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Exclusive: "And It's Gone... It's All Gone" - The One Gold Scandal That Goes To The Very Top
Long before Turkey was flagrantly arming and funding the CIA-created "terrorist organization" known as ISIS, there was another, far more elaborate way in which Turkey was flaunting international sanctions against an ostracized state - in this case Iran - which involved an epic gold smuggling triangle of Hollywood-thriller proportions, all made possible thanks to the United Arab Emirate city of Dubai.
Best known known for its luxury shopping, ultramodern architecture including the world's tallest building, a lively nightlife scene, and a facade of openness and decorum, what Dubai is less known for is its unprecedented seedy underbelly of corruption and untouched criminality among the handful of billionaire oligarchs, princes, sheiks and sultans, who quietly dominate the local (and global) power and financial structure.
But first, a little history.
It may seem like a distant memory now, but just a few short years ago, instead of a close ally of Barack Obama, Iran was a pariah state subject to international financial sanctions due to its nuclear program development, one which Israel had repeatedly (and famously) threatened would attack preemptively to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Iran, of course, had no choice but to find ways to keep its economy going, and in order to circumvent these sanctions, it resorted to the oldest trade currency known: gold.
This, in itself, is not surprising. What is surprising is how and with whom Iran collaborated to breach the international embargo in order to obtain this valuable and much needed gold, which it could then barter with other countries - notably those along the Pacific Rim - in exchange for any and all needed products and services.
A Reuters article from October 23, 2012 explained, in broad terms, just how Iran's intricate smuggling operation worked.
To see one of Iran's financial lifelines at work, pay a visit to Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport and find a gate for a flight to Dubai. Couriers carrying millions of dollars worth of gold bullion in their luggage have been flying from Istanbul to Dubai, where the gold is shipped on to Iran, according to industry sources with knowledge of the business.
The sums involved are enormous. Official Turkish trade data suggests nearly $2 billion worth of gold was sent to Dubai on behalf of Iranian buyers in August. The shipments help Tehran manage its finances in the face of Western financial sanctions.
The sanctions, imposed over Iran's disputed nuclear program, have largely frozen it out of the global banking system, making it hard for it to conduct international money transfers. By using physical gold, Iran can continue to move its wealth across borders.
"Every currency in the world has an identity, but gold means value without identity. The value is absolute wherever you go," said a trader in Dubai with knowledge of the gold trade between Turkey and Iran.
The identity of the ultimate destination of the gold in Iran is not known. But the scale of the operation through Dubai and its sudden growth suggest the Iranian government plays a role.
The Dubai trader and other sources familiar with the business spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, because of the political and commercial sensitivity of the matter.
Iran sells oil and gas to Turkey, with payments made to state Iranian institutions. U.S. and European banking sanctions ban payments in U.S. dollars or euros so Iran gets paid in Turkish lira. Lira are of limited value for buying goods on international markets but ideal for a gold buying spree in Turkey.
So three years ago, Turkey was purchasing Iran oil and paying in gold. Now it is purchasing ISIS oil and paying in dollars, for the simple reason that there is no banking embargo against the Islamic State like there was against Iran in 2012. One almost wonders why the international community was far stricter with Iran than it is with ISIS now.
Anyway, continuing on, we present: the Dubai connection.
In March [of 2012] as the banking sanctions began to bite, Tehran sharply increased its purchases of gold bullion from Turkey, according to the Turkish government's trade data. Direct gold exports to Iran from Turkey, long a major consumer and stockpiler of gold, hit $1.8 billion in July - equivalent to over a fifth of Turkey's entire trade deficit in that month.
In August, however, a sudden plunge in Turkey's direct gold exports to Iran coincided with a leap in its sales of the precious metal to the UAE.
Turkey exported a total $2.3 billion worth of gold in August, of which $2.1 billion was gold bullion. Just over $1.9 billion, about 36 metric tons, was sent to the UAE, latest available data from Turkey's Statistics Office shows. In July Turkey exported only $7 million of gold to the UAE. At the same time Turkey's direct gold exports to Iran, which had been fluctuating between $1.2 billion and about $1.8 billion each month since April, slumped to just $180 million in August.
The Dubai-based trader said that from August, direct shipments to Iran were largely replaced by indirect ones through Dubai, apparently because Tehran wanted to avoid publicity.
"The trade from Turkey directly to Iran has stopped because there was just too much publicity around it," said the trader.
However, instead of suddenly having a craving for Turkish gold, Dubai was merely a middleman which would then resell Turkey's gold to Iran, in exchange for a very generous commission.
Dealers, jewelers and analysts in Dubai said they had not noticed any large, sudden increase of supply in the local gold market during August. They said that suggested the increased shipments to the UAE were sent straight on to Iran.
It is not clear how the gold is moved from Dubai to Iran, but there is substantial trade between the two economies, much of it conducted by wooden dhows and other ships crossing the Gulf, a distance of only about 150 kilometers (100 miles) at its narrowest point.
And as everyone knows, what better way to "lose" gold at a moment's notice than to be involved in an "unfortunate shipping accident"...
A trader in Turkey said Tehran had shifted to indirect imports because the direct shipments were widely reported in Turkish and international media earlier this year. "Now on paper it looks like the gold is going to Dubai, not to Iran," he said.
Iranian gold buyers may want to conceal their Turkish gold deliveries for fear of attracting attention from the United States, which is pressing countries around the world to shrink their economic ties with Iran.
The buyers may also want to make their purchases less vulnerable to any possible interference by Turkey's government. Turkey's close relationship with Iran has begun to sour as the two states find themselves on opposite sides of the civil war in Syria, with Turkey advocating the departure of President Bashar al-Assad and Iran remaining Assad's staunchest regional ally.
Fear not: if the Erdogan family was guaranteed, say 5% of the total transaction price, it would gladly close its eyes, even if it meant the Ayatollah singing lullabies and war chants to Assad in his bedroom.
But why gold?
Simple: while Iran's banks had been locked out of SWIFT international money transfer system (until mid-2015 when Obama's historic nuclear deal with Iran was announced and let Iran back into the global financial community), and commerce was virtually impossible in fiat currency terms, the UN sanctions did not prohibit most forms of trade. As a result there was no suggestion that the gold trade involving Dubai was violating international sanctions. In fact, the west tacitly encouraged, and Turkey latched on to this great source of trade arbitrage, and unbridled corruption with both hands. Reuters continued:
Turkish trade data confirms the gold is being transported to Dubai by air. According to the data, $1.45 billion of Turkey's total gold exports in August [2012] were shipped through the customs office at Ataturk airport's passenger lounge. Almost all of the rest, $800 million, were shipped from Istanbul's smaller Sabiha Gokcen airport. Turkey's total exports of all goods to the UAE totaled $2.2 billion in August. Of that amount, $1.19 billion were registered at the Ataturk passenger lounge, while $776 million were registered at Sabiha Gokcen.
It was a golden free for all: "a customs broker who does business at Ataturk said couriers were boarding Turkish Airlines and Emirates flights to Dubai at the airport, carrying the metal in their hand luggage to avoid the risk of it getting lost or stolen."
The maximum amount of gold bullion which a passenger is allowed to take is 50 kilograms (110 pounds), he said. This suggests that during the month of August, as many as several hundred courier trips may have taken gold to Dubai on Iran's behalf.
"It is all legal, they declare it, they give their tax number and it is all registered so there is nothing illegal about this," the broker said.
The Reuters article cut off at the most important part: who were the people organizing the trade? "The trade data shows almost $1.4 billion worth of Turkey's August exports to the UAE came from a company or companies with a tax number registered in the coastal city of Izmir, Turkey's third biggest. Customs officials at Ataturk declined a Reuters request to provide documents identifying the exporters, saying the information was confidential. The identity of the companies handling the business could not be confirmed. Traders said that because of the risk of attracting unwelcome attention from U.S. authorities, only a few companies were likely to be willing to get involved."
Almost a year later, we found out just why the local authorities were so very cautious about identifying the people on the Turkish side behind this "perfectly legal trade"- it involved everyone from an Iranian billionaire, Riza Sarraf, to Turkey's then economy minister, Zafer Caglayan, all the way to the very top, you guessed it, current president and then prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A Bloomberg follow up piece from the summer of 2013 laid out all the key actors on the Turkish side:
As the minister in charge of Turkey’s $800 billion economy in 2013, Zafer Caglayan was facing a series of numbers that didn’t bode well for coming elections. Inflation was up, growth was slowing and the lira was weakening.
