should read

However, when you combine Y2K with overall downturn in economic cycle, it does not look good

While working on it with multiple clients I can see the progress in Y2K projects. Many of our clients are getting into testing phase, however, some other groups are still in the initial phases of the assessment. Good progress has been made in the area where most organizations are trying to focus on mission critical systems and not attack everything what they run. Testing will not be comprehensive ( running out of time ) , however we may get into point when we will weed out the most serious problems and deal with less serious problems as we go ( using swat, fast response teams in the post year 2000 timeframe )

You can also see a different set of problems showing up. Due to the fact that Y2K projects are run in limited time frame, and these are the most complex projects some organizations have ever undertook, you can see a significant deficiencies in sound engineering practices. E.g., lack of configuration control results in re-introduction of old version of software components into production, where the team has no idea what was fixed and the software will eventually fail.

Unfortunately, there will be minimum end-to-end testing in the food chain ( suppliers - company - clients ) and we will see some of the problems to pop out in the chain.

Second area which lacks attention is contingency planning for failure of components over which we do not have control ( e.g., infrastructure - power, telecom, etc. ) While we can assume that most of that infrastructure will be OK, you will see the failures in some local areas, and due to that fact, interruption of your food chain. E.g., I am spending some time with some agencies with wide distributed operations, where some local phone exchanges are handled by Ma and Pa operations, running outdated equipment, and when you try to talk to them about Y2K, the response is Y2k what?

I am also worried about local governments, they deal with day to day aspects of your life, however, and there is not enough understanding of money to attack the problem.

As far as my prediction for Gold in the next few weeks, BEWARE!! I've just got back from Albuquerque, and there I was connected to Internet so I could monitor the market. However, next week I am leaving for California, speaking on SPG Y2K conference in LA and San Francisco. In San Francisco, I'll be living on the boat, sailing from Sausalito - no access to Internet. After California I am heading for Alaska to work with some Indian tribes up there ( Our client are very diverse, from the US Senate to Indian tribes ;- ) ) . Again, my access to markets will be limited. Based on my previous experiences, that's when sh*t happens and I loose money. Not a good sign for Gold ;- )

BTW, if any of you on the West Coast have interest to attend San Francisco conference, on Sept. 23-25, I have access to two complimentary passes for the conference. You can find agenda on

http://www.spgnet.com/conf/yr2k98/sf

Ed Yourdon, Ed Yardeni, as well as and some other folks ( e.g., little me ;- ) ) will be speaking. If you are interested, shoot me e-mail on medek@mitretek.org ASAP and I'll pass your name to SPG folks.

Take care - Miro

Unfortunately, he has shown nothing of the kind. We have y2k looming, and not a peep. We have international terrorism, and no well-defined plan -- how about a missle defense system, and an organized antiterrorist plan? How about handling the North Korean crisis before Japan does something rash ( wouldnt' blame them if they got nervous ) .

So, even if you ignore the xxgates, ChinaMissleSatGate probably the most blaring, you regretfully discover that WJC has really done nothing 'except sign alot of papers' as he said by his own admission about a week ago.

Too bad -- what a waste -- for both the country and for him. All he turned out to be is a professional vote getter -- like an actor who turns out to be no more than a close hanger. Haven't even mentioned his character, or indiscriminate sexual habits.

I'm not going to get up too high on my horse on this. All I can say is that I really would appreciate a link posted rather than a quote from the newsletter. It is copyright, after all

I make sure I never post a link to The Privateer in my postings. This is what Bart wants and it's his site, so it's what he gets.

Ya, this is about sex like flies cause garbage.......

End of discussion.

Re: President, I'm out of the discussion, it's boring me.

New Zealand opens down a fraction - 1726.60 -0.97 -0.06%

Getting it off my chest:

Mr. Clean Sen. O. Hatch went up 30% in my eyes today by his gracious handling of this current murkiness. While WJC's friends feel betrayed, and his compassionate enemies are eager for the kill, Hatch may be, oddly enough, one of the best friends that pathetic jerk has right now.

