Islam and clothing

Adherents of Islam are concerned with clothing in two contexts: clothing for everyday wear, inside and outside the house; and clothing required in specifically religious contexts.

Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them: And Allah is well acquainted with all that they do.

And say that the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O ye Believers! turn ye all together towards Allah, that ye may attain Bliss.

—Sura 24 (An-Nur), ayat 30-31, Qur'an^[1]

O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them. That will be better, so that they may be recognized and not harassed. Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.

—Sura 33 (Al-Ahzab), ayah 59, Qur'an^[2]

However, there are many different interpretations of what "modesty" requires. Most agree^{[citation needed]} that it is covering the awrah, from the belly button to the knees for men and from the head to the toes for women except the hands and the face or eyes, depending on what view one follows.

Islamic dress in Europe

Islamic dress in Europe, notably the variety of headdresses worn by Muslim women, has become a prominent symbol of the presence of Islam in western Europe. In several countries the adherence to hijab (an Arabic noun meaning "to cover") has led to political controversies and proposals for a legal ban. The Netherlands government has decided to introduce a ban on face-covering clothing, popularly described as the "burqa ban", although it does not only apply to the Afghan-model burqa. Other countries, such as France are debating similar legislation, or have more limited prohibitions. Some of them apply only to face-covering clothing such as the burqa, chador, boushiya, or niqab; some apply to any clothing with an Islamic religious symbolism such as the khimar, a type of headscarf. (Some countries already have laws banning the wearing of masks in public, which can be applied to veils that conceal the face). The issue has different names in different countries, and "the veil" or "hijab" may be used as general terms for the debate, representing more than just the veil itself, or the concept of modesty embodied in hijab.

Although the Balkans and Eastern Europe have indigenous Muslim populations, most Muslims in western Europe are members of immigrant communities. The issue of Islamic dress is linked with issues of immigration and the position of Islam in western society. European Commissioner Franco Frattini said in November 2006, that he did not favour a ban on the burqa.^[3] This is apparently the first official statement on the issue of prohibition of Islamic dress from the European Commission, the executive of the European Union. The reasons given for prohibition vary. Legal bans on face-covering clothing are often justified on security grounds, as an anti-terrorism measure.^{[citation needed]}

Ayaan Hirsi Ali sees Islam as incompatible with Western values, at least in its present form. She advocates the values of 'Enlightenment liberalism', including secularism and equality of women. For her, the burqa or chador are both a symbol of religious obscurantism and the oppression of women. Western Enlightenment values, in her view, require prohibition, regardless of whether a woman has freely chosen Islamic dress. Islamic dress is also seen as a symbol of the existence of parallel societies (German: Parallelgesellschaft), and the failure of integration: in 2006 British Prime Minister Tony Blair described it as a "mark of separation".^[4] Visible symbols of a non-Christian culture conflict with the national identity in European states, which assumes a shared (non-religious) culture. Proposals for a ban may be linked to other related cultural prohibitions: the Dutch politician Geert Wilders proposed a ban on hijabs, in Islamic schools, in new mosques, and in non-western immigration.

In France and Turkey, the emphasis is on the secular nature of the state, and the symbolic nature of the Islamic dress, and bans apply at state institutions (courts, civil service) and in state-funded education. These bans also cover Islamic headscarves, which in some other countries are seen as less controversial, although law court staff in the Netherlands are also forbidden to wear Islamic headscarves on grounds of 'state neutrality'. An apparently less politicised argument is that in specific professions (teaching), a ban on "veils" (niqab) is justified, since face-to-face communication and eye contact is required. This argument has featured prominently in judgements in Britain and the Netherlands, after students or teachers were banned from wearing face-covering clothing. Public and political response to such prohibition proposals is complex, since by definition they mean that the government decides on individual clothing. Some non-Muslims, who would not be affected by a ban, see it as an issue of civil liberties, as a slippery slope leading to further restrictions on private life. A public opinion poll in London showed that 75 percent of Londoners support "the right of all persons to dress in accordance with their religious beliefs".^[5] In another poll in the United Kingdom by Ipsos MORI, 61 percent agreed that "Muslim women are segregating themselves" by wearing a veil, yet 77 percent thought they should have the right to wear it.^[6]

Hijab by country

Main article: Hijab by country

The hijab has different legal and cultural statuses in various countries. There are currently four countries, including France (since 2004), which have banned the wearing of all overt religious symbols, including the hijab (a Muslim headscarf, literally Arabic "to cover"), in public schools and universities or government buildings.^[7]

Currently Tunisia since 1981,^[8] and Turkey since 1997,^[9] are the only Muslim countries which have banned the hijab in public schools and universities or government buildings, whilst Syria banned face veils in universities from July 2010.^[10] In other Muslim states such as Morocco,^[11] there has been some restriction or discrimination against women who wear the hijab. The hijab in these cases is seen as a sign of political Islam or fundamentalism against secular government.

Islamic dress, notably the variety of headdresses worn by Muslim women, has become a prominent symbol of the presence of Islam in western Europe. In several countries this adherence to hijab has led to political controversies and proposals for a legal ban. The Dutch government has decided to introduce a ban on face-covering clothing, popularly described as the "burqa ban", although it does not only apply to the Afghan-model burqa.

Other countries are debating similar legislation, or have more limited prohibitions. Some of them apply only to face-covering clothing such as the burqa, chador, boushiya, or niqāb; some apply to any clothing with an Islamic religious symbolism such as the khimar, a type of headscarf. (Some countries already have laws banning the wearing of masks in public, which can be applied to veils that conceal the face). The issue has different names in different countries, and "the veil" or "hijab" may be used as general terms for the debate, representing more than just the veil itself, or the concept of modesty embodied in hijab.

