Baltic Dry Index. 858 -03
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police.
Margaret Thatcher.
Due to early morning commitments, there won’t be an update torrow, Wednesday. The next LIR update will be on Thursday.
We open today with a lesson from British history.
How one determined woman set out to turn old socialist, communist lead union
Britain, into the modern era, that was just trashed under the twin populist
premierships of Blair and Brown. From the best peacetime Prime Minister, Mrs
Thatcher, to the worst peacetime Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in two decades.
Like Churchill before her, Prime Minister Thatcher was capable of misreading
history’s changing times. She completely misread what was happening in South
Africa. But besides turning around Britain and crushing the communist UK unions
and the communist faction in the UK Labour Party, she stands alongside Ronald Reagan and Pope
John Paul the Great in crushing the evil empire of the USSR, and freeing its
captive nations behind the iron curtain. She also ground down the American
supported murders of the IRA. Not bad for just a little over a decade in parliamentary
power. Little wonder that the Labour Party card carrying BBC is out today doing
its worst, trying to besmirch her achievements and name.
Sadly the great party that Mrs Thatcher once
led, is but a pale shadow of itself and no longer Conservative. From “the Lady’s
not for turning” to “U-turn Dave” and a second rate copy of Blair! Her Majesty’s
weak coalition Government seems tone deaf and to be implementing a historic death wish.
I feel that the BBC World Service is not as versatile as it used
to be - or perhaps I'm not listening at the right times.
Aung San Suu Kyi
How Thatcher Saved Britain
More than any other prime minister since 1945, Margaret Thatcher changed the course of British history. In one sense, like any politician, she was a product of her times, but don’t let that mislead you: Only she could have done what she did.No other U.K. politician of her time or since has had her combination of courage and single-mindedness. To meet the challenges she faced, she needed both. While she was in office, the country’s voters never much liked her, and to their shame Britain’s chattering classes despised her throughout. However, enough of the country believed she was necessary to keep her in power for 11 years. They were right -- she really was necessary.
She
did not just lead our country, she saved our country,” said Prime Minister
David Cameron on Monday. “I believe she’ll go down as the greatest British
peacetime prime minister.” She will, but it’s telling that the word “peacetime”
jars. Thatcher saw herself, I think, as a wartime prime minister. There were
enemies abroad, most notably in Argentina, and there were enemies at home who were very much
more dangerous -- Britain’s trade unions. She wanted no accommodation with
either kind of foe. She set out to crush them, and crush them she did.
To understand why the British, a tolerant people inclined to moderation in most things, supported this take-no-prisoners approach to government, you must understand the depths to which the country had fallen by 1979, when Thatcher first came to power. Five years earlier, a previous Tory government had been voted out of office after it had tried, and failed, to settle a strike by the coal miners’ union. That strike had literally shut down the country. Edward Heath’s government called a general election asking, “Who governs Britain, us or the unions?” The country gave its answer by voting in a Labour government.
Characteristically, Britain’s then-militant unions showed no restraint in victory. Seeking ever-higher wages, public- sector unions called a series of strikes in the winter of 1978- 79, the “Winter of Discontent,” leading to the biggest mass stoppage since the General Strike of 1926. Bodies were left unburied when gravediggers stopped work. Leicester Square became a rat-infested garbage dump, the trash piled 10 feet deep.
With voters at the point of despair, Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan returned from a meeting in (of all places) Guadeloupe to say the country was taking “rather a parochial view” of these problems. The U.K.’s best-selling tabloid newspaper, The Sun, led next day with the indelible headline, “Crisis? What Crisis?” and the government’s fate was sealed.
More
Now back to Euro crisis news. In the never ending
saga of serial bungling, incompetence and legalised theft, it pays to be one of
the bigger fish in the asylum. Euroland’s big three are a cut above the minnows.
In the ever more unbalanced Eurozone, who need rules when you’re too big to
bail. Stay long physical gold and silver. In their ever more larcenous attempt
to keep the EUSSR project going forwards, what’s yours is mine if it’s in an EU
bank or pension account.
