Eeyore's News and View

Tuesday, October 28, 2008
U.S. citizen spent two weeks in immigration detention, paper says
Guillermo Romero spent two weeks in "immigration detention" this fall.
The Los Angeles Times says he has been deported from the United States on two separate occasions, and denied permission to cross the border "multiple times."
There's just one problem with this story.
Romero is a U.S. citizen.
"This is not the first time a U.S. citizen has been deported," the paper says. "Pedro Guzman of Lancaster spent 89 days in Mexico after being deported by immigration agents."
In both cases, Immigration and Customs Enforcement says, the deportees had told officials at some point in the criminal-justice process that they were born in Mexico.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/

Internet companies embrace human rights guidelines
By Anick Jesdanun, AP Business Writer
NEW YORK — Leading Internet companies, long criticized by human rights groups for their business dealings in China, are agreeing to new guidelines that seek to limit what data they should share with authorities worldwide and when they should do so.
The guidelines, to be announced Tuesday, call for Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. to try to reduce the scope of government requests that appear to conflict with free speech and other human rights principles. They also require participating companies to seek requests in writing, along with the names and titles of the authorizing officer.
The Global Network Initiative guidelines were drawn up by the Internet companies along with human rights organizations, investors and academics.
But ultimately, the documents are less about "what happens when you get a knock on the door than what are you doing before then," said Leslie Harris, chief executive of the Center for Democracy and Technology, one of the main groups behind the guidelines.
Harris said the companies are agreeing to consider human rights issues ahead of time as they decide which countries to operate in and what services to offer. The guidelines also call for companies to train employees and develop mechanisms to resolve conflicts.
It was not immediately clear, however, what practices, if any, will change, as the guidelines do not ban any specific conduct, and many of the key points are open to interpretation or are left to individual companies to implement.
"What's disappointing is that the amount of effort ... didn't produce something more substantial," said Morton Sklar, executive director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, which sued Yahoo for giving Chinese officials information that led to the arrest of two journalists. The lawsuit has since been settled for an undisclosed amount.
He said the documents do not offer specific guidance on how a company's employee is supposed to respond when presented with a particular set of circumstances.
But Sklar praised the companies for recognizing "that there was a huge problem here and needed to be addressed."
About 18 months in the making, the guidelines do call for the creation of an oversight organization to regularly review the companies' practices, though what sanctions they face have yet to be decided. Other companies may join the Global Network Initiative.
The guidelines stress that free expression and human rights are ultimately principles requiring the commitment of governments, and that organization will also help companies collaborate on lobbying.
Internet companies have felt compelled to expand into China because of its growth potential, but the push into the world's most populous country has raised thorny issues, particularly for Yahoo and Google, which were both co-founded by immigrants.
Yahoo and its Taiwan-born chief executive, Jerry Yang, have faced the biggest backlash for handing over e-mails that led to the imprisonment of two Chinese journalists. Besides Sklar's lawsuit, the outcry spurred a congressional hearing during which the late Rep. Tom Lantos likened Yang to a moral "pygmy" for cooperating with the Chinese government.
Yang has since been more proactive about speaking out for human rights. Leading up to the Olympics in Beijing, Yang urged the Bush administration to use its diplomatic influence to obtain the release of jailed political dissidents.
Google has refrained from offering e-mail or blogging services in China because it doesn't want to be put in a position where it might have to turn over any of its user's communications.
Still, Google has come under fire for censoring about 2% of its search results in China to comply with government rules. Google's Russian-born co-founder, Sergey Brin, has maintained that the people living there will be better off with an abbreviated version of the search engine than a full version that is entirely blocked by the government.
"From the start, Google has promoted free expression and the protection of our users' privacy," said Bob Boorstin, Google's director of policy communications. "We see this as another crucial step. The coming together of all these diverse companies and groups is more likely to bring change in government policies than any one company working by itself."
In a statement, Yang said the guidelines "provide a valuable roadmap for companies like Yahoo operating in markets where freedom of expression and privacy are unfairly restricted."
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2008-10-28-net-human-rights_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Farm-Credit Squeeze May Cut Crops, Spur Food Crisis
By Carlos Caminada, Shruti Singh and Jeff Wilson

