Baltic Dry Index. 966 -22
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
If
there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is
that we should have nothing to do with conquest.
Thomas
Jefferson
Impressed by
the success or otherwise of America’s coup in Kiev, yesterday Thailand wanted
in on that action. After months of stalemate between parties divided along
roughly rural v urban supporters, Thailand’s Army Chief seized power in a
different type of general election. Tuesday’s “do not be concerned,” quickly
turned into “be very concerned for your safety.”
Compared to
events in Kiev, it was all very civilised and bloodless. It remains to be seen
if the eventual outcome will be any more successful. Despite the 10 pm to 5 am
curfew, tourists were excepted, if trying to get to flights out of the airport.
Easier said than done, when everyone else is under a lockdown and jittery armed
troops are roaming the streets.
Bangkok
hotel occupancy is running at about 45 percent, the BBC reported yesterday,
down from the 95 percent usual for this time of year. No details of room
availability in Kiev, although all those American mercenaries reported in the
German media, have to have somewhere to stay. As usual, driven by QE forever
and ZIRP, the rest of the world hardly noticed or cared.
Below, the
return of that old CIA, KGB, MI6 favourite, the 20th century age of
coups.
TV Stations Silenced, Schools Shut After Thai Army Coup
May 23,
2014 4:55 AM GMT
Schools were shut, international television stations were off air and channels
broadcast military logos and patriotic music, a day after Thailand’s
military seized control following a six-month political stalemate that has
sapped economic growth. Traffic was light in Bangkok as people made their way to work, after the army ordered schools and universities closed until May 25. Army Chief Prayuth Chan-Ocha, who announced the coup on national television yesterday, imposed a nationwide curfew from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. and banned political protests.
The coup, the nation’s 12th in eight decades, could provide short-term certainty to markets after months of street protests and upheaval that led to the removal on May 7 of caretaker Premier Yingluck Shinawatra by the Constitutional Court. The military’s intervention though may not resolve the deep polarization that has taken hold in Thailand over the past decade between the largely rural-based supporters of Yingluck’s brother Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in a 2006 coup, and his royalist opponents.
The coup took place after military and political leaders met yesterday to discuss a way out of the governance crisis.
“At the coffee break, Prayuth asked all participants whether they reached any resolution,” said acting Senate speaker Surachai Liengboonlertchai, who attended the meeting and was not detained. “All of them said no. He then asked the government ministers whether they will quit and the answer was no. So Prayuth said he had no choice but to seize power.”
----The caretaker government was removed and
the most recent Prime Minister Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan and 17 other former
cabinet members must report in, said army deputy spokesman Winthai Suvaree. The
Senate, independent agencies and courts will remain in place, he said.
The central command -- the National Peace and Order Maintaining Council -- summoned 23 people, including Yingluck and former Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin’s brother-in-law, to report in today. The permanent secretary of each ministry will be the acting minister for now, it said.
Leaders of the pro-government movement known as Red Shirts have been arrested, Sean Boonpracong, an adviser in the prime minister’s office, said by phone. They include Jatuporn Prompan, Weng Tojirakarn, Tida Tawornseth and Korkaew Pikulthong, with Niwattumrongin a safe location, he said.
More
Thai Coup Risks Clashes as Thaksin Camp Better Organized
May 23,
2014 5:08 AM GMT
When Thailand’s army last ousted a government linked to Thaksin
Shinawatra in 2006, his rural-based supporters lacked the
organization to mount a resistance. They’re better prepared this time around. The Red Shirts, who coalesced in 2008 to fight Thaksin’s opponents, have built networks in northern Thailand that mobilized supporters across the nation and helped secure a majority for his allies in a 2011 vote. Their leaders were arrested yesterday when six months of instability came to a head with the televised announcement by army chief Prayuth Chan-Ocha that he was suspending the constitution, in the 12th coup in eight decades.
“The opposition and resistance to the coup will likely be strong,” Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, said by phone. “This time the looming confrontation and clashes are going to be severe and violent.”
The coup exacerbates divisions between a
rural majority that has propelled Thaksin-backed parties to power in the past
five elections and their royalist opponents who have used the military and the
courts to oust the government.
More
In Europe,
the UK and Netherlands voted yesterday in the European elections, but the
results won’t be announced until after the rest of Europe votes on Sunday. We
wouldn’t want those easily impressionable, excitable Continentals, to be swayed
by how the Brits and the Dutch voted, it’s all very PC. But the early results
are in from the UK local elections, which might or might not give an indication
on how the UK voter is headed towards the EU door marked exit. Best not to call
them, “swivel-eyed loon” racists anymore, as the UK’s Europhile parties take a
beating.
Below, what
to make of the UK local elections. Time for another EU coup, and an installed
technocrat UK government? Is Milliband the UK Mario Monti?
