my journal 3

[Yamato]

12 Reasons Why Gold Will Rebound and Make New Highs in 2014

Best summary I've ever read on gold:
https://www.goldstockbull.com/articles/12-reasons-gold-will-make-new-highs-2014/

I will quote the things I like the most.

#1 – Rapidly Growing Debt

...The U.S. national debt has increased by more than a trillion dollars in the past 12 months. This pushed the total debt above $17 trillion for the first time in history...

#3 – QE to Infinity Confirmed, as FED Balance Sheet Explodes

At Gold Stock Bull, we have long been calling QE3, “QE to Infinity” and doubting that any major tapering would occur. With weak economic growth and low official inflation, the FED’s dual mandates would dictate more stimulus, not less. Just weeks ago there was a consensus for tapering in September. Now, analysts are talking about March of 2014 at the earliest. My expectation is that they will change the QE program, maybe give it a different name, but the end result will always be a net increase in stimulus efforts.

The FED’s balance sheet has already increased from $869 billion in August of 2007 to $3.8 trillion today! The nomination of Janet Yellen as FED chief adds gasoline to the fire, as she is expected to be at least as accommodative as her predecessor and potentially much looser with the printing press. Helicopter Yellen?

#4 – Dollar Losing Status as World Reserve Currency

The exorbitant privilege of being able to print the world reserve currency is coming to end. “It is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world,” said a statement on Monday by Xinhua, the state news agency of China — which holds some $1.3 trillion in Treasury bonds.

...

Takeaway: The dollar historically has an inverse relationship to gold. As the dollar continues to lose its role as world reserve currency and its purchasing power declines, the gold price will move higher. Mike Maloney and other analysts have calculated that the gold price needs to climb past $15,000 per ounce to account for all of the paper dollars that exist today. As more and more money is printed and debt is monetized, this target price only increases.

#5 – Global Race to Debase

Takeaway: The race to debase has only intensified in the past few years, as evidenced by new stimulus programs in Europe and Abenomics in Japan. Put simply, the more fiat money that is created in this currency war, the higher the price of gold and other commodities will climb.

#6 – Inflation Will Pick Up as Velocity of Money Accelerates

Up until this point, a large portion of the new money printed since the financial crisis has been parked with the banks or as excess reserves with the FED. Banks are reluctant to lend and corporations are also hoarding cash. Individuals are consuming less, tightening their budgets amidst high unemployment and stagnant wages and paying down debt. This means that money has not been circulating throughout the economy at a very fast pace. The stimulus has disproportionately benefited banks and the wealthiest people in society, doing little for the middle class that continues to get squeezed.

To get money flowing, future stimulus efforts must be focused on tax breaks or refunds for the working class, who are more likely to spend that money into the economy than the rich that aren’t living near the margin. With unemployment higher than desired and official inflation lower than desired, I think we will see Yellen and the FED focus more on consumer stimulus now that the banks finances have been shored up. This will lead to a sharp increase in the velocity of money and when multiplied by all of the money created in the last few years, it could lead to high inflation or even hyperinflation if the FED fails to soak up the excess liquidity in time.

#7 – Diversification of Price Discovery and Decreased Power to Manipulate Commodity Markets

With the rising power and influence of the East, we are seeing the centers of global finance reposition. These include the Shanghai Exchange and Pan Asian Exchange, where an increasing amount of physical gold and silver are being traded. If you believe the COMEX and London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) are helping to manipulate the prices of precious metals, it will be welcomed news to see new exchanges emerge that can provide alternative price discovery.

Takeaway: The diversification of price discovery in the gold market will lessen the ability of Western powers to manipulate prices. As this trend plays out, the artificial downward pressure on prices should be removed and allow precious metals to more accurately reflect the fundamental conditions around them. If GATA and others are correct about the degree of manipulation, any diminishing of this manipulative ability will be very bullish for gold.

#8 – Increasing Physical Demand Worldwide, Including Central Bank Demand

Consumer demand for gold was up 53% in Q2 according to the WGC. Total bar and coin demand set a new quarterly record, exceeding 500 tonnes for the first time and U.S. silver eagles sales are on pace for a record year. Central banks continue buying at a frenzied pace, adding 534.6 metric tons to reserves in 2012, the most in almost a half century. And these are just the reported purchases. China, Russia and other nations are thought to be buying discretely via third parties.

Furthermore, there is a growing movement of gold repartriation around the globe. First Venezuela, now Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, Romania, Finland, Ecuador and others are demanding their gold back from the FED and Western financial institutions.

#9 – Stagnant or Declining Supply

Total gold supply contracted 6% during the latest quarter to 1,025.5 tonnes, driven by a sharp drop in recycling activity. There have been huge outflows from COMEX and Shanghai stocks. With prices at or near the cost of production, several mining operations have been suspended or shuttered, which will further restrict supply. Mints in the U.S. and Canada have resorted to rationing supplies of their popular bullion coins, a further signs of tightening supplies.

Takeaway: Economics 101 dictates that increasing demand and declining supply leads to higher prices.

#10 – Tiny Size of Gold Market versus Stock or Bond Market Will Provide Leverage

It has been estimated that all of the gold ever refined would form a single cube 20 m (66 ft) on a side. This cube would contain around 5.5 billion ounces of gold and be worth roughly $7 trillion. By comparison, the world stock market is estimated at $50 trillion and the bond market at around $100 trillion. So, it would only take a small percentage of money moving from these larger markets into the gold market to overwhelm available supply and send prices substantially higher.

#12 – Prices Have Dropped to the All-In Cost of Production, Which Typically Provides Support

It is not often that a commodity will drop to a price below the cost of production. Can you think of many things that you can buy for less than it costs to produce it? At current price levels, many miners are being forced to suspend operations as their all-in sustaining cost to produce an ounce of gold makes the operation unprofitable. Even some of the best miners are just barely squeezing out quarterly earnings, propelled by increasing production and cost controls. Supply levels have already been impacted, but any further drop in the price of gold and silver will lead to additional mines shuttering operations. As these mines stop producing and supplies drop, prices will rise to reflect this change.

Takeaway: As costs rise, so do prices. Either precious metals will climb to levels where miners are profitable or they will stop mining and destroy supply levels. The price can certainly drop below the cost of production for a short time period, but it is not likely to last. This all-in sustaining cost usually proves to be a solid floor during corrections, so the downside is limited at this juncture.

Conclusion

As the gold price climbs back towards its inflation-adjusted high of $2,400, Shadowstats target of $8,000 or Mike Maloney target of $15,000, we will look back at this current correction as nothing more than a bump in the road and excellent buying opportunity.

 

[Yamato]

continuing from #3777

page 66:

A few Socialist leaders such
as Scheidemann and Grzesinski urged ”democratizing” the armed forces. They
saw the danger of handing the Army back to the officers of the old authoritarian,
imperialist tradition. But they were successfully opposed not only by the generals
but by their fellow Socialists, led by the Minister of Defense, Noske. This
proletarian minister of the Republic openly boasted that he wanted to revive
”the proud soldier memories of the World War.” The failure of the duly elected
government to build a new Army that would be faithful to its own democratic
spirit and subordinate to the cabinet and the Reichstag was a fatal mistake for
the Republic, as time would tell.

The failure to clean out ’the judiciary was another. The administrators of
the law became one of the centers of the counterrevolution, perverting justice
for reactionary political ends. ”It is impossible to escape the conclusion,” the
historian Franz L. Neumann declared, ”that political justice is the blackest
page in the life of the German Republic.”92 After the Kapp putsch in 1920
the government charged 705 persons with high treason; only one, the police
president of Berlin, received a sentence – five years of ”honorary confinement.”

Yes, Germany after world war 1 was new to democracy, and it was permanently under the threat of a coup d'état by the army, which risked nothing, because the judiciary was sympathetic. And while the socialists and the communists barked but didn't bite, the army didn't bark but it bit. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were killed when they were captured. The Nazis and the Kapp putschists were neither killed nor served much if any time in prison, when their coups failed. Mainly because these political forces were more nice and fair than the military, and the judiciary was against them. When the military sets out to overthrow a democratic government, there seems to be very little that you can do against it.

Yet hundreds of German liberals were sentenced to long prison terms on
charges of treason because they revealed or denounced in the press or by speech
the Army’s constant violations of the Versailles Treaty. The treason laws were
ruthlessly applied to the supporters of the Republic; those on the Right who
tried to overthrow it, as Adolf Hitler was soon to learn, got off either free or with
the lightest of sentences. Even the assassins, if they were of the Right and their
victims democrats, were leniently treated by the courts or, as often happened,
helped to escape from the custody of the courts by Army officers and right-wing
extremists.

And so the mild Socialists, aided by the democrats and the Catholic Centrists,
were left to carry on the Republic, which tottered from its birth.

 

[Yamato]

insomnia, again

insomnia, again

Various problems are keeping me up, mostly sadness about the maid's health

But I am sick as well

I don't want to complain about everything, too much time

Let's just say that I am sad, very much. I am a bit frustrated. And, finally, I cannot sleep.

