I can’t find any fault in the doom that seems in store due to the y2k problem. However, it was Jesse Livermore that said about speculation, beware of insailable arguments presented by a brilliant mind. I hope y2k is such an argument.

Someone ( I wonder who? ) just swept the overnight silver market. Some 300 contracts ( guessing here ) were sold in a flash to drive the price from 5.25 down to 5.12; it has since crept back up to 5.21. I find it breathtaking that well-known shorts publicly accuse longs of manipulating this market.

Also notice the small hammer in mid March which signaled the beginning of the small counter trend rally.

There was lengthy battle for control in area around 630 and the bears prevailed as the price fell out of the upward channel.

Now we have a rounding bottom which seems to stimulate some folks to put their money on the LONG line. But there doesn't appear to be real rush to own silver at these prices. Volume is not exactly rising with the trend. Last Fri the low was about 505 and it recovered to upper 20's. Helluva day trade.

On the dailies, 570 looks doable short term. I think APH has the handle on it. ....... 540-545 still looks critical. Failure their will not be good.

Note the pattern at the top. The first dark bar engulfed over 50% of the final rise to the top. This is known as Dark Cloud Cover and universally bearish in its interpretation.

Near term, if silver does not clear the 540 area decisively ... and soon like this week, I fear it will retrace short term to support at 480.

When considering future prognostications for PMs it really isn't possible to separate the TA from the fundamentals and the fundamentals remaain: No one gives a damn about PMs. Of any flavor. ...... Except the shorts that is.

I can do no better than quote from Antal Fekete's Deflation: Retrospect and Prospect CMRE Monograph

45, April 1986:

Folklore has it that the deflation of the 1930's came to an end at the outbreak of hostilities in WW II, when defense speding at home and abroad finally put the country back to work. Neither the facts nor the theory

support this naive view. The end of delation came in late 1941, when the war in Europe was alrady two years old. Goverment spending as an anti-deflationary device had been tried by Pres. Herbert Hoover and, on a

truly grand scale, by Franklin D. Roosevelt--and it did not work. It only prolonged deflation. In the absence of such a huge supply of new government paper, the bond market boom would have come to a quick end.

Specculators would have bid up the price of government bonds to such high

Don't have wheat in my database of food densities, but brown rice is 6.4 Lb/ US Gallon. I would think that wheat ( hard red winter ) might be a *bit* more dense, but not too far off. If you assumed 6 Lb per gal, that would equate to 30 Lb/ bucket. Most of the commodity buckets that you receive food in, are 5 gal to the line, and a full extra gallon to the

tippy-top. So, depending on how you packed them, I'd assume 60 to 70 buckets to the short ton.

P.S. using a less dense 6.0 vs 6.4 is just my contrarian nature. :- )

If you have any wheat handy, measure one cup. The weight in ounces will be the same as the number of pounds per gallon. Nifty home density shortcut, since the number of ounces per pound is 16, and the number of cups per gallon is 16 also.

@mozel:

I'm going back to school. :- ) . Thanks for your postings. I need to understand the situation I'm in first ( lack of freedom ) to formulate my next question. I'm treading water in the deep end. :- )

@gollum ( @mozel others )

I'm awed by the depth here. And appreciative. It's like discovering the .9 of the iceberg you *can't* see, through the newsgroup posting ( the .1 ) . Thanks all. Back to lurk.

Where's chas when we need him?

Remember roosevelt and his executive order?

http://www.infoseek.com/Titles?qt=cyphernomicon&col=WW&sv=N3
http://www.oberlin.edu/~brchkind/cyphernomicon/chapter7/7.7.html

http://www.oberlin.edu/~brchkind/cyphernomicon/cyphernomicon.contents.html

hxtp://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19980528/V000058-052898-idx.

html

Just paste together, and change hxtp to http.

hxtp://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19980606/V000685-060698-idx.

html

Please convert hxtp to http, and splice together for latest Jesse Helms comments.

Jin -- please take care. I am amazed how peaceful Indonesia is, given what happened. I'll bet that the price of gold where you are is still rising, but that noone is buying. I guess you will have to wait until the economy recovers. Until then -- I hope you have it safely hidden from prying eyes. My reasoning is that is when precious metals reserves should show up to jump start an economy. Before that time, you are just feeding a voracious dying monster, and the gold will leave the country anyway. That will be a lesson for us westerners to learn when it is our turn in the deflationary cycle.

Makes my WWII spycatcher book look dull by comparison. Or even those great George Smiley stories by John LeCarre. Just wait till he writes about this one! This one could be a blockbuster at the box office. Commerce mole gives away satellite security secrets wholesale, funded by Democratic Campaign contributions from the Communist Chinese Government. I do not blaim the Chinese, if we were this dumb. Come to thing of it, how about Jim Carey as the director of the NSA? Someone was really dumb, especially if they knew about what happened, and did nothing.

LGB: I think we have your Loral 'fall guy'. The following is an except of another article today by Jeff Gerth in the New York Times -- probably front page news. Text not yet on Matt Drudge, or I missed it.