Hatch's behavior is in stark contrast to the way some in the right-wing, especially some of my dear brethren in the religious right, are handling this. Pharisees Pharisees Pharisees. The people that gave Jesus the most heartburn when He descended into this sewer of Earth. Clean your own closets, you hypocrites! Clinton's perversions may sicken us - my daughter was a 17-year-old intern - but these are not the sins that most anger Him. And His.

Hatch / Keyes in 2000. Go gold.

Commercials on television presume answers to stupid rhetorical questions all the time without taking mu into account. You'll want to use Super-white to get your whites the whitiest white. is supposed to elicit a final jeopardy question of Does super-white work better than almost-as-white detergent ?, when in fact the answer is mu - who gives a rat's ass, it's white enough, I'm trying to watch football.

WJC impeachment proceedings will not begin till after the elections -- probably in 1999 if he is still in office. So -- the uncertainty will weigh down the markets for some time.

Eventually we will have a fairly significant market rally -- near the end of the year would be about right for all the pessimism to fade. Temporarily.

I think gold will not rally unless the commodity price indices, and LT interest rates bottom -- no clear trend quite yet, just a short term upsurge.

In this situation, only gold and short postions will come out ahead. The shorts will only keep their money if the proceeds have been moved into something that isn't being defaulted on.

Everyone seems to be worried about Brazil defaulting; what about the US?

\

T-bills won't work in this situation, forget about money funds, they are only commerical paper.

By BETH PISKORA

To understand the economy and the markets these days, you simply must run through the first four letters of the alphabet.

A stands for Asia, which first riled world markets last summer when economic troubles surfaced overseas, causing several Asian countries, including Thailand and Malaysia to devalue their currencies.

B and C stand for Bill Clinton, whose personal troubles have put the American presidency at risk, which makes investors nervous.

D is for deflation, which had shouted its threat several times in the last year, but gained credibility on Friday when the Labor Department said prices paid for raw goods to factories, farmers and other producers suffered their biggest drop in seven months. The Producer Price Index fell 0.4 percent, after falling five other months this year.

I wouldn't characterize it as deflation at this point, said William Dawson, chief investment officer of Federated Investors. But the concern that the economy could turn deflationary is very real.

Although the idea of lower prices may sound good, it can also translate into lower earnings for corporate America, generating lower stock prices, a slowdown in growth, and, if sustained, a recession.

That's why even the Federal Reserve is paying attention. Up until recently, Fed governors, including Chairman Alan Greenspan, dismissed the possibility of deflation, a spiral of falling prices that prompts people to hoard cash rather than invest it.

But Greenspan indicated in a recent speech that the central bank is taking that prospect more seriously.

Economists say the growing threat of deflation is reflected both in bond prices and in the PPI.

The bond market is now characterized by an exceedingly rare inverse yield curve, where long rates fall below the yields for short-term instruments. That's unusual since longer-term investors must usually be compensated for the extra risk they incur during their longer maturities. It is a clear deflationary signal.

But those aren't the only two pieces of evidence. Prices of new passenger cars fell 1.7 percent last month, their biggest drop in nearly eight years. And gas prices recorded their biggest drop in 7 years, falling 8.5 percent.

In the span of a few short weeks, gleeful predictions of Dow 10,000 have been supplanted by dire warnings of Dow 5,000 - and that's without a two-for-one stock split, said Charlie Crane, chief investment officer at Key Asset Management. Now the spotlight is squarely on the crowd that sees the world coming apart at the seams, with global recession and a deadly deflationary spiral just around the corner.

Have investors lost their senses? Absolutely not. In fact, world markets are reacting in a very reasoned manner to economic threats.

It all began in the spring of 1997 when the bond market started behaving in an unusual manner.

I soon became evident that all the money coming into the bond market was coming from overseas, said Dawson. U.S. investors were sticking to the higher returns they could get from stocks. We didn't know it yet, but overseas investors were already starting their flight to quality, and for them that meant U.S. treasuries.

