Baltic Dry Index. 1340 +26
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE.
"When it becomes serious, you have to lie."
Jean-Claude Junker. Luxembourg Prime Minister
The Greek tragedy goes relentlessly on. One year on from the great Greek IMF – ECB “rescue”, Greece has all but entered a death spiral and without a default, is doomed to a decade or more of stagnation at best, contraction at worst. A tragedy of their own making, Greece should never have allowed Goldman Sachs in to rig their finances so that they could prematurely join the Euro over a decade ago. Tax and work shy Greece should never have been admitted either. Both sides now belatedly recognise the error of their past, except perhaps Goldman Sacks. It was God’s work to help ruin Greece. Since all the world and his dog know eventually a Greek “restructuring is coming, and all too likely an exit from the European Monetary Union, capital flight is heaped on top of all the other inquisition tribulations. Time to sell off some Greek islands to Germany? Rhodes?
Below, this week’s installment of the Fall of Miletus. Will the Euro as we know it live to 2015? For the record, as of this morning Spain still does not require a bailout, no way, never, impossible! Spain is not Portugal, Ireland, or Greece, who also never required a bailout until they did. Stay long precious metals. The world’s central banksters can’t tell the truth if their lives depended on it.
“We’re not discussing the exit of Greece from the euro area. This is a stupid idea -- no way.”
Jean-Claude Junker. Chairman of the euro-area finance ministers group.
MAY 9, 2011
Euro Nations Divided Over Greek Debt
Europe's debt crisis has returned full circle to the problem that started it over a year ago: How to save the malfunctioning Greek state from running out of money.
Greece has been slipping farther behind its targets for cutting its budget deficit and is expected to need nearly €30 billion ($43 billion) of extra financing for 2012, according to euro-zone officials.
The country's growing reliance on aid from other euro members is fueling a debate over whether Greece should hold talks with its private creditors about extending the maturity of its bonds, a step that Germany is quietly pushing but other euro nations are resisting.
Euro-zone finance ministers meeting in Brussels early next week are expected to debate Greece's debt burden, its need for additional aid, and its request for more time to meet its fiscal targets. Agreement on the increasingly thorny issues surrounding Greece's crisis could take months to reach, participants in the talks warn.
European governments are coming to accept that Greece will be a ward of its euro-zone peers for years to come. That prospect is politically painful to swallow, especially in Germany, where opposition to aiding Greece is mounting in parliament and among voters.
The alternative, however, is a messy debt default by Greece that could trigger a major international banking crisis, senior European policy makers say, comparable to the turmoil that followed the failure of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
Finance chiefs from the most important euro nations discussed Greece's problems—and other issues, including Portugal's imminent aid package—at informal talks in Luxembourg on Friday.
The gathering, one of many informal meetings of select European officials since the financial crisis began, turned into a media circus after Germany's Spiegel Online reported its existence Friday—and claimed it had been called because Greece was thinking of leaving the euro zone. The report sent the euro tumbling.
More.
Greece bailout fails to halt debt woes
Secret talks reveal Greece is unable to meet obligations under last year's €110bn eurozone rescue package
Sunday 8 May 2011 19.47 BST
The eurozone's first ever bailout of a debt-laden member country is failing and will need to be renegotiated exactly a year after the €110bn (£96bn) rescue package was agreed for Greece.
Following secret talks in Luxembourg on Friday between Athens and some of the key EU players, it emerged that Greece will not be able to meet the terms of last year's rescue and is hoping to ask the eurozone for more funds.
As Britain made clear it did not want to offer any more support for Greece as part of an EU package or a bilateral loan, investors remain unconvinced of the ability of Athens to sustain its €340bn debt load.
Signalling that his government will struggle to finance itself on the bond markets by next year – which was part of the deal struck with the eurozone and the IMF – the Greek finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, said: "We will either go out to markets or use the recent decision by the EU that allows the European fund to buy Greek bonds. The markets continue to disbelieve in our country."
His trip to Luxembourg had been kept so quiet in Athens that only the prime minister, George Papandreou, knew about the discussions, which were led by Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister and president of the group uniting the 17 countries using the single currency. Juncker confirmed that the Greek bailout would need to be renegotiated amid alarmist reports that the country was contemplating reintroducing the drachma.
