About that FDIC Controversy, and Some Other Internet Rumours

I answered a few emails on this a week or so ago, but the issue seems to have come back again.

There was a change in the aggregation of accounts at the FDIC as of 31 Dec 2012. That change rolled back a consideration that had been granted for 'non-interest bearing transactional accounts' held at a bank. Such an account is what is normally considered a checking account. Those were to be aggregated with the other accounts of the account holder.

But in terms of aggregation, nothing else changed. Some people said the rule would aggregate ALL accounts at ALL banks to a single Social Security number in the amount of $250,000.

This is not what the FDIC said, not at all.  And there updated information from 1 January 2013 confirms this.

The aggregation rules are still based on a 'per bank' basis. And within that bank, those rules are roughly as follows per the FDIC's webpage.

I do not know the future. Some will ask, 'well do you trust the ....?'    Probably not, and I tend to trust in God, and look at the data for everything else. But there is a wide gap between blind trust and just making things up.   And it is there that we must make our stand, on as firm a ground as we can find.

It is not unreasonable to believe that dollar debts will be paid in devalued dollars, and there will be de facto defaults as well.   This has been going on for quite some time, and there is plenty of historical precedent.  Much of the hoohah going on in politics revolves around the allocation of financial pain.

There are legitimate concerns, and fears, and phantoms.   The difference between the first two is the difference between probability and possibility.  And with regard to the last, it is a terror of the imagination that is inimical to reason and to a rewarding life and the refuge of despair.

We entering a time of rumour and hysteria. I have been hearing some rather crazy things, about the Mormons buying up all the real estate of California, and the Queen of England buying up Nevada.  And some other things I do not care to even mention in this Café, from the usual repugnant sources of fear and hatred and violence about the usual victims of prejudice. 

Because to do that is not to stand with the truth as we can know it, even if we think we are wallowing with those in the mud for 'the right ends' and things we may sincerely believe.   That merely serves the madness, which serves none but itself.  

If hatred and fear crowd out the reason, and love, in our words and our minds, we have probably gone off the path.

Prime Minister Abe's Radical Plan for Japan's Constitution

Here is a notice of an upcoming talk at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan that I found to be of interest.

I am sure there is some political hyperbole here, and there are also some big 'ifs.'  But this sort of thing does seem to be the general trend amongst the developed nations. 

Democracy was an innovation imposed on Japan in the aftermath of the second World War.  Most westerners do not realize that for the majority of its political life, the postwar government of Japan has been a government dominated by a single party, the LDP in partnership with their corporate combinations, or keiretsus.  

And this 'Japan Model' of concentrated political power in a partnership between government and their corporations is responsible for the lack of reform that led to Japan's 'lost decade.'

The Constitution and its integrity takes on an added importance to those devoted to the democractic freedoms and individual protections for this reason.

The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan
Shinzo Abe's Radical Plan to Change Japan's Constitution

Lawrence Repeta, Professor, Meiji University School of Law
Masako Kamiya, Professor, Gakushuin University Faculty of Law
Yoichi Kitamura, Representative Director, the Japan Civil Liberties Union

12:00-14:00 Thursday, February 21, 2013

Japan's Liberal Democratic Party has made no secret of its plan to comprehensively reform the Constitution, which it says was 'imposed' on the country after World War 2. On April 28, 2012, it revealed what these plans are. The date was chosen to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

In Diet interpellations on January 30, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared that the party would move forward with these plans under his leadership. For many years, debate over constitutional amendment has focused on the war-renouncing Article 9 but the LDP reform plan is far more radical.

If successful, the party would delete Article 97, the Constitution's most powerful declaration of human rights, and make several other far-reaching changes, including elevating maintenance of "public order" over all individual rights; adding a new requirement that citizens "respect" the kimi ga yo hymn and the hinomaru flag; eliminating free speech protection for activities "with the purpose of damaging the public interest or public order, or associating with others for such purposes"; and reducing parliamentary majorities required for constitutional amendments.