U.S. investors could no maintain their innocence much longer. By the summer of 1987, several Asian economies had crumbled. In order to try to prop themselves back up, they began unloading goods on the world markets at very low prices compared to competitors. These competitors then had to lower their asking prices in order to sell product.

Thus, the first stages of deflation began. The situation simply worsened when Asia's troubles tumbled into Russia and Latin America, where many of the countries are heavily dependent on the exporting of raw commodities.

Commodity prices are near all-time lows, said Dawson. There is an overcapacity and no one is in the position to sop up all these extra goods.

In the business cycle of the 1990s, Americans have been the biggest buyers of the world's goods.

The U.S. consumer has been doing all the heavy lifting for some time, said Dawson. If the U.S. consumer is spooked, which could happen easily if hte stock market keeps going down, that could send us spiraling into recession.

Already, one-third of the world's countries are officially in a recessionary economy.

I don't think the U.S. can act on its own, said Dawson. We're going to need some help and I don't know whether anybody is in a position to help us. http://www.nypost.com/business/5482.htm

I had been in and out of energy and gold funds. Sure I took some beating at the beginning of this year. I was in cash lately, however after a few solid days I jumped back in. That would be the reason why my gain is only 20% - I intentionally skipped the first few days waiting for a confirmation. Also, we had a down day ( on Wednesday? ) when both sectors dropped about 2-3%.

Tantalus,

403K is pretty much the same as 401K, however, it is designed for not-for-profit companies ( e.g., educational, research, public institutions, etc ) . I work for one of those.

Taking a lession from history, every country in the world is subject to periodic depressions -- sooner or later. The move to fiat currency of the last 100 years or so has softened the recessions, but at tremendous inflationary expense. It is clear that fiat currency policies do not prevent depressions. All one needs to do is look at the IMF and their complete inability to function in any meaningful manner.

I think the lesson from the great depresson after WWI is probably the best -- worldwide currency/economic collapses occured at different times in different countries in a serial fashion. For some reason then, it was the US that went down last.

One thing I find fascinating is the currenct sequence of events with the El Nino effect serially affecting different countries. The economic maladies followed in nearly the same sequence.

I have a strong suspicion that the bad weather first, economic problems second pattern was similar in the 20's and thirties -- but no proof. This may be the reason the US was last then as it probably will be now.

I suspect that the El Nino problems were severe enough to create the economic maladies that followed. There is another, more profound interpretation, but I have nothing to support it.

By the way, I think much of the increased volatility in the markets recently may be due to problems with derivatives trades -- not the baby boomers, who still don't really have a clue what's happening.

We have a number of problems looming:

1 ) Worldwide recession looming or worse due to the financial crises.

2 ) Derivatives explosion -- volume probably will go up before it goes down as everyone tries to 'insure' their accounts ( addictive like the net )

3 ) Y2k

4 ) WJC fiasco

5 ) Increased worldwide terrorism

This will eventually bring down all the world's economies, but not necessarily at the same time.

The Seoul government believes that North Korea's firing of a rocket Aug. 31 was an unsuccessful attempt to put a satellite into orbit, a top administration official said yesterday.

``It is our interim conclusion that the North tried in vain to launch a satellite into orbit,'' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said that the United States shares the Seoul government's judgment, adding that the United States has not found any satellite that could have been launched by the North.

The first booster of the rocket fell in the East Sea between Korea and Japan and the second booster, which overflew Japan, landed in the Pacific east of northern Japan.

The official said that American intelligence may have lost track of the third booster as it had originally believed the rocket was a two-stage Taepo-dong ballistic missile.

But he said the third-stage booster is believed to have landed somewhere 27 seconds after being separated from the rocket.

He said that despite its failure to put a satellite into orbit, North Korea, by firing a three-stage rocket, proved its potential for developing an inter-continental ballistic missile ( ICBM ) .

``We should not make light of this,'' the official said.

