Baltic Dry Index. 2008 +14
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
“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
Fallen former European Banking guru, the ECB’s
Mario dei Paschi, has weighed in offering a warning and unwanted advice to
Washington. Do as I say not as I do, seems to be his typical European advice.
Washington, as usual, will ignore any European advice. By setting off two world
wars last century and adopting the madhouse rules of the EUSSR, Europe long ago
lost all credibility among the Lords of the Universe. The Italian banking
scandal of Banca Monte dei Paschi de Siena, the oldest surviving bank in the
world founded in 1472 by
the magistrate of the city state of Siena, happened on Mario’s watch as governor
of the central bank of Italy.
Besides, who really
speaks for Europe? A polyglot continent, split between Russia and the EUSSR.
The EUSSR alone having 3 presidents each paid more that the president of the
USA, plus a non-entity “European Foreign Secretary,” an inner Eurozone presently committed to
bankrupting Club Med with France to follow, an outer booming Euro-Free zone
each with its own currency and central bank, and all together with some 27
national Presidents, Prime Ministers and Chancellors.
In reality, the 300
million dollar per day drag on the 17 trillion US economy, from the partial US
government shutdown is slight. On the 60 trillion plus global economy,
negligible. World central banksters, however, as an exclusive Ali Baba club,
are now getting impressed by Washington’s Fedster’s to weigh in on behalf of
Wall Street’s Great Vampire Squids. With Washington partially closed down, even
if it so far just means the closure of a few national parks, Wall Street’s real
worry is that the flow of corporate socialist Washington subsidies might
eventually become impacted. Then where would we be? Last night on US TV, in increasing desperation
at the possibility of losing, President Obama appealed to Wall Street to shock
the system. We will see later today if Wall Street deliver’s its shock and awe.
Old Ebenezer Squid had one-way
pockets. He would walk ten miles in the snow to chisel an orphan out of
tuppence.
With apologies to P.G. Wodehouse and
the Duke of Dunstable.
White House Meeting Doesn’t Break Congress Budget Impasse
By Richard Rubin, Roxana
Tiron & Kathleen Hunter - Oct 3, 2013 5:00 AM GMT
The first face-to-face talks between President Barack Obama
and congressional leaders failed to break the budget logjam as a partial U.S.
government shutdown entered its third day. The Oval Office meeting yesterday evening ended with both sides reiterating their positions and the points they’ve been making for days, raising the prospect of a prolonged standoff over the government shutdown and raising the U.S. debt limit.
Democrats, including Obama, say Republicans must end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling as a precondition to talks on broader budgetary disputes. Republicans want to use the fiscal deadlines to extract changes to Obama’s health-care law.
More
Barack Obama: Wall Street should be 'concerned' over debt ceiling talks
President Barack Obama has warned Wall Street it should be “concerned” as talks to extend America’s borrowing limit threaten to go to the wire.
“This
time’s different. I think they should be concerned,” Mr Obama told US
television.
“Democracy’s
messy. But when you have a situation in which a faction is willing potentially
to default on US government obligations, then we are in trouble,” he added.
The US
government has been shut down for two days because of a political stand-off
that economists fear will bleed into parallel talks about whether to extend
America’s $16.7 trillion borrowing limit.
It is an
annual negotiation that has continued right up to the deadline three times
since Mr Obama came to power, and which stands to alter the course of America’s
economic recovery.
Wall
Street and Capitol Hill had been working on the assumption that the political
circus would deliver the same result this year, but they are feeling less sure
now that Congress has allowed the government to shut down before resolving
their stalemate.
More
US shutdown 'risk to global economy', says Draghi
ECB chief warns that protracted Washington stand-off could pose a threat to economic recovery
A
protracted US government shutdown would threaten the global economy, European
Central Bank president Mario Draghi has said.
Although
Mr Draghi said he did not see the prospect of a US government default, he
added: "The US budget shutdown is a risk if protracted.
"At
the present time the impression one has is that it will not be so, but if it
were to be protracted it's a risk to the US and the world economy we have to
have this present in our minds."
Around
800,000 workers were told to stay at home on Monday after Republicans and
Democrats failed to reach a US budget deal.
The last
US government shutdown lasted three weeks in 1995 and cost the federal
government $2.1bn (£1.3bn) in today's money.
According
to Goldman Sachs, another three week shutdown could shave as much as 0.9pc from
US GDP in the third quarter.
