Gold Wars

Gold Wars deals with gold's history, and especially the abandonment of gold-as-money under the modern welfare/warfare state. It shows how governments, fearing the affinity of free people for gold, fight it, thereby helping to destroy countries and the gold-mining industry.

Gold Wars: Battle for the Global Economy addresses the grotesque, growing and unsustainable imbalances in the financial system. As gold is the barometer of systemic ills, a war on gold–to drive down its price—is taking place to hide the negative impacts of fiat currency, shadow banking and central banking on the global financial system. Starting with an introductory discussion on the nature of money and the bizarre fractional reserve structure currently in place, Mitchell moves on to address the massive, but little known systemic pivot point: the Petrodollar standard. Tying dollars to oil, this mechanism undergirds the dollar’s reserve status. But soon it will fail with paradigm shifting consequences. Next, Mitchell addresses the twins of shadow banking and central banking (with a quick interlude to look at the traits of physical gold). Then, with the stage set and the distortions, corruptions and levers of power in better view, he examines a few historical precedents and likely outcomes through deflationary/inflationary effects and their combinations. Gold Wars features a detailed breakdown of the gross manipulations in the gold market - from nonexistent paper gold, smackdowns, high-frequency trading, and ETF’s to Central Bank games like swapping/leasing, shell accounting, midnight raids, clandestine gold movements and regulatory attacks on investors. Mitchell offers a prediction of the results for the gold market: when the manipulation fails, paper and physical prices will separate, with the physical selling for multiples of paper. Similarly silver, with its own unique characteristics for industry and investment, is also targeted as a potential refuge for flight from paper, though strangely, above-ground gold is now more plentiful than silver. Add to this a silver short position rolling from one institution to another as each fails, a 4-year foot dragging investigation into market fraud, and a class action suit for manipulation and the market has a recipe for a pressure cooker at maximum. Western banks, lacking the gold to cover their obligations, will eventually declare a force majeure—an event supposedly the result of the elements of nature, as opposed to one caused by human behavior—as a pretext for settling their obligations in increasingly valueless paper. Where is the resistance to this distortion and corruption of value? Power is flowing East as China and Russia have drawn in massive amounts of gold while denyin

When you fill up your car, install your furniture or choose a wedding ring, do you ever consider the human cost of your consumables? There is a war raging in the heartlands of Peru, waged on the land by the global industries plundering the Amazon and the Andes. In Saweto, charismatic activist Edwin Chota returns to his ashaninka roots, only to find that his people can't hunt for food because the animals have fled the rainforest to escape the chainsaw cacophony of illegal logging. Farmer Maxima Acua is trying to grow potatoes and catch fish on the land she bought from her uncle - but she's sitting on top of a gold mine, and the miners will do anything to prove she's occupying her home illegally. The awajun community of the northern Amazon drink water contaminated with oil; child labourer Osman Cuach's becomes internationally famous when a photo of him drenched in petrol as part of the clean-up efforts makes it way around the world. Joseph Zrate's stunning work of documentary takes three of Peru's most precious resources - gold, wood and oil - and exposes the tragedy, violence and corruption tangled up in their extraction. But he also draws us in to the rich, surprising world of Peru's indigenous communities, of local heroes and singular activists, of ancient customs and passionate young environmentalists. Wars of the Interior is a deep insight into the cultures alive in the vanishing Amazon, and a forceful, shocking expos of the industries destroying this land.

An Introduction to Civil Wars provides a comprehensive overview of the civil wars that have taken place globally since World War II. A discussion of the human and economic costs of civil war is followed by a systematic examination of all aspects of these conflicts: civil war patterns, types, and causes; the effect of natural resources; conflict duration, outcomes, and termination; peace agreements; counterinsurgency; terrorism; international intervention; and post-conflict issues. Author Karl DeRouen, Jr. draws on the latest empirical research, and pedagogical features -- tables, figures, maps, photos, a comprehensive bibliography, lists of suggested readings, and an Appendix listing all civil wars since 1946 -- make the book an especially useful research tool for undergraduates and graduate students in political science and public policy.

Why has the United States become involved in so many wars in the Middle East, and why just now? What explains the extraordinary disconnect between pre-war statements by the Bush Administration and the post-war reality? How much of U.S. intelligence was wrong, and why? Why did the Bush Administration ignore warnings by senior military commanders about the difficulties they would confront in trying to occupy Iraq? Why was there virtually no pre-war planning for administering Iraq once the war was successfully concluded? Pelletiere argues that, in going to war twice against Iraq and once against Afghanistan, the United States was seeking to put a lock on its future energy supplies. In neglecting diplomacy for so long in dealing with the Gulf States, Washington was practically compelled to use force to get what it wanted. Pelletiere explores the context of events that produced the attacks of September 11, 2001, the pretext for the United States' military move into the region. He debunks the Bush Administration's claim that the United States was beset by Islamic terrorists bent on destroying western civilization and set the stage for an examination of other possible motives. Next, he details the history of U.S. involvement in the region, beginning with the discovery of oil and the pioneering efforts of American and British companies to open the region to exploration. After the OPEC Revolution, he argues, the United States would allow itself to be drawn into an arms-supplying relationship with the Shah of Iran and the military-industrial complex would become hooked on subsidies from the Gulf monarchs. Finally, after discussing the First Gulf War and recent events in Afghanistan, Pelletiere contends that these conflicts and the current war in Iraq are really part of a greater struggle between North and South, a struggle that will have significant consequences for the future of the United States.

This book tells the story of The Veterans of Future Wars (VFW), a student movement that attracted widespread support in a short few months in 1936. Despite its short life, it was a successful movement that attracted wide support and caused serious discussion about the role of the federal government in providing bonuses to veterans. It focused American attention on the bonus issue, which had been a political issue for many years.

From the Liebfahne and Ordinärfahne of Austria, to the eagle and wreath of Russia, the flags of the Napoleonic Wars comprised a range of designs and colours. The second in a series of three volumes focusing on flags of the Napoleonic Wars, this book examines the patterns, colours and guidons of Austria, Britain, Prussia and Russia, offering a rare glimpse into an often-overlooked subject in Napoleonic history. The text is packed with illustrations throughout, including colour plates, sketches and tables detailing flag variants, patterns and inspection colours.

Drawing on a range of contemporary evidence, Stephen Constantine studies the nature and causes of unemployment in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s, and analyzes the failure of successive inter-war governments to make a constructive response.