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Gold and Silver • CONNECTICUT BEGINS GOLD DEALER SHUTDOWN
[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Editor-in-Chief, Jeff Berwick]
If you don’t own gold yet, you might really want to hurry up and get some. We keep saying it, but this time it’s not just because physical precious metals are getting incredibly scarce. Purchasing gold may become outright illegal if what’s going on in Connecticut is any indication. Even if Connecticut’s plan to track all gold sales isn’t a harbinger for a modern day Roosevelt-like ban on gold ownership, it will at the very least drive gold bullion dealers out of business with the cost of complying with the new regulation. That will create artificial scarcity in Connecticut and could set a precident for other US States.
From the Connecticut General Assembly website:
AN ACT CONCERNING PRECIOUS METALS OR STONES DEALERS.
To require precious metals or stones dealers to provide a periodic statement of transactions in an electronic format to the local licensing authority and retain any goods purchased for at least ten days, and to make the requirements applicable to precious metals or stones dealers similar to those applicable to secondhand dealers.
Introduced by: Public Safety and Security Committee
As economist Gary North pointed out concering this bill: "You may recall that the terror of the French Revolution was run by the Committee on Public Safety." In the section on "Bullions and Coins", the bill says:
For bullion and coin sales, in addition to the requirements under current law, the bill requires dealers to keep the record in English, be consecutively numbered, and include the seller’s general description.
Did you catch that last part about including the seller’s general description?
This may be only the relatively tiny state of Connecticut, but the very fact that any government in the US is paying so much attention to gold transactions should send a very clear signal. Not only should you be running –not walking– to get more gold…You should also be running to get a lot of it outside of the US as a clampdown seems to be in the works.
Maybe it’s no coincidence that this bill is being introduced in Connecticut. It may not be long before the federal government starts publicly associating precious metals and Bitcoin with "terrorists" who are trying to hide their purchases of bomb-making materials. The state of Connecticut and the city of Boston, Massachusetts have been host to the kind of violence that governments love to use to restrict gun ownership and to increase surveillance powers. It wouldn’t surprise me if we saw similar legislation to what Connecticut is proposing coming out of Massachusetts. Eventually, I imagine such legislation sweeping across the US.
There will come a time when you will simply not be able to get precious metals because of a lack of supply (and no one will sell at any dollar price)…or because purchase and ownership of the metals will be flat out illegal. This isn’t hyperbole. This is a prediction based on history and current trends. We have all watched as mere penstrokes have increased the state’s power to monitor, spy upon and kill. Less than eighty years ago, a US president completely and abruptly outlawed the ownership of gold in a time of declared crisis. Does anyone reading this really think that something like that couldn’t hapen again as the monetary system is its death throes and the US empire is inevitably resulting in the US police state?
The state will start to take strong action against gold and decentralized currencies. This is to be expected during The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It. Make sure to act before it’s too late. Get your gold and then secure it somewhere the US government won’t be able to steal it.
Jeff Berwick
Editor-in-Chief, The Dollar Vigilante
http://dollarvigilante.com/blog/2013/4/ … tdown.html
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Tue Apr 30, 2013 11:10 am
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Gold and Silver • South African strikes shutdown 39% of capacity,
South African strikes shutdown 39% of capacity, gold prices will benefit says Byron King
Posted on 27 September 2012
Strikes at South African gold mines have shut down about 39 per cent of capacity. This will inevitably trigger higher gold prices in the near future even if it is not happening right now.
The unrest ‘will not end quickly,’ says legendary newsletter writer Byron King today. ‘This is not just ‘the natives are restless, so throw ‘em a bone.’
‘At the face of the mine, workers want more money… but actually, over the past decade, they’ve been earning ‘more money,’ while spending it faster than it comes because of inflation in food, energy, housing costs and other social issues that help keep poor people poor. So even ‘more money’ won’t solve the problem, because More is never enough.
Supply constraints
‘Meanwhile, gold mine managers see rising costs pushing against more challenging extraction. Ore grades are declining, while many mines are deeper and deeper… with energy costs rising (oil and electricity)… and overall worldwide cost inflation for concrete, steel, machinery, equipment, spares and repairs, supplies…
‘Then there’s political unrest,’ Byron continues. ‘Illustrated by South Africa’s own Julius Malema with his continuing discussion of ‘nationalizing’ mines, which frightens off foreign investment… While the political landscape in other nations is problematic at best… because many other locales have their own issues with workers, ore grades, technical production issues, political problems… e.g., Ecuador, and even Peru…
‘Add in the fact that new discoveries are fewer and further apart… with lower and lower grades, and lower overall resource estimates…. and often ‘logistically challenged’ such as the new discovery that I visited the other day in mining-friendly Manitoba — a beautiful piece of geology, and in Canada, to boot, but far from roads and power lines.’