The positions are going well and I think they will be going better in the near future. I am talking of course about gold, silver, corn, jpy, and oil.

I am learning german, too. That's going well, too. I am missing out on the verbs. I think it will come afterwards, at the end. It doesn't matter where I start from as long as i keep it interesting and I keep learning. I am almost at the point of understanding sentences. I know this from learning English.

You learn a word, then another, and everything new you learn is like a piece of a puzzle that you study. Eventually you're able to put pieces together and figure out the whole puzzle, which could be compared to an entire speech or even just a sentence.

In a few days, don't know exactly when, I will fly out of the island and be back at work.

I am tired, but not enough to fall asleep yet.

Not with this frustration, about my illness and the maid's.

I am listening to alex jones right now.

In the end, I've been away from the island for years, and haven't come to this place for xmas holidays for years. Now I am back, and I expect everyone to show up and spend time with the maid, who's old and sick. This is not fair. I can't expect for everyone to do their share just because I happen to be doing it right now. I have done nothing for years, while others were doing it. So let's put this issue to rest.

I am definitely insensitive, and selfish, by far more than most of my relatives. I am fair and honest, but this doesn't matter because most of my relatives are so much better than me.

I am not comparing myself to strangers but to my relatives.

Forget about strangers, about the stealing maid in rome, forget about people in rome and in the rest of the world. Here, my relatives, are different. And they're better than me. I am not comparing myself to crooks, but to these lovely people, who happen to be my relatives.

I am indeed frustrated and partly about myself and my inability to get up early in the morning, due to insomnia and maybe to my selfishness.

In the morning, I'd like to be there, and help the maid, or rather take turns with my mom, but I don't, because I care more about sleeping. And I care more about avoiding the maid's maid (a maid we hire to help the maid, when we're not there), who's a bitch and is often here. By sleeping in, i avoid this bitch.

So, while I said I wouldn't get into detail, I've pretty much described all the sources of sadness and frustration: my health, the maid's, the maid's maid who's a bitch and is often around, my insomnia. And finally there's very loud noise in the street all the time, during the night.

...

what the hell, I kind of solve my problems by sleeping in. You see, by sleeping during part of the day, you avoid people, who usually are unpleasant. Unnecessary people who are unpleasant. At the same time, I am sorry to do it here, because I would also like to be with the maid.

Interesting article on advantages of being a late riser:
http://www.lifeevolver.com/late-riser-5-reasons-sleeping-day-boost-productivity/

 

[Yamato]

resuming from #3782

page 67:

Down in Bavaria the young firebrand
Adolf Hitler grasped the strength of the new nationalist, antidemocratic, antirepublican
tide. He began to ride it. He was greatly aided by the course of
events, two in particular: the fall of the mark and the French occupation of the
Ruhr. The mark, as we have seen, had begun to slide in .1921, when it dropped
to 75 to the dollar; the next year it fell to 400 and by the beginning of 1923 to
7,000.

Already in the fall of 1922 the German government had asked the Allies
to grant a moratorium on reparation payments. This the French government of
Poincare had bluntly refused. When Germany defaulted in deliveries of timber,
the hardheaded French Premier, who had been the wartime President of France,
ordered French troops to occupy the Ruhr. The industrial heart of Germany,
which, after the loss of Upper Silesia to Poland, furnished the Reich with four
fifths of its coal and steel production, was cut off from the rest of the country.

The strangulation of Germany’s economy hastened the final plunge of the
mark. On the occupation of the Ruhr in January 1923, it fell to 18,000 to the
dollar; by July 1 it had dropped to 160,000; by August 1 to a million. By
November, when Hitler thought his hour had struck, it took four billion marks
to buy a dollar, and thereafter the figures became trillions. German currency
had become utterly worthless. Purchasing power of salaries and wages was
reduced to zero. The life savings of the middle classes and the working classes
were wiped out. But something even more important was destroyed: the faith
of the people in the economic structure of German society. What good were
the standards and practices of such a society, which encouraged savings and
investment and solemnly promised a safe return from them and then defaulted?
Was this not a fraud upon the people?

It's very clear what the German people must have been thinking: democracy is weak and unreliable, it ruined us, what good is democracy?

From then on, goaded by the big industrialists and landlords, who stood to
gain though the masses of the people were financially ruined, the government
deliberately let the mark tumble in order to free the State of its public debts,
to escape from paying reparations and to sabotage the French in the Ruhr.
Moreover, the destruction of the currency enabled German heavy industry to
wipe out its indebtedness by refunding its obligations in worthless marks.

The General Staff, disguised as the ”Truppenamt” (Office of Troops) to evade the
peace treaty which supposedly had outlawed it, took notice that the fall of the
mark wiped out the war debts and thus left Germany financially unencumbered
for a new war.

The masses of the people, however, did not realize how much the industrial
tycoons, the Army and the State were benefiting from the ruin of the currency.

Well, that makes sense to some extent, as long as you have more debts than money. If I have a house or a company, and if I got into debt to buy it, then that debt goes to zero, provided I only have to pay back the principal or that I have to pay a fixed rate of interest.

Winners and losers if inflation skyrockets

 

[new_trader]

Democracy

It's very clear what the German people must have been thinking: democracy is weak and unreliable, it ruined us, what good is democracy?

Democracy is evil. It is a system where the majority can vote away the rights and property of the minority. This is why the Framers believed that the US should be a Constitutional Republic. They were afraid of the "tyranny of the majority", that mob rule would lead to bad decision-making.

 

[Yamato]

Yes, it makes sense and I had heard it before, in my "conspiracy theorists" circles. Thanks for the feedback. However, for the Germans, their alternative turned out to be much worse than democracy. Not only did they lose all their money in the end, but also, in most cases, their lives/health.

 

[Yamato]

Good list of articles and resources at "Repatriate Our Gold!":
http://www.gold-action.de/archive.html

Collection of relevant articles on central bank gold hoards, their auditing problems, their storage intransparency, and on the consequences of a missing gold backing of currencies. This collection will grow over time; pls. send us suggestions for more articles to be included in this archive:


2014-01-04
Source/Author: Chris Powell / Peter Boehringer
Did the Bundesbank get even a little of its original gold back?
http://www.gata.org/node/13458

2011-11-12
Source/Author: James Turk
Where is Germany's Gold?
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_08/lundeen111211.html

2011-09-18
Source/Author: Zerohedge / Vrijspreker.nl
The Dutch ask their Central Bank: "Where is our Gold?"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/dutch-ask-their-central-bank-where-our-gold
...

http://www.gold-action.de/campaign-initiators.html

This list is supported by 65 persons.
1 Rolf Baron von Hohenhau Taxpayers Association of Europe
2 Peter Boehringer German Precious Metal Society (DEG e.V.)
3 Michael Jäger Taxpayers Association of Europe
4 David Reymann German Precious Metal Society (DEG e.V.)
5 Dr. Bruno Bandulet Book author & "Gold&Money Intelligence" newsletter
6 Dimitri Speck SeasonalCharts.com & Book author
7 Jim Sinclair Jim Sinclair´s MineSet, Publisher, Gold expert
8 James Turk Free Gold Money Report & Book author
9 Frank Schäffler Member of Parliament (Dt. Bundestag, Liberal Party)
...

 

[Yamato]

resuming from #3784

page 68:

The masses of the people, however, did not realize how much the industrial
tycoons, the Army and the State were benefiting from the ruin of the currency.
All they knew was that a large bank account could not buy a straggly bunch of
carrots, a half peck of potatoes, a few ounces of sugar, a pound of flour. They
knew that as individuals they were bankrupt. And they knew hunger when it
gnawed at them, as it did daily. In their misery and hopelessness they made
the Republic the scapegoat for all that had happened.
Such times were heaven-sent for Adolf Hitler.

REVOLT IN BAVARIA

”The government calmly goes on printing these scraps of paper because, if
it stopped, that would be the end of the government,” he cried. ”Because once
the printing presses stopped – and that is the prerequisite for the stabilization
of the mark – the swindle would at once be brought to light . . . Believe me, our
misery will increase. The scoundrel will get by. The reason: because the State
itself has become the biggest swindler and crook. A robbers’ state!

It sounds familiar. It sounds like US and the Federal Reserve today and their fake inflation stats. The Weimar republic was doing a whole lot of quantitative easing, but unlike then, today hyperinflation has not started yet.

No doubt the hardships and uncertainties of the wanton inflation were driving
millions of Germans toward that conclusion and Hitler was ready to lead
them on. In fact, he had begun to believe that the chaotic conditions of 1923 had
created an opportunity to overthrow the Republic which might not recur. But
certain difficulties lay in his way if he were himself to lead the counterrevolution,
and he was not much interested in it unless he was.

