the place was ebay

but I didn't post a url, and I am not promoting it so by the rules set forth in I'm still on thick ice right.

Isn't it amazing how little gold bullion has dropped, given the disturbing trend in commodity prices?

My point is that GS is in a different league when his fund can bring down the Bank of England. That requires a different kind of investment approach -- there is more responsibility there. I wish I could be convinced that G Soros had the ethical knowhow to use his giant hedge fund appropriately.

By the way, I do like one thing he has repeadedly said - namely that international derivatives markets need some sort of regulation. And AG does not seem to want that. How odd.

I'll leave it to everyone else to consider what 'appropriately' is.

I have worked extensively with high vacuum systems over the years, and I have yet to see any indication of electromagnetic radiation fail to propagate through a vacuum. Light shines right through an evacuated chamber.

Any thought about how the sun can illuminate the earth during daytime if light could not propagate through a vacuum?

I'll leave the small bit about zero point energy, and the Casimir effect for another time. Let it suffice to say that vacuum is not really empty anyway, and has a very high energy density of about 1kg/cc. We can't detect it because the energy is not concentrated in discrete elementary particles. Edward Teller recently published an article on how this can be used to make a space drive.

Just think what will happen when we can figure out how to tap this energy! I just hope that when we finally do, we use the energy wisely.

By the way, even if there is nothing wrong with Maxwell's equations, it is still possible that energy can propagate at faster than the speed of light -- but not by classical electromagnetic means.

-----------------------

Date: Tue Dec 01 1998 20:34

Mooney* ( @The Hatt, JTF, Soros, Evil and Reality ) ID#350194:

Copyright © 1998 Mooney*/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved

Have you been watching South America? Brazil and Mexico are near the brink, IMHO. I think Dec 18 is critical for Mexico. The Mexican people may refuse to bankroll that 60 billion in unpaid debt from the 1994 crash. Fistfights already among their congress people.

If South America goes, that freight train you are referring to will run over you. Gold equities included. But plenty of opportunities afterward.

If these are flat plate panels, it is probably the Midway Labs design, which uses 335 sun solar tracking concentrators.

Problem is-- they could store a years supply of diesel fuel under the Pentagon more effectively. And it would be far more secure. Perhaps they are worried about how long that would take before the ground breaking -- probably 2001. All that red tape.

Interesting. Any solar panels on other buildings? How about the FED?

I consider the successful businessman/investor who commands my respect to be more like Warren Buffett, rather than GS. WB's approach is more constructive. It will be interesting to see what WB does over the next 5 years or so, IMHO.

I share your concern for the world outside the US. Our president is quite effective at reading the tea leaves ( US voter polls ) and giving us what we 'think' we want with relatively little concern about the rest of the world.

With the exception of that fellow who was nominated as the US representative to the UN ( under Madeline Albright's vociferous objections ) , our foreign affairs efforts have been less than stellar. I fear that we will become more internalized, not less if our economy falters, when the world needs a little guidance toward peace.

As someone famous once said,

'The seeds of the next war are sown during peacetime'.

Winston Churchill, I think.

Both before and after WWII he was generally ignored by the British people.

Unfortunately it is human nature not to place much effort on future problem areas during good times -- and then when really hard times return we have better world leaders -- a little late. By that time, the work needed to correct the problems is much greater.

Well -- on the other hand - things are probably better than what they were before WWII. The Balkan area does need some attention given to it -- and at least that is being done -- sort of. And -- Isreal and Palestine do seem to be getting somewhere. I think both sides are very aware of what failure to achieve peace means -- it is fortunate that they do not need very much outside help, as our leaders seem incapable of doing so. But -- the Russian problem does not seem to be getting any better, and a fascist type government there would be disastrous for the rest of the world. Too bad the more admirable members of the Russian church got wiped out during the communist years. Ditto for some of their political leaders.

Some think it will take two generations in Russia to repair the damage done by communism. In the meanwhile, the west is blamed, and there may not be enough time before another undesireable totalitarian government takes over.

Next year is likely be a different story, as the US consumer will become more aware of what is happening around the world, and purchases will fall off. The dramatic rise in the purchases of gold coins is a sign of rising uncertainty levels. Also -- perhaps it will take an inflationary or credit shock of some kind to generate a wakeup call.

I could be wrong. Perhaps we ( the USA ) will sail into 2010-2015 ( end of baby boom ) without a hitch, but I doubt it. The information revolution is propping up our economy, but it probably is not enough.

We were last to get hit in 1929, IMHO. But -- we were hit very hard. Americans tend to do everything in excess -- booms and busts. It is somehow ingrained in our nature. I still remember vivid accounts of real estate land booms that went bust many years ago, with farmers trying to figure out what to do with all those emptly lots and empty streets. I think they just plowed it all over for crops when it was profitable to grow things once again.

Here's one for you if you did not already know.

HAL of '2001' fame had its name well chosen:

H for I,

A for B,

L for M.

