France 10 Germany 0.

Baltic Dry Index. 826  -74

LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000.  Revised due to QE programs.

Banksters are people that help you with problems you would not have had without them.

Another Thursday, and yes, don’t laugh, another Great Leaders’ meeting in Europe. Yes, you guessed it, this one is going to fix up Club Med, save the euro, bring in a monopolistic European banking union, and enslave all who aren’t invited to Davos or Bilderberger meetings. In the little leaders’ finance summit that preceded the Great Leaders’ summit, it was France 10 Germany Nil, more on that later. If only France had its own fiat currency, or did it just get control of the euro yesterday?

But first this. In Washington yesterday, the Fed signalled ZIRP forever, and QE to infinity and beyond,(QE4). Dr Bernanke says has  squared the circle and got America another free lunch!  85 billion here, 85 billion there and pretty soon that’s another trillion dollars. Stay long precious metals, the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money is going to end badly. Now the Fed will never be able to unwind its balance sheet and probably isn’t ever going to attempt to try.

In central banking as in diplomacy, style, conservative tailoring, and an easy association with the affluent count greatly, and results far much less.

J. K. Galbraith.

Bernanke Wields New Tools to Reduce Unemployment Rate

By Caroline Salas Gage & Craig Torres - Dec 13, 2012 5:00 AM GMT

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke moved the Federal Reserve further into uncharted policy territory in combating joblessness by tying the bank’s interest-rate outlook to unemployment and inflation, while committing to an even faster expansion of the central bank’s balance sheet.

The actions on the eve of the Fed’s centenary year underscore Bernanke’s hallmark commitment to experimentation and forceful action, derived in part from his research showing too little monetary stimulus produced large economic costs for the U.S. in the 1930s and for Japan in the 1990s. He called the current state of the labor market, with unemployment at 7.7 percent, “an enormous waste of human and economic potential” and said the benefits of more bond buying outweigh the potential risks.

“Bernanke is pulling out all the stops to kick this economy back into a higher gear,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York. “They are buying everything in sight
-- Treasuries, mortgage-backed securities -- and will keep rates low until everyone who wants a job has one.”

Bonds fell yesterday on the prospect of higher inflation after policy makers boosted their main stimulus tool by adding $45 billion of monthly Treasury purchases to an existing program to buy $40 billion in mortgage debt a month. That decision puts the Fed’s $2.86 trillion balance sheet on track to reach almost $4 trillion by the end of next year.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-13/bernanke-wields-new-tools-to-reduce-unemployment-rate.html

Now we return to DASE, the Disunited Austerity States of Europe. Before today and tomorrow’s Great Leaders’ summit, the EU finance ministers cobbled together a banking union compromise for the Great Leaders’ to agree upon. Democracy and competition is dying before our eyes in Continental Europe as a new centrally planned USSR starts to emerge in Euroland. In typical lethargic EU fashion, the new arrangement should be in place by the end of 2013 unless it isn’t, when the ECB can delay it.

'What's the difference between a dead cat on the motorway and a dead bankster on the motorway? There are skidmarks around the cat."

EU nations agree to eurozone banking union

European finance ministers have agreed a deal to give the European Central Bank new powers to supervise eurozone banks, embarking on the first step in a new phase of closer integration to help underpin the euro.

5:06AM GMT 13 Dec 2012

After more than 14 hours of talks and following months of tortuous negotiations, finance ministers from the European Union's 27 countries agreed to hand the ECB the authority to directly police the euro zone's biggest banks and intervene in smaller banks at the first sign of trouble.

"We have a deal," said an EU official, sending the euro to a session high in Tokyo of 1.3080 against the US dollar.

After three years of piecemeal crisis-fighting measures, agreeing on a banking union lays a cornerstone of wider economic union and marks the first concerted attempt to integrate the bloc's response to problem banks.

"Piece by piece, brick by brick, the banking union will be built on this first fundamental step today," said EU Commissioner Michel Barnier.

The new system of supervision should be up and running by the end of next year, although ministers agreed that could be delayed if the ECB needed longer to prepare itself.

----In a dramatic about-turn, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble ditched his earlier objections that had led him to clash openly with his French counterpart, Pierre Moscovici, last week over the ECB's role in banking supervision.

With time running out to meet a year-end deadline, both sides managed to settle their differences and Germany won concessions to temper the authority of the ECB's Governing Council over the new supervisor.

More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/9741553/EU-nations-agree-to-eurozone-banking-union.html

While Europe’s modern Nero’s fiddle in Brussels today and tomorrow, the Disunited States of Europe speeds up its decline and fall. The new banking union will do nothing to stop that decline.

Euro zone industry output falls in October for second straight month

BRUSSELS | Wed Dec 12, 2012 5:09am EST
(Reuters) - Output from euro zone factories continued its steep fall in autumn this year, underscoring the feeble domestic demand that risks prolonging the bloc's recession.

Industrial production in the 17 countries sharing the euro fell 1.4 percent in October after falling 2.3 percent in September, the EU's statistics office Eurostat said on Wednesday, much worse than the 0.2 percent growth expected by economists in a Reuters poll.

Eurostat revised September's reading from an earlier figure of a 2.5 percent fall in industrial production.

The disappointing production erases factories' surprising resilience over the European summer, when industry posted two months of moderate gains, supporting forecasts of a third quarterly contraction in the euro zone's economy in October-to-December period.

After three years of a debt crisis that has driven unemployment to a record level and pushed governments to cut spending, the economy is caught in a spiral where households are not spending and companies are not selling, forced to cut staff that further weakens consumption.

