Baltic Dry Index. 956 +17
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"Can't anybody here play this game?"
Casey Stengel.
One day after we warn “Prepare For War,”
President Obama seems to have ruled that out, giving Russia a free hand in the
Ukraine. I’m not sure that’s the message he intended to send, but by ruling out
a military response, sanctions or not, it gives Russia a green light to annex
eastern and southern Ukraine. But is this just a trap to entice Russia into a
unintended war? Who knows? In what passes now for modern adult government in
the west, policy changes as fast as 24 hour news stories. I wonder how Mr.
Obama’s apparent U-turn is looked at in Moscow, Tokyo and Beijing. Stay long
fully paid up physical gold and silver, ahead of a great miscalculation. Is the
USA a reliable partner in the 21st century, or merely a two faced
Janus? Again who knows. President Obama seems to be trying to be all things to
all people? Wars start when the wrong signals are sent and misinterpreted. US policy simply can’t be all things to all
people. No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Mathew 6:24
Obama Says U.S. Ready to Move on Russia Sanctions
Apr 24,
2014 5:51 AM GMT
President Barack Obama said the U.S. and its allies have additional
sanctions against Russia ready to go as the crisis in
Ukraine escalated with Ukrainian security forces moving against pro-Russian
separatists. Russia has yet to act in the spirit or the letter of an agreement reached in Geneva last week to defuse the confrontation, and if there’s no progress in the coming days, “we will follow through,” Obama said.
“We have been preparing for the prospect that we’re going to have to engage in further sanctions,” Obama said today at a news conference in Tokyo after a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. All that’s required is some “technical work” and coordination with allies, he said.
Obama spoke as Ukraine restarted an offensive against separatists in eastern cities. Russia issued a warning that it would protect its citizens in Ukrainian territory, raising the prospect of a military move by the government in Moscow.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday that an attack on a Russian citizen “is an attack against the Russian Federation.”
“If we are attacked, we would certainly respond,” Lavrov said in an interview with the state-run broadcaster RT.
The U.S. has begun deploying hundreds of troops for exercises in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which border Russia, days after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization boosted the defense of member states in eastern Europe.
Obama again stressed that “there’s not going to be a military solution” to the confrontation and held out the chance that diplomacy will work.
“There’s always the possibility that Russia tomorrow or the next day takes a different course,” he said.
More
Russia Renews Threat to Intervene in Ukraine as Truce Falters
Apr 23, 2014 7:55 PM GMT
Russia vowed to defend its citizens in neighboring Ukraine after the
government in Kiev said it’s resuming operations to oust militants from eastern
cities. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country would retaliate if its “legitimate interests” are “attacked directly,” drawing a parallel with its actions in a 2008 war over Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia region. After a pause for the Easter holiday, a military operation is under way to eliminate militias in Kramatorsk, Slovyansk and other cities, Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister Vitali Yarema said today.
“Russian citizens being attacked is an attack against the Russian Federation,” Lavrov said in an interview today with the state-run television broadcaster RT. “If we are attacked, we would certainly respond.”
----Ukraine hasn’t fulfilled a single clause of the April 17 pact, Lavrov told RT, accusing the U.S of “running the show.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Ukraine and the U.S. have a distorted interpretation of the Geneva accord and are ignoring provocations by right-wing extremists. The government in Kiev should pull its military back from Ukraine’s southeast, the ministry said.
With the Geneva accord faltering, acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov yesterday called on security forces to move against the separatists after the discovery of two bodies in the country’s eastern region, saying “terrorists” backed by Russia had “crossed the line.”
More
Obama uses Japan visit to reassure wary Asian allies
(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama used a state visit to Japan on Thursday to try to reassure Asian allies of his commitment to ramping up U.S. engagement in the region, despite Chinese complaints that his real aim is to contain Beijing's rise.Obama is being treated to a display of pomp and ceremony meant to show that the U.S.-Japan alliance, the main pillar of America's security strategy in Asia, remains solid at a time of rising tensions over growing Chinese assertiveness and North Korean nuclear threats.
"As you said, my visit here, I think, once again represents my deep belief that a strong U.S.-Japan relationship is not only good for our countries, but good for the world," Obama told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the start of their summit.
----The diplomatic challenge for Obama during his week-long, four-nation regional tour will be to convince Asian partners that Washington is serious about its promised strategic "pivot" towards the region, while at the same time not harming U.S. ties with China, the world's second-biggest economy.