HAL==IBM. QED

Wonder why it was 2001 ,and not 2000. Well at least that implies we made it through y2k. Well, we did make it through 1000AD, and 1500AD, despite the fears to the contrary.

And -- we are actually making another space station. Perhaps we will make it to the stars in spite of ourselves.

I think he is merely an agent or vehicle for powerful behind the scenes investment groups, such as the Rothschilds. Just imagine how rapidly your personal wealth would grow if you had the Rothschilds information sources at your fingertips.

However, alot of what he says does make sense -- just about as much as anything else these days. So -- I read what he says, even if I do not respect what he does.

Gusto Oro: *grin*

http://chart1.bigcharts.com:80/report?r=cobrand&site=avidtrader&onbad=cobrandsymb&symb=open&time=8&uf=0&sid=113718&sec=c&xyz=20514093&s=1419

yudaman!

away

Éßastrologizing

http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpfn02.htm

--

I stand in awe of how quickly the PC became just another bit of consumer electronics. The PC has definitely become one of the best bangs around for the buck, 99% of humans don't even know how to leverage this kind of processing power. It kinda makes you feel bad for the chip shops like Intel who have done such an amazing job of pumping up the speeds to be competitive that they've probably overkilled it. As a consumer, I hope the industry does the same miracle with bandwidth. I think the cap is in on processing power, I mean - 500 mips, 1000 mips, 1000000 mips, who cares, how much power do you need to run Word anyway.

I am very worried about whether the American Democratic system of government can survive much longer when the cleansing action of the impeachment process directed against Nixon succeeded in the 70's, but now similar high crimes and misdemeanors multiplied 100 fold are not sufficient. I think the Nixon crowd had their hands on only one FBI file.

Tom Hanks apparently said what was the truth yesterday about WJC -- that he wished he had not donated that 10,000. Unfortunately today the 'truth police' or whatever they are got to him and convinced him of the error of his ways. Too bad he did not stick to his guns. I wonder who threatened him, and what they said. Seems like the McCarthy days again in Hollywood -- but the topic is not whether you support communism -- it is whether you support WJC. One thing is the same -- you are not supposed to think for yourself.

So -- they throw the book at John Scudi, but the Commander in Chief does exactly the same thing, and that's ok.

http://www.newsweek.com:80/nw-srv/printed/us/na/na1023_1.htm

Perhaps John Scudi should testify at WJC's impeachment proceedings. He might have some choice words about his dillemma. Perhaps John Scudi made the mistake of arranging deals himself instead of getting expendible others to do it for him.

-------------------------

Global Take Dec 1 1998 11:40AM CST

Silent Rollover in Europe?

By Paul Lam

Senior Markets Writer

Aside from coordinated efforts by central banks in Europe to ease

interest rates, another factor which has, thus far, calmed jitters of a

worsening global strife is the art of silent rollover of trading losses

incurred by major banks and financial institutions well into the

following year, according to informed banking reports.

Among the common techniques is converting de facto,

non-performing debt denominated in d-mark, French franc or other

currencies into new euro debt. Such debt obligations would then be

declared repaid while the actual debt issues are rolled over into

sometimes next year, or even beyond, as euro loans.

In addition, banks are also conveying trading losses from countries

with relatively strict regulatory standards, which require frequent

marking and pricing of trading positions on their books to present

market values, to places where they have six months or longer before

true asset values must be declared.

--------------------------

This topic of rollover is expecially relevant, now that we know that Mexican politicians are having fistfights regarding whether the Mexican public should be expected to bankroll the 60 or so billion the Mexicans now owe from the 1994 financial collapse.

Of course, we can never tell when this game of subterfuge will end in any given country, but the final collapse is likely to be sudden in onset, with public uprisings against the leaders/fincancial types who try to keep the game going.

They are small, and not online, but when I went looking for a broker I called about 60 different ones. Only Aleron of Ohio and Terripin were nice to me on the phone. Now perhaps I am not being fair, people on the east cost of the US have a accent that to me in the midwest sounds very abrupt and rude. Still I spoke with a number of brokers in Chicago and they seemed rude too. Their accent is very nearly identical to mine.

Perhaps thats not the best way to pick a broker. Anyhow, there are no costs for the service, or to set up an account. Commission is $25 per contract and that includes the closeing transaction. They did not seem an account minimum, however I opened with $1000. I shouldn't say they are not online, they have a website, but you can not trade on-line. I think their website is www.terrapin-futures.com

I would suggest you strongly consider what you are thinking, if y2k is bad, and if there is deflation, the prices of these things may go way way down.

But yesterday when gold dropped so much there was very little volume.

This is good right

I just thought it was odd, and I see stuff like this on occasion and it seems match the trend the next day in New York.

I work at night so I watch I guess the Australians and Asians trade gold, it looks like very little actual trading goes on, just biding and asking back and forth all night with a few trades.

this is the url where I watch.

http://www.quote.com/layout/index.frames.html

http://quote.yahoo.com/q?s=^XAU&d=5y