IHS, the
research firm, estimates the shutdown is costing the US government about $300m
a day
More
Draghi Said to Task ECB Panel to Mull Liquidity Options
By Jeff Black - Oct 3, 2013 12:01 AM GMT
Mario Draghi has
asked a European Central Bank panel to study options for new bank funding
measures, as policy makers try to figure out how to deal with any future
liquidity shortages, two euro-region central bank officials said. While the ECB president insisted that the institution “stands ready to act according to need,” the governing council agreed that a technical committee should examine the size and maturity of new long-term refinancing operations, as well as other instruments, the officials said yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the matter is confidential. The panel has no set date for a verdict, one official said.
The ECB
is trying to make cash operations available to banks in case increases in
money-market rates caused by the winding down of stimulus by the U.S. Federal
Reserve threaten the economic recovery. Draghi fueled expectations of a fresh
round of long-term loans on Sept. 23, when he said that officials could deploy
a new LTRO if needed.
More
EU bank bailout roulette awaits Monte dei Paschi investors
LONDON |(Reuters) - Investors awaiting the finer points of Monte dei Paschi's (BMPS.MI) restructuring plan could soon find themselves wishing their bank had run aground at another time and place in the eurozone financial crisis.
After approving more than 5 trillion euros of state aid to its financial system over the past five years, the European Union has switched the burden of bank bailouts away from taxpayers and onto shareholders, bondholders and big depositors.
But a consistent approach and certainty over who pays when a bank gets into trouble is still lacking, deterring much-needed investment into the region and its lenders and ensuring a steady stream of lawsuits when losses are imposed.
"We are trending in the direction of a proper priority of claim, a proper following of the hierarchy of the capital structure," said Aaron Elliott, a London-based credit analyst at Citi. "But we are certainly not there yet."
"It's very difficult for investors to get involved," he added, pointing to a reluctance to buy bank debt in some countries.
European rules designed to ensure a harmonized approach to bank bail-ins, forged over the summer, do not take effect until 2018, leaving bank investors in heavily indebted countries in limbo, and weighing on those states' own cost of borrowing.
"The reality is, these individual countries can't wait for 2018 to bail in bondholders, they just can't afford to do that," said Elliott.
In response to public outrage over taxpayer-funded bailouts and to reassure small depositors their funds were safe, the European Commission, which sets conditions banks must fulfill to qualify for state aid, in July updated its framework for bank bailouts for the seventh time in the crisis.
Since the EU was notified of Monte dei Paschi's rescue before August 1, 2013, it will be considered under the previous version of the state aid guidelines.
In any case, the EU Competition Authority's powers as de facto guardian of bailout consistency are limited - the framework lays out broad guidelines for imposing losses on shareholders, bondholders and large depositors, but exceptions can be made if the measures would do more harm than good.
"State aid control does not enable the Commission to 'harmonize' measures that member states intend to implement, but merely to set minimum standards for them to be compatible with the internal market," the spokesman for the Commission's competition division said. "Inconsistencies ... are thus due to the choices of member states."
----Ireland nearly went bankrupt in 2010 trying to save its banks and protect senior bondholders and depositors from losses.
Three years later, Cyprus became the first eurozone country to impose losses on large depositors, following a path beaten far more quietly by Lithuania a month earlier, when losses were imposed on large depositors of failed Ukio Bankas.
"There has been no consistency," said Duncan Martin, partner at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), whose firm has worked on the Irish bank stress tests and Portugal's bank restructuring program. "There has been a gradual harshening of treatment."
More
Next, the ticking time bomb in the US recovery
spin. Still think that the Fed ever dare to taper?
Oh what a tangled web we weave…
Sir Walter Scott.
‘Vampire’ foreclosures are what’s keeping bank inventory high, analyst says
October 2, 2013, 4:56 PM
As if
rising mortgage rates aren’t scary enough, analysts have identified a lurking
threat to housing: “vampire” properties.
These
“vampire” properties are bank-owned foreclosed homes in which prior owners
continue to live, as defined by RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure marketplace.
Former
owners live in 47% of U.S. bank-owned properties, according to
RealtyTrac. These properties are “sucking the life out of the housing
market,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac, an online
foreclosure marketplace.
Vampire
properties should not be confused with their creepy cousins, zombie
foreclosures. According to RealtyTrac, zombie foreclosures are properties that
have been vacated by the homeowner but are “languishing” in the foreclosure
process. About one-in-five homes in foreclosure across the country have been
vacated by the homeowner.
