So -- Except for the Spoo trades, the Oldman is not so different investmentwise from the rest of us. I think also that the market bear will not begin in earnest till the fall -- still have my sp500 puts - most expire in December. Might make a modest profit.

Still have a little 'funny money' left to buy more market puts. I think we still must be careful with gold and gold stocks, as a serious attack on the dollar, or a -500 point DOW will bring then down. It is really a moot point regarding whether this is due to the SEAsian markets plummeting, because this would also happen.

If the markets avoid an outright 'crash', gold will do very well in a market bear, I think.

But -- in a major crisis -- gold will go down in price. Our clever AG will be at work behind the scenes, trying to hold everything together, IMHO.

I would think he would be worried about a market bubble forming, and a a crash in 1999-2000. What do you see over the next few months -- the next year?

By the way, I am too much of a gold bug to invest genrally in these etheric equities -- I am not experienced enough to day trade, so I only watch your moves with respect. But I am not afraid to invest in gold stocks, defense stocks, or oil stocks per se. Would you agree with me that commodities and gold are about to move up?

The bottom line I think here is that the fundamental conditions we have now are actually worse than the conditions leading up to the great depression of 1929. I find it frightening indeed that virtually noone in authority is publically concerned. Are the 'acquisitors' just stashing assets away for their own benefit, and saying nothing?

We may only need a 'nudge' to go into a depression that will make the 'great depression' look like a picnic. When it is our turn, will the SEAsians help us out with any more competence than the IMF is showing right now with SEAsia? I sure hope that for the sake of the world economy that they set up a gold-backed currency based on that 1990 University of Warwick Economic symposium -- ASAP. A good second choice would be a currency basket.

What I am learning as a manager of people ( not what I was originally trained to do ) is that the best way to get others to work eagerly for you is to see their reality, and tell the part of the truth that they understand. That is not the same as telling a lie. But it reguires much more effort and skill than treating everything as black and white.

For an example that relates to gold and gold investing, I have long ago given up on aggressively convincing others to invest in precious metals or gold. Each of my associates has to decide for themselves. I must sense when they are ready to accept information. It is also the same way with truth in other parts of life, such as politics. But, in my little part of the world, nearly everyone I know thinks our president is a lier. A year ago, that would have not been true.

I remember being a child -- many years ago for me -- and seeing what appeared to be the truth that politicians would utter. What puzzled me was the the opposing arguments sounded just as convincing. Eventually I realized that shades of truth were usually spoken, with little regard to the facts. The skill of reliably knowing a lier when you hear one is a hard skill to learn, especially if the lier is very good. If it were, our president would not be where he is today.

What I regret about human nature is that our great leaders always seem to emerge during great crises. We would not have many of our crises if we could consistently have great ( and honest ) leaders, so that we would not generate the conditions where crises would be later be created.

According to the Kyodo News Service, the Japanese Economic Planning Agency

admitted on Monday that it had suppressed the views of economic experts who

felt that Japan was sliding into a recession. As a result, official

government confidence in the ability of Japan to weather the Asian crisis

went untempered by the much more pessimistic views of the Economic Planning

Agency's professional staff. According to the report, Yasuhiro Asami, who

heads the economic statistics division at the EPA, hid the views of his

staff from the public and government.

The Japanese government has been paralyzed by the Asian economic crisis and

has justified its paralysis by arguing that the situation is not nearly as

bad as some say. The willingness of EPA's management to publicly buttress

this view allowed political leaders to avoid the painful decisions that

other Asian nations have been forced into. In a very real sense, the

Japanese were evading the obvious. The Asian problem clearly meant that

Japan would be forced to cut back on exports into important markets, from

China to Southeast Asia. This meant that growth could not be maintained.

Since growth was already barely visible, it followed that a recession was

in the wind.

