Baltic Dry Index. 885 unch.
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"Gold would have value if for no other reason than that it enables a citizen to fashion his financial escape from the state."
William F. Rickenbacker
The German dictated, Cyprus bank depositors wipe-out,
isn’t just wiping out the deposits of Russian mafia and tax evading oligarchs,
but threatens to wipe out the deposits of Cypriot the charities that tend to
the needs of the poorest and most wretched in society. Way to go Berlin,
Brussels and the IMF, you really couldn’t make this sort of thing up. All to
get Chancellor Merkel re-elected this coming September. Marios Draghi and Barosso, plus the under
criminal investigation Lagarde of the IMF, what is it with French leaders of
the Washington based IMF, are set to turn poor Cyprus into Frank Capra’s
Pottersville, making Henry F. Potter look like a Saint in comparison. And all for the insignificant sum of 10 to 20
billion euro. A Eurozone like this doesn’t deserve to live on.
Germany never got to invade and wreck Cyprus in the
second world war, having slaughtered its parachute forces successfully invading
Crete. All it could do to Cyprus, was unleash some ineffective Italian bombing
raids on the then British held island. What Germany couldn’t achieve in the
1940s, is being achieved now in the 2010s. The euro simply isn’t working for
more and more Europeans. Far from making them wealthy, it’s become a relentless
and heartless impoverishment mechanism, all just to bailout Europe’s brain dead
banksters.
But the Cypriot worm just might turn. Mrs Merkel’s
no Thatcher, but she just might achieve Mrs Thatcher’s European dream. National
currencies and looser trade confederation rather than the Bilderberger dream of
the EUSSR to challenge the Brussels hated USA.
"Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money."
Daniel Webster
Cyprus bail-out vote stirs fresh jitters as slump fears grow in Europe
Cyprus has stunned EU officials by ordering a vote in its parliament on the terms of the EU-IMF Troika bailout for the country, risking a rejection by angry lawmakers and a fresh eruption of the crisis.
Attorney
general Petros Clerides said the assembly must have a say on the accord, which
will inflict huge losses on depositors at Laika and Bank of Cyprus. The
Orthodox Church of Cyprus expects to lose €100m, crippling its charities.
It is
unclear whether the government can muster a majority as popular fury erupts.
The Communists and Socialists have been vehement critics of the deal.
Green MP
George Perdikis told the Cyprus Mail that he would vote against it to uphold
the “freedom” of his country. “It is a crime to deliver Cyprus into the hands
of the troika and allow it to become a colony.”
The
Cypriot parliament threw out the original plan for a levy on guaranteed
deposits below €100,000. A rejection of the final deal might exhaust patience
in Berlin and Frankfurt. The country would be forced out of the euro within
days if the European Central Bank cuts off support.
----The latest twist came as Europe’s top policy-makers vowed to press ahead with their hard-line crisis strategy, brushing aside warnings of an economic debacle and ignoring a devastating challenge to key austerity claims.
In a
defiant statement, an alliance of the ECB, Commission and Eurogroup said the
“evidence is clear” that EMU crisis policies have been a success and recovery
is in sight. “The eurozone has shown a degree of resilience and problem-solving
capacity that many observers and policy makers would not have predicted even a
year ago.”
The
claims are flatly contradicted by the IMF, which warned this week that the
eurozone remains “the epicentre of potential risk” in the world, and is
endangering stability by dragging its feet on an EU banking union.
Steen
Jacobsen from Saxo Bank accused EMU leaders of dangerous complacency. “Nothing
they say is true. Reality has never been further away. It's scary,” he said.
“We think the eurozone is in far worse shape than they realize. We will see
contraction of 1pc this year but it could be as bad as 2pc."
Citigroup cut its forecasts drastically, warning that EMU
will shrink both this year and next, with a quasi-slump dragging on until 2017.
----Europe’s policy elites are increasingly on the back foot after furious controversy this week over a Harvard paper widely cited as the intellectual justification for austerity.
The 2010
study by professors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff purported to show a
cliff-edge fall in growth rates to -0.1pc once public debt reaches 90pc of GDP
in rich countries.
An expose
by the University of Massaschusetts found that there had been a basic Excel
error and other slips. In fact growth falls slightly to 2.2pc. The effect is
less serious on states that have their own currency and monetary instruments.
More
Up next, sclerotic Europe sets out to take on the
world. No guesses as to who wins and who gets to pay for the damages.
Financial transaction tax contravenes G20 agreements, warn global markets bodies
Five global markets associations have written to G20 finance ministers urging them to intervene in Europe’s plans to impose a financial transactions tax.
In a bid
to see the G20 overrule Brussels, the groups - whose members control trillions
of dollars of assets around the world - have asked ministers meeting in
Washington to “oppose” the measure. “Now is not the time to experiment with
policies that will fragment markets, increase market volatility, harm savings
and impede growth,” the letter warns.
The trade
bodies argue that the FTT would have “unprecedented extraterritorial impacts,
contrary to G20 principles”. It adds that the plans will damage economic
growth, increase the cost of financing for companies and governments, and
create “harmful spillover effects on the global economy”
It is
signed by the London-based Global Financial Markets Association as well as the
Japan Securities Dealers Association, the Australian Financial Markets
Association (AFMA), the Investment Industry Association of Canada and the Korea
Financial Investment Association.
The
controversial tax, which plans to impose a 0.1pc levy on the value of financial
transactions and 0.01pc on derivatives, was first proposed in September 2011.
Britain has led the opposition from the start, warning that the tax would be
unworkable and harm the City.
But
European leaders, with Francois Hollande from France to the fore, have made the
FTT a key policy through which to make banks "pay" for the financial
crisis and raise revenues too. Eleven EU countries, including Germany and
Italy, have signed up to the FTT. EU officials have said they want the tax to
apply across the single market.
