Baltic Dry Index. 723 -08
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs
One of the queries Quakers are asked to consider, is: "Do you maintain strict integrity in your business transactions and in your relations with individuals and organizations? Are you personally scrupulous and responsible in the use of money entrusted to you, and are you careful not to defraud the public revenue?"
Probably why there a no Quakers on Wall Street.
With rising disgust across Europe at Germany’s diktats on Greece, and visible daily increasing signs of distress among the Greek public, German politicians blinked first yesterday in their standoff with Greece. A Greek Friday night exit from the euro now is postponed from tonight, although if someone doesn’t pass Greece some money fast a default next month is still highly likely. Below, Germany scrambles back from forcing a Greek exit but with its reputation in tatters. If this is a German lead Europe, nobody needs it.
Bah humbug!
Chancellor Merkel, with apologies to Ebenezer Scrooge.
FEBRUARY 17, 2012
Germany, Bank Ease Tensions on Bailout
A debt restructuring and second bailout for Greece appeared likely to go ahead according to plan, as German officials on Thursday scrapped an idea to pressure Greece by withholding part of the bailout and the European Central Bank developed a plan to protect its holdings of Greek bonds from the restructuring.
Weeks of uncertainty about the fate of the bailout—inflamed by the last-minute idea of splitting it in two— have unnerved investors seeking assurance that euro-zone governments and the International Monetary Fund will approve the second bailout and prevent a chaotic Greek default in March.
Euro-zone officials had been considering the idea of approving only enough of the €130 billion ($169.9 billion) loan package needed to launch a bond swap with Greece's private-sector creditors. The idea gained momentum after some Greek politicians who voted for the new austerity legislation on Monday morning—a condition set by the euro zone and the IMF for handing over the second loan package—said the measures could be renegotiated later.
----Greece is planning to introduce collective-action clauses into its bond contracts that will allow a majority of its bondholders to force all holders to participate in the exchange. To ensure its bonds aren't forced into the exchange, the ECB, which holds around €50 billion of Greek bonds, will swap its existing bonds for new Greek bonds that won't contain these clauses, a person familiar with the situation said Thursday.
ECB officials have steadfastly refused to take losses on their Greek bonds, saying their charter forbids the central bank from financing governments. Instead, the bank is likely to redistribute profit it will earn when its Greek bonds are repaid in full
More
Next, the grim reality forced austerity has brought to Greece.
Just as Greece complies at last, Europe pulls the plug
Officials from the EU and the International Monetary Fund made two grave errors when they swooped into Greece in mid-2010 and dictated the now hated "Memorandum".
The regime of drastic cuts has tipped the economy into a violent downward spiral. They thought that private industry would muddle through as the state went through the austerity mincer. What the EU-IMF "Troika" did not fully understand is how many firms were really part of the state in disguise.
"The Greek government outsources everything," said one official with close knowledge of the events.
Faced with the guillotine, the state first slashed procurement contracts and then stopped paying its bills altogether. The government is now €7bn (£5.8bn) in arrears to private companies, including €3bn in unpaid VAT refunds for exporters. It is why business has borne the brunt of the fiscal squeeze, suffering 450,000 job losses, and why Greece's unemployment has soared to 21pc.
At the same time the banking system seized up. More than €60bn of deposits were withdrawn. By November, no Greek bank could issue a letter of credit accepted anywhere in the world, with calamitous implications for trade – and for exporters trying to meet Troika demands for export-led recovery. "Greece became a leper, and is now stuck in Catch-22," said one official.
Hellenic Petroleum was unable to import basic fuel. The reason why Greece's reliance on oil imports from Iran jumped from 15pc to 70pc in a two-week period in November was because Tehran agreed to take on the credit risk.
China wants say in World Bank choice
By Simon Rabinovitch in Beijing February 16, 2012 3:54 pm
China has said that the next World Bank president should be chosen on merit, seeking to challenge a tradition that the bank’s chief be a US citizen, though it did not suggest a candidate.
Robert Zoellick said on Wednesday that he would step down in June at the end of a five-year term as bank president. Speculation has focused on Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, and Larry Summers, former White House chief economic adviser, as potential successors.
Emerging markets have said before that there is no justification for the custom of reserving the bank’s top position for an American. Some wonder whether China, the world’s second-largest economy, might put forward a candidate.
“China hopes that the next president of the World Bank will be selected based on the principle of merit in an open and fair competition,” Liu Weimin, foreign ministry spokesman, said in a news briefing.
That was also China’s position last year when the International Monetary Fund was searching for a new chief, a job which has traditionally gone to a European. However, Beijing did not proposed a candidate for that position and, in the end, it supported the appointment of France’s Christine Lagarde.
More
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/805a0ce2-58af-11e1-b9c6-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1mcqWHl4o
"Until government administrators can so identify the interests of government with those of the people and refrain from defrauding the masses through the device of currency depreciation for the sake of remaining in office, the wiser ones will prefer to keep as much of their wealth in the most stable and marketable forms possible - forms which only the precious metals provide."
