Baltic Dry Index. 3423 -91
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $3,000.
World Cup Odds. Who will be World Campion 2010?
http://world-cup.betting-directory.com/
"....for land that's dry and unfruitful will give you good crops, if you put on enough manure....I mean, your grace's words have been like manure spread on the barren ground of my dry and uncultivated mind."
Don Quixote.
Later today in the Republic of South Africa, the much hyped, long awaited World Cup Football Tournament finally gets underway. A month long, multi-billion dollar global spectacle, watched everywhere on the planet except the USA, where baseball is the national game, a derivative of cricket, now largely supplanted by the better promoted American Football, a derivative of the game of Rugby. Tomorrow, team USA takes on England seeking to repeat a 1950 upset against one of the world’s forever underachieving powerhouse teams. Don’t talk to the English about taking penalties. With the world diverted, the great vampire squids and their high frequency trading programs have a license to steal for a month. For more on the World Cup, scroll down to the Crooks and Scoundrel’s section.
In business news, China’s exports are unexpectedly booming, according to figures released yesterday, somewhat flattered by the same period in 2009. America’s politicians are furious threatening tariffs while below, US Treasury Secretary Geithner completely mis-states the actual position with China.
"The fate of the nation and the fate of the currency are one and the same."
Dr. Franz Pick
China export surge stirs U.S. anger
By Alan Beattie and Geoff Dyer, FT.com June 11, 2010 -- Updated 0047 GMT
A surge in Chinese exports and rising anger in the US Congress will put renewed pressure on China to allow its currency to rise against the US dollar.
Chinese trade figures showed exports leaping by 48.5 per cent in May over the year before, way ahead of analysts' forecasts.
-----The data gave more ammunition to China's critics in the US Congress, who have said they will proceed with legislation to restrict Chinese imports to correct the perceived misalignment of the country's currency. The US Treasury has been pursuing quiet diplomacy with Beijing to allow the renminbi to rise, but lawmakers said they were losing patience.
Charles Schumer, New York senator and the third most senior Democrat in the Senate, said he would seek to have his bill made into law within two weeks unless he saw signs of action from Beijing. "We need to take stronger action than this back-and-forth," he told Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary, who was testifying to the Senate finance committee.
Mr Geithner said it was important for China to understand that the legislative move in the US had very broad support. "I think the strength of the sentiment in Congress is overwhelmingly strong, it's bipartisan and it reflects how important this is to the United States," he said.
However, Mr Geithner argued that China's trade surplus had fallen by around half as a share of its gross domestic product over the past two years, and said that US exports to China had been rising sharply. "As we emerge from the global financial crisis, US exports to China have rebounded much more rapidly than overall US exports, and are now running 20 per cent above their pre-crisis levels," he said.
-----The strong increase in Chinese exports announced on Thursday meant that China recorded a trade surplus in May of $19.5bn, significantly larger than the $1.7bn surplus reported in April and March's modest trade deficit. With house prices still rising in China, the trade data will also renew discussion about whether the economy is overheating.
Coming after Taiwan also announced strong export figures for May, Ben Simpfendorfer, an economist at RBS in Hong Kong, said the case for an appreciation in the Chinese currency was becoming stronger again. The numbers "suggest that global imbalances are worsening again, after earlier improvement," he said. "The trade data argues for an early move on the currency."
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/06/10/china.export.us.anger.ft/index.html?hpt=T2
US trade deficit hits 16-month high
The US trade deficit rose to a 16-month high in April as exports continued to fall, in part blamed on growing economic woes across the euro-zone.
By James Quinn Published: 6:34PM BST 10 Jun 2010
The world's largest economy recorded a deficit of $40.3bn (£27.5bn) the month before last, up by 0.6pc from March.
The US Commerce Department said that US exports dropped by 0.6pc, while imports declined by 0.4pc.
Trade with China also continued to fall, with the deficit growing to $19.31bn in April from $16.9bn in the previous month. The increase came as exports with China fell by $813m but imports rose by $1.61bn.
"Foreign trade is likely to be a drag on growth in the second quarter… as it was in the first quarter. Both exports and imports should rise, but imports are outpacing exports as the US recovery pulls in imported finished goods and materials," said Nigel Gault, chief US economist at IHS Global Insight.