One key measure of financial health was particularly worrisome: the country was importing far more goods, services and capital than it was sending abroad. By October, when he was interviewed by a local CNBC affiliate, Caglayan described the gap as unsustainable and said the government would take steps to improve it.
What he didn’t mention was a clandestine export-boosting operation started up more than a year before that was helping to solve the trade imbalance.
At the time of the television appearance, it was still underway. Three weeks before, Caglayan had been secretly taped by national-police investigators telling his collaborators to find a way to increase exports by at least $1 billion a month. His orders came from the top in a two-hour meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he told an associate.
The operation featured an Iranian-born businessman who liked fast horses, faster cars and the fastest planes. His unique skill: Getting gold into sanctions-encircled Iran. Enough gold that for a time he became the government’s key instrument in improving Turkey’s irksome economic imbalance.
How a team that included Turkey’s economy minister sought to manage the current account deficit, as the gap is called, by juicing exports to Iran is laid out in a 300-page document prepared by Turkish investigators in 2013. Caglayan and his collaborators also came away with tens of millions of dollars in bribes, according to the document, which has been cited in parliament by opposition lawmakers.
Caglayan resigned on Dec. 25 as economy minister after the investigation became public, is immune from prosecution as a member of parliament. Erdogan, whose bribes from this operations were in the hundreds of millions of dollars, did everything in his power as then-prime minister to kill the probe and decried the inquiry as an "attempted coup", a card he has pulled every single time some political probe gets too close to his unprecedented financial crimes, which have a recurring pattern: sell goods and services to an organization isolated by the international community, and pocket tens or hundreds of millions in "commissions" and bribes in the process.
Since then Erdogan has made Turkey his personal despotic fiefdom, and after serving as prime minister from 2003 to 2014, he was "elected" president in which role he serves to this day. There is not a soul in Turkey who poses any political threat to Erdogan, whose vast plundered financial fortune assures that the army would be on his side even in a military coup scenario.
In any case, the spice, or rather gold, flowed. As Bloomberg confirmed in 2013, "the covert efforts that Caglayan and his associates undertook eventually swelled to a multi-billion dollar enterprise that reached from Ghana to China, according to the investigation. Tons of gold flowed from Turkey to Iran, much of it via Dubai. That freed up Iranian money trapped in Turkish banks, in turn boosting Turkish exports.
When the gold trade was foiled by tightening American sanctions starting in July 2013, Sarraf and his collaborators kept exporting. They sent thousands of tons of overpriced -- and sometimes fictitious -- food onto ships steaming between Dubai and Iran, according to the document."
It was not just Erdogan and Caglayan who made a killing: "Smoothing out the complications of this shadowy and complex trade were bribes to Turkish government ministers: multimillion-dollar diamonds, and millions of dollars stuffed into suit bags, chocolate boxes and even shoe boxes, the investigation document says."
Meanwhile, the amounts of gold shipped from Turkey to Iran via Dubai were simply staggering:
In an interview with television channel A Haber, Sarraf estimated he had facilitated the transfer of about $12 billion in gold -- about 200 tons -- to Iran. That represented “about 15 percent-15.5 percent of the current account deficit that I closed by myself,” he said. He didn’t say what period he was referencing.
“There’s a serious benefit to the Turkish economy with profit that’s gone into state coffers,” he told the interviewer.
Ultimately, this unprecedented in its vast scale and scope gold smuggling operation, which stretched as far as China, Moscow and Azerbaijan, faded: in July 2013 the U.S. added precious metals to the list of items that couldn’t be sold to Iran as part of an effort to curtail that country’s nuclear enrichment program.
At that moment that Iran gold smuggling party for Turkey was over, and it was time to find a new foreign "trade" partner. A year later one emerged in the form of ISIS as has been documented here previously...
* * *
All of this has been publicly known so far. What follows is being reported for the first time.
While in 2012 and 2013 the world's attention was focused on Iran and Turkey, with both Reuters and Bloomberg scrambling to find the involved parties, nobody paid any attention to the key middle-man responsible for billions in smuggled gold, Dubai. And while the main Turkish actors and beneficiaries of this gold smuggling have been extensively documented, nothing at all has been written about any of the Dubai intermediaries who also made hundreds of millions, if not more, simply for facilitating the move of gold from point A to point B.
Which is strange, because for anyone doing even a little cursory digging, the answer was there in broad daylight all along.
Presenting Mohammed Abu-Alhaj: the key Dubai "connection" in the Turkey-Iran gold smuggling triangle.
Who is Abu-Alhaj? A brief biography from his public profile:
Mohammad has many years of vast experience in the finance and financial technology industry. He began his career establishing an e-commerce business in the United States followed by another e-commerce of a different trade. He then moved on to Dubai in the early 2000s to establish a brokerage firm. Following its success he was a major shareholder in its subsidiaries across the MENA region.
Meanwhile he has set-up, directed and operated many entities in the online trading of financial products, and now gold and precious metals. Mohammad is very resourceful and possesses many highly qualified skills; he has developed innovative platforms for online trading, effective management and leading skills and he is thorough in analyzing problems and finding creative solutions.
Mohammad's latest accomplishment is the set-up of the Gold AE DMCC and its subsidiaries across the region, Switzerland and Africa, one of the first online trading entities for deliverable gold and silver, and Islamic dinars and dirhams in the United Arab Emirates.
Presently, Mohammad is the Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Gold AE. He is also the deputy Chairman and a board member of Abu Alhaj Holdings, registered in the Dubai International Financial Centre.
What made Abu-Alhaj unique was his early fascination and interest in Turkey and its role in "physical deliverable gold" trading. A fascination which paid off in droves. Follow excerpts from article from Turkish newspaper Dunya...
... ironically written on October 23, 2012, the same day as Reuters first exposed Turkey's role in this epic gold smuggling triangle.
Dubai businessmen connects Gulf investors with Turkey
Mohammed Abu-Alhaj, vice chairman and chief executive officer of his Dubai-based family-owned Abu-Alhaj Holding, first visited Turkey as a tourist in 2004, and explored the economic possibilities of the country.
"I saw stability had started to take hold in the nation. Turkey was a highly productive country. I was certain it would become among the top emerging markets for years to come," the 40-year old businessmen reminisced in an interview in Istanbul on Saturday.
Soon he acquired a Turkish brokerage house, Ikrisat Yatirim, through the Savings Deposits Insurance Fund (TMSF), a state banking receivership fund, for S15 million, and became one of the first Arab Investors in Turkey.
In 2009, he sold the brokerage house to Dubai Holding. He then established in Istanbul's Atasehir financial district the company Altin 24.com, an on-line gold trading company. Altin 24 serves as the Istanbul office of his regional gold commerce company Gold.AE. He also founded a store in Istanbul's Covered Bazaar, the main gold and jewelry market of Turkey. Altin 24 provides full services in gold bullion and certificates trading for Turkish clients.
Although he employs only nine persons in Turkey, his Altin 24 has already carried out $700 million in gold trading in the country.
Istanbul and Dubai are the world's two biggest centers for gold trade.
Acting as bridge
"I started to believe I could be a bridge between the Arab world, especially the six nation Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), and the Turkish market," he said. "I resolved to help remove the obstacles preventing GCC oompanies from investing in the country."
He has been successful so far.
Although once shy of secular Turkey, Arab investment has been pouring into Turkey since Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's moderately Islamist Justice and Development Party came to power a decade ago.
* * *
Mr. Abu-Alhaj's father found Abu-Alhaj holding as a logistics company and then went into industry. The group, which he still runs with his five sons, now has investments in technical textiles, pharmaceuticals, agribusiness, real estate development, investment banking and tourism in seven nations: Dubai, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Yemen and Turkey.
A graduate of computer science and information technologies from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, he worked on Wall Street during the dot.com bubble that led to the collapse of hundreds of technology upstarts. He returned to his homeland to run the family business.
Mr. Abu-Allhaj believes that the decision of Turkey's Central Bank to allow depositors and banks to hold gold accounts has helped the country distance itself from the economic crises gripping the world.