Although the Balkans and Eastern Europe have indigenous Muslim populations, most Muslims in western Europe are members of immigrant communities. The issue of Islamic dress is linked with issues of immigration and the position of Islam in Western Europe.

References

1. ^ Qur'an 24:30–31
2. ^ Qur'an 33:59
3. ^ Reformatorisch dagblad: Brussel tegen boerkaverbod, 30 November 2006.
4. ^ Blair's concerns over face veils BBC News Online. October 17, 2006.
5. ^ Guardian: Livingstone decries vilification of Islam, November 20, 2006.
6. ^ Ipsos MORI Muslim Women Wearing Veils.
7. ^ French MPs back headscarf ban BBC News (BBC). Retrieved on 13 February 2009.
8. ^ Abdelhadi, Magdi Tunisia attacked over headscarves, BBC News, September 26, 2006. Accessed June 6, 2008.
9. ^ Turkey headscarf ruling condemned Al Jazeera English (07 June 2008). Retrieved on February 2009.
10. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10684359 Syria bans face veils at universities
11. ^ Richard Hamilton (6 October 2006) Morocco moves to drop headscarf BBC News (BBC). Retrieved on 13 February 2009.

US Dollar Faces Extinction

The United States greenback has become the biggest speculative bubble in history and will soon go the way of the dinosaurs, warns Swiss financial journalist Myret Zaki.

In her latest book, Zaki says that the euro’s future is much brighter and that attacks against the currency are just a smokescreen aimed at hiding the collapse of the American economy.

“The collapse of the American dollar… is inevitable. The world’s biggest economy is nothing but an illusion. To produce $14,000 billion of nation income, the United States has created over $50,000 billion of debt that costs it $4,000 billion in interest payments each year.”

There can be little doubt about Myret Zaki’s opinion of the American dollar and economy, which she considers technically bankrupt, an opinion she backs up in her new book, La fin du dollar (The end of the dollar).

Over the past few years, she has become one of Switzerland’s best known business journalists, with a book about the UBS debacle in the US and another about tax evasion.

swissinfo.ch: You say in your book that the end of the dollar will be the major event of the 21st century. Aren’t you painting the situation more catastrophic than it really is?

Myret Zaki: I realise that predicting such a huge event when there are no tangible warning signs of a violent crisis may seem all doom and gloom. But I reached those conclusions based on extremely rational and factual criteria.

More and more American authors believe that their country’s monetary policy will lead to such a situation. It is simply impossible that it will happen any other way.

swissinfo.ch: It’s not the first time the end of the dollar has been foreseen. What makes the situation different in 2011?

M.Z.: It’s true that it has been announced since the 1970s. But never have so many different factors come together, letting us fear the worst. American debt has reached a record level, the dollar is at a historic low against the Swiss franc and most new American bond issues are being bought by the US Federal Reserve. Other central banks have also been criticising the US, creating a hostile front against American monetary policy.

swissinfo.ch: Besides the end of the dollar, you are also announcing the end of the US as an economic superpower. Isn’t America simply too big to fail?

M.Z.: Everybody has an interest in the US economy staying afloat, so everyone is in denial for the time being. But it won’t last forever. No one will be able to save the Americans. They will have to carry the burden of their bankruptcy alone.

They can expect a very long period of austerity, which has already begun. Forty-five million Americans have already lost their homes, one third of the population is out of the economic system and is not spending, while a number of states are bankrupt. There is nowhere prosperous anymore. Everything is built on debt.

swissinfo.ch: You claim that the weakening of the euro zone is nothing less than a question of national security for the United States. Isn’t that a kind of anti-American paranoia?

M.Z.: We all like America and we prefer to see the world through pink-tinted lenses. But since the end of the Cold War and the creation of the euro in 1999, an economic war has been going on. A competitive offer of sovereign debt based on a strong currency risks lowering demand for American debt.

The United States cannot afford to stop accumulating debt, because that debt has helped them finance wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and consolidate their leading role in the world. It is a vital need for them.

In 2008, the euro was a currency that was taken very seriously by oil-producing nations, sovereign funds and central banks. It was about to overtake the dollar, something the US wanted to prevent at all costs. The world needs a safe place to offload its excess assets and everything is done to make sure Europe isn’t that place. It was precisely at that moment that speculators began attacking the sovereign debt of some European nations.

swissinfo.ch: What will happen if the dollar collapses as predicted?

M.Z.: Europe is the planet’s biggest economic power and it has a strong reference currency. Unlike the United States, it is also expanding. In Asia, the Chinese yuan will become the reference and China is Europe’s biggest ally.

It has an interest in supporting a strong euro so it can diversify its investments. China also needs an ally within the World Trade Organization and the G20 so it can avoid a re-evaluation of its currency. Today, Europe and China are two gravitational forces that are attracting two former US allies, Britain and Japan.

swissinfo.ch: And what about the Swiss franc?

M.Z.: Its value as a safe haven will keep on growing. If there is a crisis concerning the US sovereign debt, investors will turn in mass towards the franc. The Swiss franc has almost the same status as gold and it isn’t about to lose ground against the dollar.

In a monetary system undergoing change, Switzerland will have to decide which way to jump. I’m not convinced the Swiss franc can survive alone, as its position as a safe haven would be too detrimental to Switzerland’s economy.