The difficulty of Obama's balancing act was underscored hours before he arrived on Wednesday night when Chinese state media criticized U.S. policy in the region as "a carefully calculated scheme to cage the rapidly developing Asian giant".
----The official Xinhua news agency followed that on Thursday with a commentary that said: "...the pomp and circumstance Obama receives ... cannot conceal the fact that Tokyo has become a growing liability to Washington's pursuit of long-term interests."
Obama told Japan's Yomiuri newspaper that while Washington welcomed China's peaceful rise, "our engagement with China does not and will not come at the expense of Japan or any other ally".
----Some of China's neighbors worry that Obama's apparent inability to rein in Russia, which annexed Crimea last month, could send a message of weakness to China.
The Japanese government lobbied
hard to get the White House to agree to an official state visit, the first by a
sitting U.S. president since Bill Clinton in 1996.
Topping Obama's schedule on
Thursday was an audience with Emperor Akihito at the Imperial Palace and a
summit with Abe followed by a joint news conference. He will also visit the
Meiji Shrine, which honors the Japanese emperor who oversaw the country's rapid
modernization in the late 1800s.
More
Staying with the USA – Japan summit, to deal or not to deal,
that is the question. I know how General MacArthur would have resolved it, but
this is 2014 not 1946. Japanese people must be protected from access to cheap
affordable food, just as Americans must be protected from access to cheap
affordable motoring. The political lobbies of both sides must be listened to,
they contribute so heavily during elections.
“If
they would rather die, . . . they had better do it, and decrease the surplus
population.”
Ebenezer
Squid, with apologies to Dickens and lobbyists everywhere.
April 23, 2014 4:09 am JST
Japan to weigh concessions on US pork, cheese
TOKYO -- Japan will consider partial tariff cuts on U.S. pork and dairy products as attention turns to whether Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Barack Obama can find common ground on a cross-Pacific trade deal.Unless the two biggest economies at the negotiating table for the Trans-Pacific Partnership can resolve their differences, there is little hope for an overall agreement.
Japan is determined to maintain import tariffs on rice, sugar, dairy products, beef, pork and wheat. For its part, the U.S. is clinging to duties on foreign cars. The back-and-forth continues as Obama arrives in Japan for a summit Thursday with Abe.
On pork, Japan is now willing to consider lowering or eliminating some tariffs. America wants it to do away with its "gate price" scheme, which slaps imports below 524 yen ($5) per kilogram with a duty equal to the price difference. The cheaper the imported pork is, the higher the charge.
One proposal for a compromise would set a specific duty rate per kilogram or other unit of measure. Tokyo reckons this would suit America's pork industry, which is mainly interested in exporting high volumes of cheap meat, the kind used for processed foods. Japan will also weigh eliminating its flat 4.3% tariff on expensive pork.
Japanese import duties on cheese range from 22.4-40%. Tokyo will consider adopting quotas for U.S. cheese, below which imports would be subject to reduced or zero tariffs. Another proposal would lower the import duty on blue cheese. But the government intends to maintain tariffs on butter and powdered skim milk, two big priorities for Japanese dairy farmers.
On beef, Japan is open to cutting its current 38.5% tariff, provided it can adopt volume limits that kick in when imports surge.
Japan and the U.S. held another round of TPP talks on Tuesday in Tokyo.
"There are areas where we're coming together gradually," Japan's Hiroshi Oe told reporters after his meeting with Wendy Cutler, the acting deputy U.S. trade representative.
But the two sides "are still quite far apart," he added.
More
Up next, a
humiliating climb down by Japan, just as President Obama arrives in Japan.
China shows that Japan’s free ride on starting World War Two in the far east is
at an end, US blank cheques or not. It’s not the 20th century any
more. We have all been put on notice. China to sue HSBC and HMG next, for starting
the opium wars? Her Majesty’s Government to sue Rome for the Roman invasion?
Hawaii to sue America for invasion and occupation? Our court systems look to be
lucrative, if crowded, for the rest of the century.
China Releases Japanese Ship After Unprecedented Seizure
Apr 24,
2014 4:15 AM GMT
A Chinese court released a Japanese ship owned by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd. (9104) after the cargo carrier
paid compensation for the loss of two vessels leased from a Chinese company
before the two countries went to war in 1937. The Tokyo-based company paid 2.9 billion yen ($28 million) as judgment and 2.4 million yuan ($384,585) in court fees, according to a statement posted on the microblog of the Supreme People’s Court. Mitsui O.S.K.’s 226,434-ton Baosteel Emotion, impounded April 19 at Majishan port in Zhejiang province, is preparing to leave, the shipping company said in a statement.