"Gold accounts will save the country from the crisis in international markets that will happen for sure" he asserted.
He may be right about that, but it is everything else that has raised a red flag. Incidentally, those curious can read much more about Abu-Alhaj's push into Turkey's gold market in the Press section of his Gold.AE website.
But just who is Gold Arab Emirate, or Gold AE, based out of Dubai? We ask because we - like most of our readers - had never heard of this company before. Perhaps the company's biggest claim to fame was the first gold ATM it introduced in the Emirates back in 2010, to much media fanfare.
Ok, so they make gold ATMs. What else? For the answer we go straight to the company's website.
Gold AE, Like Your Gold Bank
Gold Arab Emirate, Gold AE is the first corporate entity in Middle East incorporated in Dubai – UAE, for E-Commerce of Gold & Silver bullion being its core commercial activity. Gold AE is conducting its operations under the commercial license # DMCC 30821, issued by Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC). DMCC is a Dubai Government’s initiative to monitor and facilitate the trading in precious metals.
In addition to its presence in Dubai, it has branches in Abu Dhabi (UAE), Jordan, Turkey, Switzerland and affiliations in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Gold AE is led by an experienced team of seasoned bullion professionals which gives it a competitive advantage over contemporary firms in the market and gaining a remarkable reputation as an emerging market participant in the gold markets of the gulf. We are proud to provide investor friendly schemes in bullion investments through our highly valuable trading platform apart from providing international brands in bullion products on our E-shop at comparatively low cost.
Gold AE is a subsidiary of M/s Gold Holding Ltd, a Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) based company. M/s Gold Holding Ltd. owns various trading entities involved in online bullion trading of physical gold and silver, gold mining and refining industries as well as entities serving the financial institutions for gold logistics. The Holding company professionally supports its subsidiaries with financing, operational business management and controlling activities. This includes market sectors such as gold industry, information technology, as well as financial investments.
Notable is the website's description of its executive management, which presents Abu-Alhaj as Chairman and Managing Director. Keep that in mind because it will be important shortly.
But even more important, is the company's description of itself as a subsidiary of Gold Holding Ltd. Who is Gold Holdings? Again, we go to the source:
Gold Holding Limited is an investment holding company headquartered in Dubai and registered under the laws and regulations of the Dubai International Financial Centre. Gold Holding is a thriving group that is constantly seeking new companies to join its growing portfolio of precious metal and mining companies. It does however have stringent ethical values that mean its procurement methods are always of the highest moral standards and it is highly selective in where it chooses to operate.
Basically, if Gold AE is the Turkey-focused trading front, Gold Holding is the mothership which deals with all major activities behind the scenes. This becomes immediately obvious when looking at the main shareholders and management team of the Holding company.
Main Shareholders:
- SBK Business Holding www.sbkholding.com
- Sheik Sultan BIn Khalifa bin sultan Al-nahyan (Chairman)
- Sheik Malek Hmood Alsabah (Vice Chairman)
- Abu-alhaj Holding
- Aruntani SacManagement:
- Chairman: Sheik Sultan bin khalifah Al nahyan
- Vice Chairman: Sheik Malek Hmood Alsabah
- Managing Director: Mo Nico Consari
- CEO: Andre Gauthier
- CFO: Fahad Ayoob
Please bear with us a few more minutes as we close all these semingly unconnected loops of ownership, because while most other names presented so far are largely meaningless, one name above stands out, that of Sheikh Sultan Bin Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Sultan is the advisor to the President of UAE, the eldest son of Khalifa Bin, President of the United Arab Emirates, Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and Ruler of Abu Dhabi.
Sultan was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel staff pilot in 1999 and then to the rank of colonel staff in February, 2000. He is the advisor to the president of the UAE, Khalifa bin Zayed, and the board chairman of the SBK Holding. He is among the board members of the Executive Council of Abu Dhabi. He was appointed the board member of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority for three years in April 2013.
Basically, Sultan is the second in command in the United Arab Emirates.
As for SBK Holding, it is the Holding Company of Sultan Bin Khalifa. "With its headquarters in the United Arab Emirates, SBK Holding has a range of companies that serve a broad cross-section of industries not only in the Gulf region but also globally."
A quick glance at the company's website shows that it is involved in virtually everything, and among the things it is involved in, is a vast gold trading empire courtesy of the Gold Holding company.
* * *
To recap the story so far:
- Mohammed Abu-Alhaj is the owner of Gold.AE, a gold trading operation, whose primary role has been facilitating gold trade in Turkey (and ostensibly, since it is the primary Dubai gold company involved in Turkey, was the dominant player in Turkey's smuggling of gold to Iran).
- Gold.AE is a subsidiary of Gold Holdings Ltd, a company which is owned by SBK Business Holdings and Abu Dhabi's second in command, the son and avisor to the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheik Sultan bin khalifah Al nahyan
All of this brings us to today, and the following letter which the suddenly very unfortunate clients of Gold.AE aka "Your Gold Bank", just received.
Dear Client
A group of minority shareholders of GOLD HOLDING suspected that there were questionable financial transactions being undertaken in Gold AE DMCC ("the Company"). Acting on these suspicions they initiated internal investigations. During the course of the investigations the entire then management team abruptly resigned with no notice. Since the majority shareholders also seemed to be unavailable, the minority shareholders did not accept this resignation. However, these persons went to DMCC, submitted their resignations and managed to get their visas cancelled.
Following this, in august 2015, Mr. Andre Gauthier has been appointed as the manager of the Company so that investigations continued and once completed necessary action can be taken to secure the interests of the clients and shareholders of the company. His appointment took effect from August 9 ,2015 . When he took over, new management realized that he now had access to more information concerning the activities of the previous management and, he realized that there had been substantial withdrawals from the company's account to the personal accounts of some of the management and the majority shareholders.
Management has also uncovered information with respect to the existence of a bank account with Arab Bank (Switzerland) Ltd in Switzerland in the name of the Company. An attempt has been made to approach this bank but, since none of the current management or minority shareholders are signatories to the account and, due to the stringent Swiss banking laws and regulations regarding confidentiality, no additional information or access has been provided by the bank.
In order to try and secure/recover monies that had been taken out of the accounts of the company, Mr. Gauthier in his capacity as manager has filed various cases as against the recipients of the funds from the Company (Dubai Police ( Bur Dubai Police Station), Case No: 24378). The minority shareholders are doing everything within their powers to support him in his efforts to recover these monies that were withdrawn from Gold AE in questionable circumstances.
DMCC has alleged that some of these activities undertaken by the previous management are in breach of DMCC's rules and as such they have taken the decision to terminate the license of the Company. We are working closely with DMCC to find a solution and in the meanwhile, we request that you bear with us. In the meanwhile, as a statutory consequence of the license being terminated, the trading platform of the Company has to shut down as of the date of termination of the license which is 24th November 2015.
We trust the forgoing is of assistance.
Sincerely,
On behalf of GOLD AE MANAGEMENT
To loosely paraphrase South Park "aaaannd it's gone. The gold is all gone."
For all those who just received the letter, and had funds at Gold.AE, our condolences, because if there is any confusion, what it says is that after a cursory inquiry into the operations of the "former" management team, the one led by Abu-Alhaj, not only did the "management team" vaporize with all the funds held in the trading group, but they "seemed to be unavailable", meaning the management team itself vaporized. It also means that any funds you may have had there are gone for ever.
Furthermore, since the letter explicitly highlights the "minority shareholders", one wonders: was Sheik Sultan bin khalifah Al nahyan, the second most important person in Abu Dhabi, and a majority shareholder, involved in this unprecedented raiding of a company that was instrumental in the Turkey-to-Iran gold smuggling campaign?
And if he wasn't directly involved, just how much about this company's gold-smuggling operations did he know?
But perhaps the money is not completely vaporized. Perhaps it is simply sitting in the following Swiss bank as per the letter:
Then again, we doubt that any money parked by the fraudulent management team of Gold AE will ever be uncovered, if only in the public realm: after all, the tentacles of this particular scandal stretch very far, so far that anyone who dares to talk will not live to say much more.
How far?