After the talks – attended by the finance ministers of Germany, France, Italy and Spain as well as Olli Rehn, European monetary affairs commissioner – Juncker said the Greek package needed a "readjustment". Haggling over a new Greek deal is set to dominate the weeks ahead.
EU finance ministers will debate the topic next week and the Germans, in particular, are digging in their heels.
The chancellor, George Osborne, made clear that Britain felt it had done enough to support Greece. He told the Andrew Marr Show: "We certainly don't want to be part of any bailout of Greece, a second bailout. There are some very difficult questions that Greece has to address now because the whole assumption when the eurozone put together a rescue package last year was that Greece could come back into the market next year and borrow. The market is quite sceptical about that happening, and I suspect a lot of my time over the next few weeks is going to be with other European finance ministers and others talking about how we try and help the Greeks get through this situation."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/may/08/greece-faces-new-bailout-deal
Next, why charity needs to start at home for austerity strapped Great Britain. After multi decades on fiat currency, the party came to an end when its banks went bust in the financialised casino of derivatives gambling. Now as the baby boom generation heads towards an uncertain retirement, many retirees have no savings just unrepayable debt. Greek bailout anyone? Stay long precious metals. The next decade will not be like the last, which was like the one before it. Debt which cannot be repaid, gets restructured or defaulted on, whether sovereign debt or credit card debt.
"Gold was not selected arbitrarily by governments to be the monetary standard. Gold had developed for many centuries on the free market as the best money; as the commodity providing the most stable and desirable monetary medium."
Murray N. Rothbard
UK faces £9 trillion savings shortfall
Britons need to save £16,700 more per year to live comfortably, cover long-term care costs, and pay back debts in their retirement.
By Josephine Moulds 6:00AM BST 09 May 2011
The country faces a staggering £9 trillion shortfall in savings to support the next generation after they stop work, according to a report from the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII).
"Currently, many pre-retirees have little savings and carry the burden of significant debts just at a time when their incomes are about to fall," it says.
A spokesman for the CII added: "A lot of people are going to have their assets depleted by parents' long-term care costs or their own."
The report says the average care home costs £26,000 per year and the average stay is two years, although a significant proportion of people stay for more than four.
That will rocket as people start to live longer. The proportion of very old people will grow the fastest, says the report, with the number of people over 90 expected to nearly treble over the next 20 years.
The CII insists the taxpayer will only be able to foot part of the bill.
Steve Webb, minister for pensions, agrees: "The next generation will face a different world, with increasing life expectancy, the decline in final salary schemes and lower annuity rates. They are going to have to take greater responsibility for saving for their retirement."
Pensioners currently only receive 30pc of their former salary on average during retirement, says the OECD.
It believes that needs to rise to around 70pc for people to enjoy a similar standard of living in retirement as when they were working.
But not everyone in modern Britain is reaping the wrath that fiat currency sowed. For some the gamed, central bank’s system works just fine.
"The paper standard is self-destructive."
Hans F. Sennholz
Sunday Times Rich List 2011: Fortunes of super-rich soar
The richest people in Britain have seen their fortunes soar by a fifth in the past year even as much of the UK is struggling to recover from the recession.
By Steven Swinford 9:35AM BST 07 May 2011
The 2011 Sunday Times Rich List, published this weekend, reveals that the 1,000 wealthiest people in the country are now worth a combined £395.8 billion, equivalent to more than a third of the national debt.
The number of billionaires has risen from 53 to 73, while nine people have seen their fortunes rise by £1 billion or more during the past 12 months alone.
The soaring fortunes of Britain's wealthiest men and women have put them within striking distance of the pre-recession boom in 2008, when there were 75 billionaires and the 1,000 wealthiest people were worth £413 billion.
Lakshmi Mittal, the steel tycoon, is again Britain’s richest man but, surprisingly, is also the biggest loser. The global financial crisis has seen his fortune fall by a fifth to £17 billion. Alisher Usmanov, the Russian mining magnate, has risen to become Britain’s second richest man after more than doubling his wealth to £12.4 billion.
His fellow countryman, Roman Abramovich, has slipped into third and is worth £10 billion. The Duke of Westminster, the wealthiest Britain, has fallen outside the top three for the first time since 1999 with a fortune of £7 billion.
More.
