Back to Basics Newsletter 1/19/10
Written by Roxanne Louise. Feel free to circulate.
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Next Meeting for Back to Basics, Creating Sustainability and Conscious Community, to be held Sunday, January 24 from 2:30-4:30 PM at Nelson County Library,
8521 Thomas Nelson Highway (Route 29 Southbound), Lovingston, VA 22949-0321
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Where you get the best information and news? Send in your list and we’ll include it in newsletter
Besides Notes from a Hermit, written by Glenn Mingo, and wonderful articles also sent to me by various members of the group, especially, Steffano Siciliano, here are some other sources of news.
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HEALTH: check out
Dr. Mercola has free newsletter and huge data base on health issues and timely news on same at http://www.mercola.com
Mike Adams, Natural News, also has free newsletter and data base on health issues, latest news at http://www.naturalnews.com
Dr. Mitch Fleischer has a website, Alternative DrMCare offering paid yearly subscription ($59.95) to self healing protocols on a huge list of conditions, see http://www.alternativedrmcare.com
Metabolic Type Diet: Free questionnaire online to determine the type of dietary plan best for you (not a weight loss diet although people who eat right for their type tend to adjust appropriately up or down) based on the work of William Wolcott , “The Metabolic Typing Diet” See http://www.natpro.net/metabolic-typing.html
Electric Magnetic Frequency, see The GalileO Project Newsletter by Georgia Pearson. “The GalileO Project” is a grass-roots organization formed to educate individuals and groups about EM/RF radiation health issues and encourage support for personal, community, and planetary well-being. The GalileO Project will publish an occasional information-sharing Newsletter. Send your email address to receive it, and your news, articles, or letter contributions to: Georgia Pearson at: georgiawp@earthlink.net
Cell Phone Towers and Antennas Locations: Thanks to Georgia’s newsletter, I went online and found 4 towers, and 11 antennas all within 4 miles of my house in Nelllysford. Check out their locations for your own home, workplace, etc. at: http://antennasearch.com
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FINANCES, BUSINESS, ECONOMY:
George Ure, Urban Survival, http://urbansurvival.com/week.htm Check daily for free update. Has paid subscription as well.
Gerald Celente, The Trends Research Institute, http://www.trendsresearch.com. The Trends Journal is paid subscription.Celente can be seen on many t.v. and youtube.com segments Trends for 2010: http://www.trendsresearch.com/journal.html.
Bloomberg.com Actually has news in all categores including health, science, technology, politics, etc.
The Sovereign Society, Free Subscription for good news on financial, business news. See http://sovereignsociety.com
Sent to me by my friend, David Drillick, Here are some links to information he’s found useful:
1. most useful
Gary Shilling http://www.agaryshilling.com (website) market, 1 year (where the market is heading)
Robert Prechter http://www.elliottwave.com (website) market, 1 – 3 years+, Elliot wave (where the market is heading – from technical standpoint). Free newsletter. Also free report on
2. good info
Nouriel Roubini http://www.roubini.com/ (website) economist, macroeconomic, 1 – 3 years (scarier than Shilling or Prechter, and less useful – he also does not put his money where he speaks)
Jim Rogers http://www.roubini.com/ commodities, long term, 2 – 5+ years (invests in things most people can not invest in)
Marc Faber (like Jim Rogers, but fun to listen to) Howard Davidowitz (website) retail stores, near term (really knows retail and a blast to listen to)
Stephen Roach Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia
3. theory
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Safest banks in US. For full list of banks in US, (note that report only lists 2 banks per state):http://www.elliottwave.com/club/protected/ctc/safe-banks-chp-19.aspx
Safest Banks in Virginia: see http://www.elliottwave.com/club/protected/ctc/safe-banks-chp-19.aspx
VIRGINIA BANK & TRUST CO located in DANVILLE, A+ rating, and BURKE & HERBERT BK & TRUST CO located in ALEXANDRIA, A rating.
Excerpts from above article on understanding banks– deposits and failures from Bob Prechter:
“At latest count, U.S. banks report $6.942t. in deposits and $6.945t. in loans. In other words, the average bank in the U.S. has lent out 100 percent of its deposits. The money is not there. It is lent out. (Some banks have more loans than deposits, others less, because while deposits can move—so far, at least—banks can get stuck with illiquid loans. It used to be that when a large depositor left a loaned-up bank, the bank would sell off loan agreements to raise the cash to pay him. But today there is almost no market for mortgages. See the problem?) If your bank has a billion dollars on deposit but all of it is lent out, then it has no money. But if one were to poll all the depositors, their combined statements would indicate that, as a group, they think there is a billion dollars in the bank. So 100 percent of their belief is a fantasy. That is also the amount of potential deflation, if all the borrowers were immediately to default.
