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The Sound of
Laughter
by Edgar J.
Steele

December 17,
2006

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"Hello,
darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a
vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the
vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains ... within the sound of
silence."
--- The Sound of Silence, Paul Simon (1964),
recorded with Art Garfunkel (1966)

My name is Edgar
J. Steele.

As so often is the case, today's
posting began as a small squib for friends, then snowballed.  Much of this
has been posted on my web site for over a week, briefly on the main page as a
blog entry, then as an independent article, all the while undergoing some pretty
massive updating, editing and, even, a name change or two.  I have resisted
recording it until now because I considered it a work in progress.

Today's is a
financial discussion with wider implications than many might think because,
unfortunately, money is power.  Financial markets reflect and, often,
presage social, political and military developments.  To view world events
without an eye on the markets is to see only part of the picture, with the
reverse even more true.

Realistically
assess world developments and one pretty accurately can forecast financial
market swings - by that, I mean the broad strokes, not short-term
gyrations.  This should be an obvious truth, but one that often is
overlooked.  It is what has caused me to promote gold and silver for
several years now, with only the past year truly beginning to fulfill
predictions made by so few of us.

Study history and the repetitive
nature of human events becomes apparent, with the economics of empire
particularly
predictable.  How odd that we are able to stand upon the shoulders of those
who have gone before us for all things technological, yet must relearn things
social all over again, each and every generation.  That simple fact, alone,
suggests the true purpose of life, you know.

Warfare is both social and
technological, which is why human beings grow ever more efficient at killing one
another, yet never learn the real lesson of war (that there are no winners, of
course).  That is why generals inevitably fight the last war, again and
again, until they lose.  That is how the regimented British lost their
colonies to a bunch of rag-tag bushwhackers.  That also is why America is
losing in the Middle East.  In their time, Roman generals also
succumbed.

It is no small coincidence that,
like Britain of the 1700s, America today struggles to retain its empire, or that
the struggle has been the same for every empire, down through history.  You
see, empire has a nasty habit of killing off its center and the rulers of empire
never go gracefully.  All empires have gone down the same way:  in
utter disbelief, all the while grabbing and clutching at the perks and comforts
that the descendants of empire builders came to view as their natural and
rightful due.  Rotting from the inside out, the economy of empire unwinds,
always, in the same fashion:  overspent, overstretched and, ultimately,
bankrupt.  Sound like any country you might know?

Why must it be
this way?  Why must America now fail, just as did past empires?
Because the leaders of empire, like teenagers, cannot be told a thing.  If
youth is wasted on the young, then money is wasted on the old.  Thomas
Jefferson knew this.  So did George Washington.  So did most of
America's founders.  Imagine Jefferson, Washington, Franklin and Paine in
the same room with George W. Bush or Nero or any of a number of other
borderline-imbecilic heirs to the keys of empire.  Do you see my
point?

Nobody vital ever
gets past the inbred and overly-comfortable sycophants of empire so as to
refreshen and renew it.  Did you know that Thomas Jefferson actually
advocated a fresh American revolution every generation or so?

In short, all this is why I and
some others know where America is headed while her erstwhile leaders, not to
mention her actual rulers, obviously do not, yet refuse to allow those who do a
turn at the tiller.  Their loss of comfort - their pain - would be too
great.  And so, they take the rest of us down with them as they seek to
retain an empire they neither earned nor deserve.

But, things look so ... normal,
don't they?  In word:  No.  Not at all.  Already, the
economic "perfect storm" that has assembled just outside the awareness of most
Americans dwarfs that which engulfed America, then the entire world, nearly a
century ago.  And there is no avoiding it.

While I foresee economic and
financial catastrophe for America of Biblical proportions, very recently there
have been some exceptionally irresponsible false reports circulated around the
Internet about American bank runs, caps on bank withdrawals, China dumping the
entirety of its dollar reserves, America calling out China financially and OPEC
dropping the dollar, among others.  The problem is that there is a nugget
of truth to all of these ridiculous stories, so some choose to believe them ...
probably the result of wishful thinking, in reality.

Yes, all these things - and
much, much worse - will come to pass, but not tomorrow and not next week.

Yes, the Chinese could
collapse America's economy by this time tomorrow with a simple press release,
should they choose to do so, but they have more to gain by continuing to bleed
us before they decide to gut us.  That fact, alone, escapes the attention
of most.

The Chinese think differently from us.  They are at war with us and
they take a long view.  Theirs is not a profit/loss mentality.  The
Chinese think in terms of world conquest - and not financial conquest,
either.  We greatly err in attributing our own outlooks and motivations to
them.

