Odracirys

I believe that now is a good time to start buying silver (or to buy more if you already have some). From around 2000 to 2008, silver had a huge run up in price.  Then, in mid-2008, the price fell until the end of the year, when it started to rebound.  From late 2008 until 2011, it had a huge run up, going from around $10 to nearly $50.  But from May 2011 until the present, the price has fallen again to about $20. It seems like a silver bubble has burst.  However, there are reasons why silver should outperform other investments in the future. Right now, the price of silver is at a "support level".  This is a price which was hard to break through on the way up, and is also hard to break through on the way down.  I don't believe that it will go down (substantially) from here.  Instead, I think that it will be pretty much all up.  (This price increase may start next month or later, but it will occur.)  Why do I think so? Mining prices hav...

This is how Civil Wars are Born At least 50 supporters of deposed President Morsi have been gunned down by the military.  This doesn't bode well for stability.  They could very well be the first shots of a civil war. It's hard to see how anything can go right in Egypt.  Mubarak did not allow Egyptians many freedoms. Morsi, an Islamist, was even worse for the country, although his election (which got him in the position to become dictator) was supposedly fair. Now, I hear that Ziad Bahaa el-Din, a former member of the Central Bank, is close to being chosen as interim prime minister.  I'm not generally a conspiracy theorist, but the fact that a central banker might become the most powerful man in Egypt sets off some alarm bells and piques my tinfoil hat side. Egypt had better get its act together (and this includes somehow trying to appeal to Morsi's supporters to at least participate in another election).  If not, the country could easily fall ap...

I don't think that anything happening in America on this July 4th comes at all close to the huge party happening in Tahrir Square and other parts of Egypt last night.  Boy...what a party.  When I was young, my mental image of Egypt was pyramids.  Now, it's green lasers.  Anyway, who knows how that will turn out. As for the United States, I'm more negative about it than at any point since the Bush administration.  In fact, it might be a new low, because the lesser of the two evils is showing himself to be a pretty pathetic lesser evil. To me, it seems that American rights are under attack.  On top of that, I am absolutely convinced that the whole American and world economy is a Ponzi scheme.  I don't think that we'll even have one more year of this tepid growth.  Ten years from now, we'll look back at  the days of   this poor economy and remember them as the good old days. Some Romans lived through the fall.  If you know about ...

I was wrong. I admit it.  I was wrong...at least with the timing.  I thought that the stock market would peak by at least the end of March (if not the end of last year), and it still blasted higher in April and May. So until I'm right, you don't have to believe me when it comes to this.  But do you think that perhaps the stock market might take a dive soon?  It looks set up to do so...if not now then sometime before the end of the year. What do you think? Below is a Dow Jones Industrial Average chart from 1973 to the present, showing clearly the three bubbles we've had - the tech  bubble, the housing bubble, and the QE bubble (which hasn't burst yet). https://www.google.com/finance/getchart?q=.DJI&p=40Y&i=86400

One Bomber Killed...But Let's Not Rush To Judge One of the Boston Bombing suspects has been killed after a shootout. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324493704578432030609754740.html I'd just like to say now that any death is a tragedy, and I'm sorry that the bomber had to die....ppppffff....Hahaha!...Oh, man...I just couldn't contain that laugh.  No, in all seriousness, I'm glad he's dead! Now, like I said before*, let's not rush to judge.  We have no idea that these bombers are Muslims.  Remember that well-worn quote, "Terrorism has no religion." (*See:   https://plus.google.com/u/0/100881434227795038077/posts/TKqwnKEitTW ) I mean, yeah, the now dead member of the Chechen bomber duo was named "Tamerlan"...in honor of what may perhaps have been the single most prolific Muslim murderer in the history of the world (AKA "Timur the Lame"). But wait just a second before you judge!  L et's take a look at ...

Morality Morality is somehow a difficult topic for people.  That's too bad.  It's quite easy for me.  I remember taking a college class on philosophy and thinking that I was way smarter than some of the most respected philosophers.  The study of philosophy and morality seems to be the study of the history of how people got things wrong.  Every subsequent philosopher seemed to disagree with the former one which we'd studied.  However, the correct answer was never revealed.  My reason for writing this post is to reveal it. But first, let me give some more background.  In my college philosophy class years ago, I was struck by how respected Immanuel Kant was in the realm of morality, even though he had very little to show for it.  For example, he thought that "lying" was wrong no matter what.  One of the more interesting applications of this is with the "inquiring murderer".  Kant said that if you are hiding an innocent would-b...

Don't judge a place by its media portrayal. I have always been someone who has had a fascination with the world.  I've studied the world in great detail...its history, cultures, and geography. I have also traveled around...not as much as I'd like, but enough to realize one important thing.  Books, TV shows, and other media lie.  Well, it's dishonesty through omission.  When we see images of the world, it's the vision that other people want to push on us.  Many cities are ugly, and to hide this fact, they will pick the needle out of a haystack and skillfully take a picture of that needle while making sure to hide any trace of the hay. A good many cities have been destroyed through the onslaught of Modernism.  However, others have survived relatively unscathed.  This is a visual tale of two cities. The first is Kyoto.  Hailed as the most beautiful city in Japan, it was a former capital of Japan and a center of Japanese high culture.  It has...