----The
letter warns that the FTT will “create a further headwind to global economic
recovery” because it will “increase the cost of equity and debt financing for
both both governments and corporates [and] the cost of hedging transactions
undertaken in the real economy to manage risk”.
More
We end for the week with gold. Switzerland is to
hold a referendum on the issue of gold sales from the central bank. Unlike the
UK. Where referendums are only promised by bent politicians but never held, in
Switzerland getting 100,000 signature forces the referendum. However, the
timing of the referendum doesn’t itself have to be timely. The Swiss cabinet office
merely states that the referendum will be held in the next few years. More than enough time for mischief by the
central banks and Swiss politicians.
"No other commodity enjoys as much universal acceptability and marketability as gold."
Hans F. Sennholz
Swiss to hold referendum on gold reserves
Published on Apr 18, 2013 11:16
PM
GENEVA (AP)
- The Swiss Cabinet's office says the nationalist Swiss People's Party has
gathered enough signatures to force a referendum on banning the central bank
from selling any gold reserves.
The
Federal Chancellery in the capital, Bern, said on Thursday that the initiative
known as Save Our Swiss Gold had gained more than the required 100,000
signatures to force a vote among Swiss citizens within the next few years.
The party
began pushing for a referendum, a mainstay of Swiss direct democracy, more than
two years ago. It would require the Swiss National Bank to keep at least 20 per
cent of its assets in gold.
As of the
start of 2013, just over 10 per cent of the central bank's nearly 500 billion
Swiss francs (S$666 billion) in assets were gold.
"If you don't trust gold, do you trust the logic of taking a beautiful pine tree, worth about $4,000 - $5,000, cutting it up, turning it into pulp and then paper, putting some ink on it and then calling it one billion dollars?"
Kenneth J. Gerbino
At the Comex silver depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 40.67
Moz, Eligible 124.68 Moz, Total 165.35 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Who knew what and when, plus who did what and why, is what Italian prosecutors are asking, in the ever growing scandal of who bust the world’s oldest bank. Below, the list of cockroaches just keeps on growing. “Nomura and Deutsche Bank have also repeatedly denied any suggestion of wrongdoing.” Well they would say that wouldn’t they. Disgraced ex Cabinet Ministers Chris Huhne, (UK Liberal Democrat M.P. jailed for fixing his speeding ticket,) and Jerome Cahuzac (French Socialist Budget Minister in charge of stopping tax evasion, with with his very own illegal undeclared Swiss bank account,) both denied the undeniable right up until further denial became impossible. Why would the world’s leading banksters not just follow the same game plan?
Italy prosecutors turn up heat on banks in Monte Paschi inquiry
MILAN |(Reuters) - Italian prosecutors stepped up investigations into alleged fraud at Monte dei Paschi bank by ordering police to gather evidence from JP Morgan, one of several foreign lenders linked to a scandal rocking the financial and political establishment.
JP Morgan helped Monte dei Paschi to finance its costly purchase in 2007 of Antonveneta bank through a 1 billion euro hybrid bond, whose true nature was not fully disclosed to Italian regulators, according to prosecutors.
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI), which calls itself the world's oldest bank, also entered into a derivatives deal with JP Morgan, one of several on which the Siena-based bank accumulated heavy losses.
Two investigative sources told Reuters on Thursday that Siena prosecutors had asked tax police to visit JP Morgan's (JPM.N) offices in central Milan to seek documents relating to Monte dei Paschi's 9-billion-euro acquisition of Antonveneta.
A Reuters witness saw three tax police officials enter the JP Morgan's offices at around 0830 GMT on Thursday. The U.S. bank had no immediate comment on Thursday but has repeatedly denied any suggestion of wrongdoing.
Monte dei Paschi had to request 4 billion euros ($5.2 billion) of state aid after heavy losses on the derivatives deals and consequences of the Antonveneta purchase endangered its survival.
Two days ago the Siena magistrates also ordered the seizure of up to 1.95 billion euros ($2.54 billion) of assets from Nomura (8604.T) in an attempt to stem losses at Monte dei Paschi deriving from a structured deal agreed with the Japanese investment bank.
The seizure order was aimed at preventing Monte dei Paschi from giving more cash to Nomura as collateral for the 2009 "Alexandria" trade, a huge bet on Italian government debt made more costly by an interest rate swap that forces the Siena bank to take losses when rates are lower than expected.
Monte dei Paschi has posted losses of 730 million euros from the Alexandria deal and two other derivative trades, carried out after the Antonveneta purchase to spread losses from previous structured trades over several years.
Apart from "Alexandria", Monte dei Paschi's previous management entered a deal called "Santorini" with Deutsche Bank and another called "Nota Italia" with JP Morgan, the latter with a smaller negative impact on its accounts.
Flavio Valeri, the head of Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) in Italy told Reuters on Thursday that the German bank had not been informed of any possible proceedings against it by Italian prosecutors investigating the Monte dei Paschi case.
"We have not been notified of anything," Valeri said when asked if prosecutors could be targeting Deutsche Bank after the order against Nomura.
Nomura and Deutsche Bank have also repeatedly denied any suggestion of wrongdoing.
More
"To prefer paper to gold is to prefer high risk to lower risk, instability to stability, inflation to steady long term values, a system of very low grade performance to a system of higher, though not perfect performance."
William Rees-Mogg
Spring has finally arrived here in southeast England. Now natures plants
and blossoms will go into overdrive trying to catch up. Have a great weekend
everyone.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished March:
DJIA: +119 Up. NASDAQ: +132 Up. SP500: +157 Up. Another Fed bubble, but now it’s challenged.
No comments:
Post a Comment