In the first place, the Nazi Party, though it was growing daily in numbers,
was far from being even the most important political movement in Bavaria, and
outside that state it was unknown. How could such a small party overthrow the
Republic? Hitler, who was not easily discouraged by odds against him, thought
he saw a way. He might unite under his leadership all the antirepublican, nationalist
forces in Bavaria. Then with the support of the Bavarian government,
the armed leagues and the Reichswehr stationed in Bavaria, he might lead a
march on Berlin – as Mussolini had marched on Rome the year before – and
bring the Weimar Republic down. Obviously Mussolini’s easy success had given
him food for thought.

page 70:

Seeckt next turned his attention to the threats of Communist uprisings in
Saxony, Thuringia, Hamburg and the Ruhr. In suppressing the Left the loyalty
of the Army could be taken for granted. In Saxony the Socialist-Communist
government was arrested by the local Reichswehr commander and a Reich Commissioner
appointed to rule. In Hamburg and in the other areas the Communists
were quickly and severely squelched. It now seemed to Berlin that the relatively
easy suppression of the Bolshevists had robbed the conspirators in Bavaria of
the pretext that they were really acting to save the Republic from Communism,
and that they would now recognize the authority of the national government.
But it did not turn out that way.

Bavaria remained defiant of Berlin.

 

[Yamato]

Hindenburg Disaster

Although I could not find it on youtube, I am hearing the full radio report by Herbert Morrison (at least one hour long) on a German radio, Südwestrundfunk 2 (SWR2) - Archivradio (SWR.de):
http://www.swr.de/swr2/wissen/archivradio/-/id=2847740/nid=2847740/did=6949822/1rgozdz/index.html

winamp radio stream:
http://swr-mp3-s-swr2raka01.akacast...akacast.akamaistream.net/swr-mp3-s-swr2raka01

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster#News_coverage

The disaster is well recorded due to the significant extent of newsreel coverage and photographs, as well as Herbert Morrison's eyewitness radio report for station WLS in Chicago, which was broadcast the next day. Heavy publicity about the first transatlantic passenger flight of the year by Zeppelin to the United States attracted a large number of journalists to the landing. (The airship had already made one round trip from Germany to Brazil that year.)
Morrison's broadcast remains one of the most famous in history. Parts of it were later dubbed onto the newsreel footage, giving the impression that the words and film were recorded together. His plaintive "Oh, the humanity!" has been widely used in popular culture. Part of the poignancy of his commentary is due to its being recorded at a slightly slower speed, so that when it is played back at normal speed, it seems to have a faster delivery and higher pitch. When corrected, his account is less frantic sounding, though still impassioned.

It's practically standing still now they've dropped ropes out of the nose of the ship; and (uh) they've been taken ahold of down on the field by a number of men. It's starting to rain again; it's... the rain had (uh) slacked up a little bit. The back motors of the ship are just holding it (uh) just enough to keep it from...It's burst into flames! Get this, Charlie; get this, Charlie! It's fire... and it's crashing! It's crashing terrible! Oh, my! Get out of the way, please! It's burning and bursting into flames and the... and it's falling on the mooring mast. And all the folks agree that this is terrible; this is the worst of the worst catastrophes in the world. [indecipherable] its flames... Crashing, oh! Four- or five-hundred feet into the sky and it... it's a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. It's smoke, and it's in flames now; and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring mast. Oh, the humanity! And all the passengers screaming around here. I told you; it—I can't even talk to people, their friends are on there! Ah! It's... it... it's a... ah! I... I can't talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honest: it's just laying there, mass of smoking wreckage. Ah! And everybody can hardly breathe and talk and the screaming. I... I... I'm sorry. Honest: I... I can hardly breathe. I... I'm going to step inside, where I cannot see it. Charlie, that's terrible. Ah, ah... I can't. Listen, folks; I... I'm gonna have to stop for a minute because I've lost my voice. This is the worst thing I've ever witnessed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Morrison_(announcer)

longer clips are played here:

Documentary on this subject:

 

[Yamato]

resuming from #3788

page 71:

This, to Berlin, was not only political but military rebellion, and General
von Seeckt was now determined to put down both.

He issued a plain warning to the Bavarian triumvirate and to Hitler and
the armed leagues that any rebellion on their part would be opposed by force.
But for the Nazi leader it was too late to draw back. His rabid followers were
demanding action. Lieutenant Wilhelm Brueckner, one of his S.A. commanders,
urged him to strike at once. ”The day is coming,” he warned, ”when I won’t be
able to hold the men back. If nothing happens now, they’ll run away from us.”

Hitler realized too that if Stresemann gained much more time and began to
succeed in his endeavor to restore tranquillity in the country, his own opportunity
would be lost. He pleaded with Kahr and Lossow to march on Berlin before
Berlin marched on Munich. And his suspicion grew that either the triumvirate
was losing heart or that it was planning a separatist coup without him for the
purpose of detaching Bavaria from the Reich. To this, Hitler, with his fanatical
ideas for a strong, nationalist, unified Reich, was unalterably opposed.

page 73:

THE BEER HALL PUTSCH

About a quarter to nine on the evening of November 8, 1923, after Kahr had
been speaking for half an hour to some three thousand thirsty burghers, seated
at roughhewn tables and quaffing their beer out of stone mugs in the Bavarian
fashion, S.A. troops surrounded the Buergerbraukeller and Hitler pushed forward
into the hall. While some of his men were mounting a machine gun in the
entrance, Hitler jumped up on a table and to attract attention fired a revolver
shot toward the ceiling. Kahr paused in his discourse. The audience turned
around to see what was the cause of the disturbance. Hitler, with the help of
Hess and of Ulrich Graf, the former butcher, amateur wrestler and brawler and
now the leader’s bodyguard, made his way to the platform. A police major
tried to stop him, but Hitler pointed his pistol at him and pushed on. Kahr,
according to one eyewitness, had now become ”pale and confused.” He stepped
back from the rostrum and Hitler took his place.

I didn't know Hitler would be such a man of action. He looks peaceful:

Once he had herded his
prisoners into the adjoining room, Hitler told them, ”No one leaves this room
alive without my permission,” He then informed them they would all have key”
jobs either in the Bavarian government or in the Reich government which he was
forming with Ludendorff. With Ludendorff? Earlier in the evening Hitler had
dispatched Scheubner-Richter to Ludwigshoehe to fetch the renowned General,
who knew nothing of the Nazi conspiracy, to the beerhouse at once.
The three prisoners at first refused even to speak to Hitler. He continued to
harangue them. Each of them must join him in proclaiming the revolution and
the new governments; each must take the post he, Hitler, assigned them, or ”he
has no right to exist.” Kahr was to be the Regent of Bavaria; Lossow, Minister
of the National Army; Seisser, Minister of the Reich Police. None of the three
was impressed at the prospect of such high office. They did not answer.
Their continued silence unnerved Hitler. Finally he waved his gun at them.
”I have four shots in my pistol! Three for my collaborators, if they abandon
me. The last bullet for myself!” Pointing the weapon to his forehead, he cried,
”If I am not victorious by tomorrow afternoon, I shall be a dead man!”

Kahr was not a very bright individual but he had physical courage. ”Herr
Hitler,” he answered, ”you can have me shot or shoot me yourself. Whether I
die or not is no matter.”
Seisser also spoke up. He reproached Hitler for breaking his word of honor
not to make a putsch against the police.
”Yes, I did,” Hitler replied. ”Forgive me, but I had to for the sake of the
Fatherland.”
General von Lossow disdainfully maintained silence. But when Kahr started
to whisper to him, Hitler snapped, ”Halt! No talking without my permission!”
He was getting nowhere with his own talk. Not one of the three men who
held the power of the Bavarian state in their hands had agreed to join him, even
at pistol point. The putsch wasn’t going according to plan. Then Hitler acted
on a sudden impulse. Without a further word, he dashed back into the hall,
mounted the tribune, faced the sullen crowd and announced that the members
of the triumvirate in the next room had joined him in forming a new national
government.

page 75:

...Ludendorff’s timely arrival
had saved Hitler. Overjoyed at this lucky break, he led the others back to the
platform, where each made a brief speech and swore loyalty to each other and
to the new regime. The crowd leaped on chairs and tables in a delirium of
enthusiasm. Hitler beamed with joy. ”He had a childlike, frank expression of
happiness that I shall never forget,” an eminent historian who was present later
declared.

This meeting began to break up. At the exits Hess, aided by storm troopers,
detained a number of Bavarian cabinet members and other notables who
were trying to slip out with the throng. Hitler kept his eye on Kahr, Lossow
and Seisser. Then news came of a clash between storm troopers of one of the
fighting leagues, the Bund Oberland, and regular troops at the Army Engineers’
barracks. Hitler decided to drive to the scene and settle the matter personally,
leaving the beer hall in charge of Ludendorff.

This turned out to be a fatal error. Lossow was the first to slip away.
He informed Ludendorff he must hurry to his office at Army headquarters
to give the necessary orders. When Scheubner-Richter objected, Ludendorff
rejoined stiffly, ”I forbid you to doubt the word of a German officer.” Kahr and
Seisser vanished too.

Hitler, in high spirits, returned to the Buergerbrau to find that the birds
had flown the coop. This was the first blow of the evening and it stunned him.

This American journalist and historian, Shirer, is a hell of storyteller. This is the most interesting history book I've ever read, and the only one I can remember reading (probably I removed the others from my memory, due to having read them in school).

