http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_26789.shtml

“Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.”
“The study-–carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt—has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.”
“Professor Barney Gordon, of the university’s department of agronomy, said he started the research … because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had ‘noticed that yields are not as high as expected, even under optimal conditions.’”
“He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.”
“The GM crop – engineered to resist Monsanto’s own weed killer, Roundup – recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the modification hindered the crop’s take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition it brought the GM soya’s yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it.“
“The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best non-GM soya available.”
“The Nebraska study suggested that two factors are at work. First, it takes time to modify a plant and, while this is being done, better conventional ones are being developed. This is acknowledged even by the fervently pro-GM US Department of Agriculture, which has admitted that the time lag could lead to a “decrease” in yields.”
“But the fact that GM crops did worse than their near-identical non-GM counterparts suggest that a second factor is also at work, and that the very process of modification depresses productivity. The new Kansas study both confirms this and suggests how it is happening.”
“A similar situation seems to have happened with GM cotton in the US, where the total US crop declined even as GM technology took over.”
“Monsanto said yesterday that it was surprised by the extent of the decline found by the Kansas study, but not by the fact that the yields had dropped. It said that the soya had not been engineered to increase yields, and that it was now developing one that would. Critics doubt whether the company will achieve this, saying that it requires more complex modification. “

http://www.silverstockreport.com/2008/rationing.html

I know many of you saw the WSJ article, “Losing a Mint: Curb on Coin Sales Angers Collectors”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121149011951015323.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Due to overwhelmingly growing popular demand, The U.S. mint has sold twice the amount of one ounce Silver Eagle coins as last year (6.8 million since the start of the year), and is forced to ration their available coins to their 13 authorized dealers, one of whom says he would like to buy 5 times as many Silver Eagles as the mint will let him, 500,000 per week, instead of the 100,000 he is allocated and limited to buy. (That would corner the market on Eagles. 500,000×52 = 26 million oz.)

The U.S. Mint typically has sold about 10 million ounces of Silver Eagles per year for the last 5 years, which used to be 1% of the overall silver bullion market, and now might be 2% of the silver market of about 1000 million ounces per year when you add in recycling of 250 million ounces, and government selling, and mine supply of about 650 million ounces.

The shortage of Silver Eagles should serve as a warning to people who think they own silver, but only own a paper promise of silver instead.

The paper silver market is about 100 times bigger than the physical silver market, just as the physical silver market is 50-100 times bigger than the market for Silver Eagles.

If there can be a quick shortage of Silver Eagles due to popular and rational public investment demand, when they are only 1-2% of the silver market, how quickly can the entire silver market seize up when merely the paper silver market decides to enter the physical silver market?

Um, I’ll take a guess. How about next week? Or maybe it already did, and that might explain some problems over at the Perth Mint.

But I’m not arguing that only the paper silver certificate holders might want physical silver. The fact is that gold investors, which is a market 1000s of times bigger than the silver market, can also decide to enter the tiny physical silver market, and that bond investors, which is a market 100,000s of times bigger than the silver market, can also decide to enter the physical silver market, etc.

I would have thought that more people would have understood the economic significance of delivery delays and rationing, and that it proves there is a shortage.

From wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing

“In market economics, rationing artificially restricts demand. It is done to keep price below the equilibrium (market-clearing) price determined by the process of supply and demand in an unfettered market. Thus, rationing can be complementary to price controls. An example of rationing in the face of rising prices took place in the Netherlands, where there was rationing of gasoline in the 1973 energy crisis.”
“A reason for setting the price lower than would clear the market may be that there is a shortage, which would drive the market price very high.”
It may surprise you to know that I’m not too concerned about the U.S. Mint rationing Silver Eagles. After all, we ought to be grateful that they are, indeed, doubling supply for us, so far. The reason why I’m not too concerned is that the U.S. Mint has rationed Silver Eagles before in the last few years, so this is standard procedure for them. The long wait recently is unusual, but my sources tell me that there was one batch of 500,000 blanks that were substandard, and were returned to the other mint that made them. Whether that was real, or an excuse, I don’t know, but the Mint is saying they are making twice as many as normal, and that’s good, because they are adjusting to increased market demand.

