Baltic Dry Index. 745 +04
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
“The evidence is that the housing market is strengthening and
that low mortgage rates are one reason for that strengthening. And that should
put people to work in several ways. It will put construction workers back to
work, obviously, and people who work in factories that build, you know,
appliances or other things that are related to housing”
Bernoccio, February 27, 2013.
With the Bernanke Fed cranking out 85 billion
a month in new money out of nothing forever, and roughly half of it pouring
into the mortgage market, the other half pours into bonds and stocks, no matter
how disconnected from the underlying economy both become. Dr. Bernanke might just possibly be putting
some American construction workers back to work in the housing sector, but the
appliance workers, and workers making “other things that are related to housing” will
mostly be located in Asia, Mexico, and for certain high end luxury housing goods,
Europe.
“The Great Disconnect” will probably be
history’s verdict, when a great reconnect back to reality sets in and the next
Lehman hits, ending the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money. Stay long physical
precious metals for the long run. The world’s central banks are bust running
rigged markets. In a rigged market regime, just about everything gets distorted
and mispriced. Not for nothing are the Asian central banks and Russia buying
gold. A massive hidden gold transfer from west to east is underway in our still
new century. When the G-7 central banks eventually fail, the consequences of
this transfer will be dire.
"Gold is not less but more rational than paper money. Money holds value so long as it is in limited supply; gold will always be in limited supply, and would require real resources to produce even from the sea; paper and printing ink are not in limited supply. The gold system is much closer to a modern automatic scientific control system than the crude and relatively unstable system of paper."
William Rees-Mogg
Dow transports, industrials point to Dow Theory buy signal
February 27, 2013, 6:30 PM
If you’re a student of Dow Theory, then it’s your time to buy. The Dow’s
transportation index is outperforming the already bullish industrials index.According to the theory, equities still have more room to rise if both indexes clear recent highs with transports taking the lead. That’s certainly been the case for the past 12 months as the transport index has kept on logging new highs. It was cast into a particularly stark relief Wednesday as transports rose more than twice as much as the already bullish industrials.
More
Feb. 27, 2013, 3:54 p.m. EST
Bernanke defends low rates in House hearing
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben
Bernanke on Wednesday used his second day in front of Congress to again pound
home his contention that the central bank’s ultra-easy stance is needed.
The
policy is needed “to keep interest rates a little bit lower to help support
housing, automobiles and other parts of the economy that need support,”
Bernanke said during his second day of his testimony to Congress on the economy
and monetary policy.
Investors were pleased with Bernanke’s stance. The Dow Jones Industrial
Average DJIA +1.26% rose
to its highest levels in the late afternoon, up almost 200 points to 14,098.
In
January, the Fed decided to keep buying $85 billion worth of Treasury bonds and
mortgage-backed securities a month until it saw a substantial improvement in
the labor market. The Fed has also kept interest rates close to zero since
December 2008.
For the
second day, Bernanke strongly defended the bond-buying program and repeating
that the potential costs don't outweigh the benefits.
More
Actually, Chairman Bernanke, Americans don’t make many appliances anymore
February 27, 2013, 4:34 PM
---- Alan Tonelson of the American Economic Alert says the Fed chairman may
have spoken too quickly. Fact is, Americans buy their household appliances from
overseas.Using 2011 data, Tonelson notes that foreign-made purchases comprised 57.7% of refrigerators and freezers, 52.2% of cooking appliances, 42.5% of laundry machines, 38.5% of miscellaneous appliances (like dishwashers and garbage disposals), 90.6% of small electrical appliances and fans and 49% of enameled iron & sanitary ware (bathtubs, sinks, etc.).
Of course, Americans are still needed to warehouse, sell, install and deliver these Swedish, German and Japanese goods. “But all of the imported appliances and related goods that will fill these homes will represent major lost growth and employment opportunities for an economy that sorely needs all it can get,” Tonelson writes.
Back across the Atlantic in another zone
of tragic self-delusion, the awful new reality is finally setting in, and not
just in Italy. Europe seems to be heading
for a spring, summer, and autumn of social discontent.
EU 'Troika' rule in Ireland worse than British Empire
Ireland's trade union chief has accused the EU-IMF troika in charge of Irish austerity policies of tipping the economy into downward spiral and acting as an imperial oppressor.