If the party achieves these goals, it will create a Constitution that mandates citizen obligations to the state rather than the other way around. This would effectively mean a rejection of popular sovereignty and a return to Japan's prewar order. The LDP and its allies secured more than two-thirds of the House of Representatives in December elections. If they can achieve the same level in the House of Councilors, the door will be open to a new Constitution to match Mr. Abe's vision.

A panel of experts has agreed to come to the FCCJ and explain the significance of these enormously important proposals. Lawrence Repeta is a professor at Meiji University Faculty of Law. Masako Kamiya is a Professor of Law at Gakushuin University and representative director of the Japan Civil Liberties Union. Yoichi Kitamura is a representative director of the same union and a co-counsel in many noteworthy cases, including litigation that led to the historic 2005 Supreme Court decision that found the Diet in violation of the Constitution for failing to adopt adequate voting procedures for Japanese who reside abroad.

Please reserve in advance, 3211-3161 or on the website (still & TV cameras inclusive). The charge for members/non-members is 1,700/2,600 yen, non-members eligible to attend may pay in cash (menu: braised chicken with rosemary and cream sauce). Reservations canceled less than one hour in advance for working press members, and 24 hours for all others, will be charged in full. Reservations and cancellations are not complete without confirmation. For meal service, please enter the room by 12:25.

Weekend Viewing: Shakespeare, For All Time

In Search of Shakespeare by Michael Wood is a wonderfully entertaining overview of the life and career of William Shakespeare, of whom we know quite a bit. And Wood gives us a deeper insight into Shakespeare, the man.

I enjoy Michael Wood's popular investigations into history and geography.  He brings an intellectual excitement and wonder to his documentaries that never seems to lose its edge, or to become cloying.  I do not know if this is his persona, or his genuine character.  But he is remarkable in his ability to share his knowledge and joy of learning with ordinary people, which is the hallmark of a teacher.  

Below is Part Four of the series, dealing with the last part of his life.  I recommend the entire series to you, as well as some of his other works. 

I spent quite a bit of time reading and studying Shakespeare at school. I was lucky to have two Harvard educated teachers, one in high school and one at University, who were very knowledgeable literary men, who had a deep learning of Shakespeare, his sonnets and his plays. 

And I read widely about him and his works on my own.  Reading was a solace, an entertainment, and at certain times a refuge.  I suppose as a  working class young man, Shakespeare provided a view of life that lifted me above what I saw each day, and gave me a broader, renovated vision.  This is the power of art, to uplift and transform, to speak to others across the vast gulf of place and time.

Literature, music and the visual arts are often denigrated in 'hard societies,' and abased to the pedestrian use of the State as diversion and propaganda. But even in the most heavily laden social environments, beauty in the arts can bloom. And they do so much more with the encouragement, rather than repression, of the culture.

What is remarkable about the wealthy class in America is that they have such narrowly limited educations, in the manner of clerks and technicians and professional conmen, and thereby have so little appreciation of art. 

Their expectations of themselves are exhausted in material acquisition.  They are given to banal and garish displays, imposing but lifeless edifices of power.  They have deadened their sentiments in pursuit of the material. It reminds one of the monumentally lifeless art of National Socialism, a cultural 'dead end' without any higher prospects.

And cut off from the organic fertility of its culture, the artistic impulse becomes increasingly introspective and eccentric, formless, fruitlessly growing inward, howling its shock and isolation from within deep wells of subjectivity.

Creativity is a sign of life. If a society has no arts, it has no creative life.  Look at the manner in which a people put their creativity to use, and one will see what they hold in high regard, what they love, and serve.

Intermediate Gold Chart - 1550 to 1570 For a Range Trade, If It Gets There

This looks like a long consolidation, with a range trade of 1550 to 1800.

If we do get down as low as 1570 one might be inclined to step in and buy, adding to longer term holdings and for a trade, with an eye to that 1550 as a low and an upside target north of 1700.

I am sure most traders on the Street are seeing/thinking the same thing. So it might take some agility, and scaling in. And of course if too many specs pile on there, the bullion banks will deliver a short term smacking on general principle. That's what they do. It is tough playing against the house, especially when they get to deal your cards face up.

But I will also be keeping an eye on the stock markets, to see if they correlate with the metals, or if not, and how the VIX fares.