Baltic Dry Index. 1012 -22
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
For more on the coming Bilderberger gathering at the Westfield Marriott Hotel in Virginia from May 30
to June 3, scroll down to Crooks and Scoundrels
Corner. Are the elite “Masters of the Universe” giving up on President
Obama or the Mormon Mr. Romney?
Now back to the
disintegration of the Great Bilderberger Blunder of the European Monetary
Union. Today “The German’s Burden.” If you wake up German this morning, you
have to ask yourself why did German politicians so foolishly give up the sanity
of the Deutsche Mark, for a politically unstable monetary union unit called the
“euro,” allowing in the union, as they did, the tax and work shy members of
Club Med? As a German, your next question should be, how much will it cost me
to keep the euro together vs how much will it cost me for Germany to leave and
form a sensible German centric, monetary union, of the tax paying and hard
working north of Europe.
Today, while
American’s recover from hangovers, mild sunstroke and too many burgers, Europe
continues disintegrating.
Take
up the German's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve southern lifestyle need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Germany’s new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve southern lifestyle need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Germany’s new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
With
apologies to Rudyard Kipling.
Bank of England prepares plans for euro collapse
The Bank of England is poised to cut interest rates or launch another round of quantitative easing if the euro collapses, it emerged on Monday.
A senior
official for the Bank said the measures would "again play [their] part in
mitigating the impact" of Greece or other countries leaving the single
currency.
The
comments come after the head of the IMF suggested last week that British
interest rates may have to be cut to zero if the economic situation
deteriorates.
The Bank
has already completed a quantitative easing programme, effectively printing
more money worth £325billion and this may be extended again.
Yesterday,
David Cameron hosted a meeting with Sir Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank; Lord
Turner, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority; and the Chancellor,
to discuss contingency plans to deal with the collapse of the euro.
----Yesterday, Dr Ben Broadbent, a member of the Bank's monetary policy committee and former Treasury adviser, said that the Bank was ready to intervene.
He said:
"Were the still unlikely worst case risks in the euro area actually to be
realised, then our own monetary policy would again play its part in mitigating
the impact."
But he
added: "While they are both necessary and effective, these domestic
interventions have their limits. It remains the case that, for the time being
at least, the most important policy decisions affecting the UK are being taken
in other parts of the continent.
May 28, 2012, 11:10 a.m. ET
Spain Borrowing Costs Hit New High
MADRID—Concerns about Spain's ability to overhaul an ailing
banking system while it tries to shore up its financially shaky regions and
plug a gaping budget deficit sent Spanish borrowing costs to a record high
Monday, prompting a new call from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy for the European
Union to take action to calm market turmoil.
"We need clear statements in defense of the euro and
of the sustainability of euro-zone debt," Mr. Rajoy said in a news
conference. Spain's 10-year government bond yield rose 0.18 percentage point to
6.47% Monday, a new 2012 high, after Spain announced a €19 billion ($23.78
billion) bailout for ailing lender Bankia SA.
---- The €19 billion price tag for Spain's third-largest bank by assets more than doubles the amount the country has spent so far in its four-year financial crisis and signaled that the government is preparing to mount a muscular cleanup effort for the rest of the sector, analysts said. Under EU pressure, Spain has commissioned an external audit of the country's lenders by Roland Berger and Oliver Wyman. The results will be disclosed by mid-June.
In a note to investors, Nomura analyst Daragh Quinn estimated the entire sector could need €50 billion to €60 billion. "Given the current economic and political uncertainties facing the euro zone, this could see additional pressure on Spain to consider using external funds for the bank recapitalization," he said.
More
Spain's Rajoy fights losing battle to stave off EU rescue
Spanish premier Mariano Rajoy has given a fateful hostage to fortune. He told the nation that there will no EU rescue of Spain's banking system, even as `Black Monday' brought a further crash in bank shares and the IBEX index dropped to nine-year lows.
So where
will he find the money to finance his €23.5bn bail-out of Bankia, a bank deemed
healthy just weeks ago? The Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (FROB) has
€5.3bn, and other banks to worry about. It would be ruinous to tap the bond
markets. Spanish 10-year yields are already at danger levels of 6.4pc. The
spread over German Bunds has reached a post-EMU high of 514 basis points.
Capital
flight has cut foreign holdings of Spanish debt from 50pc to 37pc since
January. Spain's banks -- including Bankia -- have been propping up the state
with €316bn borrowed from the European Central Bank. Now the state is propping
up banks. The incestuous nexus is surreal.
David
Owen from Jefferies said Spain is near the point of no return. "It is not sustainable.
They hope things will calm down after the Greek elections. We think there will
have to be external intervention," he said.
Mr Rajoy
is sticking doggedly to his line that Spain is a collateral casualty of mess
elsewhere in Europe.
"There are major doubts over the euro zone and that
makes the risk premium for some countries very high," he said.
He wants
mobilisation of the EU bail-out fund to recapitalise weak banks across
Euroland, lessening the stigma for states in crisis. This amounts to EU
debt-pooling -- a variant of eurobonds -- and has been vetoed by Germany.