The fall guy is physicist Wah Lim, a Chinese-born American citizen, and former senior vice president of Loral. Apparently, the China Aerospace missle crash in question occurred on hill 22 on Feb 1996. China Aerospace launches military and civilian missles -- which Loral obviously knew. Liu Jiyuan , chairman of China Aerospace, asked Loral to put Lim in charge of a review panel to get a second opinion regarding the cause of the crash. Lim sent a very cooperative letter to Liu, copy apparently now available to the Dept of Justice criminal investigation. Loral had to know about the letter, but information on senior executives briefed not available.

Loral's mandate from the US government expressly forbode 'launch vehicle/satellite detail design', or 'information that will enhance the launch site facilities or launch vehicle/mission capabilities' of the Peoples Republic of China. However, it is clear to me that the panel of Loral's Lim, and others from Hughes, British Aerospace, and Daimler-Benz Aerospace did indeed send a report of som ekind ( fax ) to Liu, which lead to China Aerospace improving their civilian ( and military ) launch capability. An Air Force Agency, the National Air Intelligence Center, thought so to, and sent a review to DTSA, which sent the review to the State Department, which sent it to the dept of Justice for criminal investigation. The State Department is probably still seething from the day WJC took their regularatory contol of foreign US satellite lauches, and gave it to the Ron Brown, Commerce crowd. And for good reason -- big time security breach.

The CIA report, released on Friday ( still secret ) after a brief delay by Janet Reno, apparently conficts with the NAIC report. That CIA report, by the way, was released before George Tenet was director of the CIA. I still don't know what G. Tenet actually said.

What is puzzling is that Loral must have made alot of money by fixing the Chinese missle problem. The Loral higherups almost certainly knew how much money they would make if the Chinese missle problem could be fixed. The official postion of Loral now is that it was a mistake, not a security breach. It seems that 'Lim acted without the support of Loral', according to Loral's outside attorneys. I wonder -- why did they retain outside attorneys. Most large corporations have an army of them. Unless ... we are talking about criminal investigation. Also -- as I know learning from friends about how you cover your rear end in corporate circles, the official Loral denial could have come after they discovered the Justice investigation. 'They just didn't know about what happened until much later' Interesting.

LGB: I'd suggest you steer clear of Lim. He is 'expendable', as well as any others associated with him. Former senior vice president of Loral .. wonder where he is now. My intuitive guess is that he has been generously rewarded, even if he has been demoted. Perhaps by both Loral and the Communist Chinese Government. He would make a perfect Wener Von Braun lookalike for that secret military site in the Gobi desert. Now -- the people that worked for him -- that may be another story. Beware those corporate politics -- anything of this magnitude can suck in alot of innocents.

All: Incidentally, you should all know that the director of the NSA is not a military type, but a political type who will say anything that the WJC crowd tells him to. Fortunately our FBI director and CIA director seem to be made of stronger stuff, thank God.

Given that one may turn Elliott on his head and see him as equally correct, the fact that new lows were not made on 1 June could also be seen as supporting the idea that 12 Janury to 29 January was a new impulse wave up and that 29 January to 1 June is a corrective wave of the irregular type wherein wave B's extremity exceeded the 29 Janary end of wave 1.

The Carolan Spiral Calendar f19 ( =1910 calendar days ) tie from the important 11 March 1993 low to 3 June would at least support the notion that a

Absolutely

OK

Sorry about the repost, but I am way busy packing and youse guys have been having a high old time bantering about my favorite subject. Gollum, you seem to have a very clear understanding of some of the more arcane aspects of quantum theory but you still speak in terms of absolute time which, of course, must be discarded. Argent, I did not know this was an interest of yours. By the time I get back, this thread will be long over, so I take the liberty to repost the only thing I've ever really written on physics:

From July 1997

A paper clip spontaneously changes into a coat hanger due to the non-zero probability that it will happen. It is said that anything not forbidden by quantum theory, is required. I’ve often suspected paper clips of this duality, but Hiesenburg also showed us all that the paper clip can just as easily, as an infant coat hanger created from the ether, change back into a paper clip. The only evidence we have of this behavior is that we just know it has to happen, much like many just know that gold will go to $500.

Feynman diagrams often resembled Rorschach tests, but the diagrams themselves depicted the sum over histories, in which any particle takes not one path in a journey, but all possible paths. This paradox has been demonstrated in the experiment of the box with two slits. This experiment proved that a single particle - a photon, lets say - travels trough two slits in a barrier at the same time, and upon reaching a detector is shown to interfere with itself as if it were a wave and not a particle. This has been widely understood to be proof, written into the fabric of space time, that even particles masturbate. Whether or not they feel guilt about this behavior is still unknown.

The aforementioned box with two slits should not be confused with the famous box in which Schroedinger’s unfortunate cat waits for his fate. Of course in this thought experiment, the cat is less alive or dead than both alive and dead. This holds true until an observer collapses the wave form and a particular history is chosen. Nowhere in discussions of this sad cat has any mention been made that the cat is also an observer and would thus seal its own fate.

Had this cat lived through the diabolical machinations of physicists, with far too much space-time on their hands, it would undoubtedly give birth to Schroedinger’s kittens. Yes, the cat in the box is a female, actually it used to be a paper clip but that’s all in the sum over histories now.

