Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[sidhujag]

jpm has now cornered the market with a 20% long position. They were short before, switched to long bias now.

[manfred]

I have some silver orders to be filled by 2016 at 4-5$ and I am positive...

Good luck in getting that order filled. Here is a rough guide what the mined Silver in the modern world is used for.
There would have to be a significant reduction on demand in some or all of its uses to get to that price.

27% Electrical/Electronics
22.2% Jewellery
11.1% Coins/Bullion
7.7% Photography
5.7% Brazing Alloys
5.7% Solar Panels
5.5% Silverware
3.7% Wood Preservatives
3% Catalysts
2.7% Water Purification
2.5% Batteries  (button-cell, new phones)
.9% Mirrors/Reflective glass
.5% Medical Applications
.4% RF Tags (Radio Frequency)
.3% Bearings (Jet engines)
1% Other (nanotechnology, anti-bacterial......)

[miscreanity]

However the US has done one thing, it has shown restraint when it had and has now vast nuclear advantage. I wonder what other countries with such and advantage would show the same restraint

There is mounting evidence that advanced nuclear weapons have been, and are currently being used in Syria. Tactical strikes with marginal radiation and minor risk of causing earthquakes, as would be a possibility with typical bunker buster weapons.

[molecular]

However the US has done one thing, it has shown restraint when it had and has now vast nuclear advantage. I wonder what other countries with such and advantage would show the same restraint

The US of all countries? Nagasaki and Hiroshima ring a bell? No other country has ever dropped a nuke on people except the US.

[justusranvier]

DU weapons, by any objective definition of the term, are dirty bombs and as such should be classified as weapons of mass destruction whose use is a war crime. There are two problems with this, however.

Firs,t like all governments, the US government is in no way interested in obeying the rules that it imposes on others. Second, the term "war crime" is misleadingly redundant.

[kjj]

DU weapons, by any objective definition of the term, are dirty bombs and as such should be classified as weapons of mass destruction whose use is a war crime. There are two problems with this, however.

Firs,t like all governments, the US government is in no way interested in obeying the rules that it imposes on others. Second, the term "war crime" is misleadingly redundant.

You forgot #3, depleted uranium is less radioactive than the dirt you find it in, and of course, #4, "mass destruction" doesn't mean "reporters don't understand it", it has a specific meaning involving large areas.

[miscreanity]

There is mounting evidence that advanced nuclear weapons have been, and are currently being used in Syria. Tactical strikes with marginal radiation and minor risk of causing earthquakes, as would be a possibility with typical bunker buster weapons.

You would see the same from a really large conventional bunker buster with DU casing. Nobody is using tactical nukes.

Do DU weapons cause lightning as a secondary effect? There is still the concern over tectonic activity. Not that I'm stating nuclear weapon use as fact, but questions are compounding the issue.

And as justusranvier offers: hypocrisy abounds.

Meanwhile, the gold-silver ratio is approaching 62. A sustained move below that level will strongly suggest a silver-led rally. For that matter, I'm also expecting USD$1,000+ Bitcoin within a year.

I think some of the embryonic technologies many of us have been following in recent years are about to break out as well; things that will make our gripes of today trivial.

We'll see...

[justusranvier]

You forgot #3, depleted uranium is less radioactive than the dirt you find it in, and of course, #4, "mass destruction" doesn't mean "reporters don't understand it", it has a specific meaning involving large areas.

Is there or is there not a leukaemia epidemic in Iraq that wasn't there 10 years ago?

[kjj]

You forgot #3, depleted uranium is less radioactive than the dirt you find it in, and of course, #4, "mass destruction" doesn't mean "reporters don't understand it", it has a specific meaning involving large areas.

Is there or is there not a leukaemia epidemic in Iraq that wasn't there 10 years ago?

I don't know, and neither does anyone else.  Medical statistics in stable parts of the world (the US and Europe, for example) are questionable because methodologies change.  In chaotic regions (Iraq qualifies), they are downright unbelievable.  I'm quite prepared to believe that more medical charts have certain checkboxes marked now than they had before, but I'm not willing to make the leap of faith to claiming that the checkbox is accurate, or ever was.

