Baltic Dry Index. 743 +03
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"Gold was not selected arbitrarily by governments to be the monetary standard. Gold had developed for many centuries on the free market as the best money; as the commodity providing the most stable and desirable monetary medium."
Murray N. Rothbard
Fire up the ECB’s sovereign debt buying department.
There’s a boat load of Italian sovereign debt that needs buying. Italy’s
electorate voted a rude message to the rest of Euroland. No more German
austerity. No more nice guy either. Italy is going back to what Italy does best
- anarchy. If the rest of the world was appalled by gridlock and political
warfare in Washington DC, just wait until the new parliament takes over in
Rome. Poor Italy, what else could possibly go wrong. The Pope resigns, a quarter
of Italy’s voters turn to a “comedian” whose message seems to be “drop dead
Europe,” and Chancellor Merkel’s nemesis
has returned from the dead to haunt her re-election campaign.
Italy didn’t so much vote in a hung parliament as a
parliament that should be hung. Euro’s anyone? Stay long gold and silver. The great
Bilderberger United States of Europe project is ending as the doubters
predicted back in the 70s, 80s and 90s. To keep Euroland alive now, Germany
needs to send boat loads of new cash down to Club Med, and fast.
Italy Renews Market Concerns as Voters Reject Monti
By Andrew
Frye - Feb 26, 2013 12:45 AM GMT
Italy’s inconclusive
election triggered renewed market jitters over Europe’s debt
crisis as recession-scarred voters repudiated budget rigor and established
former comedian Beppe Grillo as a political force. In the four-way race, pre-election favorite Pier Luigi Bersani won the lower house by less than a half a point. Silvio Berlusconi, the former premier fighting a tax-fraud conviction and charges of paying a minor for sex, called for a recount and won a blocking minority in the Senate. In its first national contest, Grillo’s group got 25 percent support
“The political situation across Europe is effectively a race between austerity and reforms on the one hand and the rise of populist movements on the other,” said Alberto Gallo, head of European macro credit research at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. “Austerity is painful, and if reforms are not implemented in time, you run the risk of social unrest and populism. It hasn’t happened so far in Greece, it hasn’t happened in Portugal or Spain, but we are very close in Italy.”
Berlusconi and Grillo, the candidates running to reverse the austerity implemented by incumbent Premier Mario Monti to contain the region’s financial crisis, scored about 55 percent of the popular vote. The euro fell to a six-week low, Italian bonds declined and U.S. Treasury notes rose as the results trickled in.
“It will make people pause and take some risk out of their portfolios,” said Joseph Balestrino, senior fixed-income strategist who helps oversee $51.4 billion of assets at Federated Investors in Pittsburgh.
The
Italian Treasury sells 8.75 billion euros ($11.4 billion) of six-month bills
today, followed by an auction of as much as 6.5 billion euros of five- and
10-year bonds tomorrow.
The
result may lead President Giorgio Napolitano to install an interim government,
such as the one headed by Monti, to write a new election law as the prelude to
another vote. Bersani signaled he may seek an alliance with Grillo, who has
rejected such overtures. No formal steps can be taken until Parliament
reconvenes March 15.
----The unelected premier’s tax increases pushed Italy further into recession. Voters were given alternatives by Berlusconi and Grillo, who pledged to overturn Monti’s legacy of budget rigor. Bersani said he would maintain most of his policies.
“A hung parliament would be a guarantee of paralysis both in terms of economic program and structural reforms,” Annalisa Piazza, a fixed-income analyst at Newedge Group in London, said in an e-mail. “Such a scenario would be the worst-case outlook.”
More
Comic Grillo stuns Italy with astonishing election showing
ROME |(Reuters) - The outcome of Italy's national election is still uncertain but what is already clear is that the massive winner is Beppe Grillo, a shaggy haired comedian whose anti-establishment 5-Star movement could well become the country's largest party.
It had been clear from weeks that Grillo, with his fiery invective against the traditional parties, was making impressive progress in the polls, but no pundits had imagined he could win around a quarter of the votes cast.
