Additional Comments and Contributions

A Brief, Superficial, and Arbitrary History of Property-Price Collapses (by Fred Sheehan)

A history of property prices by my friend Fred Sheehan stresses the fact that despite strong population growth real estate prices can collapse. However, under the present central banking system with its gigantic money printing presses, it is possible that property prices continue to rise in nominal terms but collapse in real (inflation adjusted) terms or against foreign currencies and especially gold.
Marc Faber

Geopolitics

Interview with Ahmed Sheikh, Al-Jazeera Editor-in-Chief and one of the most important opinion-makers in the Arab world: What do you call suicide bombers?

Must-See Video: The Iraq War in 8 Minutes

A new video shot for a London newspaper and the BBC by an embed with the U.S. Army, suggests, in chilling words and images, the absurd position of the U.S. in Iraq, as the people we try to train -- you know, our comrades in arms -- seem more intent on lobbing grenades at us.

By Greg Mitchell (October 22, 2006) -- Over the years, I have made few requests of readers of this column, beyond hinting that, maybe, you ought to return here from time to time. But now I have to urge you to drop everything, finish reading this come-on, and then link to the video described below. It’s the most revealing little (eight-minute) video I’ve seen yet on our country’s preposterous position in Iraq.

Aptly, it is titled, "Iraq: The Real Story." It won’t turn your stomach, in fact, you may even chuckle in spots (like you might have done in reading much of “Catch-22”). But, hopefully, you will end up screaming at the computer screen.

Click here to watch the video (presented by GuardianFilms and BBC Newsnight)

Don't believe those inflation numbers

Mark Brandly shows clearly how governments will always attempt to underreport the inflation estimates. As Mark points out they achieve this by the under-weighting of inflating sectors of the economy (health care, education) and by using "core inflation", which excludes product prices that are "volatile," and by volatile they mean rising faster than other prices. By excluding the most inflationary prices from the CPI estimates the statisticians at the BLS can conceal the true harm of inflation.

"News from Vietnam - one of the world's most promising economies"