Baltic Dry Index. 684 -09
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"When it becomes serious, you have to lie"
Jean-Claude Juncker. Luxembourg Prime Minister and president of the Euro Group of Finance Ministers. Confessed liar.
It is D-Day as in Draghi Day. Will Italy’s top man
at the ECB finally deliver, or will Draghi Day turn into traghi-day, with yet
another euro crisis rescue that isn’t. Since the well-publicised alleged leak
on Monday, Club Med sovereign debt buyers have been marched up to the top of
the ECB’s hill again, any failure to deliver as promised will smash Iberia and
Italy’s debt. Not that the well leaked plan of unlimited buying of Spanish and
Italian debt of up to three year’s maturity does anything to solve Spain or
Italy’s inherent problems.
Both countries are simply uncompetitive with northern
Europe, have bankrupt banks, declining government revenue, rising unemployment,
and outdated labour practices. And, in the case of Spain, a burst real estate
bubble of unfixable proportions. Instead of giving away cash, the Euro millions
lottery should be giving away over-built real estate in Spain. But even that
wouldn’t solve the never ending euro crisis. Euroland is in a deepening
recession and now global trade has suffered contagion from Euroland’s constant
dithering. The euro at present is neither fish nor fowl. Until that’s
addressed, even today’s ECB “miracle” merely adds to the size to Europe’s
wealth destruction, once the whole monetary union flies apart. Stay long physical precious metals.
Italy is not technically part of the Third World, but no one has told the Italians.
P. J. O’Rourke
Draghi Credibility at Stake as ECB Tries to Save The Euro
By Gabi Thesing - Sep 6, 2012 6:45 AM GMT
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s task today
is straight-forward: produce a plan to save the euro.
Draghi pledged more than a month ago to do what’s needed to preserve the single currency; now he’s under pressure to follow through with details of a bond-purchase plan to lower borrowing costs in Spain and Italy and prevent a breakup of Europe’s monetary union. Expectations have built to such an extent that Draghi risks losing credibility unless he delivers at a press conference after today’s Governing Council meeting in Frankfurt, economists and investors said.
“Draghi has put his credibility squarely on the line,” said Julian Callow, chief European economist at Barclays Capital in London. “He has made it his business to save the euro, so he is going to be called on that.”
More
French Unemployment Jumps, Increasing Pressure for Growth Push
By Mark Deen - Sep 6, 2012 6:32 AM GMT
French unemployment rose to a 13-year high in the second quarter as
companies cut staff to cope with a stalled economy, adding pressure on
President Francois Hollande to fulfil a campaign pledge to revive growth. The jobless rate based on International Labor Organization standards climbed to 10.2 percent of the population from 10 percent in the previous three months, national statistics office Insee in Paris said today.
---- With neighboring Spain and Italy in recession, the French economy has failed to expand for three quarters, and companies from PSA Peugeot Citroen (UG) to Air France-KLM Group are eliminating thousands of jobs. Labor Minister Michel Sapin said this week that jobless claims have already surpassed 3 million, a level last reached in August 1999, and will increase further.
“The increase in unemployment in France since the spring of 2011 is very worrying,” Natixis economists Patrick Artus and Jean-Christophe Caffet said in a note to clients before the release of the latest numbers. “The labor market hasn’t stopped deteriorating.”
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-06/french-unemployment-jumps-increasing-pressure-for-growth-push.html
September
5, 2012, 3:49 p.m. ET
In Finland, Slow Exports Spur Contraction
Finland's
economy contracted in the second quarter, as the European debt crisis hampered
exports and investments and further widened the output gap between the country
and neighboring Scandinavian states that aren't euro-zone members.
Gross
domestic product in the euro-zone country fell 1.1% in the three months ended
June 30 in quarterly terms, and fell 0.1% from the year-earlier quarter, Statistics
Finland said, quoting preliminary data.
"The
latest GDP figures are certainly a sign that the euro crisis is weighing on the
Finnish economy through weakening exports and investments," Nordea Bank
Chief Economist Roger Wessman said.
The
economy is expected to shrink again in the third quarter before stabilizing
toward the end of the year and returning to moderate growth once the euro
crisis calms, Mr. Wessman said. "I would say that Finland is definitely in
a recession in the technical sense as we are likely to have two quarters of
negative growth," he added.
----Our export markets in Europe are not in very good shape and we have not received any boost from other markets, neither in Asia nor the United States," Jussi Mustonen, economic policy director for the Confederation of Finnish Industries, said.