Elections 2014: Labour and Tories tread carefully around Ukip as early counts predict Northern gains
Justice Secretary says Ukip raises legitimate arguments as Ukip swings key Conservative councils to 'no control' and attacks Labour in its heartland
Ukip is not racist and there is a "legitimate debate" to have about levels of immigration in Britain, a Cabinet minister has said.Ahead of European election results due to show that Ukip has beaten the Tories for the first time in a national election, Chris Grayling said that "there is not racism in this country".
The Conservatives are also braced for setbacks in English local council elections, with results due throughout Friday.
Ukip wrested a number of councils from Tory hands into no overall control, including battlegrounds such as Peterborough and Basildon.
The Justice Secretary's conciliatory tone reflects the Conservatives party's desire not to offend large numbers of Conservative voters who are turning to Ukip.
It comes as both Labour and the Conservatives had their noses bloodied by a surge in Ukip councillors.
• The Conservatives lost Basildon to no overall control as Ukip gained 11 seats, and lost control too in Castle Point, Southend, and Peterborough.
• Labour failed to break through in southern battlegrounds such as Swindon, and lost control of Thurrock – a key Westminster target for Miliband's party – as Farage's party picked up five gains.
• In the north, Ukip showed it could pose a threat to Labour in its strongholds, taking 10 of the 21 council seats up for election in Rotherham, including nine gains, and polling an average of 47% where its candidates stood.
More
How to spot a swivel-eyed loon
A beginner's guide to this increasingly vocal species
Many species native to Britain are in sharp decline, but the swivel-eyed loon (Gavia articulata oculos) has recently seen a marked increase in numbers, although the rise in sightings could simply be down to better reporting. But how would you know one if you saw one? For the novice, we present a loon-spotter's guide.
Habitat: Generally to be found lurking in the grass roots, especially near local Conservative associations and seaside shopping precincts in the home counties and the south-west. Due to loss of habitat, however, they are increasingly sighted across England, going door to door for Ukip. Extinct in Scotland.
More
We end for
the week with more news from America’s botched coup in Kiev. Ahead of this
weekend’s “presidential” vote, America’s disinformation team goes into
overdrive. If only King George III had had access to America’s dream team spin
machine in 1776. Who knew back in 1776, that all you had to do was invite the
loyalists and the insurgents for coffee and talks at a British military base in
New York, and during the coffee break arrest them. Lacking a suitable British Guantanamo,
the Shetland or Falkland Islands would have to do, although technically we
weren’t occupying the Falklands at the time.
Below
America’s installed puppet Turchynov becomes “acting President,” while the
pro-Russian Minutemen become “insurgents” against the illegal regime in Kiev.
After this weekend’s “presidential” vote, I suspect that we will soon be
hearing more from America’s mercenary army in the Ukraine. Let’s just hope they
have fewer “accidents” when they make their reappearance after Odessa.
Ukraine Forces Suffer Worst Losses of Crisis Amid Unrest
May 22, 2014 8:05 PM GMT
Fighting flared anew in Ukraine three days before a
presidential vote, with 16 soldiers killed near a checkpoint in the deadliest
clash for the military since the secession campaign began after Russia annexed
Crimea. An attack by pro-Russian insurgents near Volnovakha, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Donetsk, left 16 servicemen dead, First Deputy Health Minister Ruslan Salyutin said in televised remarks. One soldier was killed and two injured in the Luhansk region, the Defense Ministry said.
“There’s a brutal war under way against our country,” acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said on parliament’s website. “Ukraine will never return to a post-Soviet neo-empire, which the Russian government dreams about.”
----Yatsenyuk called for a United Nations Security Council session on the situation. The UN said yesterday 127 people have died from the violence in the country’s eastern and southern regions.
“We’ve only seen a small movement of forces,” U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, NATO’s top military commander, told reporters in Brussels today after two-day meeting of allied military chiefs. “The force that remains behind on the Ukrainian border right now is able to do exactly what it could do a week ago or two weeks ago. So nothing has changed.”
More
A Look At The World's Most Powerful Mercenary Armies
Business is booming for a growing army of private military
contractors, who take their military training and offer it to the highest
bidder
Modern-day mercenaries are stationed throughout the world fighting conflicts for governments that are reluctant to use their own troops.
While an army of 5,000 heavily-armed contractors recently replaced official American forces in Iraq, and many more have been recruited to protect private interests in the region, mercenaries are sent to many places that may surprise you.
---Academi owns and runs one of the most advanced private military training facilities in the world
Formerly Blackwater, then Xe Services, Academi runs a 7,000 acre training facility deep in the North Carolina wilderness — one of the biggest and most complex private military training grounds in the world.According to a book written on Blackwater in 2007, the facility had by then produced an army of 20,000 troops, 20 aircraft, a fleet of armored vehicles and trained war dogs. Most of those resources were shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan on U.S. government contracts.
