San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom crosses his fingers as he speaks at a rally...

Supporters of Proposition 8 watch San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom at a...

Chart shows selected ballot measures;

LOS ANGELES (AP) - In an election otherwise full of liberal triumphs, the gay rights movement suffered a stunning defeat as California voters approved a ban on same-sex marriages that overrides a recent court decision legalizing them.
The constitutional amendment—widely seen as the most momentous of the nation's 153 ballot measures—will limit marriage to heterosexual couples, the first time such a vote has taken place in a state where gay unions are legal.

Gay-rights activists had a rough election elsewhere as well. Ban-gay-marriage amendments were approved in Arizona and Florida, and Arkansas voters approved a measure banning unmarried couples from serving as adoptive or foster parents. Supporters made clear that gays and lesbians were their main target.

In California, with 95 percent of precincts reporting Wednesday, the ban had 5,125,752 votes, or 52 percent, while there were 4,725,313 votes, or 48 percent, opposed.

Similar bans had prevailed in 27 states before Tuesday's elections, but none were in California's situation—with about 18,000 gay couples married since a state Supreme Court ruling in May. The state attorney general, Jerry Brown, has said those marriages will remain valid, although legal challenges are possible.

Spending for and against the amendment reached $74 million, making it the most expensive social-issues campaign in U.S. history and the most expensive campaign this year outside the race for the White House.

Elsewhere, voters in Colorado and South Dakota rejected measures that could have led to sweeping bans of abortion, and Washington became only the second state—after Oregon—to offer terminally ill people the option of physician-assisted suicide.

A first-of-its-kind measure in Colorado, which was defeated soundly, would have defined life as beginning at conception. Its opponents said the proposal could lead to the outlawing of some types of birth control as well as abortion.

The South Dakota measure would have banned abortions except in cases of rape, incest and serious health threat to the mother. A tougher version, without the rape and incest exceptions, lost in 2006. Anti-abortion activists thought the modifications would win approval, but the margin of defeat was similar, about 55 percent to 45 percent of the vote.

"The lesson here is that Americans, in states across the country, clearly support women's ability to access abortion care without government interference," said Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation.

In Washington, voters gave solid approval to an initiative modeled after Oregon's "Death with Dignity" law, which allows a terminally ill person to be prescribed lethal medication they can administer to themselves. Since Oregon's law took effect in 1997, more than 340 people—mostly ailing with cancer—have used it to end their lives.

The marijuana reform movement won two prized victories, with Massachusetts voters decriminalizing possession of small amounts of the drug and Michigan joining 12 other states in allowing use of pot for medical purposes.

Henceforth, people caught in Massachusetts with an ounce or less of pot will no longer face criminal penalties. Instead, they'll forfeit the marijuana and pay a $100 civil fine.

The Michigan measure will allow severely ill patients to register with the state and legally buy, grow and use small amounts of marijuana to relieve pain, nausea, appetite loss and other symptoms.

Nebraska voters, meanwhile, approved a ban on race- and gender-based affirmative action, similar to measures previously approved in California, Michigan and Washington. Returns in Colorado on a similar measure were too close to call.

Ward Connerly, the California activist-businessman who has led the crusade against affirmative action, said Obama's victory proved his point. "We have overcome the scourge of race," Connerly said.

Energy measures met a mixed fate. In Missouri, voters approved a measure requiring the state's three investor-owned electric utilities to get 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2021. But California voters defeated an even more ambitious measure that would have required the state's utilities to generate half their electricity from windmills, solar systems, geothermal reserves and other renewable sources by 2025.

Two animal-welfare measures passed—a ban on dog racing in Massachusetts, and a proposition in California that outlaws cramped cages for egg-laying chickens.

Amid deep economic uncertainty, proposals to cut state income taxes were defeated decisively in North Dakota and Massachusetts.

In San Francisco, an eye-catching local measure—to bar arrests for prostitution—was soundly rejected. Police and political leaders said it would hamper the fight against sex trafficking. And in San Diego, voters decided to make permanent a ban on alcohol consumption on city beaches.

____

Associated Press writer Paul Elias in San Francisco contributed to this report.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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The silver market has been looking interesting for months, despite the price collapse. Beneath the surface of the recent spot price falls the structure of the market is changing in such a way that a powerful bull market is being set up.