He said that weapons procurers from Middle East countries, major buyers of North Korean missiles, are believed to have witnessed the latest firing of the rocket.

He said that China was displeased by the North's rocket launch because of the possibility that it may encourage Japan to build up its military capability.

The official said that the Seoul government is maintaining close cooperation with Russian authorities regarding the North Korean satellite issue.

Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency first confirmed the North Korean claims that it launched a scientific satellite into orbit.

09-14-98 : `Some South Koreans Proud of North Korean Missile'

North Korea's missile launch has sparked worldwide alarm over its weapons capability but some younger South Koreans have taken pride in the technological achievements of their Stalinist foe.

And some of their parents even revelled secretly in watching the missile, or part of it, hurtle late last month over the territory of their former colonial master Japan, social analysts say.

At first South Koreans unanimously expressed shock. But their attitudes evolved intriguingly as time passed, especially after the reclusive North insisted the blast was its maiden satellite launch and not a weapons test.

``There is an ambivalent reaction here over what North Korea has done with regard to Japan,'' said Chang Kyong-suk, a sociologist at Seoul National University, when asked to comment on a startling survey of 118 young website users.

The poll, cited by a South Korean newspaper last week, showed that 57 percent of the respondents saw the blast as a positive development while only 24 percent perceived it negatively.

Advocates of extremism saw it as a ``gallant deed.'' ``This was a boastful event which proved the brighteness of Koreans,'' said one web user, codenamed Omega007.

Analysts played down the significance of the survey. Yet they concede some old Koreans appear to be feeling ``substitute satisfaction'' through North Korea which had managed to embarrass Japan's security and political establishment.

``Despite antagonism towards the North, South Koreans sometimes reveal ambivalence when they meet with such an incident. This is deemed an expression of historically-built denial sentiment,'' Chang said.

``Such feelings are rooted in historical relations between the two countries'' and in their view of Japan, he said.

The scholar suggested that Tokyo refrain from any overreaction, referring to deep-rooted and lingering anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea based on Tokyo's harsh colonial rule here between 1910 and 1945.

Japan-bashing is a popular topic indulged in frequently by South Korea's media. Books capitalizing on anti-Japanese sentiment and nationalism are increasingly popular as the economy unravels.

A novel by Kim Jin-myong depicting the defeat of Japan by the combined forces of North and South Korea sold more than one million copies when published here in 1993.

His second novel published this year deals with a similar topic and has sold around 700,000 copies in the past four months.

Kim's consecutive successes illustrate persistent anti-Japanese sentiment here. But publishers acknowledged that poor sales of other books amid the country's economic woes prompted them to cash in on sensationalism.

``Publishers are capitalizing on the sentiment,'' Lee Moon-Jae, a publisher, told the Korea Herald newspaper. Books describing Japan in a negative manner are seen as surefire cash cows, it said.

No country has been able officially to deny or verify North Korea's claim that the launch was not a weapons test.

But Japan, embarrassed by its failure to spot it, has suspended aid to North Korea, which still regards the former colonial ruler as an enemy.

Tokyo has also threatened to step back from talks on a 1994 agreement under which Pyongyang froze its nuclear program in exchange for safer energy supplies. ( AFP )

Meanwhile, the Seoul government came under fire by conservatives, who have insisted it should also push ahead with a missile development program.

Seoul and Washington are debating whether restrictions must be lifted to extend the range of South Korean missiles which have been limited to 180km ( 108 miles ) under a mutual defense pact.

Washington, concerned about a missile race on the Korean peninsula, has been reluctant to ease restrictions while Seoul wants a longer-range missile to defend itself. ( AFP ) http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/kh0914/m0914l01.html http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/kh0914/m0914l08.html

If everything comes to a crashing halt due to y2k -- my intuitive guess is that it will not -- all that will be left will be barter in small communities. This is fairly common in rural USA, where the average small town occupant trades goods and services without using official channels -- to avoid taxation. Whether the US government likes it or not, this happens. Can't blame rural Americans for doing this, as their standard of living has been eroded for years to the point where many have multiple jobs just to get food on the table.