“The
concern with these homes is that they are inevitable inventory that had been
delayed from hitting the market,” Blomquist said. ”We don’t anticipate
these properties will derail the housing recovery when they hit, but they will
certainly take some of the steam out of the recovery.”
There are
particularly high rates of “vampire” properties in Virginia, where they make up
72% of bank-owned homes and Nebraska, where they make up 68%. Many states with
high shares of vampire homes have relatively short foreclosure processes
and a low rate of homes with negative equity.
More
In other news, India’s melt down continues. If you
think India has woes now, just wait until the Fed tries to taper. The property
market in London is booming, as capital flight from Bombay to Paris
accelerates.
Goldman to Nomura Warn on Debt to Reserves Ratio: India Credit
By Jeanette Rodrigues - Oct 3, 2013 8:02 AM GMT
Reserve Bank of India data showed
the highest ratio of short-term external debt to currency reserves in more than
a decade, raising alarm bells at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Nomura Holdings
Inc. The $97 billion maturing in less than a year amounted to 34.3 percent of reserves as of June 30, the highest since at least March 2001, RBI figures released Sept. 30 show. The ratio was 146.5 percent during a balance-of-payments crisis in March 1991, according to the report’s partial data for the 1990s. Including longer-term debt, repayments due by June 2014 total $170 billion, or 60 percent of reserves. Indonesia’s comparable ratio is 55.8 percent.
Asia’s third-largest economy faces
significant risk as banks and companies seek to refinance global borrowings,
even as the government acts to trim the current-account deficit, Goldman wrote
in a Sept. 30 research note. Nomura said the slowest economic growth in a
decade and a budget deadlock in the U.S. will damp inflows, further straining
India’s finances.
More
Only two things are
infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein.
At the Comex silver depositories Wednesday final figures were: Registered 42.41
Moz, Eligible 122.78 Moz, Total 165.19 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, stay long fully paid up physical precious
metals held outside of the banking system, and outside of the UK and USA.
America seems to have signed up to Japan’s soon to be second war against rising
regional super power China. Apparently LA and New York City really are worth
trading for Beijing and Shanghai, and all to justify President Nixon’s other
Great Error of giving the Diaoyu Islands to Japan instead of to Taiwan or Mao’s
China. With thinking like this in
Washington, prepare for war later this decade or next. With a newly militant
Japan, China can expect many regional allies.
I
know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will
be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein.
U.S.-Japan to Expand Military Ties for First Time in 16 Years
By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan
- Oct 3, 2013 6:57 AM GMT
The U.S. and Japan
prepared to revamp their defense alliance for the first time in more than 15
years as they seek to respond to regional security threats from China’s growing
military muscle to North Korea’s expanding nuclear arsenal. “A great deal has changed in this period of time,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in Tokyo. “ There are different threats and different kinds of threats. So it is important for us to recognize that this bilateral alliance remains a vital element of our respective national security strategies.”
Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel met with their Japanese counterparts today as part of the U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee meeting, where the U.S. reconfirmed its commitment “to the security of Japan through the full range of of U.S. military capabilities, including nuclear and conventional,” according to a joint statement from the two governments.
The two countries pledged to create “a more robust alliance” at a time when China is boosting military spending and expanding its naval reach and North Korea is increasing the range of its ballistic missiles and threatening neighbors with nuclear attacks. Almost 70 years after the U.S. imposed a pacifist constitution on Japan, the Asian nation is considering reinterpreting the document to allow for collective self defense.
China has denounced the expanding of the alliance and what it sees as a new Japanese militarism. Tensions between the two Asian nations have remained high since Japan purchased three disputed islands in the East China Sea in September 2012. Since then Chinese patrol boats have regularly plied the waters near the islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China to challenge Japan’s claims of sovereignty.
The U.S. reaffirmed its position that the Senkaku remain under Japanese administration, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said at a press conference with Kerry and Hagel after the talks.
The U.S. also used the meeting to announce the location of a second missile-defense radar to be deployed in Japan and the two countries discussed existing plans to shift 5,000 marines from a base in Okinawa to Guam as the U.S. seeks to reduce the impact of its forces on local communities in Japan.
More
The world is a dangerous place to live; not
because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do
anything about it.
Albert
Einstein.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished September:
DJIA: +167 Up. NASDAQ: +213 Up. SP500: +203 Up. All
three are back positive again, thanks to continued Fed QE. High risk speculators will now use any stocks
sell-off to go long. After the last Fed meeting and QE U-turn, the Bernocchio
put is back on.
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