reports:

"Central banks have 10-15,000 tonnes of gold less than their officially reported reserves of 31,000" the Chevreux report announced. "This gold has been lent to bullion banks and their counterparties and has already been sold for jewelry, etc."

"Start hoarding," said Paul Mylchreet...

And the CBs are not pro-active in this matter? It seems silver is a better bet. This current release of gold smells distinctly off.

Seeking Alpha looks at silver, as does AME, who note:

… volatility is your main problem. Thus you should not put money into silver that you may need to call on …

and

Trading in silver options is for experts and even they will avoid margin because of the volatility factor; this is not for the average investor.

You need to progressively pick up small amounts and see it as long. It's not a market consideration - it's a long term safety consideration.

Fin24 looks at platinum and this is current:

"Platinum metal demand is thus dominated by two superb drivers; supportive environmental legislation and the burgeoning Chinese consumer."

Reuters looked at nickel in January so that's a possibility too.

It depends how you see the situation, either as an oncoming bear market or as something more dire and the recent Fed rates seem to suggest the latter, combined with all the other non-financial societal moves going on.

If it is more dire, than commodities funds would not seem so wise although defensive industries might be a reasonable strategy.

Bear market or something a bit more fractured?

[incarceration] looking for alternatives

The Supreme Court struggled Tuesday with how much discretion U.S. judges have to give lenient sentences, including in crack cocaine cases.

Justice Department lawyer Michael Dreeben, seeking to win longer sentences for … two men, urged an approach used by many appeals courts. It demands that a sentence varying significantly from the guidelines be justified by a rationale that is equally weighty.

Justice John Paul Stevens wondered if that test was too vague: "How do you measure the strength of the justifications?"

The Jailhouse Lawyer would no doubt have much to say on this and to put it in simplistic terms for the layman such as myself, the argument seems to boil down to whether:

# sentences should be statutory and if so, who determines which crime carries which sentence;

# sentences should be discretionary for justices and if so, whether this should be cross the board or whether it should be within defined limits, with "weighting" given to certain offences. The "three strikes and you're out" approach is part of this argument.

I don't know the answer to this but what I do know is that with the move to the new feudalism, there are going to be many more citizens incarcerated than formerly. The frightening new U.K. Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and the U.S. equivalent will see to that.

Just look at Phil A's post for a start.

So perhaps it's time to think more laterally than the fines and/or incarceration which dominates and if taken too far, leads to prison hulks and transportation to Australia. I don't mean either corporal or capital punishment either.

Forbes ran an article on this, offering ten alternatives, including:

...drug treatment, faith based inner change [which I personally know to be the most efficacious], pay for prison stay, community based project for violence prevention, rich crims teaching in poor schools, car ignition interlocks, living in a slum for a period of time, chemical castration, abolish prison and invest in housing, facilities etc., billboard naming and shaming...

My own view is that elements of these, like community service for the victims or class of victims seems advantageous but this wouldn't work for crimes on the self, such as drug use, which perhaps should be decriminalized.

The very best way is for the individual to fill the hole of envious malevolence and materialism with spiritual wholeness but nobody seems to want to know about weirdo things like that.

Prison hulk on the Thames

[blogfocus wednesday] failure to find a theme

1. Colin Campbell needs no words here to convey the message. Click on the pic to get the idea.

2. Tuscan Tony rebuilt a different kind of house:

Not all my property adventures have been as replete with success as the Sussex one; I plunged deep into the market for my first foray in 1990, paying a princely £68,000 for the pictured terraced house in Dorking [below right]. I then proceeded to spend every weekend for the next 4 years restoring it lovingly. I did the loft conversion and put in the Velux, reroofed it, put in new pine floors throughout, replastered, put in new kitchen and bathroom, mostly aided and abetted by the first Mrs Tuscan. All work was done by me personally (idiot), and I learned more than I needed to know about the building trade.

4. L'Ombre recalls the joy of his non-Parisien house:

French people can be amazingly helpful and when we moved in we had almost exactly this experience:

When my uncle bought his Provençal house he called on his neighbour, a farmer in his sixties, and jokingly apologised for the fact they now had "des anglais" next door. The farmer merely responded, "Heureusement, vous n'êtes pas Parisien."

3. The Swearing Mother is also not Parisienne but is still moved by France:

The sight of the waiter bringing lunch, weaving through crowded tables, tray held high, makes you do a double take and wonder why this scene feels so familiar. A badly maintained front door, instead of looking scruffy and in need of attention, suddenly makes you want to paint it. And I don’t mean with two coats of Dulux, either. Everywhere you look, something is begging to be immortalized on canvas, and it's very likely that someone already has.

4. Meanwhile, Bag makes the logical connection between granddaughters and KGB records:

On the way back to the car with a poor wet little girl who had not coped too well with the delay. I overheard someone coming from another shop close to this one who were also unable to validate the cards and was looking for cash. Makes you think how dependent we are on the infrastructure that has built up over the last few decades. Technology. Not very good to us at the moment with the use our government is making of it. Just think, all those tax records, DVLA data, KGB records on us all.

5. Speaking of Stalinist records, Benedict White outlines how you'll be tracked down in the near future in Gordon's Britain:

Yesterday's Mail on Sunday carried the story that the government has passed legislation that requires telephone companies and Internet service providers to keep records of when and where telephone conversations and emails were sent. This will include tracking data on where mobile phones are.

6. Ian Parker shows the alternative - the stormtroopers:

Meanwhile, the Conservatives today published their plans for a homeland security force made up of two battalions and headed by a permanent leader. Former intelligence chief Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, who led a national and international policy group for the Conservatives, said: "We feel there needs to be a small force which is readily available, properly trained and has a command centre dedicated to looking after our territory at home."

HatTip Postman Patel

8. And finally, Tiberius Gracchus, in his usual insightful manner, gives an insight into Ian Curtis:

Curtis was, by the film's account, an appalling husband. He was unable to repay Debbie. Locked in his own world of creativity, he refused at times to even answer her when she knocked on the door of his room, refused even to climb the stairs to go to bed with her. He is so self focused, that at one point he even asks her whether she wants to sleep with other men. There are enough indications in the film to demonstrate that Curtis by the end found that he was dependent on Debbie but not attracted to her.

And while you're there, don't forget Dave Cole's gingerbread haka or Courtney Hamilton's teenage smoking. See you on Saturday I hope.

Tuscan Tony's palace - isn't it lovely looking into other people's backyards and seeing what they're up to?

[puberty blues] chinese medical science

China claims early puberty stunts growth. That's interesting - now I'm wondering about li'l old me all those years back.

How would you rate Chinese medical science? Advanced? Weird? Primitive? Inscrutable? They say this about why early puberty is becoming more prevalent:

# You are bombarded with sexual scenes on TV now. Such scenes stimulate children too and triggers hormone secretion;

# Such hormones are often found in fast food, which accelerate children's development;

# The problem is more serious in major cities than in the countryside because urban children are better fed.

Hmmm.

[three lovely ladies] this is for you

Привет!

Айнур Гусейнова, the darkly exotic, like golden honey;

Ильмира Файзуллина, the smiling beauty with glasses;

Юлия Сафронова, the frisky closer of doors;

To you

Я вам даю этот "пост", девченкы, с любовю.

[russian crisis] liquidity is the issue

The reason you haven't heard of it yet is most likely that it's in the pipeline still and thus early days. Seems it's going to be like yours over there but there are internal mechanisms here now which weren't here in '98. Have to wait and see. The election is the main news.