Metal holdings for Barclay’s iShares Silver Trust (SLV) have so overwhelmed selling pressure that the trust has added a total of 68,921,884 ounces of silver to its holdings so far this year, reported resourceinvestor.com. Yet late last week the COMEX futures market reportedly held 131,530,256 ounces of silver in its warehouses.

This so far in 2008 the leading silver exchange traded fund SLV has added the equivalent of 52.4% of all the silver metal that the COMEX futures market has in its vaults. That surely represents amazing buying pressure at a time when silver prices are in crashing. Something is not right clearly.
False market

Then as resourceinvestor.com comments: “if we consider all of the 95,873 open contracts for silver on the COMEX as of last Tuesday, then we find that the COMEX traders are trading contracts either side, long and short, of 479.4 million ounces of silver but only have 131.5 million ounces behind it.”

Why then have silver prices been falling? That brings us back to the alleged manipulation of the market by two US banks over the summer, now under investigation by the regulator.

Resourceinvestor.com says: “Exactly two U.S. banks continued to keep their thumb on the COMEX silver market as of October 7 when the silver price had already declined from $19.00 to $11.00 and change in the face of severe physical silver shortages of metal on the street. As of October 7 the two largest commercial banks still held a scandalous 23,308 net short silver contracts when the entire commercial net short position was 29,829 contracts. That’s right, two banks still dominated the small silver futures market with over 78% of all the commercial net short positioning.”

This is not only downright illegal and unfair, it is producing a false market. And in false markets things can change very rapidly. Is it any wonder that metal is now flowing out of the COMEX and into the physical market. SLV investors sense a bargain and are effectively pulling silver stocks out of the futures market where the price is false.

Resourceinvestors.com notes that over two million ounces of silver have fled the vaults of the COMEX in just the last five trading days alone. How long before that trickle becomes a flood and the futures market in silver is effectively shut down and the physical spot market takes over?

Expect to see silver prices head to the moon. In the late 1970s it was a bungled price manipulation by the Hunt Brothers that sent silver prices super high, and bust the market for the next two decades. Silver today is trading at around $10 an ounce compared with an average price of $24 an ounce in 1980. What else today costs a fraction of the price 28 years’ ago?

Now it will be a bungled price manipulation by US banks that releases the silver price from its artificially depressed state. Silver bugs have gotten silver hair waiting for this to happen, but it is finally upon us and nothing and nobody can stop it.

An investment tip: stock up on physical silver, bars, coins and ‘pure play’ silver equities which should deliver the most outstanding profits of all. These are extraordinary times in capital markets and exactly the sort of period when such extraordinary events happen.

For more on gold and silver buy my new book online from this link

Silver’s rise to prominence in the past few years has highlighted the few investment vehicles available.

The ETF now holds nearly 150 million ounces of silver on its own. There is also a small handful of pure-play silver equities that have generated plenty of attention from investors and analysts, including Silver Wheaton Corp., SLW (owned 49% by GoldCorp GG)
Pan American Silver Corp., PAAS
ECU Silver Mining  ECU.TO
and First Majestic Silver Corp. FR.TO

The pure-play silver companies tend to trade at a slight premium to gold companies simply because there are fewer of them. Primary silver mines are also very hard to come by, and most silver is produced as a by-product of gold or base metals

TruthNews.us  » Blog Archive  » David Gergen explains ‘esoteric’ New World Order in confrontation:

Home Article Archives Listen to Alex Jones Contact TruthNews David Gergen explains ‘esoteric’ New World Order in confrontation
WeAreChange Ohio October 20, 2008

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-tOofPty3c
Members of WeAreChange Ohio spoke with David Gergen, an editor of U.S. News and World Report, and political analyst for CNN. Gergen covered a range of topics from foreign policy to the Presidential race.

During an appearance at the Union Institute & University in Cincinnati, Gergen responds directly to a question about the New World Order, describing what George H.W. Bush meant when he called for a New World Order. He digressed some off the subject, but stated that both Bush and Clinton were trying to “define” what this ideology could become through out their presidency.

Similar to what Zbigniew Brzezinski has made a notion of in numerous publications, America is beginning to lose it’s place as a super power and our economy is sliding. He stated that many countries have seen a transfer of power from the west to Asia and that many countries are fed up with Americas “cowboy Capitalism” and that it “represents the past”, is “threatening to bring down the structure” and is “destroying the fabric of civilization”.

