Monday 4 November 2013

The CCP Prepares to Meet.



Baltic Dry Index. 1525 +21

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

"The London Banker Henry Fauntleroy forged to keep his bank solvent. He was executed for it in 1824."

Charles P. Kindleberger,  Manias, Panics and Crashes.

The unelected leaders of the world’s largest command economy are preparing to meet next weekend. Both China’s President and Prime Minister have raised expectations for major change to be announced. Is China about to make the Yuan convertible? About to yield to US pressure to revalue the Yuan to a realistic level? I wouldn’t hold my breath. China is quite happy with the Yuan pressurising both America and Japan. Quite happy draining the west of its gold and silver while accumulating it in the east.

"Gold bears the confidence of the world's millions, who value it far above the promises of politicians, far above the unbacked paper issued by governments as money substitutes. It has been that way through all recorded history. There is no reason to believe it will lose the confidence of people in the future."

Oakley R. Bramble

China’s Leaders to Start Reform Summit With Recovery: Economy

By Bloomberg News - Nov 4, 2013 3:08 AM GMT
China’s Communist Party leaders will enter a policy-making summit this week with the economy on an upswing, services and manufacturing surveys show.

A non-manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (CPMINMAN) rose to the highest level this year in October, a government report showed yesterday. The increase follows faster-than-estimated growth in two manufacturing indexes last week.

Signs of sustained strength in the world’s second-largest economy may give President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang more confidence in tackling reforms. At the same time, excessive credit growth, rising local-government debt and weaker export momentum may cap a stronger recovery from a two-quarter slowdown.

----China’s top party officials will meet in Beijing from Nov. 9-12 to map out a blueprint for reform as the country heads for its slowest growth in more than two decades.

GDP will increase 7.6 percent this year, according to the median estimate of 52 economists surveyed by Bloomberg last month. That’s down from 7.7 percent in 2012 and the same pace as 1999, which was the weakest expansion since 1990. Growth may slide to 7.4 percent in 2014, according to the median projection of 47 analysts.

Premier Li reiterated that the government must balance the need for economic restructuring with a reasonable pace of growth to ensure sufficient employment, China National Radio reported yesterday, citing comments he made at a meeting with academics and business leaders.
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"It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, as long as you've got money."

Joe E. Lewis

Treasury report criticizes China currency policy

  @jtotoole October 30, 2013: 6:53 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The Treasury Department renewed its criticism of China's foreign exchange policies on Wednesday, but stopped short of branding the country a currency manipulator.

In its semi-annual report on international exchange rates, the Treasury Department called China's currency, the yuan, "significantly undervalued." The report criticized the apparent resumption of large-scale purchases in the foreign exchange market that hold down the yuan's value against other currencies.

But China avoided being formally designated as a currency manipulator, a distinction that could have led to trade sanctions.

The yuan has appreciated by just 2.2% against the dollar so far this year. A sharper increase, the Treasury Department said, would help stimulate domestic consumption in China at a time when it is near record lows as a share of GDP.

China's recent growth has been driven largely by high levels of domestic investment, creating vulnerabilities including rising local government debt and an overheated housing market.

"Unwinding China's massive internal imbalances will not be easy, but delaying structural adjustment would allow for the further build-up of risk in the system and could lead to sharp correction to growth in the future," the report said.
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Up next a warning from Great Britain. This LIR blog may soon become redundant. The perils of the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money are starting to go mainstream.  In QE Forever and ZIRP, we have about run out of road. Under a Janet Yellen Fed in America and a Mark Carney easy money, Canadian BOE, we are about to go totally off road. The race for tangible assets is about to commence.

The Bank of England has been issuing banknotes for over 300 years. During that time, both the notes themselves and their role in society have undergone continual change. From today's perspective, it is commonly accepted that a piece of paper that costs a few pence to produce is worth five, ten, twenty or fifty pounds.

BOE Website.

Is cash the riskiest asset of all?

Recovery is stoking inflation while interest rates stay low - making cash a sure-fire loser

There is one lesson the public has not learnt from the financial crisis, experts warn – and that is the danger of holding too much cash.

Two factors are mounting a pincer attack on cash savings, and the assault is expected to continue for several years. The first is low rates of interest. The second is the rapid rise in the cost of living, which strips away the buying power of today's money. And the emerging economic recovery is making matters worse.

The gap between interest earned on deposits and the increase in living costs is as wide now as in the Seventies, said Tony Stenning of BlackRock, the fund manager. But the public is not properly aware of this because, at around 3pc, official inflation registers as a low number.

"Because headline inflation and interest rates are so low, people underestimate the impact inflation can have on their savings," said Mr Stenning. "The effect of inflation today is similar to back in the Seventies. Headline rates were much higher then, but the differential between inflation and the interest rate is much the same now.

"There is a cost to being in cash that many just aren't aware of."

Others put it more strongly. George Godber, a fund manager at Miton, referred to cash as "the worst possible investment you can make". He accepted the necessity to keep cash aside for emergencies, but said holding large sums for longer periods was dangerous. "If I offered an investment where you were guaranteed to lose 10pc of your money in three years, would you queue up for it?" he asked.

Economic recovery is adding to the inflationary threat because a release of pent-up demand built up during the recession – for certain goods or higher wages, or both – threatens sudden price spikes. Some say there is evidence of this already. Mr Godber pointed out that headline inflation figures masked far higher price rises in some sectors. "Official inflation may be 3pc but energy costs for example are higher, as everyone is experiencing.
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Next a warning from Asia. If tapering starts, the stocks and bonds bubbles end. But who really controls Fed policy, hawks or doves? Betting wrong can drop you out of the one percent in a heartbeat.

"All previous attempts to base money solely on intangibles such as credit or government edict or fiat have ended in inflationary panic and disaster."

