Baltic Dry Index. 1149 +10
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
We open today with the latest news from the
communist Empire known as China. Yes, you guessed it China’s GDP came in right
on the new downwardly revised figure of 7.5%. What the real number is, is
anyone’s guess, possibly as low as 6%, but for now in the other land of the
dodgy figures, the Chinese economy is cantering along at 7.5%. Down from its
gallop of 8 to ten percent. Uncle Sam and Bernocchio can only look on in envy
at the ease with which Beijing can summon up all the right numbers. Stock
marketeers liked what they saw, even if it is only yet another 2013 Potemkin
village, the great disconnect will get to live through yet another day.
"We finished the year, and we reported that we had $17 billion of cash sitting at the bank's parent company as a liquidity cushion. As the year has gone on, that liquidity cushion has been virtually unchanged."
Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz. March 12, 2008. Bust March 17, 2008
China Growth Slows to 7.5% as 2013 Target Under Threat: Economy
By Bloomberg News - Jul 15, 2013 5:24 AM GMT
China’s economy
slowed for a second quarter as growth in factory output and fixed-asset
investment weakened, adding to risks that the government will miss its
expansion target as Premier Li Keqiang reins in a credit boom. Gross domestic product rose 7.5 percent in April-to-June from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said in Beijing, equaling the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey and down from 7.7 percent in the first quarter. June production growth matched the weakest pace since the 2009 global recession.
The slowdown may increase speculation that policy makers will act to safeguard their growth goal of 7.5 percent for the year even as Li signals reluctance to boost stimulus and tries to reduce financial risks. With the International Monetary Fund last week cutting its outlook for global expansion, Li’s administration faces limits on turning to exports for support.
“The new government under Mr. Li should be seriously worried about the prospect as to whether they can meet the growth target,” said Liu Li-Gang, head of Greater China economics at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Hong Kong, who formerly worked at the World Bank.
----Sheng Laiyun, a spokesman for the
statistics bureau, said at a briefing today that the world’s second-biggest
economy will have no problem achieving the 2013 growth target. The agency said
in a statement that first-half growth was “generally stable,” with major
indicators in a “reasonable range.”
----Xia Bin, a former adviser to China’s
central bank, said in a commentary on China Business News’s website today that
“there is a de facto phenomenon of economic crisis in China.” The “eruption” of
a crisis means bankruptcy for some companies and financial institutions, higher
unemployment, reduced corporate and individual wealth along with a “withering
of the economy,” Xia wrote.
More
Asian stocks, Aussie dollar show relief over China data
SYDNEY |(Reuters) - Asian stocks rose on Monday, while the Australian dollar popped higher as investors heaved a sigh of relief after a batch of Chinese data showed the slowdown in the region's economic powerhouse was not as bad as feared.
European shares were expected to track gains in Asia bourses, while U.S. stock index futures were up 0.2 percent.
"European
equities are set to start the week with a slight bid at the open on the Chinese
data," said Jonathan Sudaria, a dealer at Capital Spreads in London.
China's
second-quarter economic growth cooled to 7.5 percent versus a year earlier,
from 7.7 percent in January-March, in line with expectations. Other figures
showed a healthy rise in retail sales, while industrial output slightly undershot
forecasts.
-----
"The
key is that while the rest of the world would like China to grow at 10 percent, policymakers are happy for
growth to maintain between 7-7.5 percent over the coming year," said
Savanth Sebastian, economist at CommSec in Sydney.
More
China Wealth Eludes Foreigners as Stocks Earn 1% in 20 Years
By Weiyi Lim & Kana Nishizawa - Jul 15, 2013 3:21 AM GMT
China’s 20-year economic boom has boosted the wealth of its 1.3 billion
citizens at the fastest pace worldwide and spawned some of the biggest
companies in history. Foreigners earned less than 1 percent a year investing in
Chinese stocks, a sixth of what they would have made owning U.S.
Treasury bills. The MSCI China Index has gained about 14 percent, including dividends, since Tsingtao Brewery Co. (168) became the first mainland company to sell H shares to international investors in Hong Kong in July 1993. That compares with a 452 percent return in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, 322 percent in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index and 86 percent from Treasuries. Only the MSCI Japan Index had a weaker performance among the 10 largest markets, losing about 1 percent.
More
In other less
prominent news from East Asia this morning, two can play at war games in
preparation for the coming Japanese war with China over the Diaoyu Islands.
While Japanese marines were storming ashore in California with US marines last
week, the Chinese navy was off war gaming in waters near northern Japan together
with President Putin’s reviving Russian navy. Stay long physical precious
metals stored far away from Uncle Sam, John Bull and Japan. Japan’s aging
demographics mean that Japan must start its war sooner than later, not that
China doesn’t have its own demographic problem as well.