Meanwhile, the number of Americans filing unemployment benefit claims fell to the lowest level in 18 months in the first week of June, as the US labour market slowly improved. The number of first-time claims fell by 3,000 to 456,000 - the preceding week's level was revised upward to 459,000 from 453,000.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7818502/US-trade-deficit-hits-16-month-high.html
I take China’s figures as indicative rather than accurate, rather like US figures since the Clinton administration took several country miles, where his predecessors were content to merely take a mile compiling the figures. However, I note that 2010s early strong rally in the Baltic Dry Index, which was supportative to the idea of a Chinese economy going flat out, has lately been falling again, suggesting that the global economy has hit a wobble. I think probably related to the currency turmoil, sweeping Europe, read Euro devaluation, now China’s largest single trading partner. With the Euro devaluing against the dollar and China still maintaining the yuan link to the dollar, effectively Europe, read Germany, is devaluing against America and China simultaneously. That’s great for German exports and bad for America and China’s exports, while for the rest of the EU it probably prices out and slows the EU import demand from both. It’s a funny old world on lying, cheating, fiat currencies, which are all in the competitive process of working their way down to intrinsic value.
I think US Treasury Secretary Geithner’s mischaracterization of the state of the US trade deficit with China, will fool no politician’s in America, now well worked up with the coming mid-term elections this November. My guess is that this summer will see more anti-China tariffs pass in America, and a three way currency crisis break out between, the Euro-the dollar-the Yuan. Stay long precious metals. Barring a miracle in Toronto at the G-20 meeting June 26-27, or more likely at the G-8 meeting in Huntsville June 25, the long festering currency cancer of the fiat currency, dollar reserve standard, is about to go critical, this summer and fall. Below, Bloomberg on China’s limited room to accommodate America at all.
China Reaches Lewis Turning Point as Labor Costs Rise
June 11 (Bloomberg) -- Shenzhen Jufeng Handicraft Co. was so eager to ensure employees returned to work after February’s Lunar New Year holiday that it threw them a party, handed out gifts and bused workers to homes 1,000 kilometers away.
“We needed to do more to make them stay,” said Sunny Jia, sales manager of the Shenzhen-based company, which makes linen, leather bags and cabinets for such customers as Oscar Collections Ltd. in the U.K. “All our customers wanted orders shipped within a month.”
China, once an abundant provider of low-cost workers, is heading for the so-called Lewis turning point, when surplus labor evaporates, pushing up wages, consumption and inflation, said Huang Yiping, former chief Asia economist at Citigroup Inc. The result may prompt manufacturers to switch to cheaper countries such as India and Vietnam.
“If the first decade of the 21st century saw China rapidly rising as a global manufacturing center, the post-Lewis turning point could see the opposite,” said Huang, an economics professor at Peking University in Beijing. “Global manufacturing activities concentrated in China today may find their way elsewhere.”
Shenzhen Jufeng’s efforts to retain workers, strikes at Honda Motor Co. factories and a 100 percent wage rise at Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.’s Shenzhen plants are signs of the watershed, named after the late Nobel Prize-winning economist W. Arthur Lewis. The point marks where manufacturing competitiveness and the pace of growth begin to turn down as labor costs rise.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZGJ0mc_Dm5o&pos=6
Next if BP, read BP’s American division that drilled the now infamous GOM well, is hounded into becoming the “next Lehman” across the summer, the global fall out to the holders of BP’s debt and stock, will probably be the trigger event that ends fiat currency as we know it. Below, more on BP and America’s "we’re all victim’s" legal culture. Sadly the world’s top economy killing itself via banksterism and lawyerism, helped along by profligate politicians and fiat currency. Still, I don’t see any winners except the lawyers.
First the Spill, Then the Lawsuits
By JOHN SCHWARTZ Published: June 10, 2010
“Oil spill damages? You May Be Entitled to Compensation,” reads a billboard in LaFourche Parish, Louisiana.
It is just one of the tactics lawyers are using to sign up clients to sue BP, along with running advertisements on Gulf Coast television stations, buying Internet addresses like GulfOilSpillLawFirm.com, and holding informational seminars — with free food and drinks — for those who feel the oil company owes them something.
Lawyers across the nation have filed nearly 200 lawsuits so far related to the April 20 oil disaster, including death and injury claims for those aboard the rig, claims of damage and economic loss for people whose livelihoods are threatened by the slick, and shareholder suits over BP’s plunging stock. Cases have even been filed on behalf of the oil-coated fish and birds. Lawyers also plan to file a civil racketeering action alleging a corporate conspiracy with the Bush administration.