The current controversy over the suppression of economic analyses is not,

in itself, important. This is an old story in Japan. But the continued

willingness of civil servants and politicians to work together to evade

harsh realities, even in the face of economic emergency, is indeed

important, simply because it cannot go on indefinitely. Having avoided

confronting reality for nearly a decade, Japan is running out of economic

surplus to draw on. Life in Japan has been difficult in the past few

years. It is about to grow harsher. This is going to have severe

political consequences.

The willingness of the Japanese to endure hardship is well-known. The

willingness to permit face to be maintained is also well known. But in due

course, all room for maneuver is lost, and with it room for evasion. The

inability of the Japanese state to formulate a plan for even beginning to

solve Japan's problems means that a political backlash is inevitable.

Tolerating political foibles in times of plenty is much easier than

tolerating them during periods of precipitous decline.

After years of stagnation, Japan is moving into recession. The likelihood

of a quick recovery is slim. Therefore, there will be a political

reaction, and politicians and bureaucrats who evaded reality will

ultimately be held accountable. The interesting issue is not whether the

current political contraption can survive, but what forces will arise to

break it and what the new constellation of political forces will look like.

We feel that it is time to start looking beyond the immediate economic

crisis to the inevitable political reaction. What is frightening is that

in Japan, the world's second largest economy, the new political force is

not even vaguely visible. In the meantime, Japan, like Mr. Macawber, will

be waiting for something to turn up.

E-mail from STRATFOR Systems, Inc.MARCH 4,1998.

So what will be the next domino.....?

By the way, I wish I could say that success in life was based on always completely telling the truth. Sadly, I must say it does not. Many individuals, such as one of my relatives, do not wish to know certain truths, even though they affect their lives. My relative is not capable of accepting certain truths - a basic character flaw. So I no longer discuss the topics in question.

I think certain people also learn new truths at a certain rate -- and that rate cannot be accelerated. I think you know who I am referring to -- not you, by the way.

I read an interesting fictional story once, where if an individual tortured or otherwise injured a fellow human being, those same injuries would automatically be evident in the perpetrator. Presto -- no war, with perfect justice. Unfortunaly, in the real world, justice rarely seems evident. If I were able to live long enough, I would like our Creator to spend the time explaining to me why war is permitted, as it only seems to punish the innocent.

I would ask our Creator another question -- and that is if he/she created us, why are most of us unable to discern lies from truth Why is it that we gold bugs are speaking in the wilderness about truth -- be it with regard to the actions of our government or the manipulation of our money supply? Why must everyone suffer the consequences of the deception and lies of others?

It turns out that our sophisticated international flights with state-of -the-art electronics use stone-age ventilation systems. So do most of our public buildings. For the sake of a horse the kindom was --- .

Sobering thought -- eg the ventilators in Philadelphia when Legionairres disease was first identified years ago.

Here is something else you can think about -- compare the time that human beings are supposed to have evolved from simpler organisms, and then consider the baseline mutation rate. You will find that there is a major discrepancy -- the mutation rate is much too slow. So how could Darwin be right? And, why is our death programmed at about 80-100 years or so? Why can we not live 6,000 years or more like the Bristle Cone pine? We are both eukaryotic organisms.

Furtunately it will take more than the sequencing of the human genome to do this, as we still do not understand the molecular biology of a bacterium, or even that of a virus. I would be more worried about our being unable to defend ourselves from that virulent new strain of influenza. Our molecular biologists are not yet able to do this. We still have not been able to control the HIV virus, or adequately deal with MDR resistant organisms in our hospitals.

I am not discounting the dangers of Anthrax, Botulinum, and Tularemia, all of which could be packaged by terrorists and disseminated by terrorists. You may recall from Old Soldiers comments that it is fortunately not that easy to effectively deliver these agents. Regardless, I am petitioning for our local medical center ( rural central US ) to have information on hand should a such disaster occur. But -- I still would be much more concerned about the organisms already threating our safety, rather than the ones we don't know about.

