Baltic Dry Index. 699 -01
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"This American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it
capitalism, call it what you will, gives each and every one of us a great
opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it”
Ebenezer Squid. With apologies to Al Capone.
With about 3 days 14 hours to go to America
toppling over its “fiscal cliff,” President Obama and America’s politicians are
taking a leisurely European Union approach to finding a compromise solution. It’s
almost as if they’ve studied the last 22 EU summits that forever and all time
have “saved” the snake bit monetary union, and decided to adopt European rules
in Washington DC. The world can only hope that the Euro-rules work out better
in the new world than the old, where most of Europe is trapped in a never
ending austerity recession, imposed to pay off the debts of the brain dead, too
big to fail European banksters. President BO and congressional leaders from both
parties will meet at the White House today at 3 p.m. EST, which by my count
leaves them a little over 3 days left to keep horse trading. Stay long physical
precious metals. Under European rules any fix is usually worse than problem it
was supposed to fix.
"Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler
somehow than economic self- interest?"
Milton Friedman
Lawmakers, Obama in last chance talks on "fiscal cliff"
WASHINGTON |(Reuters) - President Barack Obama and lawmakers are launching a last-chance round of budget talks days before a New Year's deadline to reach a deal or watch the economy go off a "fiscal cliff."
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will meet congressional leaders from both parties at the White House on Friday at 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT) to try to revive negotiations to avoid tax hikes and spending cuts - together worth $600 billion - that will begin to take effect on January 1.
Members
were divided on the odds of success, with a few expressing hope, some talking
as if they had abandoned it and a small but growing number suggesting Congress
might try to stretch the deadline into the first two days of January.
In order
to be ready to legislate if an agreement takes shape, the Republican-dominated
House of Representatives convened a session for Sunday.
And House
Majority Leader Eric Cantor advised members to be prepared to meet through
January 2, the final day before the swearing-in of the new Congress elected on
November 6.
More
Americans blame Republicans more than Democrats for "fiscal cliff": Reuters/Ipsos poll
WASHINGTON |(Reuters) - Americans blame Republicans in Congress more than congressional Democrats or President Barack Obama for the current "fiscal cliff" crisis, as the deadline approaches for action to avert big tax increases and spending cuts, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Thursday.
When asked who they believed to be more responsible for the "fiscal cliff" situation, 27 percent blamed Republicans in Congress, 16 percent blamed Obama and 6 percent pointed to Democrats in Congress. The largest percentage - 31 percent - blamed "all of the above."
A similar breakdown was found in response to questions about the economy. Asked who was responsible for the national unemployment rate, the poll found 23 percent chose Republicans in Congress, 16 percent said Obama and 7 percent said Democrats in Congress, while 32 percent picked "all of the above."
The U.S. unemployment rate stood at 7.7 percent in
November, according to Labor Department figures.
More
Away in the land of Grimms’ Fairy Tales,
Germany’s Finance Minister says that the Euroland sovereign debt crisis is
over. Euro serfs can only hope that he’s right, rather than the evidence they
see all around them with their own eyes. Club Med has an austerity death wish,
with a youth generation consigned to an impoverished scrap heap, for most, for
life. France is off following the old socialist Pied Piper, headed off into the
economic wastelands, much as Napoleon once headed off towards Moscow. The ECB
promises to do whatever it takes to buy up unsellable EU sovereign debt, if only
the petitioner will first put on the sackcloth and ashes and bloodletting of
the ESM.
Seen from this side of the channel, Europe seems to be suffering yet
another bout of Germanic self-delusion. On present Eurozone policy, assuming it
were to work, the Eurozone is to turn itself into some giant, undemocratic, sclerotic
version of the defunct USSR. It lasted
1922 to 1991. The western European version will be lucky if it lasts 20 years.
There was once a widow who had two daughters—one of whom was
pretty and industrious, whilst the other was ugly and idle. But she was much fonder of the ugly and idle one, because she was her own daughter; and the
other, who was a step-daughter, was obliged to do all the work, and be the Cinderella
of the house. Every day the poor girl had to sit by a well, in the highway, and
spin and spin till her fingers bled.
Germany and Club Med. With apologies to the brothers Grimm.
Worst of euro crisis is over, Germany's Schaeuble says
BERLIN |(Reuters) - The worst of the euro zone sovereign debt crisis is over, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said in an interview to be published on Friday.
Schaeuble said governments in heavily indebted countries such as Greece have now recognised that the crisis that began in Athens three years ago will only be overcome by implementing bitter reform measures.
"I believe the worst is past," Schaeuble told the daily newspaper Bild in comments released on Thursday ahead of publication.
More
ECB will not waver over bond-buying conditions - Coene
BRUSSELS |(Reuters) - The European Central Bank will steadfastly enforce conditions attached to sovereign bond purchases under its programme to help euro zone states cut borrowing costs, ECB Governing Council member Luc Coene said.
In an interview in Thursday's edition of weekly magazine Trends, he also said the chance of Spain seeking international aid had diminished, and that the ECB still had more room to act if economic conditions in the euro zone worsened further.
Spain is considered the most likely first beneficiary of the bond-buying programme, under which the ECB would buy potentially unlimited quantities of a struggling country's bonds.
Despite
its borrowing costs having fallen sharply since the ECB announced the scheme in
September, Spain is still widely expected to apply for aid in the first quarter
of 2013 - thereby triggering ECB bond purchases.
Coene,
who is also governor of Belgium's central bank
, said any country wanting the ECB's help via the scheme
would have to face the consequences.
"If
we yield, the ECB will lose all credibility. At a certain moment it will be
tough. But this is the line that we have drawn in the sand and we cannot and
will not cross it," Coene said.