In the
coming replay of the Battle of Tsushima over the Diaoyu’s, it’s far from clear that
21st century Japan has a new Admiral Togo. Provided all the action
takes place before 2022, neither of Her Majesty’s under construction aircraft
carriers can participate. Such is the modern bankruptcy of today’s John Bull,
the carriers won’t get any planes until after 2020, and only then if the
Americans can sort out the problems with the planes on order. As things
currently stand, it looks likely to be a Japan-USA v China-Russia scrap,
although Taiwan and South Korea might line up with China-Russia, since both
have their own scores to settle with Japan.
14 July
2013 - 13H54
China naval fleet seen off northern Japan
AFP - A Chinese naval fleet was Sunday
spotted sailing for the first time through an international strait between
northern Japan and Russia's far east, the Japanese defence ministry said.
The two
missile destroyers, two frigates and a supply ship passed through the Soya
Strait from the Sea of Japan to the Sea of Okhotsk early Sunday, the ministry
said.
The
channel, also known as La Perouse, separates the Russian island of Sakhalin and
the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido.
The five
ships took part in joint naval exercises with Russia from July 5-12 off
Vladivostok.
Two other
Chinese naval ships which also took part in the drills were seen moving into
the East China Sea on Saturday.
The
purpose of the Chinese fleet's passage through the Soya Strait is not known,
Kyodo news agency quoted a ministry official as saying.
On
Saturday a fleet of 16 Russian naval ships was seen moving through the Soya
Strait into the Sea of Okhotsk, the ministry said.
China and
Russia held the joint naval exercises -- their second such drill -- amid
regional concerns about China's growing maritime power.
More
In the EUSSR last week, life went on as
usual. Lying, cheating, stealing and tax avoidance went on as usual, while Club
Med as usual, blamed everything on those nasty Nazi Germans. While France and
Germany head off in opposite directions, the lid is about to bow off on a major
tax avoidance scandal in France. Explosive scandals are now headed for their
final act in Italy, France and Spain, while Portugal, Greece and Cyprus edge
closer to the EMU door marked “Exit-Freedom.” A US spying scandal brought down
the Luxembourg government of “when it becomes serious you have to lie,” Prime
Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, where it
is anyone’s guess if the state could stand behind its banking system when
Euroland’s roof falls in. The EUSSR’s ship of state now has more leaks, than
the Principality of Wales has leeks, but don’t tell that to the first class
passengers and their unwanted Club Med freeloading guests, all still busy
partying in the Grand Salon.
"We are not discussing the exit of Greece from the euro area. This is a stupid idea and an avenue we would never take."
Jean-Claude Juncker. Ex-Luxembourg Prime Minister and former president of the Euro Group of Finance Ministers.
Germany, France split over EU banks plan
BERLIN/PARIS - |(Reuters) - Germany and France were split on Friday over European Union plans for a new agency to wind down troubled banks, with Berlin saying they go too far in centralizing control in Brussels.
The body would form part of a banking union designed to underpin confidence in the euro zone and end the previously chaotic handling of cross-border bank collapses.
But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in a letter to the EU official in charge of the plans that the European Commission is trying to pocket too much power.
Schaeuble wrote in his letter to Michel Barnier, Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, that the proposal for the Commission to make the final decision on whether to wind down banks was out of step with European Union law.
More
Portugal opposition wants bailout renegotiation
LISBON |(Reuters) - The opposition Socialists demanded a renegotiation of Portugal's bailout terms on Friday, raising a hurdle to a cross-party pact the president says is needed to end the euro zone country's dependence on international funding next year.
Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho and Socialist leader Antonio Jose Seguro said they are ready to discuss a deal, but analysts say their divergence on painful austerity policies linked to the bailout could make it hard to resolve the crisis.
"We have to abandon austerity politics. We have to renegotiate the terms of our adjustment program," Seguro told parliament. "The prime minister has to recognize publicly that his austerity policies have failed."
The political turmoil has already forced Lisbon to request a delay in the eighth review of the bailout by its creditors, initially due to start on Monday, until the end of August or early September.
The delay drove up yields on Portuguese government bonds, which move inversely with prices, with 10-year yields surging 90 basis points on Friday to 7.87 percent.
More
Swiss arrest witness linked to French minister in tax scandal
ZURICH |(Reuters) - A key witness in the investigation against France's former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac has been arrested by Swiss authorities, the Swiss prosecutor's office confirmed on Saturday.
Swiss newspaper Tribune de Geneve reported that Pierre Condamin-Gerbier was arrested shortly after returning from France, where he had been a witness before a parliamentary commission investigation into alleged tax fraud by Cahuzac.