At a seminar on Tuesday evening at the Emerald Grande hotel in Destin, Fla., 150 residents and business owners heard a presentation by two lawyers, Robert J. McKee of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Stuart H. Smith of New Orleans, about dealing with the BP claims process.
Mr. Smith, who had flown his private plane from his home in New Orleans for the event, called the continuing gusher under the gulf “a disaster on the installment plan.”
They introduced a team of experts they have assembled to fight BP in court, including accountants, an oceanographer, chemist and toxicologist, and explained to the audience how to gather records to improve their chances.
Mr. McKee’s advice to the group — and it was just advice, because he had to stay on the proper side of the ethical line that bars solicitation of clients — was blunt. Should they decide to sue, he said, “You find someone competent who can kick their butt and take what is owed to you for full, fair and honest compensation.”
Because thousands of plaintiffs’ lawyers from across the country are trying to join in the kicking, consolidation of the federal suits is almost certain. The decision will be made, oddly enough, some 2,000 miles away from the Gulf Coast, by a panel of judges meeting on July 29 in Boise, Idaho, to manage what is known as multidistrict litigation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/us/11liability.html?hp
BP’s board has a strict legal duty to its owners and to hire the best expertise for its projects. Its US legal duty is to comply with US law as written and interpreted through case law. At some point ahead, BP London, will be getting advice from the US attorneys advising it, to seek to put BP America, what was the old US companies Amoco, ARCO, AMPM, and Sohio, into chapter 11 to preserve the assets, profits and cash flow to cover the real legally authorised damage from the well disaster. Paying for US politicians and lawyers wish of re-election speculative damages, isn’t going to be possible, as will soon become apparent. When the recommendation comes, BP’s board will be probably be only too happy to comply. If you think UK-US relations are strained now, just wait until BP really starts to implode. Their implosion will likely take industry valuations and financing with them. From where I sit, the GOM disaster will hit both locally and far from the scene of the crime.
Below, the New York Times covers the unfolding politics of the growing trans Atlantic rift. But then no one in Britain is unable to work because of BP America’s gross error. Since after the first week, the LIR has been harping on the under-estimation of the disaster unfolding, especially on this side of the Atlantic. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that BP Houston has been economical with the truth all along. BP St James’ Square, too remote, from the reality that was unfolding along “the Red Neck Riviera.” Sadly in my time in North America, I never got to visit this wonderful part of America.
U.S. Fury at BP Stirs Backlash Among British
By SARAH LYALL and JULIA WERDIGIER Published: June 10, 2010
LONDON — Spewing oil and alienating Americans with its chief executive’s impolitic remarks, BP may be Public Enemy No. 1 in the United States. But in Britain, where the company is a mainstay of the stock market and a favorite of pension funds, investors and politicians are becoming increasingly angry at the blistering attacks from across the Atlantic.
BP’s share price, even after recovering some ground in New York trading on Thursday, has fallen more than 40 percent since the environmental catastrophe in April, and some analysts say the crisis could lead to the takeover or even the bankruptcy of one of Britain’s most valuable and iconic companies.
In that atmosphere, the stream of condemnations from Washington has stirred a protective backlash, even in this closest of American allies. Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor of London, said Thursday that he was worried about “anti-British rhetoric” and “name-calling” from American politicians.
“When you consider the huge exposure of British pension funds to BP, it starts to become a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the airwaves,” Mr. Johnson told BBC radio’s Today program.
Prime Minister David Cameron refused to criticize the United States, however, saying he sympathized with its “frustration” in dealing with its worst environmental disaster in memory. But the chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, signaled careful support for BP, saying that he had spoken to its chief executive, Tony Hayward, and that it was important to remember “the economic value BP brings to people in Britain and America.”
BP is the third largest oil company in the world, after ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, with 80,000 employees worldwide as of last December, sales of $239 billion in 2009 and a market value — even after the recent losses — of more than $100 billion. At a time when Britain is desperate to reduce its deficit, BP is a huge contributor to British tax revenue, paying nearly $1.4 billion in taxes on its profits last year.
Its reputation for reliability and its generous dividends have long made it a favorite of British pension funds. The company’s dividend payments accounted for about 13 percent of the dividends handed out by British companies last year, according to FairPensions, a London-based charity.
