Friday, 5 July 2013

Big Trouble In China



Baltic Dry Index. 1103 -30

LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000.  Revised due to QE programs.

China’s direct contribution to global growth is enormous, but perhaps equally as important is its role in generating growth in developed and emerging economies. A slowdown, whether significant or extreme, in the Chinese economy heralds very bad news for asset prices around the world.

Kyle Bass.

Just how bad is China’s wobble? Following today’s news from China fear the worst. While nobody believed China’s official statistics, least of all Chinese officials, the official statistics are now so alarming that they must be hidden away.  “What happened with the missing subcomponents is definitely not good for the credibility of the official PMI,” said Louis Kuijs, chief China economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in Hong Kong, who previously worked for the World Bank.

China definitely has something to hide. Perhaps America’s super spy agency the NSA can release the missing data.  In any event, this is not a good development for the global economy, and must strike terror into the giant mining companies supplying China and the captive commodity nations that depend on them. Time to remain in the bunker. Time for high risk takers to short Aussie dollars, the Rand, and South American currencies. A massive summer crisis is slowly developing. It’s not good news for Europe either.

China Suspends PMI Details in New Hurdle for Analysis: Economy

By Bloomberg News - Jul 5, 2013 3:53 AM GMT
China suspended the release of industry-specific data from a monthly survey of manufacturing purchasing managers, with an official saying there’s limited time to analyze the large volume of responses.

“We now have 3,000 samples in the survey, and from a technical point of view, time is very limited -- there are many industries, you know,” Cai Jin, vice president of the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing, which compiles the data with the National Bureau of Statistics, told reporters yesterday in Beijing.

The disappearance of data on industries including steel adds to issues hampering analysis of the world’s second-biggest economy, after fake invoices inflated trade numbers this year. Neither the federation’s nor the statistics bureau’s statement on the manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index this week gave readings on export orders, imports and finished-goods inventories or an explanation for the omissions.

“Suspension of the monthly data, without prior notice, makes the research work difficult for us,” Xu Xiangchun, a steel researcher and chief analyst at Mysteel.com, said by phone from Beijing. “The random absence of official data is disorienting.”

----Cai said the suspension wasn’t permanent. He didn’t elaborate on the reason for the decision beyond rejecting the idea that it was because the data showed too much weakness.

The statistics bureau didn’t respond to e-mailed or faxed questions seeking comment.

----“What happened with the missing subcomponents is definitely not good for the credibility of the official PMI,” said Louis Kuijs, chief China economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in Hong Kong, who previously worked for the World Bank.
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PBOC to Extend Cash Crunch as Zhou Discovers Flaws

By Bloomberg News - Jul 5, 2013 5:06 AM GMT
China’s finance companies predict central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan will extend a cash crunch, albeit without June’s dramatic swings, as he calls for the market to “discover and correct” excessive lending.

----“While inflation remains controlled, the central bank may want to keep money-market rates elevated to reduce banks’ off-balance-sheet assets,” said Huang Wentao, a bond analyst at China Securities Co. in Beijing, the country’s second-biggest brokerage underwriter of bonds. “We probably won’t see a return of the extreme tightness in June, but a 4 percent repo rate is still very high.”

Shares of China’s four biggest banks plunged an average of 12 percent last month and yield premiums on their bonds soared as the cash crunch underscored concerns excessive lending to property projects and local governments will end in rising defaults. President Xi Jinping said last month that officials shouldn’t be judged solely on their record in boosting gross domestic product, signaling that the new administration is prepared to tolerate slower economic expansion.
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China Enters Nomura Danger Zone as Fed Tapers: Cutting Research

By Simon Kennedy - Jul 5, 2013 12:00 AM GMT
China, Hong Kong and India are in a “high-risk danger zone” because their monetary policies have stayed too loose over the past four years, according to Nomura Holdings Inc.

A June 28 report by the bank’s economists and strategists showed the average ratio of domestic private debt to gross domestic product across Asia had ballooned to 167 percent in 2012 and most of the region’s property markets are “frothy.” The debt ratio has increased by over 50 percentage points in Hong Kong and Singapore and between 30 and 40 points in Malaysia, South Korea, China and Thailand.

