We can protect a mob in Benghazi, so why not a little girl in Stockwell?

We can protect a mob in Benghazi, so why not a little girl in Stockwell?This is Peter Hitchens’s Mail on Sunday column

Why does the British Government care more about protecting civilians in Libya than it does about protecting them in Britain?

In this week alone a tiny little girl and an innocent shopkeeper have been shot and badly wounded in the London suburb of Stockwell, within sight of the Palace of Westminster.

They were caught in the crossfire of a gang war.

About 50 criminal gangs are said to be active in this area, and many of them are armed with guns, which our vaunted strict firearms laws have somehow failed to keep out of their hands.

And no help comes. The police sit on their fat backsides waiting for bad things to happen and then rush round too late. The courts strain to avoid sending wrongdoers to prison.

The prisons are run by the criminals, who get angry when warders try to deny them drugs and alcohol.

Ultra-violence and homicide are now so common that its perpetrators are often free after a few short years detained with a pool-table and lots of free methadone at the taxpayer’s expense.

The idea of protecting us – the civilians of Britain – with a proper patrolling police force, severe justice and the effective deterrent of the death penalty is rejected with shuddering horror by the comically misnamed Conservative Party that dominates the Government.

And such suggestions are regarded as positively wicked by the Liberal Democrats who sustain the Coalition.

Even those of them who pretend to believe in the death penalty will say: ‘But what if
an innocent person got killed by mistake?’

Yet when it comes to Libya the same people suddenly lose all their doubts.

They’ll protect Libyan civilians by dropping tons of high explosive on anyone who attacks them. If innocent people are killed by mistake, and they have been and will be, that is ‘collateral damage’, sad but acceptable.

They have obviously discussed killing Colonel Gaddafi because of his undoubted crimes against humanity. But they won’t hang a British murderer for his crimes against us.

Why do this miserable bunch of vain poseurs have to go to North Africa to do justice?

Why are they more interested in helping an Islamic mob in Benghazi than in protecting the British people who pay their huge wages? Why can’t justice begin at home?

A snarling menace, let off the leash by liberal ‘justice’

The liberal elite like to think that they have made Britain more civilised by being kinder to bad people. They think that the days of ugly mobs baying round the Tyburn gallows are over for good.

Let them examine the scenes in Swindon last week, as a man accused of a rather nasty murder, but not convicted of it, was brought to court. I lived and worked for some years in Swindon and still sometimes visit it. It is not specially worse than anywhere else in the New Britain, reasonably prosperous and certainly far more so than when I first knew it nearly 40 years ago.

But the inflamed crowd, with its tattooed faces and furious rage, was as close to a lynch mob as anything we have yet seen in the 21st Century. As I believe in justice rather than vengeance, in the presumption of innocence and the rule of law, I thought the crowd was frightening. I do not think it will be that long before such a mob gets hold of its victim and horrible things follow. I hope not. I will do what I can to prevent it. But I will not be surprised.

This scene would have been unthinkable in the early Seventies Swindon I knew. At that time, Britain had only recently begun on Roy Jenkins’s great liberal experiment – divorce on demand, subsidised one-parent families, covert legalisation of drugs, vast ill-disciplined comprehensive schools, abolition of beat policing, abolition of the death penalty, relaxed prison regime, easy bail and the rest.

The trouble with this experiment is that the consequences are horrible, but only for the people who live in Swindon and not – yet – for those who still think it was all a jolly good idea. By the time the tattooed mobs are raging in their nice villages and comfy suburbs, it will be too late to put it right.

****************
According to the Sentencing Guidelines Council, you can now be found with a bag of dope big enough to pull your arm out of its socket and not be considered a serious criminal. Cue outrage.

But not from me. I do not understand why we treat drug-dealers as wicked, vicious criminals, while treating moronic, self-destructive drug-users as victims. It is users who bring misery to their families by wrecking their mental health. It is users who commit crime to pay for their pleasure. It is users who become a danger to their fellow creatures. If there were no users, there would be no dealers. Yet their numbers grow because possession of cannabis, cocaine and heroin is now effectively legal.

This is a limitlessly stupid and irresponsible policy, and the cause of endless misery and crime. The sooner we realise the extent of the Government’s surrender to drugs, the sooner we may come to our senses and reverse it. But will we?