Asked if the Swiss public prosecutor's office could confirm the arrest, a spokeswoman said the Swiss authorities had issued an order to open a criminal investigation against Condamin-Gerbier for dealing in commercial information.
"The person was arrested on Friday, July 5, 2013. They are currently in protective custody," the spokeswoman said in a statement.
Condamin-Gerbier, a former employee at Geneva-based Reyl & Cie, has said has a list of French politicians who have undeclared funds in secret Swiss bank accounts. Reyl & Cie has repeatedly denied the claims.
On Saturday, Reyl & Cie said it had filed a criminal complaint against Condamin-Gerbier on June 17 alleging theft, falsification of documents and violation of professional and commercial confidentiality.
It said it had handed over all its evidence to the Swiss public prosecutor.
Cahuzac quit his job as France's budget minister in March, after coming under investigation for tax fraud, and said he had a foreign bank account holding some 600,000 euros ($790,000).
More
French HSBC tax case report reveals $5 billion in Swiss funds
PARIS |(Reuters) - France needs to beef up its methods of fighting tax evasion, according to a parliamentary report on a probe into HSBC that revealed $5 billion of undeclared assets in thousands of Swiss bank accounts.
The report, published on Wednesday, looked at why it took French authorities more than four years to begin an investigation after a former HSBC employee gave them a list of people who held money at the global bank's Swiss arm.
More
EU plans probe on German renewable energy law: Spiegel
BERLIN |(Reuters) - The European Union plans an investigation into Germany's renewable energy law due to concerns that exemptions for some firms from charges levied on power users breaches competition rules, a German magazine reported on Sunday.
Without citing sources, Der Spiegel weekly said lawyers in Brussels had looked at the law which provides a framework for Germany's push to renewable energy, and that Commissioner Joaquin Almunia had concluded it may breach EU rules.
The Commission would open proceedings on Wednesday, it said.
The officials criticized exemptions made for energy intensive companies in Germany, reported the magazine, adding this may lead to companies having to pay millions of euros in back payments.
More
Italy appoints a 'prosecco policeman’ to protect reputation of its famous fizzy wine
It’s a tough job but someone has to do it. For the first time, Italy has appointed a “prosecco policeman” - a wine expert whose job is to go round bars and restaurants to check that the light and fizzy aperitif is being served properly.
Andrea
Battistella, 27, who has a degree in viniculture and oenology, will make
surprise visits to establishments throughout the Veneto region, from where
prosecco originates.
The
“special monitoring agent”, as he is known, will be based in the town of
Treviso, north of Venice. He is just the first of many as the region has plans
to appoint more inspectors in the coming months.
He will
check that the fizzy wine that is being sold is genuinely prosecco, rather than
some imitation, and that it is poured directly from the bottle rather than
pumped out of taps or served in carafes.
It must
have the official DOC appellation, or Denominazione d’Origine Controllata, the
equivalent of France’s Appellation d’Origine Protégée, to show that it is not
cheap plonk.
Bars and
enotecas found to be ripping off their customers will be liable to fines
ranging from €2,000 to a hefty €20,000 (£17,400).
Yes it’s just another week in our on-going
real life soap opera “How the G-7 Was Lost.” Prosecco anyone?
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
H. L. Mencken.
At the Comex silver depositories Friday final figures were: Registered 48.68 Moz,
Eligible 117.26 Moz, Total 165.96 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
After a week of little Snow, today it’s Snow, Snow,
and yet more Snow. Today we catch up on
the latest developments in the case of the whistle-blower Snowy and the USA
spying on everyone on the planet, and apparently blackmailing a select elite in
America’s Congress and Judiciary. It’s a
funny old world on the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money. The things you have
to do to keep the great error running, and the serfs from revolting under the
ever greater burden of lack of purchasing power.
"The secret of life is
honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."
Groucho Marx.
Groucho Marx.
Snowden documents could be 'worst nightmare' for U.S. - journalist
BUENOS
AIRES | Sat Jul 13, 2013 9:29pm IST
(Reuters)
- Fugitive former U.S. spy contractor Edward Snowden controls dangerous
information that could become the United States' "worst nightmare" if
revealed, a journalist familiar with the data said in a newspaper interview.
Glenn
Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who first published the documents Snowden
leaked, said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday that the U.S.
government should be careful in its pursuit of the former computer analyst.
"Snowden
has enough information to cause harm to the U.S. government in a single minute
than any other person has ever had," Greenwald said in an interview in Rio
de Janeiro with the Argentinian daily La Nacion.
"The
U.S. government should be on its knees every day begging that nothing happen to
Snowden, because if something does happen to him, all the information will be
revealed and it could be its worst nightmare."