(Adapted from French by Scott Capper)

1914 Gold Coin Selection World

The last time we spent some time at one of the hot estate sales while visiting some friends we had a nice strike of gold luck. That is we were able to find some really fine examples of 1914 gold coins from various countries around the world in one purchase.

Although this was not a huge amount the gold coins were still nice examples of three very distinctive gold coin dollars all from the year 1914. This included a nice 1914 Indian ten dollar gold eagle, a 1914 France gold twenty francs and a 1914 twenty dollar St. Gaudens gold coin which was in rough shape though the others were in great shape.

The 1914 St. Gaudens offered a very good date as far as collecting coins goes in that it can be scarce compared to more common years. The condition was fairly well circulated so it would not bring the higher end of its potential value however it was still a desirable coin.

The France gold 20 francs piece also offered a tremendous luster. It is rather unusual to find these and if I remember correctly this is one of the only ones we have found over the years. The craftsmanship and the overall design really speak for themselves on this particular coin.

The $10 Indian gold eagle had a San Francisco Mint mark and offered a glorious luster. It had not seen much in the way of light of day over all those years as it was in beautiful condition. This was a really nice example.

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1914 D $250 INDIAN HEAD QUARTER EAGLE GOLD COIN US $222.50

1914 D $500 INDIAN HEAD GOLD HALF EAGLE COIN SCARCE US $471.00

1914 Indian Head Five Dollars $5 Half Eagle Gold Coin US $452.00

1914 US $10 INDIAN HEAD GOLD EAGLE COIN VF US $590.00

1914 S StGaudens $20 Double Eagle NGC MS 64 Gold Coin US $1,795.00

1914 D $250 INDIAN HEAD GOLD QUARTER EAGLE COIN RARE US $330.09

1914 $250 INDIAN HEAD GOLD QUARTER EAGLE COIN SCARCE US $260.00

1914 $2 1 2 D INDIAN HEAD QUARTER EAGLE GOLD COIN NICE US $76.00

1914 St Gaudens Gold $20 Double Eagle Coin US $676.00

1914 D $250 Indian Gold Coin ANACS Certified MS 62 PQ US $1.04

US Revolution unleashes trillions of our dollars for obvious economic solutions

Under US political and economic Orwellian “leadership,” Americans are told:

• Our increasing national debt (public and private) is a “money supply.”
• Government is incapable of creating money to hire unemployed Americans to produce useful work, such as education and infrastructure, that return more to the economy than the cost of inputs and therefore providedecreasing prices as well as full employment and state-of-the-art infrastructure. We’re told unemployment must be endured until the economy “improves.”
• Americans must pay more than the cost of their homes in interest payments to banks, who create this debt out of nothing, rather than have “at cost” interest in public banks.

As a professional educator of Advanced Placement US Government and Macroeconomics, as well as having 18 years experience working with US political leadership that led to two UN Summits (1990 World Summit for Children – the largest meeting of heads of state in world history – and the 1997 Microcredit Summit – topic of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize), I invite your thoughtful and heartfelt consideration of my explanation and documentation of our human condition.

The following is a reprint of an article I wrote last year on the obvious economic solutions Americans have available right now, that if implemented, would end the national debt, provide full employment with the best infrastructure possible, and end almost all forms of taxation.

For a podcast interview where I explain this with Professor James Fetzer, click here.

My current work is most strongly represented in the following two papers; first in my “academic/professional voice,” and the second in my “citizen voice.” My bottom line is open and public revolution. Revolution is the only policy route I see available to Americans who choose limited government under the law. The easiest areas to explain, document, and prove the “emperor has no clothes” obvious crimes Americans currently suffer under (with just-as-obvious complicity from corporate media that I document) are Wars of Aggression nowhere close to lawful, and trillions of dollars in criminal economic fraud. These crimes are killing millions of human beings, and causing pain, destruction, and suffering to human beings in the magnitude of trillions of dollars every year.

Today’s causes for revolution dwarf those from 1776.

Open proposal for US revolution: end unlawful wars, parasitic economics

Common Sense for new American Revolution: revolt from US government by dicts

Here is my article from last year, and still fully aplicable:

Solutions to US economic controlled demolition are obvious, but We the People must demand them

Nobel economist Paul Krugman wrote the US economy is “doomed,” Obama “clueless,” and summarizes his analysis of President Obama’s economic leadership with simply:

Oh. My. God.

Mr. Krugman joins a growing list of characteristically dry economic experts expanding the margins of their self-expression to communicate to Americans that kleptocratic parasites have destroyed the US economy.

The good news is that the solutions are obvious, available right now, and elegantly simple to understand and implement.

Let’s start with understanding these solutions, provide a snapshot to professional economists’ horror of our economic destruction, and include to the left PuppetGov’s 8-minute video, “America’s controlled economic implosion” to add visual and artistic dimension to our understanding.

This multi-trillion dollar topic is of crucial importance to understand if you seek an economic future above that of a debt-peon for your progeny and you. Literally, you have nothing more valuable to do with your time and attention.

Solutions:

Fortunately, the structural solutions to our crisis are simple and obvious:

1. Reclaiming over $1 trillion in annual public benefits from ending banks creating bank credit as debt for our monetary system, and enacting monetary reform for public-created money for the direct payment of public goods and services. This idea was supported by 86% of teaching economic professors in the Great Depression, and by many of America’s brightest historical minds. Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman was among the supporters, envisioning less inflation than our current monetary system.
2. Paying our $12 trillion national debt easily and without inflation as new money is created as the banks’ ability to create credit from nothing is slowed. The savings of the annual interest payment to taxpayers is over $400 billion every year.
3. Full employment. The government becomes the employer of last resort for infrastructure improvement that returns more than the cost of the projects, and thereby lowing prices.
4. 2% mortgages, 6% credit cards, 5% interest paid on deposits from state-owned banks (and here for current progress in states).
5. Invest our promise of 0.7% of GNI to fully fund the UN Millennium Goals of ending poverty once and for all. I worked on these goals for over 20 years; the goals are structurally sound but the UN and leading nations are not serious about helping these people. The goals will save a million children’s lives every month while reducing population growth, easing environmental pressure, and removing motivation for violence.
6. A Truth and Reconciliation process would have us discover other areas of suppressed economic breakthroughs, likely including pollution-free energy generation.