Another thing to remark is that Hitler, unlike we'd expect, hasn't always won. He lost many times in life. But he didn't give up. And eventually he won big, but, like Jesse Livermore, he lost it all again, due to poor money management, in his case he was a poor risk player (the strategy game). When all you're missing in Europe is Great Britain, you don't go and try to conquer Asia. Asia is impossible to hold. Especially if, while you're trying to defeat Russia, in the meanwhile Great Britain unleashes its empire and former empire against you. Hitler equal Jesse Livermore, and according to historians they both committed suicide, although I am pretty sure that Hitler got away. It's one of those things they don't want you to know. I did some research, and it's clear that there's a cover up.

page 75:

Though there were some defections among the junior officers and some of the
troops, whose sympathies were with Hitler and Roehm, the higher officers, led by
General von Danner, commander of the Munich garrison, not only were prepared
to carry out Seeckt’s command but were bitterly resentful of the treatment
meted out to General von Lossow. In the Army’s code a civilian who pointed
a revolver at a general deserved to be smitten by an officer’s side arms.

page 76:

...Or perhaps there was another way out which at least would avert disaster.
On first hearing of the putsch, Crown Prince Rupprecht, a bitter personal enemy
of Ludendorff, had issued a brief statement calling for its prompt suppression.
Now Hitler decided to appeal to the Prince to intercede with Lossow and Kahr
and obtain an honorable, peaceful settlement. A Lieutenant Neunzert, a friend
of Hitler and of Rupprecht, was hurried off at dawn to the Wittelsbach castle
near Berchtesgaden on the delicate mission. Unable to find an automobile, he
had to wait for a train and did not arrive at his destination until noon, at which
hour events were taking a turn not foreseen by Hitler nor dreamt of as possible
by Ludendorff.

Hitler had planned a putsch, not a civil war. Despite his feverish state
of excitement he was in sufficient control of himself to realize that he lacked
the strength to overcome the police and the Army. He had wanted to make
a revolution with the armed forces, not against them.

page 77:

To the wavering young Nazi leader Ludendorff now proposed a plan of his
own that might still bring them victory and yet avoid bloodshed. German
soldiers, even German police – who were mostly ex-soldiers – would never dare,
he was sure, to fire on the legendary commander who had led them to great
victories on both the Eastern and the Western fronts. He and Hitler would
march with their followers to the center of the city and take it over. Not only
would the police and the Army not dare to oppose him, he was certain; they
would join him and fight under his orders. Though somewhat skeptical, Hitler
agreed...

continuing on next post

 

[Yamato]

page 78:

But once again the Nazis tried to talk their way through. One of them,
the faithful bodyguard Ulrich Graf, stepped forward and cried out to the police
officer in charge, ”Don’t shoot! His Excellency Ludendorff is coming!” Even
at this crucial, perilous moment, a German revolutionary, even an old amateur
wrestler and professional bouncer, remembered to give a gentleman his proper
title. Hitler added another cry. ”Surrender! Surrender!” he called out. But the
unknown police officer did not surrender. Apparently Ludendorff’s name had
no magic sound for him; this was the police,’ not the Army.

Which side fired first was never established. Each put the blame on the other.
One onlooker later testified that Hitler fired the first shot with his revolver.
Another thought that Streicher did, and more than one Nazi later told this
author that it was this deed which, more than any other, endeared him so long
to Hitler. (*)

(*) Some years later, in approving Streicher’s appointment as Nazi leader for Franconia over the opposition of many party comrades, Hitler declared, ”Perhaps there are one or two who don’t like the shape of Comrade Streicher’s nose. But when he lay beside me that day on the pavement by the Feldherrnhalle, I vowed to myself never to forsake him so long as he did not forsake me,” (Heiden, Hitler: A Biography, p. 157.)

You see, Hitler kept celebrating this defeat as the turning point of his victory.

At any rate a shot was fired and in the next instant a volley of shots rang out
from both sides, spelling in that instant the doom of Hitler’s hopes. Scheubner-
Richter fell, mortally wounded. Goering went down with a serious wound in
his thigh. Within sixty seconds the firing stopped, but the street was already
littered with fallen bodies – sixteen Nazis and three police dead or dying, many
more wounded and the rest, including Hitler, clutching the pavement to save
their lives.

Yep, as usual, it was a bluff. Even the nazis, at least back then, weren't willing to risk a bloodshed, on either side. See, they had a heart and a conscience. They weren't looking to kill people with similar ideas.

page 76:

Hitler had planned a putsch, not a civil war. Despite his feverish state
of excitement he was in sufficient control of himself to realize that he lacked
the strength to overcome the police and the Army. He had wanted to make
a revolution with the armed forces, not against them. Bloodthirsty though he
had been in his recent speeches and during the hours he held the Bavarian
triumvirs at gunpoint, he shrank from the idea of men united in their hatred of
the Republic shedding the blood of each other.

So did Ludendorff. He would, as he had told his wife, string up President
Ebert ”and Co.” and gladly watch them dangle from the gallows. But he did
not wish to kill policemen and soldiers who, in Munich at least, believed with
him in the national counterrevolution.

Oh, wow, check this out:

...many more wounded and the rest, including Hitler, clutching the pavement to save
their lives.

There was one exception, and had his example been followed, the day might
have had a different ending. Ludendorff did not fling himself to the ground.
Standing erect and proud in the best soldierly tradition, with his adjutant,
Major Streck, at his side, he marched calmly on between the muzzles of the
police rifles until he reached the Odeonsplatz. He must have seemed a lonely
and bizarre figure. Not one Nazi followed him. Not even the supreme leader,
Adolf Hitler.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Ludendorff

page 78:

...But the fact remains that according to
the testimony of one of his own Nazi followers in the column, the physician Dr.
Walther Schulz, which was supported by several other witnesses, Hitler ”was
the first to get up and turn back,” leaving his dead and wounded comrades
lying in the street. He was hustled into a waiting motorcar and spirited off to
the country home of the Hanfstaengls at Uffing, where Putzi’s wife and sister
nursed him and where, two days later, he was arrested.

page 79:

Within a few days all the rebel leaders except Goering and Hess
were rounded up and jailed. The Nazi putsch had ended in a fiasco. The party
was dissolved. National Socialism, to all appearances, was dead. Its dictatorial
leader, who had run away at the first hail of bullets, seemed utterly discredited,
his meteoric political career at an end.

Yep, pretty amazing. He was defeated, but now he was famous.

He was well aware that correspondents of the world press as
well as of the leading German newspapers were flocking to Munich to cover the
trial, which began on February 26, 1924, before a special court sitting in the old
Infantry School in the Blutenburgstrasse. By the time it had ended twenty-four
days later Hitler had transformed defeat into triumph, made Kahr, Lossow and
Seisser share his guilt in the public mind to their ruin, impressed the German
people with his eloquence and the fervor of his nationalism, and emblazoned his
name on the front pages of the world.

Although Ludendorff was easily the most famous of the ten prisoners in the
dock, Hitler at once grabbed the limelight for himself. From beginning to end
he dominated the courtroom. Franz Guertner, the Bavarian Minister of Justice
and an old friend and protector of the Nazi leader, had seen to it that the
judiciary would be complacent and lenient. Hitler was allowed to interrupt as
often as he pleased, cross-examine witnesses at will and speak on his own behalf
at any time and at any length – his opening statement consumed four hours,
but it was only the first of many long harangues.

Oh, he was protected by the minister of justice. Then it was easy. And then of course he was a great orator.

page 80:

And the General poured all the scorn of an old
Army officer on his former corporal, this unemployed upstart, whose overpowering
ambition had led him to try to dictate to the Army and the State. How
far this unscrupulous demagogue had come, he exclaimed, from the days, not so
far distant, when he had been willing to be merely ”the drummer” in a patriotic
movement!
A drummer merely? Hitler knew how to answer that:

How petty are the thoughts of small men! Believe me, I do not regard
the acquisition of a minister’s portfolio as a thing worth striving for.
I do not hold it worthy of a great man to endeavor to go down in
history just by becoming a minister. One might be in danger of being
buried beside other ministers. My aim from the first was a thousand
times higher than becoming a minister. I wanted to become the
destroyer of Marxism. I am going to achieve this task, and if I do,
the title of Minister will be an absurdity so far as I am concerned.

Wow, Hitler knew he was going to attack Russia from the start. That's why he didn't go after the British. He was really mad at Marxism, and therefore at the Russians.

He had been accused of wanting to jump from drummer to dictator. He
would not deny it. Fate had decreed it.

The man who is born to be a dictator is not compelled. He wills
it. He is not driven forward, but drives himself. There is nothing
immodest about this. Is it immodest for a worker to drive himself
toward heavy labor? Is it presumptuous of a man with the high
forehead of a thinker to ponder through the nights till he gives the
world an invention? The man who feels called upon to govern a
people has no right to say, ”If you want me or summon me, I will
co-operate.” No! It is his duty to step forward.

Hmm, this guy had balls, to the point of risking ridicule.

 

[Yamato]

One last post about the maid.

In 2 days I will be leaving and going back to Rome.

When I'll come back in a year or even just 9 months, for my summer break, the maid will probably be dead.