In other distressing news this morning, despite lying directly on the ring of fire earthquake zone, and having a reputation for covering up problems in its nuclear industry, Japan plans more nuclear power plants with better earthquake defences. So that’s alright then “at the moment”.
Japan will not abandon nuclear power despite crisis
Atomic power will remain a major part of Japan's energy policy despite the ongoing crisis at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima plant and the looming shutdown of another plant while its earthquake defences are improved
5:48PM BST 08 May 2011
There is "no need to worry" about other reactors, Yoshito Sengoku, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary said. "Scientifically, that's our conclusion at the moment."
The government evaluated Japan's 54 reactors for quake and tsunami vulnerability after the March 11 disasters that heavily damaged the Fukushima plant in northeast Japan.
Chubu Electric Power Co., which runs the Hamaoka plant in central Japan, is still considering the government's request to shut the reactors while a seawall is built and backup systems to protect the reactors from a major earthquake and tsunami are improved.
Nuclear energy provides more than one-third of Japan's electricity, and shutting the three reactors would be likely to worsen power shortages expected this summer.
"With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people."
F.A. von Hayek
At the Comex silver depositories Friday, final figures were: Registered 32.94 Moz, Eligible 69.07 Moz, Total 102.01 Moz.
+++++
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, what a way to run a war. The triumph of locating and killing Osama bin Laden was tarnished by the way the US administration attempted to spi the news for political advantage. Then a disastrous slanging match started between America and Pakistan. Now it’s degenerating into where real people could start getting killed. Is this really any way to be running the war against terror in next door Afghanistan?
When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
MAY 9, 2011
Pakistan-U.S. Rift Widens
TV Station, Newspaper Name Man They Say Is CIA Station Chief in Islamabad
Pakistani media aired the name of a man they said is the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief, prompting questions about whether the Pakistani government tried to out a CIA operative in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden.
The U.S. is looking into the matter. There are no plans at this time to withdraw the station chief. If the government had attempted to publicize the name, that would be the second such outing in the past six months, a sign of how deeply U.S.-Pakistan relations have soured.
The CIA declined to comment. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency didn't respond to a request for comment.
Tensions, which have been building between the two countries for months, exploded after the bin Laden strike, which sharply embarrassed the Pakistani government. In another source of strain, the U.S. is pressing the Pakistanis for access to bin Laden's three wives, who are being held in Pakistani custody. The Pakistani government isn't complying with the request, a U.S. official said.
The Islamabad station chief is one of the CIA's most critical and sensitive assignments. The position oversees the agency's covert programs, including the drone campaign that targets al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, as well as fighters who cross the border into Afghanistan.
The purported name of the CIA's station chief was first reported Friday by ARY, a private Pakistani television channel. The station was reporting on a meeting between the director of Pakistan's spy service—the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence—and the station chief.
"If we did not mention the man's name, the credibility of the story would have been reduced," said ARY's Islamabad bureau chief, Sabir Shakir.
----A former senior U.S. intelligence official said any outing of agents would be Pakistan's "own little way of retaliating," given how "very, very upset and embarrassed" the government remains over the raid and its aftermath.
----A former senior U.S. intelligence official said any outing of agents would be Pakistan's "own little way of retaliating," given how "very, very upset and embarrassed" the government remains over the raid and its aftermath.
-----The Pakistanis, for their part, suggested the U.S. should ease up. "Could the pattern of bullying and then trying to give a lot of honey after having served a lot of vinegar, is that partly the reason why the patient is unwell?" said Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S., on a separate CNN show.
Speaking on ABC News, Mr. Haqqani sidestepped a question about U.S. access to the bin Laden wives. "This is a moment for me to be very diplomatic," he said. "What we do, Mr. Donilon will know."
There never was a good war or a bad peace.
Benjamin Franklin
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished April:
DJIA: +182 Up. NASDAQ: +236 Up. SP500: +185 Up.
The Dow and SP 500 and NASDAQ have all reversed from down to up. The Fed’s rigging of the indicators seems to have worked. Note: like all indicators, they were devised for normal markets not markets where the central bank is flooding the economy with new cash. In current conditions where risk is suspended by too big to fail, I doubt any indicators are showing more that where the Fed’s new cash is flowing in our world of casino capitalism.
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