Mover Mike

Here’s a followup to my Gold and Silver call on Feb. 24th. Take a look at the April Gold contract at TFC Commodity Charts. It shows a gap on 10/27/2005 and a close at 483.3. That gap coincided with a peak and a correction to 463.5 on 11/04/2005. After the gap was closed gold ran to 548.0 on 12/12/2005, a gain from the gap of $65.70.

The next gap was on 12/13/2005 with a close at 528.4. There was a correction to 497.0 on 12/21/2005. After the gap was closed gold ran to 579.5 on 02/02/2006, a gain from the gap of $51.10.

Now, our third gap took place on 02/06/2006 with a close at 574.3. IMO, the bottom was at 539.0 on 02/16/2006. As I indicated in my previous post, I believe we have broken out of a small head and shoulders bottom. If this move acts like the previous two our next high should be between 625.40 and 640.00, sometime in the first two weeks of April.

BTW, there are no gurus in the world, there are no guarantees. We all must think for ourselves. I just want to see if I can get it more right than the “bubbleheads” on TV, who get paid more than I do and are not accountable for their predictions.

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Gold economics Mover Mike

Update: Gold to touch $ 610 in near future: BBA

Though it is maintaining a constant upward swing, precious metal gold is still underperforming and is likely to touch dollar 610 per ounce in the near future, says an industry expert.

Tags: Gold by MoverMike
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Google had a mighty big fall today, so far it is down over 32 points.

The StockCharts shows this is the third big drop since mid-January. It has now reached the 200dma where you would expect to find support and provides a good “stopping” point.

Google stocks finance

Update:

Tags: Investing by MoverMike
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Editor’s Note: This blogburst should have gone up yesterday. I missed it.

As a parent with two kids in Texas schools, I have a pet peeve. I really, really resent that their education is hampered by kids who can’t speak English. I’ve seen classes that move mind-bogglingly slow as teachers have to work one-on-one with children who shouldn’t be there in the first place. It’s enough to make me grind my teeth in frustration!

I am a big proponent of the immersion method of learning a language. It is my firm belief that once in America, immigrants should learn our language, and the best way is by complete and total immersion. When we lived in Mexico, we placed my son into a public school in the local village so that he could learn the language more rapidly. I continued to teach him at home what he needed to know to keep his education above American standards, and his classroom experience was for language purposes only. We asked for no special considerations, we just did what was necessary. It was not easy, but it worked.

That is only one of the reasons it is so offensive to see our tax dollars paying for immigrants, many of them here illegally, to receive special dispensations because they can’t (or won’t) learn our language! But why should they learn, when almost everything is bi-lingual anyways?

Recently in Arizona, an activist judge has ruled that it’s not enough that American citizens pay for a free education for the children of illegal aliens, and it’s not enough that the classes are dumbed-down for non-English speakers, but now the taxpayers must pay exorbitant funds to provide special classes for children who don’t speak English!

One of the most outrageous examples of out-of-control judges is the case called Flores v. Arizona, now pending in federal court in Tucson. Originally filed in 1992, plaintiff lawyers claim to represent an estimated 160,000 children of illegal immigrants attending Arizona public schools.

The case seeks to force Arizona taxpayers to pay for bringing these children, euphemistically called English Language Learners, up to grade level. The lawyers are trying to accomplish this by turning a state legislative issue into a federal judicial command.

The background for attempting to accord special “rights” to non-American, non-English speaking residents was predicated on a case in Alabama where liberals tried to add the word “language” to the Civil Rights Act, thereby making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of language. While the case was originally successful in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, it was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Based upon that, Arizona Judge Alfredo C. Marquez, appointed by Jimmy Carter, ruled against the Arizona taxpayers, but had enough restraint to recognize that he could not substitute the court’s “educational values and theories for the educational and political decisions reserved to state or local school authorities.” Nevertheless, he tasked the legislature with performing a cost study.

Over the next few years, the Arizona legislature passed three bills for this special funding. However, none of them were as large as Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, wanted and so she vetoed all three. Governor Napolitano wanted the Arizona Legislature to appropriate nearly $1,200 per immigrant child, totaling $192 million, without accountability for how it was to be spent. Obviously, the governor, with the judge’s ruling on her side, could sit and wait until the legislature saw things her way.