If you are suffering from some delusions about the accuracy of medical statistics, go read about AIDS in Africa, and keep in mind that when there is a scapegoat to blame, there is even more reason to fudge the numbers (intentionally or otherwise).

[Tzupy]

Is there or is there not a leukaemia epidemic in Iraq that wasn't there 10 years ago?

DU is more likely to cause kidney damage than leukemia.
The leukemia epidemic in that area and time frame is more likely related to the carcinogenic
pollution from the burning oil wells in Kuwait (set ablaze by Iraqi troops at Saddam's order).

[molecular]

However the US has done one thing, it has shown restraint when it had and has now vast nuclear advantage. I wonder what other countries with such and advantage would show the same restraint

The US of all countries? Nagasaki and Hiroshima ring a bell? No other country has ever dropped a nuke on people except the US.

I sense a Godwin moment on the horizon...

hehe. Since it hasn't occurred yet, let me add that I'm german.

How about that silver?

looks good to me. Just: why?

[tvbcof]

However the US has done one thing, it has shown restraint when it had and has now vast nuclear advantage. I wonder what other countries with such and advantage would show the same restraint

The US of all countries? Nagasaki and Hiroshima ring a bell? No other country has ever dropped a nuke on people except the US.

This is an issue where I take an unusual step (for me) of defending the US.  It was a different time in history, and nuclear weapons were not well understood as evidenced by some of the domestic actions of our nuclear program.  The American/Japanese war in the Pacific was one of histories most brutal and we were understandably war-weary.  Coupled with this, the fact that the Japanese were tenacious and it was difficult to predict their response.  It was also not lost on people that the means that the Japanese employed to control their empire were themselves extra-ordinarily inhumane so there was an understandable attitude of 'they had it coming'.  Lastly, the destruction in both life and property of the atomic bombs were significantly less than the firebombings of Tokyo.

I do wish we had targeted differently.  We had only two weapons to make an impression which was a distinct factor, but I think we could have taken our time and continued to nuke less populated and civilian dominated targets as fissile material became available, and it was a sure thing that we'd be producing such material at as high a rate as possible.

Ultimately I doubt that there was any country who would have deferred on the use of atomic weapons if they were in anything remotely resembling our situation at that time in history.  Least the Japanese themselves.

The main lesson to be learned comes from the Japanese and it is to be ever vigilant against a militant leadership who has aspirations to build and maintain an empire.  They will deliver a bucket of tears to their people eventually.  Always do.  Unfortunately this lesson needs to be re-learned by the masses from time to time, and the US is in the mid-life of such a cycle as I read the tea leaves.

[Adrian-x]

This is an issue where I take an unusual step (for me) of defending the US. 

Just watched an interesting history of the war for some original, never seen before Japanese footage in colour, (can't remember the name it is on Netflics.)

While you may be somewhat correct, you are looking at it from your cultural perspective; I would suggest you try taking that perspective with some Japanese friends. 

All in all, dropping a Nuke in a sparkly or uninhabited region could have gone a long way in the use as a threat.

As for the dirty DU bombs, there is lots of evidence to suggest the Afghan mountains are littered with the radioactive waste, least of which are the side effects the deformed births and myriad of radiation poisoning related diseases. 

To your last point, history seems to be repeating.   

[marcus_of_augustus]

However the US has done one thing, it has shown restraint when it had and has now vast nuclear advantage. I wonder what other countries with such and advantage would show the same restraint

The US of all countries? Nagasaki and Hiroshima ring a bell? No other country has ever dropped a nuke on people except the US.

The Japanese bombings not withstanding, it is disingenuous to say the US has shown restraint with its nuclear advantage .... one could argue that the massive influence they wield all across the globe, particularly the US dollar hegemony, is because behind every foreign action lies quietly, the unstated threat of ultimately nuclear action.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima were real world tests, plain and simple. The fire-storm bombings of Tokyo http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tokyo.htm had already broken the japanese spirit and several more civilian attacks like these over the other big Japanese cities would have likely caused the same desired surrender outcome that was needed to stop the horrific island fighting as the Allies advanced on the mainland.