What I think is most likely to happen is what I think Gary North is saying -- that we will have an economic slowdown -- simply because all failures will not occur at the same time. The stock markets will be the mnost sensitive to this -- even if Wall Street is y2k compliant. Looks like we are already heading into a recession in the US without Y2K.

If the US FED goes down, that would be serious indeed -- and could trigger a depression.

Gary North's concepts of failure analysis seem right on the money, with regard to the fact that the number of links in a chain increase the probability of failure proportionately. However, I'm not sure that anyone can estimate the probability of a y2k related depression in the US -- the variables and other numbers necessary for that calculation are not available -- too many uncertainties about whether failures will occur at the same time -- or whether they will be predominately random and isolated.

Regardless, the y2k problem is a real serious one for the US -- as it will probably occur when the US is at its weakest -- unless WJC steps down very soon.

Now, if we break $300 U.S. with the current turmoil, and the hedge funds keep on losing money... On the other hand ( damn choices again! ) there's the question of the Dow testing the 200 DMA in the future. If this occurs, is it a suckers rally or a rebound? Inquiring gold bugs will want to know, indeed must know. With dollar having a negative bias these days, can the repatriation of foreign funds en mass be far behind?

BBML.....................................

The Nixon spy who has Clinton taped

-- Thursday Aug 27, 1998, from the Electronic Telegraph --

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

LUCIANNE Goldberg is already thinking ahead. Puffing on a Lark cigarette with an 18-carat Dunhill holder from Harrods - it is still, just,legal to smoke in New York - the architect of Bill Clinton's downfall wonders which agency of the US government will carry out the final, humiliating act. The FBI? The US Marshals? The cigar inspectors from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms? Which one will be sent to extract President Clinton from the Oval Office?

It's a real constitutional question: who can arrest the President? It's the Park Police that's responsible for tidying up the White House, so maybe they'll have to clean up this mess, she said, with a loud guffaw, as we sat in a gale outside the Rockefeller Centre eating pâté de foie gras. I can see it now, they'll have to prise his long, white, bony fingers from the Roosevelt Desk and drag him out.

Mrs Goldberg, née Von Steinberger, a 6ft, blonde, high-church Episcopalian married to a wealthy New York Jew, has some experience with disintegrating presidencies. Before becoming a novelist and literary agent, she served as a press bunny to President Johnson, and then switched to the Republicans in time to get a ringside seat for the demise of President Nixon. In 1972, the Campaign to Re-elect the President, Creep of Watergate fame, paid her $1,000 a week to work as an observer- spy, actually, codenamed 'Chapman's Friend' - on the election campaign of George McGovern. Masquerading as a journalist, she wrote field reports that were rushed by special courier to Nixon at the White House.

But if Nixon had his faults, at least he had the grace to resign when his time was up, she says. This President is a different animal. By the manner of his leaving, she predicts, Mr Clinton will achieve the extraordinary feat of making Nixon look like a gentleman.

In the meantime, she is expecting trouble and is worried about her cat, a five year-old calico tabby. The White House goon squads are capable of doing anything when they find out that her name is Margaret Thatcher, she said.

There is already one feline casualty in the Lewinsky wars. Kathleen Willey, the White House volunteer who has accused Mr Clinton of grabbing her breasts in the wiggle room off the Oval Office, says her 13-year-old, Bullseye, vanished last year at the same time that 6in nails were driven into the tyres of her car.

But the danger will be over soon, Mrs Goldberg says, because Bill Clinton is now irretrievably ruined. The moment he went out and gave that speech ( JTF - Aug 17 one? ) , he swallowed his strontium-90. It rots you from inside, slowly. It may take weeks, it may take months, but you might as well pack your bags because there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Unlike the US media, which beg for crumbs of gossip outside her grand, rambling apartment on the Upper West Side, she knows what Mr Clinton actually did with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office. It's psychologically shocking more than anything else. It's the cruelty of what he was doing to Monica, the torture of a girl with low self-esteem who wasn't strong enough to tell him to jump in the lake, she said.

