Baltic Dry Index. 1876 -75
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
If
all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
J. K.
Galbraith.
What on
earth was NY City thinking when it declared war on Indian diplomats, forcing
America into an undeclared war on the second largest country by population, on
planet earth. Never mind that most Americans can’t find India on the globe,
most American’s can’t find Kansas either on a map of the USA. Now India has
started hitting below the belt and gouging eyes, US style, although to be fair,
in strip searching a senior Indian
female diplomat, NYC brought about its own calamity.
The USA seems determined
to push India into China’s camp in the coming fight over China’s Diaoyu
Islands. If so, some 2.5 billion out of the world’s 7 billion population will
be lining up against team USA/Japan. Nothing good for the dollar long term lies
in using Abu Ghraib tactics on Indian diplomats. In India, it is widely believed
that no white British, French or German high ranking female diplomat would be
treated in similar fashion.
Battle of the burger: India targets US ex-pat club with ban as diplomatic row escalates
Wednesday 08 January 2014
Nothing hurts an
American like going after his Budweiser and burgers.
This, at least, appears to be the calculation taken by the Indian authorities as a simmering diplomatic row between Delhi and Washington took a new, unlikely turn. In a move designed to hit where it hurts, India is acting to prevent non-diplomats from using a social club located at the US embassy in the heart of Delhi.
The club, which has a bar, swimming pool, gym and restaurant and which is a haven for countless expatriates during the vicious heat of summer, has been here for decades. But Indian officials have told their US counterparts that to allow non-diplomats to visit the facility would be a breach of the Vienna Convention because of the club's tax-free status.
The US officials have reportedly been told they must cease all commercial activities benefiting non-diplomatic staff on its premises by January 16. Hundreds of expatriates, both US and other nationalities, use the club. Whether it could survive without their custom is unclear.
The development is the latest twist in a row between the US and India that has escalated since the December 12 arrest, handcuffing and strip-search of female senior Indian diplomat in New York. Devyani Khobragade, 39, India's deputy consul in the city, has been accused by US prosecutors of underpaying her nanny and lying on a visa application form.
Most observers believe it is
remarkable that something so relatively modest has triggered a stand-off that
has turned into perhaps the most bitter row between the two countries for
several years.
Most Indians are furious that
someone representing the country could be arrested in public and strip-searched
over an allegation relating to an alleged visa fraud. It is almost
inconceivable it would happen in India. The US prosecutor heading the case,
Preet Bharara, an Indian American, has insisted that no-one should be above the
law.
India has already taken a number
of retaliatory measures and is now stepping up the pressure on Washington ahead
of a court appearance by the diplomat due to take place on January 13. Already,
the row has started to affect the wider relationship between the two countries.
A US delegation was snubbed late last year and the Reuters news agency reported
that a visit scheduled for next week by US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is now
looking doubtful.
Syed Akbarrudin, a spokesman for the
Indian ministry of external affairs, confirmed that the authorities had written
to the US embassy. He also dismissed a suggestion that India was being
churlish. "All we are saying is there has to be reciprocity between the
way we treat their diplomats and the way they treat our diplomats," he
told The Independent.
More
In European news, it’s time for the heavyweight central banksters to meet. While the UK really needs to raise rates a tad, the ECB needs to drop to zero. For political reasons neither bank can do either.
"In
economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension."
J. K.
Galbraith.
Jan. 8, 2014, 5:22 p.m. EST
Draghi faces deflation threat as ECB, BOE meet
Euro risks selloff if Draghi mentions recent strength, hints at further action
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The Bank of England and the European
Central Bank are both expected to keep monetary policy
on hold Thursday. What ECB President Mario Draghi says about low inflation
could signal whether the bank expands stimulus at future meetings and move the
euro.
The
BOE will release its decision at 7 a.m. Eastern. The central bank doesn’t
normally release a statement when there is no change in policy, but
central-bank watchers say that the BOE could be compelled to do so in light of
the rapidly falling unemployment rate and what it means for U.K. interest rates.
More
Italian joblessness hits record as it seeks higher foreign investment
Italian joblessness hits a fresh high, underlining challenge for the country’s fragile coalition in convincing the international markets it is on the path to recovery
By Denise Roland 5:41PM GMT 08
Jan 2014
Italian joblessness has hit a
fresh high, underlining the challenge for the country’s fragile coalition in
convincing the international markets it is on the path to recovery.
Unemployment hit 12.7pc in
November, up from October’s 12.5pc and the highest on record. Youth
unemployment, at 41.6pc, is also at an all-time high.
The figures show that tentative
signs of recovery in Italy's recession-battered economy have failed to benefit
the labour market.
Italy hopes to raise €470bn
(£387bn) from bond sales this year, similar to its 2013 funding target. But the
government is under pressure to attract more interest from foreign buyers,
since Italy’s domestic banks are expected to slow their purchases of sovereign
debt this year.
The Treasury is confident that
high yields on its debt will entice international buyers. But political
gridlock within the country’s fractious coalition is likely to put off
investors looking for reassurance Italy can carve a path to economic recovery.
----Separate figures
released yesterday [Wed] showed that unemployment across the single currency
bloc remained unchanged for the eighth month running at 12.1pc in November.