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The credit crunch is compounding a profit squeeze for farmers that may curb global harvests and worsen a food crisis for developing countries.
Global production of wheat, the most-consumed food crop, may drop 4.4 percent next year, said Dan Basse, president of AgResource Co. in Chicago, who has advised farmers, food companies and investors for 29 years. Harvests of corn and soybeans also are likely to fall, Basse said.
Smaller crops risk reviving prices of farm commodities that sank from records in 2008 after a six-year rally that spurred inflation and sparked riots from Asia to the Caribbean. Futures contracts on the Chicago Board of Trade show wheat will jump 16 percent by the end of 2009, corn will rise 15 percent and soybeans will gain 3 percent.
``The credit situation is worrying even the biggest and best farmers,'' said Brian Willot, 36, a former University of Missouri commodity analyst who now grows soybeans on 2,000 acres in Brazil. ``For the financially weak, credit has dried up completely. For the strong, credit has been delayed and interest rates are higher.''
The number of hungry around the world is at risk of increasing as the financial crisis cuts investment in agriculture and crops, said Abdolreza Abbassian, secretary of the Intergovernmental Group on Grains at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. The total increased by 75 million last year to 923 million, the UN estimates.
Brazil Squeeze
``The net effect of the financial crisis may end up being lower planting, lower production,'' Abbassian said. ``More people will go hungry.''
In Brazil, the world's third-biggest exporter of corn after the U.S. and Argentina, production may fall more than 20 percent because farmers can't get loans to buy fertilizer, said Enori Barbieri, a National Corn Producers Association vice president. The nation's coffee harvest, the world's largest, may drop 25 percent for the same reason, said Lucio Araujo, commercial director at farmer cooperative Cooxupe, located in Guaxupe.
Borrowing costs increased and farmers struggled to get loans after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression made banks and grain processors, including Cargill Inc. and Archer Daniels Midland Co., less tolerant of risk.
Minnetonka, Minnesota-based Cargill and Decatur, Illinois- based Archer Daniels, the world's largest grain processors, are among the crop buyers to halt financing for growers in Brazil, said Eduardo Dahe, who represents the companies as president of the National Association of Fertilizer Distributors.
Lending `Stopped'
Processors usually cover half the financing needs of farmers by accepting part of the future crop as payment. ``No one is doing it,'' Dahe said. ``It's stopped.''
In Russia, loan rates for farmers have jumped by half in some cases to more than 20 percent in the past few months, Arkady Zlochevsky, president of the Russian Grain Union, said in an interview earlier this month.
While the credit squeeze gripping emerging markets has yet to hurt the U.S., the risk remains, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said Oct. 1.
``We certainly could see tight credit having an effect on agricultural production,'' Schafer said in Washington. ``The costs of farming operations today are huge, and that backs up to the banks that have balance sheets that are tight, it backs up to elevators that have credit stretched out.''
Farm Incomes
To be sure, farmers in the U.S., the world's largest grain exporter, may have enough cash to avoid production cuts through next year because of this year's record profits.
Net farm income will rise 10 percent this year to $95.7 billion, the U.S. Agriculture Department estimated Aug. 28. While farm debt jumped 7.7 percent last year to $211 billion, the total is 9.6 percent of assets, a ratio that the government forecast on Aug. 28 will drop to 8.9 percent this year, the lowest level since at least 1960, the earliest data available.
``I don't see the crisis'' for U.S. farmers, said Corny Gallagher, who helps oversee $20 billion in global agribusiness and food-product loans for Bank of America Corp. in Sacramento, California. ``While commodity prices are down from their peak, they are still relatively high.''
Warning signs are appearing.
`Deteriorating' Conditions
Global inventories of corn, wheat and soybeans before the harvest in the Northern Hemisphere next year will be the second- lowest since 1974, enough for 67 days of consumption, compared with 144 days of supplies in 1986, U.S. data show.
``Stockpiles are going to be extremely tight,'' said AgResource's Basse. ``The world cannot afford any dislocation in production next year, or there will be a real shortage.''
The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City said Aug. 15 that credit conditions in the second quarter, the most recent data available, ``showed signs of deterioration'' in the seven-state region that includes Kansas, the biggest U.S. producer of winter wheat. Loan-repayment rates fell for the first time since 2006 as wheat slid 7.6 percent in the quarter. Wheat lost another 41 percent since then.
``This year is going to be the best year ever and now we are looking at the potential to give it all back in 2009 if prices don't rise above the expected cost of production,'' said Mark Kraft, 49, who grows corn and soybeans in Normal, Illinois. ``You have to hope that fertilizer, seed and land rents come down and the price of corn improves.''
Lower Prices, Higher Costs
Wheat fell to $5.1625 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade on Oct. 24, touching a 16-month low of $4.965. On Feb. 27, it reached a record $13.495. Corn fell 7.5 percent last week and touched a one-year low of $3.64 a bushel today, compared with a peak of $7.9925 on June 27. Soybeans fell 4.4 percent last week to $8.67 a bushel and are down 47 percent from a record $16.3675 on July 3. Rough-rice futures are down 41 percent to $14.685 per 100 pounds from $25.07, the highest ever, on April 24.
One 80,000-kernel bag of Monsanto Co. corn seed, enough for about 2.5 acres, rose 45 percent this year to $320, the same amount Midwest tenant farmers paid to rent an acre of land, Kraft said. A gallon of diesel for tractors averaged $4.47 in the third quarter, up 51 percent from a year earlier, according to AAA, the largest U.S. motorist organization.
The value of the collateral farmers use to secure loans -- crops and land -- is diminishing. Lenders are demanding more equity for farm loans used to run operations or acquire land and equipment.
``We need two to three times the amount of money we used to need with the same collateral,'' said Bo Stone, 37, a seventh- generation farmer in Rowland, North Carolina. ``It means we have way more risk than we've ever had. This is a time where one bad crop year, with the amount of money and input tied up, could potentially cost you your equipment, land and livelihood.''
To contact the reporters on this story: Carlos Caminada in Sao Paulo at at ccaminada1@bloomberg.net; Shruti Date Singh in Chicago at ssingh28@bloomberg.net; Jeff Wilson in Chicago at jwilson29@bloomberg.net.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aox4ZwDlWkvQ&refer=home