As a professional teacher of economics, our experience is that the above information is best communicated with a visual aid, such as through the video Money as Debt in my article on monetary reform and/or Zeitgeist Addendum.

The solvable problems:

Over four million Americans lost jobs in 2009, with December adding 85,000 and January 2010 seeing no improvement to this unnecessary economic and social tragedy. Unemployment is falsely claimed at 10%; it doesn’t count those forced into part-time jobs and those “discouraged” who do not regularly submit new job applications. Including those categories is how unemployment was measured in the Great Depression. Adding those categories today puts unemployment at 22%; worse than all years of the Great Depression except for 1932 and 1933 at 24.9% and 23.6%.

I wrote on this topic in November 2009, including statistics of staggering US poverty, and the empty policy of only symbolic help and rhetoric from government who could end the financial crisis with relative ease, as the above links explain and document. After the first year of the Obama administration, the provided “stimulus package” only stimulated higher unemployment.

The solvable problems center around economic policy that creates protected parasites that collect unregulated and illegal gambling profits on the way up (the FBI reported 80% of the subprime mortgage fraud came from lenders), subsidized losses through “bailouts” on the way down, and then celebrate with unprecedented bonuses to themselves while publiclyclaiming to be doing “God’s work.” Future bailouts getguaranteed in advance without questions while the symbolic program to help struggling homeowners has not yet been launched.

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Professional politicians, economists, and leading journalists are voicing their disgust in unprecedented harsh terms. The leading problems and analyses:

The US Senate called US banking practices the “new Enron,”parasitizing $2-$4 trillion from Americans every year (a staggering $20,000 to $40,000 per household on average).

The US military admits to “losing” ~25% of their annual budget. What the firearms are we really buying with these contrived and endless wars against ideologies?

The US taxpayers are transferring TRILLIONS of their dollars to the financial elites under the political cover of a legalized “bailout” to socialize their gambling losses.

MIT’s Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, wrote in The Quiet Coup that the US economy is managed by short-sighted oligarchs typical of “banana republics.”

Chris Hedges and David Cay Johnston, with Pulitzers in 2002 and 2001 respectively, write that American taxpayers are on the road to permanent serfdom under a police state from oligarchs’ “rapacious looting” and their purchase of a politically-protected luxurious lifestyle and business style at the expense of the exploited slave-labor class the American public has become (Hedges: “Resist or Become Serfs,” ”Wall Street will be back for more,” and Johnston: “Free Lunch”).

William Black, the senior government regulator of the S&L crisis, who Economics Nobel Laureate George Akerlof hailed as the world’s leading expert for understanding how the banking and financial oligarchs loot the public, was interviewed by 30+ Emmy-winning journalist Bill Moyers. Black poignantly labeled the bailout as “criminal fraud” and “the entire strategy is to keep people from getting the fact,” and that the Bush and Obama Administrations are blatantly breaking the law by refusing to enforce bank insolvency laws. Interview Transcript;Black’s book: The best way to rob a bank is to own one: how corporate executives and politicians looted the S&L industry.

Former Assistant Secretary to the Treasurer and Wall Street Journal Editor Paul Craig Roberts blasts government disinformation on employment statistics, calling the US an oligarchy ruled by banksters, with warmongers, war criminals, and “whores” in government looting America into serfdom.

Bank bailout overseer and Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren called the so-called “bailout” as “unaccountable” by design, and created with conscious intent to reward banks’ “reckless gambling” by having every intention to always bail them out.

Renowned futurist Gerald Celente calls the transfer of taxpayer wealth to “fascist oligarchs” as “financial rape” and “mafia economics.”

Bestselling author John Perkins calls the US economy, “corporatism” and “predatory capitalism.”

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and eminent economist Jeffrey Sachs run the numbers of the current so-called bailout plan and point out the unprecedented transfer of wealth from taxpayers to oligarchs. Stiglitz calls it a cheap substitute for capitalism that only has banks and inside investors win while taxpayers fund their winnings. Sachs calls our so-called bailout an unnecessary transfer of wealth that will become worse than we imagine as it sets the stage for further insider manipulations.

Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and President of Solari, and Vladimir Yuri, author of one of the most comprehensive and insightful economics papers I’ve read, “Fractional Reserve Banking as Economic Parasitism: A Scientific, Mathematical & Historical Expose, Critique, and Manifesto,” write specifically in emphasis of parasitism as the defining concept in modern US economics.

Chair of the Economics Department of George Mason University (ranked 8th in the world for political economy by econphd.net), Donald J. Boudreaux, concludes in his economic analysis that US politicians in their economic policy act like pimps who supply taxpayers’ services as enslaved prostitutes to corporate customers who lust after the taxpayers’ money.

The most-read author for monetary reform, Ellen Brown, provides all the information anyone could possibly need to criminally indict Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner from his work as President of the New York Fed in funneling our tax money to pay 100% of Goldman Sachs’ gambling losses through AIG.

