Baltic Dry Index. 642 +13 Brent Crude 63.45
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"We shouldn't pour cold water on everything. We, the eight or nine players in global investment banking, have a very good future."
Deutsche Bank, CEO Josef Ackermann. Davos, January 2007.
For Greece, thankfully, the end is nigh. Either Athens or Brussels
capitulates this week, or as millions of Europeans spread out across the globe
next month and in August on their summer hols, Grexit is all too likely to have
devalued their fiat euros. Not much problem if holidaying within the dying
EUSSR. But what about America, Australian, Canada, UK? Thailand, Turkey, China?
Much of Africa and South America. Worst of all Switzerland, where for family
reasons so many continental Europeans keep so much of their wealth?
Below, the countdown to Thursday’s fateful meeting where one or t’other
must grovel.
Stay long fully paid up physical gold and silver held outside of
the banking and financial system. And keep an extra supply of physical cash
available against a new banking crisis. Be out of Club Med banking risk. This
may as Bloomie suggest below, be a “fateful
week.”
"If the financial system goes down, our business is going down and, trust me, yours and everyone else's is going down, too."
Lloyd Blankfein. CEO Goldman Sachs. November 8, 2009
Greece Enters Fateful Week as Brussels Talks End Fruitlessly
June 14,
2015 — 6:15 PM BST Updated on June 15, 2015 — 5:25 AM BST
Greece enters what could be a defining week after last-ditch
negotiations between representatives of the Greek government and its creditors
collapsed on Sunday.
The euro dropped as the European Commission said the talks in Brussels
had broken up after just 45 minutes with the divide between what creditors
asked of Greece and what its government was prepared to do unbridged. The focus
now shifts to a June 18 meeting in Luxembourg of euro-area finance ministers,
known collectively as the Eurogroup, that may become a make-or-break session
deciding Greece’s ability to avert default and its continued membership in the
19-nation euro area.
“While some progress was made, the talks did not succeed as there
remains a significant gap,” the commission said in a text message. “On this
basis, further discussion will now have to take place in the Eurogroup.”
The latest failed attempt to find a formula to unlock as much as 7.2
billion euros ($8.1 billion) in aid for the anti-austerity government of Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras brings Greece closer to the abyss. With two weeks until
its euro-area bailout expires and no future financing arrangement in place,
creditors had set June 14 as a deadline to allow enough time for national
parliaments to approve an accord.
----“The
shadow of a Greek exit from the euro zone is becoming increasingly
perceptible,” German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel wrote
in an op-ed to be published in Bild on Monday. “Greece’s game theorists are
gambling the future of their country. And Europe’s too.”
----“The Greek proposals remain incomplete,” the commission said after Sunday’s session. The gap between the parties on fiscal measures needed is “in the order” of 2 billion euros annually, according to the commission.
The Greek government blamed the euro area and the IMF, which together
finance Greece’s 240 billion-euro rescue program first drawn up in 2010, for
sticking with demands that it says are economically senseless and politically
unacceptable.
More
Asian shares and euro slip as Greece fails to reach debt deal
TOKYO
|
Asian shares fell and the euro skidded in Asian trade on Monday, after
Greece's talks with lenders to avert a default ended with no agreement and Wall
Street logged losses ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting.
European Union officials blamed the collapse of the talks on Athens,
which it said had failed to offer any new concessions to secure funding it
needs to repay 1.6 billion euros ($1.79 billion) to the International Monetary
Fund by the end of this month.
"With no deal in sight, expectations
for default and exit are likely to rise sharply in the days ahead," said
Elsa Lignos senior currency strategist at RBC.The euro slipped about 0.4 percent on the day to $1.1235 EUR=, and was down 0.4 percent against the yen at 138.49 EURJPY=.
The Japanese currency edged down against the dollar, with the U.S> unit adding about 0.1 percent on the day to 123.53 yen.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was down 0.4 percent, while Japan's Nikkei stock index .N225 slipped about 0.4 percent.