Please understand this is informational only, remeber people that sell things sometimes slant their opinions, but this is still interesting never the less
As the price of silver pulled back under $10 an ounce recently, I started loading up on the white metal. Or, I should say, I tried to load up. While I was easily able to buy silver coins with numismatic value, my first attempts to buy silver bullion coins met with frustration.
I think this says a lot about the silver market right now. On paper, it’s cheap. But in the real, physical market, silver is getting very precious indeed.
In fact, if you can buy silver bullion for under $10 an ounce, I recommend you grab it and run!
Hi-yo, Silver!
Maybe you have your own stories of the silver rush to share. Here’s how things are going for me.
First, my success. I was able to buy some 1921 Morgan Silver Dollars from Eastern Numismatics (http://www.uscoins.com) at a pretty good price. I say that because I checked eBay, where 1921 Morgan Silver Dollars for VF and AU (very fine and almost uncirculated quality) were selling for higher prices.
But with silver under $10, I knew that while numismatics (rare) coins were good, this was an even better time to buy bullion.
So, I checked a couple of my local favorite gold/silver shops. At the first one, I was told that silver bullion coins (I asked for silver Eagles) were unavailable. At the second one, I was told they were available, but “not at any price you’ll want to pay.”
How much was that? Oh, about 60% more than I expected to pay.
“That’s outrageous!” I sputtered.
“Call me next week,” the dealer told me. “Maybe we’ll have more then.”
So then I turned to the Internet. I decided to buy some bullion coins straight from Pan American Silver (PAAS). This company has mines in Peru, Mexico and Bolivia, and development projects all over the place. It also sells its coins and bars, minted at the Northwest Territorial Mint (http://www.nwtmint.com). While its coins may not be as well known as silver Eagles or Maple Leafs, I think most gold/silver dealers would recognize them pretty easily.
I called a couple of times, but couldn’t connect with anyone but a recorded message that said the mint was overwhelmed with call volume so no one was answering the phone. In frustration, last Friday, I wrote an email to the Northwest Territorial Mint, asking how I could buy 1-ounce silver rounds (coins) from them immediately.
Later that day, the mint wrote back. The message said, in part:
“We have been experiencing an unprecedented volume of sales, and we have been unable to answer each call in person as we would prefer. We are adding to our bullion sales and customer service staff and upgrading our telephone systems to better respond to customer inquiries.
“When you reach one of our bullion sales representatives by phone, you can lock in your purchase at the current market price. However, please note that most of the precious metal bullion products we produce currently have a 12-to-16-week lead time before delivery.”
The email went on to say …
“Because the United States Mint and the Royal Canadian Mint have significantly curtailed distribution of their bullion products until 2009, we are quoting delivery of new orders for American Eagle coins and Canadian Maple Leaf coins into March 2009.”
A 12-to-16 week lead time for delivery? Un - freaking - real. And while that may sound crazy, it pales compared to the lunacy of not being able to get American Eagles and Canadian Maple Leaf coins until March of next year! And it’s not like it’s the mint’s fault — they’re working as hard as they can and adding staff.
Tell me again about the surplus of silver. That’s a good one.
Physical Silver versus Paper Silver
Of course, there is a difference between minted silver rounds and 1- or 10-ounce bars on the one hand, and silver you can buy with a futures contract on the COMEX on the other hand. A silver futures contract is for 5,000 ounces, or 1,000 ounces for a mini-contract. While you can take delivery of a futures contract, who the heck would want to do that?
Well, David Morgan, that’s who. He’s an independent precious metals analyst and the founder of silver-investor.com. He also writes a blog at http://silverblogspot.blogspot.com.