Gergen revealed that as an insider, he could predict the outcome of the current economic crisis. In response to a question about the New World Order, Gergen stated that the standard of living of the American people would fall by 40%, ushering in an era of austerity.

This plan in which he stated that the post-World War II prosperity of America was coming to an end. One must conclude that this is a coordinated plan by the governing class to restrict the resources of the planet to stunt the growth of the middle class.

In the political realm, Gergen revealed that Hillary Clinton was supposed to win the Democratic nomination, but was upset during the primary process by Barack Obama.

Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP…

During his appearance, Gergen focused on the importance of Pakistan in foreign policy, a viewpoint that meshes with Zbigniew Brzezinski’s outline for world domination in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard.

With regard to the media, Gergen stated that it was healthy for networks such as Fox News to produce propaganda, since MSNBC and CNN could balance it with their own versions of the truth.

Gergen held up General David Petraeus as an example of an effective leader, and reveled his admiration for the nation of Singapore, which Gergen said was “authoritarian, to be sure.”

After the session, Gergen became agitated when confronted with documentation regarding his membership in the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group and his attendance at the Bohemian Grove.

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A personal viewpoint from a Swiss fund co-manager on the immediate and long term future for the gold price vis-à-vis Central Banks and the IMF in particular.
Author: Daniel Gschwend*
Posted:  Thursday , 23 Oct 2008

ZURICH -

Right now, I believe we are very close to a significant short and long term event happening in the gold market. For the short term, in my view, there are two possibilities: one is very bullish for gold (such as the breakdown of the systematically applied suppressing schema followed by massive safe heaven buying and a huge spike in the price of gold) and the other is very bearish for gold (such as significant gold sales from supranational organizations like the IMF or the ECB). But the long term implications will nevertheless be on both ways bullish.

Overall situation in the market:

We have all learnt one thing in this crisis: everything is possible!  I picked up the topic of a manipulated gold price recently even though hard proof is not that easy to present. But sometimes, there is no proof at least until the speculation becomes reality. So, the following article is intended to be some kind of 'let's think about it' approach. It's hard to come up with irrevocable facts, it's more based on rumours, talk in the market and observations.

What makes me think that something is wrong with the price of gold, is the fact that we haven't seen a spike in the price of gold even though we're experiencing, from an investors point of view, the toughest, most uncertain and most confusing times. If this temporary spike had occurred, I'd be more confident that the gold market is still more or less rational or at least not influenced by hidden third parties. But as we all know, the spike didn't happen, so something doesn't make sense.

The price of gold should at least temporarily rise because of:

1.      Huge physical demand for bars and coins

2.      Huge ETF inflows and consequently ETF gold buying

3.      Producer dehedging still in progress

4.      Official Central Bank selling at a multi year low

But nevertheless, the price fell rather than went up. In the short term, the price should have gone up as it did back in March when Bear Stearns failed.

So what are the possible reasons for a falling gold price:

1.      Huge unwinding of gold long positions by hedge funds and other institutional investors (currently non-commercial Future long positions on the COMEX stand at approx. +107'000 compared to approx. +212'000 back in February 2008).

2.      Gold lending from central banks to financial institutions struggling for liquidity and consequently gold selling into the market.

3.      At some times, the market is very thin and therefore vulnerable to selling pressure. Buyers in gold futures are very cautious and sellers are still in the majority (tactical short selling triggering stop loss orders).

4.      Huge selling from paper based commodity products - remember the counterparty risk. Many products have commodity indices as underlying and therefore gold is also affected. Investors just want to get rid of all paper assets with counterparty risks. But unless reinvesting the liquidity into direct commodity related assets such as physical metals and equities, the liquidity stays on the sideline.

The described arguments are an explanation for a falling gold future price, but will consequently lead to a higher price once the unwinding transactions are over. We also have to remember that Lehman Brothers was one of the biggest prime brokers for hedge funds (besides Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns) and these institutions do not exist in the same way as before. Hedge funds are now forced to massively deleverage and consequently are heavy seller in the market at any price. But this will end as well.

