WEDNESDAY, MIDWEEK, APRIL 4, 2007

THE INTERNATIONAL FORECASTER

P. O. Box 510518, Punta Gorda, FL 33951-0518

An international financial, economic, political and social commentary.

Published and Edited by: Bob Chapman

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US MARKETS

Free trade and globalization is the new imperialism, the re-colonization of sovereign nations. In America the ramrod for destruction of what has come to be known as the American system is the Council on Foreign Relations. They have been instrumental in the development of GATT, WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA and now SPP or the North American Union.

Over the last six years Americans have lost more than 5 million jobs to outsourcing and offshoring. Congress has heard one gory story after another from its own members, yet little has been done to solve this problem that is ripping the heart out of our country. Congress has answered by offering a stipend to those over 55 years old who accept a lower paying job. That isn’t the answer, because the taxpayers pay for it and the culprit gets away paying a token amount via normal taxation. Those companies that offshore and outsource should pay that bill and not for just a year, but until the worker ceases working. Tax the companies – not the public. Congress has a constitutional role to play and they are not doing what they should be doing and that is setting a jobs policy not just for manufacturing, but for services as well.

We have cities, such as Cleveland, where unemployment is more than 14%, where 60,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in six years. This goes on and on in many of our major cities. As an aside, NAFTA not only has destroyed American jobs, but Mexican jobs as well and that is why we are being inundated with illegal aliens.

Free trade and globalization have been a resounding success for transnational elitist corporations - the financial interests that imposed this system upon us beginning some 40 years ago. Our nation and other nations have been looted by these crooks. This so-called free trade, or better yet rigged trade, must be stopped. A national policy has to be implemented that would include trade tariffs for every nation where needed, that will allow the rebuilding of our manufacturing sector and the protection of our service sector.

This concept is workable even at this late stage if our Congress does what it is supposed to do and that is protect the interests of the American worker, that sent him or her to Congress to protect them, not transnational conglomerates, that lavish these politicians with payoffs known as campaign contributions.

This looting operation has to be brought to a halt – now. Free trade, GATT, WTO, NAFTA, and CAFTA have to be terminated. We want fair trade, not free trade. Our country has to return to economic and financial sanity. We have to act and we have to act now because we are facing a blowout in the world’s economic, monetary and financial systems. Unbridled speculation and a perpetual supply of money and credit have to be stopped and moderated to a more normal level. Yes, we will have a recession. In fact, we already have one. Yes, we will have depression because it cannot be avoided. It was deliberately created and now the system has to be purged. No half measures will do. Globalization, remember is the destruction of the sovereign state. That is the ultimate goal – World Government. This is what is to replace the present US protectionist model that has worked so well for 250 years. This is what has made the American economy superior. We produced and protected what the world needed, mainly manufactured goods. Since August 15, 2001, we have been transformed into a bankrupt service economy. That eventually pauperizes our country by degrading its ability to produce and then destroying its financial structure so it cannot recover. If it’s any remote consolation Canada and Europe are going down the chute with us. Then third world countries will be the standard for economies worldwide. This is not something that just happened, it was planned that way.

Reflect back to the floating of the American dollar, the world’s reserve currency, as it was deprived of its gold backing. That ushered in the era in which America became a large casino. Speculation increased and trade in goods and production collapsed. The era also ushered in de-regulation of rail, health care, trucking and energy. Even food production was turned over to the wealthy via tax incentives. Free trade began and the quest to remove borders began. You see its results already within the European Union.

The result of this borderless free trade in the US, Canada and Europe has been the re-imposition of cartels and multinational financial networks. These combined continue to make mega profits while the populace is pauperized. The concept came into the open at the Bilderberger Meeting in 1968, and that began the push to sell off American corporations or to move their production elsewhere, especially the machine tool capacity and capability. As a result our consumption of machine tools is now only 60% of what it was in 1980 and 70% of that consumption is imported machine tools. As this took place so has cross-country mergers leaving production in a limited number of hands. Unfortunately, most people are oblivious to what is going on because the mainstream is controlled by the elitists.

