Baltic Dry Index. 880 +05
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit (debt) expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit (debt) expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."
Ludwig von Mises
For more on rigged markets, usually by the Fed and
its mega bankster accomplices, scroll down to Crooks’ Corner. Just remember to
exit the latest stock market rigged bubble before the Fed tips off its usual tag
team, of the end of QE forever, and a backing away from zero interest rates.
Given the state of the US, EU and Chinese economies that policy change isn’t
likely anytime soon.
We open today with Germany. A Germany determined to
force Club Med out of the European Monetary Union. With Club Mad broken on the
wheel of German austerity, and France off in left field committing national
suicide, Germany will finally get the continental European dominance it’s so
long sought. Not for nothing was Mrs. Thatcher against a German reunification,
although that was an illogical stance to take. Stay long physical gold and
silver for the inevitable breakup.
“It
is the destiny of the weak to be devoured by the strong.”
Otto von Bismarck.
Germany’s prudence is Europe’s poison
The spending cuts planned in Berlin by finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble to balance the budget a year early will make it impossible for others to grow
There is
an amusing perversion of the expression “it is always darkest just before the
dawn” – sometimes attributed to Mao Tse-tung – which goes something like this:
“No it isn’t. In fact, it is always darkest just before it is completely
black.”
You
cannot help but think of this cheery warning when listening to the eternal,
almost Panglossian, optimism of eurozone policymakers. They’ve managed to
declare so many false dawns during the course of this three-year-old crisis
that you’d think by now they might have learnt to keep their mouths shut. Not a
bit of it.
In a
letter to fellow members of the European Council this week, José Manuel
Barroso, the president of the European Commission, claimed that despite the
wreckage, there were now positive signs, in that current account deficits were
narrowing and labour productivity in weaker nations was improving. Other
European leaders have been equally keen to clutch at straws.
Olli
Rehn, the European economics commissioner, has been declaring the crisis over
ever since it began, and recently claimed both that confidence was returning
and that there was “light at the end of the tunnel”. Mario Draghi, the
president of the European Central Bank, has spoken of “positive contagion”
taking hold, in contrast to the “negative contagion” of recent years.
Oddly,
those obliged to live in the real world have failed to notice any of these
happy developments. At ground level, all that can be seen is catastrophic
levels of unemployment and a still collapsing economy. Far from embracing the
reform agenda prescribed in Berlin and Brussels, much of Europe seems to be
repudiating it. But never you mind. There are apparently rays of sunshine on
the horizon, proof positive that the medicine of structural reform and fiscal
discipline is working as it was supposed to. Indeed, so effective has it proved
that they’ve decided to up the dose.
As an
example to others, Germany too is going to engage in a little extra chemo, even
though it doesn’t obviously need it. A new round of spending cuts has been
announced by finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble, allowing Germany to meet the
goal of balancing its budget a year earlier than planned.
Among
major Western nations, it would be hard to think of a country in ruder economic
health than Germany. Buoyant exports combine with record-low levels of
unemployment to produce something close to a model economy. Furthermore, it’s
the only major advanced economy expected to see some fall, as a percentage of
GDP, in gross national indebtedness this year.
It might
therefore be argued that Germany is doing precisely what standard Keynesian
theory suggests it should: fixing the roof while the sun shines. In a perfect
world, economies should run big surpluses in the good times so they can afford
big deficits when things are not so good. Furthermore, Germany is in the
vanguard of the ageing phenomenon, and needs to save heavily to enjoy a
prosperous old age.
Unfortunately,
what may or may not be good for the Germans is unambiguously bad for almost
everyone else in Europe.
----If Germany is belt-tightening alongside everyone else, they are set a near-impossible task of wage and price deflation to regain lost competitiveness and eradicate trade imbalances. Eurozone policy as it stands therefore offers no plausible path back to sustainable growth for these nations.
