Gold - Man denied access to his gold at Swiss bank: "The gold was not there": "A client of a major Swiss bank was recently refused access to his physical gold and had to hire attorneys and threaten to expose the bank publicly before finally getting it back in his own hands, according to Jim Rickards of Omnis.
'My inference is that the gold was not there,' Rickards told King World News. 'The bank had to scramble, go out and find it somewhere before they could make good delivery.'"
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Oooops!
Looks like this bank was "Spoofing Gold." The illegal, fraudulent practice of selling gold on paper, with the gold allegedly stored in bank's vault, when actually, bank does not buy the gold, instead invests it for own use. Usually, the gold buyer never asks for delivery and sells at some point in the future, which sends buyer his profit or loss, without ever having purchased any gold. The same practice is prevalent in the silver market.
Another shady practice is "Gold Leasing" where the bank takes some portion of the buyer's money and rents or leases gold from a broker for pennies, without taking possession, with a contract to purchase the gold or silver sometime in the future. Again, if the buyer requests delivery, the bank has to scramble and try to get a hold of the gold from the holder.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Network Marketing, Back to the Future!
Success in applying word of mouth marketing in "traditional" businesses.
Even sellers of large purchases, now, are benefiting from word of mouth . When you consider what kind of car to buy, where to live, how to choose a physician or a general contractor or a piano teacher--all of those decisions are heavily influenced by people you know and trust, friend, relatives, colleagues.
In fact, in many ways, the search paradigm isn’t the way people do things. [Part of that is because] most of the information on the Internet has an agenda, so it’s very difficult to get truly objective data.
So the best research is from people you know who’ve experienced it. You know their only agenda is to help you because they’re your friend. Social media helps make that process really efficient.
Althernative health products and procedures stand to be big gainers from this phenomenom
Unlike products that are commodities and price-sensitive, like potatoes and onions, which everyone knows well and can instantly determine what is a good deal and what is not; health care product consumers need a more extensive education and price justification. This education is best provided by trusted friends, relatives and co-workers as opposed to traditional, impersonal marketing methods.
However, the average person who wants to sell innovative, effective alternative medical devices, supplements and therapies and is not a nurse, doctor or other recognized health professional; would do best with a personal introduction to his prospects by a health professional.
How is this to be accomplished? Via a membership website for sufferers of diseases best handled with new alternative therapies, with a professional discussing or introducing alternative health measures.
It could also be handled by a third party newsletter or newspaper, with the marketer following up and facilitating the education of the prospects, who will buy or not buy based on how well the educational process had worked.
Network marketers have an advantage in this new world of social marketing, this is what they do.
However, they must aspire to a new level of professional salesmanship, becoming a health coach, familiar with the diseases her product helps and becoming an educational guide, assisting in the education of her prospects.
If you would like to be introduced to marketing aids that assist in marketing health products, please feel free to contact me for more info.
Bill Young, Publisher, Apple Health News\
646-961-3818
Even sellers of large purchases, now, are benefiting from word of mouth . When you consider what kind of car to buy, where to live, how to choose a physician or a general contractor or a piano teacher--all of those decisions are heavily influenced by people you know and trust, friend, relatives, colleagues.
In fact, in many ways, the search paradigm isn’t the way people do things. [Part of that is because] most of the information on the Internet has an agenda, so it’s very difficult to get truly objective data.
So the best research is from people you know who’ve experienced it. You know their only agenda is to help you because they’re your friend. Social media helps make that process really efficient.
Althernative health products and procedures stand to be big gainers from this phenomenom
Unlike products that are commodities and price-sensitive, like potatoes and onions, which everyone knows well and can instantly determine what is a good deal and what is not; health care product consumers need a more extensive education and price justification. This education is best provided by trusted friends, relatives and co-workers as opposed to traditional, impersonal marketing methods.
However, the average person who wants to sell innovative, effective alternative medical devices, supplements and therapies and is not a nurse, doctor or other recognized health professional; would do best with a personal introduction to his prospects by a health professional.
How is this to be accomplished? Via a membership website for sufferers of diseases best handled with new alternative therapies, with a professional discussing or introducing alternative health measures.
It could also be handled by a third party newsletter or newspaper, with the marketer following up and facilitating the education of the prospects, who will buy or not buy based on how well the educational process had worked.
Network marketers have an advantage in this new world of social marketing, this is what they do.
However, they must aspire to a new level of professional salesmanship, becoming a health coach, familiar with the diseases her product helps and becoming an educational guide, assisting in the education of her prospects.
If you would like to be introduced to marketing aids that assist in marketing health products, please feel free to contact me for more info.
Bill Young, Publisher, Apple Health News\
646-961-3818
Housing Disaster 2.0
If you thought the housing debacle was bad, wait till you see what 2.0 has in store!
The intransigence of Wall st to help homeowners resolve their problems is now coming back to bite them, HARD!