Some Britons are irked at President Obama’s seeming determination to refer to the company as “British Petroleum” — even though it jettisoned that name in favor of initials years ago. In any case, they point out, it is truly a multinational company, traded on both the New York and London stock exchanges, with British and American nationals on its board of directors.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/business/11bp.html?hp
We end for the day with confirmation with what has been apparent to many in the oil calamity, since the US Coastguard first abandoned the position that the BOP had held and the well wasn’t leaking at all. The estimates of the amount of oil leaked has been grossly under estimated all along. It will be interesting to see who made the wrong estimates and why, although the suspicion is very much that it was BP in Houston and because it was to their advantage, although why the US Coastguard and the MMS would just meekly accept uncritically accept such a BP estimate, if they did, also need to be questioned.
Anger rises along with spill size estimate
Latest official estimates put it at up to 1.7 million gallons per day
By JENNIFER LATSON and JENNIFER A. DLOUHY HOUSTON CHRONICLE June 10, 2010, 11:24PM
Oil is flowing from a blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico almost twice as fast — at minimum — as estimated previously, although some of it is now being captured, federal officials said Thursday.
Their estimates now range from 20,000 to 40,000 barrels per day, said U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt — well above the most recent estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day, and vastly higher than BP's original reckoning of 1,000 to 5,000 barrels in the days after the April 20 blowout.
The high end of the estimate, 40,000 barrels, would represent almost 1.7 million gallons a day.
The new numbers estimate the rate before underwater robots cut a bent riser pipe that once connected the Macondo well, a mile below the Gulf's surface, with the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded after the blowout, killing 11 workers.
Cutting the riser pipe on June 3 temporarily increased the total flow, but BP now is catching more than 15,000 barrels a day through a new pipe that was attached to the severed riser the next day.
BP is preparing in the next few days to siphon more oil from the spewing wellhead.
And as it tries to slow down the amount of oil surging into the Gulf, the company agreed to speed up payments to businesses and residents affected by the spill, responding to public outcry and government pressure.
BP also promised to take into account that many of the industries most affected by the spill — including fishing and tourism — make the bulk of their income in the summer months.
“We wanted to make sure they are calculating the damages to those individuals based on the earnings they would get in that short period of time, not dividing an annual salary by 12,” said Tracy Wareing, with the National Incident Command coordinating spill response.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7047151.html
Live video feed.
"All of the government's monetary, economic and political power, as well as its extensive propaganda machinery, will be enlisted in a constant battle to drive down the price of gold - but in the absence of any fundamental change in the nation's monetary, fiscal, and economic direction, simply regard any major retreat in the price of gold as an unexpected buying opportunity."
Irwin A. Schiff
At the Comex silver depositories Thursday, final figures were: Registered 52.34 Moz, Eligible 65.59 Moz, Total 117.93 Moz.
+++++
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, as World Cup football madness grips the planet and even Al Qaeda and the Taliban settle down in front of flat screen TVs to sip a coke and watch the latest news from the Republic of South Africa, we report on World Cup Fever sweeping the normally reserved, understated, bashful land between the once shining seas.
In the aftermath of South Korea’s infamous second round win over Italy at the 2002 World Cup, Perugia’s loopy president Luciano Gaucci sacked Ahn Jung-Hwan, who had scored the Golden Goal to knock the Azzurri out. Gaucci would later reverse his decision.
"That gentleman will never set foot in Perugia again,” boomed Gaucci. "He was a phenomenon only when he played against Italy.
"I am a nationalist and I regard such behaviour not only as an affront to Italian pride but also an offence to a country which two years ago opened its doors to him. "I have no intention of paying a salary to someone who has ruined Italian soccer."
Nation's Soccer Fan Becoming Insufferable
June 4, 2010
WILMINGTON, DE—As the 2010 World Cup approaches, friends, family, and coworkers of 32-year-old Brad Janovich are growing less tolerant of the exuberant behavior of the United States' lone soccer fan.
"Who's got World Cup fever?" Janovich asked his officemates at Credit Solutions Friday, failing to notice their silent stares as he reported for work clad in the sole Team USA jersey sold this year. "I do! I've got World Cup fever!"
"Check out this World Cup wall chart I just bought," added Janovich, who is the only American citizen currently aware that the World Cup begins June 11.