Let's summarize once again: a gold-smuggling scandal that took place under the nose of the US and the international community for years, one which allowed Iran to skirt international sanctions using gold as a barter tool to keep its economy going and involved China and Russia among many other nations, and one which saw the participation of not only the economic and prime ministers of Turkey (and current president) but also countless corrupt Turkish politicians and the richest person in Iran, but also the second most powerful person in Dubai, the largest holding company in the Arab Emirates and the largest gold holding company in the Gulf state.
A scandal which resulted in untold riches for everyone involved, and has also resulted in the Dubai management team disappearing with what may well be billions in stolen funds.
And, naturally, there is a token "anonymous" Swiss bank to boot, which is likely the resting place of said stolen billions.
All of this it is real, it happened, and is not the screenplay of the next James Bond movie.
And - the punchline - it all revolves around one of the simplest products known to man: gold.
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I have mine....Oh the bottom of the lake does....and MERRY CHRISTMAS you BITCHEZ!!
A Merry Schlonging to you as well my friend.
Look at these sheiks and sultans. These are some bad motherf*ckers. I want to be friends with these guys.
merry christmas from my stack to yours, may reality drive the markets one day.
and the general consensus is that most likely somewhere around 98% or more of Americans don't own even 1 single ounce of silver while it's currently being given away at any price under let's just say 150 dollars an ounce. Right now it's around 14.40/oz.
A world-wide monetary collapse and reset is upon us right fucking now, folks. It's closer now than ever before. What would you all predict?...maybe within the next 5 years or so??? I think that's about right.
Nearly the entire world is passing America by leaps and bounds in regards to accumulating phyzz silver and gold in preparation to the end of the petro-dollar system. It's been in the works for many years and the rest is just around the corner. It's by design. They've been planning this for decades from the very beginning as you all know.
That's why all the wars and why the NWO central banks are funding wars all over the place. That's the last gasp of a dying system but it doesn't mean they're going to give up easily. Remember...they still make money by funding both sides of wars. Even though they know one system eventually peaks and fails, they still stay in power even during the collapse...it's all by design and is just another cycle that they use against the entire world. It has happened all throughout history as each dominant empire collapses. That's just how it goes, folks.
Americans don't need to fight the rest of the world to stay in power. We the American people just need to fight our own collapsing, corrupt and treasonous government system in order to hold on to our freedom and liberty and our Republic as it was meant to be.
The fucked up part is that America is being overrun by corruption. The good part is that we have history on our side. And as history showed before, it only takes 3 percent to stand up and win the day. The 3 Percenters are more than enough when the time comes. But I believe we have much more than that who will join. Once it all starts we will have 10's of millions right from the start. That's what the treasonous Gov-scum are so afraid of.
We will most likely have close to 50% or more. So don't give up and stay positive.
Keep stacking that phyzz and all other essential supplies.
Merry Christmas.
And if any of you haven't watched this one then yer missin' out on the big picture:
All Wars Are Bankers' Wars
Or if you haven't already bought this one and then bought copies for everyone you know...yer still missin' out:
The Creature From Jekyll Island
Why would anyone want to steal a barbaric anitquated relic like gold? Its not like it is backed by the full faith and credit of the US.
(Iran) “a close ally of Barack Obama”
..because it’s a close ally and birthplace of Valerie Jarrett, the Rasputin of 1600 and her radical father.
Check it out if you have the stones…
https://youtu.be/2TnkJ8_BmSI
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/06/communism-in-jarretts-family/
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
I just got my kids' "free" go kart (neighbor hand-me-down) running. They're gonna be so surprised.
And those gold coins... there's no foil to unwrap and eat the chocolate inside. They're gonna be so disappointed... until many years later.
Ho Ho Hold your silver and gold... they will ALWAYS be real money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CirrRY_6aaU
Is that you John........Galt?
.
In your hands....or you don't own it.
Period.....fin....the end.
"Couriers carrying millions of dollars worth of gold bullion in their luggage"
Those must have been HEAVY suitcases! I should have been a baggage handler. Have a great Christmas fellow ZHers! It's all about family!
"If you can't hold it in your hands and defend it with an AR-15, you don't own it" Ann Barnhardt
Jim Willie called this two years ago!!
TYLER thats quite the GOLD story...
I guess the moral is NEVER trust your GOLD to any entity that claims it will happily "Hold It" Or "Store It" for you...
Apologies gold bugs... Physical metal will only be money if TPTB allow it. And I don't think that will ever happen because it can't be controlled, fractionalized, and manipulated. You get skrewed on commission when you buy and sell it. Arghhhhh.
And if you think it will be used as money after armageddon, wake up asshole. Not in this or your grandchildren's lifetime. Stone age ain't gonna come back any time soon.
I'm sure the downvotes will hit this, but I'm only buying gold paper. Take advantage of how easy it is to get in make money and get out. Make "money" whatever it is..today or in 20 years, but it works at the grocery store and buys property for the long term. Property probably more intrinsic than physical metals anyway.
Metal in the basement isn't going to work in the future. Might as well store canned goods.
IMO Just saying and I hope I might be wrong
You're probably right, Chia. After all, precious metals have only been proven as rock-solid money since the dawn of civilization. But things are different now and powerful men can change the laws of economics, physics and nature. I, for one, proudly up-vote you.
Just spit up turkey and stuffing at this
This article scared the shit out of me. So I checked on my stack. Whew. It's still there.
No fucking shieks, ceo's or investment management cock suckers have any idea which lake bed holds my stack. When I need it, the gold will be there, safe and sound. A very mean fish is on security patrol day and night.
Agree 100%. If and when gold and silver are the main currency once again, the plebs will not be able to take advantage. It will be taxed at 99% so the "evil speculators who hoarded gold and silver" don't benefit over those who don't own any.
PMs should work quite well as bribes if the persons on the other side of the trade are consistently well-fed.
Yes. If the plebes can be made to believe that the 47 story WTC-7 was brought down by some office furniture burning on the first floor, these same MSM-raised fascist-enablers will be made to believe that people holding PMs are the reason why the DOW lost 90% of its valuation, and will support the hoarders being taxed to oblivion (or worse). For these products of the Common Core curriculum, if it is not on the 6 o'clock news, it is not worth considering. :(
When the going gets tough for TPTB, TPTB go cannibal.
Always have.
Always will.
When TPTB go cannibal, they need a trustworthy way of interacting.
That is how the 'Gold Standard' came to be.
And still can.
With regards to Armageddon...
Well, science tells us modern humans have been here for AT LEAST 200,000 years...and they have the bones to prove it.
And we know for certain that so-called 'archaic' humans, neaderthals and denisovans, have been around since 'at least' 650,000 years ago.
But modernity rose from the stone age in what? 3000 years or less?
So, modernity could have risen and subsequently fallen again 200 times.
But forget 200. How about once or twice? There are ruins that would support that theory in Chile.
The fact is, the onset of an ice age, the end of rich abundant energy, nuclear war, the impact of a celestial body...all could end modernity overnight.
What people commonly think of as 'The World' is actually a tissue-paper thin veneer of modernity over the savage life-or-death realities of biological life.
Any number of stupid things we are doing at this moment, recognized or unrecognized, could end it all.
And that is the truth.
"And if he wasn't directly involved, just how much about this company's gold-smuggling operations did he know?"
Likely the Sheikh was directly and largely involved and helped to revoke the visas of the former "management" expeditiously. No one that powerful is to messed with. Nobody would dare.
NoDebt, Logged in to tell you you're a good man getting your kids that go kart.
My father did the same for me 50 years ago and for me those were the best days that I'll never forget.
I moved up to racing them when I was 16 or so.
Ever go 90 mph inch and a half off the ground? Best times ever!
You are aware that you'll need to get them a good siphon hose and keep your cars tank full so they always have gas right?
Ah, the memories of mouths full of gas siphoned from the Ol' mans Datsun truck as a kid who needed to power his Honda XR80. Good times indeed and I was "Evil Knievel" - only knew 1 speed.... and helmets were for pussies!
Nice article, I live here in Dubai and have been since 2008. There is no doubt in my mind that significant trade, not just in gold is going out of the Creek by dhow's and other transport. There is little or no regulation going through the creek.
Before i made the decision to buy Gold, i nearly registered with Gold.AE, if i had done that, then this could have been the worst christmas ever. Instead i decided to buy it and store it close by. Let this be a lesson to everyone, you dont have it unless you physically own it.