More
We end for now on the EUSSR, with yet another food scandal arising. After the recent EU horsemeat for beef
scandal, following on from the great “Italian” olive oil scandal involving
Algerian and Tunisian oil, now comes the Great French Cheese scandal. Does that
Camembert taste of palm oil to you? Euros anyone, even those with a Germanic
paymaster “X”?
French outraged by 'fake cheese' expose
By David Chazan 2:20 PM Monday Jun 15,
2015
The widespread use of "fake cheese" has outraged France's
gourmands after a television documentary secretly filmed artificial substitutes
being produced by the country's food manufacturers.
Restaurateurs and food critics in the nation celebrated for its fine
cheeses called for new food labelling rules to be introduced after France 2
television revealed the proliferation of vegetable fat-based substitutes.
"Consumers are being misled," Xavier Denamur, a restaurant
owner, told The Daily Telegraph.
"This is an area where we French should be setting an example, but
instead we're victims of the global craze for junk food."
Undercover reporters filmed the practice at French wholesale
manufacturers of ready meals such as pizzas, lasagne and burgers.
Cheese substitute products are produced without fresh milk and often
contain processed palm oil. Substitutes are easier to store and handle than
real cheese, and are significantly cheaper.
Anne Inquimbert, editor of the online food magazine Ideemiam, said:
"The manufacturers of artificial cheese put profit first so it's up to us,
the consumers, to mobilise to save our great cheeses."
Beatrice Reynal, a nutritionist, said substitutes did not offer the same
health benefits as cheese. "They contain fat, saturated fat, but without
the benefits of calcium," she told France 2.
Manufacturers of substitute cheese products were unavailable for
comment.
Elsewhere, little by little it’s not the 1945 – 2005, Pax Americana
anymore. Who needs to invest in high price, fast death, US based fracking, dependent on the Fedster’s keeping
virtually free money, going via ZIRP
forever, when the global economy with the cheapest oil of all is opening up.
Halliburton didn’t move its HQ from America to Dubai just for the extra
sunshine and a fetish for camels. With a strong dollar for now due to Grexit
weighing on the wealth and jobs destroying euro, for dollar based corporations
there’s never likely to be a better time to get in on Saudi Arabia opening up.
Energy Nations Better Watch Out as Saudis Open Stock Market
June 14,
2015 — 8:17 AM BST Updated on June 14, 2015 — 10:00 PM BST
Global equity markets are waking up to a new $558 billion magnet pulling
cash out of developing nations from Russia to Malaysia.
As Saudi Arabia lifts a ban on direct investments by foreigners, fund
allocators are preparing to shift money out of other countries and put it to
work in the Arab world’s largest stock market. While there’s little consensus
on which country will be the biggest loser, money managers mostly agree that
energy producers will feel the heaviest effects.
Below are the views of seven emerging-markets investors and strategists
on what to expect:
Martial Godet, head of emerging-market equities and derivatives strategy
at BNP Paribas SA in Paris:
Saudi Arabia “will not be a bargain, but it can be a nice
diversification from emerging Asia that has become increasingly large within
emerging markets. The biggest losers will be markets associated with oil and
energy: Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia.”
Maarten-Jan Bakkum, senior emerging-markets strategist at NN Investment
Partners in The Hague:
“Investors will eventually sell a bit across the board to get to a
decent weight in Saudi Arabia. There might be a bit more selling in other oil
countries, but then we should ask ourselves what are the pure oil plays in
emerging-markets, comparable to Saudi Arabia? Only Russia comes close.”
More
We end for the day
with a potential major development in international global politics. If the
South African courts opt to follow the UK’s courts lead in the General Pinochet
arrest of 1998, a whole slew of American, Brits, Israelis, and Palestinians, to
name just a few, will find travelling abroad
a game of Russian roulette. George W. Bush and Tony Blair, will head up
the list of western players, but a whole slew of western torturers from
Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib would be in the game, plus a never ending
list of those with scores to settle. Of course, we could always opt for one law
for the rich G-7, another for everybody else, but on the 800th
anniversary of King John being forced into signing the Magna Carta, do we
really want to turn the clock back 800 years?