Gold rush?
So what is it we’re going to be seeing wraps up Mr. King? ‘More and more money chasing less and less gold.’
We’ve reached that conclusion many times before on ArabianMoney but usually because of an increase in the supply of money and not a decrease in the supply of gold. Put both together and you have some neat rocket fuel for the price of gold!
http://www.arabianmoney.net/gold-silver … yron-king/
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Thu Sep 27, 2012 10:32 am
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Enviromental News • More than 200 coal-fired generators slated for shutdown
More than 200 coal-fired generators slated for shutdown
Published: 11:29 PM 09/21/2012
By Michael Bastasch
Within the next three to five years, more than 200 coal-fired electric generating units will be shut down across 25 states due to EPA regulations and factors including cheap natural gas, according to a new report by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).
“This is further evidence that EPA is waging a war on coal, and a war on affordable electricity prices and jobs. EPA continues to ignore the damage that its new regulations are causing to the U.S. economy and to states that depend on coal for jobs and affordable electricity,” said Mike Duncan, president and CEO of ACCCE, in a statement.
However, ACCCE notes that EPA policies may have played a role more than 4,800 megawatts of announced closures not included on in their report which would bring total shutdowns to 241 coal generator in 30 states — more than 36,000 MW of electric generation or 11 percent of the U.S. coal fleet.
The most affected states include Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina, which will see a combined 103 coal-fired generators shut down.
“Actually our utility rates are higher and the impact is such that it’s going to interfere with the quality of life that a lot of individuals have in my community,” said John McNeil, mayor of Red Springs, N.C., in an ACCCE video — one of the heavily affected states.
According to ACCCE, coal provides more than half of North Carolina’s power. Poorer areas, like Red Springs, where a number of residents are on fixed income or live below the poverty line, are adversely affected by higher electricity bills because they eat up a greater portion of their income.
“During my lifetime, Red Springs has gone through some fairly significant changes. We don’t have the large textile plants which provide employments opportunities for many people. We’ve just shifted away,” said John Roberts of John’s Fuel Service, also in Red Springs.
Ads by Google
“Most people, their income is fixed,” Roberts continued.
“They can’t say ‘hey, I need fourteen dollars an hour as compared to twelve an hour to offset my energy price,’” he argued.
On Friday, the coal industry caught a slight break as the House voted 233 to 175 to stop the Obama administration’s so-called “war on coal,” passing a bill that would limit the EPA’s regulatory authority over greenhouse gases and limit the Interior Department’s ability to issue coal mining rules.
“Since taking office, the Obama Administration has waged a multi-front war on coal — on coal jobs, on the small businesses in the mining supply chain, and on the low-cost energy that millions of Americans rely upon,” said Washington Republican Rep. Doc Hastings on the House floor Thursday.
Earlier this week, coal company Alpha Natural Resources announced it would be laying off 1,200 workers and closing eight coal mines to face two new challenges: cheap natural gas and “a regulatory environment that’s aggressively aimed at constraining the use of coal.”
“These lost jobs aren’t random events — they are the direct result of the policies and actions of the Obama Administration — these are the outcomes of their regulatory war on coal,” Hastings added.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/21/repor … z27DBJj9rk
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Sat Sep 22, 2012 9:10 am
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Oil And Gas • One Of UK’s Biggest Refineries Prepares For Shutdown
As One Of UK’s Biggest Refineries Prepares For Shutdown, Drivers Concerned About Gas Price Spike
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/28/2012 11:41 -0400
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/one-uks-b … rice-spike
Back in 2007, BP sold its Coryton refinery, one of the largest in the UK, to Swiss refiner PetroPlus for $1.4 billion. Fast forward 5 years later where we find that shortly after PetroPlus filed for bankruptcy, and was forced to proceed with a firesale of its assets, the European end demand market is so abysmal that a buyer could not be found for even a 30% off firesale. As Reuters reports, following a failure to sell Coryton for the low, low, price of $1 billion, the refinery, in dire need of CapEx investments, will be shutting down, and taking about 10% of UK refining capacity with it. "Insolvent Swiss refiner Petroplus’ Coryton refinery in the UK is likely to close after its administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said on Monday that it had failed to find a buyer that could pay $1 billion for the site. Petroplus filed for insolvency in December after it could not meet its debt obligations. "The current economic environment, the challenge of raising $1 billion (£625 million) of funding for the refinery, including the $150 million capital expenditure ‘turnaround’ project ultimately proved prohibitive in the face of an over supplied European refinery market for both buyers and investors." The Coryton refinery has a capacity to process about 175,000 barrels of crude oil per day and additional 65,000 barrels per day of feedstock. Richard Howitt, the local member of the European Parliament said: "It’s a bitter blow for the workforce…I think the process was flawed and that the government should have stepped in." It will be an even more bitter blow to the island nation’s motorists who will suddenly find themselves facing with other spiking prices, a shortage of gasoline, or some combination of both.