The link to Al Nahyan is worrying and also intriguing, he is the one at the minute making the decisions for military action in Yemen, Syria / Iraq, Libya etc and controls the military.
Follow the money...indeed.....
I too live in Dubai.
I have used Gold AE for several years and I have taken delivery of physical for the bulk of my holdings... however I have 200 gms of Au and 50 kg of Ag sat on their trading platform... which has now been shutdown.
Troubling.
Upon investigation it seems that a complaint line has been set-up so I have submitted a communication just now.
Not the best news to wake up to on Christmas morning.
Dame, I appreciate hearing from others around the world and their experiences. Sorry for your loss. This isn't a huge amount of $...it could have been worse.
Hey Max.
Thanks for the positive vibes. Very decent of you.
I posted my circumstances for that exact purpose i.e. to share something of interest for those who monitor the rich tapestry woven with precious metal thread.
You're right. It's certainly not the end of the world. And needless to say, I will be actively pursuing return of my phyzz. In an ironic way I'm even looking at this situation with interest as I am inclined to take a lead role in representing a wider lobby group of similar victims of Gold AE. (I get a kick out of taking on challenges, especially where wit is required!)
Some context for consideration:
I've been in the GCC for 9 years now and it has its own way of working. This current situation appears to be a serious fraud harming many investors, institutions and the UAE's reputation as a world-class investment hub. Further, this appears to be a complex situation... not just in the international nature of things but importantly in the cross-Emirate angle between Dubai and Abu Dhabi (SBK's Emirate and the capital city) - noting that the Al Nahyans and the Al Maktoums share leadership of the country. These chaps are fiercely proud/ defensive of the UAEs reputation for being an open, progressive society and the access this provides to foreign investment and smarts.
Given the clear link to SBK this will be a big deal for these boys. I see online that there have been court proceedings between Abu Al Haj and SBK in June 2015. Keep in mind that SBK and other local nationals are the 'minority shareholders' referred to and very removed from daily operations and executive decision-making. The role of SBK would be primarily as a sponsor. I strongly suspect that SBK would have been unaware of the embezzlement and criminal activity. Honestly, this Gold AE situation is chump change to SBK. He, his dad, his uncles and his male cousins (the Al Nahyans) own Abu Dhabi's oil. All of it. Not to mention also owning several of the largest sovereign wealth funds on the planet. They are just incredibly wealthy and they certainly do not need to damage their reputation by shaking coins from the pockets of guys like me.
The issue will not simply evaporate. It must be dealt with to protect the reputation of the leading families, their respective Emirates and UAE as a whole.
I'll keep people posted as events unfold.
Peace.
So what's this in ounces ??? 7 and 2000 ???
My main question however, how does this concern my future wagers on Godolphin horses ??
I love that you used Jim Nabors as I'm from Sylacauga, AL and he introduced my grandparents and was my grandfather's best man at their wedding. He remains a close family friend to this day. The last time I saw hime a couple of years ago when he was staying at my grandparents house, he was sporting a diamond encrusted 18k Rolex that he purchased at the Bernie Madoff liquidation auction. He is a billionaire now (invested in Orange County, CA property in the 1950's) and currently owns over two miles of beach frontage on Maui, HI where he currently resides. Small world . . .
"Why would anyone want to steal a barbaric anitquated relic like gold?"
They stole the fiats and transferred them to a Swiss bank. If only it was gold, it would be harder to transfer online.
I know, right?! Gold isn't even backed up by paper! :D
...and support your local Oath Keepers! ;-) www.oathkeepers.org
Save_America1st
Perfect...thanks for this wonderful Christmas present and I can't recommend too highly the two links posted, both equally important in revealing the TRUTH about how we are all "played" by the BANKERS
Merry
Christmas!
Watched this one last night.
http://www.spencerproductions.org/
I think it helps raise awareness of what has been and what is already coming again. Think not?
http://www.thegeorgiaguidestones.com/message.htm
They may find these kindred spirits useful.
http://www.fairmontmoments.com/userfiles/images/property-images/hi_mak_4...
Something rhymes visually, no?
Free download of the movie:
https://www.solarmovie.ph/watch-return-to-the-hiding-place-2013.html
Many of us in the US will be fucked. In fact I think that the US will become a Brazil light or Mexico heavy.
Keep stacking that phyzz and all other essential supplies.
Merry Christmas.
All of the Gold Buggers reporting the collecting and hoarding from India, China, Russia and the Iranians. Such monsterous demand has caused a price decline. Who knew?
Merry Christmas as well.
After seeing that avatar, I'm going to the fridge and drinking egg nog straight from the carton!
Now I think I might just leave the wife with the cat and go the Holiday extravaganza at the titty bar…(just kidding).
But I just as might well turn this into an opportunity for a cynical secular admonition…
http://www.mediaite.com/online/this-week-in-pc-run-amok-school-professor-calls-on-students-to-say-happy-federal-holiday/
But regardless of the loser trolls who, like a few of my relatives, will be bitter to their dying day , Merry Christmas to the rest of you out there.
it's satire, thongy
the gift of humor
cheers
Leaving the wife is one thing, but the cat?
Perish the thought.
To the few, the free, the happy band of Bitchez here - may you enjoy peace, good health, happiness, and prosperity in the new year.
And, Death To The Moneychangers !
The author wrote Obama is an ally to Iran. I don't think Obama is anyone's ally, just puppet.
Yup! And there still many Senators & Congressmen who certainly aren't allies of Iran!
Only a fool would enter an alliance with 0.
Only a fool would enter an alliance with America, most especially a ME Fool.
Dubai - the new Casablanca as Jim Rickards calls it. Hitmen, dealers, smugglers and prostitutes all mingling in the Gulf. Israeli agents wiping out Palestinian terrorists in targeted attacks.
Beats Benidorm any day of the week.
Jeez, now I want to visit. Sounds like my kind of place
Vegas, minus the overt gambling
Members of the royal family serve as honorary chairmen and vice chairmen of most companies in the UAE. If even if they actually worked for a living, they wouldn't have time to attend all the board meetings, much less have any idea what is actually going on each one of these companies. It's a problem of local customs and the patronage culture. But if the primary business was actually sanctions running between Turkey and Iran, that probably would be known to the board members.
That said - Sheik Sultan binn Khalifa bin Sultan al-Nahyan's daddy was a closet cross dresser when growing up. (http://www.eyebleach.com)
More concerning is the the apparent amateur they have named to clean up the mess (and insulate the royal family). Freezing assets in Switzerland is amazingly EASY. You just have to know and hire the right lawyers, to approach the proper judges (if you don't know who the right lawyers are, then you need more or better Swiss friends). Freezing assets takes ONE BUSINESS DAY if you know what you are doing and have the necessary paperwork and connections. Unfreezing assets in Switzerland is a more painful and time consuming process.
Isn't schlonging part of Jewish celebrations?
Grandma got scholonged by a reindeer,
Walking home from our house Christmas Eve,
You can say there's no such thing as Santa,
But as for me and Grampa, we believe
Say "Scholong" to your gold!
Say "Sholong" to your PAPER gold. There, fixed it for you . . .
Merry Christmas and an Oily Levantine to one and all!
I just bought some hanging Christmas Balls on Amazon but I can't find a matching dangling Schlong? When company arrives for Christmas dinner I want them to see all my decorations and know I'm hip.
Shwedy's is open for a half day, today.
Run on down and grab a sack of Shwedy's Balls, before they all get sucked up.
Merry Christmas ZeroHedge Family!!
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" by Frank Sinatra
Same to you Mr and Mrs Atomizer. Thanks for the link to lovely music, and this for you and the rest of the ZH community:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76RrdwElnTU
The Hallelujah Chorus. Lift our hearts. Lift our spirits. Sing...the king of peace.
Holy smokes, I cannot believe how young Johann Strauss was in 2004, We are all getting to be old farts. Thanks for link. I love his musical work. Brilliant man.
Merry Christmas dear erudite ZH'ers. We may not always agree, but that's what makes it all worth it. This next year should be interesting.
Christmas is a cultural lynch pin for Western Civilization. That is why the left attacks it so vigorously on all fronts. May it be a bulwark and find shelter in your heart ZeroHedgers.
