The "conventional wisdom" crowd on Wall Street will tell you now's the time to sell gold-while at the same time they're trying to sell you shares of some helium-huffing tech stocks with no earnings and no real value. But, every fundamental and technical factor we are watching right now says...

* It is not too late to profit from rising gold prices
* You will want to have gold in your portfolio over the next year
* Gold could move farther and faster than many people believe possible.

Full, detailed report at: 

LINK: http://www.agorainc.com/reports/190SSFDG/E190FB44/
 

 TSI Editor Mark Nestmann has authored an article explaining how you can take your IRS or other retirement fund offshore for greater profits and more flexible investments. 

Why would you want to do that? 

First, to diversify your assets outside U.S. markets and, crucially, outside the sinking US dollar. Mark says most U.S. brokers and financial advisors can't or won't  focus on a non-U.S. investment strategy. He doesn't advocate putting 100% of your assets offshore, but he argues it's certainly prudent to create one or more international nest eggs. He calls this the "lifeboat strategy" because by investing offshore, you are creating "lifeboats" of wealth that are protected, at least in part, against turmoil in U.S. securities markets or further decline in the U.S. dollar. He also notes that offshore investments make your wealth less visible. Lastly, he notes that a potentially powerful benefit of an offshore IRA is that the assets held offshore aren't subject to disruptions in U.S. markets such as that that followed the 9-11 attacks. 

Click here to order Mark's book, The Lifeboat Strategy:  http://www.agora-inc.com/reports/190SLIFE/E190FB43/

For more about moving your retirement funds offshore, you can read Mark's article here, LINK: http://www.assetstrategies.com/pages/il/current.html

In the US Congress efforts to rush through an extension of the PATRIOT Act were blocked when conservatives and liberals joined in objecting that the pending bill does not sufficiently protect civil liberties. A threatened Senate filibuster put off further action until after a congressional recess for Thanksgiving. 

In London, leaders of the House of Lords said they will give a pending proposal to arrest and hold suspects without charges for up to 90 days "a thorough going over." PM Tony Blair wanted fast passage after suffering a major defeat in the Common on the same bill with a 90-day detention period. 

The far greater personal freedom I felt was emphasized by the welcome we got on the way in from the gleaming new international airport. Our local guide, William, spoke of the democracy movement in Hong Kong in a way no mainland Chinese would ever be allowed to express an opinion. That he had the freedom to do so owes to the "one nation, two systems" arrangement under which the British ended their colonial control. 

Even though Hong Kong has been a "Special Administrative Region" of China since the British handed it over in 1997, I could feel the freer atmosphere -- none of the TV or Internet censorship I experienced everywhere I went in China. Instead there was the hustle and bustle of free commerce and the flow of free people coursing through the streets at all hours. When the Honorable Martin Lee, a freely elected member of the Legislative Council, met with us, his call for full democracy for Hong Kong emphasized how nervous the Red controllers in Beijing are about letting people have a say in their own government. 

On Nov. 18 the Beijing government again formally asserted its control, stating officially that no changes can be made in Hong Kong electoral laws without permission of the mainland government. 

Return After a Quarter Century

You know, if you've been reading my comments, that in 1979 I spent a week in China as part of an official delegation when I was a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The impression I came away with back then was of a backward, third world nation, tightly controlled by the Communist Party that has governed since the 1949 revolution. The people were downcast, dressed all the same in drab, Mao padded jackets and cotton shoes; the hotels were old and musty and evidence of Western commerce consisted of Coca Cola bottles in a glass case at the backwater Beijing airport. Cars were few but bicycles clogged the streets, coal smoke filled the air, and cabbages hung from every window sill and balcony - the government distributed it in piles in the streets since it was the one of the few foods available for millions in the winter months. 

The changes I saw in China are astounding after 25 years. 

Today China is a modern nation in every respect, at least in its major cities, and we did visit Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou, with air and road travel in between. The streets are filled with fashionably dressed workers and business people, teenagers and young students wearing the latest fashions from the US and Europe. 

Everywhere in China there is construction going on, literally thousands of construction sites, high rises for apartments, sometimes 50 stories high, new offices and factories, new super highways and overpasses (flyovers), and every airport was spacious and modern. 

In fact the Chinese infrastructure is in stark contrasts to the pot holed roads and streets in the US and the congested airports - but then in China, almost everything is new - and Western business and products are everywhere - from high fashion designer shops, to names you know. 

Within a block of the St. Regis Hotel in Beijing, where we (and a week later, President Bush) stayed, there were shops and eateries bearing the familiar signs of 7-Eleven, Haagen Dazs, Sizzler Steakhouse, McDonalds, KFC and the ubiquitous Starbuck's, plus a TexMex taco place. 

There's even a Starbuck's inside the Forbidden City at Tiananmen Square. No doubt the last emperor, Pu Yi, would be rolling in his imperial grave had he not been brainwashed by the Communist, who deposed him and reduced him to a life as a humble gardener. 

Walk down Nanjing Road in Shanghai and you see not only huge Chinese department stores, but major shops selling Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Ermenegildo Zegna - or how about a Bentley automobile, or Mercedes Benz or BMW from the shining art deco showrooms of local Chinese auto dealers? Buicks and VWs (made in China) are everywhere. 

In a recent book that gives an excellent description of where China is today, (One Billion Customers by James McGregor), the author says the Chinese have "nothing to believe in but making money." And it is very apparent that a minority of those 1.3 billion people are upwardly mobile from the dreary life of 1979 I witnessed. But China is a social powder keg of haves and have nots, with state socialism being replaced by a Chinese brand of capitalism. 

How Long?

The question is - how long can the relatively few Communists (maybe a million or so that staff the police, military and government) keep the lid on. All this growing, glowing wealth for the many, still leaves the many more out in the cold. And once the more or less free market has been allowed to operate for a while in China - and it's going full steam now - when will the peoples, whose republic it is said to be, demand a voice in their own governance? 

Even as dissidents were subject to house arrest during Bush's visit, and even as President Hu refused to answer question about democracy from the foreign press, even as the press and media is totally controlled -  the seeds of freedom have been planted and, in my opinion, it's only a matter of time. 
Would I invest in this state controlled, corrupt economy? 

No. Not now. Not unless you have cash to gamble and lose and not unless you are very careful. But I will bet that the people of China will be free one day, perhaps sooner than  many think, when this last of the imperial dynasties -- the Communist dynasty -- finally disappears. 

That's the way that it looks from here -- back in the good old USA, 

BOB BAUMAN, Editor

PS: I was truly impressed with what I saw and learned in Hong Kong. This unique city-state offers the best of both worlds for an investor; the tradition of the rule of law and well developed financial institutions in an economy consistently rated as the freest in the world -- on the doorstep of China, the fastest growing economy in the world. For a complete audio record of what we heard and learned in Hong Kong and China, order The Sovereign Society's Far East Financial Expedition Audio Series at more than a 20% savings, a bargain available for the last time today, click here: 

LINK: Far East Financial Expedition Audio Series

* Comment Link: 
* U.S.- China Relations in the Wake of CNOOC. The Cato Institute. 
  LINK: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5135