Unfortunately, the next judge in succession of Marquez, upped the ante. Appointed by Bill Clinton, Judge Ramer C. Collins, decided to punitively fine the Arizona State Legislature for not funding special accommodations for non-English speaking students.

In December 2005, Collins imposed fines of $500,000 a day, escalating to $2 million a day, for every day that the legislature fails to authorize funding acceptable to the governor.
[…]
Since Jan. 25, millions of dollars in court-ordered fines have been accumulating. If this continues to the end of the legislative session, the fines will total more than $77 million.

Who knew that an activist judge could legislate taxes and state funding?

If there is any issue that should be clearly and exclusively a function of the legislature elected by the people it is the matter of raising taxes and spending the people’s money. Unfortunately, there are many supremacist judges who think they (in this case, a judge and a governor) can order the legislature to raise taxes and tell them how to spend taxpayer money.

While many Americans in other states think that these problems are confined to the four states with Hispanic majorities (TX, CA, AZ, and NM) - think again. Small towns across America are finding their educational systems utterly compromised by an influx of illegal workers and their families: Melrose, MN; Delavan, WI; Herndon, VA; Wassau, WI; Des Moines, IA; Raleigh, NC; Fort Myers, FL; Sioux Falls, SD; Grand Rapids, MI and North Platte, NE. Still think it’s not your problem?!

As one small town resident has said, “I, along with millions of other American citizens, am sick and tried of the politicians and others treating illegal aliens like honored guests! They are not honored, and they are not guests.”

H/T: American Daughter

__________________________

This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It is syndicated by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we’re going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration in our country, join the Blogburst! Send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.

Guard the Bordersimmigration ESL

Tags: illegal immigration by MoverMike
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Once in a while, for me a song comes along that I obsess over.
That song today is A Song For You

Words & Music by Leon Russell

Recorded by Christina Aguilara with Herbie Hancock:

I’ve been so many places in my life and time,

I’ve sung a lot of songs, I’ve made some bad rhyme,

I’ve acted out my love in sta - ges

With ten thousand people watching –

But we’re alone now and I’m singin’ this song for you.

I know your image of me is what I hope to be;

I’ve treated you unkindly but baby can’t you see

There’s no one more important to me?

Baby can’t you please see through me,

‘Cause we’re alone now and I’m singin’ this song for you.

Bridge:

You taught me precious secrets

Of the truth, withholdin’ nothin’,

You came out in front and I was hiding;

But now I’m so much better,

And if my words don’t come together,

Listen to the melody ’cause my love’s in there, hi - ding.

I love you in a place where there’s no space or time;

I love you for my life, you are a friend of mine,

And when my life is o - ver, remember when we were together –

We were alone and I was singin’ this song for you.

Christina+Aguilara Herbie Hancock

Tags: Music by MoverMike
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In a follow-up to “Beans in the Teens?”, the London Irvine Report has a link to drought maps in Canada.

Drought Canada Economics

Tags: Weather by MoverMike
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Carnival of the Capitalists is up and there is an interesting article by James Hamilton at Econbrowser entitled Oil at $15-30 a barrel?. In the energy chapter of the Economic Report of the President there is this statement:

Although oil prices have risen to more than $60 a barrel in recent months, they have averaged as low as $25 per barrel within the last five years. Having experienced past volatility in oil prices, oil companies report using a working assumption of $15-$30 per barrel for the future price of oil when making long-term investment planning decisions. (emphasis added)

Hamilton uses a variety of finance techniques to investigate the possibility of returning to prices of $15 to $30 a barrel. What struck me about the chart he shows of oil prices in 2005 dollars, is how remarkably stable oil prices were in the period from 1986 to 2004. Energy Bulletin has an article entitled The End of the Oil Standard and there’s this paragraph:

According to Pennwell’s Energy Statistics Sourcebook, OPEC production declined from 30.67 million barrels per day in 1979 to 16.02 million barrels per day in 1985. The same source list OPEC’s maximum sustainable production capacity as 34.4 million barrels per day in 1985. By the end of 1985, OPEC had 18 million barrels per day of shut-in oil production capacity. It became clear that there had to be a price ceiling as well as a floor. This was the price band.

