The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in
what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself
with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely
be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever,
and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly
and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.
Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations. 1776.
After the Great Expectations of 1945-1995, we are now
well into the uncharted age of managed expectations, known in the warfare trade
as “conditioning the public.” “Loose lips” Ben Bernanke, at the world’s leading
central bank, has been practising managed expectations for years, so far with
indifferent success. The Bank of England’s ex-Goldmanite, Canadian newbie, Governor
Mark Carney, is just implementing the BOE’s version of managed expectations.
Supposedly this will work better on the right side of the Atlantic than it does
on the left side. Today we have confirmation from China that they have adopted
managed expectations too. We will all get back to living like banksters again,
if only we condition the serfs to know their place.
To
tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that
has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it
back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed.
Doublethink.
George Orwell, 1984.
Xi Says China Chose Slowdown to Allow Economic Adjustment
By Bloomberg News - Sep 4, 2013 5:32 AM GMT
Chinese President Xi Jinping said the government opted for slower growth
this year to allow it to adjust the structure of the nation’s economy. China would “rather bring down the growth rate to a certain extent in order to solve the fundamental problems” hindering long-run development, Xi said in a written interview yesterday with media outlets from Russia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, according to a transcript distributed by the official Xinhua News Agency.
Xi
and his leadership team, who took office in a transition completed in March,
are preparing for a Communist Party meeting in November that may add clarity on
how they will try to sustain growth of 7 percent this decade. Data this week showed manufacturing
strengthened last month, adding to signs that China will meet its 7.5 percent
expansion target this year.
----“His message to the domestic audience, which is more important, is a management of expectations,” Ding said. “He still cares about the growth rate.”
The
economy expanded 7.5 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier,
extending the longest streak of sub-8 percent growth in at least two decades.
China is
confronted with difficulties such as local government debt and overcapacity in
some industries, Xi said. Still, “problems are well within control and could be
handled properly,” he said.
More
Staying with China again, adopting the western lifestyle
has set off a lifestyle “catastrophe” in China. The western fast food “culture”
is hazardous to one’s health. Still in the end we all die, but who wants to die
from addiction to burgers, fries, and the Colonel’s chicken? SARS anyone? After
that, America’s finest, the tort bar, fishes for gold in PetroChina. The tort
bar would seem to have PC over a barrel. I mean, imagine not declaring to shareholders
that you’re a corrupt organisation! Someone will be suing the Fedster’s next.
The presumed defence, you didn’t suffer a loss, our secret corruption made you
rich. Hopefully there’s a Samuel Pepys around somewhere, recording our new
lawless age.
“Would you like to supersize that?”
US version of assisted suicide.
China ‘Catastrophe’ Hits 114 Million as Diabetes Spreads
By Bloomberg News - Sep 3, 2013 11:14 PM GMT
China’s diabetes epidemic is
worse than previously estimated -- much worse.
The most comprehensive nationwide survey for diabetes ever conducted in China shows 11.6 percent of adults, or 114 million, has the disease. The finding, published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, adds 22 million diabetics, or the population of Australia, to a 2007 estimate and means almost one in three diabetes sufferers globally is in China.
Chinese are developing the metabolic disease at a lower body mass index than Americans, the researchers found, meaning that changes in diet and physical activity stoked by rapid economic development are resulting in an earlier onset of the obesity-linked disease. The epidemic will worsen with 40 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds on the verge of developing diabetes, which increases the risk of stroke, heart attack and kidney failure.
“Diabetes in China has become a catastrophe,” said Paul Zimmet, honorary president of the International Diabetes Federation and director emeritus of the BakerIDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne. “The booming economy in China has brought with it a medical problem which could bankrupt the health system.
The big question is the capacity in China to deal with a health problem of such magnitude.”
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-03/china-catastrophe-hits-114-million-as-diabetes-spreads.html
PetroChina Sued Over Failure to Disclose Corruption
By Bob Van Voris - Sep 4, 2013 5:01 AM GMT
PetroChina
Co. (857) was sued by an investor who claims the oil producer violated U.S.
securities laws by failing to disclose corruption that exposed it to government
investigations and penalties. Johan Broux, an investor in Belgium, filed the complaint yesterday in Manhattan federal court seeking to represent all buyers of PetroChina securities from April 26, 2012, to Aug. 27 of this year. Broux said PetroChina shares dropped more than 3.5 percent Aug. 28 on news that two Chinese government agencies were investigating company officials for corruption.
In addition to PetroChina, the complaint names as defendants Chairman and President Zhou Jiping, Chief Financial Officer Yu Yibo and two former company executives -- ex-CFO Zhou Mingchun and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jiang Jiemin. Broux seeks unspecified damages.
PetroChina officials in Beijing couldn’t be reached yesterday for comment on the suit.
Staying with Asia, in yet another sign of the
impending failure of the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money, desperate times come with desperate “solutions.”