“All
animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
George Orwell. Animal Farm aka EMU.
Italy to pay 40 billion euros of state debt to companies
ROME |(Reuters) - Italy's caretaker government said on Saturday it would pay 40 billion euros ($52 billion) that the state owes to private companies over the next 12 months, while vowing to stick within the European Union's deficit limit.
The cabinet approved a decree intended to provide funds to cash-strapped firms and help tackle a deep recession in the euro zone's third-largest economy. But some industry groups said it would be difficult for businesses to claim their money despite the measures.
The massive backlog of bills unpaid by Italy's public administration has long been a complaint by companies, which are having difficulty raising credit from banks that are facing increasingly tight credit conditions themselves.
Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Saturday that delayed payment of bills was "an unacceptable situation that has been accepted for a long time".
Monti, who continues to lead a caretaker government after an inconclusive February election, has been in talks with the European Commission, which is concerned about the impact the decree will have on Italy's deficit and its massive public debt.
More
EU's Rehn says supports Italian trade debt liquidation
BRUSSELS |(Reuters) - The European Commission supports Italy's plan to accelerate the liquidation of trade debt accumulated by its public administration, it said in a statement on Tuesday.
"Given Italy's considerably improved budgetary situation, there is scope for a phased liquidation without endangering the sustainable correction of the excessive budget deficit," said top EU economic official Olli Rehn.
The Commission said it trusted Italy would prevent the accumulation of new trade debts at all levels of government in the future.
French president struggles in tax crisis
By Hugh Carnegy in Paris and Robin Harding in Brussels April 8, 2013 8:48 pm
All members of France’s socialist government have been given a week to
publish full details of their wealth as President François Hollande struggles
to overcome a damaging scandal
over a secret Swiss bank account held by his former budget minister.In a sign of the acute sensitivity surrounding the issue, Pierre Moscovici, finance minister, signalled to Jack Lew, US Treasury secretary, that he would have to cancel a meeting they were due to hold in Paris on Tuesday.
French officials later said they were trying to reschedule the appointment with Mr Lew, but that it would have to be fitted around Mr Moscovici’s attendance at a government question session in the National Assembly, where ministers are expected to come under renewed attack over the tax fraud scandal.
The finance minister has been under sustained fire from the centre-right opposition UMP party since Jérôme Cahuzac, budget minister under Mr Moscovici until mid-March, admitted last week that he had lied about the 20-year existence of his Swiss account.
Mr Moscovici has denied charges that he did not take strong enough action to uncover the truth after allegations were first made against Mr Cahuzac in December last year.
More
Troika to visit Lisbon after court ruling: government
LISBON |(Reuters) - Portugal's lenders from the European Union and IMF will visit Lisbon following the rejection by the constitutional court of some government austerity measures to tackle uncertainty created by the ruling, the finance ministry said on Monday.
The dates of the visit are yet to be scheduled. The lenders usually visit Portugal for quarterly reviews of the country's performance under the 78-billion euro bailout. The latest such visit was in March.
"The court decision created an uncertainty which justifies this visit in-between reviews, as do the spending cuts that the government promised to present by the end of April or beginning of May," a finance ministry spokeswoman said.
Austria feels heat of EU's anti-bank-secrecy drive
BRUSSELS |(Reuters) - The European Commission warned Austria on Monday that its banking secrecy regime would leave it in a "lonely and unsustainable position" if it did not follow the same rules as other countries in sharing information on foreign depositors.
As part of a drive to curb tax evasion, Germany has been putting pressure on all "offshore" banking centers in Europe to apply uniform rules on exchanging account holders' information, with particular attention on Luxembourg and Austria, the only EU states holding out.
---- In a sign that the German-led pressure is having an impact, Luxembourg's finance minister, Luc Frieden, said at the weekend he was prepared to look at easing his country's secrecy rules, although he did not say how or when.
Luxembourg's banking system holds deposits equivalent to about 10 times the tiny country's economy.
The European Commission said Frieden's comments, made to a German newspaper, were a step in the right direction and that the ball was now in Austria's court.