The mortgage backed securities that are the touchstone of the Trillion dollar securitization scam are mainly worthless, despite the industry's obfuscation. The reason is that most of the mortgages underlying the securities are underwater, worth less than the housing backing them up.
No one is willing to acknowledge this devastating fact. But remember the real estate boom? Property values were rising at 10-20% annually, but all the while, home equity was actually falling. Historically, the average home had 50% equity, but during the boom, because of the low-no down payment purchases and the cash out refi frenzy, the average home had only 25% equity by the peak of the boom in 2005-6.
Up to now, home prices have fallen 25-30%, with no end in sight, which means that the average home at this point has negative equity!
Home prices will continue to fall for the foreseeable future because of the humongous number of homes in the foreclosure pipeline. Unemployment is now driving even good credit, 30 year fixed mortgage holders to default on their mortgage payments. Experience has shown that anyone who is 3 months or more behind in their mortgage payments, will never catch up and will become a foreclosure statistic.
To that number you have to add a substantial number of people who are current on their payments, but are significantly underwater. If you paid $425,000 for your home 4 years ago, with 10% down, meaning you have a $383,500 mortgage, but the value of your home is now only $295,000, you, like many similarly situated homeowners, will seriously consider walking away, or "Strategically Default" on your mortgage. Others would not consider it on moral grounds.
Think about it. Could you buy a similar home or even a better one for the same or smaller mortgage payment? How much would it cost to rent a similar or better home? Do you really want to throw good money, your retirement, your child's educational account, into a home that may not recover its value for years and years?
As of this writing, up to 40% of foreclosure sales are the result of home owners walking away from their mortgages.
Finally, the pool of potential home buyers shrinks by the day. Unemployed people are automatically excluded from the ranks of home buyers. More and more people's credit scores are dropping because of financial hardship, while at the same time banks are demanding higher and higher credit scores, with 750-780 not uncommon. Another thing the banks are demanding are bigger down payments, with many demanding 20% down, which with total acquisition costs bring the required cash to buy a house up to 25% or more. Not many first time buyers have that and trade up buyers are few because either they cannot sell their homes because they are under water or their credit has been dinged because of missed mortgage payments.
And, of course just over the horizon are higher interest rates as the Fed QE2's inflationary impact spreads from stocks and commodities to the broader economy. Higher mortgage interest rates will be just another nail in the housing market's coffin.
The intransigence of Wall st to help homeowners resolve their problems is now coming back to bite them, HARD!
The mortgage backed securities that are the touchstone of the Trillion dollar securitization scam are mainly worthless, despite the industry's obfuscation. The reason is that most of the mortgages underlying the securities are underwater, worth less than the housing backing them up.
No one is willing to acknowledge this devastating fact. But remember the real estate boom? Property values were rising at 10-20% annually, but all the while, home equity was actually falling. Historically, the average home had 50% equity, but during the boom, because of the low-no down payment purchases and the cash out refi frenzy, the average home had only 25% equity by the peak of the boom in 2005-6.
Up to now, home prices have fallen 25-30%, with no end in sight, which means that the average home at this point has negative equity!
Home prices will continue to fall for the foreseeable future because of the humongous number of homes in the foreclosure pipeline. Unemployment is now driving even good credit, 30 year fixed mortgage holders to default on their mortgage payments. Experience has shown that anyone who is 3 months or more behind in their mortgage payments, will never catch up and will become a foreclosure statistic.
To that number you have to add a substantial number of people who are current on their payments, but are significantly underwater. If you paid $425,000 for your home 4 years ago, with 10% down, meaning you have a $383,500 mortgage, but the value of your home is now only $295,000, you, like many similarly situated homeowners, will seriously consider walking away, or "Strategically Default" on your mortgage. Others would not consider it on moral grounds.
Think about it. Could you buy a similar home or even a better one for the same or smaller mortgage payment? How much would it cost to rent a similar or better home? Do you really want to throw good money, your retirement, your child's educational account, into a home that may not recover its value for years and years?
As of this writing, up to 40% of foreclosure sales are the result of home owners walking away from their mortgages.
Finally, the pool of potential home buyers shrinks by the day. Unemployed people are automatically excluded from the ranks of home buyers. More and more people's credit scores are dropping because of financial hardship, while at the same time banks are demanding higher and higher credit scores, with 750-780 not uncommon. Another thing the banks are demanding are bigger down payments, with many demanding 20% down, which with total acquisition costs bring the required cash to buy a house up to 25% or more. Not many first time buyers have that and trade up buyers are few because either they cannot sell their homes because they are under water or their credit has been dinged because of missed mortgage payments.
And, of course just over the horizon are higher interest rates as the Fed QE2's inflationary impact spreads from stocks and commodities to the broader economy. Higher mortgage interest rates will be just another nail in the housing market's coffin.
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