[kjj]

Nagasaki and Hiroshima were real world tests, plain and simple. The fire-storm bombings of Tokyo http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tokyo.htm had already broken the japanese spirit and several more civilian attacks like these over the other big Japanese cities would have likely caused the same desired surrender outcome that was needed to stop the horrific island fighting as the Allies advanced on the mainland.

Do you know what a Monday morning quarterback is?

[tvbcof]

This is an issue where I take an unusual step (for me) of defending the US. 

Just watched an interesting history of the war for some original, never seen before Japanese footage in colour, (can't remember the name it is on Netflics.)

While you may be somewhat correct, you are looking at it from your cultural perspective; I would suggest you try taking that perspective with some Japanese friends. 

All in all, dropping a Nuke in a sparkly or uninhabited region could have gone a long way in the use as a threat.

As for the dirty DU bombs, there is lots of evidence to suggest the Afghan mountains are littered with the radioactive waste, least of which are the side effects the deformed births and myriad of radiation poisoning related diseases. 

To your last point, history seems to be repeating.   

I saw at least part of the documentary recently, probably on youtube.  It almost certainly had something to do with my comments.

I have chatted a bit with Japanese friends about things, and one time in particular while I was in Japan.  Although only one datapoint, I detect some sensitivity to the issue.  Unsurprisingly.  She said mostly that 'it was a terrible weapon' and left it at that.  It would have been rude to continue the conversation with some of my arguments, and I tend to be more rude on bitcointalk.org than in real life unless I know someone extremely well.  Anyway, I bet I would hold a very similar viewpoint even if I were a Japanese, but not very many people are as brutally analytically as I.  I do recall an interview with a high ranking Japanese officer or official prior to his death and he said that of course Japan would have used atomic weapons against the US if it had the ability.  In a general way this is not a justification for anything, and in part because I want to see the US being 'better' than others and feel that we fail when we are not, but my point is that nuking Japan in 1945 was a logical decision that almost anyone would have made at the time.

As for DU, uranium itself in it's natural mix of isotopes is not very radioactive although it would stand to reason that it is contaminated with other radioactive materials as a result of the production and refining process.  It's also a heavy metal which, when used in weapons, is highly atomized and does the same to anything it hits as a target.  It would not surprise me in the least if it created environmental issues.  Nor would it surprise me if some of the issues are overblown by the anti-war folks (my side) for propaganda reasons.  One way or another, the fact that we are shooting the stuff at people half way around the world at all is deeply wrong irrespective of the environmental damage.

We use DU because it makes war profiteers rich to be sure, but it would not surprise me if it were a form of genocide planned by our strategists.  Like what Israel does on the West Bank.  A) disable sewage treatment B) arrange lack of protein by controlling imports C) allow fishing only within a near zone where the fish are contaminated and shoot fishermen who stray beyond.  I can see no way that this is not planned and that it constitutes anything other than straight-up ethnic cleansing.  The Palestinians who survive will be ones with particularly strong immune systems which will be interesting to evaluate from a scientific perspective at least.

[lebing]

Remember when this thread was about gold & bitcoin? 

[dnaleor]

Remember when this thread was about gold & bitcoin?  

Well, I present you:

Gold stagnating. Silver & Bitcoin UP.

[thezerg]

i resisted 4 a long time because they dont coin DU.  but i give in.  DU has the amazing and I think unique property that it actually sharpens when it hits something.  Explains its use in armor and bunker piercing munitions.  its not about the USA throwing its poisonous trash out creatively...

[marcus_of_augustus]

Nagasaki and Hiroshima were real world tests, plain and simple. The fire-storm bombings of Tokyo http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tokyo.htm had already broken the japanese spirit and several more civilian attacks like these over the other big Japanese cities would have likely caused the same desired surrender outcome that was needed to stop the horrific island fighting as the Allies advanced on the mainland.

Do you know what a Monday morning quarterback is?

Hit a yankee nerve did I?