The senior levels of politics are full of people who have taken drugs, or have friends who take drugs. What would happen if a mid-level Minister were revealed as a recent user of cocaine, or a Cabinet Minister found to have attended a recent party where cocaine was openly snorted?

****************
Let us hope and pray that some good comes from the unbearable death of
ten-year-old Harry Hucknall, found hanged at his Cumbria home last September. Somebody had ‘diagnosed’ this little boy with clinical depression and ‘ADHD’ and had prescribed an anti-depressant and Ritalin. The poor child had been horribly bullied at school.

His parents were separated. He had moved home 14 times. It is hardly surprising that he was unhappy. Why on earth would anyone think that drugs were the answer?
West Cumbria Coroner Ian Smith said that Harry had been given ‘two powerful, mind-altering drugs’. He urged doctors to be ‘extremely careful in prescribing such medication’. I congratulate him on his understatement.
 

Harry’s case became known because his cousin is a rock star. How many other tragedies like this are going unreported? We are long overdue for a proper inquiry into the prescribing of such drugs, especially to children. Let it come soon, please.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/

View the original article here

We can protect a mob in Benghazi, so why not a little girl in Stockwell?

We can protect a mob in Benghazi, so why not a little girl in Stockwell?This is Peter Hitchens’s Mail on Sunday column

Why does the British Government care more about protecting civilians in Libya than it does about protecting them in Britain?

In this week alone a tiny little girl and an innocent shopkeeper have been shot and badly wounded in the London suburb of Stockwell, within sight of the Palace of Westminster.

They were caught in the crossfire of a gang war.

About 50 criminal gangs are said to be active in this area, and many of them are armed with guns, which our vaunted strict firearms laws have somehow failed to keep out of their hands.

And no help comes. The police sit on their fat backsides waiting for bad things to happen and then rush round too late. The courts strain to avoid sending wrongdoers to prison.

The prisons are run by the criminals, who get angry when warders try to deny them drugs and alcohol.

Ultra-violence and homicide are now so common that its perpetrators are often free after a few short years detained with a pool-table and lots of free methadone at the taxpayer’s expense.

The idea of protecting us – the civilians of Britain – with a proper patrolling police force, severe justice and the effective deterrent of the death penalty is rejected with shuddering horror by the comically misnamed Conservative Party that dominates the Government.

And such suggestions are regarded as positively wicked by the Liberal Democrats who sustain the Coalition.

Even those of them who pretend to believe in the death penalty will say: ‘But what if
an innocent person got killed by mistake?’

Yet when it comes to Libya the same people suddenly lose all their doubts.

They’ll protect Libyan civilians by dropping tons of high explosive on anyone who attacks them. If innocent people are killed by mistake, and they have been and will be, that is ‘collateral damage’, sad but acceptable.

They have obviously discussed killing Colonel Gaddafi because of his undoubted crimes against humanity. But they won’t hang a British murderer for his crimes against us.

Why do this miserable bunch of vain poseurs have to go to North Africa to do justice?

Why are they more interested in helping an Islamic mob in Benghazi than in protecting the British people who pay their huge wages? Why can’t justice begin at home?

A snarling menace, let off the leash by liberal ‘justice’

The liberal elite like to think that they have made Britain more civilised by being kinder to bad people. They think that the days of ugly mobs baying round the Tyburn gallows are over for good.

Let them examine the scenes in Swindon last week, as a man accused of a rather nasty murder, but not convicted of it, was brought to court. I lived and worked for some years in Swindon and still sometimes visit it. It is not specially worse than anywhere else in the New Britain, reasonably prosperous and certainly far more so than when I first knew it nearly 40 years ago.

But the inflamed crowd, with its tattooed faces and furious rage, was as close to a lynch mob as anything we have yet seen in the 21st Century. As I believe in justice rather than vengeance, in the presumption of innocence and the rule of law, I thought the crowd was frightening. I do not think it will be that long before such a mob gets hold of its victim and horrible things follow. I hope not. I will do what I can to prevent it. But I will not be surprised.

This scene would have been unthinkable in the early Seventies Swindon I knew. At that time, Britain had only recently begun on Roy Jenkins’s great liberal experiment – divorce on demand, subsidised one-parent families, covert legalisation of drugs, vast ill-disciplined comprehensive schools, abolition of beat policing, abolition of the death penalty, relaxed prison regime, easy bail and the rest.