Donald Hoppe

Asian Stocks Fall After Fisher Speech on Fed Policy

By Adam Haigh & Eleni Himaras - Nov 4, 2013 7:16 AM GMT
Asian stocks fell after Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said the U.S. central bank should end its record stimulus as soon as possible.

South Korean financial companies including Shinhan Financial Group Co., Mirae Asset Securities Co. and Hana Financial Group Inc. dropped more than 3 percent. Coca-Cola Amatil Ltd. (CCL), Australia’s largest listed drinks company, slumped 4.7 percent after forecasting 2013 earnings will decline. China Resources Enterprise Ltd., a brewer and retailer with businesses in Hong Kong and mainland China, gained 1.1 percent.

----“It’s all about the Fisher speech,” Chris Weston, chief market strategist at brokerage IG Ltd. in Melbourne, said by phone. “We’re starting to see a slight change in rhetoric from the Fed, more and more people are highlighting the cost of quantitative easing. The Fed rhetoric in the last few weeks has certainly been more hawkish than the markets were expecting.”

Fisher, speaking in Sydney, said: “At the earliest possible moment we need to focus on transitioning back to having an interest-rate-driven monetary policy.”
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Meanwhile in the new German Empire of the nearly dead, the great European “recovery” s dying again. Sounds like another job for the ECB’s top Italian. Lira anyone, sorry Euros?

"The paper standard is self-destructive."

Hans F. Sennholz

Euro Near Six-Week Low on ECB; Aussie Climbs as Spending Surges

By Candice Zachariahs - Nov 4, 2013 6:59 AM GMT
The euro touched its lowest level in more than six weeks before European Central Bank Executive Board member Joerg Asmussen speaks in the run-up to a policy meeting amid signs further stimulus may be needed in the region.

Europe’s common currency maintained its biggest weekly drop since July 2012 before the Mario Draghi-led ECB meets on Nov. 7, when economists predict it will keep interest rates at 0.5 percent. The dollar held gains from last week against most major peers after Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said the central bank should resume normal monetary policy as soon as possible. Australia’s dollar rose, halting back-to-back weekly declines, on a jump in retail sales.

“Sentiment toward the euro has turned in the last few days and that’s been endorsed by some of their data disappointing,” said Imre Speizer, a market strategist at Westpac Banking Corp. in Auckland. “We wouldn’t be surprised to see Draghi just elevating slightly the chance for a rate cut which would keep the pressure on the euro.”
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"Gold bears the confidence of the world's millions, who value it far above the promises of politicians, far above the unbacked paper issued by governments as money substitutes. It has been that way through all recorded history. There is no reason to believe it will lose the confidence of people in the future."

Oakley R. Bramble

At the Comex silver depositories Friday final figures were: Registered 44.26 Moz, Eligible 125.26 Moz, Total 169.52 Moz.  


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

In under reported news, the world’s largest money manager has noticed the Fed’s final bubble. “It’s imperative that the Fed begins to taper,” says BlackRock’s Laurence D. Fink. The final bubble goes” boom” if they try, I think. The Fedster’s are trapped in a corner of their own making. QE forever and ZIRP have to be forever, or the calamity they were started to prevent sweeps over the planet as the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money crashes to earth. Stay long fully paid up physical precious metals. Nixon’s Error bought the west over 40 years of time to correct America’s bankruptcy of 1971. That we wasted that time in a binge of debt consumption, transient excessive lifestyle, and wealth transfer from west to east, more fool us. Now to a greater or lesser extent we’re all Greece. Still living out the 70s and 80s lie of life on Easy Street.

But tomorrow will not be like today which was like yesterday. Not unless we get a big collapse in the price of global energy, back to the equivalent on the golden years of 1950s – 1960s inflation adjusted crude oil prices.  But on a fiat currency dollar reserve standard, whose “value” is set by warring lunatics in Washington intent of stealing from the future for the spoils of office today, such a thing is not possible. Unhitched from gold, the dollar has no intrinsic value. It is mere electronic currency that can be created out of nothing without end. We might as well base currency on grains of sand.

"The history of paper money is an account of abuse, mismanagement, and financial disaster."

Richard M. Ebeling

BlackRock’s Fink Says There Are ‘Bubble-Like Markets Again’

By John McCormick - Oct 29, 2013 5:47 PM GMT
BlackRock Inc. (BLK) Chief Executive Officer Laurence D. Fink, whose company is the world’s largest money manager with $4.1 trillion in assets, said Federal Reserve policy is contributing to “bubble-like markets.”

“It’s imperative that the Fed begins to taper,” Fink said today at a panel discussion in Chicago, referring to the central bank’s $85 billion in monthly bond purchases. “We’ve seen real bubble-like markets again.
We’ve had a huge increase in the equity market. We’ve seen corporate-debt spreads narrow dramatically.”

The Fed in September decided against reducing the bond purchases as economic growth remained muted. Following a partial U.S. government shutdown this month, policy makers will probably delay slowing the stimulus until March, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists conducted Oct. 17-18.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has gained 24 percent this year, after advancing 13 percent in 2012. The extra yield investors demand to hold high-risk, high-yield bonds has dropped to 444 basis points from this year’s high of 534 in June, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. High Yield Index. That spread reached 440 basis points on Oct. 24, the narrowest since May 28.

“We have issues of an overzealous market again,” Fink said at the event, which was sponsored by the Paulson Institute and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.

"If ever there was an area in which to do the exact opposite of that which government and the media urge you to do, that area is the purchasing of gold."

Robert Ringer

The monthly Coppock Indicators finished October:
DJIA: +178 Up. NASDAQ: +238 Up. SP500: +217 Up. The Fed’s final bubble continues to grow, until QE Forever isn’t forever.

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