Youth unemployment, across the bloc was 24.2pc, for the second consecutive
month.
More
In America,
economists are just beginning to count the cost of the great freeze. My guess
is that it’s still too early to know the cost to agriculture, fruit and
vegetables and to the cattle herd. Five billion and a 0.2 percent hit to Q1 14
GDP is probably only a good starting point.
You will find that the State is the kind of organization which,
though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.
J. K.
Galbraith
'Polar vortex' disruption to cost US economy $5bn
Plunge in temperatures could cost US economy $5bn in lost revenue and shave the equivalent of 0.2pc off first quarter GDP
The American big freeze has put
an icy chill on business, as flights are cancelled and people cocoon themselves
at home instead of going to the shops or to work.
The cold snap, which broke
records as temperatures
plunged below zero in all 50 states on Tuesday, could cost around $5bn,
and shave the equivalent of 0.2pc a year off US GDP in the first quarter.
Evan Gold, senior vice president
of Planalytics, a company which tracks weather for businesses, said that the
cold snap would be short-lived, but that the cost would reach $5bn because of
the sheer number of people affected.
"A similar situation in 2010
lasted a week, with back-to-back storms with snow and ice. We calculated that
cost $25 billion to $30 billion. But that one lingered. This one is just very
cold, so it should be a two- or three-day event,” he said.
Some 187m people in the Eastern
two-thirds of the country faced extremely low temperatures on Tuesday, in what
became dubbed the “polar vortex”. New York saw the mercury drop more than it has
done in over a century, but the lowest temperature was reported at Embarrass,
Minnesota, where the thermometer fell to -35F (-37C). Once the wind chill
factor was taken into account, the temperature was as low as -45F (-43C).
----Businesses saw footfall slow, as people stayed at home. Some stores, such as America’s abundance of frozen yoghurt chains, saw just a fraction of their usual trade, or shut up shop altogether. However, other businesses were buoyed by the cold snap. Warm weather gear sold out in many major stores, whilst other retailers increased their prices.
Shops, bars and restaurants are
also braced for a drop in spending next month, as hundreds of millions of
Americans are hit with higher energy bills. Mr Gold said that around 200m
people could face “bill shock” for heating during the cold snap.
More
Barges Pile Up Near Louisiana Canal on 90-Year-Old Lock Work
Jan 9, 2014 2:26 AM GMT
Barges are piling up on the Mississippi
River near a New Orleans canal, delaying some shipments of gasoline and diesel
to nearby states, after a 90-year-old lock gate that controls traffic in the
area broke. The best estimate is that repairs to the lock, which broke over the weekend, will be finished by Jan. 17, though they could take as long as 14 days, said Ricky Boyett, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ New Orleans District, which is conducting the work.
The 5.5 mile-long Industrial Canal, formally known as the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal, opened in 1923 and connects Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans with the Mississippi River. The canal allows vessels to move from the river to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, a 1,300-mile man-made canal that runs along the Gulf of Mexico coastline from Texas’ border with Mexico to St. Marks, Florida, near Tallahassee.
“There will probably be a bit of an impact on Florida gasoline stocks and prices,” James Williams, president of energy consulting firm WTRG Economics, said by telephone from London, Arkansas. “It’s too soon to tell exactly how much of an impact that will be, but a week’s interruption, just a week, is going to put pressure on the system.”
More
We close for
today with more wobble news from Asia. One of the best short sale gamblers in
our new lawless era has cast his beady eye on Xi Jinping’s China. If he’s
right, the Great Disconnect will reconnect in a massive crash.
"When money is free, the rational lender will keep on
lending until there is no one else to lend to."
George Soros.
Did Soros Just Predict a China Crash?
Jan 8, 2014 2:24 PM GMT
George Soros probably
shouldn't expect any warm invitations to Beijing -- not with the much-reviled
short seller warning of a giant Chinese crash.
The billionaire first shook a major government in September 1992, when he led an attack on the British pound. For his role in humiliating London and forcing John Major's government to exit the European exchange-rate mechanism -- essentially the euro -- Soros reportedly netted $2 billion. Soros made a bundle off America's subprime debt crisis as well. Here in Asia, his legend has loomed large since 1997, when then-Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad accused him, bizarrely, of heading a Jewish conspiracy to spark an Asian crisis.
Now Soros has his eye on China. In a Jan. 2 op-ed for Project Syndicate, Soros didn't say whether he's shorting China. But he did connect the dots in a way that can't make President Xi Jinping happy. To Soros, the main risk facing the world isn't the euro, the U.S. Congress or a Japanese asset bubble, but a Chinese debt disaster that's unfolding in plain sight.
“There is an unresolved self-contradiction in China’s current policies: restarting the furnaces also reignites exponential debt growth, which cannot be sustained for much longer than a couple of years," Soros wrote.
Xi would be negligent to ignore Soros's warnings. He's hardly alone: Peking University professor Michael Pettis and Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates have been beating this drum for years.