South Africa court bars indicted Sudan leader from leaving
A South African judge barred Sudan's indicted president from leaving the
country on Sunday, in a deepening rift between Africa and the West over what
Pretoria called anti-poor country bias in the International Criminal Court
(ICC).
President Omar al-Bashir, visiting South Africa for an African Union
summit, stands accused in an ICC arrest warrant of war crimes and crimes
against humanity over atrocities committed in the Darfur conflict. He was first
indicted in 2009.
A judge is expected on Monday to hear an application calling for
Bashir's arrest, though this appears unlikely as South Africa's government has
granted legal immunity to all African Union delegates.
South African President Jacob Zuma's ruling African National Congress
(ANC) responded furiously to Sunday's court order, accusing the Hague-based ICC
of seeking to impose selective Western justice by singling out Africans.
"The ANC holds the view that the International Criminal Court is no
longer useful for the purposes for which it was intended," the ANC said in
a statement.
"Countries, mainly in Africa and Eastern Europe ... continue to
unjustifiably bear the brunt of the decisions of the ICC, with Sudan being the
latest example."
A human rights group, the Southern African Litigation Center, earlier
petitioned the Pretoria High Court to force the government to issue an arrest
warrant for Bashir.
Judge Hans Fabricius postponed the hearing until 0930 GMT (5:30 a.m.
EDT) on Monday to allow the government time to prepare its case, urging South
African authorities to "take all necessary steps" to prevent Bashir
leaving the country.
More
"There are some gambling banksters upon this earth of yours," returned God, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in “Gods” name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived.”
With Apologies to A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens.
At the Comex silver depositories Friday
final figures were: Registered 57.84 Moz, Eligible 122.01 Moz, Total 179.85
Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
It may only be one day at a time, but each passing
day brings the Fed’s interest rate hike one day nearer, and with it the end of
a thirty plus year bull market in developed market bonds. With everyone
effectively long bonds at pitiful or even negative yields, when everyone comes
to sell, “to whom” comes to mind. Well aware of that looming calamity, bond
traders would like to exit early ahead of the stampede, but if the Fed delays
ending ZIRP, getting out early can be a bond trader’s employment exiting act.
Better to stay grazing with the herd, but yet….
Call it the Chuck Prince dilemma, former big banana
of Citigroup. When to stop grazing with the herd, or in CP’s case in July 2007,
to stop dancing with the Leveraged Buy Out junkies of former guru Greenspan’s
final casino bubble. Dancing too long, Mr Prince danced himself right out of
his job on Sunday November 4th, 2007. Not to worry though, this
being the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money, he collected an exit bonus of USD
12.5 million as he waltzed out the door,
to add to his USD 68 million in accumulated Citigroup stock and options.
“When the music stops,
in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is
playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing,” he said in an
interview with the FT in Japan. July 2007.
Fed tantrum sets off biggest exodus from emerging markets since 2008
A gathering boom in the US brings forward the long-feared moment of Fed tightening, setting off dollar fears and a rush for the exits from emerging markets
Investors are withdrawing money from emerging markets at the fastest
rate since the global financial crisis, raising the risk of a ‘sudden stop’ in
capital flows as the US Federal Reserve prepares to turn off the spigot of
cheap dollar liquidity.
Data from the tracking agency EPFR show that equity funds in Asia, Latin
America, and the emerging world bled $9.27bn in the week up to June 10,
surpassing the exodus in the ‘taper tantrum’ in mid-2013 when the Fed first
began to hint at monetary tightening.
Jonathan Garner from Morgan Stanley said outflows from onshore-listed
equity funds in China reached $7.12bn, the highest ever recorded in a single
week. Brazil and Korea also saw large losses.
The pace has quickened dramatically as the US economy gathers steam
after a growth scare earlier this year. Signs of incipient wage inflation bring
forward the long-feared inflexion point when the Fed finally raises rates for
the first time in eight years.