That's why it is so hard to leave.

Now it's not just the maid who will be dying but my happy childhood world and memories.

She raised 3 generations. She lives in my granparents' house, where my mom and all my aunts and uncles were raised. She taught me how to walk and talk, too, probably.

For every holiday and religious celebrations (xmas, easter), we met here in this big house, over 20 of us: the grandparents, the uncles, the cousins.

This is all about to end. I am still sleeping in this house, for two more nights, actually 3.

And when she'll die, they'll sell the house, and we will never meet again here. It will definitely be more sad than losing all my capital, because i can create that stake again. But losing all my emotional and affection capital... that cannot be undone. Once the house is gone, it's gone. It's going to be empty and seeing it empty might be just as sad. A part of me is going to die once the maid dies and the house gets sold. I am so sad and frustrated that I almost cannot sleep.

As if it weren't enough, we're battling daily with the maid's maids, who are mostly bitches, who have no culture and education, and mistreat the very people who pay them (my mom and brothers and sisters). The blond one, Cristina, gets on my nerves in particular. Of course, being polite, I never told her anything, but she's very rude, nosy, intrusive, too outspoken, like all these uneducated people are, including many I meet at work. They lack politeness and sensitivity, which politeness is: sensitivity to others.

I would need to at least quadruple my capital to get over these sad and frustrating thoughts, and instead my positions are taking a beating, so I am extra sad: oil has been heading lower, so did JPY (and my position was closed due to insufficient funds), gold and silver didn't keep rising and corn is falling, too.

I can't really complain though. I was wrong, very wrong about all my predictions. These derivatives were supposed to reverse as early as June. I've been calling a bottom for over 6 months on most of these markets. And instead they kept falling, or resumed their falling, and I was so overleveraged that even if they didn't fall much, my positions have been closed at a loss, especially lately. Why did I open a contract on OIL? Who asked me to do that? I didn't have the capital to do it. This thing could easily fall another 10k.

And all these positions are correlated. They didn't seem to be correlated at the time, but they're all going down and up at the same time.

On top of the mentioned sources of sadness (and somewhat frustration), which are:
1) maid getting worse and at risk of dying
2) childhood memories house at subsequent risk of being sold
3) positions at risk of being liquidated due to being overleveraged and wrong on the markets

On top of these, I am very saddened by seeing my mother work so hard for the maid, like a saint, and getting so little in return from life. My mother is a saint, and instead I thought she was stupid, all my life. And my father treated her much worse, given that he's basically an asshole.

As you might know, feeling guilty and feeling sorry for someone is a feeling that is very similar to sadness, although I am not directly involved.

When I was a child, we were all meeting in this house, and playing with my cousins, and eating all the great food the maid was cooking for us, selflessly getting up at 4 am to back cakes and similar.

Then my grandfather died, then, years later, my grandmother, and now the maid will die, too. Until now, I could live in denial, and pretend everything went on as usual, and could rely on this house to feel like a child again. But now I can see, with the recent events, that I am inevitably heading for death as well, and that this pattern will repeat to wipe out all the people from my childhood and ultimately myself, but even seeing them wiped out from old age is sad enough. Remember how Highlander's Connor MacLeod was sad? He was immortal (provided he didn't get decapitated), but he was sad about people around him getting old and dying. Maybe that's why I like reading Hitler's biography and history in general. All these people are already dead, and I don't have to worry about their death, but can read about when they were alive. Like you can do in all movies.

I feel like him. The people I loved the most, the world I loved so much, are dying.

"I am not lonely". I wish I could say that.

There's no chance for us
It's all decided for us
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us

Hmm, Freddy Mercury sings "It's all decided for us". I don't know if I feel that way. I guess Hitler felt the same, when he gave this speech in court, in 1923, after his failed coup:

The man who is born to be a dictator is not compelled. He wills
it. He is not driven forward, but drives himself. There is nothing
immodest about this. Is it immodest for a worker to drive himself
toward heavy labor? Is it presumptuous of a man with the high
forehead of a thinker to ponder through the nights till he gives the
world an invention? The man who feels called upon to govern a
people has no right to say, ”If you want me or summon me, I will
co-operate.” No! It is his duty to step forward.

What was I born to be? Not a dictator. I don't feel any calling, unlike Hitler. I was born to observe and learn, but not to be famous or successful. If it were all decided for us (instead I think it's random, being atheist), then... I would not have to worry about my trades. Instead I think it's not decided, evolution is random, and however we can detect patterns, and exploit them. How well I don't know yet. There's the pattern of overleveraging in me that's keeping from exploiting whatever other patterns I have observed. I haven't been able to defeat my overleveraging, because if I think I will be right, it doesn't make sense to hold myself back.

... and obviously I am not trying to sleep, but instead trying to stay awake. Obviously because I am writing and obviously because my prevailing thought is death, as I said above, and therefore, being sleep so close to death, I'd rather not sleep right away. In fact I am afraid of falling asleep and I am afraid of having nightmares and afraid of getting up tomorrow and seeing that in fact it is reality and not a nightmare: that everyone around me is dying, especially the people who were so nice to me as a child. Once again, I can't help but feel like MacLeod in this clip, already shown above:

Now I'll read some of hitler's bio by shirer. It makes me feel better.

Another thing to mention is this: I do all this talking about the maid, about my mom, feeling sorry for both, loving them for how well they treated us all. The truth is this though. If my mom told me that to prolong the maid's life by ten years I had to get up at 7 am and take her to the bathroom, and similar things that she's doing, hey, you know what I'd do? I'd find a way out, an excuse in order not to do it. So, for me like for many of us, all this sentimentalism should not mislead us: we're not willing to do much for others, for the very people that we would write a book about, praising them throughout it. There's people who worry for others, and even spend their lives (like the maid) doing things for others and expecting little or nothing in return, and there's people, like me, who mostly think about themselves. No matter how lengthy are my posts about my sadness for the maid. Maybe all I am worried about, probably even, is my own little childhood memories and this environment, where I am treated very well. If I were asked, in fact: when I am being asked sacrifices to help the maid and my mom, such as getting up early, the hell that I am doing them. I am here, every night, making sure, I wake up at noon, and do nothing for my mom nor the maid. Yup, this is all true. That's what I am doing, and that's what I've been doing all my life. And sometimes I feel sad about it, about exploiting those who love me, but I am probably not going to change it, focused as I am on myself. So, no more bull**** about how I care for the maid and my mom. And no tears at their funeral either. You've got to do things for people when they're alive: too easy to cry when they're dead and say how much you loved them. Just worry about it when they're alive.

things2remember

...

With these huge problems, like death, if I think about them for hours, I feel better. They're unsolvable, but I almost feel like I've worked on them, and, once I've worked on them, I can put them away for a while (months or years) and not think about them anymore. There is no solution, for all we know, to death. If I were a reptilian, like Obama or the Queen, it might be different. Maybe they have found a solution in those advanced races. Obama also traveled into the past (with a guy named Basiago, do your research), so he definitely must have a solution. Good for him.

 

[Yamato]

Resuming from #3791

page 81:

Recalling his thoughts thirteen
years later after he had achieved his goal, he told his old followers, assembled
at the Buergerbraukeller to celebrate the anniversary of the putsch, ”I can
calmly say that it was the rashest decision of my life. When I think back on
it today, I grow dizzy . . . If today you saw one of our squads from the year
1923 marching by, you would ask, ’What workhouse have they escaped from?’
. . . But fate meant well with us. It did not permit an action to succeed which,
if it had succeeded, would in the end have inevitably crashed as a result of the
movement’s inner immaturity in those days and its deficient organizational and
intellectual foundation . . . We recognized that it is not enough to overthrow
the old State, but that the new State must previously have been built up and
be ready to one’s hand . . . In 1933 it was no longer a question of overthrowing
a State by an act of violence; meanwhile the new State had been built up and
all that remained to do was to destroy the last remnants of the old State – and
that took but a few hours.”

page 82:

The sentences were imposed on April 1, 1924. A little
less than nine months later, on December 20, Hitler was released from prison,
free to resume his fight to overthrow the democratic state. The consequences
of committing high treason, if you were a man of the extreme Right, were not
unduly heavy, despite the law, and a good many antirepublicans took notice of
it.

Hard to believe it, but true. The co-putschist, Ludendorff was acquitted altogether.

The putsch, even though it was a fiasco, made Hitler a national figure and,
in the eyes of many, a patriot and a hero. Nazi propaganda soon transformed
it into one of the great legends of the movement. Each year, even after he came
to power, even after World War II broke out, Hitler returned on the evening of
November 8 to the beer hall in Munich to address his Old Guard comrades – the
alte Kaempfer, as they were called – who had followed the leader to what seemed
then such a grotesque disaster. In 1935 Hitler, the Chancellor, had the bodies
of the sixteen Nazis who had fallen in the brief encounter dug up and placed in
vaults in the Feldherrnhalle, which became a national shrine. Of them Hitler
said, in dedicating the memorial, ”They now pass into German immortality.
Here they stand for Germany and keep guard over our people. Here they lie as
true witnesses to our movement.” He did not add, and no German seemed to
recall, that they were also the men whom Hitler had abandoned to their dying
when he had picked himself up from the pavement and ran away.