More
China’s Producer Prices Extend Drop in Sign of Weakness
Jan 9, 2014 4:13 AM GMT
China’s producer prices, a measure of the cost of goods as they leave the
factory, extended the longest slide since the 1990s in December, adding to
evidence that the world’s second-largest economy weakened last month. The producer-price index fell 1.4 percent from a year before, the 22nd straight drop, and consumer-price gains trailed estimates at 2.5 percent, government reports showed in Beijing. Today’s releases followed declines in gauges of manufacturing and services based on surveys of purchasing managers.
China’s slowdown poses a challenge for President Xi Jinping’s government as policy makers attempt to rein in credit expansion that has sparked concern at a buildup of bad loans. Applying stimulus would escalate the danger of excess leverage, while inaction boosts the odds of gross domestic product growth sinking closer to the official “bottom line” of 7 percent.
“Producer-price deflation means manufacturing is still facing lots of challenges,” said Shen Jianguang, chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. in Hong Kong, who formerly worked at the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund. With manufacturers already burdened by higher interest rates, more monetary tightening wouldn’t be a good choice, Shen said.
More
"Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux,
and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the
unexpected."
George Soros.
At the Comex
silver depositories Tuesday
final figures were: Registered 50.50 Moz, Eligible 126.38 Moz, Total 176.88 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today another update on the folly of the “man-made
global warming” scam.
“Climate-gate,” as the e-mails and other documents
from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have become
known, exposes a highly politicized scientific circle -- the same circle whose
work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The
agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won’t change the weather, but
they would change our economy for the worse.”
Sarah Palin
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Record cold from global warming causing 'polar vortex' debunked
The global
warming apologists are struggling to explain the record cold on global warming
due to an alleged slowdown in the jet stream keeping a 'polar vortex' alive.
However, a recent paper finds no evidence of
any unusual or unprecedented changes in the latitude or speed of the North
Atlantic jet stream over the past 142 years since 1871. Another paper confirms there is no evidence
that climate change has slowed the jet stream or increased frequency of jet
stream blocking.
Once again, the
global warming apologists are caught out again in the face of real-world data.
Dr. Roy Spencer sums it up in a post today:
NO.
Related:
New paper debunks claims that 'Arctic amplification' causes extreme weather
A new paper published in Geophysical
Research Letters debunks claims that "Arctic amplification"
is causing an increase of extreme weather in North America or the North
Atlantic, finding such claims are "an artifact of the methodology"
and not real. The paper finds no evidence of an increased frequency of jet
stream blocking or a decrease of jet stream speed, a result corroborated by a
recent paper finding no significant
changes of the jet stream over the past 140 years. The paper debunks
claims by climate
alarmists such as Heidi Cullen [and Jennifer Francis] that "Arctic
amplification" is causing a "constipated jet stream" leading to
increased extreme weather in North America.
Other related
links via Climate Depot:
Scientists reject claims of record
cold being caused by ‘global warming’ – Time Mag. blamed ‘polar vortex’ on
‘global cooling’ in 1974 – Special Report
Time Magazine Goes Both Ways On The Polar Vortex: ‘In 1974, Time Mag blamed the cold polar vortex on global cooling’ — In 2014: ‘Time Magazine blames the cold polar vortex on global warming’ (Via Real Science)
U.S. News: ‘Is Climate Change Causing the ‘Polar Vortex’? Article rebuts: Claim ‘appears unsupported by the observations’
Wash Post Throws Cold Water on Idea that Global Warming Is Causing Record Cold: ‘It’s still heavily debated…Elizabeth Barnes of Colorado State disputed the link’
Meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue rejects claim that global warming is causing record cold: ‘This polar vortex episode is the global warming media’s most recent ‘Snapchat’ message: after a few seconds, explanation just dissolves’
Princeton Physicist Dr. Will Happer refutes claims that global warming is causing record cold: ‘Polar vortices have been around forever. They have almost nothing to do with more CO2 in the atmosphere’
Time Magazine Goes Both Ways On The Polar Vortex: ‘In 1974, Time Mag blamed the cold polar vortex on global cooling’ — In 2014: ‘Time Magazine blames the cold polar vortex on global warming’ (Via Real Science)
U.S. News: ‘Is Climate Change Causing the ‘Polar Vortex’? Article rebuts: Claim ‘appears unsupported by the observations’
Wash Post Throws Cold Water on Idea that Global Warming Is Causing Record Cold: ‘It’s still heavily debated…Elizabeth Barnes of Colorado State disputed the link’
Meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue rejects claim that global warming is causing record cold: ‘This polar vortex episode is the global warming media’s most recent ‘Snapchat’ message: after a few seconds, explanation just dissolves’
Princeton Physicist Dr. Will Happer refutes claims that global warming is causing record cold: ‘Polar vortices have been around forever. They have almost nothing to do with more CO2 in the atmosphere’
Link
There can be few
fields of human endeavour in which history counts for so little as in the world
of finance. Past experience, to the extent that it is part of memory at all, is
dismissed as the primitive refuge of those who do not have the insight to
appreciate the incredible wonders of the present.
J. K. Galbraith.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished December and 2013.
DJIA: +204 Up. NASDAQ: +311 Up. SP500: +247 Up.
The new Fed bubble continues, but for how much longer?
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