And please remember that a year ago Harvard’s Economics Department shamefully admitted that very few economists, including their own faculty, saw the economic crisis coming, understood it, or could prescribe a long-term solution.

Importantly, despite the logic of monetary reform, historical performance and agreement of our many of our brightest minds, failure of our current system, so-called “mainstream” media will not bring these ideas sharply into focus. Indeed, evidence is strong that these very ideas are suppressed by corporate media as a logical strategy of financial oligarchs to remain undetected as parasites.

Therefore, dear reader, it seems up to us to take leadership in demanding these obvious and simple solutions be implemented. Remember when you told yourself that you’d be a competent citizen working for the good of the team? Here’s your opportunity, citizen.

So there you have a summary of my contribution to a brighter future in the creation of money, goods, and services: economics. The crimes we endure are transparent, the solutions obvious, the possibilities such as suppressed energy breakthroughs are unimaginably bright. I invite you to embrace our current disturbing present and optimize your unique, beautiful and powerful expressions to help build our bright future.

Gold Coin Dollar Trading

We have spent a good deal of time over the years attending auctions as well as estate sales which have in all reality turned out to be real duds unfortunately. But this is the reality of modern day treasure hunting and it is simply all a part of the game. If you can not take the wins with the losses then you are probably not cut out to endure the work load of tracking down and then obtaining the goodies such as various gold coin dollar examples.

Finding old gold coins is certainly rewarding every time that it happens but it certainly does not happen every venture which we set out on. Finding the quality sale from the time waster may be a challenge but there are certainly several indicators which help right from the get go.

For many years we have been making great contacts and tend to trade among other coin collectors as well as dealers. This network keeps inventories fresh as well as helps others out with certain coins which they are looking for. Although there is certainly a fine art to trading it can be a great way for anyone to acquire the gold coins which they may otherwise not be able to find or afford.

The main thing to keep in mind is that you will need to have something which the other party wants or else a trade may be much more difficult and you may not exactly win as far as value for your gold coin dollars go.