While most of the world thinks breaking up US fiat dollar hegemony is a good
idea, especially given the actions of America’s banksters and bent politicians,
who in their right mind thinks that replacing it with India’s fiat money Rupee
is a good idea, even regionally? To sanction hit Iran it’s a godsend. To
everyone else on the planet, taking Rupees is lunacy. Even the Indian’s
themselves dump devaluing Rupees for intrinsic value gold and silver.
"As fewer and fewer people have confidence in paper as a store of value, the price of gold will continue to rise. The history of fiat money is little more than a register of monetary follies and inflations. Our present age merely affords another entry in this dismal register."
Hans F. Sennholz
September 3, 2013, 5:17 a.m. ET
India Looking to Expand Rupee-Payment System
NEW
DELHI—India is exploring possibilities of a rupee-based trade-payment mechanism
with several countries, Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid said Tuesday, a move
that may help stabilize the local currency and reduce the country's
current-account deficit.
India
already has a rupee-based payment mechanism with Iran, which was worked out by
New Delhi and Tehran to skirt Western sanctions against Iran. Under that,
Iranian oil would be purchased with Indian rupees, which Iran would use to buy
Indian goods, which include food, drugs, consumer products and auto parts.
More
In the land of the not so free, the lawless land of
the not so brave, spied on between the shinning seas, the IRS isn’t the only
agency of state that can be turned loose against the government’s perceived
enemies.
Below, S&P cries foul. Selective prosecution
comes to mind. Still, with America’s judges picked by the government and spied
on by the NSA, it’ll be a brave and foolhardy US judge that finds for the
ratings agency that downgraded Uncle Sam. Other ratings agencies are on notice.
If a 5 billion win isn’t enough, there’s always a spare cell in Guantanamo. After
that there’s always a drone. It’s a funny old lawless world trying to keep the
Great Nixonian Error of fiat money from flying apart.
US government lawsuit is revenge for AAA downgrade, says S&P
Standard & Poor’s has launched a blistering attack against the US government, claiming authorities are using a $5bn lawsuit to get their own back for a decision to strip America of its AAA status.
S&P,
America’s largest credit ratings agency, has also accused the government of
curtailing its right to free speech, which is enshrined in the US constitution.
The
Department of Justice (DoJ) is suing S&P for allegedly misleading banks about
the risk of certain debt products in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis,
in order to boost the fees it could claim. The ratings agency also failed to
downgrade the ratings it awarded the so-called collatoralised debt obligations
(CDOs) even though it knew that the mortgage-backed securities they were based
on were becoming increasingly shaky.
A number
of major credit ratings agencies gave the CDOs high ratings at the time, but
S&P is the only one being taken to court by the DoJ for allegedly misleading
banks. It is also the only major ratings agency to have downgraded the US’s
credit rating.
On
Tuesday, the credit ratings agency accused the DoJ of pursuing an
“impermissibly selective, punitive and meritless” lawsuit in “retaliation” for
its decision to exercise “free speech rights with respect to the
creditworthiness of the United States of America”. It made the claims in papers
lodged in a California court – one of 16 parallel lawsuits S&P is fighting
in different states to have the claims permanently dismissed on the grounds
that the claimants are prejudiced.
S&P
controversially downgraded America’s credit rating from the top-tier AAA status
to AA-plus in 2011, to reflect fears that Washington’s failure to address the
so-called fiscal cliff would jeopardise its ability to meet debt repayments.
The downgrade outraged the US government and sparked sparked a sell-off of US
shares.
More
We end for the day
back in Asia. More on the TEPCO nuclear disaster. Heavy rains are the next
biblical plague on the way.
Record radiation readings near Fukushima contaminated water tanks
TOKYO | Wed
Sep 4, 2013 12:10am EDT
(Reuters)
- Radiation readings around tanks holding contaminated water at the crippled
Fukushima nuclear plant have spiked by more than a fifth to their highest
levels, Japan's nuclear regulator said, heightening concerns about the clean-up
of the worst atomic disaster in almost three decades.
Radiation
hotspots have spread to three holding areas for hundreds of hastily built tanks
storing water contaminated by being flushed over three reactors that melted
down at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March 2011.
----Readings just above the ground near a set of tanks at the plant showed radiation as high as 2,200 millisieverts (mSv), the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said on Wednesday. The previous high in areas holding the tanks was the 1,800 mSv recorded on Saturday.
Both
levels would be enough to kill an unprotected person within hours. The NRA has
said the recently discovered hotspots are highly concentrated and easily
shielded.
The tanks
sit on a hill above the Pacific Ocean at the Fukushima plant, which was
devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, triggering the
worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.
