Baltic Dry Index. 999 +18
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
It's good to trust others but, not to do so is much better.
Benito Mussolini
We open today with “good news” from China, at
least that’s the way that it’s being spun. China’s GDP only slipped to 7.4% in
Q3 12, in line with forecasts. Professional spin meisters everywhere went into
overdrive. Of course China’s figures are rarely what they seem, driven top down
rather like modern America’s. China’s figures for electricity usage don’t
support a 7%GDP. But for today, the start of the EU two day “leaders” summit in
Brussels, unfortunately timed to tomorrow’s 25th anniversary of the “Black
Monday” stock market crash of 1987, and the start of the Greenspan-Bernanke era
of rigged markets to protect banksters and the fiat dollar, we’ll play along.
My contribution to all the “good news,” the Baltic Dry Index does seemed to
have double bottomed and is now flirting with taking out 1000 to the upside.
China Shows Pickup Signs After Seven-Quarter Slowdown: Economy
By Bloomberg News - Oct 18, 2012 4:43 AM GMT
China’s industrial production, retail
sales and fixed-asset investment accelerated in September, reducing the urgency
for added stimulus to support the economy after a seven-quarter slowdown.
Gross domestic product expanded 7.4
percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the National Bureau of
Statistics said in Beijing today. That matched the median estimate in a Bloomberg
News survey and compares with a previously reported 7.6 percent expansion in
the second quarter. GDP rose 2.2 percent from the prior period, a four-quarter
high.
-----“China’s economy is performing better than expected, and the bottoming will be clear in the fourth quarter,” said Zhu Haibin, Hong Kong-based chief China economist for JPMorgan Chase & Co. The possibility of another interest-rate cut this year is getting “quite small,” though the central bank may cut lenders’ reserve requirements, Zhu said.
China’s economic growth has started to stabilize, Premier Wen Jiabao said in remarks published yesterday by the official Xinhua News agency. The government is confident of achieving annual targets and the economy will continue to show “positive changes,” Wen said, according to Xinhua.
more
Having recently visited the West End of
London and Edinburgh’s Princess Street, there didn’t seem to be any sign of a
recession. Tourists and shoppers were everywhere, and judging by their packages
and bags, were freely spending too. Bar, cafes, and restaurants were packed,
the 5 star hotel I visited in London, packed with Arabs all seemingly dealing
away via cell phone. As if to confirm that the UK has bottomed, H.M.’s G is in
the midst of a run of better than expected statistics. While it’s far too early
to call a bottom, even here in the UK, the downside to a sustainable recovery
getting underway, will be the start of the great inflation and the slaughter of
the holders of Gilts and US bonds. Mr Bernanke has promised to sanitise his
expanded balance sheet, once a US recovery gets underway. My bet is that he can’t
do it, and our increasingly unstable fiat money world will become anarchic.
But enough of today’s good news as we return
to the start of the Battle of Brussels.
The state of play on arrival is that France has deserted Germany and has
joined in an alliance with Italy and Spain. Greece and Portugal have entered
death spiral’s, with Greece undergoing yet another general strike today.
Ireland is still in its own genteel death spiral, softened slightly by the
closeness of its economy with that of the UK, which seems to be bottoming. Arch
villain Germany is performing its traditional role with gusto, and is
universally hated, though none of the leaders of Europe’s paupers can say so.
Great Britain, as always, is an irrelevant offshore oddity, there to be taxed
to support the continentals peculiar tax free lifestyles, consulted
occasionally and then ignored. While a German imposed austerity crushes tax and
work shy, probity challenged Catholic Europe, hard working, tax paying,
Lutheran northern Europe has just about had enough of the Latin cheats. For
more on that scroll down to Crooks Corner and modern Italy. Many other over
inflated egos are also attending, but they only get to play the unimportant bit
parts written by France and Germany.
And so Europe’s Grand Committee of 27
leaders, plus 3 European Presidents, Baroness Whatsit, Europe’s leading liar
from Luxembourg, a gaggle of central banksters, and an army of step and fetch-its,
will all get to strut, preen and pout, trying to impress each other for two
days. If a miracle happens, nothing gets decided and they all go home without
inflicting further damage on Europe’s long suffering hapless serfs. Sadly this
is Europe where miracles never happen, and I have every confidence in Europe’s
leaders to make thing worse. There never was a problem a politician or a
bureaucrat couldn’t make worse.
"Too bad ninety percent of
the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation."
Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
Spain Banks Face More Losses as Worst-Case Scenario Turns Real
By
Charles Penty - Oct 17, 2012 11:01 PM GMT
Spain’s banks face more loan losses as the pace of an economic slump risks
turning a worst-case scenario dismissed in stress tests into reality. Bad loans as a proportion of total loans reached a record 9.86 percent, or 169.3 billion euros ($222.1 billion), in July, and may rise further when the Bank of Spain publishes data for August at about 10 a.m. in Madrid. The ratio, which has risen for 16 straight months, climbed from 0.72 percent in December 2006 before Spain’s property boom turned to bust.
Spanish bank stress tests by management consultants Oliver Wyman have factored in an economic contraction totaling 6.5 percent between 2012 and 2014 in an adverse scenario that the government and Bank of Spain said has a probability of about 1 percent. Analysts at Nomura and Citigroup disagree, saying spending cuts and economic conditions mean the worst-case outcome already looks feasible.