Dollar

Basically, the process that is unfolding before our eyes, of which the US entry into an era of austerity is a simple budgetary expression, is a continuation of the balancing of the 30 trillion of ghost assets which had invaded the global economic and financial system in late 2007 The 15 September 2010, GEAB N°47 issue was headed « Spring 2011: Welcome to the United States of Austerity / Towards the very serious breakdown of the world economic and financial system ». Yet at the end of summer 2010, most experts believed first, that the debate on the US budget deficit would remain a mere subject of theoretical discussion within the Beltway (1) and secondly, that it was unthinkable to imagine the United States engaging in a policy of austerity because it was sufficient for the Fed to continue to print dollars. Yet, as everyone has been able to see for several weeks, Spring 2011 really did bring austerity to the United States (2), a first since the Second World War and the setting up of a global system based on the ability of the US engine to always generate more wealth (real from 1950 to 1970, increasingly virtual thereafter). At this stage, LEAP/E2020 can confirm that the next stage of the crisis will really be the "Very Serious Breakdown of the world economic, financial and monetary system" and that this historic failure will occur in autumn 2011 (3). The monetary, financial, economic and geopolitical consequences of this "Very Serious Breakdown" will be of historic proportions and will show the crisis of autumn 2008 for what it really was: a simple detonator. The crisis in Japan (4), the Chinese decisions and the debt crisis in Europe will certainly play a role in this historic breakdown. On the other hand we consider that the issue of government debt of countries on Euroland’s periphery is no longer the dominant European risk factor here, but it is the United Kingdom which will find itself in the position of the "sick man of Europe" (5). The Eurozone has in fact established and keeps improving all the monitoring systems needed to address these problems (6). Management of the Greek, Portuguese and Irish problems will therefore take place in an organized fashion. That private investors must take a haircut (as anticipated by LEAP/E2020 before summer 2010) (7) does not belong to the category of systemic risks, displeasing the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal and Wall Street and City experts, trying every three months to rerun the "coup" of the early 2010 Eurozone crisis (8). In contrast, the United Kingdom has completely missed its attempt at "preventive budgetary amputation surgery” (9). In fact, under pressure from the street and particularly more than 400,000 British who roamed the streets of London on 03/26/2011 (10), David Cameron is forced to lower his target for reducing health care costs (a key point of his reforms) (11). At the same time, the Libyan military adventure has also forced him to rethink his goals for Defense Ministry budget cuts. We already mentioned in the last GEAB issue that the British government’s financing needs continue to rise, reflecting the ineffectiveness of the measures announced whose implementation is proving very disappointing in reality (12). The only result of the Cameron / Clegg (13) duo policy is currently the relapse of the British economy into recession (14) and the obvious risk of the ruling coalition imploding after the next referendum on electoral reform. In this issue, our team describes the three key factors that mark out this Very Serious Breakdown of autumn 2011 and its consequences. Meanwhile, our researchers have begun to anticipate the progression of the Franco-Anglo-American military operation in Libya which we believe is a powerful accelerator of global geopolitical dislocation and that it usefully illuminates some of the current tectonic changes in the relationships between major world powers. In addition to our GEAB $ index, we expand on our recommendations for dealing with the dangerous quarters to come. Basically, the process that is unfolding before our eyes, of which the US entry into an era of austerity (15) is a simple budgetary expression, is a continuation of the balancing of the 30 trillion of ghost assets which had invaded the global economic and financial system in late 2007 (16). While about half of them had disappeared in 2009, they have been partially resurrected since then due to the volition of the major global central banks, and the US Federal Reserve in particular and its "QE 1 and 2". Our team considers, therefore, that 20 trillion of these ghost assets will go up in smoke beginning autumn 2011, and very brutally, under the combined impact of the three US mega-crises in accelerated gestation: . the budgetary crisis, or how the United States plunges willingly or by force into this unprecedented austerity and takes whole swathes of the global economy and finance with it . the crisis in US Treasury bonds, or how the US Federal Reserve reaches the "end of the road" which began in 1913 and must face up to its bankruptcy whatever accounting sleight of hand is chosen . the US Dollar crisis, or how the jolts in the US currency that will characterize the ending of QE2 in the second quarter of 2011 will be the beginnings of a massive devaluation (around 30% in a few weeks). Central banks, the global banking system, pension funds, multinationals, commodities, the US population, Dollar zone economies and/or dependent on trade with the United States (17) ... everyone structurally dependent on the US economy (of which the government, the Fed and the federal budget have become central components), assets denominated in dollars or commercial dollar transactions, will suffer the head on shock of 20 trillion in ghost assets purely and simply disappearing from their balance sheets, from their investments, and causing a major decline in their real incomes. Around the historic shock of autumn 2011 which will mark the definitive confirmation of significant trends anticipated by our team in previous GEAB issues, the main asset classes will experience major upheavals requiring the increased vigilance of all players concerned for their investments. In fact, this triple US crisis will mark the true exit from the "world after 1945" which saw the US play the role of Atlas and will, therefore, be marked by many shocks and aftershocks in the quarters which follow. For example, the dollar may experience short-term effects of strengthening value against the major world currencies (especially if US interest rates rise very quickly following the ending of QE2), even if, six months after that, its 30% loss of value (relative to its current value) is inevitable. We can, therefore, only repeat the advice that has appeared at the head of our recommendations since the beginning of our work on the crisis: in the context of a global crisis of historic proportions like the one we are experiencing, the only rational objective for investors is not to make more money, but to try to lose as little as possible. This will be particularly true for the coming quarters where the speculative environment will become highly unpredictable in the short term. This short term unpredictability will be particularly due to the fact that the three US crises that trigger Very Serious Breakdown in the world in autumn are not concurrent. They are very closely correlated but not linearly. And one of them, the budget crisis, is directly dependent on human factors with a big influence on the timing of the event; whilst the other two (whatever those who see the Fed officials as gods or devils think (18)) are now, for the large part, included in the significant trends where US leaders’ actions have become marginal (19). The budget crisis, or how the United States plunges willingly or by force into this unprecedented austerity and takes whole swathes of the global economy and finance with it The numbers can make the head spin: "6 trillion in budget cuts over ten years" (20), said the Republican Paul Ryan, "4 trillion in twelve years” retorted the 2012 candidate Barack Obama (21), "all this is far from sufficient", bids one of the Tea Party referents, Ron Paul (22). And anyway, sanctions the IMF, "the United States is not credible when it speaks of cutting its deficits" (23). This unusually harsh remark from the IMF, traditionally very cautious in its criticism of the United States, is in any case particularly justified in terms of the psychodrama which, for a fistful of tens of billions of dollars, nearly shut down the federal state absent any agreement between the two major parties, a scenario that will, moreover, soon take place again over the federal debt ceiling. The IMF is only expressing an opinion widely shared by creditors of the United States: if, for a few tens of billions USD in deficit reduction, the US political system reached that degree of paralysis, what will happen when, in the coming months, cuts of several hundred billion dollars a year will be required? Civil war? This is the new California governor Jerry Brown (24) opinion in any case, who believes that the United States is facing a regime crisis identical to that which led to the Civil War (25). The context, therefore, is no longer mere paralysis but really an all-out confrontation between two visions of the country’s future. The closer the date of the next presidential election gets (November 2012), the more the confrontation between the two sides will intensify and take place regardless of any rule of good behaviour, including safeguarding the country’s common good: "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad", says the ancient Greek proverb. The Washington political scene will increasingly resemble a psychiatric hospital (26) in the coming months, making "the bizarre decision" increasingly likely. If, in order to reassure themselves about the dollar and Treasury bonds, Western experts repeat in turn that the Chinese would be crazy to get rid of these assets which would thus only hasten their fall in value, it’s that they haven’t yet understood that it’s Washington and its political mistakes that can come to the decision that hastens this fall. And October 2012, with its traditional annual budget vote, will be the ideal moment for this Greek tragedy which, according to our team, won’t have a happy ending because this isn’t Hollywood, but really the rest of the world which will write the scenario’s sequel. Whatever the case, by political choice, by closing down the federal government or by irresistible outside pressures (27) (interest rates, IMF + Euroland + BRIC (28)), it is really in autumn 2011 that the US federal budget will massively shrink for the first time. The continuation of the recession coupled with the ending of QE2 will cause interest rates to rise and thus significantly increase federal debt servicing costs, against a backdrop of falling tax revenues (29) caused by a relapse into a deep recession. Federal insolvency is now just round the corner according to Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (30). Read more in GEAB: . The budgetary crisis, or how the United States plunges willingly or by force into this unprecedented austerity and takes