Exports
fell 2.3% in the second quarter from the previous quarter and were 0.5% lower
on the year earlier, Statistics Finland said. Finland derives about 40% of its
GDP from exports.
More
September 5, 2012, 4:39 p.m. ET
Europe Outlook Dims as Bank Meets
Downturn Deepened Over Summer, Complicating Choice for ECB Officials
FRANKFURT—The
euro zone's economic downturn accelerated during the summer, economic reports
Wednesday suggest, raising concerns that even aggressive anticrisis measures
from the European Central Bank won't be enough to keep the euro bloc from
sliding into a deep recession.
The
figures, which included a slide in retail sales in July, came as the ECB's
crisis steps have taken shape. Officials meeting Thursday will weigh a plan to
purchase government bonds with maturities up to around three years, people
familiar with the matter said, with a possibility they could extend slightly
longer. The proposal wouldn't place limits on the amount of bonds purchased,
the people said, giving the ECB maximum flexibility to stabilize financial
markets.
The ECB declined to comment.
The euro
zone purchasing-managers' index fell to 46.3 from 46.5 in July, data company
Markit said Wednesday. Sub-50 readings for the index, which is compiled through
a survey of purchasing executives at European firms, signal falling output and
employment. August's figure was revised from an earlier reading of 46.6.
Official data on retail sales were also poor,
suggesting consumers remain cautious and aren't likely to drive an economic
recovery. Volumes of sales in the currency area fell 0.2% on the month in July
and slid 1.7% on the year, according to the European Union's statistics agency,
Eurostat. Sales were notably weak in Germany and Spain.
The reports raise a vexing problem for ECB policy
makers. Even if they announce detailed plans to buy government bonds as a means
to lower borrowing costs for crisis-hit countries, the measures' effectiveness
may be limited by high unemployment, weak consumer confidence and stagnant
growth prospects.
More
Elsewhere in Asia, it’s the same old problem. The
region’s banksters can resist anything but temptation. Today it’s Vietnam
falling off the wagon and needing an IMF bailout. Yet another country suffers
from the unintended consequences of the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money.
Banks are an almost irresistible attraction for that element of our society which seeks unearned money.
J. Edgar Hoover
Vietnam Risks Biggest East Asia IMF Rescue Since 1990s: Economy
By Bloomberg News - Sep 6, 2012 6:59 AM GMT
Vietnam risks becoming the biggest East Asian economy to seek an
International Monetary Fund rescue loan since the region’s financial crisis
more than a decade ago as it moves to support a faltering banking system. The nation may need IMF aid to recapitalize banks and must act quickly to clean up bad debt or risk “prolonged stagnation,” the National Assembly’s economic committee said in a Sept. 4 report published on its website yesterday. The financial system needs an injection of 250 trillion dong ($12 billion) to 300 trillion dong, according to the 298-page report that included recommendations to address economic risks.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s government is struggling to regain confidence in Vietnam after the arrest of a banking tycoon last month highlighted the frailty of a financial system hobbled by Southeast Asia’s highest bad debt levels. Growth slowed to 4.4 percent in the first half of this year from 8.5 percent in 2007 as lending stagnated, damping state revenue and crimping the country’s ability to rescue banks.
---- Vietnam’s non-performing loans climbed to 4.47 percent of total lending as of May 31, from 3.07 percent at the end of 2011, according to central bank data. State Bank of Vietnam Governor Nguyen Van Binh said in April that the level of non-performing loans at some lenders may be “much higher” than reported figures, with Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. estimating as much as 20 percent of debts may be bad.
The central bank should set up a company to buy bad debt using foreign funding, the parliamentary panel said in this week’s report. “The ratio of bad debt and overdue debt in the banking system is at an alarming level,” while bank provision for bad debt is inadequate, it said.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-06/vietnam-risks-biggest-east-asia-imf-rescue-since-1990s-economy.html
Why did I take up stealing? To live better, to own things I couldn't afford, to acquire this good taste that you now enjoy and which I should be very reluctant to give up.
Bankster, with apologies to Cary Grant. To Catch A Thief.
At the Comex silver depositories Wednesday final figures were: Registered 39.26
Moz, Eligible 101.74 Moz, Total 141.00 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent,
the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
No crooks
today, Mario Baba and the 40 thieves have yet to meet in Frankfurt, and Super
Mario hasn’t spoken yet.
Q.
How can you tell when a central bankster’s lying?
A.
His lips move.
The monthly
Coppock Indicators finished August:
DJIA: +76 Up. NASDAQ: +97 Up. SP500: +69 Up. All
three indicators have reversed from down to up.
No comments:
Post a Comment