Confusion comes about due to a magical word: deposit. This word makes it sound as if you have placed your money in the bank for safekeeping. But what you have actually done—as courts have confirmed—is to lend your money to the bank so it can, in turn, lend your money to your neighbors and split the interest with you. It is a speculative business, not a safekeeping institution. In reality, a bank book should not list “money on deposit” but “money lent to our bank, to be paid on demand unless we run short.”
Loan upon loan escalating through the banking system has created the bulk of the inflation in the system. But this inflation holds up only as long as all the loans backing the money listed in all the bank books are still good. If all the borrowers were to find that they could not pay back the banks, then the purchasing power that everyone thought he had would evaporate into the nothingness it truly was….
In the modern banking system, almost no one knows the score. Even those who do understand the situation, from having seen “It’s a Wonderful Life” a dozen times, rarely worry, because Congress, by creating the Fed as a lender and the FDIC as a supposed insurer, support the illusion that no losses are possible. This is a system with massive “systemic risk,” which means in effect that huge illusions can melt away in a flash if the “system” fails. The modern banking system has no option but to fail. Its very design, in fostering the illusion of riskless lending, insures that ultimately a huge portion of the creditors someday will wake up broke.
In the direct-lending scenario, moreover, you consciously decided to take the risk. You could have chosen to keep your money safe. Indeed, because the risks are crystal clear and honestly represented, many would have done just that. But that option does not exist as an institutional service today, because with fiat money, holding is losing, at least for all but the rare, brief periods of deflation. So, almost nobody does it. People “keep their money in a bank” and think it’s the same thing as “a bank keeping their money.” But it isn’t. To put it another way: The time-worn phrase “Money in the bank” really means “money not in the bank. If a depositor were to ask a banker, “Where is my money?” the proper answer would be, “It’s gone.”
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On the topic of SECURITY: read The Sovereign Society Offshore A-Letter, Monday, January 18, 2010
Free Subscription for good news on financial, business news. See http://sovereignsociety.com
“Locking the Swiss Bank Door” See same Sovereign Society Newsletter for info on Swiss government giving out names on American citizens with Swiss accounts to IRS.
“Sovereign: Canadian Customs Wants Your Laptop, Too…” By Mark Nestmann
“U.S. customs authorities have assigned themselves the authority to copy all data on your laptop or other electronic device when you cross a U.S. border. I wrote about this policy last year.
Now, customs authorities in Canada (and other countries, especially the U.K.) are getting into the act. I’ve received reports from several sources (among them from J. J. Luna, author of the classic How to be Invisible) describing intimidating encounters at the Canadian border. Luna reports that after being routed into a secondary inspection queue, customs officials forced him to reveal the passwords to his two laptops and USB flash drives. Then, they disappeared with these devices in hand for nearly an hour, presumably to copy and inspect them.
Your smart phone may be subject to the same type of inspection, and all your photos, text messages, online searches, and calling records copied onto a customs database.
To avoid a border inquisition, the best precaution is not to carry any electronic device across an international border. For most people, this isn’t practical, so the next-best strategy is to carry only “sanitized” devices.
For instance, I have a laptop I use only for international travel. There’s nothing on it except for the operating system and program files. I also have an “unlocked” cell phone I use only for international travel. When I arrive in a new country I purchase a domestic SIM card from a local phone dealer. This not only protects your privacy at the border, but also insures your domestic carrier has no record of your international calls. And, it eliminates roaming charges.
If you do carry your cell phone across the border, delete any photos or text messages you feel to be even remotely controversial, and then reset it to factory settings. You can find instructions for doing so at http://www.master-reset.com.
What if you need access to confidential data while traveling internationally? One option is to upload a zip file containing your data to a commercial backup service, such as Carbonite
(http://www.carbonite.com). Be sure to encrypt the data before uploading it, using a product such as PGP Whole Disk Encryption (http://www.pgp.com) or True-Crypt (http://www.truecrypt.org).
Another option is to send an encrypted USB flash drive to your destination via courier, and send it back via courier when you’re ready to return home. I’ve done this several times without any problems.
If you must travel with confidential data across a border, you should encrypt all the data on your laptop or USB flash drive, including the hard disk itself, again using a program like PGP Whole Disk Encryption or True-Crypt. However, customs officials may demand that you decrypt any encrypted files before they allow you to proceed. If you refuse, you might be detained until you agree to decrypt the laptop for inspection. You could even be placed on a blacklist and denied re-entry to that country.”