Snowden,
who is sought by Washington on espionage charges after revealing details of
secret surveillance programs, has been stranded at a Moscow airport since June
23 and is now seeking refuge in Russia until he can secure safe passage to
Latin America, where several counties have offered him asylum.
Greenwald
told Reuters on Tuesday that Snowden would likely accept asylum in Venezuela,
one of three Latin American countries that have made that offer.
More
Snowden revelations stir up anti-US sentiment
By Geoff
Dyer in Washington July 12, 2013 7:55 pm
Holed up in Moscow airport for the past three weeks, Edward Snowden has only
had a limited impact on the political debate about surveillance in the US that
he wanted to ignite. Yet the self-confessed National Security Agency leaker has managed to orchestrate a very different political phenomenon: the biggest bout of anti-Americanism since the Iraq war.
When he first revealed his identity a month ago while in Hong Kong, Mr Snowden used selective disclosures about US global surveillance to rally public opinion in China and Russia. Since then, he has managed to create uproar in Europe with information about the bugging of EU offices and over the past week he has created a new international stir in Latin America.
According to reports this week in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo based on documents provided by the 30-year-old former NSA contractor, the US has been using telecoms infrastructure in Brazil to absorb huge volumes of communications and to spy on governments in the region.
With the US economy looking robust for the first time since the financial crisis, the US is again being seen as an over-weaning superpower that brushes aside smaller nations.
“It sends chills up my spine when we learn they are spying on all of us through their intelligence services in Brazil,” said Cristina Fernández, Argentina’s president.
Making his first public appearance on Friday since he arrived in Moscow, Mr Snowden told human rights activists and politicians that he was applying for temporary asylum in Russia, which would give him the legal basis to travel to one of the three left-leaning Latin American countries that have offered asylum.
“I have been made stateless and hounded for my act of political expression,” he said, according to a statement later released by WikiLeaks, which suggested that he ultimately wants to travel to Venezuela.
The Snowden saga has prompted starkly different responses in the US and in the rest of the world. In the US, the revelations have set off a debate about surveillance in the media, but the broader political impact has been muted by Mr Snowden’s flirtations with governments that are viewed as unfriendly to the US, leading some previously sympathetic members of Congress to denounce him.
At the same time, rightwing critics have used the failure to secure his extradition as evidence of the Obama administration’s weak foreign policy. As Eliot Cohen, a former George W Bush administration adviser, said of the president: “Nobody’s afraid of this guy.”
Outside the US, however, the revelations have revived a narrative about the dangers of a world dominated by an untrustworthy superpower that had been dormant as debate raged instead about American decline. Already criticised for its extensive use of drones, the international image of the administration has taken another heavy hit by the documents about extensive US surveillance.
More
NSA’s Snowden review focuses on possible access to China espionage files, officials say
By Ellen
Nakashima,
A
National Security Agency internal review of damage caused by the former
contractor Edward Snowden has focused on a particular area of concern: the
possibility that he gained access to sensitive files that outline espionage
operations against Chinese leaders and other critical targets, according to
people familiar with aspects of the assessment.
The
possibility that intelligence about foreign targets might be made public has
stirred anxiety about the potential to compromise the agency’s overseas collection
efforts. U.S. officials fear that further revelations could disclose specific
intelligence-gathering methods or enable foreign governments to deduce their
own vulnerabilities.
----Snowden was able to range across hundreds of thousands of pages of documents on NSA networks, said one former official briefed on the issue. Another intelligence official cautioned that, at this point in the investigation, he did not appear to have obtained “collected data,” or the raw intelligence that results from hacking and other collection operations.
“He got a
lot,” the official continued, but it was “not even close to the lion’s share”
of what the NSA is engaged in. Still, the official said, harm to the efforts
“is a concern.”
More
How Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages
• Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley
co-operation on Prism
• Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch
• Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls
• Company says it is legally compelled to comply
• Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch
• Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls
• Company says it is legally compelled to comply
Friday 12 July 2013
Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.
The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month.
The documents show that:
• Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;
• The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;
More
“The
great fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures
is that nothing will change. [People] won’t be willing to take the risks
necessary to stand up and fight to change things… And in the months ahead, the
years ahead, it’s only going to get worse. [The NSA will] say that… because of
the crisis, the dangers that we face in the world, some new and unpredicted
threat, we need more authority, we need more power, and there will be nothing
the people can do at that point to oppose it. And it will be turnkey tyranny.”
Edward
Snowden.
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.
Woah! I’m really digging the template/theme of this blog. It’s simple, yet effective. A lot of times it’s tough to get that “perfect balance” between usability and visual appeal. I must say you’ve done a excellent job with this. Also, the blog loads super fast for me on Chrome. Outstanding Blog! why not look here
ReplyDelete