A lesson in Alaskan “waste management”

Baltimore — (TFN): Some good friends of mine recently took their TV out to their front yard, put two high-brass shells in their 12 gauge and pulled the trigger.  They rendered the hunk of glass and plastic useless. Called it Alaskan waste disposal.

After last night, I’m ready to get out the 00 buckshot, myself.

I’ve got my eye out for good intentions, gone bad after spending the last three editions of Notes discussing the idea of financial regulatory reform.

During 52-mile commute home yesterday, they were all over the place, anything from idiotic signs to a couple of state cops setting a trap and writing tickets for not moving to the left lane when passing a stopped emergency vehicle.

The gung-ho troopers had rush-hour traffic slowed for over a mile.

But my mind really started spinning when I passed an out-of-state big rig. I could not help but notice the federal and state ID numbers stenciled onto his door followed by a host of annual registration decals from a cornucopia of states. Between the tolls, the permitting fees and the growing list of regulations, it’s no wonder the trucking industry’s bottom line collapsed.

Once I finally crossed the creek and pulled into my driveway, I was ready to sit down and relax by turning on the local news. Let’s just say it’s a good thing the guns are locked up. That TV would still be smoking.

Here’s what the local news “personalities” had lined up to tell us.

They started with a lead story about Harley Davidson’s plans to abandon its largest manufacturing plant at the heart of our local community. Unless it gets strong union concessions in the next few weeks, the company plans to pick up and move to Shelbyville, Kentucky.

Can’t say I really blame the company. The local union tends to form a picket line every other year.

After a short break to show off the latest products from GM (a commercial you and I paid for), the news was back on. This time they were discussing how a local homeless shelter had reached full capacity and is now forced to turn dozens of needy folks away each day.

The bright side of Harley leaving is the county will have all the space it needs. Most of the abandoned Caterpillar factory remains empty as well, just a couple of miles down the street.

Next up was the neighboring city’s news of layoffs and a tax increase. With revenues down and the state battling a budget crisis of its own, the mayor is writing up pink slips and preparing new tax calculations.

He’s even interested in sending local churches a tax bill, noting a third of local property owners don’t pay a penny.

After that cheery bit of news was another story of layoffs. This time it is the state of Pennsylvania cutting 319 jobs, taking the total reduction for the year to 769, plus 2,000 unfilled positions.

But don’t worry. The state’s lawmakers have decided to forego their annual cost-of-living raise. Their pay will stay at $78,000 this year.

I finally gave up on watching the newscast after the “investigative team” revealed we need to keep a close eye on those lobbyists hanging out with our lawmakers.

There’s a news flash.

The state’s two top lobbyists, natural gas drillers and the tobacco industry, appear to be better represented in the state’s capital than any of its constituents.

After missing a legally imposed budget deadline by well over 100 days, the state was hit with a bevy of new taxes and program cuts. The only two groups that came out ahead were, you guessed it, gas drillers and tobacco producers.

The smokeless tobacco industry kept its ultra-low retail tax and another 30,000 acres of Penn’s woods are now open to Marcellus Shale drilling.

With that much lobbying taking place, one would naturally think us tax-paying folks would be able to find out who was the grand recipient. But politicians are sneaky.

Because they write the legislation, they know the best way around it.

It turns out, no state lawmaker has surpassed the public-disclosure thresholds for lobbying gifts and contributions. Go figure.

I have to get a permit to nail a shed up in the back yard, but they can rob us blind and its 100% legal.

After that bit of news, there was twelve minutes remaining in the newscast but I couldn’t take any more. I went down to the garage and cleaned my gun.

*** It is good news for TFN Strategic Trader members. As natural gas prices plunged by close to 7% today, our recent play against the trend is paying off big time. All four of my recent picks are up by double-digit proportions, with one big winner now worth gains of a whopping 385% as the underlying position sunk to record low territory.

There is word spreading across commodity trading pits that the nation will continue to inject natural gas into its reserves throughout November, the month when withdrawals typically occur. I said this would happen months ago.

To see what will happen next, read this report.

*** Gold prices keep soaring. And investors keep wondering when they’re going to bump into the ceiling.

Some blame the weakening U.S. dollar for gold’s rise. Contrarian maven Bill Bonner extended that to the weakness of all “fiat” currencies — not just the dollar. My colleague Christoph Amberger over at TFN was a tad less general. He pointed out today that gold actually traded at $200 less per ounce in 2008… when the dollar’s exchange rate against the euro was even lower than today, at $1.63.

He thinks the main factor behind the dollar’s relative decline to gold is the fact that it doesn’t pay to own dollars any more: “Zero-point-seven-five percent APR on a CD? That’s just marginally better than the lint in your pockets! Now, gold is an asset notorious for not generating returns other than speculative gains. It doesn’t pay interest or dividends. But at this point, neither does the U.S. dollar. Or the yen. Or the euro, pound sterling, Icelandic krona: “The comparative opportunity cost of holding gold has been eliminated! Plus, the cash flows out of the dollar have created an asset bubble that will keep inflating!”
How long will this last?

As long as the Federal Reserve keep punishing dollar savers with non-existing interest rates! That may be at least another year: “Not because the world is abandoning “fiat currencies”… but because holding dollars is a losing game now — engineered and maintained by the U.S. government!”
So far, the team over at TFN’s Hot Stock Confidential has been rubbing their contrarian hands as gold went up: Bullion may be up twenty percent for the year. But HSC’s silver stocks are beating that yield by multiples! Just today, the team took 32% gains in just over a month on Silvercorp.  Amberger points out that this was double-digit gainer #70 for HSC members so far this year.

But they’re not abandoning precious metals. Not at all! Here’s what they’re up to: “Our next Hot Stock Pick is coming out this Thursday. With gold futures at record highs of US$1,151 an ounce today, we’re going to stick with a precious metals pick: At today’s levels, the gold reserves of this junior Canadian gold miner are worth a whopping $460.4 million!

“Let’s put that into the fuzzy math of financial newsletter marketers: With 333.42 million shares outstanding, $1.70 currently buys you 1.38 ounces or $1,589 worth of that gold! As gold prices keep moving up in the great game we call the Commodities Carry Trade, this U.S.-traded stock could snag you a cool 30% gain before New Year’s.”

Hot Stock Confidential members will be receiving this Hot Stock Pick of the week tomorrow before noon. You might want to be one of them. Join up right here.