Under the
programme, dubbed outright monetary transactions (OMT), a country would have to
apply for aid from Europe's bailout fund before the ECB intervened.
Such aid
would come with conditions, such as implementing economic reforms and hitting
budget targets, though the ECB would not be technically obliged to buy the
country's bonds.
More
Mortgage
Nightmares
Evictions Become Focus of Spanish Crisis
By Helene Zuber 12/27/2012
----Some 400,000 eviction proceedings have been opened in Spain since 2007, with roughly half of the families involved having already lost residential properties due to foreclosures. For most of them, these were their homes. Now, in the fifth year of the financial crisis, the evictions have become an iconic image of the country's economic plight. During the first six months of this year alone, the Consejo General del Poder Judicial, which oversees and organizes the Spanish judiciary, registered 94,502 repossessions -- and the evictions reached a record 532 a day during the first half of 2012.
No End in Sight
What happens to people who lose not only their jobs, but whose homes and hopes for a better future are taken away? There are now 1.7 million Spanish households in which not a single family member still earns a salary. Nearly 4 million people have lost their jobs since late 2007, when the real estate bubble burst. More than half of those out of work in Spain are now considered to be long-term unemployed. The result is that an increasing number of them can no longer service the loans they took to purchase apartments, houses and commercial space during the boom years prior to the crisis.
According to a forecast by the Spanish central bank, the number of foreclosures will increase by another 30 percent in the coming year. And as the year draws to a close, there is no end in sight to the financial crisis. The outlook for 2013 is grim.
Small
companies are facing bankruptcy, large companies are announcing additional
layoffs and international corporations are pulling out of the country. The
Madrid Confederation of Employers and Industries estimates that economic output
could drop by a further 1.3 percent in the coming year, with the ranks of the
unemployed likely to swell to over 6 million.
Currently,
12.7 million people are already forced to survive on less than 60 percent of
the average Spanish income, meaning that 27 percent of the population is living
below the poverty threshold. A joint study by UNICEF, Oxfam and Doctors Without
Borders concluded that the country will need over 20 years to regain the
standard of living it attained in the prosperous, pre-crisis years.
At the Comex silver depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 42.68
Moz, Eligible 105.06 Moz, Total 147.74 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, we
present the modern miracle of the worker’s paradise of the EUSSR.
"Government's
view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax
it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize
it."
Ronald
Reagan.
Behind the Scenes in Brussels
EU Summit Reveals a Paralyzed Continent
By
SPIEGEL Staff 2/27/2012
What happens behind closed doors at an EU
summit, when European leaders are among themselves? SPIEGEL has reconstructed
the negotiations at the most recent meeting in Brussels in December based on
documents and accounts given by numerous sources. It was a summit of
hopelessness.
The haggling is in full swing at this hour -- North against South, rich
countries against poor ones, German Chancellor Angela Merkel against French
President François Hollande. They're stuck on a word, one that would normally
have a beautiful, positive sound: common. The word "common" is dividing
Europe. This is what it has come to in this night of hard-fought negotiations.
For more
than six hours now, the leaders of the European Union have been meeting in
Brussels to discuss the future. They are here to agree on a document, and
according to item 12 of that paper, there is to be a "common
backstop" for the new banking union, a sort of shared resolution fund for
worst-case scenarios also referred to more technically as a "shock
absorption capacity."
Germany
wants the word "common" deleted. So do Sweden, Finland, Denmark and
the Netherlands. France wants to keep the word in the document, as do Italy,
Spain and Portugal. The northern countries are afraid that they'll be asked to
pay even more than they already do, while the south is hoping for more shared
responsibility in the crisis. The dispute continues for three-quarters of an
hour. The northern countries win the fight and the word "common" is
stricken from the closing statement of the most recent EU summit.
This
happened on Dec. 13 and 14, during a meeting of the European Council, the
powerful EU body consisting of all 27 heads of state and government. They meet
behind closed doors, and not even their closest staff members are allowed to
attend. During these discussions, secrecy is normally paramount. But as of the
last one, that no longer applies.
Months
ago, SPIEGEL began opening the doors to this summit. A team of six reporters
traveled to European capitals to find sources for a reconstruction of the
December meeting. As a result, they were able to obtain reports on the
negotiations, during and after the summit, from almost a dozen sources. The
reports make it possible to accurately recount the events that unfolded.
----The December summit was seen as an opportunity for Europe to take a big and decisive step in this direction. But it failed on that count, producing an outcome that was tenuous at best.
How could
this happen? The days leading up to the summit and the meeting itself show how
Europe functions -- or rather, doesn't -- at a key juncture. They show how a
big idea can be ruined in ritualized routine. Despite the talk, few leaders are
truly advocating further European integration these days.
More
Another weekend, and the last weekend of 2012. It
was at best just, another year of muddle through and monetise like a drunken
sailor. All the west got to show for it was another year deeper in unrepayable
debt. In Europe, Club Med got hammered by Germany, in the name of keeping a
failing monetary system together. No one seems bothered to ask if it’s worth
paying the piper any longer for most. In America, an election was held, but
settled nothing. Each party claims to have won a mandate to block the other. In
Japan a new government just took over promising unlimited monetisation and a
new war with China. Thanks to an American “blank cheque” to Japan, a new Japanese
war with China is what we are likely to get. Stay long physical precious
metals. 2013 looks to be a critical year in the Great Nixonian Error of fiat
money.
|
Under democracy one party always
devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit
to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.
H.L. Mencken.
|
The monthly
Coppock Indicators finished November:
DJIA: +103 Up. NASDAQ: +123 Up. SP500: +125 Up.
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