According to sources only peripherally aware of the World Cup, Janovich's infuriating behavior first became apparent during a Super Bowl viewing party last February when he repeatedly used the phrase "American football" to describe the action on the field. In recent weeks, Janovich has also begun referring to the supposed suspense involved in choosing the players for the U.S. "side," and has struck up several extended but one-sided conversations concerning figures such as "Kaka" and "Ronaldinho," generally mystifying and alienating everyone he has come into contact with.
Yesterday Janovich sent an office-wide e-mail about the controversy surrounding the new World Cup ball, and the message was instantly deleted by all of his coworkers.
"Decorating his cubicle with World Cup stuff is fine, I guess," said coworker Greg Lafferty, who endured several elevator rides in which he politely listened to the lone American soccer fan evaluate international matchups before realizing that Janovich was discussing the outcomes of soccer games and not impending wars. "I myself have a Yankees pennant at my desk. But Brad has all these scarves draped all over everything. They hang into other people's areas, and when they ask him to move them, he responds by explaining what the scarf means. It's driving us nuts."
"Last week he was talking about how 'footy' was really heating up and asked me to come over for the 'friendly' against Turkey," said Janovich's friend Beth Gleason, who has known the only projected U.S. viewer of this year's World Cup broadcast since college. "I love Brad, I really do, but when he talks like that I want to punch him in the goddamn face. Especially because, when I asked him what he was talking about, he just said the same thing again, only slower. I was like, 'Brad, don't talk like that. People don't talk like that.'"
With only a week to go, Janovich's singular, almost unconscionable degree of soccer fanhood has only intensified. Credit Solutions employees reported that a crude "World Cup countdown calendar" appeared on the break room wall Friday, the same day that everyone in Janovich's division arrived to find him wearing Umbro soccer shorts and placing a World Cup bracket on every desk.
In addition, coworkers reported that it is not uncommon for Janovich to spontaneously start humming or singing repeated snatches of songs evidently composed exclusively of the sound "olé" while seated at his desk.
"I had absolutely no idea what 'FIFA South Africa 2010' meant," said Lafferty, who made the mistake of asking Janovich to explain. "When he told me that's where the soccer games were and that the time difference meant he'd be getting up early to watch them, all I could think was that maybe he'd be too tired to talk about them afterward."
Janovich has also extended invitations to everyone he knows to accompany him to the Newgate, a pub in downtown Wilmington that will be showing the World Cup live and is favored by British expatriates.
"It'll be nice to finally be among other fans," Janovich said. "And speaking as a fan, it's really great to see Hotspur and Arsenal and Aston Villa supporters all come together for the Three Lions, though I'm hoping the Yanks can channel the spirit of the 1950 shock horror. But that's not as important as uniting in our love of the Beautiful Game, as any football [sic] fan will tell you."
more.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/nations-soccer-fan-becoming-insufferable,17553/
"I will aim for Lehmann's head. It either falls off or the ball goes in."
Argentina's Carlos Tevez reveals his penalty technique before the quarter-final with Germany. Sadly, he never got the chance after two team-mates missed in the shoot-out.
My apologies to all, who can’t stand football, but with a late uncle who once played for Scotland, Rangers, West Ham and Arsenal, and in 1947 at Hampden Park, in the first of only two Great Britain teams that have ever taken the field, to beat the Rest of the World 6 – 1, I can’t let the opportunity pass without some mention of the only world series really living up to the name, and without remembering a wonderful uncle from my past, “red” Archie Macaulay.
We are spoiled for choice. Tomorrow, Trooping the Colour at Horse Guards Parade, for H.M.’s official birthday, Hilary Clinton take note of the correct date, later England v USA, where being Scots, this time out I will support underdog USA, though not in the final should botyh get that far. Sunday, Formula 1 from the great North American city of Montreal, a gem of a Canadian city that deserves a higher international profile, and then next week Royal Ascot. And all the time Glorious June, a time to visit God’s woods, countryside and parks. Have a great weekend everyone.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished May:
DJIA: +276 UP. NASDAQ: +499 UP. SP500: +304 UP. The great Bull market goes on with the all three continuing higher in positive numbers, but is now under serious pressure.
Help the LIR fight Banksterism, the EU, and for sound money.
If you can, help the LIR stay around and make a difference. Please make a donation at the PayPal link on the website or better still become a sponsor for what looks like an exciting 2010. Capitalism not banksterism. Many thanks to all who have helped.
No comments:
Post a Comment