The incident reflects strained ties between China and Japan amid a territorial dispute over an island chain and visits by Japanese politicians to a Tokyo shrine honoring that country’s war dead. The move was the first time a Chinese court had ordered the seizure of Japanese assets connected to World War II.
----Last month a Chinese judge accepted a lawsuit against Japan’s Mitsubishi Materials Corp. accused of using forced labor during the war.
Speaking at a briefing today, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said China should separate the issue of the Mitsui O.S.K. ship from Chinese compensation.
The dispute had its genesis in 1936, when Mitsui O.S.K. predecessor Daido Kaiun chartered two vessels from Chung Wei Steamship Co., only to have them appropriated by the Japanese government, Mitsui O.S.K. said in a statement earlier this week. Both ships were later lost at sea.
The vessel’s impounding was part of a legal dispute that began in 1964, the Shanghai Maritime Court and Mitsui O.S.K. said earlier this week.
The heir of Chung Wei Steamship’s president sued unsuccessfully in Japan in 1964 and 1970, and then took the case to China in the late 1980s. After the maritime court ruled in the plantiff’s favor, Mitsui O.S.K. was seeking an out-of-court settlement when the vessel was “suddenly impounded,” the company said.
More
Staying with
China. China’s unfit for the top league for now say the leading banksters and
squids. There’s no room at the table for the Middle Kingdom until it plays by
our rules, say the Wall Street Squids. I wonder whose rules will apply next decade,
assuming no World War Three over the Ukraine or the Diaoyu Islands.
MSCI Plan Mocked as China Seen Unready for Global Status
Apr 24, 2014 3:05 AM GMT
MSCI Inc.
(MSCI)’s proposal to include mainland Chinese equities in its global
indexes is getting a cold reception from investors. Fidelity Worldwide Investment calls it crazy. Schroder Investment Management Ltd. says it’s terrible. Societe Generale SA’s private-banking unit dubs it unfair.
While China is opening up its capital markets as part of the most sweeping economic overhaul in two decades, the reaction to MSCI’s plan shows how much more President Xi Jinping needs to do before the country can be integrated into global markets. International investors who measure their returns against MSCI indexes say the proposal is unworkable unless China removes the capital controls that limit access to local securities.
“To put them in an index when most of the investors can’t buy those shares, because of the various restrictions that the Chinese have, doesn’t make sense,” Mark Mobius, who oversees about $50 billion as executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets, said in an April 7 interview on Bloomberg Television.
MSCI, whose gauges are used by money managers with an estimated $8 trillion of assets, has been consulting with banks and funds on whether to include yuan-denominated A shares in its benchmark Chinese and developing-nation indexes starting next year.
----Under China’s existing rules, only overseas institutions that have been awarded licenses and quotas by two different regulatory bodies can invest in A shares. The combined approved quota of about $86 billion is less than 3 percent of the $3.3 trillion market value of locally-listed companies.
It’s a “terrible idea because you haven’t got the liquidity or the accessibility,” Allan Conway, head of emerging-market equities at Schroder, said in an April 9 interview in London. “There’s only a certain percentage of those shares that foreigners can buy. There’s a quota. You have to buy a quota to even get the exposure to begin with, so you’ve got very limited accessibility.”
More
Staying with
Asia and the currency wars, Japan bombs out another player.
Hyundai Profit Misses Estimates as Won Hurts Exporters
Apr 24, 2014 6:12 AM GMT
Hyundai
Motor Co. (005380) reported profit that missed analysts’ estimates, sending
shares of South Korea's
largest carmaker lower and illustrating how the won's climb is eroding earnings
for the nation's exporters. Net income dropped 0.9 percent to 1.93 trillion won ($1.9 billion) in the first quarter, from 1.95 trillion won a year earlier, South Korea’s largest carmaker said in a statement today. Profit missed the 2.12 trillion won average of 16 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Asia's fastest-appreciating currency in the past year -- the won's trading near levels not seen since 2008 -- is draining profits from a country where exports account for most of economic output. A pickup in domestic consumption and a hit model, the new 46.6 million won Genesis that was introduced in November, helped bring some relief as it faces intensifying competition from Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) and Volkswagen AG in overseas markets.
----The won has appreciated in the past year against every major currency, except for the British pound, gaining about 8 percent versus the dollar, hampering Korean exporters’ ability to compete in global markets.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-24/hyundai-profit-misses-estimates-as-won-hurts-exporters.html
"Gold was not selected arbitrarily by governments to be the monetary standard. Gold had developed for many centuries on the free market as the best money; as the commodity providing the most stable and desirable monetary medium."