Silver coins and smaller bars may be harder to find right now, but certain forces are at work that may soon affect prices and availablility.
Morgan and I met on a tour of mines belonging to Endeavour Silver and Great Panther in Mexico, and I found him extremely knowledgeable about silver, its history and trends. So, I called him up and asked him what he was seeing in the physical market. And it turns out that what he’s seeing is making him more bullish — so bullish, he bought a 1,000-ounce mini silver future contract and took delivery.
Morgan says he’s not the only one doing arbitrage between the paper and physical silver markets. He said entrepreneurs could “take advantage of the discrepancy between physical and paper silver — these people could take gold and silver off the exchanges at the spot price and turn it into gold and silver coins and reap the large premium now available.”
Maybe that will ease the pressure in the physical silver market, and make coins and smaller bars readily available again.
The Bulls and the Bears
There are both bullish and bearish forces at work in the silver market right now. The interesting thing is that the bearish forces seem to be at work in the paper (futures) market, and the bullish forces are at work in the physical market.
Let’s sum up some of those forces …
Bearish Forces …
1) Fear of a global slowdown. Silver is an industrial metal as well as a precious metal. And while the global economy was hot, silver demand soared. Last year, industrial demand for silver jumped 7.2% to a record of 455.3 million ounces.
But the global economy is slowing into recession, and that slowdown could last well into next year. The International Monetary Fund forecasts a reduction in global growth to 3% in 2009 from 5% in 2007.
If there is any single force that can send the price of silver lower, an economic slowdown is probably the one.
2) Mine production. Before the global economy started to slump, global silver production was expected to grow by 6.5% in 2008, faster than last year’s increase of between 3.6% and 4.1%.
But that was then. Now, thanks to the slowing global economy, mines are closing. You see, two-thirds of the world’s silver is produced as a byproduct of other metals. For example, Oz Minerals is cutting zinc production at its Golden Grove Mine Australia by 35%. But that mine also produced over 3.1 million ounces of silver in 2007.
So, if the global economy worsens, we’re likely to see silver production go down, and perhaps sharply lower.
3) Selling by big funds. As the global markets careen into the mother of all financial crises, hedge funds have been imploding one after another like overheated Christmas bulbs. And it’s not just hedge funds — whole trading desks have disappeared. This has removed a lot of the paper demand for silver.
And liquidation in silver futures has been a drag on prices. On the bright side, hedge fund liquidation won’t go on forever. Silver will find a new base, and use that to head higher.
Now let’s look at some bullish forces …
Bullish Forces
1) Supply/Demand Squeeze. Did I say there was an increase in silver mine supply? Well, that’s true. But there’s also an increase in demand. Goldfields Mineral Services recently estimated that current world silver bullion stocks of coins and silverware stand at a mere 400 million ounces. That’s down from more than 2 billion ounces in the late 1980s.
2) Investor Demand is accelerating. The iShares Silver Trust has already seen a massive increase of silver accumulation since 2006 — over 220 million ounces. Take a look at this chart …
This and other silver ETFs in London and Zurich have made it easy for investors to move in and out of silver.
3) Silver is cheap compared to gold. The price of gold recently traded at 82 times the price of silver. This is about 36% higher than the ratio over the past eight years, and looking back over history, the ratio is closer to 20 to 1. If we return closer to historical ratio, the price of gold would have to go way down, or silver would have to go way, way up.
Why is the gold-silver ratio out of historical whack? It goes back to silver as an industrial metal: Investors are terrified that a global economic slowdown will dampen demand for silver in batteries, superconductors and other electronic components, so they’ve dumped silver futures overboard.