A measure of monetary policy based on output gaps and inflation shows that interest rates have also been persistently below what economic models suggest, and even more so if the financial cycle is accounted for, the report said.

----The risk is Asian policy makers are falling into the same trap as their U.S. and European counterparts did prior to the global financial crisis and as Asia did in the 1990s: “That is, keeping policies too loose by focusing too much on the standard business cycle and low inflation and not enough on the financial cycle,” said Nomura.

China’s problems couldn’t come at a worse time for faltering Europe.  Club Med is in a never ending, generation crushing train wreck. A death spiral economy with no good options, with the least worst option leaving the German euro. Meanwhile yesterday the ECB’s boss called Bernocchio’s bluff. Low interest rates are Europe’s future forever, he suggested, only to be raised in some off in the future never-never time. A promised land of central bank Pixie dust, two chickens in every pot, full employment for every youth, a double pension for every old timer, an electronic dollar [your currency here] that increases in value each year, a thousand times safer than gold. With dreamland promised to continental Europeans, Draghi’s message to Bernanke  was a variant of Maggie Thatcher’s “You turn if you want to” on QE forever, “this bankster’s not for turning,” being fully aware of the consequence of ending QE forever and ZIRP.

The bankster in his mansion,
The taxpayer at his gate,
Draghi made them High or lowly,
He disordered their estate.

With apologies to All things bright and beautiful.

Spain, France debt costs rise on new euro crisis fears

MADRID | Thu Jul 4, 2013 4:25pm BST
(Reuters) - Spanish and French borrowing costs rose on Thursday as political turmoil in Portugal fanned fears the euro zone crisis will reignite, although the higher returns offered drew good demand for both bond sales.

A rift within Portugal's governing coalition following the resignations of two ministers this week has pushed up yields on bonds of more indebted euro zone countries and favoured safe-haven paper. Portugal's own 10-year yields shot above 8 percent for a time on Wednesday but have since fallen back a bit.

----"While yesterday's dramatic sell-off in Portugal shows peripheral bond markets retain their capacity for brutal price action, the market reaction in Spain and, in particular, Italy has been relatively muted," said Nicholas Spiro, managing director at Spiro Sovereign Strategy.

"The rally in peripheral debt went into reverse some time ago. This is a much more volatile, and a much less forgiving, market environment for Spanish bond sales."

Spain sold 3 billion euros of a new five-year bond and 1 billion euros of an existing three-year bond, while France sold 10- and 15-year bonds. Both auctions raised all or nearly all their maximum targeted amounts.
Spain paid between 17 and 20 basis points more than it had to sell similarly-dated debt last month, and the 3.792 percent yield on the five-year bond was the highest since February.

France saw its debt costs rise by 26-28 basis points from auctions last month, to 2.32 percent for the 10-year OAT, although its secondary market yields have fallen this week as investors sought out highly rated debt.
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July 4, 2013, 11:24 a.m. EDT

Draghi: Low rates aren’t going away anytime soon

LONDON (MarketWatch) — European Central Bank President Mario Draghi goosed markets around the world Thursday when he said interest rates will remain low or go even lower for “an extended period of time.”

Traders across Europe, particularly in London, were in the buying mood even before Draghi’s dovish stance, thanks to a statement from the Bank of England that also served to ease fears of a reduction in stimulus.

Market reaction was swift and pronounced. The euro EURUSD -0.16% turned lower against the dollar, hitting its lowest level since May, while equity markets across Europe XX:SXXP +2.34% soared.

---- Draghi said the decision to give forward guidance was “a very significant step” for the central bank.

The ECB kept its main lending rate at a record low 0.5%, as expected, That’s the same level it’s been at since it was cut from 0.75% back in May, which marked the first reduction in 10 months.

Draghi’s job got trickier last month after U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke signaled that the U.S. central bank could start tapping the brakes on monetary stimulus as soon as this year. Fears that tapering in the U.S. could further rattle the financially-stressed euro-zone countries were fanned this week by political upheaval in Lisbon that crushed Portuguese government bonds.

