Thank you for joining us and welcome to this our first edition of The Urban GoldMine Lowdown, where we will be breaking down the UK and international news and events from the last few days that effect the Gold and Silver market as well as your pocket and your day to day life.
Ever wondered how much of your tax money goes to pay other people’s rent?
The amount of money Croydon council spent on Housing benefits rose £4,000,000 per month from 2008/2009 to 2010/2011 according to information obtained via a Freedom of Information Request.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with Croydon it’s an area about 10 miles outside of London with a population of around 350,000 people.
Croydon Council is currently spending £18,412,610.00 per month on housing benefits!
That works out at £53 per person living in The London borough of Croydon, now given than at most there is only 50% of the population working at any one time (once you remove children, pensioners, benefit claimants, stay at home mothers) that is £105.21 per taxpayer per month!
This is clearly having an effect on the property prices and is yet another way the government is spending our taxes to prop up the housing market.
Crisis at Fukushima continues to unfold
While the mainstream media may have gone very quiet about the whole story, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe continues to unfold. Further explosions at the plant last week and new found cracks have meant further releases of deadly radiation into the atmosphere as well as highly radioactive water entering the sea on top of the news that Reactor number 2 has completely melted down.
Governments the world over have a terrible history of covering up the truth during nuclear accidents, from Chernobyl in Russia and Three Mile Island in the USA it’s only years after the initial accident that the truth comes to light, far too late for anyone in the area to take any action.
The Japanese government have a long history of covering-up nuclear accidents, some of which happened only a few years ago so I think we can safely assume that they are not an accurate source of information. Of course it takes years for cancer and birth defects to become apparent and unfortunately as we have seen with Chernobyl the effects of nuclear fallout will last for decades if not centuries.
The situation at Fukushima could well turn out to be worse than the Chernobyl accident for a few reasons, the first is that fact that hundreds of thousands of spent reactor fuel rods were stored on top of the reactor containment vessels, in cooling pools at the top of the buildings, during the various explosions it highly likely that these rods would have been ejected into the atmosphere and surrounding areas including the land and sea surrounding the plant. The other big factor is the use of MOX fuel in one of the reactors, which is a mixture of Uranium and Plutonium, the reactor at Chernobyl was only using Uranium which is thousands of times less deadly than Plutonium, the radiation from Plutonium is also very difficult to detect.
For Tokyo especially the winds have made a huge difference by taking the bulk of the radiation out to sea, however what I can’t understand is why everyone outside of Japan is not hugely concerned about this. If the initial fall out isn’t bad enough we are now told that technicians at the plant are deliberately pumping tens of thousands of tonnes of radioactive water from the cooling pools into the ocean.
The sea is already having a huge problem dealing with man; massive pollution especially plastic, overfishing as well as other factors are killing sea life, and now there are huge amounts of deadly radioactive isotopes being pumped into this fragile eco-system. This radiation will inevitably spread across the globe taken by the sea’s currents.
A single microscopic particle of Plutonium will kill a human and this along with a deadly cocktail of radioactive isotopes is being ingested by all forms of sea life and that means it will eventually make it onto people’s dinner plates.
It’s worth remembering If the Ocean ‘s ecosystem dies then all life of this planet will become extinct very quickly.
The Dutch put the Bankers under manners
Dutch Bankers have had their bonuses axed by the people! An online campaign using twitter has forced bankers at ING to give up their bonuses. The mood in Amsterdam is getting increasingly more militant towards the bankers and faced with a potential mob of angry, pitch-forks wielding Dutch, the bankers decided it might be best to do “the sensible thing”.
ING is a state owned bank and the people of the Netherlands threatened to withdraw their funds which would cause a run on the bank. Faced with this prospect the bankers have paid back their bonuses.
It just goes to show how much power people have when they organise and behave in a focused, peaceful and non-violent way.
Will the people of the UK follow suit and demand the Royal Bank of Scotland bankers pay back their bonuses? Somehow I think not, until people stop being distracted by X-Factor and the upcoming Royal Wedding these gangsters in business suits are going to continue acting with impunity.
EU to raise interest Rates, Fed set to follow a few months later
The pound has lost value against the Euro, falling to a 5 month low on the news of an unexpected increase in mortgage defaults and inflation data in the Euro zone has lead to expectations of a European Central Bank interest rate rise before the Bank of England raises their rate.
Bank of England policy maker David Miles has predicted a “painful transition” for the housing market, which is central banker speak for watch out the inevitable upcoming interest rate rises are going to crucify the English middle class and their homes are set to drop in value. Could this be the gust of wind that finally blows down the house of cards that is the UK housing market? Or will the Condem government continue Labours tradition of stopping at nothing to keep UK house prices artificially inflated and keep this giant Ponzi scheme running for a just little bit longer?
With Portugal about to default and Spain looking not far off it will be interesting to see how the Germans react, they are already unhappy with the previous bailouts of Greece and Ireland and the voters are making their unhappiness known at the ballet box which has caused Angela Merkel to oppose further bailouts by the EU.
War in Libya
It looks like Colonel Gaddafi’s mistakes of trying to stay independent from the globalist bankers and moves towards nationalisation of Libya’s oil have led to his looming downfall. Not only have the rebels have taken time out from their no-doubt busy schedules to form their own central bank but they are now selling oil too!
From Reuters: “The United States on Monday gave a green light to sales of Libyan crude oil from rebel-held territory, giving a potential boost to forces battling Muammar Gaddafi. A U.S. Treasury Department official said Libyan rebels would not be subject to U.S. sanctions if they avoid entities linked to Gaddafi’s regime, which would allow them to sell oil under their control.”
It’s interesting to note that it’s on record in various places including the Telegraph that NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe Admiral James Stavridis fears that rebels in Libya are made up, if not entirely at least partially by Al Qaeda. So the USA is now openly funding Al Qaeda ?
But hang on a minute, aren’t these the same guys blamed for the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, and the July 7th bombings in London as well as countless other so-called terrorist attacks? This is the very same organisation used as a reason to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and now they are allies? Really?
The Libyan Central bank, which is under the control of Colonel Gaddafi is the 8th largest owner of gold in the world according to the Financial Times,
Could gaining control of that 143.8 tonnes of Gold be one of the objectives of the invasion of Libya? Both the US and UK governments desperately need the yellow metal so they can use it to lower the price of gold by releasing it on the market. If this does happen we might see a major down-swing in the price of gold.
Finally
Thank you very much for reading our first issue, if you have any comments, questions or suggestions please send them in to us here at the Urban GoldMine Lowdown:
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