Lie to your children about Santa Claus.
When they discover that it is a lie, and that YOU LIED TO THEM, then they will not trust you when you tell them about that "Magical Sky Daddy". They will reject God Almighty and turn toward ATHEISM.
And who can blame them for abandoning their innocent trust in their parents?
Yes lie to them...because you love your children.
Do not be too concerned. You are only fucking around with a child's mind.
And certainly Jesus forgives harming children.
No??? Jesus suggests that you would be better off to never have be born than to harm a child?
Jesus suggests that it be better to drown your self in the sea than to harm a child?
Uh...Nevermind.
CHRISTMAS IS A LIE FROM HELL WHICH YOU PERPETRATE. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A WHITE LIE. SATAN IS THE FATHER OF ALL LIES.
GO AHEAD. LIE TO YOUR CHILDREN.
Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
Understand that I attack it as it is an affront to God Almighty as IT HARMS CHILDREN AND SOWS THE SEED OF DISBELIEF AND LACK OF TRUST.
You are not nurturing TRUST when you LIE TO YOUR CHILDREN, YOU FUCKING JERK.
This has NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS. It has everything to do with eroding that trust in the family and even more than that, an erosion of faith in God Almighty.
I am a strong believer in the architecture of the Patriarchical Family. I cannot stand the Nazifeminists or the manginas who have been emasuculated by those creatures and demons from Hell.
I resent your comment suggesting that anyone who would tear down that EVIL TRADITION is somehow in a conspiracy with the Left.
Go fuck yourself LIAR.
.
God, and Satan Clause seem to be behavior modification ploys.
Bah Humbug ZH
If they had not lied to you about that SATAN CLAUSE then you might actually believe in a Creator.
I know that you do not trust.
But I have been showing you the Physics and the Math.
You know that I am not pulling off any bullshit.
Those numbers are quite real.
So I do understand your skepticism. I have an inkling as to why you reject it.
If you are seeking the truth there is the Veritas Foundation videos. They are a group of empirical scientists who are set out to discover the truth.
May his Noodleness bless you.
Too many people have lied in the name of Christ for anyone to heed the call
Too many people have died in the name of Christ that I can't believe it at all.
Yes. I understand it. I do not agree. But I do understand it.
What, did you get a lump of coal in your stocking this morning?
Tom, sounds like you have some anger issue. As Christians we don't tell people to f-off.
BTW - you are using a Jesuit Bible version. Get yourself a KJV :-)
oh rubbish i have had xtians tell me to fuck off...
Tom, don't get angry about it. It actually causes emotional pain for anyone that have very strong beliefs in one thing or another, even if misdirected, rained upon.
NORAD 'real time' Santa Tracker. Imagine your .gov lying to you?
Fuck you too Tom!
--GOD
NASA - insert NASA Logo with the two red darting tongue flicks ...
rearrange the letters NASA - SATAN - the T is the two red forked tongue flicks
the deception runs deep. Nasa is all lies.
SANTA-SATAN - thanks for tracking Santa for us !
Just recently a TED talk was given by the person who paints/photoshops the "INVISIBLE" colors that he is given from the computer data to create the images NASA wants us to see to imagine their space vision.
Laughing at The Pathetic Lies of NASA
http://www.nasamoonhoax.com/
I just love the moon hoax. Best BS ever
here's a great start on evidence of the fakery NASA does :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msY3xc8pVLE
perfect way to spend a little time on Christmas day to be aware of how we have been deceived
if you're on ZH chances are you are of the inquisitive nature and don't like being lied to.
There is massive truth about the problems of convincing someone who has been fooled that they've been fooled ...
there are many US citizens who have taken the time to inform us about the hoaxes. It's our duty to take the time to study this.
Tall Tom,
I agree with your contention about Santa Claus. I do not like lying to my kids. It sets a precedent as you suggest against which you must, as a parent, attempt to equip your children with as much knowledge of the real world as possible in order to give them sufficent tools to navigate their lives in a sussessful manner. My wife insisted on the Santa Claus lie and I went along with it against my better judgement. However, that is where our thought processes diverge.
I note that nearly all of your posts all take the same format. You try wherever possible to ram your religious beliefs down everyone's throats at every opportnity. Until the age of about 14 I was a regular church-goer and an attendee at Sunday School and other weekday meetings. However, at about that age the adults around me notched up a gear and started to try to get me to take the whole concept much more seriously. At that point I had a very hard look at what was being presented to me as a philosophy and I rejected it for lack of convincing evidence. This is the process that all humans go through whilst growing up. When you are born you are completely helpless and rely on your parents for absolutely everything. When old enough to understand your parents language and then be able to converse with them they then start to warn you about things that would otherwise endanger your life e.g. Don't touch that, its hot and will burn you, Don't cross the road unless you're holding my hand; Don't touch that electrical device because it will kill you; Stay away from that river becasue you will drown; etc, etc. To begin with you take every single word from your parents at face value as being the absolute truth because it is their advice which is keeping you alive. This is why I don't like the Santa Claus lie. It preys on the very vulnerability you rely on to impart your knowledge to your children to keep them safe. As the children progress they soon get to an age when they can start to rationalise themselves and rely less and less on your guidance to keep them alive. Ultimately they gain sufficient knowledge to be able to be self-sufficient. At every step of the latter stages of that development process the child is presented with a piece of information or a contention and makes a decision whether to accept it or not based on a whole swathe of previously collected data. Some ideas are kept because they 'fit' and others rejected.
I listened to the argument regarding religion and rejected it because it was simply not convincing. The story, as presented, is full of inaccuracies, contradictions and flat out heinous concepts (scape-goating, original sin, voices in the head urging you to kill your son etc etc). That is why I am an aetheist. You on the other hand have taken the same information as presented to you and have accepted the argument, which is fine. I will defend your right to make your own decision on any subject with my life. But the religious proposition is not sufficiently convincing to make me believe it. Why is that such a hard concept for you to get your head around? It is entirely natural. You yourself do it every day of your life. You receive information, analyse it against your database and conclude whether the information is believable or not. The new information is then added to your database. Zerohedge provides examples of this challenge multiple times, on a daily basis, for which I am eternally grateful.
There is a very good reason why belief in any religion is called a faith. You have faith that it is true despite the lack of corroborating evidence or in some cases, in the presence of evidence to the contrary. You cannot argue with faith because the faith itself exists as a result of the lack of a logical and evidence-supported argument. It wouldn't be faith otherwise. I don't understand why religious people just don't simply accept their faith and be content with it rather than try to justify it with argument. If it is a faith you don't need an argument. You should have sufficient confidence in your faith to announce"I believe it and that's all that matters. I don't have to justify my faith to anyone" and be done with it.
One argument I have never seen or heard defended in any successful way whatsoever is that the nature of your faith is a complete and utter accident of the geographical location of your birth. If you were born in a Muslim country your faith would be in Isalm. If born in India; Hindu, China;Buddhist, Japan;Shintoism, West;Christianity and so on and so on. Each adherent to the religion of their place of birth can be equally forthright that their particular religion is the only true religion. It is also dependent on when you were born. Many of the stone-age and middle age religions have subsequently disappeared but had their vociferous adherents when current.
But no, you can't just do that. You have to ram your religious belief down everyone's throat at every opportunity. You SHOUT and swear regularly and use the double line spacing in your posts as a pathetic attention-seeking mechanism (you are the only person who does that regularly) in an attempt to defend your position on a given topic. If I was a psychiatrist I might be forced to come to the conclusion that you, in actual fact, don't have the faith you claim to have and use all the theatrics to cover that up. A classic case of denial you might argue. The post above is a perfect example of this. You come across as a very violent and uncompromising person which is the very antithesis of the faith you claim to hold. In which case, why should I regard your religion any differently to the religion which claims to be the "religion of peace" and yet has the worst record of violence on the planet? (although Catholicism comes a close second)
You have some valid and well-thought out ideas which are valuable to the ZH community but they get lost in a sea of anger and religious cacophony.
I am an aetheist (why you insist in putting the word in capital letters as if it was a disease is beyond me) because I have listened to the argument in favour of religion and as a sane, intelligent and thinking person I have rejected the concept due to lack of convincing evidence. Why is that such a hard concept to get your head around? You do that yourself every single day of your life.
