Potpourri

Stray Notes:

1.  A street guy who has worked Bay Street, Scotia, etc in Toronto for many years in the gold business shares a recent insight. He says it is only in the past few months he came to understand how gold price is manipulated and its extent. He points out there is no gold in the U.S. vaults. His advice:  get the metal and hide it.

Rob Kirby Explains Gold Price Manipulation - by Jay Taylor, Oct 29, 2009www.miningstocks.com cbassi@miningstocks.com

2.  From UK:

Judge rules activist's beliefs on climate change akin to religion

Tim Nicholson entitled to protection for his beliefs, and his claim over dismissal will now be heard by a tribunal

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• Karen McVeigh
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 3 November 2009 20.42 GMT
• Article history

Tim Nicholson leaves an employment tribunal at Audit House, London. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

...In a significant decision today , a judge found Nicholson's views on the environment were so deeply held that they were entitled to the same protection as religious convictions, and ruled that an employment tribunal should hear his claim that he was sacked because of his beliefs....

3.

Obama-Pelosi to Health Insurers: Shut Up or We'll Shut You Down

By Brad O'Leary

... No longer able to sit idly by while the President and his chief minion in the House amateurishly try to revamp one-sixth of the U.S. economy, the health insurance industry released a study they commissioned that analyzes the costs of the Obama-Pelosi plan. The results are quite sobering. The study shows that "between 2010 and 2019 the cumulative increases in the cost of a typical family policy under this reform proposal will be approximately $20,700 more than it would be under the current system." (Emphasis mine.)

... Obama and Pelosi wasted no time demonizing the health insurance industry with hyperbole and rhetoric. And then Pelosi lowered the boom, expressing "tremendous interest" in revoking the industry's decades-old antitrust exemption. This proved to be no empty threat, as the Democrat-run House Judiciary Committee promptly passed a bill to do exactly that....   (No facism here)

4.  Hilary Clinton shows her hand while talking to Pakistani leaders:  

“The percentage of taxes on GDP (in Pakistan) is among the lowest in the world... We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see in Pakistan,” she said.