whole swathes of the global economy and finance with it . The crisis in US Treasury bonds, or how the US Federal Reserve reaches the "end of the road" which began in 1913 and must face up to its bankruptcy whatever accounting sleight of hand is chosen . The US Dollar crisis, or how the jolts in the US currency that will characterize the ending of QE2 in the second quarter of 2011 will be the beginnings of a massive devaluation (around 30% in a few weeks) -------- Notes: (1) An American term for Washington’s politico-administrative heart, situated in the middle of the local ring road, the Beltway. (2) From grim cuts in the US overseas aid budgets to reductions in social programmes; public organizations and whole sections of the US population (Latinos, the poor, students, retirees, ...) will now be severely affected by what is still only a drop in the bucket of adjustments needed. The grassroots demonstrations are beginning with students at the forefront. Sources: House of Resentatives, 04/13/2011; Devex, 04/11/2011; HuffingtonPost, 04/13/2011; Foxnews, 04/14/2011; Foxbusiness, 04/12/2011 (3) The world banking system (including Europe), still under-capitalized and mainly insolvent, is also one of the components of this Very Serious Breakdown of autumn 2011. (4) In GEAB N°55 our team will give its anticipations on the world nuclear question, using the political anticipation method as a decision-making tool on the subject. (5) The magnitude of the United Kingdom’s budgetary crisis is far more serious than the current British leaders are telling who, however, claim to have told the truth. There are in fact two ways of lying to a people: deny the existence of a problem (the position of Gordon Brown’s Labour) or only tell part of the truth (clearly the choice of the Cameron/Clegg pair). In both cases, the problem is not resolved. Source: Telegraph, 03/26/2011 (6) And from now and the definitive establishment of Euroland as the main European engine at the European summit of 11 March last, the four countries that do not participate in the "Euroland +" financial stabilization pact, i.e. the United Kingdom, Sweden, Hungary and the Czech Republic, will be asked to leave the room during discussions on financial and budgetary matters related to the pact. EU Observer of 03/29/2011 describes the panic which then seized the delegations of these four countries whose leaders play the thugs in front of the media and in speeches intended for their respective public opinion, but they well know they are now confined to a second-rate European role. (7) Source: Irish Times, 03/22/2011 (8) A very pertinent and very amusing must read article by Silvia Wadhwa, CNBC’s European correspondent, which makes fun of the caricatural anti- Euroland and anti-German articles of his colleagues in other Anglo-Saxon media, and rightly points out that differences in economic situations are bigger between US states than within Euroland and the debt problems of Greece or Portugal are nothing compared to those of a state like California. Source: CNBC, 04/12/2011 (9) We will come back to the British case in more detail in the GEAB N°55, barely a year after the Conservative/LibDem victory. (10) This protest against cuts is the largest demonstration in London for over twenty years and has been accompanied by serious violence against "symbols of wealth" with attacks against HSBC, the Ritz Hotel and Fortnum & Mason for example. As we have repeatedly emphasized in the GEAB, it is quite significant to note that this historic demonstration in the UK hardly made the headlines and then became invisible 48 hours after it happened. When a few thousand Greeks or Portuguese demonstrate in Athens or Lisbon on the other hand, we are entitled to an avalanche of shocking pictures and comments describing these countries on the brink of chaos. This "two weights and two measures" mustn’t deceive the clear-sighted observer. On the one hand, there are serious difficulties that are now managed within a powerful group, Euroland; on the other, there are major problems that can no longer be managed by a completely isolated country. Believe the media or think for yourself to guess the rest! Source: Guardian, 03/26/2011 (11) Source: Independent, 04/03/2011 (12) Moreover the financial markets realize this and no longer really believe the British government’s martial message of austerity, again leading to a downward spiral in the British Pound. Source: CNBC, 04/12/2011 (13) Nick Clegg has become the most hated politician in the United Kingdom for having betrayed nearly all his campaign promises one by one. Source: Independent, 04/10/2011 (14) And to push British households into a loss of purchasing power only similar to that of the post-World War I crisis in 1921. Source: Telegraph, 04/11/2011 (15) As the Europeans have done since 2010. (16) Average estimate by LEAP/E2020 made in 2007/2008. (17) Beyond traditional foreign trade, the chart below shows the extent of the reduction in transfers to their countries of origin by immigrant workers in the United States, because of the declining US Dollar. This reduction will increase further from Autumn 2011. (18) In the US today, the diabolic vision is the most common among public opinion, unlike 2008 when the Fed officials seemed to be the last resort. This psychological change, as we have pointed out, is not meaningless and contributes significantly to limit Fed officials’ leeway. And it’s not the US Central Bank’s historic legal defeat, which forced it to reveal the recipients of hundreds of billions of dollars in aid distributed after the 2008 Wall Street crisis, which will improve this situation, quite the opposite. A little story, revealed by RollingStone magazine, illustrates the US people’s worsening grievances against its central bankers: beneficiaries of this Fed aid are two wives of leading Wall Street figures who have created a custom-made instrument allowing them to collect 200 million USD from the Fed to buy failed securities ... the profits go to them and the losses to the Fed! Sadly, this is just one example among many that are currently circulating on the Net and have now definitively shattered the respect of US people for its benchmark monetary institution; an explosive situation in the context of the current crisis. Source: Rollingstone, 04/12/2011 (19) The dollar’s fate, like US Treasury bonds, is now largely in the hands of operators around the world who will take a very "clinical" look at the exit from QE2 which was forced on the Fed during the second quarter of 2011. It’s the Fed’s collective opinion (already heavily criticised), not the way it is “presented”, which will be decisive. (20) Source: Politico, 04/04/2011 (21) Source: Boston Herald, 04/13/2011 (22) Source: Huffington Post, 04/11/2011 (23) And all the more so since they continue to break the records of financing needs for their deficits, and that the deficit forecast for the next decade by Obama commitments amounts to 9.5 trillion USD. On one side, he devises policies that increase the deficit, on the other he announces reduction targets… hardly credible, really! Sources: CNBC, 04/13/2011; Washington Post, 03/18/2011 (24) Brown is an original US character with a great deal of political experience having previously served as governor of California from 1975 to 1983, and was twice a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination. His opinion on the ruinous state of the US political system is, therefore, not to be taken lightly. Source: CBS, 04/10/2010 (25) For those who find the picture risqué, our team reminds that one of the Civil War’s main causes was the irreconcilable vision of what the federal state and its role should be. Today, around budget issues, the role of the Fed, military expenditure and social spending, we are once again seeing the emergence of two diametrically opposed visions of what the federal state should be and what it should do, with its procession of growing institutional blockages and an atmosphere of hatred between political forces. Many illustrations have been given in previous GEAB issues. Source: Americanhistory (26) How else can one describe people who are barely able, and by dint of repeated crises, to cut a few tens of billions from a budget, and who suddenly announce that tomorrow they will cut thousands of billions of dollars from this same budget? Fools or liars? In any case irresponsible, because the constraints that require these deficit reductions in any case are building up. (27) Global government debt is at its highest since 1945 and, at 10.8% of GNP, the US has become the leading major country in terms of government deficits. Sources: Figaro, 04/12/2011; Bloomberg, 04/12/2011 (28) Regarding the BRIC countries (now BRICS with South Africa), it is very interesting to note that their third summit, which took place on the Chinese tropical island of Hainan, is finally enjoying significant media coverage from the Western media. We were one of the first and few Western publications to mention the first summit (at Ekaterinburg) three years ago and emphasize the importance of the event, but until now the major international newspapers persisted in considering the BRICs as a simple acronym without serious geopolitical clout. Obviously things have changed. Moreover from Libya to the dollar, the Hainan summit clearly positioned itself as a counterweight to the US and its surrogates (fewer and fewer in this case having regard to what is happening in Libya). As regards the dollar, the BRICs have decided to accelerate the process allowing them to use their own currencies for their trade: another sign that we're rapidly approaching a severe monetary shock. Source: CNBC, 04/14/2011 (29) Those who still believe in an improvement in US economic conditions, beyond the effect of QE2 "doping", should dwell on the moral of the SMEs in the US which have begun to deteriorate significantly and the fiction of the upturn in employment which will be sharply corrected (even in official statistics) from summer 2011. And we refer to previous GEAB issues regarding the fiscal crisis of the federated states. Sources: MarketWatch, 04/12/2012; New York Post, 04/12/2011 (30) Source: CNBC, 03/22/2011 Samedi 16 Avril 2011 In the same category: November 15, 2010: LEAP considers the victory of the Green Party in Baden-Württemberg an indicator of the double shock of the 2012 German and French elections - 29/03/2011 LEAP launches MAP "to renew our stock of potential futures" - 24/03/2011 MAP2-Winter 2011 - Content - 23/03/2011 France 2012: the National Front overtakes the UMP - 07/03/2011 The first half of the decade marked primarily by world geopolitical dislocation - 05/02/2011 GEAB wrote it in June 2008: "Arab world: Pro-Western regimes go adrift / 60 percent risk of socio-political explosion on Egypt-Morocco axis" - 31/01/2011 Book - 'World crisis: The Path to the World Afterwards Europe and the World in the decade from 2010 to 2020', by Franck Biancheri - 27/12/2010 Do GEAB yourself with the ‘Manual of political anticipation’! - 12/11/2010 For 100 euros, have access to 4 years of GEAB archives! - 26/03/2010 Traffic-Info LEAP/E2020 - Over two million single visitors from 150 different countries in 2009 - 14/01/2010