The trouble with this experiment is that the consequences are horrible, but only for the people who live in Swindon and not – yet – for those who still think it was all a jolly good idea. By the time the tattooed mobs are raging in their nice villages and comfy suburbs, it will be too late to put it right.

****************
According to the Sentencing Guidelines Council, you can now be found with a bag of dope big enough to pull your arm out of its socket and not be considered a serious criminal. Cue outrage.

But not from me. I do not understand why we treat drug-dealers as wicked, vicious criminals, while treating moronic, self-destructive drug-users as victims. It is users who bring misery to their families by wrecking their mental health. It is users who commit crime to pay for their pleasure. It is users who become a danger to their fellow creatures. If there were no users, there would be no dealers. Yet their numbers grow because possession of cannabis, cocaine and heroin is now effectively legal.

This is a limitlessly stupid and irresponsible policy, and the cause of endless misery and crime. The sooner we realise the extent of the Government’s surrender to drugs, the sooner we may come to our senses and reverse it. But will we?

The senior levels of politics are full of people who have taken drugs, or have friends who take drugs. What would happen if a mid-level Minister were revealed as a recent user of cocaine, or a Cabinet Minister found to have attended a recent party where cocaine was openly snorted?

****************
Let us hope and pray that some good comes from the unbearable death of
ten-year-old Harry Hucknall, found hanged at his Cumbria home last September. Somebody had ‘diagnosed’ this little boy with clinical depression and ‘ADHD’ and had prescribed an anti-depressant and Ritalin. The poor child had been horribly bullied at school.

His parents were separated. He had moved home 14 times. It is hardly surprising that he was unhappy. Why on earth would anyone think that drugs were the answer?
West Cumbria Coroner Ian Smith said that Harry had been given ‘two powerful, mind-altering drugs’. He urged doctors to be ‘extremely careful in prescribing such medication’. I congratulate him on his understatement.
 

Harry’s case became known because his cousin is a rock star. How many other tragedies like this are going unreported? We are long overdue for a proper inquiry into the prescribing of such drugs, especially to children. Let it come soon, please.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/

View the original article here

To Serve and Protect … Or Harass and Collect?

by Eric Peters

What good are cops, really?

I mean to the average, non-violent citizen just trying to go about his business?

For him, cops are a nuisance – and increasingly, a threat. They don’t protect his property; indeed, they spend their days trying to take it away via enforcement of various and ever-increasing laws ranging from the minor (“speeding” fines) to the major (asset seizure for possessing or imbibing some substance the State has arbitrarily decreed to be “illegal”). Or maybe they’re out enforcing “free speech zones” and/or giving wood shampoos to the Mundanes (that’s Will Grigg’s wonderful term – full credit given here).

Libertarian writers such as Grigg, among others, have noted that most of us – very tellingly – do not feel “safe” when a cop rolls up behind us. Or when we see one in general. In fact we feel nervous and stressed – because we know instinctively that the cop is most emphatically not our “protector.” We gird our loins, grit our teeth. We hope the cop will “give us a break” – that is, decline to fully enforce the ukase he believes we’ve just transgressed. We become servile, mewling “yes sir, no sir” to some buzz-cut 24-year-old community college graduate (a few have managed to achieve the full four-year degree in “criminal justice” or some such from Turnpike Tech), hating the sound of ourselves as we grovel but knowing that we must grovel, else risk our “protector’s” largely unaccountable wrath.

Speaking of which:

Physical protection from criminal thugs is arguably the only moral service a cop can provide. But the truth is they don’t provide even this most elemental of services. Indeed, the Supremes have explicitly laid this out; i.e., cops have no duty to protect specific individuals from harm. Just “society.” That means you are on your own where it matters most; the one area where most of us would agree having some back-up would be nice to have.

[more at lewrockwell.com...]



View the original article here

To Serve and Protect … Or Harass and Collect?

by Eric Peters

What good are cops, really?

I mean to the average, non-violent citizen just trying to go about his business?

For him, cops are a nuisance – and increasingly, a threat. They don’t protect his property; indeed, they spend their days trying to take it away via enforcement of various and ever-increasing laws ranging from the minor (“speeding” fines) to the major (asset seizure for possessing or imbibing some substance the State has arbitrarily decreed to be “illegal”). Or maybe they’re out enforcing “free speech zones” and/or giving wood shampoos to the Mundanes (that’s Will Grigg’s wonderful term – full credit given here).