'The price of gold has fallen back below $300 per ounce. We believe the market has absorbed dishoarding by South Koreans in the wake of Asian financial turmoil. Meanwhile, the issue of European central bank sales continues to perplex: South African Reserve Bank Governor Chris Stals said he expects more European selling ahead of Economic and Monetary Union, yet the market still awaits confirmation of substantial 1997 sales. The new European Central Bank appears likely to hold some gold, but EMU members appear to disagree on how much. The British suggest that gold will comprise about 5% of total reserves, while the French seem to be pushing for a higher percentage.'

'DIVERGING PRECIOUS METALS The price of gold has tumbled to 18-year lows, but we believe that downside risks are limited by the industry's high cost stucture. At current prices, more mines will be shuttered. Moreover, we expect that central banks will sell less gold in 1998 as European Economic and Monetary Union ( EMU ) approaches. We are positive, but selective, in the gold sector, with an emphasis on the large-cap companies, turnaround stories, and special situations in platinum/palladium and silver.'

Price targets:

Agnico-Eagle Mines $9

Amax Gold $4

Apex Silver $18

Barrick Gold $26

Battle Mountain Gold $6

Cambior $8

Echo Bay Mines $1

Getchell Gold $37

Hecla Mining $6

Homestake Mining $15

Lihir Gold $30

Newmont Gold $40

Newmont Mining $40

Placer Dome $20

Royal Oak Mines $3

Stillwater Mining $50

My guess is that things will get real dicey in Japan after April 1, if the Japanese people really do the 'unthinkable', and start withdrawing their money. I don't think selling all of their US treasuries holdings will be enough to prop up the Japanese markets, if there is a major 'sea change' in Japan. On the other side, the Japanese usually do what their government tells them to do -- but what if the government is threatening to take whatever savings they have left?

Anything new about China devaluations? The suspense is killing me. We may yet have another test of the $280/oz gold price if China devalues and Japan implodes.

In a wartime scenario, the device -- whatever it is -- may be deployed, even if there are no countermeasures -- as 'these can be developed later'. In the case of nuclear weapons, we know there are no real countermeasures, but they were deployed anyway. With biological warfare, we can only hope that these devices ( whatever they are ) are not actually deployed -- as there may be no practical 'antidote' even if you knew what is coming -- the ultimate in MADD. My guess is that the 'Marburg' virus variant -- if it does exists -- ( Ebola and Hanta do ) -- is not actually deployed, because there is no antidote -- for anyone.

After all that, I think the greatest peacetime danger of an infectious disease disaster will be from our environment, not from an American or Russian bioweapons research lab. Mother nature does molecular biology at a scale that makes our lab efforts look puny. And the source of contamination is the whole world.

So -- my guess is that Saddam does not have anything deadly such as the Marburg variant -- which could spread all over the world -- because there is no antidote -- unless he stole it. But we are at risk for a plague of some kind, due to the natural cycles of the weather such as El Nino which disrupt the ecosytem, and encourage growth of organisms which have not mutated to coexist with us. We now have a new strain of TB somewhere in Tennessee which is 1000x more rapidly growing than the standard strain, we have the Hanta virus hiding in NewMexico, and we have a boatload of organisms which are resistant to antibiotics ( MDR ) . One problem with MDR is that plasmid types of MDR can be transmitted from one time of microbacterium to another -- so all we need is one type of MDR where none our antibiotics work.

Thank God we have the CDC, which is well staffed for small outbreaks, at least. They have contained the Tennessee TB outbreak twice in the last three years or so.

A mask of Gold hides all deformities. - Thomas Dekker

It is better to have your Gold in the hand than in the heart T. Fuller

Be patient, we will be rewarded. This is a Golden Opportunity.

Gold:

350,603 Registered

130,307 Elligible

480,910 Total No Change ( This is beginning to look suspicious - no change in ANY of the COMEX warehouse reports for last 3 days )

Silver:

36,531,320 Registered

53,207,778 Elligible

89,739,098 Total Net Change + 281,233