Thursday, November 15, 2007

Guh-nomes


I read somewhere that in Harold Wilson's 1956 attack on Swiss bankers' alleged foreign currency manipulations, he pronounced "gnomes" with a hard G, perhaps for oratorical emphasis. Now Jim Willie thinks these shy creatures can be seen popping their heads above ground level again:

The Swiss want power to return to central Europe. Recall that the owners of the US Federal Reserve are reported to reside in both Switzerland and London, in more control of US monetary policy (if not political leaders) than people realize.

He thinks the Swiss franc is set for a rise.

Speaking of which, I speculated some while ago that Warren Buffett's currency speculation may have been in the "swissy", perhaps as a hedge against possible forex movements while negotiating a bid for the Zurich financial group. Not that I'd put any money on either of those horses, of course.
So much of European history is connected with mining: Martin Luther and Protestantism generally - maybe because digging out wealth with your own hands gave you a certain independence from government, and a taste for even more freedom. Perhaps that's the underlying theme of gold: intrinsic value that can't be stolen by rulers.
Update
... though according to this story, it can be seized by force, as we see in today's Federal raid on the Liberty Dollar. Watch out for more of this story and the call for a legal class action to follow. Governments have no sense of humour about unofficial challenges to their currency.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

1966

Sackerson said...

Thought it was a little early. So much for Wikipedia.

James Higham said...

A doc I have which is old and unsubstantiated from other sources says that most of the Fed have domiciles in Central Europe and will transfer there.

This today is interesting in that context.

As for the Liberty Dollar - it's pretty clear then what's going down. Only worthless fiat money to be held by the populace when the crash comes.

Nick Drew said...

no sense of humour

bastards ! shades of Roosevelt

(and how long does it take before owning gold become defined as terrorism, eh ?)

Sackerson said...

Nick: Calling it a dollar was asking for trouble; especially minting "Ron Paul" dollars. An old ex-navy man told me that the Navy came down hardest on... graffiti.

James: who exactly ARE the owners of the Fed? It can hardly be a lost-Ark type of quest to find out. Those who know more about banking than I do, must have a fairly good idea.

And I still don't believe in an apocalyptic crash to come. Major problems, yes (and opportunities, if you've got the gambling chips available).

Anonymous said...

Hayek recomended that the solution to the currency problem was to allow competing currencies, didn't he?

Sackerson said...

But does the boss want to hear a good idea that involves his not being the boss any more?