More questions than answers about availability of precious metals.

http://talkdigitalnetwork.com/2013/05/precious-metal-supplies-questioned/

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/rogers-schiff-dont-trust-yen/4324

Ever since the kick-off of “Abenomics” in Japan, analysts have gone back and forth on what the program might conceivably do for the country. While some are holding onto hope for the future, two of the most educated heads in the world of finance don’t feel very positive about where the yen is going.

In recent interviews on Yahoo! Finance’s Breakout, investor Jim Rogers and Euro Pacific Capital president Peter Schiff both had a host of negative things to say about the yen.

While both had their own separate reasons for distrusting the yen, each pointed to the overprinting of money as a major contributing factor to a falsely inflated economy.

As far as Jim Rogers is concerned, the “Abenomics” program hasn’t been anywhere near as successful as the Japanese government is purporting, pointing to the fact that the currency has fallen 27% in value in a very short period of time.

“It’s a very, very dangerous move,” says Rogers. “I know the government is reporting that [the Yen’s] move is good, but I don’t trust governments. I don’t trust our government, their government, or anybody else. Their government is as good at lying as ours is.”

Rogers believes that the weakening yen will put a great deal of strain on Japanese residents, as well as small business owners. Since inflation will cause basic necessities to rise in price, the Japanese will have no choice but to shell out more yen on a daily basis if the program persists in such a way.

"The Japanese will suffer,” says Rogers, “but stockbrokers will do better, currency traders will do better.”

Schiff’s Views

Like Jim Rogers, Peter Schiff also holds a poor views of the yen. He predicts that Japan will find itself in a crisis situation soon if things continue to move in this direction. 

Schiff, like Rogers, believes that Japan is only hurting its citizens with its current stimulus program. "I think you're about to see a big dose of consumer price increases in Japan based on a weakening and that's not going to be good news for the Japanese economy or the Japanese consumer," says Schiff. 

Schiff puts quite a bit of weight on the fact that the yen has weakened recently against the dollar. As of right now, the dollar has surpassed 100 yen, sitting at 102. At the beginning of April, however, a dollar could be had for 93 yen.

This bodes well for Americans looking to import products from Japan, but it hurts exports, making them more expensive.

The Growing Situation in Japan

It’s understandable, when taking the details of the “Abenomics” program into consideration, why the Japanese government might feel as if it could work. After all, Japanese exporters are currently enjoying a boom of success thanks to the program, as it is allowing them to export goods to America and other countries without having to spend as much as they did in the past. At face value, it might even appear as if the stimulus truly has been successful. 

What people haven’t seen as of yet, however, are the by-products of the stimulus, which are likely to start showing up soon. 

Rising prices in Japan will make it harder for working-class families to get by, and higher utility costs could cause some small businesses to run into problems. The program, then, will inadvertently hurt Japan, even if certain parties might benefit.

Money printing is an issue that has been occurring not only in Japan, but in central banks the world over. There are plenty of different opinions to be had on the subject, but as it becomes more and more common, it’s likely the side-effects of such practices will soon begin to rear their ugly heads, and Japan may be one of the first countries in the world to see the damage.

For Rogers and Schiff, it’s a “perfect storm” type scenario that could lead to utter disaster if something is not done. While some remain hopeful, there’s no getting around the fact that there is anxiety in the air surrounding the future of Japan’s economy, and the next 6-12 months will surely be interesting to watch.

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This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/rogers-schiff-dont-trust-yen/4324

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/the-bitcoin-mining-network/4323

Bitcoin has been hitting the news recently. About a year ago, you’d pay roughly $5 for 1 Bitcoin. This April, the exchange rate hit $266, and it's still as high as $122.

A lot of this violent fluctuation had to do with economic trends on a global scale – consider the financial fiasco in Cyprus, for example, or the protracted Eurozone downturn. Or even gold’s run of good fortune seemingly expiring as investor attention turns increasingly to equities and platinum group metals.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin, the virtual currency, gained a certain luster as it appeared more bulletproof compared to real-world currencies. Not a lot of these news stories have focused much on the process of Bitcoin mining, though.

Bitcoin was the brainchild of an anonymous hacker that went by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. The fascinating bit is that Bitcoin operates on a peer-to-peer (p2p) network that can, at any given instant, total as much as 1,000 petaflops of computing power, thanks to the thousands of computers that form part of the network, CNNMoney reports.

If Bitcoin were to run on a single electrical network, it'd be drawing approximately $200,000 each day. Every ten minutes, Bitcoin’s core algorithm generates a batch of Bitcoins. This algorithm is designed to generate a total of 21 million Bitcoins, of which 11 million have been released. But that’s not all.

On the one hand, you have the core algorithm generating batches of Bitcoins. On the other hand, you have computers that must solve complex algorithms that go up in complexity in order to ‘win’ the Bitcoins. Meanwhile, the so-called “blockchain” operates as a sort of digital ledger, keeping track of every Bitcoin mining and transaction.

In case the picture isn’t clear yet, consider this. Originally, you could let your home computer or laptop work on the mathematical algorithms and eventually win a few Bitcoins. Now, the situation is so complex that extremely powerful, dedicated computers are required to keep the mining going.