"The Troika has done more damage to Ireland than Britain ever did in 800 years," said David Begg, head of the Irish Confederation of Trade Unions.Mr Begg said the image of Ireland as the poster-child of EU recovery was a myth culitivated by EU creditors whose only interest is to recoup their money.
"At least the IMF officials are willing to admit they have been wrong but the EU officials are total ideologues."
"It is like being in an awful World War One conflict where the generals have expended a million lives to gain one yard of ground, yet nothing will change their mind in face of all the evidence."
The trade unions say internal consumption has collapsed by 26pc, and investment has fallen to the lowest level in recorded Irish history. Under-employment has reached 23pc despite emigration to Canada, Australia, the US and Britain. "The austerity has to stop. People feel they are drowning," he said.
The outburst comes a day after Irish unions reached a provisional deal with the government for a further round of public sector pay cuts averaging 5.5pc, rising to 10pc for higher earners such as doctors. This follows 14pc pay cuts already in force.
The grim picture is starkly at odds with a optimistic review by finance minister Michael Noonan, who told foreign journalists that exports are booming and the country is on track to return to full market access by the end of the year, becoming the first state to exit its EU-IMF Troika rescue progamme.
"We are very nearly at the end of our journey. We have re-engineered the country to be a modern competitive economy, we have succeeded," he said.
More
Despite
the rosy spin in the headline below, yesterday Italy staggered from bad to
worse. The EUSSR is now at each other’s throats. Last night the ECB’s Mario dei
Paschi issued an ominous warning. Sounds like he’s getting ready to run up the
white flag on Italy and France.
Markets relief at Italian bond test despite chaos in Rome
Italy was forced to pay higher borrowing cost as a price for its political deadlock but its success in raising €6.5bn debt at auction managed to calm markets around the world.
---- Yet
traders remained wary. Rather than making progress towards the establishment of
a stable government, Italy’s politician descended from deadlock to dispute.
Beppe Grillo, whose Five Star protest party secured 25pc of the vote in Italy, strongly rejected calls by Pier Luigi Bersani, leader of the Democratic Party, to back a coalition. The popular comedian dismissed Mr Bersani as a “political stalker” who had been “pestering the Five Star movement for days with indecent proposals.”
On his blog Mr Grillo listed the insults Mr Bersani had levied at Five Star during the campaign, for instance: “Lenin is not nearly as bad as Grillo.” Mr Grillo declared that his anti-austerity party would “support in parliament only the laws that mirror its programme - whoever proposes them.”
Meanwhile Italy’s President Napolitano cancelled a dinner with Germany’s prospective chancellor Peer Steinbrueck after he said that “two clowns” had won the election. He was apparently referring to Mr Grillo and Silvio Berlusconi, the former premier.
The Italian elections represented an extraordinary rejection of Brussels’ plans for fiscal discipline in the eurozone. They also poured doubt on the European Central Bank’s ability to help since its Outright Monetary Transaction programme requries a commitment to austerity. But with €420bn of debt to raise this year, Italy can ill-afford high borrowing costs.
Mario Draghi, president of the ECB, warned that there were limits to the support the central bank could offer to any stricken member state. In a speech in Munich last night, Mr Draghi said: “It is important to stress that the ECB’s mandate only extends so far. There are clear limits to what monetary policy can and should aim to achieve. We cannot repair unsound budgets. We cannot clean up struggling banks. We cannot solve deep-rooted problems in the structure of Europe’s economies.”
More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9898532/Markets-relief-at-Italian-bond-test-despite-chaos-in-Rome.html
Compared with the eurozone, the UK economy is not that bad
Beggars can’t be choosers, and George Osborne – under attack on virtually all sides – must gladly seize on whatever support he can find.
Yet even for Britain’s beleaguered Chancellor, to be blessed by Olli Rehn, European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, must feel a bit like the kiss of death.A mild mannered and basically decent Finn who has never looked comfortable in his role as Europe’s economic slave driver in chief, Mr Rehn is admittedly only a spokesman for policies he surely cannot believe in.