Elgin Groseclose
Chinese goldbugs to overtake India as world's biggest gold consumers
China will this year topple India as the world's biggest gold consumer, as demand for the metal as both a "safe haven" and to use for jewellery keeps growing, according to the World Gold Council.
The industry body said 770 tonnes of gold were bought in China last year, 20pc more than in 2010. That left the world's second biggest economy trailing only India, with 933 tonnes bought.
Rising incomes in China mean that in addition to greater purchasing power for gold jewellery, people are increasingly turning to the precious metal as an investment, particularly given the weakness of the country's property sector.
Worldwide demand for gold last year hit 4,067 tonnes, worth an estimated $205.5bn - the first time the figure has passed the $200bn mark. Investment buying drove the rise, with demand up 5pc on the previous year.
Germany and Switzerland were the main drivers of growth in gold demand in Europe, as the continued eurozone turmoil saw people turning to the metal as a store for their wealth.
Central banks remained net buyers of the metal. Their purchases rose from 77 tonnes in 2010 to 440 tonnes, seen as reflecting a need to protect national wealth.
Gold demand tops $200bn in 2011 – WGC
6th February 2012
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Global gold demand topped the $200-billion mark for the first time ever in 2011, with demand increasing to 4 067 t, the World Gold Council (WGC) reported on Thursday.
This was also the highest tonnage level since 1997.
The WGC said that the main driver for this increase was the investment sector, where yearly demand reached 1 640 t during the year, up 5% from the previous record set in 2010, and valued at around $82.9-billion.
Demand for gold bars and coins also continued to be robust, climbing by 24% to 1 486 t.
India remained the largest source for demand with 933 t, which the WGC said was notable, considering the volatility of the gold price and the weakness of the Indian rupee against the US dollar during the second half of the year.
----In China, yearly demand of 769.8 t was up 20% year-on-year as a result of increases in both jewellery and investment. The largest rise was in investment, where demand of 258.9 t with the value of RMB84.5-billion leapt 69%.
Chinese jewellery demand increased every quarter of last year and was the largest single jewellery market worldwide for the second half of 2011.
The WGC noted that Europe also showed a surge in demand, with the region posting is seventh consecutive yearly gain at 374.8 t.
More
http://www.miningweekly.com/article/gold-demand-tops-200bn-in-2011---wgc-2012-02-16
“What we can see from these 2011 figures is that there were two main factors driving the results: Asian growth and optimism on the one hand and western desire to protect assets against uncertainty on the other. Looking particularly at Asia, there was a major boost to the overall figures from the increase in Chinese demand, which is a trend that we see continuing over the next year. It is likely that China will emerge as the largest gold market in the world for the first time in 2012 demand terms. What is certain is that the long-term fundamentals for gold remain strong, with a diverse and growing demand base, coupled with constrained supply side activity.”
Marcus Grubb, Managing Director, Investment World Gold Council.
At the Comex silver depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 34.50 Moz, Eligible 94.82 Moz, Total 129.32 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
No squids and bankster crooks today, though there’s plenty hitting the news on both sides of the Atlantic. No today the spotlight is on Tesco, the UK’s leading giant supermarket chain by far. Ever wonder how they make all those billions in profits.
Because sometimes the only way you can feel good about yourself is by making someone else look bad. And I'm tired of making other people feel good about themselves.
Phil Clarke, with apologies to Homer Simpson.
Simon English: It's not slavery – you get a job interview at Tesco
Friday 17 February 2012
Outlook This is from a Job Centre in East Anglia offering night shifts at Tesco in return for Job Seeker's Allowance – ie nothing.
Tesco says: "The advert is a mistake caused by an IT error by Jobcentre Plus and is being rectified. It is an advert for work experience with a guaranteed job interview at the end of it as part of a government-led work experience scheme."
So it's happy to exploit young people seeking "work experience" in return for a "guaranteed job interview" (gee, thanks) but it doesn't take part in the mandatory JSA scheme that sees the unemployed bullied into slavery in return for keeping their benefits.
Tesco got slapped all over Twitter for this egregious advert yesterday and credit where it is due, it turns out not to be quite as mean as it could be.
The truth is that Tesco gives a higher level of basic pay than other supermarkets – £7 an hour and they are fools to themselves – and its benefits package remains one of the best around.
Still, no one had any difficulty in believing that Tesco was happy to endorse servitude.
The chief executive Phil Clarke might want to think about why this is so.
Read
I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
Jerome K Jerome
Another weekend, and for those not standing in line to get jobs at Tesco paying £7.00 an hour before tax, another weekend to try guessing just when Greece crashes out of the euro closing Europe’s banks for a bank holiday. Memo to self get out some more cash. It’s the last weekend too to feast and party. At least for the world’s Christians heading into Lent next week. Memo to self finish off the champagne. Have a great weekend everyone. Good luck at Tesco’s.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished January:
DJIA: +116 Down. NASDAQ: +119 Down. SP500: +90 Down.
The Dow and SP 500 and NASDAQ have all reversed from up to down.
To continue reading subscribe to the LIR at Currency Countdown.
http://www.proedgenet.com/Subscribe/Subscription.php?id=LIR2
No comments:
Post a Comment