I
suspect that many of the rumors flying around find their source in Friday's
Washington Post, which carried a story entitled,  "U.S.
lawmakers urge action after China meeting."  It seems that a
particularly dense congressman (Sander Levin, D-Mich) called for China to be
labeled a "currency manipulator."  In that same article, an even
denser fool named Kevin Kearns, head of something called the U.S. Industry and
Business Council, referred to Treasury Secretary Paulson's desperate Chinese
visit this past week as "idle diplomatic chitchat" and stated that
"Congress needs to seize control over China's trade policy."  Yeah,
right.  Congress can't seize its own pants, so intent is it upon bending
over for every special interest in town.

Friday also saw both gold and
silver drop like rocks at the end of the day's trading, with the dollar
strengthening against other currencies.  Just some serious manipulation by
the world's real currency manipulators - the US government -  so
that Paulson comes home from China not looking like the obvious loser that he
was (the Chinese told him to pound sand).  Both metals will bounce right
back, with silver bumping $14 per ounce again shortly and gold pushing to new
highs, as well, rest assured.  In fact, tomorrow would be a great day to
buy silver, but do it early ... real early.

While the Chinese have spoken of
exchanging some of the monetary reserves they have constructed from their trade
surplus with America, you see, they insist upon keeping their currency pegged to
the US dollar, which is why all that stuff down at Wal-Mart just seems cheaper
and cheaper these days.  Meanwhile, America exports some of its inflation
to China, who eventually will take a big-time loss when finally it decides to
dump its excessive dollar reserves.

Saddam Hussein stopped trading
his oil for dollars, which is what really got him deposed (that and Israeli
demands, of course).  Now Iran has said it will do the same, which is why
Bush wants to attack it (along with more Israeli demands, of course).
Venezuela is going its own way, without the dollar, and its leader, Hugo Chavez,
fears the American invasion each and every day.  Argentina and Brazil just
have announced their intention to trade internationally in other than the
dollar, as well.  Do you suppose we will be invading Buenos Aires
next?  Everybody is running scared of the day that China finally cuts the
dollar loose.

Of course, China's refusal to
follow suit makes America less competitive all the time, with more and more of
her industry heading overseas every day, along with the jobs, principally to
China.  When America finally has no manufacturing capacity left and no
ex-employees who could remember how to do their jobs, China will pull the plug
and the party will be over for good.

Supposedly, America wants China
to float its currency against the dollar and, I suppose, that is true to a
degree.  Some industry and banking leaders actually do see the coming
economic pandemic and are trying to forestall it by letting some of the air out
slowly.  In reality, what Treasury Secretary Paulson and others fear is the
Chinese dumping their reserves all at once, which would collapse America's
economy overnight.  That is why Mr. Kearns' demand that Congress "seize
control over China's trade policy" is so patently ridiculous.  China calls
the shots now, folks, ensured by your new toaster-oven and big-screen TV, not to
mention all that stuff you just bought and are busy wrapping for Christmas this
year.

Now, having said all that,
and before we move on to my now-obligatory rant for the day, permit me to lay
the groundwork with a very specific financial marketplace discussion, one with
relevance to a great many list members of long standing.

Time to
Board the ETF Train

Just as advised
in recent musings, I have moved all my modest market investments into SLV, the
Exchange-Traded Fund for silver ...  excepting only a small GoldCorp (GG)
holding with which I am having trouble parting.  I have held GoldCorp so
long that I barely can stand to see all of it go, though I did manage to let go
of all but this last smidgen during GG's recent price runup.

Now comes
brokerage behemoth Merrill-Lynch and recommends GoldCorp:  http://metalsplace.com/metalsnews/?a=8964.
As any good contrarian must, I view a blessing by the mainstream as the kiss of
death.  It's just like every stock you hear about from any of those morons
braying at us from CNBC's ever-dwindling niche:  If they like it, you
can bet it's toast.  Perhaps GG will get a short-term kick, which will
persuade me to unload the very last of my GG shares, then ... who knows?
Regardless, the Merrill-Lynch analyst called for a "target" stock price of $38
for GoldCorp.  GG closed Friday at just under $29.

I know where the
whole market has to go, after all.  So do all of America's corporate
insiders, who are selling
their shareholdings in droves.  So do you.  Heaven
knows, I tell you often enough.  Ask yourself:  Have we yet to be
wrong?

When the stock
market goes, all the mining stocks will go down with it at the outset.
Some will come crawling back.  Will GG be among them?
Maybe.  Or maybe not:  Since GoldCorp's merger with
Glamis now is complete,
Glamis'
CEO has taken over from the lamentable Ian Telfer, in yet another
move that I doubt augurs well for GG shareholders.