I’m far more concerned with the delivery delays from the Perth Mint. The reason is the difference between the two mints.

The U.S. Mint does not have a certificate program, and does not claim to have a large operating pool of metal.

The Perth Mint, supposedly, has an operating pool of $880 million Australian dollars worth of physical metal that it is holding on behalf of certificate holders, and it cannot redeem those certificates or handle physical purchases in a timely manner, which is suggestive of having run out of their operating pool of metal, since rationing and delivery delays are evidence of a shortage!

The reason why I’m so harsh on the Perth Mint is that they are the ones who appear to be breaking promises right now with delivery delays, not the U.S. Mint.

I continue to hear reports that the major private mint, the Northwest Territorial Mint, is having shipping times to customers about 6-8 weeks out.

What is frustrating is that none of these mints appears to be operating according to free market principles. The most basic is this: They ought to raise prices, before running out of inventory. The raising of prices is a method they should all be using to gain more profits, and signal to the market the impending shortage of silver before it actually arrives.

I suspect that the reason why they do not raise prices “before running out of inventory” is because none of the three mints has any inventory, and thus, they do not know how to raise prices as inventory levels go down, since they don’t have any inventory levels that can change that they can track and look at as an internal signal to themselves to change prices as necessary.

Raising prices as inventory levels drop could work like this: their last 100 ounce bar should at least sell for a 100% premium, right? And perhaps the last 10% of their inventory could sell for maybe a 50% premium, the last 20% of their inventory could sell for a 20% premium, their last 30% of inventory should sell for a 15% premium, and when they get down to 50%, they start charging a 10% premium, and no special premiums of they have 50% or more of their inventory levels and business is normal, or something of that nature.

I suspect that if they are always short on inventory, they would try to always keep their own prices as low as possible to get new customer orders, and use customer money as a means to “float” or to use it as operating expenses, and thus, would prefer that prices go down between the time that they get an order and the time they would have to deliver, and thus, they wouldn’t want to signal to the market that a shortage is taking place, which would make prices go up. I would suspect that shorts would want to hide the fact that they are short, from the market.

Operating short was a great way to make money in the silver minting business from 1980 to 2003, as extra profits could always be realized between a long lag time between an order and delivery. But that’s not going to work in a rising market.

I suspect that since they charge “too low” prices, they always have trouble not making enough money, which is why they are short on inventory, which is a vicious self-imposed cycle of economic pain that they are in.

In other words, it’s not a conspiracy, it’s their own stupidity, and bad business sense that has them trapped, and has us all waiting on long delivery times.

In other words, I suspect that they fear that if they raise prices, they would not get customer orders.

I urge them to trust in the free market, instead, which provides a way out, and a good solution for their own self-imposed problems! I urge them to raise prices for their unique minted products that are in short supply so that they can make a real profit by serving the needs of the market.

Some people have been paying $25-40/oz. for Silver Eagles lately, due to the short supply. On ebay, I’ve heard that 100 ounce bars are selling for up to $20/oz. or higher during this last consolidation, and prices have not come down very much. At least ebay is a free market that is actually working, even if little supply is available.

Perhaps our mints ought to take pricing cues from ebay?!

The market appears to really need turning 1000 oz. comex bars into real products that most investors want. This is a dramatic new change in the silver market that is developing this year, and it’s not surprising to see the mints get caught not being able to adjust to it quickly enough. In past years, if 250 million ounces of silver was from recycling, and only 50 million ounces of new net investor demand, I suspect that most investor demand used to be able to be met mostly through selling old products, not newly minted bars. With investment demand in 2007 up to 75 million ounces, and perhaps double that or more in 2008, things are changing.

And if the mints don’t adjust with higher prices, well, maybe someone ought to go into business and compete with them, and supply the real needs of the market. Other mints or dealers ought to advertise silver available for immediate delivery, and charge extra for that unique competitive advantage over the other dealers.

If you know of a private mint in the U.S., or a coin dealer, who has 50,000 ounces of one ounce physical silver rounds available for immediate delivery, please email me a picture of the physical goods, and I’ll mention your offer in my next email. (Don’t mention 90% bags, there’s plenty at www.fidelitrade.com I still hear.)