Robert Brusca, chief economist for FAO Economics, said there are ways in which he’d like the world to emulate the U.S., but economic policy, in this case, is not one of them.

“None of these central banks can see into the future. How can they give us guidance?” he asked. “The expression ‘the blind (mis) leading the blind’ comes to mind. The ECB and BOE are misled to follow the Fed down this rabbit hole.”
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“The boom can last only as long as the credit expansion progresses at an ever-accelerated pace. The boom comes to an end as soon as additional quantities of fiduciary media are no longer thrown upon the loan market...”

“But it (the boom) could not last forever even if inflation and credit expansion were to go on endlessly. It would then encounter the barriers which prevent the boundless expansion of circulation credit. It would lead to the crack-up boom and the breakdown of the whole monetary system.”

Ludwig Von Mises

At the Comex silver depositories Wednesday final figures were: Registered 46.43 Moz, Eligible 119.88 Moz, Total 166.31 Moz.  


Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.

Having bent the knee and doffed the lock before King Barry Hussein the First of America, Russia’s President Putin got even by conning America’s alphabet soup fraternity, that the fugitive Snowy was being smuggled by Bolivian President Evo Morales on his presidential plane, back to freedom of a sort in Bolivia. As the unfortunate Morales plane hit western European airspace, where with the NSA goods on European leaders, Uncle Sam found it easy to get even more obsequious compliance than from President Putin, over-flight to a refuelling stop in the Balearic islands, was denied and the Morales plane forced down to refuel, and searched in Vienna Austria. Had poor Snowy been on the plane it would have been a breath-taking display of American might and intelligence. A real scoop for the Sheriff of Nottingham in the service of bad King Barry.

Unfortunately sold a pup by Putin’s FSB, the resultant debacle traduced King Barry’s limited reputation on two continents, and exposed yet again the limited intelligence of America’s alphabet soup. GWB having lost South America through indifference, King Barry just kicked them in the nether region without justification.  Having gained their unexpected outraged attention, King Barry has just set up a continent of new William Tells, to mangle European history.  “I Spy” and tennis it ain’t.

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”

King Barry Hussein I, with apologies to Mahatma Ghandi.

Bolivia Threatens U.S. Embassy Closure After Search for Snowden

By Nathan Gill - Jul 5, 2013 5:50 AM GMT
Bolivia threatened to close the U.S. embassy as presidents from across the region met to show solidarity with President Evo Morales after the global manhunt for fugitive leaker Edward Snowden diverted his flight.

“We don’t need them, we’ve got other allies,” Morales said yesterday at an emergency summit of Latin American leaders in the highland Bolivian town of Cochabamba. “We don’t need the pretext of cooperation and diplomatic relations so that they can come and spy on us.”

Presidents from Argentina, Ecuador, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela met with Morales to demand Spain, France, Portugal and Italy apologize and explain why they denied the Bolivian leader’s presidential jet permission to fly through their airspace June 2. The incident led the plane to make an emergency landing in Vienna after a fuel gauge stopped working correctly, Morales said.

The group called for a new meeting of South American presidents on July 12 in Montevideo, Uruguay to discuss further retaliation against the European countries for the “flagrant violation” of international law, according to a statement read aloud by Bolivia’s Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca at the end of the meeting yesterday. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Chile’s Sebastian Pinera, Colombian President Jose Manuel Santos and Peru’s Ollanta Humala skipped the summit.
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Germany's Merkel hopes for U.S. answers on spying

BERLIN/WASHINGTON | Thu Jul 4, 2013 6:28pm BST
(Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after a phone call with Barack Obama on Wednesday night that she believed the U.S. president took Germany's concern over reported U.S. spying very seriously, and she hoped coming talks would bring answers.

Obama sought to allay the anger in Germany and other European allies in his call with Merkel, during which the chancellor said she made clear to him spying was not what she expected from countries considered friends.

They agreed to high level bilateral talks, in addition to planned talks between the European Union and the United States, to investigate reports that Washington spied on European allies.

German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich will travel to the United States at the end of next week, a spokesman said.

The reports came to light amid the imbroglio over former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked details of surveillance activities by Washington. He is currently in limbo in a transit area of Moscow's airport as the United States pressures Moscow to expel him home.