Yep, all true.

That summer of 1924 in the old fortress at Landsberg, high above the River
Lech, Adolf Hitler, who was treated as an honored guest, with a room of his own
and a splendid view, cleared out the visitors who flocked to pay him homage and
bring him gifts, summoned the faithful Rudolf Hess, who had finally returned
to Munich and received a sentence, and began to dictate to him chapter after
chapter of a book.

True as well.

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/photo-gallery-hitler-s-cushy-time-in-prison-fotostrecke-56269.html





It reminds you of that scene in Goodfellas, in jail, where they all cook together.

 

[Yamato]

20th of July 2009. That's when I started running and forward-testing my systems. It's been almost 5 years of starting my systems every day. I don't think that I missed even one day of trading. I just started them again, for the 1,150th time or so (250 trading days in a year).

But I also took the discretionary route, and today my CL position got closed with a loss of several thousands. So now all I have left is Corn, which is also losing, it doesn't seem to find a bottom, gold, silver, which are at break-even and... I think that's it. I don't have anything left that is still open.

I can't blame anyone, nor anything. My predictions were wrong. I said that gold, silver and corn would rise, and they're still there, after 6 months.

Similar with all my other predictions, although I've made a bit of money on JPY and GBL, and that's why I am not entirely wiped out yet.

Other problems today.

1) sadness for the maid
2) sadness for my mom who helps her

I did a little bit of course, like washing dishes and setting the table.

3) the maid's maids are still here, of course, and I don't trust them. One because she's invasive, nosy, talks too much, and rude and impolite. The other maid I don't like because she's told my aunt to hire the rude maid. So they're friends, and I trust neither. Maybe they're not thieves but they're rude. Since we're paying, there's no reason to have either rude or dishonest people.

4) big big problem that I hadn't mentioned yet.. I mentioned I was sick with cough, but I didn't mention that I can't hear much because of it, and this has already lasted for a whole week, maybe even 10 days, ever since I came to this part of the island. I don't if it the evil maid's maid who put a spell on me, or because this place is cold, because of bad insulation.

Well, soon I'll have to go to sleep. I am uncomfortable with the idea of not staying up all night and having to meet the maid's rude maid tomorrow, but the first reason I have to get up early is that I set an appointment with a doctor, whose specialty is... Otorhinolaryngology. I had to look it up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otolaryngology

Otolaryngology /ˌoʊtoʊˌlærɪŋˈɡɒlədʒi/, is the study of ear, nose, and throat conditions or ENT (ear, nose, and throat). It is also referred to as Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery or Otorhinolaryngology. It is the oldest medical speciality in the United States, where nearly 50 percent of all office visits pertain to the ear, nose, and throat.

Yeah, I am not in the United States, but the reason I wasn't going to this doctor yet, even after so many days with this hearing problem, is that I don't trust doctors as a rule, because... I don't trust people, and doctors are people, people with a license to hurt you basically.

...

So, I am about to go to bed, because tomorrow I have to go to the doctor.

In the meanwhile my mom is helping the "maid" (whom we call affectionately something else, but I don't want to disclose personal information) go to the bathroom, and medicating some conditions that she has, such as using a cream for her legs and similar.

This maid has done so much for us, and I have to acknowledge this: we're not doing enough for her. The reason is as follows: the relatives under 30 are totally self-absorbed, or abroad. The relatives over 30 are partly doing something for her, like me, keeping her company. But in part they're busy with their families, and taking care of their children (like my cousin, who lives very close, but I haven't seen her here yet, in 10 days), or even their sick parents (like my cousin again, the same one).

Those who have free time and enough maturity to do so are helping the maid. The others have either helped her in the past, or are unable to help her, because they are not on the island.

One cousin is in New Zealand. Two in England, one in Germany, one in Bologna, and more elsewhere. Can we blame these cousins? I guess not. I can't blame them: I was away, too, when my grandfather died, and I did not assist him in the last few years of his life. I can't blame them for doing with the maid what I did with my grandfather: I forgot about him. The same with my grandmother.

So I can't really blame cousins who are doing now what I've been doing until very recently: being totally selfish.

I feel bad for being unable to spend here the next 6 months, at least. I can't quit my job. I haven't succeeded with trading, due to my mistakes. Natural mistakes, natural limits, I guess.

Recapitulating, I am really upset/sad about my hearing and equally about the maid, who's not having in return as much as she gave our family.

At the same time, despite all this love and sorrow, almost every night I have gone to bed late, thereby depriving the maid of assistance from me until noon. That I can identify, this is due to these reasons (and others that I am not seeing):
1) I like to spend a few hours alone, thinking, after spending the entire day with people -- I do it in Rome as well
2) I dislike spending time with the rude, outspoken, intrusive maid's maid, who comes in the morning
3) I cannot curb these two problems above because I am quite selfish, compared to most of my relatives, who are almost completely selfless (very catholic and everything). I can't do this partly because my father has treated me very badly, emotionally and also financially, as I was growing up. He treated me not like he was my father but as if I were being raised in a regular orphanage. His father died when he was 6, so he's had a rough life. But I am still wondering why, if you have had a crappy childhood, you have to give a crappy childhood to your son as well, when instead you could avoid it. I think he's sadistic. His brother (my uncle) told me he's also treated him badly, needlessly. According to my uncle, it's as if he were saying: I've had a crappy life, so I don't need to treat you nicely.

For example, lately I've not appreciated the fact that when I was coughing very violently, he didn't even turn to look at me, as if he were totally indifferent to my health problem. I don't do that. My mom doesn't do that. I know very few people who do that. I don't see a good reason, I don't see an acceptable reason why I should get this attitude from my father. There were worse instances before, when i was in the hospital, with a risk of cancer (which I did have), and he called me and told me "consider it like a vacation". I've got a list of these mean things he told me, it keeps getting longer.

Too bad I have to go to sleep. I don't know for how long... how long it'll take me to fall asleep, with these thoughts on my mind:
1) people get sick, and others, who owe them, don't assist them
2) my positions have been getting closed, one after the other, and my capital is growing smaller and smaller, while king world news keeps yelling that the rise in gold and silver is imminent and will be tremendous.
3) I can't hear much anymore, and I have to work still, because this is not bad enough to stay home (cough is gone, fever is gone, cold i've never had -- I just can't hear).

Now I'll probably read some more of that Hitler's biography, because history never failed me.

I wonder what Shirer felt like when he wrote this rise and fall of the Third Reich. If he knew he was giving me a gift, or what. Or if he was bored. And if he forgot about an old aunt, or maid, or relative, in order to work on his book. Or if, in order to spend all the years he spent in Europe, he didn't visit his parents in the US, when they were sick.

My positions are dying, I am dying, we are all dying. I spent my carefree years of youth telling my other friend that life wasn't as good as they were pretending and saying it was. But life then could have been good for me. Instead I thought of sad things and tried to be realistic. And now that life is really sad, I am not even prepared for this, and I am totally overwhelmed by the sadness, by everything going wrong: my trading, my relatives, and even my own health. It's easy to pretend you're realistic, and philosophize about the sadness of life, when almost everything is going perfectly in your life. It's another thing to do it when everything is bad. In fact, it is impossible to do it. The most you can do, is acknowledge facts, without lying to yourself like most people do. But I certainly don't feel like writing a philosophy book about the sadness of life.

Many years ago, I used to say "death is approaching" as a motto, or reply when they asked me "how are you doing?". Now it doesn't seem as funny. Not as funny now that things aren't going well, and that some people around me have already died. I don't feel like being sarcastic anymore. Never again. I feel like sitting with my grandmother or the maid and watching hours and hours of soap operas.

But again right now I am playing a movie in my head and making myself to be what I am not. I am still selfish and the proof is that I spend hours writing, while I could go to sleep and spend this time with the maid tomorrow.

You see, I like better to think of myself loving someone (girlfriend or relative) rather than actually spending time doing something for/with that person. I remember how I used to fall in love with all these women when they rejected me. If they changed their minds and said they'd come to visit me or wanted to move in with me or asked me to cross the ocean to be with them, all of a sudden I wasn't in love anymore. I just like to fantasize about being in love, being charitable, being generous. I don't like to actually go through the trouble of putting it into practice. I am a total bluff, so deceivingly a bluff that I deceive myself most of the time.

I am not generous, I am not charitable, and I do not love. I like to fantasize about being someone and doing things, but if I have to be that person or do those things, I cop out very quickly. Having said this, i am not worse than the average person. But I probably deceive myself much more, so that the distance between the real me and the imaginary me is much wider.