Libertarian writers such as Grigg, among others, have noted that most of us – very tellingly – do not feel “safe” when a cop rolls up behind us. Or when we see one in general. In fact we feel nervous and stressed – because we know instinctively that the cop is most emphatically not our “protector.” We gird our loins, grit our teeth. We hope the cop will “give us a break” – that is, decline to fully enforce the ukase he believes we’ve just transgressed. We become servile, mewling “yes sir, no sir” to some buzz-cut 24-year-old community college graduate (a few have managed to achieve the full four-year degree in “criminal justice” or some such from Turnpike Tech), hating the sound of ourselves as we grovel but knowing that we must grovel, else risk our “protector’s” largely unaccountable wrath.

Speaking of which:

Physical protection from criminal thugs is arguably the only moral service a cop can provide. But the truth is they don’t provide even this most elemental of services. Indeed, the Supremes have explicitly laid this out; i.e., cops have no duty to protect specific individuals from harm. Just “society.” That means you are on your own where it matters most; the one area where most of us would agree having some back-up would be nice to have.

[more at lewrockwell.com...]

View the original article here

U.S. Dollar Crisis: Only Way to Protect Yourself

The big news story this morning is the intervention in the foreign exchange markets by the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized countries to push down the price of the Japanese yen…something smart currency traders were expecting.

The European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of France, Germany’s Bundesbank, and the central Bank of Italy started selling yen this morning. The Bank of Canada and the U.S. Fed are reported to be doing the same sometime today. This is the first time the G7 have intervened in the foreign exchange markets in a decade.

How convenient for the U.S.

Let’s face the facts here: the U.S. is awash in debt. Our politicians are not decreasing the amount the government spends; they are increasing our debt daily. The U.S. cannot manufacture goods at the cheap rate China can. We cannot compete against China.

So how does a country deal with a national debt crisis while trying to revitalize its economy at the same time? It devalues its currency.

Back in the early 2000s, I started writing about the government’s “secret plan” to devalue the greenback so that we are paying back our creditors with ever cheaper dollars. The U.S. has done a masterful job at “quietly” devaluing the U.S. dollar.

Corporate America loves a cheaper greenback, because their overseas profits translate into more American dollars. The more U.S. companies earn, the higher their stock prices go. Hence, the stock market loves a cheap greenback.

But there is a fine line. If the greenback goes too low, as I have written before, foreigners will be less receptive to buying the U.S. Treasuries we so desperately need to sell to finance our ever increasing debt. The situation can best be referred to as “too much of a good thing killing you.”

The chart below shows the uncharted territory we are about to enter with the U.S. dollar. In the next few weeks, the U.S. dollar will fall to a record low against other world currencies. Get ready for the fireworks—could get really interesting here—and the only way to protect yourself from it: make sure you own gold-related investments.

                                                   Chart courtesy of StockCharts.com

Michael’s Personal Notes:

The more time goes by, the more I’m convinced that inflation will be a huge problem for the U.S. over the next few years.

On Wednesday of this week, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the Producer Price Index (a measure of wholesale costs) jump 1.9% in February from the previous month—the highest level since June 2009.

The government tends to focus on inflation without food and energy costs (what they call “core inflation”). I do not take out food and energy costs when I look at the inflation rate, because: (1) eating is an everyday part of life (we all have to eat); and (2) driving is an everyday part of life—we all have to drive to/from work, take the kids here and there, etc.

As the National Inflation Association recently pointed out, the cost to print one U.S. dollar bill has increased 50% since 2008. Inflation is right under the government’s nose.

Years ago, people were saying that there was no relation between inflation and the price of gold. Back then, I said that was rubbish, and I still say that today. There is a direct link between inflation and gold bullion. And, as a leading indicator, gold is warning of serious inflationary times ahead.

Where the Market Stands; Where it’s Headed:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average opens this morning up 1.7% for 2011. The selling in the markets, at least temporarily, has subsided. The Dow Jones was up a big 161 points yesterday and this morning Dow Jones futures are up another 80 points. Hence, you can see why I kept my cool through the week and stuck fast to my belief that the bear market rally in stocks is not over.

As I wrote earlier this week, my view is that the markets overreacted to the crisis in Japan…and I was a buyer in the market this past Tuesday.

Bear market rally in stocks…born on March 9, 2009…and alive and well today.