I wish you peace and the very best compliments of the season.
I note that nearly all of your posts all take the same format. You try wherever possible to ram your religious beliefs down everyone's throats at every opportnity.
Really?
When RESPONDING to a post about religion, including Christmas, which IS a "religious holiday", just what am I supposed to write about...the price of Tea in China?
You can justify your lies to yur children anyway that you want.
Blame your decision on your wife if that makes you feel that you are a real man.
On the other hand you may have used that opportunity to demonstrate to your wife that you wear the pants, that you will not TOLERATE ANY VIOLATION OF YOUR PRINCIPLES.
But you did not.
That is the problem with the Godless Feminazis these days. They refuse to submit to their husband's authority.
Of course the feminized men refuse to exert their authority over their women and children. Thus dirorder and chaos reign supreme in the household and there is a lack of order. This phenomena, of course, permeates the entire social structure.
Now a Spirit Filled women will submit as it is an act of faith.
Here is a good book for you to read. (No...It is not the Bible.)
http://manhood101.com/ebook.html
"The Principles That Govern Social Interaction."
Read it and apply the principles as women are in desperate need of real men to put order into their chaos.
You do not need take shit from any woman. They are as disordered as children.
Edit: Oh..As to this...LMAO. You have no clue.
You write...
One argument I have never seen or heard defended in any successful way whatsoever is that the nature of your faith is a complete and utter accident of the geographical location of your birth. If you were born in a Muslim country your faith would be in Isalm. If born in India; Hindu, China;Buddhist, Japan;Shintoism, West;Christianity and so on and so on.
So you are claiming that your atheism is a chance happenstance because you were born where you were born?
You mean to tell me that you had no choice in your rejection of a God because of your accidental geographical location of birth?
You would not have been an athiest had you been born in Somalia?
Were you born in the USA?
It is funny as I was born in the United States. I was exposed to a myriad of different beliefs...from Hinduism, Islam, and even the Jewish faith. I had a very cosmopolitan upbringing.
My Foster Mother had a variety of Marriages. She married a Syrian, a Irish Roman Catholic, a Native American, a Japanese, and finally another Irishman. She was Jewish and truly screwed up.
Furthermore I was raised for about a year, while she was down from debilitating arthritis, by a Black Nanny.
And that does not begin to describe the two Lesbians, one being my adoptive mother, before she died, who raised me for the first four years of my life.
But I was exposed to culture after culture althroughout my childhood and young adulthood.
So shall I worship Allah? Should I be a Shinto Buddhist? Shoud I be Roman Catholic?
DOES THIS CLEAR IT UP?
I cannot say that it has not been a full life.
You are sick.
Get back on your meds, now.
...about Santa Claus. I do not like lying to my kids
My small son and I had an agreement not to lie to one another. Worked out pretty well, too.
Right on!!!
DR & TT,
regarding lying about santa claus, & whether or not she was a virgin...i've felt for years (actually since i was young & visiting the early christian caves in turkey & our guide, a young boy said, '...they actually believe she was a virgin...) i've considered how in the west we teach our young to believe in the impossible (the easter bunny, mary or santa) & i've come to see that that actually allowed our writers, scientists, explorers to transcend the impossible & visit/allow for a world beyond. it has led us to the greatest breadth of our imagination. something no other religion based wholly in reality allows. i do not for an instant believe we ought to give in to fanatsy but there is something great in our world, & especially a universe wherein we can believe the impossible is possible.
merry christmas, ZH, & thank U
Well...When you read your child a story out a book and tell the child, up front, that it is not true, it does not stifle the child's imagnation one iota, does it?
Building trust and nuturing that trust may save your child from harm in the years and decades which follow.
Anything that acts to damage or destroy that trust is antithetical to nurture.
Children are very quick to sense deception. They know more than you think...In fact they will shock you at times.
Building trust is paramount during the formative years as the transition to puberty and into adulthood will happen. And that is when that trust will be required most. If you did your job well that will progress smoothly.
If you fucked up and did not nurture and develop that trust when they were young then that rebellion will be extended with subsequential unnecessary heartache for all involved.
Tall Tom, I know I'm wasting my time responding to you but here I go. I've been on the Hedge for years but rarely comment. However your complete and total ignorance compels me to do so.
"Go fuck yourself LIAR." Wow. Very Christian of you you fucking hippocrate douchebag. Drink much?
Anyway, as for your Jesus, who died for your sins. Very nice of him but you know what? I'd do the same for the people I love. I'd gladly be crucified on a cross, to save them, and I'd do it in a heartbeat if I had to. Because I LOVE them. So fuck you and your righteous bullshit. Take your hate and shove it up your ass. We don't need more of that around here.
Oh sorry. I'm not the Son of God, so it wouldn't matter. Merry Christmas asshole and I hope Santa Clause left you some presents anyways.
I do not drink any alcohol.
I do not use drugs.
It also pleases me to no end that I struck a nerve in you.
Your response tells me that it did. It actually meas that you have a conscience.
Maybe it is time that you stop lying to children.
Perhaps you just enjoy the status quo of Government and Corporations lying to you.
No? You do not appreciate being lied to?
The only person that you can change is yourself. So be the change that you want to see in the World.
If you do not want to be lied to then stop lying.
If you are convicted by that first post...well...good.
It is really that simple.
pay offs, for years of gold trading with Iran..one could guess $$ went somehow by accident I am sure..into Obuma's adm, clinton foundation comes to mind, elite crime is the story of business today..they ALL must pay.
sleep well, mr rubin, mr greenspan, mr bernanke, hank paulson, j corzine, clinton's, bush's, sleep well this christmas season..the blood of thousands is on your hands..crime and corruption your legacy..a police state to protect you from the people sits under your christmas tree.
happy new year, Jamie gorelick ,911 was your baby, you dried up hag, al gore your hot planet's savior, Chris COX sec was so effective in 08 with your leadership..ah time is short and the list of criminals in the club is soooo long..
merry Christmas to all. and to all a good night.
++++1 for mentioning Gorelick -
and how about when Bush first offered up Kissinger to lead the 9/11 commission !
the good book does talk about the follies of worshipping gold...
again, we're dealing with attachments, addictions, and clinging to things .... ideas ... people ... faiths ....
the 4 noble truths is the path to free oneself from those attachments which cause problems.
If the USA's Masters of Consciousness, the DEA, were serious about the well-being of our people they would promptly initiate a learning program implementing the 4 nobles truths.
Problem is they are all addicted and corrupted with their positions and perks and inherent ongoing traditions within their organization. Consciousness & Behaviors are tricky business.
Most people don't realize the depth of their own language programming and resulting thought processes and actions.
Peace & LOVE some folks today
"I do not drink any alcohol. I do not use drugs."
Why do you repeat yourself? Is it that you do not think alcohol is a drug?
Anything you put in your body is a drug.....do you not eat?
Coffee isn't a drug, its one of the 4 basic food groups lol
Okay. I confess. I am a Mountain DewTM abuser and I do smoke cigarettes. Technically they are drugs...
You win.
(I meant ILLEGAL DRUGS. I do not use those. I will need to be more specific.)
I wonder which idiots always upvote Tall Tom's Tall Tales.
where is the real proof that jesus died for our sins... other then the testament... and i should believe in this testament as the absolute truth???
oh fucks sake
You can believe anything that you want. You can even lie to your children if you want.
I will not suggest that you do, other than in an obvious satire.
But you can knock yourself out.
Go for it.
*didn't receive a Pony for Christmas back in 1976*never forgave his parents*
*didn't receive a Pony for Christmas back in 1976*never forgave his parents*
So do I have this right..you don't like Christmas?
hey i am tired of the world thinking that every fucking person celebrates xmas...
Ebenezer Scroooooge!....
It's so commercialized now, filled with goofy movies and silly songs that are about anything but Christ, why can't u just enjoy Festivus?
"Last Christmas I gave you my heart. The very next day you ..."
I've believed that the Fight Club has been a positive and constructive process; unlike the tards on other places like yahoo where they just throw ad hominems, the blows here honestly create wisdom.
While visiting far-flung acquaintances this week, it became evident that ZH has affected not only my world view but my rhetorical kung fu as well. Our liberal host wanted to play political Fight Club, which resulted in: the utter deconstructing of his 'liberal' facade, the exposing of his totalitarian fantasy, and my sleeping in my car. LOL
You were not the life of the party?