Now Energy Bulletin’s final paragraph:

Was the oil standard an accident or was it a deliberate product of U.S. policy? Motives are difficult to determine and the U.S. Treasury has not claimed to tie the dollar to oil prices. The ultimate effect of the end of the oil standard is difficult to predict, but one should not understate its importance.

Many have written that the world was on an “Oil Standard” and for the period of 1985 to 2004 you could exchange your dollars for an average $30 barrel of oil. Then something changed and oil broke out of that range to over $60 today. Imagine if you are OPEC. You suddenly lost half of the value of your dollar denominated assets in a year. (You can say oil went up to $60 or you can say the dollar only bought half as much.) We can look back at the changes that took place in this country, financially, since 1971 when Nixon took us off the “Gold Standard”. The Energy Bulletin alludes to serious changes coming from the end of the “Oil Standard”. Back to Econbrowser, Hamilton asks the question:

…if ($15-30) is the downside risk that oil companies are contemplating, why don’t they hedge away the risk by selling more oil forward at the $64/barrel price that one can currently guarantee through the December 2010 futures contract?

That’s is exactly what Barrick (ABX) and Placer Dome (PDG) did when gold prices were in a 20 year bear market. With the collusion of the central banks and the bullion banks, these gold mining companies and others as well, sold futures on gold, ostensibly, to take away the mining risk, but it also kept the use of gold, as an inflationary signal, under wraps. The politicians didn’t want you to know that the dollar was losing 95% of its value. Now we have Barrick with losses on its hedges north of $3 Billion and Placer Dome with losses on its hedges of $1.5 Billion. Pray the oil companies don’t get this stupid! Carnival of the Capitalists energy gold standard oil standard derivatives

Tags: Energy, Gold, Health Care by MoverMike
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Update: I was probably one of many who informed Stevens that the article on his site accusing some one of manipulating volcanoes was in error. What he was seeing was a calibration signal created by inducing a current in the seismometers coil. This is an automatic process and the resulting signal is used for quality control. He has pulled the article from his site for further investigation. (Note: I will never pull writing from my site. I will strike through my errors and correct the article.)

Scott Stevens at Weather Wars has a very thought provoking assertion: Someone is messing with our volcanoes!

What would you think if you were told that the currently erupting Augustine Volcano in Alaska was experiencing an unusual kind of earthquake every twelve hours to the second? That’s right, a very strange earthquake goes off on Augustine every twelve hours exactly to the second. What would you think if you were told that each of these unusual earthquakes lasted for exactly the same length of time, fifty-seconds for each and every event? What would you think if you were shown a collection of seismic waveforms for these precision earthquakes that were essentially identical?

He uses Mt Augustine as an example to show that every 12 hours it registers a quake on the seismometer and the waveform is almost exactly like the last. I checked on the seismographs for the other Alaskan mountains ans there are patterns of regularity in almost every one. Coming up is Gareloi 24 hour webicorder. It has shown regularity every 12 hours. At 2230 hours +18-19 minutes it registered a quake. Just now at 1030 hours +18-19 minutes, it registered a quake and the signature looks just like the one at 2230 hours.

Stevens also sees the same regularity in Northwest mountains.

The earthquakes from Mt. Rainier appear to occur every twelve hours with a variation of three seconds. The word ‘appear’ is used because none of the records available for these volcanoes is complete. The earthquakes from Mt. Baker appear to occur every twelve (or twenty-four} hours with a variation of twenty-seven seconds. The earthquakes from Mt. Hood appear to occur every twelve (or twenty-four} hours with a variation of two minutes. Within individual regions, the earthquake seismograms are remarkably similar. Each location has their own particular set of event times, and they are different for each location. Events are being shown from three locations to eliminate the possible judgment of ‘equipment malfunction.’