As well as posing a serious risk to forecourt supplies, retailers say it could see petrol prices soaring to record highs as speculators and profiteers capitalise on the disruption.
Diesel prices in particular are set to rise by up to 3p to a record £1.45 a litre, they warn. That would mean more than £100 to fill up a typical family saloon with a 70-litre tank.
MPs and unions joined the chorus warning of shortages while forecourt bosses said there was a risk of parts of the South East ‘grinding to a halt’ after supplies from the giant Coryton refinery in Essex were suspended.
In other words, 10% of UK refining capacity is about to go dark.
Coryton supplies around 10 per cent of the UK’s petrol and diesel, and 20 per cent of the total in the South East. The warnings came as Coryton’s Swiss-parent company Petroplus filed for bankruptcy with the threat to up to 1,000 UK jobs at the former BP-owned refinery.
But energy ministers and oil industry bosses said they were doing their best to make up the shortfall from the UK’s seven remaining refineries and by buying in from abroad. A sudden rush to the pumps, however, could trigger filling stations running dry.
Naturally, even back then it was the speculators’ fault.
Profiteers and speculators in the energy markets are already poised to capitalise on the problems to push up wholesale prices which will mean hefty increases at the pumps, say petrol retailers.
Even before the latest crisis, the AA had warned that motorists were on course for a 2p a litre fuel price hike at the pumps – adding £1.40 to the fill-up for a Ford Mondeo.
The Coryton crisis could see that rise even higher, say retailers.
And now that the crisis has morphed from hypothetical to fact, it will be up to the speculators to prove the scapegoaters right. Because the last thing the UK needs as the BOE contemplates launching even more QE is an actual supply driven spike in gas prices to make the chaos complete once excess liquidity is also thrown into the mix.
Statistics: Posted by DIGGER DAN — Mon May 28, 2012 2:11 pm
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International News • Japanese Declare ‘Cold Shutdown’ Of Crippled Reactors
Japanese Declare ‘Cold Shutdown’ Of Crippled Reactors
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/201 … d-reactors
Workers in protective suits and masks wait to enter the emergency operation center at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station on Nov. 12, 2011.
Nuclear reactors crippled in Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami are now in a "cold shutdown," Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced today.
If that is correct, it’s a milestone on the long road toward recovery from the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, The Associated Press writes. The earthquake and tsunami, which left more than 15,800 people dead and nearly 3,500 officially classified as missing, devastated the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant and for weeks had the world anxiously watching as engineers struggled to avert catastrophe.
A cold shutdown, AP says, "normally means a nuclear reactor’s coolant system is at atmospheric pressure and the its reactor core is at a temperature below 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius), making it impossible for a chain reaction to take place."
"But many skeptics," The Japan Times reports, "believe the declaration is little more than political grandstanding, given the revised definition of what constitutes cold shutdown, and are concerned about the long-term stability of the critical coolant system. … Reactors 1, 2 and 3 have been damaged and much of the melted fuel is believed to have penetrated through the pressure vessels and fallen to the bottom of the outer containment vessels. Tepco [which operates the plant] has been unable to take direct measurements of the temperatures at the bottoms of the containment vessels."
And regardless, as the BBC reports, "the government says it will take decades to dismantle it completely. The six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was badly damaged by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami. Blasts occurred at four of the reactors after waves knocked out vital cooling systems."
Statistics: Posted by DIGGER DAN — Mon Dec 19, 2011 1:28 am
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