"I very much welcome Luxembourg's new openness to automatic exchange of information, even if it is long overdue," Algirdas Semeta, the European commissioner responsible for tax and customs policy, said in a statement sent to Reuters.
"The spotlight is now on Austria. If it continues to resist this inevitable progress towards greater transparency, it will find itself in a lonely and unsustainable position."
More
We end for the day with yet another reason to be
super critical of nuclear power. When things go wrong we have virtually no ability
to stop the damage. All of Japan is now paying a high price for “cheap energy.”
All of the world is now bearing the cost of Tepco polluting the world’s oceans
for decades to come.
Suspected new leak found at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant
TOKYO |(Reuters) - Japan's nuclear regulator said on Tuesday a suspected new leak was found in Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc's (Tepco) underground water storage pool at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
There was possibility of fresh leak in the No. 1 pool where contaminated water from the leaking No. 2 pool was being transferred, the Nuclear Regulation Authority said on Tuesday. The regulator said Tepco had halted the transfer of the contaminated water.
Tepco, recently dogged by a series of mishaps at the nuclear plant devastated by a powerful earthquake and tsunami two years ago, had said on Monday it had began transferring contaminated water from the No. 2 pool to the No. 1 pool.
At the Comex silver depositories Monday final figures were: Registered 43.90
Moz, Eligible 121.30 Moz, Total 165.20 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Here we go again with yet more fishy economic figures from China. This
time it’s the Goldmanites casting stones from their glasshouse. The suspicion
is that some in China are double counting exports and undercounting inflation,
all to meet the number the next man up the reporting chain expects and needs.
But if China’s economy is actually weaker than reported, the global economy is
weaker than all the spin of the Davos Spring global recovery. The Fed’s latest
stock market bubble is dangerously removed from reality. If they were to stop
or slow their QE to infinity program, are stock market crash would ensue as
bond yields reset back to market forces.
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
When first we practise to deceive!
Sir Walter Scott.
China Export-Data Skepticism Deepens From Goldman to Nomura
By Bloomberg
News - Apr 9, 2013 5:17 AM GMT
China’s unprecedented run of
better- than-forecast export growth has spurred deeper skepticism of the data
at banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., casting doubt on the strength of
the recovery.
Gains in overseas shipments exceeded forecasts by at least 7.5 percentage points in December, January and February, the first time that’s happened in three straight months in the eight years Bloomberg has compiled analyst estimates for the data. March figures are due to be released tomorrow at 10 a.m. at a briefing in Beijing, giving the customs administration an opportunity to address the issue.
Overstated exports would mean China is failing to get the boost from global demand that the data suggest as the new government under Premier Li Keqiang seeks to sustain an economic rebound. Theories include companies inflating the value of shipments to bring money into China, according to Nomura Holdings Inc., and exporting the same goods twice as local governments seek to boost data, Goldman Sachs says.
“The recovery in exports is there, but the magnitude probably is much weaker than the official data has been indicating,” said Zhu Haibin, chief China economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Hong Kong.
The trade figures are part of a week of China data that started with today’s below-forecast inflation reading and culminate with first-quarter gross domestic product on April 15.
More
China’s Stocks Rise After Inflation Slows More Than Estimated
By Weiyi Lim - Apr 9, 2013 6:10 AM GMT
China’s
stocks rose for the first time in five days after a government report
showed inflation slowed more than estimated last month. TCL Corp., a television maker, advanced to the highest level in 21 months after the company estimated first-quarter net profit may have jumped eightfold. SAIC Motor Corp., the biggest Chinese automaker, climbed 1.8 percent after reporting a 17 percent gain in sales last month. Hualan Biological Engineering Inc. led a decline for health-care companies
----Consumer prices rose 2.1 percent in March from a year
earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said, compared with the 2.5 percent
median estimate of 38 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
More
The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.
Margaret Thatcher.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished March:
DJIA: +119 Up. NASDAQ: +132 Up. SP500: +157 Up. Another Fed bubble grows.
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