How can the media ignore, unless it is by design, the overwhelming evidence that corporate interests have created the world’s first truly global empire in which you are about to be enslaved. This empire has inflicted increased misery and poverty on millions of people on our planet, in addition to the unspeakable wars they have planned, financed and operated on both sides. They have sabotaged the principles of self-determination, justice, and freedom that form the foundations of our country and have turned our wonderful country and people into feared, resented and hated objects of derision all over the world. Most reading this will turn their back on what we say, because they are not truth seekers. They are only interested in money and in not upsetting the system. Real Americans cannot ignore the truth. They wish to understand the corruption that becomes more sophisticated and pervasive. They see the subterfuges money laundering, tax evasion, war crimes, deception, distortion and violence. They know the dark side cannot stand the light of truth. They know that individuals who have offshore banking facilities are hunted down by the emissaries of government, but offshore banking flourishes for corporations. The equivalent to the “Brotherhood of the Bell exists. Those involved but not in charge, know what is going on but say nothing. They do not want to lose their mega-pensions, consultation fees and places on corporate boards. They like the life and don’t want to give it up for the truth. They do not want to be out in the cold fighting powerful forces arrayed to protect the satanic institutional power of the Illuminati, which controls all the major worldwide corporations, banks, defense industries, and security agencies, as we have. Few have that kind of guts. Today these conspirators leave little evidence behind except perhaps a trail of dead bodies. As we found out early on they control NSA, CIA and all the other agencies from the top. All of these factors keep the truth from the people. Only a few dare to challenge these evil people.

We have the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the G-8 nations, the multinationals, the World Bank, and the IMF, all controlled by the Illuminati.

That leads us to the fact that during the past week our Commerce Department took the first step toward imposing special duties on imports from China. They may levy fees of up to 20% on coated paper and paperboard from Chinese companies that are illegally subsidized by the Chinese government. We have news for you, everything produced in China is subsidized and the Chinese yuan is manipulated by the Chinese government. That means all Chinese goods and all goods from all countries that depreciate their currencies, via manipulation, should have tariffs imposed. The only reason our elitists are making this move is to head off any major congressional move to do what they should do and that is impose tariffs on all who do not practice fair trade. Readers, they are throwing us a bone. They want to stop trade legislation before it starts. This will not solve the problem that in part is destroying America, free trade and globalization, which must be stopped. We must stop separate trade agreements, efforts in behalf of FTAA and the secret quest to merge the US, Canada and Mexico via the Council on Foreign Relations’ plan known as SPP and or the North American Union. Nothing has changed except the tactics. We have to fight these people ever harder. Don’t allow yourselves to be deceived.

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Money and credit is not being curtailed in the US, Canada, Australia, China, Russia, the UK and Europe; it is being expanded. There has been a decline in consumer credit expansion and there will be a contraction in credit markets due to the subprime problem, which is a major problem. Be prepared for a doubling of M3 by all the above central banks to keep the system afloat and to keep it from collapsing. Borrowing for leveraged securities purchasers, such as the carry trade and merger and acquisition financings and by hedge funds, is not going to slow down this year, making inflation even more preponderant. Fed funds and repurchase agreements continue to expand at a staggering 26% rate. This is how the Fed is shoveling money and credit to broker dealers, whose assets grew at 27% annualized to $2.57 billion last year.

We have massive aggressive speculative expansion in a slowing economy. That is because the Fed is increasing M3 at an 11% rate and we expect that to double over the next few years. If the Fed were to lower rates late this year, or early next year, you would see these spec players go berserk. Incidentally, the dollar would break 80 on the dollar index as a result of lower rates. As this transpires and the rich get richer, gambling using borrowed money, free trade and globalization, offshoring and outsourcing, are causing Americans to lose more and more high-paying manufacturing and professional jobs. They are replaced by very low paying service jobs. The US is restructuring downward as the third world restructures upward. You are watching the destruction of the American economy and our culture and way of life. The speculation we are seeing is unmatched in modern history and the risks are enormous. The players believe the game will go on forever and we know that cannot happen. As this continues the most important asset the average person has, their home, will drop more than 30% in value, and to go along with that they have a recession to contend with. This is a dangerous and unhappy story that will grow worse as time goes on.