Greek promises of tax crackdowns fail to bite
When Christine Lagarde hit out at Greeks for not paying their taxes, Athens scholar Evi Malliarou agreed with the IMF chief's sentiment.
Over the
weekend Ms Lagarde told a newspaper she agreed that it was "payback
time" for the many Greeks who see taxes as optional.
Ms
Malliarou said: "Rich people have many tools to renegotiate their taxes
while poor people have to pay in full. I paid the state all my taxes in full,
not instalments, even though I have to deny myself other things."
Tax
evasion is such an issue in Greece that successive finance ministers have
declared crackdowns as a route out of the current crisis.
George Zanias, the caretaker finance minister installed two
weeks ago, promised to open a "safari season" on evaders. Other
measures have seen the naming and shaming of 4,152 top tax debtors, who
together owe €14.88bn (£11.88bn), and the revelation that 555 luxury yachts had
been seized.
The
numbers underpinning Athens' €130bn bail-out are predicated on projections that
rigorous collection could yield tens of billions in levies. Instead, slumping
tax revenues have threatened the government's ability to meet its salary and
pension bills.
Measures
to increase the revenue take have backfired. A scheme tacking on tax arrears to
electricity bills saw customers stop paying their bills. Utility company PPC is
seeking a state loan to prevent a cashflow crisis as a result.
Greece
could even be forced to tap the €3bn left over from its first bail-out to make
ends meet if efforts to revive falling tax revenues fail, reports suggested
Monday.
----Even
where tax evaders have been caught and prosecuted, punishments for the
well-connected have been minimal. Well-known singer Tolis Voskopoulos, who is
married to a former MP, was convicted of owing €500,000. He got a suspended
sentence and was told to repay the outstanding amount at €5 a day.
More
Take
up the German's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and Club Med folly
Bring all your hope to nought.
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and Club Med folly
Bring all your hope to nought.
With
apologies to Rudyard Kipling.
At the Comex silver depositories Friday final figures were: Registered 35.71 Moz,
Eligible 106.21 Moz, Total 141.92 Moz. USA closed Monday.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner.
The bent,
the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Bilderberg power masters meet in the US
Published: 23 May,
2012, 00:59 Edited: 28 May, 2012, 11:41
Every time a Bilderberg Meeting takes place, important things happen. The
last time they met in the US was an election year, 2008 – and the world got
Obama. This year they’re back in the US: will they decide who the next
president will be?
When in 2008 they gathered from June 5 to 8 in Chantilly, Virginia – just a stone’s throw from the Washington DC – Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were neck-in-neck in the battle for the Democratic Party’s presidential candidacy.
On June 5 of that year, Barack and Hillary mysteriously “disappeared” for some hours “somewhere in the DC area.” Their agendas blocked out, they clearly sneaked off to “Meet the Bilderbergers.”
The media kept mum about that, save for an Associated Press report on the campaign trail saying that, "reporters traveling with Obama sensed something might be happening between the pair (i.e. Obama and Hillary) when they arrived at Dulles International Airport after an event in Northern Virginia and Obama was not aboard the airplane. Asked at the time about the Illinois Senator's whereabouts, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs smiled and declined to comment." (The AP dispatch “Obama and Clinton meet, discuss uniting Democrats” is, strangely, “no longer available” on their website).
Be that as it may, two days later, Hillary withdrew from the race and Obama became the presidential candidate. Did Bilderberg make Hillary “an offer she couldn’t refuse” to clear the way for Obama to the White House? Did they promise her that she would become his Secretary of State?
Although most Bilderberg annual meetings are held in Europe – France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Denmark, England, Scotland, Norway – this US election year they’re again gathering at the Westfield Marriott Hotel in Virginia from May 30 to June 3. Either they’re very fond of that place… or of US elections… or both…!
So the question is: will “key presidential candidacy decisions” be made again this year? Will a Republican wildcard appear? A “God-inspired Burning Bush” of some sort, perhaps?
A favorite Bilderberg method consists of inviting wannabe future heads of state to their meetings to determine whether they will go along with their agenda. We thus saw George H. W. Bush attend their 1985 meeting, Bill Clinton attend their 1991 meeting, Tony Blair in 1993, and Romano Prodi, former head of the EU Commission, in 1999.
So what exactly is Bilderberg? It’s neither an organization nor a lobby. The “Bilderberg Meetings,” as they dub themselves in their (apparently) official website www.bilderbergmeetings.com, is a “by-invitation-only” club of around 140 very high-power people from business, finance, oil, politics, media, industry, academia and nobility who come together in a very private no-media / no cameras / extremely-tight-security surroundings to discuss… Well… there’s the rub: what exactly do they discuss?
More
Take
up the German's burden,
And reap his old reward--
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Club Med night?"
And reap his old reward--
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Club Med night?"
With
apologies to Rudyard Kipling.
The monthly
Coppock Indicators finished April:
DJIA: +89 Down. NASDAQ: +97 Down. SP500: +63 Down. All
three indicators remain down but downward momentum is stalling.
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