We also have to examine the current fight in the gold market from the government's perspective: do they really want gold to fly when establishing confidence is the most important task? I guess not. Gold has historically been an indicator of the financial system's stability and soundness. Just imagine what had happened if gold spiked while every other asset class was crashing.

Short term outlook for gold:

So what's the short term outlook for gold: Since the bailout packages have reached astronomical proportions, the governments have to find some ways to finance the packages without destroying the little trust they just tried to build:

There are actually only two ways for financing:

1.      Printing money which only means a dilution of the currency with severe long term implications. The money printing machines will create government bonds and these bonds are being sold to the public. The outlook for government bonds is frightening. The debt will rise dramatically and eventually lead to a junk bond status. How can they ever repay these bonds? The very aggressive fiscal policy now in place also erodes the tax income and won't help to handle this giant debt.

2.      Sell some assets such as government or central bank held foreign fixed income securities, stocks or gold.

Yes, they will print money and sell new government bonds to the public but this will not be enough. They will also sell some disposable assets and turn them into cash which then can be lent to the financial institutions. Will they sell held bonds and stocks? Of course not. They want to stabilize the markets and will certainly not sell these assets.

But what about gold?  I believe, it is very likely that governments around the globe which are dealing with these gigantic bailout packages will sell gold. Remember, the politicians will make the decision and for them, gold is just something strange without any financial use (except crisis solving). Central bankers will very likely just say yes, since they have to bail-out their bank buddies with whom they share their golf club memberships. Gold will be a very grateful casualty for the overall public's sake.

So get ready for Central Banks involved in this bail-out packages starting to sell gold. I'm not sure if they will sell their own gold reserves since this has maybe some negative aftertaste and could be tricky under the current CBGA II agreement. But the IMF as one of the biggest gold owners - and non-signatory of the CBGA II agreement - as well as the ECB (with spare capacity under the CBGA II agreement), could sell gold.  I'm sure the IMF will do so gladly.  They are already considering selling approx. 400 tones of gold. The IMF recently had a problem of underemployment and didn't make enough money to break even. Now, thanks to the credit crisis, things have changed. There will be very little political opposition if the IMF sells much of its gold holdings to save the financial world. It's therefore very likely that the IMF and the ECB will sell gold and therefore trigger a major correction in the price of gold.

Their gold holdings are very substantial and will have an impact on the price of gold. It is also possible that countries such as Russia which are not much involved with international agencies and which have also to deal with the credit crisis, will start selling some gold (even though Russia was one of the very few central banks which as been a net buyer of gold recently).

Long term outlook for gold:

Even though a possible massive selling campaign from central banks will have a very negative short term outlook for gold, for the long term, this selling will pave the road for substantially higher gold prices.

Selling gold means nothing else than monetary dilution and an acceleration of going bankrupt. Once the people living in these countries find out that their wealth is diminishing on a relative base to other countries, they will start buying an asset hedge which is gold. The paper system will search for a fast exit into real assets and this will be a very positive development for gold. It's going to be a tough time and don't get discouraged if gold crashes (for a very limited time) - it will come out stronger and that matters.

We should also consider the coming major turbulences in currencies: Do you really think the short US$ long commodity strategy is over because of a new bull market in the US$? Forget it. The current strength in the US $ is pure safe heaven buying in the treasury market. Also remember that all the bail-out packages are denominated in US$. When Europe, Great Britain or Switzerland are announcing these packages they have to sell their own currencies against the US$. This means huge US$ demand, not because the US$ is fundamentally stronger, it's because they have to pay losses denominated in US$. Another factor for the temporarily stronger US$ are massive debt reduction and deleveraging at financial institutions. In order to reduce US$ debt, they have to buy US$ against other currencies. This also triggers huge US$ demand and puts pressure on the contrarian currencies such as Euro, Sterling and Swiss franc. Overall, once all these transactions are over, demand for the US$ will disappear and the fundamentals will come into play again and they look bleak. I expect the US$ will get weaker very soon and the anti US$ trade which is long commodities will shine again. This certainly will trigger new buying in gold.

As for investors, investment in gold plays an integral part of an optimized portfolio and I therefore recommend to hold approx. 5% in physical gold and Tier1 gold stocks.

Disclosure: The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the author and do not necessarily agree with the author's employer.

*Daniel Schwend is a co fund manager for an independent asset management company specializing in mining & metals investment.