Schroedinger’s kittens are treated with much the same disrespect as their wiry mother, far beyond the assistance or rescue of Bob Barker. These unfortunates are each placed in there own death/life duality box. Each box is rigged to kill these poor cats should a particle measure a certain spin. The reason for two kitties is that, rather than a single particle, a pair of particles, created from a single event, will cause the ax to fall onto one of our fluffy friends.

When two particles a created from a single event, the sum of their spin properties must always add to zero. We know the any particle does not choose a past until observed, thus, if we observed one particle to have a certain spin, the other particle must then assume a history of the offsetting spin, always obeying Newton’s law of conservation of energy, creating a net sum of zero.

We now place these two kitties in separate space crafts, connected by a tubular umbilical. The event transpires to create two particles which promptly speed toward their respective kittens. The umbilical is now severed, using a chain saw which spontaneously sprang into being as a side effect of the improbable event of a paper clip choosing the coat hanger lifestyle. These craft speed apart at a significant fraction of the speed of light until, several years later, they are now 1 light year apart. The kittens have survived on strict rations of Meow Mix of which these precocious little kitties have asked for by name.

We know that if a particle has X spin, it will break a vile of poison in the box and a kitten will die. We also know that should the particle be measured to have Y spin, the vial will not break, and the kittens will grow to become cats and therefore graduate to the even more frightening experiments of the type visited on their poor mother. We also know that if we measure one of these related particles to have a certain spin, this will collapse the wave form of both particles, which will then assume the only histories available to them, that of an opposite of the other particle and thus obeying the law of conservation of energy.

When we then open the spacecraft of kitty one, we will observe if the fearless feline is alive or dead, always remembering that until the act of observation, the observed particle will not assume any history, preferring its own sum over histories until it actually has to choose one. This phenomenon is much like the Clinton administration, which will not take a position on any issue until the latest polls are in.

Let us say that we have opened the space craft and observed the particle to have a spin of Y. Like flipping a coin, the chances that the particle will assume a spin of Y is exactly 50%. We now find a live, fluffy kitty vehemently asking for more Meow Mix by name. We know that the particle did not assume the Y spin until observed and, thus, the kitten’s fate was not decided until the actual observation, exactly the same as its hapless mother.

Remembering the law of conservation of energy, as soon as we observe the particle of kitty one, the particle of kitty two must then, immediately, assume the history of a particle of spin X. The crucial distinction here is the each particle assumes a particular history only after the act of observation. Kitty one, was always alive, as kitty two was always dead, but until the observation, neither kitten was alive or dead. They existed in a juxtaposed position of life and death. If we could travel back in time and repeat this observation, again and again, for a hundred times, we would find 50 live kittens and 50 dead as a doornail kitties.

When we discover kitty one to be alive, and knowing that the second particle must assume an opposite history, we can only conclude that K2 was immediately killed only upon the observation of K1. How can this be? The kitties are now 1 light year apart! Relativity tells us that nothing travels faster that the speed of light and that for a photon of light, time stands still and has no meaning. Yet as soon as we observe our kitten to be alive or dead, K2 must immediately, without the slightest pause, assume the opposite. The important thing to keep in mind, is that once a history is assumed, it has always been that way. If K1 is alive, K2 has always been dead although this history was not chosen until we observed the results.

Einstein called this instantaneous transfer of information spooky action at a distance and was one of the primary reasons that he rejected quantum theory for most of his life, even thought he was instrumental in its discovery. The accepted term today is non locality or, as some prefer, poppycock.

This very oversimplified explanation of the sum over histories has been made to offer consolation to all those despairing to gold market today. Content yourselves to know that, while gold is in the doldrums here, in another history, gold is soaring.

For those of you bored to tears by this post, realize, that in another history, I spent the last several hundred words extolling the virtues and imminent rise of gold

Someone needs to feed that cat. He's been in that box for so long. But then, you don't NEED to feed a DEAD cat, do you? Should we, or should we not buy cat food?

Most of my assets are in cash, simply because I am worried about a massive inventory pileup in the US, with subsequent effects on the markets. All depends on whether US buyers can pick up the slack due to reduced foreign demand for our goods. My graphs also suggest oil and commodities bottoming in the next six months. All depend on what the El Nino or La Nina have in store for us in the fall.

My guess is that the US markets will rally for a while -- they will need something really bad to tank. Almost unstoppable -- but to rich for my blood. Will be interesting to see if Brazil tanks soon.

Sorry -- couldn't resist! G'Nite!

Our scientific knowledge has raced ahead in the last few thousand years but our spiritual advance is zero. Just fifty years ago we killed millions and even today the slaughter continues, in the name of nationalistic or religious beliefs. But we cry big tears if a few fetuses

are sacrificed because of personal preference or biological defects.

As a species we are overrunning the world but the evangilists would have us heal all the ill and feed all the starving children so they can grow up healthy enough to have more children. When will man wake up to reality? ( remember the oldie - two cannibals are peering out of the jungle watching one of the great battles and one cannibal turns to the other and says white man crazy - he kills more than he can eat )

Meanwhile back at home base - go gold and you too silver/