When the American public hears these tapes, it will be the final straw that brings home what this whole story is about: abuse of power. The tapes: 20 hours of X-rated pornography recorded on C90 Radio Shack cassettes by a cheap, voice-activated tape-machine. They are her own special contribution to the history of the late 20th century.

Leave aside all the kinky sex, which I don't want to talk about. Here is this 22-year-old girl calling Clinton 'that bastard', 'that son of a bitch', she says. The tapes make it explicit that Betty Currie, the President's elderly black secretary, was used as a cover for the affair and knew she was being used. On one occasion she was trapped in a bathroom until late at night because she could not get out without disturbing the President and Miss Lewinsky at work.

If political intelligence is not on tape, Mrs Goldberg learned long ago, it can always be discounted. So, when her friend Linda Tripp told her last autumn that a young colleague at the Defence Department was confiding details of an affair with the President and asking her to participate in an increasingly dangerous cover-up, Mrs Goldberg instructed her in the arts of political espionage. Nobody quite knows who owns the copyright on the tapes, which makes it difficult for Mrs Goldberg to respond to gargantuan offers of money, like the latest $6 million ( £3.6 million ) package for world rights that is being explored by a British news corporation.

We may end up giving it all away, she said. Our main motive is just to get the stuff out. We'll post it on the Internet if necessary, first we're waiting to see what Judge [Kenneth] Starr does in his report.

For her part in the taping, Ms Tripp has been vilified as a scheming betrayer of trust. Friends don't tape friends for book deals, runs the stock line. It drives Mrs Goldberg to paroxysms of indignation. Friends don't ask friends to commit felonies, do they? she thunders. The press has got this whole thing wrong. It was never about a book deal. Linda came to me because the President's girlfriend was asking her to testify falsely. That's a crime, and that's when I told her to get a tape-recorder for her own protection.

For four years Ms Tripp had witnessed crimes and abuse of power before speaking out. We're the vast Right-wing conspiracy: two middle-aged broads who got angry and said enough's enough, said Mrs Goldberg. If the only thing we can get him on is sex, fine. You take what you can get.

Mr Clinton's great mistake was to hang on for seven months, lying through his teeth. When we got him on Lewinsky last January, he should have admitted everything, harvested his high polls and walked into the sunset.

But he didn't.

According to Lucianne Goldberg, WJC will have to be forcefully extracted from the WhiteHouse when the time comes. I don't think WJC cares one bit about the trauma he is causing the American people. Do you think he cares about what the US stock market does? AG and RR will have their hands full, IMHO.

I think someone will offer a deal to WJC fairly soon -- resignation 'with some honor left' or 'all out war' in the court of public opinion. WJC is not stupid, but it will be out of character for him to resign. His shady supporters might do something drastic ( as they have in the past ) if he is no longer an asset to their interests. Just imagine how much money a shady insider group would make selling the market short, if they knew to the day when WJC would leave the Whitehouse -- horizontal or vertical.

xttp://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000271261842766&rtmo=

pSlUb4Me&atmo=ttttttyd&pg=/et/98/8/27/wcli127.html

Please splice above url together, and replace xttp: with http:

In the US, we are seemingly in better shape because we are upgrading our small computer systems very frequently. But -- not the mainframes, such as the ones the air traffic controllers use. And, not the embedded chips, which may have y2k non-conpliant code in them, even when there is no reason for them to have it. Someone needs to do an inventory of all the embedded chips, and which ones are not y2k compliant. These chips are cheap, but I doubt that any manufacturer really wants to be bothered making what may be nearly one-of-a-kind.

