However, experts say there are ways to enhance the appeal and value of one’s house — especially if it’s about to go on the market — without spending a lot of money.

Painting the house and replacing the front door, which is the first thing prospective buyers see, are obvious and low-cost ways to spruce up the house and make it more attractive, according to Kiplinger.com.

In a similar vein, spending $300-$400 on landscaping can make the property stand out from among its neighbors and boost the chances of a successful closing.

Furthermore, replacing old sinks and adding low-flow faucet aerators, which can reduce water usage by 30 percent, costs less than $500 and can be done in one day. Prospective buyers pay particular attention to the kitchen, and this is one investment that can greatly pay off, the news source advises.

According to Paul, the last “decent audit” was done 50 years ago. In the early 1980s Paul tried to get an audit done when he was on the gold commission. Fifteen of the 17 members of the commission voted not to conduct an audit.

In recent months there have been a number of rumors about Ft. Knox, among them: that it no longer contains any real gold; That it contains only a small portion of what is claimed; and that many of the bars that are there are made of lead or some other material and only coated in gold.

“If there was no question about the gold being there, you think (the Federal Reserve) would be anxious to prove gold is there,” Paul said.

Paul has long been an advocate of sound money and has fought against the Federal Reserve. His efforts last year to get legislation passed to audit the Federal Reserve was ultimately watered down by Congress to the point of uselessness.

“I don’t think the Federal Reserve should exist — it would be best for Congress to exert their responsibilities and that is find out what they are doing,” Paul told Kitco News. “It is an ominous amount of power they have to create money out of thin air and being the reserve currency of the world and be able to finance runaway spending whether it is for welfare or warfare; it seems strange that we have been so complacent not to even look at the books. If we knew exactly what they were doing, who they were taking care of, there would be a growing momentum to reassess the whole system.”

The Federal Reserve has created bubbles and inflation and today’s dollar is worth about 2 cents compared to the 1913 dollar, Paul said.

Paul said he would like to see gold and silver legalized as currency to give people a choice of using the Government’s fiat currency or real money.

Of course, the Federal Reserve can print money to infinity which isn’t backed by anything. This makes wars possible and has led to the devaluation of the dollar and is “legal” theft of the individual by the government.

In fact, as PJTV continues its weekly Tea Party poll, its researchers have found that on Aug. 28, the support for Tea Party-backed congressional candidates has reached 54 percent. Moreover, 52 percent of potential voters declared they are likely vote for a candidate supported by the grassroots movement.

"This week’s tracking poll numbers and election results both suggest the growing strength of the movement," said Vik Rubenfeld, PJTV’s polling director.

He added that its strength was evident in this week’s primaries "as many of the movement’s candidates prevailed over those who were more traditional Republicans."

The Tea Party phenomenon appeared on the political scene in 2009 in response to the massive stimulus package passed by Congress and signed by President Obama. Its supporters say they want to preserve individual freedoms introduced by the Founding Fathers and believe in limited government, free speech, the Second Amendment, the military and secure borders.

In view of this, it may not be surprising that the poll found that nearly 80 percent of likely voters worry that the American dream could be jeopardized by the current levels of Federal debt and spending, especially for today’s young people.

Do you support Barry Boswell's Hyper Compound interest as a good way to make your money work for you?

I am familiar with the compound interest theory but have never heard of the other.  What is your take?

Pa]]> http://www.personalliberty.com/asset-and-wealth-protection/do-you-support-barry-boswells-hyper-compound-interest-as-a-good-way-to-make-your-money-work-for-you/feed/ 0 http://www.personalliberty.com/news/buying-gold-is-easier-than-ever-19930239/ http://www.personalliberty.com/news/buying-gold-is-easier-than-ever-19930239/#comments Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:01:00 +0000 Personal Liberty News Desk http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/liberty/buying-gold-is-easier-than-ever/ Some financial experts believe that in times of economic uncertainly and possibly looming inflation, investments in precious metals like gold, provide the best way to protect one’s assets. However, some people may find it onerous to go through the process, which they may associate with something only wealthy individuals can do.

Fortunately, today’s potential investors have more ways to go about buying gold without costly brokers and time-consuming visits to financial institutions. In fact, more people than ever before go online to buy gold bullion, according to Gold Made Simple, a trading company.

The best websites are easy to navigate, and can accommodate everyone – from a first-time buyer looking to buy a few gold bars to a seasoned trader who can purchase hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of the precious metal. Internet sellers typically deliver the gold to the customer’s home anywhere in the world, and some also offer ways to store and insure it off-site.

These types of services remove the aura of elitism from gold transactions and may help the average American keep their assets safe for future generations. As a result, they may avoid the pitfalls of stocks, shares or currency fluctuation.

Across the county, including in California, foreclosed homes are being sold at public auctions held daily on the steps of local courthouses. Attracted by opportunities to make significant profit, individuals as well as professional investors stake out these auctions to snatch eligible properties, according to The Los Angeles Times.