"It's marvelous, in three years we have become the biggest party in Italy," Grillo said in uncharacteristically calm tones in his first comments after the vote in a live video feed.
"It's been a wonderful adventure and we will do everything we promised in the election campaign," he said.
Touring the country in a camper van and attracting tens of thousands to his rallies, 64 year-old Grillo channeled the rage and frustration of Italians at the rampant waste and corruption of their political leaders.
Grillo wants Italy to hold a referendum on remaining in the euro. His policy platform, which sapped votes from the left and right alike, includes cuts in politicians' privileges, a minimum income for the unemployed, clean energy and free internet.
"The implications of Grillo's success extend far beyond Italy," said London-based political think-tank Demos. "His success demonstrates an appetite for change, and mainstream parties would do well to take the movement seriously."
Grillo now holds the key to any chance of a government being formed in the euro zone's third largest economy.
----Most of the 5-Star candidates, who were picked in primary elections conducted on the internet, are complete newcomers to politics at any level. A quarter come from blue-collar jobs.
Grillo
himself did not run for election because a manslaughter conviction from a
traffic accident in 1981 made him ineligible under his movement's rule banning
candidates with criminal records.
He says
he is merely 5-Star's "guarantor" and spokesman.
More
Euro debt crisis looms again as Italians defy EU austerity demands
The eurozone’s debt crisis strategy was in chaos on Monday night after anti-austerity parties appeared on track to win a majority of seats in the Italian parliament, vastly complicating efforts to forge a government able to carry through EU-imposed reforms.
In an
earthquake result, the Five Star protest movement of comedian Beppe Grillo
looked likely to emerge as the biggest single party in the lower house. The
scourge of bankers and corrupt elites, Mr Grillo has campaigned for a return to
the lira and a restructuring of Italy’s €1.9 trillion (£1.64 trillion) public
debt.
The
conservative bloc of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi looked poised to win the
senate, coming back from the political grave with vows to rip up the EU’s
austerity plans and push through tax cuts to pull Italy out of deep slump.
“The
majority of Italians have clearly voted against the Brussels consensus. That is
a damning indictment,” said Mats Persson from Open Europe.
A
euphoric rally on European bond and stock markets early on Monday gave way to
abrupt selling as it became clear that Italy would be left with a hung
parliament and no consensus over fundamental policies, leaving the country
almost ungovernable.
----The centre-Left Democrats of Pier Luigi Bersani won the most votes on the popular count with pledges to stay the course on EU crisis strategy, but fell short of seats under Italy’s complicated electoral system. He cannot pass legislation without the backing in both houses.
His
economic spokesman, Stefano Fassina, said the result pointed to paralysis, and
might force a second election. “The projections so far suggest there will be no
stable government.”
It is
unclear whether the European Central Bank (ECB) can continue to stand behind
the Italian debt market under its Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) scheme
if there is no party able to deliver on austerity cuts and reforms demanded by
Berlin and Brussels.
“People
have forgotten that the OMT cannot be triggered without a vote in the German
Bundestag. This is going to be a huge problem, and we may be back to the
political stand-off between the North and South of Europe,” said Mr Persson.
Giuseppe
Ragusa, from Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome, said there would be huge
pressure to include outgoing premier Mario Monti in any new configuration to
reassure markets and create a fig-leaf of continuity to keep the ECB on board,
even though Mr Monti himself suffered a serious defeat.
His Civic
List won just 9pc of the vote in what amounted to a popular rejection of his
hair-shirt policies.
More
While Europe reels from the latest disaster in Club
Med, the rest of the world’s attention turns today to Washington and Dr. Bernanke.
Just what exactly did the Fed mean in the minutes of its meeting released last
week. Is it QE forever or not? My money
is on QE forever no matter what the funny money inflationist says to the Senate
Muppets later today. The US economy is still on Federal Reserve life support
far from recovering, as can be seen from the Fed’s emergency rock bottom
interest rate. The lie of the “Davos Spring, talk up our book” recovery, is
just that, a lie.