There is
nothing new in the economics of this predicament. The problem was brilliantly
articulated by John Maynard Keynes as long ago as the Bretton Woods conference
of 1944, when he pointed out that in any fixed exchange rate regime, the
obligations associated with economic adjustment must fall as much on surplus
nations as deficit ones. Only if the surplus nations expand can the deficit
nations hope to stop contracting, get on their feet and create a virtuous
circle of growth.
More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/9930557/Germanys-prudence-is-Europes-poison.html
Elsewhere in Europe the revolution is just starting. Let the games begin. It’s an anti-Bilderberger revolution sweeping Italy, as the Vatican gets its first Jesuit, almost Italian, Latin American Pope. But will he lead his divisions against the Falklanders? In Euroland, is recidivism the new order of the day. Is the euro about to compete with the yen in the race to the bottom?
“The Pope! How many divisions does the Pope have?”
Joseph Stalin.
Italy parliament convenes to seek way out of election gridlock
ROME |(Reuters) - Italy's parliament convenes on Friday almost three weeks after last month's inconclusive election, with the parties still deadlocked over how to form a government in the euro zone's third largest economy.
The first task of the 630 lower house deputies and 315 senators will be to elect the speakers of the two houses. The outcome of the votes for these influential roles could give an indication of the prospects for a stable administration.
The election produced a hung parliament, with the center-left winning control over the lower house Chamber of Deputies but not of the Senate, which has equal legislative powers.
----While the election failed to produce a clear result, it did yield what has been hailed as a positive change of direction in terms of the relative youth of the parliamentarians elected and a big increase in women.
It will be by far the youngest parliament in Italy's history, thanks largely to 5-Star's 163 deputies and senators, none of whom have any previous parliamentary experience.
Overall, the lawmakers' average age of 48 is still lower than that of their counterparts in Germany, France, Spain, Britain and the United States, while the proportion of women has jumped to around 31 percent from 20 percent previously.
More
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/15/us-italy-vote-parliament-idUSBRE92E08920130315
Italian Lawmakers Face Backlash as Grillo’s Force Arrive
By Lorenzo Totaro & Andrew Frye - Mar 14, 2013 11:01 PM GMT
Italy’s
incumbent lawmakers, who united last year to impose austerity on taxpayers, are
bracing for a fight over their own privileges as the upstart movement led by
Beppe Grillo enters parliament and vies for key roles.
Up for
grabs as the legislature convenes today are the speakerships of the Senate and
Chamber of Deputies, followed by appointments to budget committees and
commission chairmanships. The posts could give Grillo’s Five Star Movement,
which took a quarter of the votes in elections last month, enough leverage over
the bodies’ more than 2 billion euros ($2.6 billion) in annual operating
expenses.
“The
costs could be cut in half,” said Elio Lannutti, a consumer advocate,
ex-senator and a friend of Grillo’s. “If they keep these people out, the
revolution is just going to get bigger.”
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-14/italian-lawmakers-face-backlash-as-grillo-s-force-arrive.html
Prodi Says Europe Hurt by Too Much Austerity Amid Very High Euro
By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan
& Kasia Klimasinska - Mar 15, 2013 4:00 AM GMT
Former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi
said fiscal austerity measures in Europe have been excessive and called the euro too high. “The euro has a very high rate of exchange,” Prodi, a former European Commission president, said in an interview with Sara Eisen airing on Bloomberg Television today. “I do think that it’s stronger than needed.”
The currency shared by 17 European nations is about 14 percent overvalued relative to the U.S. dollar, based on differences in consumer purchasing power, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The euro bought $1.3004 late yesterday in New York, about 6.4 percent higher than its average since 2000.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-15/prodi-says-europe-hurt-by-too-much-austerity-amid-very-high-euro.html
We close on Walter Mitty Euroland for the week, with the ECB rolling out a giant jobs program. But will the ECB be willing to hire the unemployed and unemployable from Europe’s going out of business Club Med? And what about their different work and tax ethics if they did?
“Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best”
Otto von Bismarck.
ECB needs 800 more staff to supervise eurozone banks
The European Central Bank (ECB) needs to boost its workforce by more than half in order to fulfil its new role as supervisor of the eurozone's 6,000 banks.