“You can’t attach a 1 percent probability to a scenario that already looks realistic,” Silvio Peruzzo, a European area economist at Nomura in London, said in a telephone interview yesterday. Spain’s gross domestic product will shrink by 6.2 percent between 2012 and 2014, he estimated.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-17/spain-banks-face-more-losses-as-worst-case-scenario-turns-real.html
France's Hollande urges euro zone growth effort
PARIS | Wed
Oct 17, 2012 6:45pm EDT
(Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande appealed on Wednesday for
more efforts to boost growth across the euro zone, warning ahead of a European
Union summit that recession was as big a threat as budget deficits.Hollande told the daily Le Monde that troubled euro zone states should have the leeway to stimulate internal demand with salary rises and tax cuts, adding that a longer-term goal must be to reduce the big differences in borrowing costs in the bloc.
"If we don't breathe some life into Europe's economy, budget discipline measures won't work," Hollande was quoted as saying ahead of a two-day Brussels summit due to discuss plans for stabilizing the bloc's debt troubles.
Hollande has challenged Germany's focus on strict austerity measures since he came to power in May. The International Monetary Fund weighed in this month, saying Greece, Portugal and Spain should be given more time to cut their public deficits.
More
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/17/us-eurozone-hollande-idUSBRE89G1ZV20121017
IMF urges aid for Italy, Spain but Rome baulking
(Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund called on the eve of a European Union summit for both Spain and Italy to seek euro zone assistance to draw a line under the bloc's debt crisis, but Rome has rebuffed the idea and Madrid seems likely to apply alone.
The two-day Brussels summit will debate steps towards a single banking supervisor and proposals for closer euro zone integration, including German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble's idea of a super-commissioner with veto powers over national budgets.
No decisions are expected this week and there is no certainty as to when Spain will come off the fence.
More
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/17/us-eurozone-idUSBRE89G0NO20121017
October 17, 2012, 3:51 p.m. ET
S&P Downgrades Cyprus Further Into Junk Territory
Standard
& Poor's Ratings Services downgraded Cyprus's sovereign ratings three
notches further into junk territory, saying the island nation's
creditworthiness had deteriorated significantly since its ratings were lowered
in August.
S&P
has Cyprus at B, or five levels into junk category, and said the ratings remain
on review. The ratings firm had cut Cyprus's rating to double-B in August,
putting it two levels into junk territory and placed it on watch for further
downgrade.
S&P
noted that the government hasn't negotiated a critical loan package, while the
nation is facing a severe banking crisis, deteriorating consumer and investor
confidence, and exposure to Greece's debt and economic crises. A further
downgrade is possible if Cyprus's financing pressures escalate, S&P said.
Morehttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444592704578062882609653100.html?mod=WSJUK_hpp_LEFTTopWhatNews
"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.
At the Comex silver depositories Wednesday final figures were: Registered 36.85
Moz, Eligible 103.96 Moz, Total 140.81 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent,
the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today Italy, who
wants to be a member of a club that includes Italy.
Italy is not technically part of the Third World, but no one has told the Italians.
P. J. O’Rourke
Suspicious Italian transactions rise sharply
STEVE
SCHERER ROME — Reuters Published Wednesday, Oct. 17 2012, 3:14 PM EDT
Last
updated Wednesday, Oct. 17 2012, 3:16 PM EDT
Suspicious
bank transactions jumped by a third in Italy last year, the central bank said
on Wednesday, a sign that tax evaders, swindlers and mobsters are cashing in
during the worst economic crisis since the Second World War.
The
number of dubious money exchanges rose to almost 49,000 in 2011, a
31.5-per-cent increase from a year earlier and seven times the number reported
in 2009, according to an annual document compiled by Bank of Italy’s financial
information unit.
Italian
anti-mafia prosecutors say crime syndicates have tightened their grip on the
euro zone’s third-biggest economy during the slump as banks have cut lending
and mafia groups, flush with cash, increase investments in the legitimate
economy.
“It’s
clear that the crime groups involved in drug trafficking have enormous sums of
money to invest and that during an economic downturn the cash is needed by many
businesses, including honest ones,” Vittorio Mete, a mafia researcher at the
University of Catanzaro, told Reuters.
Many of
the suspicious transactions turn out to be red herrings, but about a third of
those investigated last year proved to be illegal, the report said.
Crimes
uncovered by authorities included money laundering, corruption, tax evasion,
extortion, fraud, usury, drug trafficking and a variety of lesser,
administrative infractions, the report added.
Earlier
this month, the head of a tax agency and four of his employees were arrested on
charges of pocketing €100-million ($128-million) they had collected and
spending it on private planes, parties and yachts.
In 2011,
445 of the suspicious money exchanges were confirmed by investigators to be
linked to the mob, the report said, and a quarter of them were transactions
made in Lombardy, Italy’s richest region.
“Organized
crime is active nationally,” the report said, citing an analysis of the
financial transactions linked to the mob.
Italy’s
main organized crime groups such as Sicily’s Cosa Nostra, the Camorra around
Naples, or Calabria’s
’Ndrangheta have long had a stranglehold on the southern
economy. Recently their national reach has become more evident.
A member
of the Lombardy regional government was arrested last week and accused of
buying votes from the Calabrian mob, which is deeply rooted in the region
around Milan.
The
Calabrian mafia, a leading drug trafficker in southern Europe, was behind 185
of the transactions that led to criminal investigations in 2011.
More
“The
European single currency is bound to fail, economically, politically and indeed
socially, though the timing, occasion and full consequences are all necessarily
still unclear.”
Margaret Thatcher.
The monthly
Coppock Indicators finished September:
DJIA:
+66 Up. NASDAQ: +88 DOWN. SP500: +85 Up. All three indicators had reversed from
down to up, but now the NASDAQ has reversed again to down. While not
unprecedented, it is a warning sign a that the July reversal from up to down is
about to fail
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