Academi probably scaled back after a number of wrongful shootings and other controversies angered the Iraq government and jeopardized important contracts.
Outside the Middle East, Academi was recruited to protect the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It has also protected Japan's missile defence systems and assisted with the war on drugs around the world.
more
I believe there are more instances of the
abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by
those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
James Madison
At the Comex
silver depositories Thursday
final figures were: Registered 56.13 Moz, Eligible 119.60 Moz, Total 175.60 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, the Crimea. United with Russia once again,
the Crimea is about to undergo some boom decades even if it doesn’t drill for
offshore oil and gas.
Putin’s Singapore Dream Costs Crimea Banks and Burgers
May 22,
2014 9:00 PM GMT
President Vladimir Putin is trying to
transform Crimea into the Singapore of the Black
Sea. That effort so far has cost Russia’s
newest republic its entire banking system and all three of its McDonald’s. After Putin annexed Crimea in March, the government in Kiev banned all lenders operating under Ukrainian law from the region. Now almost every bank on the peninsula, from billionaire Igor Kolomoisky’s Privatbank, Ukraine’s largest, to Italy’s UniCredit SpA (UCG) has been shuttered. Unlike UniCredit, which is refunding deposits, Privatbank simply pocketed the cash, leaving its clients to seek compensation from Russia.
“Thank God they decided to return my money,” said Alla Anisomova, a retiree in her 60s who gets by on less than $300 a month. Anisomova is among the thousands of people who have flocked to the former Privatbank branch on Lenin Street in Kerch, a city on the eastern edge of Crimea, to apply for redress from Russia’s Deposit Insurance Agency. The agency, which now controls the building, has pledged to return deposits of as much as 700,000 rubles ($20,000).
For Anisomova and Crimea’s other 600,000 or so pensioners, the headaches of navigating the new bureaucracy have an upside. Putin has increased their monthly stipends 50 percent and by July will raise them to double what Ukraine paid. Those payments are made through local post offices, in cash.
The pension increases, deposit compensations and pay raises for 140,000 public workers are part of the $48 billion Russia may spend by the end of the decade to transform Crimea into a commercial hub similar to Singapore, according to Oleg Savelyev, head of the new Crimea Affairs Ministry. That’s about 10 times the annual output of the region of 2 million people.
“I blew the dust off the book, ‘Singapore: From Third World to First’ by Lee Kuan Yew to have another read when I became minister,” Savelyev said in an interview in his office in the Economy Ministry in Moscow, where he was deputy minister before his promotion. “We will pursue Singapore’s model in Crimea, we’ll ensure a comfortable business environment there.”
Lee, who ruled Singapore from 1959 to 1990, turned the former impoverished British colony into one of the wealthiest countries in the world. The World Bank ranks Singapore No. 1 on its annual ease of doing business survey. Russia is 92nd, just behind Albania and Barbados.
“Regulatory principles in Crimea will be
much better, simpler than in the rest of Russia,” said Savelyev, 48, who was
added to the European Union’s sanctions list last month. “The region will not
have the stifling bureaucratic system that Russia is notorious for. Our task is
not to replicate the Russian model, but to create a much better one.”
It’s not just banks that Russia has in
mind for Crimea, there’s also gambling, tourism and wine. The peninsula will be
designated a special economic zone, unique among the 84 regions of the world’s
largest country. The casinos will probably be located in Yalta, acting Prime
Minister Sergey Aksyonov said.
----“Crimea’s economic potential is incredible,” Aksyonov said. “We’ll only need Russian aid during the transitional period. We’ll return the funds with interest.”
Vladimir Gubanov, who runs a division of Massandra, the winemaker founded by Nicholas II before Russia’s last czar and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks, said he couldn’t agree more. Orders for Massandra’s wines from Russian retailers have doubled and even tripled since annexation, Gubanov said.
“Taxes in Russia are lower than in Ukraine and the number of potential investors is many times higher,” Gubanov said.
Lawmakers in Moscow are working on a draft bill that will offer tax and other incentives to stimulate exports, according to Savelyev, the minister for Crimea. Businesses there will operate under English commercial law rather than Russian legislation to attract foreign investment, he said.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-22/putin-s-singapore-dream-costs-crimea-banks-and-burgers.html
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
John Adams
Have a great
weekend everyone. EU results Sunday night and Monday. Will Brexit take a giant
leap forwards? English commercial law in the Crimea, whatever next?
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished April
DJIA: +189 Down. NASDAQ: +347 Down. SP500: +249 Down. Sell in May, go away.
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