 

[Yamato]

resuming from #3793

Ok, so now he's in jail and he writes mein kampf, which Hitler wanted to title "Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice", but the publisher changed it to "My Struggle" (Mein Kampf).

page 84:

Hitler’s royalties – his chief source of income from 1925 on – were considerable
when averaged over those first seven years. But they were nothing compared
to those received in 1933, the year he became Chancellor. In his first year of
office Mein Kampf sold a million copies, and Hitler’s income from the royalties,
which had been increased from 10 to 15 per cent after January 1, 1933, was over
one million marks (some $300,000), making him the most prosperous author in
Germany and for the first time a millionaire. Except for the Bible, no other
book sold as well during the Nazi regime, when few family households felt secure
without a copy on the table. It was almost obligatory – and certainly politic
– to present a copy to a bride and groom at their wedding, and nearly every
school child received one on graduation from whatever school. By 1940, the
year after World War II broke out, six million copies of the Nazi bible had been
sold in Germany.99

Not every German who bought a copy of Mein Kampf necessarily read it. I
have heard many a Nazi stalwart complain that it was hard going and not a few
admit – in private – that they were never able to get through to the end of its
782 turgid pages. But it might be argued that had more non-Nazi Germans read
it before 1933 and had the foreign statesmen of the world perused it carefully
while there still was time, both Germany and the world might have been saved
from catastrophe.

For whatever other accusations can be made against Adolf
Hitler, no one can accuse him of not putting down in writing exactly the kind
of Germany he intended to make if he ever came to power and the kind of world
he meant to create by armed German conquest. The blueprint of the Third
Reich and, what is more, of the barbaric New Order which Hitler inflicted on
conquered Europe in the triumphant years between 1939 and 1945 is set down
in all its appalling crudity at great length and in detail between the covers of
this revealing book.

As we have seen, Hitler’s basic ideas were formed in his early twenties in
Vienna, and we have his own word for it that he learned little afterward and
altered nothing in his thinking.† When he left Austria for Germany in 1913 at
the age of twenty-four, he was full of a burning passion for German nationalism,
a hatred for democracy, Marxism and the Jews and a certainty that Providence
had chosen the Aryans, especially the Germans, to be the master race.

page 85:

...Expansion elsewhere? Where? In this manner Hitler leads to the core of his
ideas on German foreign policy which he was to attempt so faithfully to carry
out when he became ruler of the Reich. Germany, he said bluntly, must expand
in the East – largely at the expense of Russia.

In the first volume of Mein Kampf Hitler discoursed at length on this problem
of Lebensraum – living space – a subject which obsessed him to his dying
breath. The Hohenzollern Empire, he declared, had been mistaken in seeking
colonies in Africa. ”Territorial policy cannot be fulfilled in the Cameroons but
today almost exclusively in Europe.” But the soil of Europe was already occupied.
True, Hitler recognized, ”but nature has not reserved this soil for the
future possession of any particular nation or race; on the contrary, this soil exists
for the people which possesses the force to take it.” What if the present
possessors object? ”Then the law of self-preservation goes into effect; and what
is refused to amicable methods, it is up to the fist to take,”101

"Only an adequate large space on this earth assures a nation of freedom
of existence . . . Without consideration of ”traditions” and
prejudices [the National Socialist movement] must find the courage
to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road
that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to
new land and soil . . . The National Socialist movement must strive
to eliminate the disproportion between our population and our area"

page 86:

Fate, Hitler remarks, was kind to Germany in this respect. It had handed
over Russia to Bolshevism, which, he says, really meant handing over Russia
to the Jews. ”The giant empire in the East,” he exults, ”is ripe for collapse.
And the end of Jewish rule in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state.”
So the great steppes to the East, Hitler implies, could be taken over easily on
Russia’s collapse without much cost in blood to the Germans.

Can anyone contend that the blueprint here is not clear and precise? France
will be destroyed, but that is secondary to the German drive eastward. First the
immediate lands to the East inhabited predominantly by Germans will be taken.
And what are these? Obviously Austria, the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia and
the western part of Poland, including Danzig. After that, Russia herself. Why
was the world so surprised, then, when Chancellor Hitler, a bare few years later,
set out to achieve these very ends?

Yep, Marx was indeed a German jew:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx

This is amazing. Finally it is clear why Hitler didn't go after England, when he could have easily done so, but went after the Russians. That didn't make any sense, but he thought the British wouldn't go after him, because he was doing them a favor by going after Russia. He was wrong. The British went after him with all their colonies and former colonies.

 

[Yamato]

Where is the german gold?

http://www.silverdoctors.com/where-is-the-german-gold/#more-37115

...In summary, it goes like this:
The original German gold held in the U.S. is gone. Leased, sold and rehypothecated many times over.
Germany now wants its gold back. The U.S. balks and promises to only return roughly 40 mts/year for eight years. (By the way, why didn’t France return any gold in 2013? Germany’s looking for 374 metric tonnes from them and, in 2013, it got zilch, zero and nada.)
Pressed to come up with gold to ship back to Germany, the U.S. scours it’s vaults.
The U.S. takes some of it’s 1930s-confiscated “coin melt” gold, assayed at 90% purity, and recasts it into 99.5% purity London bars and ships them off to Frankfurt.
The Bundesbank books in these new bars, apparently date-stamped “2013″, as a “return of German gold” and now awaits the other 95% of their “order”.

Hmmm. OK, then. First year done. Whew! Now, from which vault will the U.S. find gold for Germany in 2014? And how about the reserves allegedly held in Paris? When will those be returned? You’d think they could just drive that over in a convoy of guarded trucks. From Paris to Frankfurt is only about a 500km drive. You could do that in under a day. What’s the big deal?
(Could it be that there is no German gold in Paris? Coincidentally, it’s almost the exact same distance from Paris to Basel, Switzerland. Hmmmm. Maybe the Germans should look for their gold there, instead??)
Anyway, this entire farce just keeps getting sillier by the day. Today, there are reports from Germany that indicate the Bundesbank is quickly backtracking and attempting to retract the “U.S. remelting of bars” story. (http://www.gata.org/node/13472) OK, right. Whatever you say. And don’t forget about this fun chart, created for us last year by our pal, Ned Naylor-Leyland:

 

[Yamato]

I just came back from the ear doctor and it seems that I am screwed.

Here's the deal. I was coughing pretty hard and, the doctor says, some capillary might have broken and that's what caused some hearing loss.

He said in 60% of cases medicines can "improve" the problem. But this also means that in 40% of cases there is no improvement, and that in 60% of cases it doesn't get back to what it was.

He also said not to worry about the sensation of having my ear plugged because that will go away. Yeah, thanks a lot, because you get used to not hearing. Usually this is what they say when it's hopeless. I am screwed basically.

It's like telling someone: Ok, you've lost your arm, but there's a 60% chance that with these medicines some of it will grow back, and, at any rate, in a little bit of time you won't even remember that it ever was there.

Next life I've got to remember to cure my coughing, because coughing can have consequences.

At any rate, now I'll be taking my medicines... he made me buy 5 different boxes of pills: cardioaspirin, bentelan, benexol, trental, and pantoprazolo to keep myself from having stomach problems from the other pills.

 

[Yamato]

I should be pretty happy, because all went back up today, so that my small capital gained 33% in just 24 hours.

Unfortunately I am still sad about people dying around me, such as the maid, and myself, too, because today I went to the ear doctor and it seems that it's pretty bad. So far none of the lost hearing has come back. I've started taking medicines this morning. Knowing doctors and health, I am pretty pessimistic. That guy told me there's about a 60% chance of recovering at least some of the hearing I lost.

Pretty bad. And I don't even believe it's that high.

For a second I wanted to kill myself. Maybe for a few seconds.

What's going to change in my life now? I don't know. First I will keep taking these medicines for two weeks, while going to the office, where I will be pretty embarrassed due to reduced hearing.

Damn.

I managed to get back into my oil position at the level where I got liquidated yesterday due to lack of margin, and I got back into... GBL as well.

I could have gotten back into JPY as well, but it seemed to high (just 30 ticks higher), and then, while waiting for it to fall lower, it instead went even higher, and so I said: forget about it.

Now I am pretty screwed, because JPY made me lose thousands and I am out of it.

The biggest recovery today was from Corn, which went in a few minutes from 407 to 430 something.

But also gold and silver went up.

Now I'll do some research on my medical problems. I'll try to get back into JPY on Monday, hopefully on a correction.

I am back to thinking about myself, and not the maid, who's dying and not about my mother who's doing everything she can to help her, day and night. I washed quite a few dishes, but that's nothing. I wish I could quit my job and move here for good, to assist the maid for the next few months, or hopefully longer, and set the example to follow, for the other cousins, who ate all her cakes, and now are really doing nothing, each one for a different "reasonable"... reason.

The maid who gave her life for my family, expecting very little in return, almost like dogs do. Except dogs don't cook, don't clean and don't teach anyone to talk and walk.

What is she getting from us in return? From me, just the fact that I spend maybe a total of 30 days watching soap operas with her, and I grabbed the water or some pills for her. That's all.

From the others, probably even less, and they got even more, because they lived on the island. But this is just the cousins. The aunts and uncles and my mom did much more for her.

Anyway, from this experience, which is probably close to that of many other old people dying, what we learn is that god doesn't exist. Or maybe she'll go to heaven and we'll go to hell, and it will prove that god exists. For sure, she believes in god.

