Baltic Dry Index. 1157
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
“In the final analysis, it won’t be the Germans that decide, but
the Greeks. The political movement for secession, my friends, is going strong —
and could happen this year. And when it does, don’t think for a second as the
Drachma printing machines are dusted off that we won’t see a domino effect take
hold in the rest of the periphery. Even if it doesn’t, I would be surprised if
a Greek exit from monetary union would not trigger a run on Portuguese and
Spanish (even Italian and French) banks.”
David Rosenberg, chief economist Gluskin Sheff.
Just when nothing else can go wrong in the Madland of
Europe, comes this. Spain, which itself needs a bailout, is going to bailout
its banks. Banks which according to the ECB, loaded up on the ECB’s 1% 3 year
LTRO loans, and used much of the proceeds to buy up Spanish sovereign debt.
According to a report in the FT, Spain is preparing to dump 10 billion euro
into its fourth largest bank. Presumably that will just get added to the amount
Spain needs in their own bailout. “Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital,
said Spain's action was positive because "it's them taking ownership of
their own issues". Dream on,
complacency rules, OK. Stay long physical precious metals. The euro as we know
it is dead.
"When paper money systems begin to crack at the seams, the run to gold could be explosive."
Harry Browne
New eurozone crisis looms as Spain prepares bail-out
A new eurozone crisis is looming as Spain signalled on Monday it was ready to bail out ailing banks after markets shrugged off the election results in France and Greece.
By Roland
Gribben and Fiona Govan, Madrid 8:57PM BST 07 May 201
Prime
minister Marian Rajoy indicated the Government was ready to intervene to save
banks wrestling with the collapse of the housing market.
Bankia,
Spain's fourth biggest bank, is the first in line for state aid. Rodrigo Rato,
chairman and former IMF managing director, swiftly resigned after it was
disclosed the finance ministry was preparing to refinance the bank and
introduce legislation to protect the balance sheets of others.
Spain,
which also signalled it could dock its only aircraft carrier to save €30m a
year, is already struggling to cope with an austerity drive that has pushed the
jobless total up to nearly 25pc of the workforce.
Mr Rajoy
insisted that any bank bail-out would not compromise the tough targets set by
Brussels to reduce the budget deficit.
Peter
Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital, said Spain's action was positive
because "it's them taking ownership of their own issues".
More
Elsewhere, euromadness continues. In Greece
it doesn’t look possible to from a government, let alone one that can pass the
new austerity package needed to get more of Berlin’s rescue money. They are now
suggesting re-voting again in the middle of next month. By now even the slowest
Greek can see the obvious, the euro isn’t working for Greece, and with friends
like the northern Europeans forcing on them a death spiral, it never will. With
luck next month’s revote will bring to power a coalition to exit the euro. Tax
and work shy Greeks may be, but they didn’t put a gun to the heads of Europe’s
banksters forcing them to lend to Greece. Exit, devalue, default, reform, get
the economy growing again, it worked for Iceland and will work faster in
tourist mecca Greece, although German tourists should probably head elsewhere.
Add Italy to the growing list of Euromadness.
"Gold would have value if for no other reason than that it enables a citizen to fashion his financial escape from the state."
William F. Rickenbacker
7, 2012, 10:54 p.m. ET
Europe Faces New Greek Test
Political Tumult After Elections Revives Worries About Risks to Monetary Union
Political
tumult in Greece stoked new worries about the fragility of Europe's monetary
union on Monday, as talks to form a new government among the winners of the
weekend's elections quickly fell apart in Athens.
The
collapse revived fears that political turmoil will keep Greece from meeting the
stiff terms of its European bailout, ultimately leading to its exit from the
euro zone, a move that would threaten the euro's future and reverberate through
other troubled economies, such as Spain and Italy.
The drama
in Athens came against a backdrop of broader shifts in the Continent's
politics, a day after voters fatigued by austerity in France, Greece and
elsewhere came out in force against incumbent leaders.
----In Italy, meanwhile, a group
of antiestablishment parties gained ground in local elections, preliminary
results showed, in the latest sign that voters across Europe are fed up with
their leaders' response to the debt crisis.
More
May 7, 2012, 4:23 p.m. ET
Local Polls in Italy Give Leg Up to Tiny Parties
ROME—A
scattered group of anti-establishment parties, including an anti-euro movement
run by a rabble-rousing comedian, have gained ground in Italy's local
elections, preliminary results showed on Monday. It was the latest sign that
voters across Europe are fed up with austerity measures and their leaders'
response to the debt crisis.
In mayoral and city council elections in the key
cities of Genoa, Verona and Palermo, no politicians from the center-right
People of Freedom Party—former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's
party—garnered enough votes to make it to a second round of voting later this
month, according to the preliminary results.