By Denise
Roland 7:02PM GMT 14 Mar 2013
The
Frankfurt-based institution needs to add 800 employees to its 1,500-strong
workforce by July 2014, according to the Wall
Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter.
A
eurozone official told the Journal the 800 figure - produced internally at the
Bank - was just the "starting point" and would likely increase over
time, since the ECB will initially only directly supervise around 30 of the
area's largest banks.
EU
finance ministers agreed
in December to make the ECB chief supervisor for banks in the single
currency bloc, giving it direct oversight of the eurozone's 200-or-so largest
lenders and the right to intervene in smaller institutions at the first sign of
trouble.
The new
regime will be introduced in stages from next year, with the aim of full
implementation by March 2014.
Recruiting
800 new staff is "a very ambitious project" if the ECB is to start
its supervision work as planned by July next year, a senior eurozone official
told the Journal, adding it would be difficult to find enough people with the
requisite experience and train them up in time.
More
We end for the week with rosy optimism on the UK
economy, from the out going Governor of the bank of England. Everything’s hale
and hearty, he’s telling the incoming Canadian shortly to head up the BOE. If
it all goes wrong later this year, it’s all your fault, is “the King’s” spin on
history.
Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, what
did you think of the play?
Economic recovery is in sight, says Governor Sir Mervyn King
The economy will pick up later this year and the recovery is now “in sight”, the Governor of the Bank of England has declared.
In some
of his most upbeat comments since the crisis, Sir Mervyn King claimed “there is
momentum behind the recovery that’s coming” and that “good progress” has been
made towards a new, sustainable economy in the last few years.
“I think
that during the course of 2013 we will see the recovery come into sight,” he
said. “If you take away what happened in the North Sea oil production and in
construction, the UK economy last year grew by 1.5pc.” Overall, the economy
grew by 0.2pc in 2012, according to the latest official data, and is expected
to grow 1.2pc this year.
The
Governor also revealed that he has held discussions with the Chancellor and the
Prime Minister about their economic strategy, when he has pressed for more
supply side reforms.
He
refused to be drawn on his recommendations but “supply side” could be
short-hand for improving the economy’s credit supply. Last week, the Prime
Minister hinted that the Bank would get new tools to boost growth in the
Budget, saying he backed “monetary activism” and that “the Bank must support
the recovery”.
The
Treasury is now widely expected to extend the Bank’s Funding for Lending cheap
credit scheme or give it new powers to help stimulate the economy, possibly
alongside an altered inflation target. “Supply side” is also a term often used
in reference to tax cuts and deregulation.
----
Sir Mervyn’s comments came despite his recently voting to increase quantitative
easing by £25bn to £400bn, and amid weak economic data for the last two months
that have rekindled fears of a triple dip recession.
“Never
believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.”
At the Comex silver depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 42.47
Moz, Eligible 120.55 Moz, Total 163.02 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Here we go again. According to reports, US regulators think that the
price oof gold and silver is rigged in London. The US joke regulator, the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the same organisation that let MF Global
gamble all the customer segregated funds away as they went bust, now thinks
that the gold and silver price is open to rigging. Where have they been for the
last 20 years. Of course the price of gold and silver are rigged, as they have
been by central banks ever since the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money was
introduced all the way back in August 1971. You only have to look at Comex
futures trading to see that the price of gold and silver are perpetually rigged
lower in an attempt to fool the public that fiat currencies are a good thing
for the masses, rather than a crooked monetary system for the benefit of great
vampire squids and banksters. Comex futures trade in the CFTC’s backyard in New
York. But why should anyone be surprised that Wall Street and the City are
bent. Most of the major players have form.
“The world is a place that’s gone from being flat to round to crooked.”
Mad Magazine.
Could gold be the next Libor scandal?