Right now she's still alive... what do I do: do I quit my job and move here to help her? I should, but I already know that I won't. If I don't do it now, I am not going to do it once I am in Rome. And one day they'll call me and tell me that she's at the hospital or that she is dead.

I also feel sorry for myself, so I... that's why I don't quit my disgusting job and move here. But maybe she deserves more of my sympathy than I do. Definitely.

Here's what I could do. If I solve my problems, but even if I don't, I should fly here every weekend. Yeah. But I won't do this either. I am too lazy. It's easier for me to talk about charity and sorrow and sympathy in a post, much easier than putting it into practice, and take a flight every weekend, to assist her.

 

[Yamato]

Yeah, two hours later and I am still awake. I've been crying quite a bit.

Been crying about the maid, but I am a totally contradictory human being. On the one hand I cry because she gave her life for my... for our families and she's getting little in return, or at least not enough in return (the same applies to my grandmother, who's already gone), and on the other hand, I don't spend time with her because I can't deal with that other newly-hired maid, who's unbearable, I don't spend time with her because I get up late in the... early in the afternoon, because I spend hours reading hitler's biography, and talking about gold and silver here.

For this vacation I could have postponed hitler and my trading. I could have dedicated the whole vacation to her, but I didn't. So what is up with me? I am a free-rider self-absorbed person 99% of the time, and when it is time to go to sleep, I acknowledge it and I feel sorry for the people I've exploited.

This only happens within my family, and outside and I am totally fair to everyone and usually I prefer to be taken advantage of than to risk abusing anyone. But this is the very reason that I am selfish within my family: it takes so much energy to be fair outside of the family, according to the strict and almost impossible rules I was taught, that when I am back within the family, I am selfish and recover from the fatigue. Maybe the same applies to my father, who's mostly been disappointing to all of us, as a father/husband/relative. Cold, distant, doesn't show affection, doesn't spend much time with any relative, including family. Doesn't care about what we'd like to tell him. And more.

So yes, I am two or even more people. One person as I am falling asleep (or trying) and another person when the next morning I turned off the alarm and keep sleeping, forgetting all I was thinking about the maid, and what I owe her.

All my crying and sensitivity at night is useless and worthless. "Crocodile tears" as they say here in Italy. Do little all day for her, then cry because of it.

Also, I will now go back to Rome and do nothing about it. I could fly to the island every weekend and be with her, but I won't do it. I've never done it, except when it gave me pleasure (not for her pleasure). I could have asked to be moved to the island, in a branch of my bank. But that was too much work, too many unknowns. So, one option after another, I have discarded every way to help others. Oh, the same applies to my actions for all other relatives. Out of 30 close relatives we are here from the island, including parents, I am the most indebted relative there is. I'm the one who has done the least and received the most, if we just exclude a couple of other selfish cousins, maybe four in total.

If I want to cry more, I just need to think of this: today she asked me about my hearing and she was worried and she said she was sorry about it. She really meant it, more than my father ever meant it, that i can remember of. And she's dying.

But I am selfish, a lifetime of selfishness makes me incapable of real sacrifices such as going to bed early to spend more time with her. All I do is, when I wake up, I watch a few hours of TV with her, and I help my mom with the dishes and similar.

This is how I am. This is how she is: worrying about m y health, even as she is dying.

And maybe, probably even now I am just using her to write something moving. Like the script for a movie.

I am so selfish that in a situation like this I even worried a few times about combing my eyebrows.

Maybe I deserved a few extra problems, such as this hearing loss, to be punished for having so much more than her, and being a free-rider with all my relatives, doing nothing for them, while they were doing everything for me, and for each other.

Nonetheless, this is just a moment of clarity and I don't think that I'll radically change my life.

I wanted to make money so that I could help other people by using the money and without making too much effort. This is true. But the money hasn't come, and, while I spare myself real efforts, maybe like flying low-cost, these people I wanted to help or visit, are getting old and dying.

While I worry about categorizing folders, favorites, charts, excel files, and knowledge, all my favorite people, which are better than folders... they're all dying. And I haven't shown them my affection.

There's something very wrong with being an extremist, and so driven and motivated: that if you are wrong, you're extremely wrong. And that you're going to totally avoid things that might have been good. The others are superficial and don't even realize what they're doing, but they do more of everything. Is it really worth it to miss quality time with your relatives, just to be able to watch a few extra movies?

No, it's not. It is only if you think that you're immortal, like I've been thinking for a while. But now that people around me are dying, now that I am getting health problems... well, my ego is shrinking.

And it may be too late. I might not change even though I see these loved ones die.

I wish I could just snap my fingers and change myself, but insomnia is a deeply ingrained habit, and my thought will keep me awake, the schedule will be postponed... it is a disaster. Everything goes in the direction of insomnia in my life. Wanting to avoid people, worrying intensely about problems, wanting to think clearly at night, without interruptions. Superficiality is the opposite of what I am and that is what allows you to sleep and spend time with people.

By being more superficial I would have had so many advantages, and would have avoided this hearing loss maybe, too, because probably I was coughing hard because I wanted to overdo it, just like I tend to overdo everything. And now I am screwed, but I am screwed morally, more than physically, because I am here worrying about my little problems, totally self-absorbed, while there's a maid who spent her life for us and, even as she's dying, she said she feels sorry about my health problem. Who's more miserable? The selfish ones or the selfless ones?

I don't know.

My mom, her sisters, the maid, are all pretty selfless (not totally of course, or they wouldn't even be alive). I am quite selfish (not totally either, of course). My father, too. Although we have a sense of duty, so that we will act fairly and even be generous, but not go out of our way with anyone.

This is not being selfless.

Here's a good link on it:
http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Selfless

...

Oh, well. I haven't solved anything, and I've used another 3 hours for selfish purposes, while I am sleeping in a house where the maid has maybe a few more weeks or months to live. Also because being a few years past 80, no one seems to worried about keeping her alive. Except my mom and her sisters maybe. Not that they're not helping her (they're almost all doctors), but they're not insisting when she refuses to comply, and she often refuses (keeps eating plenty of salt and salty things, doesn't wear the right clothes for her cardiac problems... and more).

I don't know. I just wrote for myself. I wanted to get rid of these unpleasant thoughts in my head, leave them on paper, and try to sleep with a lighter head, while getting tired.

Again, the sad and unpleasant thoughts are my illness, and the maid's illness, and also my inability to do much... my unwillingness to much for her. By writing how bad I feel about it, I am probably succeeding in making myself feel better. You should cry for someone who died and whom you can't help. If they're still alive, you just go to sleep, get up, and help them all day long. By crying I am showing that, even though I could do something, I am setting up myself for doing nothing. I cry at night and sleep during the day.

If i keep going like this, I will do this with my mother and with my father as well, when they will need me. I will cry at night and sleep during the day. Pretty immature behavior.

But this is the direction I am heading. Except I won't feel sorry for my dad as much, because he wasn't as selfless as the maid and as my mother.

A nursing home, paid out of your own pocket, is a very decent behavior compared to doing nothing at all.

Am I going to change and become a Franciscan. Being so extreme, I might do something like that, or nothing at all. Most likely nothing at all, but if I change, I will change completely. This might be a turning point. From atheist to Franciscan. Hmm, don't think so.

I'd rather keep observing life by sitting on the sidelines. But maybe I am getting bored with it. With doing nothing. Just thinking and learning. Learning as a pastime really.

And I am also wondering if my brain is getting better or worse at this point. My health of course is getting worse, that's only natural. But my brain could still be getting better. But maybe not. Maybe at this point, it is getting worse. My maturity could be getting worse, too. My will power could be getting weaker.

My whole existence could be disintegrating, along with my body.

I don't know. I'll keep observing myself in these journals. And see what changes in my mind. So far, not much. Insomnia, for example, has been with me for decades. I've been ruminating these same thoughts for decades. My father has emotionally abused me and my mother. I then turned selfish and only worried about myself. Then I avoided friends, too, because they were superficial, and I studied things instead. Same things for decades, same complaints about people and family (my mother being disorderly, my father being emotionless).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumination_(psychology)

I don't know, if on top of all these same thoughts being ruminated for decades, if on top of all these unsatisfactory ruminating, we add a body that's not as satisfactory as it used to be, then I think I am going to be sad. I think to the point of suicide, potentially. Probably not, but I cannot rule it out eventually. Especially being atheist and so conscious of everything that is going on in our lives. The others are busy with their families. I am not.

I can think, observe, think... reach conclusions. One reason I might want to stay alive is that I want to see progress. Progress is very interesting. That is the only satisfaction for an atheist who doesn't have family ties and probably won't take a plane to visit his dying maid.

 

[Yamato]

Right, back in Rome.

I am perceiving maybe a tiny bit of improvement in my hearing, but maybe, as the doctor said the other day, in fact yesterday, it might be due to the fact that I am getting used to not hearing.

I pledged that if I get my hearing back, I'll go back to the island every weekend to visit the maid.

Sort of exploiting an imaginary miracle, considering that I am atheist. Sort of a deal with a God I don't believe in.

I've done similar things with my trading, even praying. I can't explain it, but I think it's common. When I really need it, I become a believer again.