Sincerely,
Jason Hommel
www.silverstockreport.com
www.miningpedia.com

“Robert Hirsch, senior advisor for Science Applications International Corporation, sat down with MSNBC’s Alex Witt to discuss the possibility of an upcoming oil crisis. Hirsch says that gas could reach $15/gallon within a few years because it is “essentially certain” the world has reached the maximum levels of oil production.”

“Hirsch addressed the timeframe in which the US could see $15/gallon gas: “It could happen within a matter of months. It could happen within a matter of a few years. But it’s essentially certain that we are at the maximum of world oil production. And after that, we’ll go into decline, and when there’s much less oil available, then, of course, the price of oil is going to increase dramatically.”

Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, said consumers are paying about $1 billion more each day for gasoline than they did six years ago. “You really wonder how much the U.S. consumer can take.” And he added that the “more insidious increases are in the diesel segment.” He said diesel and heating-oil costs about $807 million per day currently vs. about $217 million six years ago.
Net result: “We are seeing numerous bankruptcies among small and mid-sized trucking firms with more to come,” Kloza forecast grimly.

http://caseyresearch.com/displayDrp.php?e=true

The vast majority of my readers understand the Perth Mint crisis. They know that when the Perth Mint is supposed to have an operating pool of $880 million Australian dollars of precious metal, and yet, the Mint has delivery delays for precious metal; they can see the obvious conflict there.
A rep from the Perth Mint admitted, today, that they have a delay in deliveries.
From: Liselle Carroll
To: XXXX
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 3:38 PM
Subject: RE: Purchase of silver bars
Hi XXXX
Our metal is state government backed, there isn’t a shortage and the delay is only in production.
Kind Regards
Liselle Carroll
The Perth Mint
310 Hay St
East Perth
WA 6004

While obviously lying about a shortage, because a production delay is a shortage, the Perth Mint is admitting the essence of what I’ve reported that my readers have said with that one phrase, “the delay is only in production”.
I continue to wonder why, and ask why there should be production delays if the size of their operating pool is $880 million Australin dollars worth of precious metal.
When you go to buy bread from the bakery, do they tell you there will be a “production delay?” After all, it does take time to harvest wheat and bake bread. But, no, they don’t say that.
When you go to buy new tires for your car, do they tell you there will be a “production delay” of 6-8 weeks? No.
When you go to the bank to cash your paycheck, do they tell you there will be a “production delay?” of 6-8 weeks? No.
How can the Perth Mint have a production delay if they have an operating pool, to be used for operations, that is $880 million Australian dollars?