And that’s generated a whole sub-economy comprised of Bitcoin fund companies like BitPay and BitInstant. The latter, by the way, is spearheaded by the Winklevoss twins (remember The Social Network?). Presently, the total Bitcoin economy could be worth as much as $1.4 billion.

Bitcoin Mining Opportunities

Butterfly Labs is one of the companies working to position itself as a leader in the Bitcoin mining economy. Obviously, given that Bitcoin mining has quickly evolved way beyond the capacity of most home computers, and the fact that there’s significant profits to be made by setting up dedicated mining operations, entrepreneurs have paid close attention.

Butterfly Labs has designed its ASIC Bitcoin mining products, the first few shipments of which have just gone out. As an indicator of just how much demand such a solution generated, consider that orders have been backlogged since June of 2012.

The devices come in varying computing capacities, and a variety of technical problems kept delaying the first shipments. The purpose of these devices is simple: they exist to run the increasingly difficult algorithms that must be solved in order for Bitcoins to be mined. In other words, they are digital miners.

Every ten minutes on the Bitcoin p2p network, a random lottery event occurs whereby some device ‘wins’ 25 Bitcoins (in addition to what it’s already mining). That’s the essence of the whole operation.

For the tech-minded among you, Wired recently put its Butterfly Labs unit to test; it’s been averaging 5.5 billion hashes per second. Wired’s team paired up with the Eclipse Mining Consortium (a Bitcoin mining group) to pool computing power.

Over ten days, and accounting for the share split, Wired was able to mine a little over 2 Bitcoins. Evidently, Bitcoin mining is not meant to be an easy task.

However, consider that at the present exchange rate, that’s actually almost enough to pay for the Butterfly Labs unit, which cost $274. That’s not too bad at all.

The big question now is what’s next for Bitcoin. It’s different from the forms of virtual currency we’ve been accustomed to in the past (reward points and the like). For one, Bitcoin is big – very big. It’s a worldwide phenomenon, it’s innovative, and it’s made a serious impact on the real-world market.

On the other hand, there is a finite limit to how many Bitcoins can be created. We don’t know, at this point, what comes after that. 

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This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/the-bitcoin-mining-network/4323

May 24, 2013
Dallas, Texas, USA

Years ago as a young intelligence officer, I served a stint in Saudi Arabia running a team of counter-terrorism analysts and agents.

We used to have regular “threat working groups,” a fancy way of saying we would get together at the US Embassy for meetings with the embassy staff, local NSA operators, and CIA operatives working in the country under official cover.

The tone of the meetings was always the same– looking at various reports and figuring out which intelligence was credible.

It seemed like every week we would hear about some terrorist with a suitcase-sized bomb, and the bureaucrats would dive into a lively debate about whether or not to evacuate the Americans.

One day, I remember, my friend who was the senior ranking non-commissioned officer interrupted and said, “What about the Swedes?”

Silence. You could have heard a pin drop.

An embassy official looked at him, puzzled. “Sergeant?”

“What about the Swedes? Do we evacuate the Swedes too?”

The embassy staff looked at each other, shrugged a bit, “Oh sure, sure, we’ll coordinate with Washington on that.” And the discussion continued.

“What about the Saudis?”

Silence again. And then he really made his point. “It’s not just about Americans, you know. Their blood is worth something too.”

I’ll never forget it. It was formative for me. But for the government bureaucrats, it was as if he were speaking Greek. They just didn’t understand the concept.

It’s so commonplace… and one of the more unfortunate aspects of humanity. We group ourselves, defining each other by irrelevant things like nationality or the color of our passports.

The modern nation state has only served to reinforce this purpose. The flag waving and bombastic patriotism drive a sentiment that other peoples are less important– that their lives are worth less than our lives… as if we’re not all human beings.

To give you a harsh example, former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George was a vocal opponent of Geneva Convention restrictions to prevent British planes from bombing certain civilian targets.

He had a long history of this, having dropped 97 tonnes of bombs and fired 183,861 rounds on Iraqi civilians in a 1920 revolt against British occupation.

According to his wife in later memoirs, George opposed any such restrictions because he wanted to “reserve the right. . . to bomb niggers!”

Though such language is intellectually appalling today, very little has changed in this sentiment: our lives are worth more than other people’s.

President Obama really drove this point home in a speech yesterday which passionately defended US drone strikes– something the White House calls “necessary, legal, and just.”

Now, it’s possible that I’ve seen a more intellectually disingenuous speech in my life. But I really can’t remember when.

As the President stated, the drone strikes are “effective” and have “saved lives.”

So says the Nobel Peace Prize recipient. But I imagine there are a number of dead civilians who would take issue with his assertion if they could.

By “saved lives,” he obviously meant “American lives”. Of course, we’ll never know since they don’t release any information and we’re all just supposed to take the government’s word without question.

I don’t. Having once been inside the machine, I know that there is zero certainty in the intelligence business… which makes the whole calculus morally reprehensible.

My dictionary defines the word sociopath as “a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.”

I think the shoe fits. At a minimum, this policy… this strategy… is sociopathic. It demonstrates a lack of conscience for the value of innocent life overseas and is another massive moral stain on the politicians who lord over the Land of the Free.