I decided to split off my postings of economic links from Jim's Thoughts, so that I can get that topic back to what it was intended to be, a place for me to post trading ideas and thoughts I had that I felt could be of interest to the readers.

This topic is where I will post links to various economic articles, for those that find them interesting. If you want to read (or post) articles about the unfolding debaucle, this is the place to look. If you are a short-term daytrader or swing trader and have zero interest in the economy, you can now just read Jim's Thoughts and not have to wade through this type of dicussion.

At best I think this material only has a direct effect on longer-term plays, the bigger swings that make up the major legs of the bull and bear markets. I follow this stuff for that reason, and because I want to have a handle on things, if that is even possible in this era of lies and deception, so that I can make decisions on life issues.

For example, as I posted in the commentary on the website and discussed with many people well in advance, this was something that wasn't hard to see coming. I saw many people who told me as late as Oct 2007 that 'this thing is about to 'break out' to the upside, and that Dow 20,000, and then much higher, was 'just around the corner' '. The type of articles I am posting discuss the type of information that helped me form the viewpoints I had back then.

If this is far from over, as I suspect, we are in a similar postion now as back then. With the rally that is unfolding right now the talk is the bull is back, the bottom is in, and we are set. I'm not so sure. So, I try to weigh up all the factors and not get too sucked in by the hype. To that end, I will post things here I find interesting.

I could not get the link to work

I was going to ask if anyone was having trouble. I read this on The Automatic Earth, not from this link. I can't get it directly, either. I did a ping trace on it, and there is a hop with 100% packet loss. I've been watching this since yesterday, and it hasn't changed. Not only that, you can't get any of the website, even the home page.

As an aside, I've been watching this on several other websites, as I've had tremendous trouble over the past few weeks on the Internet. I've noticed the same 'dead hop' usually a few hops from the final destination. One has been like this for days, and finally, about an hour ago, the hop resolved, and I got the website. Something is up, something isn't right out there.

I've got another that was working great, and then wouldn't load (sometimes I'd get most of the page, but anything that has any size, like images, just won't load), and now it's been three days with 100% packet loss on two hops. This morning, one hop resolved itself, and one remains, and I can't get the page. I'm waiting to see if the other hops resolves, and then I get the page.

So, if anyone can get this link to work let us know, you may be routed differently. If the hop resolves, and hence I likely get the page, I'll post it here. Any other stories of recent Internet issues would be welcome here. As I said, something is up. I heard a story about a major backbone upgrading servers, but couldn't find anything about it, and the sites I found show all backbones working great...

It just started working for me now.

This has been my plan all along. Fat chance we'll ever do it.

http://housingstory.net/2010/11/08/liquidate-bubble-debt/

This is a little slow going, but if you slog through it all and try hard to grasp the mathematics of it, it really shows just how deep the rabbit hole goes, and what games are being played to turn you into a slave (more accurately 'to advance your level of slavery', since you already are a slave).

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21947

This is really curious, and surely is a major problem in our country. I have first hand experience (well, second hand?, as I watched someone I know deal with a person who gamed the system for a living (and was also gaming them as landlords, what a nightmare)) with seeing this attitude in action. I can't imagine the U.S. ever being a great country again without ending this.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/entitlement-america-head-household-making-minimum-wage-has-more-disposable-income-family-mak

I think this is every significant.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-its-official-economy-set-starve

Get ready...

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/day-dollar-died

Okay, yes, they have an agenda, and many will see this as fearmongering. But is it, if it actually plays out like this? When is a solid, realistic warning not fearmongering?

All in all this pretty much sums up what I think is essentially 100% likely to happen. Where I differ is that I think the dollar collapse would be much faster than they show, and the rise in gold much faster. Although I agree very strongly with the likelihood of what they show OPEC doing, I think in reality they'd always accept dollars, at a fair exchange rate. That may be $100 trillion to a Swiss franc, though, just like a Zimbabwe dollar. Anyway, enjoy.

I forgot, I do have another hero to go with Ron Paul and David Stockman, and that's Nigel Farage. Here's his latest:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-17/farage-unleashed-you-are-common-criminals