Instead,
in those cities, politicians from the center-left Democratic Party—which fared
better than its center-right rivals—will square off against smaller parties,
including the small law-and-order Italy of Values party or a new fringe
movement run by comedian Beppe Grillo. Mr. Grillo's "Five Star" civic
movement attracted as much as 20% of the votes in the northern city of Parma,
for example. In the Sicilian capital of Palermo, the Italy of Values party
candidate got more than 40% of vote.
More
We end for the day suspecting renewed trouble in Japan. The world’s
central banksters having messed up the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money,
continue on down the path to fiat money revulsion, with ever increasing amounts
of new money creation. Stay long precious metals as insurance against the
disastrous ending.
"The history of fiat money is little more than a register of monetary follies and inflations. Our present age merely affords another entry in this dismal register."
Hans F. Sennholz
May 8,
2012, 12:30 a.m. EDT
Bank of Japan buys record amount of stock ETFs
But purchases fail to prevent heavy market drop
LOS
ANGELES (MarketWatch) — The Bank of Japan stepped back into the stock market
Monday, making its largest single-day purchase of exchange-traded funds to
date, though the move failed to prevent a sharp fall for the Tokyo equity
market.
The
Japanese central bank said it spent 39.7 billion yen (about $500 million)
buying up stock ETFs as part of its ongoing asset-purchase program, breaking a
previous record of ¥28.5 billion, set on April 16.
In
addition to the ETF buys, the Bank of Japan also acquired ¥2.3 billion in
real-estate investment trusts Monday.
Since the
2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers and ensuing global crisis, central banks
around the world have embarked on a spree of asset-buying meant to avoid
deflation and, to a certain extent, support the markets.
But
Japan’s monetary authority is almost unique among its peers in the major
developed economies in its high-profile purchases of ETFs, which it began in
December 2010 as part of aggressive easing measures.
Since then, the Bank of Japan has bought almost ¥1 trillion worth of ETFs — along with another ¥78.9 billion in REITs — and has an additional ¥642 billion to spend on the stock funds after raising the program’s size at it last policy meeting in April.
More
"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
At the Comex silver depositories Monday final
figures were: Registered 36.11 Moz, Eligible 105.91 Moz, Total 142.02 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner.
The bent,
the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, more
on the cost reality of nuclear power in the UK. I’m no nuclear expert and I
think that properly run, nuclear reactors are safe, but I also think that the
public is just one more nuclear reactor accident away, from repudiating
operating nukes, and it’s only a matter of time before we get another nuclear
accident somewhere on the planet. Commercially it makes no sense to take on
that investment risk.
The eye-watering expense of nuclear power
The coalition
wants us to depend more and more on nuclear power, but quite simply, it is too
expensive to be able to deliver
----It doesn't really matter what you think: it cannot possibly deliver – primarily for economic reasons.
Nuclear reactors are massively expensive. They take a long time to build. And even when they're up and running, they're nothing like as reliable as the industry would have us believe. Few if any companies have balance sheets that are strong enough to cover the capital costs of a new reactor – with a starting price today of about £6bn, and growing by an average of 15% per annum. For that reason, the funding has to come either from private investors or from governments: no reactor has ever been built anywhere in the world without substantial government subsidy, and no reactor ever will be built without substantial government funding in future.
However, private investors are not enamoured by nuclear power. The construction risks are too high (with cost overruns and substantial delays all but guaranteed), and the political risks (with governments constantly changing their mind about levels of support) even higher. The higher the risk, the higher the costs of capital.
Which means governments always have to step in – including the UK government. For the time being, ministers in DECC are sticking to the wording of the Coalition Agreement that a new nuclear programme can only proceed "provided that they receive no public subsidy". This is now so transparently dishonest that it will not be possible to maintain that fiction for much longer, especially when the details of the electricity market reform (EMR) proposals are published.
Here's their dilemma. Ministers wanted to have lots of companies competing to build the ten reactors. Three of the most significant players, (RWEnpower, EON UK and Scottish and Southern Electricity), have already dropped out. Both GDFSuez and Centrica have been giving out very strong signals to investors that they are about to drop out. Most of the rest of the companies left in are too small or incapable to bother about. That leaves EDF, a nuclear giant, 85% owned by the French government.
-----The going wholesale price for electricity at the moment is around £45/MWh. Under the EMR, the government is offering "contracts for difference" to cover the extra cost of nuclear – the so-called "strike price". Calculating the scale of those extra costs is tricky, not least because it is impossible to believe anything the industry says about future costs. Estimates vary between £60/MWh and £90/MWh, with most independent commentators veering towards the high end rather than the low end.
The
amount of subsidy required for just four reactors, £90/MWh, would be £2bn a
year for 30 years. £60bn. For 10 reactors, it would be £5bn a year for 30
years. £150bn
And you
need to understand that this figure doesn't take into account any of the other
forms of subsidy on offer (be it in the form of a carbon price floor or
massively subsidised insurance arrangements to cover the possibility of nuclear
accidents), let alone the massive liabilities for cleaning up our existing
nuclear power programme, which come in at about £7bn a year.
Morehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/may/04/expense-nuclear-power-energy-coalition
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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