I think the problem in the US is that our media are now almost totally controlled by a small number of corporations that basically do whatever the 'liberal' spin doctors tell them to do. These spin doctors have decided that they will ignore certain crisis related things in the US, despite the fact that other kinds of shallow sensationalist journalism is acceptable. Eg, too much public news emphasis on crimes, violence, etc., and not constructive things that happen at the grass roots in the US everyday. Also, members of our federal government have become jaded and complacent over the years, as the typical bureaucrat knows that their job is secure in almost any situation except the one that our President now is embroiled in. I wonder what they would do if they found that their own government would not be able to pay them, come y2k. I don't think the ignoring of the y2k problem is intentional -- just compacency.

I fly to Toronto every Christmas to be with family. When we go Dec 25, 1999, we will drive. In a 20 year old four wheel drive with no known y2k dependent components. I will check on availability of gasoline, and the status of the highways before I go. Hope the net is still up so I can. Probably will be partially at least, but with a ban on y2k non-compliant nodes. The speed of the nodes used for the Kenneth Starr release is a ver promising sign that adaptability still does exist somewhere in our government.

Hope you have sold your house, and I hope you have worked out appropriate security measures for your assets when you are mobile.

My problem is this -- most of us who post on Kitco could be considered a threat to certain groups in our government. It matters little that most of us Americans are loyal supporters of America, and supporters of members of our government who believe that we need to return the the concepts set forward by our founding fathers.

How do we ensure that we are not subject to a 'DIRT' attack? Encrypt everything on the hard disk, and use one computer exclusively for e-mail?

mole: My wife was a Clinton supporter for years, because he has done good things for women's rights, among other things. I just rolled my eyes. But now she has changed her mind. It is now no longer possible to ignore the seamy side of WJC, and character does matter. Now she reads the stuff most Kitcoites read.

I think the best way of putting this is that the official actions of an individual in public office are not sufficient proof that this person can be trusted always to do the right thing for the American people.

We must have a president who has integrity in public and private lives, as that is the best indicator that he/she will do the right thing when the chips are down. A 99 44/100% pure charismatic politician with no substance behind the public facade cannot be trusted during a crisis when Presidential actions are crucial.

You should think about out great presidents, and then think about WJC. Character matters, even in the decadent 90's.

There is one other matter which you should think about, which is even more disturbing than anything else about WJC. Ever see the Clinton Chronicles? Could be propaganda, but you should still see it. You read pro-Clinton propaganda every day. Which is more likely to be true with what we know now about WJC? I don't think WJC is a murderer, but it is pretty clear that he has shady supporters that are. He does what they tell him to do. Even admitted it about a week ago. Doesn't it bother you that Kathleen Willey's children were threatened when she decided to come forward about her problems with WJC? Do you really respect anyone who bullies anyone who stands in his way? As I recall, someone killed Kathleen Willey's cat, and left a threatening message. If the WJC supporters decide one day that you are a threat, you or someone you love could be next.

Character does matter. It is like the Catholic who goes to Church every Sunday to confess his sins during the week -- adultery, or worse. Since he confesses every week, all is forgiven and he can continue being a bad boy. Who would you want as your neighbor? The honest, devout Catholic who lives a good honest life 24 hours a day, or one that does so only on

Sunday when he confesses? What about the litter of former Clinton supporters who have fallen over the years to protect him? How will his current 'supporters' act during a crisis, knowing they are expendable?

It really shows the caring person when one can talk to you on a phone while receiving a blow job. Documented in Star's report based on testimony, visitors and phone logs showing a time sequence of events.

No one knows Where gold goes.Some say up - some say down.

No one knows Why it is below 300.Some say deflation - some say manipulation.

No one knows Who decided it should be here.Some say Europe - some say USA.

No one knows What Gold is anyway.Some say money - others say commodity.

No one knows When Bull will start agian.Some say it's over - others just starting.

So there you have the 5Ws of the this Gold market.My advice ---- buy a Gold coin.

Sit there and flip it for a couple of days.If it comes up heads more than tails -- buy.

If it comes up tails more than heads -- sell or stand aside.You will be as accurate as most in your decisions,and still have a nice Gold coin.Good luck.I'm serious.: )