US
regulator considering an inquiry into London's gold and silver markets to check
if prices are open to manipulation
Wednesday 13 March 2013 19.08 GMT
London's financial sector was last night bracing itself for another official investigation into alleged price-fixing following reports that a US regulator is considering launching an inquiry into the City's gold and silver markets.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is discussing whether the daily setting of gold and silver prices in London is open to manipulation, according to the Wall Street Journal, which stated that the CFTC is examining whether prices are derived sufficiently transparently.
The system of setting gold prices in London is unusual and involves a twice-daily teleconference involving five banks – Barclays, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Bank of Nova Scotia and Société Générale – while silver is set by the latter three. The price fixings are then used to determine prices worldwide.
The news of the potential investigation comes after analysis of a similarly unusual system - the process used to determine the London interbank offered rate, known as Libor – uncovered manipulation and triggered multi-billion dollar fines against a group of banks.
Barclays was hit with a £290m fine last year, which resulted in the departure of its chief executive Bob Diamond and chairman Marcus Agius. Royal Bank of Scotland is paying fines of £390m for its role in Libor-rigging.
The fixing of the gold price in London dates back to September 1919, when the process involved NM Rothschild & Sons, Mocatta & Goldsmid, Samuel Montagu & Co, Pixley & Abell and Sharps & Wilkins.
At the start of each gold price-fixing, the chairman announces an opening price to the other four members who relay this price to their customers. Based on orders received from them, the banks declare themselves as buyers or sellers at that price.
Provided there are both buyers and sellers at that price, members are then asked to state the number of bars they wish to trade.
Spokespeople for all five banks involved did not comment when contacted last night.
If at the opening price there are only buyers or only sellers, or if the numbers of bars to be bought or sold does not balance, the price is moved and the same procedure is followed until a balance is achieved. The silver fix dates back to 1897.
"The secret of life is
honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."
Jamie Dimon, with apologies to Groucho Marx
Jamie Dimon, with apologies to Groucho Marx
JP Morgan hid mistakes as trade losses grew, Senate investigation finds
Bank executives to testify Friday after
report claims company misled public during $6.2bn London Whale trading debacle
Thursday 14 March 2013 23.24 GMT
JP Morgan's $6.2bn London Whale trading debacle was born out of secretive trades and creative bookkeeping as the bank attempted to limit losses using a practice that one regulator called "make believe voodoo magic", a Senate investigation has concluded.
The report by the Senate subcommittee on investigations, published on Thursday, detailed a series of failures in which accounts were hidden and trades were valued incorrectly to minimize losses. It also alleged that regulators were kept in the dark, a head trader's concerns went unheeded and a $51bn trading portfolio ballooned to $157bn in three months.
The inquiry follows JP Morgan's own internal investigation in January and provides the first look into the emails and internal discussions at the bank around the infamous Whale trade. It centers on the secretive JP Morgan chief investment office, which accounted for as much as one-sixth of the bank's assets last year.
The 300-page report alleges that JP Morgan hid losses, did not share information with its regulators, and misled the public. The report also blames the bank's regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and recommends reforming the way regulators oversee derivatives, the complicated financial instruments that played a role in the Whale trades and the financial crisis.
The report also concludes that JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, whose bonus was cut in half to $11.5m last year, knew about the sustained trading losses when he dismissed the incident as a "tempest in a teapot" in April 2012.
More
On December 4, 1928, it launched the Goldman Sachs Trading Corp. a closed-end fund with characteristics similar to that of a Ponzi scheme. The fund failed as a result of the Stock Market Crash of 1929, hurting the firm's reputation for several years afterward. Of this case and others like Blue Ridge Corporation and Shenandoah Corporation John Kenneth Galbraith wrote: The Autumn of 1929 was, perhaps, the first occasion when men succeeded on a large scale in swindling themselves.
Wikipedia.
Have
a great weekend everyone, but remember when Wall Street calls hang up.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished February:
DJIA: +111 Up. NASDAQ: +129 Up. SP500: +148 Up. All three indexes are giving the same signal since
January, up, but surprisingly February’s
move in all three was weak, suggesting that the indicators are topping
out. Will sequestration turn March into a
down month? So far so good.
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