What He Said:

“The U.S. reduced interest rates in 2004 to their lowest level in 46 years. And what did Americans do with their access to easy money? They borrowed and borrowed some more, investing the borrowed money into real estate. Looking ahead, perhaps the Fed’s actions (of reducing interest rates so low as to entice consumers to borrow more than they can afford) will one day be regarded as one of the most costly errors committed by it or any other banking system in the last 75 years.” Michael Lombardi in PROFIT CONFIDENTIAL, July 21, 2005. Long before anyone was thinking of a banking crisis, Michael was warning that the coming real estate bust would create havoc with the banking system.

Michael bought his first stock when he was 17 years old. He quickly saw $2,000 of savings from summer jobs turn into $1,000. Determined not to lose money again on a stock, Michael started researching the market intensely, reading every book he could find on the topic and taking every course he could afford. It didn’t take long for Michael to start making money with stocks, and that led Michael to launch a newsletter on the stock market. Today, Michael only employs the top market analysts and editors. Some of our recommendations have posted gains in excess of 500%! Michael has authored and published over one thousand articles on investment and money management. Along the way to building Lombardi Publishing Corporation, now with over one million customers in 141 countries, Michael became an active investor in real estate, art, precious metals and various businesses. Readers of the daily Profit Confidential e-letter are offered the benefit of the expertise Michael has gained in these sectors. Michael believes in successful stock picking as an important wealth accumulation tool. Married with two children, Michael received his Chartered Financial Planner designation from the Financial Planners Standards Council of Canada and his MBA from the Graduate Business School, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland. Follow Michael and the latest from Profit Confidential on Twitter

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How to Protect Against Selling with Options

Listen up, folks; stock markets have had a great run. There may be more upside moves ahead of us, as the economy continues to improve, but this is not a time to be aggressive given the turmoil in the Middle East and higher oil prices. You have made some nice gains and my investment advice to you is to take some profits off the table.

At this juncture, stock markets are pausing and showing some uncertainty. And, while I do not pretend to have a crystal ball, I do firmly believe in adopting strong risk management to protect your investments and hard-earned capital. This is my best stock market advice.

The last thing you want is to watch your gains disappear.

One of my favorite strategies to protect investment gains is the use of put options as a defensive hedge against market weakness. This strategy is called a protective hedge. Don’t be scared by the name or the fact that it employs derivatives, as the strategy is straightforward.

Under this scenario, investors may be somewhat bearish or uncertain and want to protect the current gains against a downside move in the stock or the market with the use of index put options.

For those of you not familiar with options, a buyer of a put option contract buys the right, but not the obligation, to sell a specific number of the underlying instrument at the strike or exercise price for a specified length of time until the expiry date of the contract. After the expiry date, the particular option expires worthless and any responsibility is eliminated.

The buyer of the put option pays a premium to the writer of the option, who gets compensated for assuming the risk of exercise. The writer of the put option is obligated to buy the stock from the holder of the put should it be exercised by the expiry date.

For the writer of the put option, the amount of premium received for assuming the risk is generally directly correlated to the volatility of the stock and market. The more volatile the stock, the higher the premium paid for the option. And low volatility translates into lower premiums.

You can buy puts for stocks and sectors. If your portfolio is heavy in technology, you can buy puts on the NASDAQ. Or let’s say you have benefited from the run-up in gold and silver to record historical highs; then a strategy may be to buy put options on The Philadelphia Gold & Silver Index, which tracks 10 major gold and silver stocks.

If you are heavily weighted in technology, you can buy put options in PowerShares ETFs (NASDAQA/QQQQ), a heavily traded put used for defensive purposes.

It’s that easy. Just take a look at the various indices that closely reflect your holdings or put options on individual stocks that you may have a large position in.

In this market, safety is the key.

George is a Senior Editor at Lombardi Financial, and has been involved in analyzing the stock markets for two decades where he employs both fundamental and technical analysis. His overall market timing and trading knowledge is extensive in the areas of small-cap research and option trading. George is the editor of several of Lombardi’s popular financial newsletters, including The China Letter, Special Situations, and Obscene Profits, among others. His trading advice on stocks and options is also found on his daily trading site, Daily Profits. He has written technical and fundamental columns for numerous stock market news web sites, and he is the author of Quick Wealth Options Strategy and Mastering 7 Proven Options Strategies. Prior to starting with Lombardi Financial, George was employed as a financial analyst with Globe Information Services.

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