More
Sept. 3, 2013, 9:11 p.m. EDT
Moderate quake strikes Japan; stocks drop, recover
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- A moderate earthquake struck
southern Japan on Wednesday morning, shaking buildings in Tokyo but with no
immediate reports of injuries or damage. The quake registered magnitude 6.9,
according to broadcaster NHK, though the U.S. Geological Survey reported the
magnitude as 6.5. Tokyo stocks fell sharply as the quake hit, only to recover
ground within minutes though still trading with a loss. The temblor didn't
trigger a tsunami warning, according to CNBC, while Agence France-Presse cited
Tokyo Electric Power Co. JP:9501
-2.86% TKECF +2.99% as saying the shaking hadn't
aggravated the current radioactive leaks at its Fukushima nuclear-power plant.
NASA satellite sees Tropical Storm Toraji's concentrated center approaching Japan
13 hours ago by Rob Gutro
----Toraji is now expected to make landfall in Kyushu and move back over open waters in the Sea of Japan where it is expected to parallel the western coast of Japan. It is expected to begin interacting with mid-level westerly winds and the Baroclinic Zone and become extra-tropical later today.According to NOAA, the Baroclinic Zone is a region in which a temperature gradient exists on a constant pressure surface. Baroclinic zones are favored areas for strengthening and weakening systems; barotropic systems, on the other hand, do not exhibit significant changes in intensity. Also, wind shear is characteristic of a baroclinic zone, and wind shear can tear tropical cyclones apart.
Between the increased wind shear from the southwest and the interaction with the land (Kyushu), Tropical Storm Toraji is not expected to intensify before making landfall.
More
Grimes: Oh, that's my degree in nuclear physics. I'm sure you all have one.
Lenny: Oh yeah, Carl and I each have a masters. Of course, old Homer, he
didn't need a degree. He just showed up the day they opened the plant.
Homer: I didn't even know what a nuclear plant was.
At the Comex silver depositories Tuesday final figures were: Registered 43.26 Moz,
Eligible 121.09 Moz, Total 164.35 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
No crooks either today, just a little uplifting
story from England’s “black country,” which has nothing to do with race or
ethnicity, and everything to do with the time in the 19th century
when Birmingham UK, was the manufacturing centre to the world. Now if they
would just speak the Queen’s English and drop that grating sounding Brummie
accent.
Malala Yousafzai opens new library in Birmingham and declares: 'books will defeat terrorism'
A teenager who survived being shot by Islamic extremists after she campaigned for women's education rights has opened Europe's largest public library where she defiantly declared: "pens and books are the weapons that will defeat terrorism."
By Agencies
1:53PM BST 03 Sep 2013
Malala
Yousafzai made the inspirational speech as she officially opened Birmingham's
brand new £188 million library - 11 months after she was shot in the head by a
Taliban gunman.
The
16-year-old was flown to the UK after a hit-man barged onto her school bus in
Pakistan and fired at her at point blank range in October last year.
She was
targeted after she heroically spoke out against the regime and called for
greater women's rights despite Islamic fundamentalists trying to impose a
strict form of sharia law in the country.
The
schoolgirl survived the assassination attempt and was treated at Birmingham's
Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
The
inspirational youngster has remained in the city ever since where she has made
a remarkable recovery and now attends a local school.
She opened the futuristic-state-of-the art library on
Tuesday where she told a crowd of 300 people that by educating 'minds, hearts
and souls' she believed global peace could be achieved.
She told
the crowd gathered in Birmingham's Centenary Square: "Dear brothers and
sisters, I would like to begin with my personal story.
"In
my school in Swat, I was considered to be a good obedient student and I also
used to get top marks in my class.
"Apart
from my school text books I read nine books from the library.
"I
thought I did a great job in my whole 15 years of life.
"But
last year, seven days after the incident that I faced, I was brought here to
Birmingham for further treatment.
"When
I was discharged from the hospital, I was introduced to this new society, which
is different from our society in Pakistan, in many ways.
"Here
people tell me that they have read hundreds of books.
"It
does not matter how old they are, they take a keen interest in reading, even
children of six and seven years have read more books than me.
"Now
I have challenged myself that I will read thousands of books and I will empower
myself with knowledge.
"Pens
and books are the weapons that defeat terrorism.
"I
truly believe the only way we can create global peace is through not only
educating our minds, but our hearts and our souls.
"This
is the way forward to our destiny of peace and prosperity.
"Books
are very precious - some books can travel you back centuries and some take you
into the future.
"In
some books you will visit the core of your heart and in others you will go out
into the universe.
"Books
keep ones feeling alive.
"Aristotle's
words are steal breathing, Rumi's poetry will always inspire and Shakespeare's
soul will never die.
"There
is no better way to explain the importance of books than say that even God
chose the medium of a book to send his message to his people."
More
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished August:
DJIA: +162 Down.
NASDAQ: +189 Up. SP500: +194 Down. Two red
flags. Only the “stock market for the next hundred years,” remains optimistic.
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