Murray N. Rothbard
At the Comex
silver depositories Wednesday
final figures were: Registered 53.40 Moz, Eligible 123.19 Moz, Total 176.59 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, Europe’s worm finally turns. One month out from the elections for the European Parliament, more and more of Europe see unelected Brussels bureaucrats, and the Bilderberger imposed wealth destroying euro, as their problem, and not as the free lunch that was promised in the 1990s. Europe’s serfs finally seem on the point of revolt. And this is before Europe’s elite cravenly follow America into imposing meaningful sanctions on Russia, reigniting the Great Recession across continental Europe, though not across America. Time to take away their vote before the serfs really get angry.
“One basic formula for understanding the Community
is this: ‘Take five broken empires, add the sixth one later, and make one big
neo-colonial empire out of it all.’”
Professor Johan Galtung, Norwegian sociologist, “The European Community, a Superpower in
the Making”, 1973.
Rebellion is brewing against the political elite that has ruined Europe
'The idiot in Brussels' and his like may keep their jobs for now, but trust is evaporating fast
I am occasionally asked for news
of my former sparring partner, Amadeu Altafaj Tardio, the European Commission
official who is perhaps better known to some viewers of Newsnight as “the idiot
in Brussels”.
BBC viewers will be happy to hear
that Mr Altafaj Tardio has prospered in the two years since I repeatedly
insulted him on the airwaves, leading to him dramatically stripping off his
microphone and marching out of the studio (a Newsnight producer frog-marched me
out very shortly afterwards).
Mr Altafaj Tardio is no longer a
mere Brussels media spokesman. Today he wields real power as deputy chef de
cabinet for Olli Rehn, a vice-president of the European Commission and European
Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs.
I am told that Mr Altafaj Tardio
is well regarded and that further promotions may beckon. He is paid a salary of
an estimated €140,000 a year, doubtless along with generous allowances. And
there is no danger at all that next month’s European elections will cause him
to be thrown out of his job. In short, Mr Altafaj Tardio is one of the many
people in Brussels who hold power, but are in no meaningful way accountable for
the appalling social and economic degradation that has been inflicted across
much of southern Europe over the past few years.
In addition, I am occasionally
asked a second question about Mr Altafaj Tardio: do I regret calling him an
idiot live on air? In retrospect, I think I probably do. To call somebody an
idiot is to imply that they are in some way mentally incapable, and therefore
not morally responsible for their actions. I have received several assurances
from interested parties that Mr Altafaj Tardio is an intelligent and
well-educated man. It is therefore reasonable to assume that he understands
precisely what he is doing – and the terrible damage he is causing – yet
carries on regardless.
Let’s bear in mind that Olli
Rehn, to whom Mr Altafaj Tardio reports, is the Commissioner responsible for
handling the eurozone crisis, and therefore the European Union’s financial
enforcer. Mr Rehn has made a number of dreadful errors, many of them chronicled
by my brilliant colleague Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. They border on economic
sadism, or even go beyond it.
The fundamental mistake, for
which Mr Rehn ought to take responsibility, was the perverse decision to force
the countries of southern Europe to pay the price for errors made mainly by
northern European bankers. In all conscience, Mr Rehn ought to have resigned –
or at least given an apology – for letting off the banks while inflicting
devastation on southern Europe.
It is of course unfair to blame
Mr Rehn for everything that has happened. Nevertheless, in ordinary democratic
politics, he would have carried the can long ago. I remember the odium that was
poured on Norman Lamont, after he declared as Chancellor that unemployment and
recession were a price “well worth paying” for curbing inflation.
Mr Rehn clearly thinks along
similar lines – and has implemented his policy in a far more brutal way. He has
interpreted his role as imposing from above on European governments identical
policies of economic austerity, regardless of whom the voters of those
countries have chosen to put in office. As Philippe Legrain, a former economic
adviser to the Commission’s president, Jose Manuel Barroso, noted this week in
the New York Times: “That a remote, unelected and scarcely accountable official
in Brussels should deny voters legitimate choices about tax and spending
decisions is undemocratic and alienates people from the European Union.”
Mr Legrain labelled Mr Rehn’s
policy “fiscal colonialism”.
More
Those entrapped by the herd instinct are drowned in the deluges of history. But there are always the few who observe, reason, and take precautions, and thus escape the flood. For these few gold has been the asset of last resort."
Antony C. Sutton
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished March
DJIA: +197 Down. NASDAQ: +357 Up. SP500: +254 Down.
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