“Bubbles Greenspan and The Bernank,” broke the
Great Nixonian Error of fiat money through an orgy of fraud in the “triple-A”
securities bubble they set off to overcome the effect of the NASDAQ “stock
market for the next hundred years” crash. The banks are still broke operating
on deliberate false accounting.
Bernanke to face Fed critics in testimony to Congress
WASHINGTON
| Tue Feb 26, 2013 12:06am EST
(Reuters)
- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke faces the first of two days of
congressional testimony that will subject the Fed's controversial bond-buying
program to tough scrutiny and gauge his confidence in the resilience of the
U.S. economy.
Coming
just a week after the Fed's meeting minutes sent U.S. stocks reeling by
suggesting the central bank could pull back its economic stimulus earlier than
had been expected, and a day after another sharp stock market drop, investors
are certain to hang on every word.
Beginning
with the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday, the scholarly Fed chief will
be quizzed by some bitter critics of the aggressive steps he has championed to
spur growth. On Wednesday, he will appear before the House Financial Services
Committee.
"His
opinion remains that there is still not enough growth, that high unemployment
is a cyclical issue, that there is not enough inflation," economists at TD
Securities in New York said in a note to clients. "He will keep the pedal
to the metal deep into 2013."
The Fed
chairman's prepared testimony is scheduled to be released at 10 a.m. (1500 GMT)
on Tuesday, followed by a lengthy question-and-answer session. By tradition, he
will issue the same statement on Wednesday before facing the House panel.
More
"As fewer and fewer people have confidence in paper as a store of value, the price of gold will continue to rise. The history of fiat money is little more than a register of monetary follies and inflations. Our present age merely affords another entry in this dismal register."
Hans F. Sennholz
At the Comex silver depositories Monday final figures were: Registered 37.27
Moz, Eligible 124.05 Moz, Total 161.32 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, Bloomberg with
more news on the never ending Liebor scandal. Meet the banksters from Holland,
the country not the old socialist lunatic busy trying to turn France into
Italy. Like banksters everywhere, it’s really not their fault. They can resist
everything except temptation, which must have poor old Oscar Wilde spinning in
his Paris grave. Not to worry though, so far no global bankster has suffered
more than losing a job or a Knighthood. As the US “Justice” Department recently
confirmed, at the too big to fail banks, the banksters are too big to jail. It’s
a funny old world on the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money.
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.
Robberbank with apologies to Cary Grant. To Catch A Thief.
Rabobank Faces Libor-Rigging Fine of $440 Million Plus
By Lindsay Fortado, Maud van
Gaal & Greg Farrell - Feb 26, 2013 5:03 AM GMT
Rabobank Groep faces a fine of more than $440 million for Libor rigging as
global regulators seek to increase the $2.5 billion in penalties already levied
in the rate-manipulation scandal. Rabobank, the second-biggest Dutch lender, is next in line to reach a settlement with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Department of Justice and the U.K. Financial Services Authority over claims it tried to manipulate benchmark interest rates, said four people with knowledge of the probe who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.
The penalty, which may come as soon as May, is likely to be between the 290 million pounds ($440 million) Barclays Plc (BARC) paid in June and the $612 million Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc paid this month, one of the people said. Rabobank, formed in 1898 as a co-operative to lend to Dutch farmers, is the country’s only contributor to the London interbank offered rate, the benchmark for more than $300 trillion of securities.
Closely held Rabobank is under scrutiny for alleged attempts to manipulate sterling Libor, dollar Libor, Japanese yen Libor and Euribor in its London, New York, Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong offices, one of the people said.
Hendrik Jan Eijpe, a spokesman for the Utrecht-based lender, declined to comment on the status of the probes. The bank has said it’s been subpoenaed or asked for information by watchdogs in eight jurisdictions, including the European Union, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland as well as the Netherlands, and is cooperating.
More
Banks are an almost irresistible attraction for that element of our society which seeks unearned money.
J. Edgar Hoover
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished January:
DJIA: +106 Up. NASDAQ: +126 Up. SP500: +140 Up. All three indexes are giving the same signal,
up.
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