But that conflicts with silver as a precious metal — the global economic crisis is causing more investors (like me) to buy physical silver as a refuge of safety.
After all, Central Banks around the world are flooding the financial system with trillions of dollars — a money deluge worthy of Noah — to try and douse the four-alarm financial fire that is the credit crisis. Give them their due; they’ve actually blunted the worst of the immediate threat. The problem is this threat is ongoing, and it could get much worse from here. And that makes physical gold AND silver look even better to me.
These two worlds — the paper world and the physical world — are going to collide. While I think the shortage of physical silver coins and bars will ease down the road, I think the most bullish forces in silver are yet to come. I think the physical world will win out over the paper world … and silver could go much higher.
The Best of Both Worlds
Don’t worry about my quest for physical silver; by the time you read this, I’ll have more locked up. As for your own portfolio and investment needs, I think a little physical silver never hurts.
And there’s an investment that combines the best of physical and paper silver — the iShares Silver Trust (SLV). It owns physical silver and issues shares against its treasure hoard. Sure, in this volatile market, it could go lower. But if, like me, you think the price of silver is going higher in the longer term, then the SLV looks cheap right now.
Yours for trading profits,
Sean
P.S. Recently, I released release my new report, “Your Golden Parachute for 2009,” which gives you my views on the forces that will drive gold higher, and my seven best picks to play the coming move. Even better, I also give you the low-down on silver and my top two picks for the coming silver boom. PLUS I give you my recommendation on one metal investment you absolutely want to avoid!
You can download your copy of this special report right now. My exclusive special report, plus a minimum of four follow-ups over the course of the year, is just $199. Buy it now …
Are profits guaranteed? Of course not. As with any investment, you CAN lose money. But I’m convinced each of my picks is loaded with value on the launch pad.
Don’t wait. Get your copy now by calling 1-800-291-8545. Just say you want “Your Golden Parachute for 2009″, plus all my follow-up reports on all my picks. Or, get it online here.
This investment news is brought to you by Money and Markets. Money and Markets is a free daily investment newsletter from Martin D. Weiss and Weiss Research analysts offering the latest investing news and financial insights for the stock market, including tips and advice on investing in gold, energy and oil. Dr. Weiss is a leader in the fields of investing, interest rates, financial safety and economic forecasting. To view archives or subscribe, visit http://www.moneyandmarkets.com.
http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1224691707.php

Here is a short portion of an email i got, thought it was pretty enlightening.
AUSTIN RARE COINS Update

Dear Clients and Friends,
This is the day you bought gold for. You are probably as shocked as
we are to watch the on-going devastation created by the banking crisis,
the Stock Market meltdown, and the U.S. Government Trillion Dollar
taxpayer funded bailout plans.

* Oil prices are down more than 50% from the highs.

* The DOW's lost 40% from Oct '07 highs.

* A broader index, the S&P 500 is off 40% in the past year

* The NASDAQ is down 41%.

* Fed Funds interest rates are down from 4.8% a year ago to 0.7%
today

* Gold is down only 1% from the price of one year ago.

This is what happens in a Financial Meltdown! Investments you depended on
for years suddenly crash and years of profits are lost in a matter of
days. It's ugly. Alan Greenspan, the Ex-Federal Reserve Chairman
testified today, "We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century credit
Tsunami."; We wish he had said instead, "We were wrong, America
cannot borrow our way out of debt or into prosperity." Sadly, he
doesn't get it.