Lords of
the Grown-Up Flies

As seen following last year's Hurricane Katrina and, many years
earlier, in SouthCentral LA - once looting begins, animal instinct of the basest
nature seems to govern the behavior of certain substrata of society, with the
ultimate destruction of all that is being looted.  Trust me when I tell you
that America's government, business and media strongholds all are gripped firmly
in the hands of globalists possessed of the basest, most self-serving and greedy
instincts known to man.  I've been in there, right alongside them and
fighting them, for more years than I care to remember.  I know what I'm
talking about.

In restless
dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
'Neath the halo of a
street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were
stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night ... and touched the
sound of silence. (Simon, Ibid)

GG, once so solid and cash
rich, just
sold a significant piece of its Wheaton silver shares to
meet cash-flow requirements, after all; cash-flow requirements kicked way up by
paying way too much for Glamis in the surprise non-shareholder-approved
merger, not to mention some pretty rich stock options granted to GG's
executives.  Some might call all that being unclear on the concept.
Some might call that simply business as usual in the modern Western model that
enriches executives and directors at the expense of shareholders and
employees.

Lessons of the Food Chain

GoldCorp may well be one of the bigger boys of
gold now, yet still is dwarfed by Barrick.  Just announced:
Barrick's hostile attempted takeover of NovaGold has failed
- some
think the expiration of Barrick's most recent tender-offer extension
merely is a pause in the campaign, but I am not one of them.  This
Barrick/NovaGold battle became a cause celebre in gold circles, most
notably with the admirable Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) throwing its considerable
influence against Barrick.  Barrick almost certainly has the good sense now
to turn to other things - meaning, easier pickings.  I doubt the gold
community, thin as it is, has the patience to rally behind yet another Barrick
target.

Well, well, well...  You just have to wonder where Barrick's
sights might next wander, don't you?  If to GoldCorp, then expect another
on-the-cheap takeover bid (Barrick may be many things, but its management is not
composed of complete fools and thieves).  Frankly, I no longer care what
happens to GoldCorp now that it has fallen into the hands of the greedy, the
self-serving and the globalist - but, I repeat myself.

When Pigs Get Fat, Do Hogs Get Slaughtered?

Something I
said before bears repeating:  The outrageously
overgenerous price given by GoldCorp's outgoing CEO Ian Telfer to Glamis
shareholders, sprung on GoldCorp shareholders by
surprise on August 31, resulted in a dramatic drop in GG's stock price on
record volume before any of us out here knew what was going on.  This
took place within mere days of Telfer treacherously and, in my professional
legal opinion, illegally discouraging
shareholders from selling out to a minitender offeror for a price higher
than that to which he, himself, then drove GG's stock price with the Glamis
merger announcement!

GG dropped like a rock on August 31 and, like so many, by the
time I heard the news about the GoldCorp/Glamis merger, so much damage had been
done that I couldn't imagine it getting much worse.  I said as much in
"Goldcorp: Feeling
Glamis All Over?" which I posted just two
business days after the carnage began.  GG's stock price was to catch a downdraft, however, and ended up
down $9 before another month passed, to about $22, a drop of nearly one-third of
GoldCorp's pre-merger-announcement price.  All things considered, I assume
that the GG/Glamis deal masked some behind-the-scenes maneuvers, about which we
likely never will hear, but for which a great many GG shareholders paid
dearly.

Better a Half Bottle in Front of Me than a Frontal
Lobotomy

Hopefully, all who follow my irregular market observations held
on to their GoldCorp stock as I advised if
they, too, got caught flat-footed by Telfer's merger announcement, and have been
able to unload their shares at current levels, also as I
advised three weeks ago.  In fact, just a few days
ago we saw GG's price echo pre-merger levels, pushing $31.  With
luck, you got out somewhere between $30 and $31.  I exited all but the
diminutive stash mentioned above at $29 and change.  Not as good as the $40
peak we saw earlier this year and perhaps not quite as good as might crop up
during coming days or weeks, but quite respectable, considering that GoldCorp
traded for under $10 when first I started talking about it, years ago.
Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and foresight often is overly
hopeful.

And in the naked light I
saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without
speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that
voices never share
And no one dare ... disturb the sound of silence. (Simon,
Ibid)

As usual, the rich (corporate executives, directors and likely
some silent "special" interests, in this case) get richer and the poor (that's
you, me, most shareholders and the employees) get poorer.  Isn't capitalism
just grand?  Bottom line:  I'm pulling the plug on GG once and for
all.