I am Jack's absolute lack of shock.
(So sorry. They threw you a blanket, no?)
great article/ no complaints.
Hopefully, all those deeply indebted college aged children will learn how to drop UBER, and buy a Fixer- Upper...?
It makes perfect sense that this is why gold is not trading at its real value in fiat, in whatever country's currency. If you have countries who are circumventing other means of trade, they will take haircuts as necessary. The discounting that's been going on might explain much of the insanity that most of us have witnessed. Happy New Year!
SDR Valuation, click on lending fact sheet.
https://www.imf.org/external/np/fin/data/rms_sdrv.aspx
If you read the article, Turkey ran out of gold back in July. Only small amounts since then. And coincidentally, the price of gold crashed in August.
So, what does that mean? When they were trading large volumes, and dumping billions of gold a month on the market, the price was high, when they stopped dumping, the price dropped?
Correlation is not causation
Bah humbug
MERRY CHRISTMAS TOADY!!!
Don't forget the fucking Puerto Ricans. They are sucking the lifeblood from working Americans.
Cut Them Off 2016!
Productive Americans MUST find a safe haven country in order to continue being productive without rewarding a system that has be co-opted by filth.
I think it's tiime to make Puerto Rico a State, as well as Guam, American Samoa etc.
If they're part of us, bring them on the train.
"The only objective means by which to determine the genuine value of a competing currency priced against a basket of others in an environment where the price of the competing currency, by whatever mechanisms, is being artificially suppressed in support of the others valuations, is to measure the purchasing power in goods and services of them all against one another.
Which ever currency, as currency is merely a medium of exchange, that purchases the most in goods and services must be the currency of superior value. Moreover, the currency that retains its value as measured in the amount of goods and services it purchases over a pro-longed period of time is more than just currency. By definition it is money.”
- Kasier Sousa -
The value is the contract.
The paper and ink are the mere cost of the hand shake.
This article has so many brilliant links, and connections... Tyler, it's going to take days, if "not" weeks to work through this trove of information.
The "Erdogans" need to go... How Turkey, with it's internal problems can function as part of NATO?
Ohhh.... Wait! That was the plan in the first place.
back-stepping-side stepping- CIA?
YC: I absolutely agree. This was the most incredible article I have read this year, anywhere. I got the big picture, sort of, but I had also watched a show recently on the gold markets in Dubai. I don't remember where I saw that show if it was the History channel or some other channel. It was a pretty incredible show about the gold markets in Dubai.
You gotta love this guy. A gold ATM. Fricken genius. Until the scam blew up in his face. And he went to some uni in Toronto. Cracks me up. All those suckers sending their kids to uni's with the big names and they will never do anything as crazy or bold as this guy in their lifetime.
not nitpicking, but the article mentions Uni in Montreal - not Toronto
Umm! Sorry , I just missed it. Is there some gold left in this world for me? I just was goung to buy some . If ontly I could
So buy some silver. It is less than a $20 FRN for silver bullion.
Who's amazed?
More like amused.
Got gold?
Bring silver and gold, so it is written ;-)
Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh.
I'm plum out of Frankincense.
Wow !
You just can't make this shit up.
Yeah - right ..pet rocks - huh ? LOL !
Hajis disappear with pet rocks.
Just worthless pet rocks.
Every currency in the world has an identity, but gold means value without identity.
The value is absolute wherever you go
Nuff said.
Merry Christmas bitchez,
.. keep your pet rocks and don't disappear
Gold bitchez!
Merry Christmas and best wishes to my fellow ZHers...
oh so everyone here on ZH celebrates xmas?
Everyone we give a toss about.
Merry Christmas!
An absolutely incredible expose.... well done!
And you can bet that JPM, GS, Rubin, Paulson, Geithner, and other agents of The Great Red Dragon directly or indirectly have their dirty little paw prints all over this. It's a very small world.
That would be the 'correlation is not causation' rant by Anopheles higher up the thread.
I did a little follow-up digging on my own as I was interested in the ownership structure of ArabBank and, well, surprise surprise...! Besides revealing an astonishing increase of assets due to customer deposits in the past year, page 28 of ArabBank's 2014 annual report enlists Oger M.E. Holding (Lebanon) and Jordanian Social Security Corporation as its largest shareholders. Ok, so king Abdullah has a share in this, but who owns the largest stack?
Going deeper into the rabbithole one finds out that Oger was founded in France in 1950, but was acquired by Rafic Hariri in 1979, thus splitting the company into Oger International based in France and Saudi Oger in KSA...
And then there's this, fresh from the oven: Hariri, Lebanon's Kingmaker, Pushes Slain Father's Debt Fight
"Hariri, raised in Saudi Arabia, had never lived in Lebanon or played a role in the country's politics before heading the anti-Syrian coalition, which includes Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Sitrida Geagea, the wife of jailed Maronite chief Samir Geagea.
After earning a bachelor's degree in international business from Washington's Georgetown University in 1992, Hariri returned to Saudi Arabia to work for Saudi Oger Ltd., the company his father founded in 1978. He became managing director in 1994.
The Hariri business empire stretches into Lebanon. The family owns Future Television, one of five national stations, and the Beirut daily Al-Mustaqbal. They are also the largest shareholders in Solidere, a real-estate company focused on the reconstruction of central Beirut, with a 7 percent stake valued at $118 million..."
So basically, if you count in Hariri's party's major breaktrough in recent Lebanese elections, what this all means is that it is a major inbred circle-jerk facilitated by all involved parties, this way or the other. And after looking at the above-mentioned Solidere's Board of Directors, I'm more than certain this entire operation was approved and assisted by the very apex of Mordor.
Welcome to the Tribe's modus operandi! Like Carlin said, it's a big fucking club and you ain't in it!
Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate!
so do you have an opinion as to who blew up Hariri in the car bomb? have they benefitted?
Qui bono? Nasrallah said in 2010 that Hezbollah posesses evidence of Israhell's direct involvement in the assassination of Hariri and a high IDF officer has confirmed it.
The International Kangaroo Court constituted for this occasion is still out hunting witches and delaying trials, simply because even after 10 years all the blood traces are still leading to Tel Aviv...
"If you don't hold it you don't own it" yes.
Fuck the western bias against Iran!
Scandal? I think it's pretty cool!
paging the James Bond writers, paging James Bond writers...
Need Another Seven Astons.
Or a Chevy Volt still on the lot with a discharging battery. Central banking thieves won't make it out of a three mile radius.
I know right?
That budget was like a billion dollars.
The reason gold is so demonized in the mainstream is that it is a tool of covert operations. Gold will always be a store of wealth. It will never be traceable. Because of these features, it will forever be the perfect vehicle for covert financing. And black forces will always turn to it as a vehicle of covert wealth transfer and thus covert political influence. Because it is such a useful tool of covert influence, I am not surprised that such blatant propaganda is disseminated within the US media that gold is a failed investment. The goal is to drive as many people as possible away from this investment so that gold becomes the exclusive purview of covert forces. The government desires that the only people dealing in the physical yellow metal are covert operatives.
Gold is an "instrument" of paper.
As an " Commodity Trading Advisor", -- you should, BE AWARE?
I'll trade commodites with you... You'll lose
Still shorting paper and using profits to stack physical?
Good tactic.
And I am sure that you are clever enough to hedge your trades accordingly.
The junkers just did not understand what you wrote.
still following about gold, and the untraceability it affords - anyone know of a new method of melting it down quickly to determine purity ?
i remember years ago on the ZH boards when the tungsten & gold articles abounded there were lots of mentions of ways to test...
just wondering with the growth in sophistication in many areas that this might be one - the "James Bond" characters of Abu Dhabi and Dubai would probably be keen to have one ....fast, portable ....
First use this...
http://testyourgold.com/
It will cost ya $490
Then use this...
http://www.ebay.com/bhp/xrf-analyzer
...which will set you back a small sum.
But it is worth it when buying large quantities
At the core its about specie vs fiat which translates down to freedom vs serfdom.
Not just covert financing - liberty in finance. Those that use gold & silver as currency are free of the banksters. THAT's why they hate/hoard it.
But..but...pet rocks...barbarous relics...