I did not pick this fight with the Perth Mint. I tried to avoid it as long as I possibly could. I ignored many of my readers’ complaints for a long time. Some of them specifically asked me to not say anything because they didn’t want the Mint to shut down or have any problems, because they wanted to order more!
I was told in person, by a second person of problems at the Perth Mint, at the Silver Summit in September, 2007. I finally hinted at the problem on February 27th, 2008, nearly 5 months later.
How to Get Into Silver, for Billionaires February 27, 2008
I have long advocated that people get and take physical delivery of real silver, and not trust anyone or any bank or institution to hold silver for them. And so, my readers ask me things about major companies in the industry. And, my readers also ask me for my honest opinion, because they assume I will end up hearing things.
And so, after getting a few complaints about the Perth Mint’s long delivery times, I had to mention it, privately in an email to one of my readers. And then I got more complaints, and still I avoided mention, until people were willing to let me use their names. Then, I went public with the complaints, and I got a lot more complaints.
Perth Mint and Kitco Scheme Exposed March 26, 2008
That was nearly two months ago, and the Perth Mint is still having problems with delivery delays. Therefore, I think this is a systemic problem at the Perth Mint.
Of course, I have never said what is on the tip of everyone’s tongue, given the evidence. I’m just making the contrast between the size of the pool of bullion to be used for operations, and the fact that there are delivery delays, both of which are indisputable facts.
The Perth Mint might well be fully 100% honorable about how they use the pool, refusing to use the pool to fill new orders. And the Perth Mint could have easily simply told their customers, “We simply do not use our precious metals pool to fill customer orders.” But if that’s the case, it would beg the question, “What exactly would you use the pool of precious metals for, if not for filling customer orders?”
And furthermore, why are there reports of delays of up to 7 weeks just to transfer silver from unallocated to allocated, when allocated silver costs more due to storage costs?!
One comment I read out on the internet was from a customer holding unallocated and allocated silver with the Perth Mint. He is therefore a creditor of the Perth Mint, who is thus funding their operations. He flatly refused to believe there is any shortage of silver, despite the many reports that I’ve shared that speak of delivery delays. His reason? Because the Perth Mint had called him, wanting to know if he would like to buy any more allocated silver (that they can’t seem to deliver promptly)! Can you imagine that! He must think that all my reader’s reports are some vast conspiracy or something, that all those people are liars. Either that, or he is unable to think for himself, and he simply trusts what he is told.
Speaking of the gullible, there are always major silver reports being trotted out by analysts at major banks and brokerages that say things like they expect a silver surplus this year, and that they don’t expect investor demand to be able to rise enough to buy it. Today’s ridiculous report is called “No More Silver Lining: Poor Man’s Gold Will Suffer from Too Much Supply in 2008,” by Eric Roseman, who appears to have bought into such reports. There’s always a few of my more gullible readers who get scared by those kinds of comments, despite the fact that the purchase of silver Eagles is soaring this year, and so is investment demand soaring, just like inflation. Last year’s investment demand of about $1.1 billion for silver is nothing compared to what we are already seeing this year, with many dealers reporting that January and February saw ten times the normal business, and then in March, the reports of shortages started. You are more capable of making predictions about how this next year will go in the silver market than most “analyst reports” you will read.
I don’t think the Perth Mint is engaged in any conspiracy to defraud people. More likely, they’re simply “doing their jobs.” I believe that the trouble was low silver prices. For years, silver remained at $5/oz., and minting costs, I assume, were about $2.00 per ounce, at the bare minimum in the private sector. Like most government agencies, the Perth Mint was probably not too concerned about costs.
During silver’s bear market, a lot of silver was coming to market by investors as “recycled siver”, who were dumping their silver, thus depressing prices of all silver products, below market prices, which, as all student of free markets know, creates a challenging environment for all producers, who usually find it hard to compete under such circumstances.
What would you do if you worked at the mint? You might not even know if minting costs were as high as $3-5.00/oz on top of the silver price, because things might be done the typical inefficient way of all governments, and your job may well have depended on continuing to mint coinage, whether at a profit, or loss.
The Perth Mint appears to me to have been funded for years, by precious metals loans from banks, which is similar to how all government operations on the planet are funded, by loans. Are there any governments not in debt? The difference is that these are precious metals loans. The other difference is that these precious metals loans were transfered to the public via the selling of the Perth Mint certificate program.
The Perth Mint says in their annual report that these are “non interest bearing loans” and technically, that is correct. However, with precious metals prices rising at about 25% per year, these loans are quite expensive, and will grow much more expensive as precious metals prices continue to rise.
The Perth Mint, if they truly have no precious metal backing their liability of their certificate program, ought to quickly notify the governmment of Western Australia, so that they can start buying silver and gold options in the futures markets to cover their entire liability. Then, they ought to allocate $5-10 million to the purchase of real physical metal, to create a real pool of real metal to operate out of, and to deal from, so that they can fill customer orders promptly. The delivery delays ought to be embarassing, and dangerous for the credibility of the Mint.
For years, I’ve written that the only way the market prices for precious metals can be manipulated is if the manipulators actually provide real physical metal to the market, so that the market does not catch on.
It appears that somebody forgot to inform the Perth Mint of that.
I always assumed that we would first see major delivery delays (defaults) on the NYMEX, in their futures contracts.
I never suspected the Perth Mint.
Or, perhaps the Perth Mint can’t get silver promptly enough because the NYMEX is already in default, or is limiting deliveries, as they can, to no more than 1.5 million ounces in a month?
But if that’s the case, why doesn’t the Perth Mint comment about the precise problem?
I’ve always maintained that we would see the major price rise of the precious metals after a major default and delivery delay and scarcity of silver.
This is it. If this is not it, what is this?
Hold on to your silver, and try to get some as soon as possible.