Migrating off the Grid

What's more, I am on the verge of pulling the plug on paper
assets altogether.  Remember that I always have said I would retreat
further and further toward physical precious metals, the closer we get to the
economic abyss I foresaw so many years ago.  Though I've gotten used to the
sound of laughter, I honestly cannot understand anybody today who does not
acknowledge the very real possibility of a complete financial market meltdown
unlike anything ever before seen in America.

The Sounds of Laughter

They laughed years ago when first I said to buy GG at under $10
per share.  Nobody laughed last month when I said to sell GG above $29,
a gain of 205%!

They laughed years ago when first I said to buy gold at under
$325 per ounce.  Nobody is laughing today, with gold selling for about
$625, a gain of 92%!

They laughed years ago when first I said to buy silver at under
$4.50 per ounce.  Nobody is laughing today, with silver now selling for
about $14, a gain of 211%!

They laughed when
I said, a little over a year ago, to sell gold at $473 per
ounce and plow the entire proceeds into silver at $7.50.  Nobody is
laughing today, with that maneuver yielding a 46% gain in the interim,
versus a "mere" 32% for those who elected to stand pat with gold.  That
divergence will become far greater as time goes on, rest assured.

Furthermore, while my recommended gold-for-silver swap has
yielded a gain almost half again as large as that realized "simply" by holding
gold all these years, it has positioned us to avoid the potential gold
confiscation about which I first warned you a
year ago (a viewpoint that still draws laughter), the statutory basis for
which my friend Larry Patterson, publisher of Criminal Politics, first
alerted me.  I have read the statute in detail and, clearly, there is only
one implication to be drawn:  Mr. Patterson's.  Odd that nobody else
seems to have gotten behind the notion.  Odd and opportune, since it
means that silver still is a bargain.

Laughter is a fickle
form of criticism, as I have learned.

They laughed when I called for
Bush's impeachment, years ago.  Nobody laughs at that today!

They laughed when I said America
was becoming a police state, years ago.  Nobody laughs at that
today!

They laughed earlier this year when I said that 9/11 would
come in August.  Nobody laughed just two weeks later when the
"Liquid Bomber" plot was unveiled.  Some still laugh at the rock-solid proof I
offered that the Liquid Bomber plot was a "false flag" operation of the US and
UK governments, just as 9/11 was a false-flag operation of the US and Israeli
governments (which latter assertion still draws raucous laughter from an
ever-declining portion of America, owing to the overwhelming
evidence).

Fools, said I, you do not know
Silence like a
cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I
might reach you.
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed ...
in the wells of silence. (Simon, Ibid)

The Best Evidence of Where We are Headed...

I could go on and on and on, but you get the idea.  Read through my past
articles - I leave every single one of them posted on line for a reason, you
know.  Show me where I have been wrong even once.  Just once - prove
me wrong about something significant ... about anything significant, for that
matter.  Don't argue or make unprovable claims - spare me your contrary
rhetoric and unsupportable allegations, please - prove me wrong about
just one thing I have said about anything of significance in recent years,
either on line or in my book!

Well, yes, in fact, I do have a point to make and a genuinely relevant
point it is, as well.  Today's litany isn't simply ego-driven braying,
though we all love to be right - lawyers more than most and I more than most
lawyers.  Even so, usually I am willing to be wrong - which in itself
evidences the fact that I rarely am wrong.

Here's the point:  I still get laughter.

I still get laughter concerning most everything I have to say about
the future of both America and the world.

I still get laughter when I speak out about upcoming world war,
economic depression or the breakup of America.

I still get laughter when I talk of the coming American race war,
America's future military defeat or the ongoing control of America by Zionists
and the terrible danger that Zionism represents.

As pointed out, I've gotten used to the laughter.  I've also grown
accustomed to being right.

...Look at Where We are Coming From

As promised, here is the obligatory rant (my shortest on record):
Tell me how someone like myself, who has been so right, so consistently,
about so many things - right down the line - possibly can be wrong concerning
all the things about which I still carry on, most all of which still draw
unceasing laughter from so many?

That question should make anyone capable of rational thought very
nervous.

And the people bowed and prayed
To the
neon God they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words
that it was forming.
And the sign said, the words of the prophets
Are
written on the subway walls and tenement halls.
And whispered in the sound
... of silence. (Simon,
Ibid)

My name is Edgar J. Steele.  Thanks for listening.
Please visit my web site, http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/,
for other messages just like this one.
-ed

Copyright ©2006, Edgar J. Steele

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