I honestly don’t know what to think. I am not convinced that a whole series of mountains could be that regular and have the same signature wave form each time.

geology earthquakes Scott Stevens

Update: I received an email from Bill Steele at The Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network

Mike,
What you are seeing is a calibration signal created by inducing a
current in the seismometers coil. This is an automatic process and the
resulting signal is used for quality control.
Good Eyes-
Bill

Ok conspiracy buffs, back to sleep!

Update:

Tags: Geology by MoverMike
5 Comments »

First a series of small quakes on Feb 21 and 22 totaling 29 and then this one

MAP 3.2 2006/02/26 01:08:20 44.653 -110.431 0.3 YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING

Does it mean anything or does it mean nothing?

Yellowstone Earthquakes geology

Tags: Geology by MoverMike
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During the hearing Regarding Ben Bernanke’s Nomination to Be Chairman of the Board of Goverrnors of the Federal Reserve, Sen Sarbanes asked Bernanke why we should pursue inflation targeting when it seems to have failed so miserably in Europe. Bernanke answered in this way

Inflation-targeting comes in many flavors, as some countries have taken a more hawkish stance in terms of putting inflation first among equals or even first among the objectives of policy.As I said, I subscribe entirely to the Humphrey-Hawkins mandate, which puts employment growth and output growth on fully equal footing with inflation in terms of the Federal Reserve’s objectives.

Then the following exchange took place:

SARBANES: E.J. Dionne wrote, just a few weeks ago, “A Fed chairman who beats inflation at the cost of middle-income living standards will not be regarded as a success.”

What do you think about that observation?

BERNANKE: Senator, I think it’s a false dichotomy. I think that middle-income living standards and poverty, for that matter, are best addressed through strong, stable employment growth.

It’s low-income people who suffer most from recessions. It’s low-income people who suffer most from high levels of inflation.

The understanding that central banks currently have is that, by maintaining inflation at a low and stable level, avoiding a situation where inflation gets out of control — as it did, for example, in the 1970s — you can create more stable, more polished (ph), more substantial growth in employment.

I’m entirely in favor of maximum employment. I believe this is a method to achieve it. If I did not think it was, I would not pursue it

Now today, according to Bloomberg, Bernanke said

…stable prices are a “prerequisite” to achieving high employment and moderate interest rates.
[…]
Stable prices are desirable in themselves and thus are an important goal of monetary policy…

It appears he hasn’t given up on inflation targeting. My question for Bernanke, how long can you keep the CPI from giving us the truth about inflation, buy bonds on the long end to keep bond holders happy and trade currencies like the Euro and Yen (Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker dissented from FOMC votes to authorize the New York Fed’s trading of foreign currencies, including the euro and yen)? You have already lost control of the gold market, which is signaling something is wrong monetarily.

Sarbanes Bernanke economy

Tags: Government, Inflation by MoverMike
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On February 22nd I wrote about Roger Ferguson resigning as Fed Vice Chairman and I concluded by saying

The Fed is supposed to be independent from political control, and even though the Fed is a cartel run by the banks, for the banks, it does smack of “banana republic” to have all governors appointed by one man, President Bush. I wish Bush hadn’t said, “The Constitution…it is just a God damned piece of paper!”

I had occasion to go back to the Hearing Regarding Ben Bernanke’s Nomination to Be Chairman of the Board of Goverrnors of the Federal ReserveSen Sarbanes had this to say about the Federal Reserve.

SARBANES: Yes.The Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which established the Federal Reserve System, set the 14-year terms for the members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.

SARBANES: I think that clearly reflected the intention of Congress at the time in enacting this legislation to place the Federal Reserve Board and its individual members beyond the reach of any given administration and the political pressures of the moment.

Actually, the 14-year term is the longest we give to any official in the government other than the lifetime appointments for members of the federal judiciary.

I think it’s fair to say, or certainly has come to be the case, that the credibility of the Federal Reserve rests in large part on broad confidence in its independence in the judgments it makes.

And, obviously, if that confidence were to be undermined, the stature of the board would be gravely diminished. And that, in turn, would have serious consequences, I think, not only for our national economy but, indeed, for the world economy.

Sarbanes Federal Reserve economy

Update:

Tags: Economics, Government by MoverMike
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