[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Editor-in-Chief, Jeff Berwick]

[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Editor, Gary Gibson]

Why Would You Want HIGHER House Prices?

It's odd, but Americans get happier when the roofs over their heads get harder to afford. Over the past hundred years or so, Americans have come to see houses not just as another commodity which should be getting cheaper over time thanks to market forces, but as a government-aided "investment" that makes them better off by getting more expensive!

"That's Capitalism!"

This week I saw someone post a quote: "When the rich steal from the poor, it's called capitalism; when the poor steal from the rich it's called violence."

That's not quite right, I thought. So I counter that when the rich steal from the poor it's actually called central banking. When the poor steal from the rich it's called voting.

Hello from Acapulco Bay,

Does it feel like things are moving very fast?  I don't mean outside your front door, but in the grand scheme of things on this space rock.  I sense that things have gone into warp drive.

Something seems to be afoot.  Perhaps I feel something like the birds and dogs who seem to sense an earthquake coming.  Do you ever spend an entire day and everyone seems negative?  And other days, everyone seems to be in a great mood.  Is it you or is it them?

I still haven't figured that one out.

But what I have figured out is there is more than what we can just touch and feel.  I just call it "energy" for lack of a better word.

The week is over, and the US authorities got through it with only one civic lockdown (that we know of). Rights of the citizenry were suspended in Boston so that the Boston PD and the FBI could wear their combat unis and get out the big guns. Christmas for cops! Now things are back to normal. Or so you think. 

On to the feedback...

LIZARDS DESERVE BETTER

How to Find Happiness When You’re Stuck in America – Part 2

[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV's resident advice columnist, Slavey, whose columns appear monthly in TDV Homegrown. For more articles like this, please subscribe to Homegrown here.]

Hi Slaveys,

[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Managing Editor, Redmond Weissenberger]

[Editor's Note: The following post is by Mexican based TDV Education Correspondent, Jorge Gato]

 ‘Twas an uneasy gut feeling that bid me to leave the Land of Milk & Honey several years ago.  Something in the air didn’t smell right. The fascist frog pot has been steaming on low flame for a while now, but it is a slow simmer until you reach that exponential boiling point of no return. The recent turn of events has me somewhat startled (with fascination of course, as I shall fear no evil).

[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Editor-in-Chief, Jeff Berwick]

How is it possible gold goes down $200 in the paper market while there is almost no supply available to buy around the world? Last I checked, dwindling or completely absent supply against steady and increasing demand means higher prices, not sudden price drops. Quite simply, the paper market is being manipulated one way or another. Whether it's nervous speculators or the more likely collusion of banks and the federal government, there can be no mistaking that the deviation in the gold paper and physical markets this last week is a major event for The End Of The Monetary Systems As We Know It.

The Dissident Round Up Is Still Inevitable

To my great surprise, the Boston Marathon bombing hasn't been pinned on some anti-government, born and bred whitey. But that doesn't mean the country isn't still on the march towards comic book police state totalitarianism.