Morgan Stanley said its US tracking indicator for GDP growth in the
second quarter has jumped from 1.5pc to 2.7pc over the last week and a half
alone as a blizzard of strong figures changes the outlook entirely.
The University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment roared back to
life in June, jumping from 90.7 to 94.6. It follows news of a surge in US
retail sales in May.
Small investors have been pulling funds out of emerging markets for
several months but the big pension funds and institutions have until now held
firm. There is a danger that these giants could suddenly start for rushing for
narrow exits at the same time.
The International Monetary Fund warned in its Global
Financial Stability Report in April that the asset management industry now
has $76 trillion worth of investments, equal 100pc of world GDP. These funds
are prone to “herding” behaviour, and have vastly increased their holdings of
emerging market bonds and equities.
The IMF fears a “liquidity storm” once the Fed starts to tighten,
causing them to pull out en masse. It has repeatedly called on EM economies to
beef up their defences and curb ballooning credit before it is too late. The
great worry is what will happen if Fed action causes the dollar to spike
dramatically and drives up global borrowing costs, transmitting a double shock
through the international financial system.
More
The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and
institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.Walter Bagehot.
Solar & Related Update.
With events
happening fast in the development of solar power, I’ve added this new section.
Updates as they get reported.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
SOMERVILLE,
AUSTRALIA --(eSolarEnergyNews)-- Avlite Systems today announced the next generation
of its Solar Portable Airfield Lighting System trailer (Solar PALS). Avlite's
PALS trailer is a convenient, fully transportable, autonomous lighting system
for easy, rapid deployment supporting temporary or long term operations for
both civil and defence aviation: fixed and rotary operations.
The trailer can
be supplied to meet ICAO or FAA standards.
Once deployed, the lighting system can be controlled via a 2.4GHz encrypted mesh network capable of being operated from the tower, ground, or approaching aircraft by a Pilot Activated Lighting Controller (PALC).
The Solar PALS trailer contains all lighting and ancillary equipment required to support temporary or sustained fixed and rotary operations. The standard configuration is suitable for an airfield with a 5000ft/1500m runway. Avlite offers completely customizable solutions for their customers; Avlite trailers can be designed in a range of configurations for any application.
More
Once deployed, the lighting system can be controlled via a 2.4GHz encrypted mesh network capable of being operated from the tower, ground, or approaching aircraft by a Pilot Activated Lighting Controller (PALC).
The Solar PALS trailer contains all lighting and ancillary equipment required to support temporary or sustained fixed and rotary operations. The standard configuration is suitable for an airfield with a 5000ft/1500m runway. Avlite offers completely customizable solutions for their customers; Avlite trailers can be designed in a range of configurations for any application.
Solar-powered Smart Palms provide beachgoers with Wi-Fi and charging stations
by Nicole Jewell, 06/10/15
Running solely on solar power, the large palm
tree-shaped towers are six and a half meters high with 13.8 square meters of
solar panels covering the leaves. Additionally, they come installed with eight
charging stations and offer a Wi-Fi broadcast range of 200 meters with capacity
to connect at least 50 users at one time. And for those sailors out there, the
trees have updated information on current weather as well as local sea
conditions. The trees will be illuminated at night using the system’s stored
solar energy.
The director general of Dubai municipality, Hussain Lootah, explained the importance of the project to the area, “Under the guidance of our leaders, Dubai has developed an international reputation as a place for technology and innovation. Through Smart Palm, the public will be able to benefit from free direct access to the internet while providing valuable public information covering a range of topics including weather forecasts and orientation guides.
“Most importantly, these structures are entirely self-sufficient thanks to their mono crystal solar panels, which provide up to 21 per cent efficiency.”
If you think the Smart Palm team is about to rest on their solar-energized laurels, you have another thing coming. Next up for the project is full-scale production of the Smart Palm via 3D printing.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished May
DJIA: +107 Down. NASDAQ:
+195 Down. SP500: +139 Down.
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