They then renovate the houses and hope to quickly sell them, a practice known as "flipping."

"In crisis there’s opportunity," said Rick Hudson, president of investment firm Prosperity Group Real Estate in Irvine, Calif., quoted by the news provider. "Right now there’s huge opportunity with flipping houses."

Recent national statistics suggest that this trend may continue for some time to come. According to Foreclosure Data Bank, some 2.8 million property owners in the United States had to foreclose this year. In April alone property mortgage lenders served defaults on more than 100,000 households, although this was down 27 percent from the year before.

The news source reports that individuals earning more than $200,000 in adjusted gross income, or joint filers with an adjusted gross income of $250,000 or more, will move from 33 percent and 35 percent, respectively to 36 percent and 39.5 percent, which they paid before President George W. Bush implemented the tax cuts in 2001.

However, under the current plan, those with taxable income between $171,850 and $195,550 would go from the 33 percent to the 28 percent tax bracket, resulting in more than $1,000 in savings each ear.

Still, Robert Kerr, senior director of government relations at the National Association of Enrolled Agents, told the news provider that "the inadvertent tax break would only be noticeable to a very small subset of people, since no more than 5 percent of people have income at or above the [current] 28 percent bracket."

Regardless of this, most conservatives have criticized Obama for his intention to let the tax cuts for the rich lapse. They say this may stifle economic growth and have a negative impact on job creation in the midst of a slow economy.

Coins and other objects fashioned from precious metals such as gold and silver are extremely durable, and over time some of them may increase in value beyond what these metals may cost at any given time. That happens if they acquire a collector status or become unique or rare for another reason.

For example, American scientists working in Israel have found what is bound to be extremely valuable, namely a rare gold coin estimated to be some 2,200 years old, according to media reports.

"This is an amazing numismatic find," said Donald T. Ariel, head of the Coin Department of the Israel Antiquities Authority, of the one-ounce coin minted in Egypt by Ptolemy V in 191 B.C.

"The coin is beautiful and in excellent preservation. It is the heaviest gold coin with the highest contemporary value of any coin ever found in an excavation in Israel," he added, quoted by CNN.

Meanwhile, in the United States, gold prices have been increasing, and gold bullion is currently trading at $1,235 an ounce.

Hi: An article I read that came from you talked about the falling value of the dollar. It made me wonder what would happen to a homeowner like myself when out-of-control inflation makes a situation that the dollar I repay as a mo]]> http://www.personalliberty.com/asset-and-wealth-protection/how-will-banks-handle-my-mortgage-during-hyperinflation/feed/ 2 http://www.personalliberty.com/asset-and-wealth-protection/sowing-the-seeds-of-starvation/ http://www.personalliberty.com/asset-and-wealth-protection/sowing-the-seeds-of-starvation/#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 03:01:00 +0000 John Myers http://www.personalliberty.com/?p=16236 “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.”
—Joseph Stalin

This summer’s searing heat has put a fire beneath grain prices. But worse than another round of inflation is the potential for widespread famine, particularly in the former Soviet Union, which has been beset by the worst heat wave in 130 years.

The Ukraine is no stranger to starvation. The Terror-Famine struck the Ukraine in 1932-33 when as many as 10 million starved. It should come as little surprise that Joseph Stalin was the architect of that tragedy.

In the 1920s, Lenin proved his political savvy and made concessions to the peasantry. This led to The New Economic Policy (NEP) and a rethinking by the Kremlin.

That all ended when Stalin suspended concessions and the NEP. He even unleashed his secret police (NKVD, which became the KGB) targeting capitalists and squeezing greater food production from the suffering peasants. In the 1930s, when quotas could not be met in the face of drought, the NKVD ruthlessly robbed Ukraine of its wheat and packed the grain back to Russia.

Eight decades later the drought has returned and so have Communist ideals. Again Ukraine is facing a devastating crisis which could send grain prices much higher and upset the peace in Eastern Europe.

Reuter’s reports that the ex-Soviet Union is likely to see grain production slashed this year with Ukraine’s production falling as much as 15 percent. With a prolonged heat wave sending temperatures above 100 degrees, 27 regions have declared a state of emergency due to drought which is estimated to have destroyed 11 million hectares of crops, an area equal in size to Hungary or about one fifth of the total sown area.

Meanwhile, hundreds of forest fires rage across Russia, choking residents of Moscow. There appears no end in sight for what is being called the worst heat wave to hit Russia in its recorded history. It is wreaking havoc on one of the world’s largest breadbaskets.

A Bitter Harvest
Russia’s agricultural analysts have predicted that the nation’s grain harvest may fall as low as 65 million tonnes this year, down from 97 million tonnes in 2009. The grain agency SovEcon has also estimated that the wheat crop may decline by a whopping 44 million tonnes this year from 61.7 million in 2009. That is 4 million tonnes less than was projected a few weeks ago and the final harvest may be even lower.