http://find-your-local-coin-shop.com/

I sincerely believe that conditions like this come along once in a lifetime, and in silver’s case, I’ve long said that today’s opportunity is unique in all of human history.
My gut tells me that silver prices might not stay below $20-25/oz. for more than about another month or two.
Never before has silver been so rare and scarce due to consumption by industry. Never before in all of human history have all nations in the world abandoned silver as money.
No history professor knows anything from history that is even close to what we are seeing today. No event in prior human history can be compared to what we are now witnessing, and will soon witness.
I can only guess as to how high silver is set to go, and my experience is that you don’t want to hear it, either.
Two days ago, a director of the CFR, the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the world might return to using gold as money, and that central banks might start a bidding war for gold.

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=42919

Key excerpt:
AUDIENCE: Do you think central banks would start selling, and void their own agreements to limit the sales, which they have now, by selling much more of their gold in order to try to hold the price down once it starts spiralling up?
DR. BENN STEIL: My view is that if you look at the central banks around the world that represent our major creditors like in Asia and the Middle East, the big concern is the following: We hold too many dollars, too many dollar-denominated assets. We’d like to redenominate them, but this is tough. If we all decide to redenominate them, say, in euros, we’re going to take a big capital loss on what we currently own, and we don’t want to do that.
So how do central banks get out of that dilemma? My view is that they’re going to begin surreptitiously to buy out hard assets. For example, there was recently, I think it was about a week or two ago, a piece I saw on CNN.com, talking about how commodity price inflation may in fact be driven by monetary policy in the United States. And one private bank economist said, “This is ridiculous because the dollar, since last September, has only gone down by 11%, but oil prices have skyrocketed far more than that. If people are selling dollars for oil, then obviously the exchange rate, vis-à-vis other currencies, doesn’t go down.”
Central banks, I think, unlike this particular economist, understand that. So if they want to make sure that the value of their dollar-denominated assets don’t go down vis-à-vis other currency-denominated assets, the easiest way for them to do that is by buying commodities like gold.
AUDIENCE: They haven’t done that.
DR. BENN STEIL: They haven’t – well, they haven’t done it yet. But you understand that at some point, you reach a sort of tipping point. In other words, government officials tend to believe that the private market is full of herders, speculators who tend to move in one direction or another en masse, at any given point in time.
Central bankers definitely herd in their behaviour. That’s what they did in the 1990s when they all started selling gold. So it wouldn’t be particularly surprising if they all started buying commodities at the same time as well.

Sincerely,Jason Hommel
www.silverstockreport.com
www.miningpedia.com

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/23/wildlife.endangeredspecies

“Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.”
“The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden Wurttemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.”
“It’s a real bee emergency,” said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers’ Association. “50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives.”
“Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin.” It is “a systemic chemical that works its way through a plant and attacks the nervous system of any insect it comes into contact with. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency it is ‘highly toxic’ to honeybees.”

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=43038

“Global rice prices may fall by the end of this year as newly harvested crops come to the market, according to Food and Agriculture Organisation of UN.
Global market conditions could ease as new crops are being harvested around the world, helping reverse the upward trend in prices, said the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization.
The UN is forecasting a rise of 2.3% in global rice production to a record 666 metric tonnes this year, helped by big output gains in Thailand, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.
However, export bans by countries such as India and Vietnam will contribute to a 7% reduction in this year’s global rice trade to 28.8 metric tonnes.
Rice prices continue to rise globally on depleting stocks in many countries and export curbs put in by major exporting countries.
According to the FAO, the price pressure would remain high at least until October or November, when the bulk of this year’s paddy crops will reach market.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/23/wildlife.endangeredspecies

“Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.”
“The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden Wurttemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.”
“It’s a real bee emergency,” said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers’ Association. “50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives.”
“Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin.” It is “a systemic chemical that works its way through a plant and attacks the nervous system of any insect it comes into contact with. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency it is ‘highly toxic’ to honeybees.”