On a lighter note, 3-time Arizona State spelling champion Jonathan Horton, has won again and is on the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC in late May, where he finished 6^th last year. Jonathan Horton is home-schooled.

Reuters, which is owned by The Rothschild Group along with Havas in France and Wolf in Germany, tells us the weak US housing market is starting to affect overall US employment, and job losses that had been limited to construction will likely spread to other parts of the labor market in coming months.

For builders, realtors and mortgage lenders, the full impact of the downturn may take more than a year to work through the system. Construction companies announced 10,000 job cuts in January and February. That’s about 110,000 since the beginning of 2006. We figure they will lose 400,000 jobs before this is over. Falling home prices in some markets and rising defaults on subprime mortgages have raised concerns that housing problems may spread to mainstream lenders, but consumer confidence affects the broader economy. We know it already has and the psychology of the real estate boom has been broken.

45,000 jobs were lost last month among specialty contractors and employment in residential specialty trades has been declining since February 2006 to which we concur.

They believe home construction will flatten, and may rebound, by the middle of 2007, which we do not agree with. The real decline in construction and remodeling is only 25% over. As you can see problems have only just begun and the chance of a halt in the slide this year is remote. This conclusion by Reuters is disinformation, propaganda and an attempt to stop the downturn quicker and it isn’t going to happen.

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The moment of truth for the dollar is upon us. We are looking at a classic reverse head and shoulders in the euro versus the dollar. This year and perhaps very soon, the euro will break out against the dollar and move into the $1.40 to $1.45 area taking gold and silver higher with it. This will be in part the markets reaction to duties on coated paper of 10.9% to 20.35 with a legion of other industries in tow. Steel will lead the pack. This will be accompanied by not only duties on China, but also all currency manipulators. This means that soon 80 on the dollar index will be tested and in all likelihood broken. The first stop is 78.33, then 70-75 with an ultimate goal of 45 to 55. Adding fuel to this fire is that the ECB and the Bank of England will be raising interest rates again in April or May. The selling we have seen in gold to interrupt its forward progress by what we suspect is a European central bank at $664 to $668 will soon be absorbed and gold will be on its merry way again. Business, economic, fiscal and monetary news has been manifestly bullish for gold and it is obvious that the central banks want to retard gold’s upward movement, so that the world public, particularly the professionals, won’t be able to use gold as a barometer to gauge economies and markets that are about to collapse around them.

This is extremely important. Slashdot and Cryptome report that the US Department of Homeland Security is demanding the master key for DNS root zone, a demand that has other nations deeply alarmed. With the master key, DHS would have control over the Internet.

The key will play an important role in the new DNSSEC Security extension, because it will make spoofing IF-addresses impossible. By forcing the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority to handout a copy of the master key, the US government will be the only institution that is able to spoof ID addresses and be able to break into computers connected to the Internet without much effort.

The issue surfaced at ICANN at a meeting in Lisbon, Portugal last Friday. The US media has not reported what the US is up too. They only reported on a proposal to create a domain specifically for adult web sites. The EU Commission said that the matter is being discussed with EU member states. Our DHS is itself sponsoring a campaign to support the implementation of DNSSEC. Autonomica of Sweden, which operates one root server, pointed out the political implications last year and said ICANN should be the supervisory functionality.

When other nations are worried, Americans, too, should be concerned. The Bush neocon corporatist fascist administration has demonstrated that it is unable to wield power responsibly. There is no question if DHS is successful in getting this key they will further expand their police state and publications like the IF will be banned.