Gold Coin Canada 1983

Some of the most stunning gold coins come out of the Royal Canadian Mint in our opinion and we have had the pleasure of owning many gorgeous examples over the years.

In 1983 Canada gold coin examples included commemorative coins as is the case in many years. For example the Canada 1983 $100 gold coin 400th anniversary St. John’s Newfoundland. This coin is an impressive 1/2 ounce of pure gold. The examples which we have weighed were 16.965 grams as far as the coin weight. These are wonderful proof pieces.

Additional examples we have examined continue with the 1983 Canada proof 22kt. $100 gold coin Gilberts Landing in Newfoundland which will often include a certificate of authenticity as well as the actual mintage number. The mintage was only 83,128 and we love those low numbers. These are well packaged in a box and or case as is typical of commemorative collectible coins. These consist of 1/2 ounce of pure gold as well.

The 1983 Canada $5 Gold Maple Leaf coin is also popular among collectors giving them an opportunity to add to their collection a fine example without spending quite as much money. These coins are 1/10 ounce of gold and are absolutely stunning.

1983 gold coins from various countries.

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1983 KRUGERRAND GOLD COIN 1 10 OZ NO RESERVE US $153.10

1983 GREAT BRITAIN GOLD 3 COIN PROOF SET CASE COA US $1,259.09

1983 1984 S W Olympics 3 Coin US Mint Set Silver Gold US $685.00

1983 Franklin Mint Christmas Card with Gold Coin US $.99

1983 China Panda 1 4 oz Gold Coin NGC MS 69 US $499.00

1983 1 10th OZ T Canada Maple Leaf $5 Pure Gold Coin NR US $175.01

1983 1984 OLYMPIC 3 COIN GOLD SILVER PROOF SET US $773.13

1983 China Gold Panda Coin 1oz US $1,491.00

SOUTH AFRICA 1983 1 2 OZ KRUGERRAND GOLD COIN US $750.00

1983 84 Olympic 3 Coin Unc Set Gold $10 2 Silver $1 US $3.25