"I want to see the facts established," Merkel said on Thursday during a press conference in Berlin. "I hope to gain information and draw important conclusions."

She added: "I made clear spying on institutions within the European Union is not how we would expect those we consider friends to treat us. We are no longer in the Cold War."

Her comments come at the same time as a poll, published by ARD-DeutschlandTrend, showing only 49 percent of Germans consider the Americans trustworthy partners in the wake of the row - a low not seen since the presidency of George W. Bush - and down from a previous level of 65 percent.

----Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the SPD, said German authorities should quickly contact Snowden and consider giving him witness protection, German news magazine Spiegel said on Thursday.

----"The first step must be that the federal prosecutors office travels to Moscow to examine him as a witness," Gabriel was quoted as saying, adding if he was reliable Germany should consider whether to put him into a witness protection program.
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“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

President Putin, with apologies to  Napoleon Bonaparte

Another summer weekend, and more snow to come from Snowden I suppose. Inside King Barry’s realm the story has been turned into kill the messenger, ignore the message. Outside King Barry’s realm, in the lands of the vassal states, the messenger is still on song, and now starting to impact the coming election in Germania. In reality, it’s all just a summer diversion from our never ending train wreck from 2007. On the Great Nixonian Error of fiat currency it took 36 years of ever increasing greed and excess to blow up the system. We are only six years into it collapse and destruction, but already there is a massive unstoppable gold drain from west to east. More and more of the world is becoming anarchic. Stay long physical precious metals held outside of the banking system for the long run. Our central bankster have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana skin.  Have a great weekend everyone. Time to enjoy the wonders of God’s incredible northern hemisphere summer.


For those with the time and inclination, I offer a little light reading about UK spying for an earlier age. Follow some of the links on the main players. Up first a real rouge and probable murderer.

Arthur Maundy Gregory, the second of three sons of Francis Maundy Gregory (1849–1899), clergyman, and his wife, Elizabeth Ursula Mayow (1847–1936), was born at 9 Portland Terrace, Southampton on 1st July, 1877. After attending Banister Court School he passed the Oxford University entrance examination and went into residence there as a non-collegiate student in 1895.

Gregory originally intended to become a clergyman but left university shortly before his finals and began appearing on the stage. In 1900 he acted in the theatrical company of Ben Greet. In 1902 he took the role of the butler in The Brixton Burglary. He then became manager of the theatre company run by Frank Benson, but was dismissed for fraud in 1906.

According to his biographer, Richard Davenport-Hines: "In 1908 he (Gregory) made his earliest known attempt at blackmail. Harold Davidson, afterwards notorious as the vicar of Stiffkey, who had been his boyhood friend, induced Lord Howard de Walden and other rich men to finance Maundy-Gregory (as he then called himself) in the Combine Attractions Syndicate which crashed in 1909. Gregory next edited a gossip sheet, Mayfair (1910–14). As a sideline he ran a detective agency specializing in credit rating based on information supplied by hoteliers and restaurateurs."

Gregory became friends with Vernon Kell, Director of the Home Section of the Secret Service Bureau with responsibility for investigating espionage, sabotage and subversion in Britain. Kell employed Gregory to compile dossiers of possible foreign spies living in London. Later, Gregory was recruited by Sidney Riley, the top agent the recently formed MI6. He also did work for Basil Thomson, the head of Special Branch.

According to Brian Marriner: "Gregory, a man of diverse talents, had various other sidelines. One of them was compiling dossiers on the sexual habits of people in high positions, even Cabinet members, especially those who were homosexual. Gregory himself was probably a latent homosexual, and hung around homosexual haunts in the West End, picking up information.... There is a strong suggestion that he may well have used this sort of material for purposes of blackmail."
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The monthly Coppock Indicators finished June:
DJIA: +145 Up. NASDAQ: +146 Up. SP500: +177 Unch  The  Fed’s Final Bubble continues, but is struggling.  The S&P500 moved sideways. The Dow and Nasdaq both barely eked out a gain. In current highly volatile conditions and controversial uncertain policy indecision at the Fed, Speculators would stay long, investors would exit stocks for now or get fully hedged.

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