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GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM, PALADIUM AND DIAMONDS

Again on Monday early on there was no discernible trend to the markets. The Dow was -8, S&P +1, Nasdaq -13 Dow points. The Nikkei Dow fell a large 259, FTSE was up 25 Dow points, CAC -1, DAX +20. The euro was up .0004, the pound +.0069 and the yen +.09. Oil was off $0.20, gas -.01 and natural gas was unchanged. The 2-year was 4.57%, and the 10-year 4.64%. Gold was -$1.70, silver -$0.09 and copper -$0.03.

Last night, Sunday night here, CNBC came in with gold off $7.00 and silver off $0.42. They then changed it an hour later to our earlier figures of gold off $1.70 and silver off $0.09. We saw gold off as much as $7.50 and silver off $0.42. In all, Monday was a dynamite day, because we had a major reversal during the day, which sets Tuesday up as a strong day. The manipulators came on full force and lost. The question is how much gold is for sale and how much shorting will we get between $666 and $668 or $669? We’ll see. Gold rose $2.10 to $665.40 and silver ended at $13.30 down $0.02. The outside gold contract closed at $671.50 plus $2.50, silver was minus $0.10 at $13.35 and copper rose $0.03 to $3.18 after trading off early $0.03. The fundamentals and technicals never looked better. They only explanation for weakness was the cartel trying to offset the bad news regarding trade with China, captured insurgents in Iran and attempted assassination in Somalia. Then there was the matter again of a falling dollar. The dollar index closed at 82.62, the euro rose .0013 to $1.3365, the pound rose a hefty .0109 to $1.9783, the Canadian dollar was unchanged and the yen fell .03 to 117.80. Gold open interest fell 3,925 contracts to 341,951. Silver OI fell 1,053 to 110,549. Copper had a strong day wiping out technical resistance. The big Tocom gold shorts increased their shorts by 1,966 contracts to 113,800. Goldman increased their shorts by 117 to 32,030. The same gang reduced their net short position by 32 to 4,416 contracts. The HUI rose 2 to 139.02 and the XAU rose 7.50 to 345.16. The big test on the dollar is approaching at support at 82.45 and that should be attacked and broken shortly. The Dow rose 28, S&P 34 and Nasdaq 5 Dow points. Oil rose $0.14 to $66.01, gas -0.01 to $2.05; natural gas fell $0.09 to $7.64. The 2-year Treasury yield was 4.58% and the 10’s were 4.64%.

Peru’s gold output fell again in February to 12.5 tons, 25.2% below a year earlier. Silver output rose to 265 tons or 3.4% yoy. Newmont’s production at Yanacocha is the problem.

Tuesday’s stock markets opened higher as gold, silver, oil and gas opened lower early on. It read, the Dow +32, S&P +44, Nasdaq +40 Dow points. FTSE up 59 Dow points, CAC +28, DAX +20, Nikkei +216, the yen -.73, the euro -.0013, the pound -.0027, oil -$0.99, gas -$0.02, natural gas -$0.15, gold -$3.00, silver -$0.04 and copper +$0.08.

We are moving into the strongest period for physical gold demand with the start of the monsoon-wedding season later in the month. This is what the central banks will face when they try again to manipulate gold downward. We will bet on the brides and against the criminals. Gold is headed higher.

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SUBSCRIPTION and RENEWAL INFORMATION: 1-YEAR $129.95 U.S. Funds.   

Make check payable to ROBERT CHAPMAN (NOT International Forecaster), and mail to P.O. Box 510518, Punta Gorda, FL 33951-0518. Please include name, address, telephone number and e-mail address. We accept Visa and MasterCard charges.  Provide us with your card number and expiration date.  We will charge your card US$129.95 for a one-year subscription.

Foreigners please use foreign U.S. dollar denominated checks or Money Orders.

Note:  We publish twice a month by surface mail or twice a week by E-mail. international_forecaster@yahoo.com