---- Germany, France and Italy, which make up two-thirds of the euro zone's industrial production, all saw their factory output contract for the second consecutive month in October, with Germany, the euro zone's biggest economy, falling the most.
More
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/12/us-eurozone-production-idUSBRE8BB0GP20121212

In Euroland, everything is now on hold until Mrs Merkel can get re-elected next September. What a way to run the asylum.

Euro Rebuilding Vision Fades as Merkel’s Campaign Looms

By James G. Neuger - Dec 13, 2012 6:48 AM GMT

Europe’s leaders are losing the vision thing.

The word “vision” appeared seven times in a June outline for transforming the euro zone into an American or Swiss-style economic union. It dropped out of an October follow-up and is absent from a final roadmap to be discussed at a summit in Brussels today.

The scaled-back ambitions reflect ebbing pressure from financial markets, pre-election politics in Germany, a hardening of the ideological divide between northern and southern Europe, and the recognition that an overhaul of economic governance won’t work without a banking-system fix.

“EU leaders might as well stay home,” Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister who is now in the European Parliament, said in Strasbourg, France, yesterday. “The political reality is that we are all waiting for the German elections before taking the crucial steps to end the crisis.”

----The next stopgap is due this afternoon, when euro finance ministers are slated to approve a 34.4 billion-euro ($45 billion) loan disbursement to Greece. Still, creditor-country leaders such as Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte have said current aid pledges might not be enough to turn Greece around.

----The 27 leaders convene from 5 p.m. today and into tomorrow.

With the euro-zone economy in recession, there is little margin for error. Spain is resisting a sovereign bailout and the impending resignation of Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti risks upending the liberalization of Italy’s economy.

----The German strategy for the summit, the 22nd since Greece burst onto the EU’s agenda in early 2010, is to avoid any extra commitments or costs. Innovations like a euro-area budget or economic-insurance fund are for the distant future, a Merkel aide told reporters in Berlin yesterday.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-12/euro-rebuilding-vision-fades-as-germany-s-vote-looms-over-crisis.html

While Europe’s cowed serfs breathlessly awaits morsels of wonder from the Great Leaders’ meeting in Brussels, center of the universe, home of the balanceless ever expanding budget, we close with naughty banksters on the European side of the Atlantic. It’s not their fault, really it isn’t. They can resist anything except temptation.

What's the problem with bankster jokes? Banksters don't think they're funny, normal people don't think they're jokes.

Deutsche Bank co-chief named in carbon tax investigation

Two board members at Deutsche Bank, including the lender’s co-chief executive, have been drawn into a police investigation into tax evasion related to the group’s carbon trading business.

By Harry Wilson, Banking Correspondent 6:23PM GMT 12 Dec 2012

Jürgen Fitschen, co-chief executive, and Stefan Krause, a director, are involved in the investigation that on Wednesday saw hundreds of police and tax officials raid the bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt, as well as private addresses in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt.

The investigation is centred on 25 of the bank’s staff, according to German prosecutors, and involves allegations of tax evasion, money laundering and obstruction of justice linked to carbon trading certificates.

In a statement Deutsche Bank said: “Two of Deutsche’s Bank’s management board members, Jürgen Fitschen and Stefan Krause, are involved in the investigations as they signed the value-added tax statement for 2009.”

Deutsche Bank added: “The bank corrected this a long time ago voluntarily. Unlike the public prosecutor’s office, Deutsche Bank is of the opinion that this correction took place in due time.”

About 500 police and tax officials were involved in the raids and five staff members were arrested as part of the carbon trading investigation.

----The carbon trading investigation comes days after Deutsche Bank faced allegations over the valuations applied to large portfolios of its assets at the height of the financial crisis with three former employees claiming the assets were over valued.
More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9740904/Deutsche-Bank-co-chief-named-in-carbon-tax-investigation.html

Why don't sharks attack bankers? Professional courtesy.

While we await news of our betters’ divinations, later tonight and tomorrow, I would like merely to point out that the Baltic Dry Index is suddenly falling like a stone again! If it means anything at all, it means the global economy is in for a hammering in Q1 13. Great Leaders’ summit anyone?

At the Comex silver depositories Wednesday final figures were: Registered 41.52 Moz, Eligible 105.37 Moz, Total 146.89 Moz.  

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over. 

Today, more on the French state’s way of doing business in austere times. Euros anyone?

Insight: Growth crisis exposes burden of French largesse

(Reuters) - Savoring a long lunch after a morning tending to baby quince and pear trees, the French Senate's 78 gardeners are blissfully untouched by the economic crisis gnawing at Europe's core.

They have jobs for life that pay 40 percent above the average French take-home salary and get "wet weather" bonuses when they work in drizzle, storms or snow.

Stalled growth in Europe's No. 2 economy has exposed the strain on public finances from the benefits lavished on these and other civil servants, and a growing chorus of opinion says it is time they were radically pruned back.

"I won't lie, we do very well," said one of the gardeners, who gave her name only as Natalie. "We earn much more than in the private sector and we basically can't be fired."

Even more comfortable are the hundreds of administrative staff inside who get bonuses if lawmaker debates run over into the night - regardless of whether they stayed late themselves.

They all rank as "fonctionnaires", a status held by 5.3 million state-employed teachers, medics, magistrates and clerks in a labyrinthine French administration running from the president's office to the furthest-flung town hall.

The system has cushioned the households of one in five French workers from an economic crisis that has battered industry and bled private-sector jobs across most of Europe.

More

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/09/us-france-largesse-idUSBRE89805R20121009

Q: What’s the difference between London Investment Banksters and London Pigeons?

A: The Pigeons are still capable of making deposits on new cars.

The monthly Coppock Indicators finished November:

DJIA: +103 Up. NASDAQ: +123 Up. SP500: +125 Up.  Time is running out for the Santa Clause rally, unless there is a fiscal cliff agreement.