There is, however, no quarrelling with the results – they have been utterly disastrous, helping to induce socially destructive levels of unemployment and economic contraction in large parts of Europe, and now open political insurrection in Italy. Praise from Mr Rehn – according to the economics commissioner, Britain is to be congratulated on its fiscal austerity – must therefore be seen as a form of petrification. Europe is steadily freezing over under his gaze.
More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/9898535/Compared-with-the-eurozone-the-UK-economy-is-not-that-bad.html
We end for today and the month, with graphene, the
super material of our new carbon age century, that I think will eventually be
what rescues the global economy from the failure of casino capitalism.
Unfortunately that may be more mid to late decade than 2013. Click on the link
for a most interesting video.
Graphene: The Super Supercapacitor.
"The modern mind dislikes gold because it blurts out unpleasant truths."
Joseph Schumpeter
At the Comex silver depositories Wednesday final figures were: Registered 37.27
Moz, Eligible 125.66 Moz, Total 162.93 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, China v
Japan is heating up again, now that the lunar new year holiday is over.
Beijing War Prep
China moves mobile missiles near coast amid tensions with
Japan over islands
BY: February 27,
2013 4:59 amUnited States intelligence agencies recently detected China’s military shifting road-mobile ballistic missiles closer to its southern coast near the disputed Senkaku Islands amid growing tensions between Beijing and Japan over the islands dispute.
U.S.
defense officials said the movements are being watched closely as China’s
military is also holding large-scale military exercises that some fear could be
a trigger for a conflict with Japan that could involve U.S. forces.
The
officials did not provide details of the missile movements that were tracked by
U.S. aircraft, ship-based, and satellite surveillance systems in the region.
Disclosure
of the missile movements comes as White House national security adviser Tom
Donilon on Monday met in Seoul with China’s state councilor Liu Yandong. The
two were in South Korea to attend the inauguration of South Korean President
Park Geun-hye.
Tensions
remain high between Japan and China over Tokyo’s nationalization last year of
several uninhabited islands between Okinawa and Taiwan called the Senkakus.
China claims the islands as its territory. At issue are large undersea oil and
gas deposits sought by both energy-poor countries.
The
officials confirmed the missile movements near the provinces of Zhejiang and
Fujian after Chinese press outlets first reported them.
The most
recent report appeared in the Hong Kong newspaper Oriental Daily News, a
non-Chinese owned outlet that quoted a military source as saying the missile
deployments included new solid-fueled DF-16 road-mobile missiles.
The Feb.
21 report said the People’s Liberation Army Second Artillery Corps, which
operates missile units, were preparing to target the disputed Senkaku Islands
as well as U.S. military bases in Okinawa.
The Daily
News stated that the missile movements were signs the PLA is “preparing for
the worst regarding the territorial dispute between China and Japan over the
Senkaku Islands.”
The
report also stated that the DF-16 is capable of defeating U.S.-made Patriot
missile batteries that are deployed at U.S. and Japanese military bases in the
region. The DF-16 is said to be armed with multiple warheads.
---- The U.S. newsletter East-Asia-Intel.com reported Feb. 13 that China’s military appeared to be making war preparations by holding large-scale exercises around the Lunar New Year, including live fire artillery and air force bombing runs.
The
newsletter said state media also reported large-scale troop movements and
maneuvers near the coastal Fujian and Zheijiang provinces, the areas closest to
the Senkakus.
John
Tkacik, a former State Department specialist on China, said Chinese television
recently reported that PLA missile forces practiced saturation bombing
exercises that used for the first time an automatic launch system that could
fire 10 warheads accurately on one target.
“The
Pentagon and the Japanese defense ministry already take the PRC ballistic
missile threat to U.S. forces in the Taiwan Strait and Ryukyus seas very, very
seriously,” Tkacik said. “If U.S. surveillance and reconnaissance assets show
significant redeployments of road-mobile missiles, including DF-16s on China’s
east coast, U.S. and Japanese forces have to respond with far higher levels of
threat readiness, and that sort of thing can put the gathering crisis in the
Senkakus area on a hair-trigger.”
More
"It is extraordinary how many emotional storms one may weather in safety if one is ballasted with ever so little gold."
William McFee
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished January:
DJIA: +106 Up. NASDAQ: +126 Up. SP500: +140 Up. All three indexes are giving the same signal,
up.