The Kremlin has taken steps to bolster the security of its 9.5 million tonnes of grain stockpiles. The government is also putting as much grain aside as it can while admitting that, “the Russian grain market is becoming an acute crisis because of wildfires and drought.”

Russia has even enacted a ban on grain and flour exports for the rest of the year and perhaps longer. The Kremlin is worried domestic consumption may surpass 75 million tonnes, or 10 million tonnes more than this fall’s harvest. Fortunately, the country has 21.5 million tonnes in reserves but this stockpile will be depleted quickly if crops continue to roast in the field.

Ukraine‘s Tortured History
But even as Moscow grows more nervous each day over the upcoming harvest, its puppet state, Ukraine, is embracing the Bear in the face of servitude and perhaps even starvation. The recently elected pro-Russian, pro-Communist government in Ukraine is even rewriting history with its recent proclamation that the Terror-Famine was a tragedy the Soviet Union attempted to stop.

One of Ukraine’s top bureaucrats—Valery Soldatenko—has boasted of being a “proud Communist.” Comrade Soldatenko is not only oblivious to the oxymoron but went so far as to tell Radio Free Europe’s Ukrainian Service that he never surrendered his Communist Party membership card. “I share the Communist ideas of social and national justice, social and national equality,” he said.

Soldatenko is even a Stalin apologist. As a new director of Ukraine’s National Memory Institute (which must have no memory at all), Soldatenko believes that Joseph Stalin did everything he could to lessen the effects of the famine. Soldatenko went so far as to say that the Terror-Famine was not initiated by Stalin, but was, “The result of difficult circumstances.”

It is shocking that with starvation blowing in the wind Ukraine’s new President Viktor Yanukovych and Russia’s Prime Minster Vladimir Putin are almost nostalgic for Communist rule.

The Resurrection Of Stalin         
Last May there was a rally in opposition to Prime Minister Putin with protestors shouting slogans comparing the Prime Minister to Joseph Stalin.

"Putin is Stalin! Putin is Brezhnev! Russia without Putin," chanted the crowd. One activist held a big caricature picture of Putin kissing Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Police quickly ripped it down. In another demonstration hundreds unfurled a giant Russian flag and waved signs demanding fair elections as lines of riot police watched.

Opponents such as these say Putin has censored freedom of the press and eliminated democratic rights when he was President. Now that he has permanently installed himself as Prime Minister they fear that the nation is on the road to ruin and repression.

According to renowned Russian chess grand master Garry Kasparov, “The economy is sinking, the politicians do not allow any opposition into parliament; Putin’s state control is all encompassing.”

But the opposition is the minority to Putin and his iron fist. During the last May Day celebrations Reuter’s reported that thousands of Communists, trade union activists, nationalists and black-clad anti-fascists came out in support of Putin.

Russia’s Communist Party is Russia’s second biggest political party. In the past year thousands have marched under bright red banners that hold portraits of Stalin. Late last year Stalin was voted Russia’s third most popular historical figure ever. Meanwhile, a Moscow train station has restored a phrase on a billboard praising Stalin.

Putin himself has even gone so far as to praise Stalin. “It is impossible to make a general judgment. It is evident that, from 1924 to 1953, the country that Stalin ruled changed from an agrarian to an industrial society,” said the Russian Prime Minster last December. Putin went on to praise Stalin’s leadership in winning World War II.

The question: Will Putin emulate Stalin? The test of that may come this fall as sweltering heat burns the crops in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The Big Three are among the largest exporters of wheat in the world. They provide essential food stuffs to the Middle East and North Africa and to millions of their own citizens; people who could face mass starvation if Russia staggers back to the Dark Ages that was Stalin.

Outlook
Wheat prices hit $7.24 per bushel last week, a 70 percent increase since the June lows. That is the biggest one-month jump in three decades; bigger than the food crisis of 2008 when wheat prices reached $13 per bushel.

The result of that crisis was rioting in Bangladesh, Egypt and elsewhere. This crisis could be potentially worse. And we all know that higher grain prices mean more inflation and a weaker U.S. dollar.

Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc., (NYSE:POT, $109) sells fertilizers and related industrial and feed products worldwide. The company also produces nitrogen fertilizers plus nitrogen feed and industrial products, including ammonia and urea.

PotashCorp also has the mineral rights to more than 800,000 acres in Canada. Prices of this stock are up strongly as investors assume that drought will lead to greater planting and rising demand for fertilizers.

PotashCorp’s stock price has rallied strongly since the deflationary panic in the summer of 2008. I believe the continued bailout process ongoing in Washington as well as soaring demand for grains worldwide will continue to push up the stock price of PotashCorp.

Action To Take
Call your stock broker and buy Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (NYSE:POT, $140) at market.

Yours for wealth and health,

John Myers
Myers Energy and Gold Report