Brexit Countdown Clock.
Brexit Quote of the Day.
There are three kinds of lies: Dodgy Dave lies, Euro lies, and
EUSSR statistics.
With apologies to Benjamin Disraeli.
We open with the worst kept secret for decades. The
gold and silver markets are rigged by the big international banksters. But for
who? I suspect that in the weeks and months ahead, this scandal will come to
rival the Panama Papers. Can Germany afford to bailout DB and dirty diesel
polluter Volkswagen? When exactly, does the Chinese volcano blow?
Deutsche Bank Admits It Rigged Gold Prices, Agrees To Expose Other Manipulators
----Earlier today when we reported the stunning news that DB has decided to "turn" against the precious metals manipulation cartel by first settling a long-running silver price fixing lawsuit which in addition to "valuable monetary consideration" said it would expose the other banks' rigging having also "agreed to provide cooperation to plaintiffs, including the production of instant messages, and other electronic communications, as part of the settlement" we said "since this is just one of many lawsuits filed over the past two years in Manhattan federal court in which investors accused banks of conspiring to rig rates or prices in financial and commodities markets, we expect that now that DB has "turned" that much more curious information about precious metals rigging will emerge, and will confirm what the "bugs" had said all along: that the precious metals market has been rigged all along."This was confirmed moments ago when Reuters reported that Deutsche Bank has also reached a settlement in US litigation alleging the bank conspired to fix gold prices. In other words, hours after admitting it was rigging the silver market, it did the same for gold.
Some more headlines:
- Reaches settlement in U.S. litigation alleging it conspired to fix gold prices.
- Plaintiffs' lawyers, in filing, say Deutsche Bank has signed a settlement term sheet
- Plaintiffs' lawyers say are negotiating formal settlement agreement that would be presented for judge's approval later
- Plaintiffs' lawyers say settlement contemplates a monetary payment by Deutsche Bank
- Gold settlement follows similar accord involving alleged silver price-fixing that was disclosed on Wednesday
----As a reminder, this is what we reported just hours ago on an identical settlement involving Deutsche Bank admitting to also rigging silver:
Deutsche Bank Confirms Silver Market Manipulation In Legal Settlement, Agrees To Expose Other Banks
Back in July of 2014, we reported that in an attempt
to obtain if not compensation, then at least confirmation of bank manipulation
in the precious metals industry, a group of silver bullion banks including
Deutsche Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and HSBC (later UBS was also added to the
defendants) were accused of manipulating prices in the multi-billion dollar
market.
The lawsuit, which was originally filed in a New York district court by veteran litigator J. Scott Nicholson,
a resident of Washington DC, alleged that the banks, which oversee the
century-old silver fix manipulated the physical and COMEX futures market since
January 2007. The lawsuit subsequently received class-action status. It was the
first case to target the silver fix.
Many expected that this case would never go anywhere and that the
defendant banks would stonewall indefinitely: after all their legal budgets
were far greater than the plaintiffs.
Which is why we were surprised to read overnight that not only has this
lawsuit against precious metals manipulation not been swept away, but that the
lead defendant, troulbed German bank Deutsche Bank agreed to settle the
litigation over allegations it illegally conspired with Bank of Nova Scotia and
HSBC Holdings Plc to fix silver prices at the expense of investors, Reuters reported citing a court filing by law firm
Lowey.
Terms were not disclosed, but
the accord will include a monetary payment by the German bank.
It goes without saying, that there would have been neither a settlement
nor a payment if the banks had done nothing wrong.
According to Reuters, Deutsche Bank has signed a binding settlement term
sheet, and is negotiating a formal settlement agreement to be submitted for
approval by U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni, who oversees the litigation. A
Deutsche Bank spokeswoman declined to comment. Lawyers for the investors did
not immediately respond to requests for comment.
As noted above, investors had accused Deutsche Bank, HSBC and ScotiaBank
of abusing their power as three of the world's largest silver bullion banks to
dictate the price of silver through a secret, once-a-day meeting known as the
Silver Fix.
None of this will come as a big surprise to readers, most of whom have
been aware that this took place for years.
More
In steel news, Uncle Sam says that China has agreed
to drop its steel export subsidies. Whether it will have any meaningful impact
in helping non-Chinese steel producers is debatable. China is still increasing
steel production, hitting a record 70.65 million tonnes in March, according to
the National Bureau of Statistics, though Q1 16 production was down 3.2% at
192.01 million tonnes, if one accepts the statistics at face value. China’s
other steel production advantages include cheap labour, the cheapest electric
power costs, low emissions regulation, and lower taxes. Non-Chinese steel
manufacturers won’t be breaking out the Pol Roger champagne anytime soon.
U.S. says China to scrap some export subsidies
China has
agreed to scrap some export subsidies on a range of products from metals to
agriculture and textiles, the United States said on Thursday, in a step by
Beijing to reduce trade frictions with Washington.
China
ended a program which provided export subsidies of some $1 billion over three
years to Chinese companies in seven economic sectors, the U.S. Trade
Representative's office said.
Some
industry executives were skeptical about the deal's impact given remaining disputes
over other supports that China give to its exporting industries. Steel has been
a particular flashpoint.
One
source knowledgeable about the agreement said it was not comprehensive enough
to do much to help the U.S. steel industry, given its focus was only on
specialty steel products.
In part,
the dropping of the subsidies is an effort by China to move away from
labor-intensive production and emphasize more-sophisticated industries such as
semiconductors.
"The
Chinese want to become a high-tech country. They want to move up the value
chain," said James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies.
Chinese
agriculture products that will lose the subsidies include apples, beef,
mushrooms, pork, tea, tomatoes, beans, ginseng, poultry, seaweed and, garlic,
USTR said.
Candidates
in the U.S. presidential election, especially Republican front-runner Donald
Trump, accuse China of treating the United States unfairly in trade.
But White
House spokesman Josh Earnest said the accord "is an example of how
committed this administration is to ensuring that we're fighting in the
international community for American businesses and American workers."
The
United States had complained to the World Trade Organization about the program,
alleging unfair practices by China.
The
Chinese industries that have received the subsidies under the program include
textiles, light industry, specialty chemicals, medical products, hardware,
agriculture and advanced materials and metals, including specialty steel and
aluminum products, the trade representative's office said.
Since it
joined the WTO in 2001, China has frequently drawn complaints that its exports
are being "dumped," or sold at unfairly cheap prices on foreign
markets.
Chinese
Embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan said Beijing is committed to WTO regulations.
“China
has been firmly committed to the WTO rules, continuously expanded its
opening-up, deepened the reform of its foreign trade system, improved its
foreign trade legal system, reduced trade barriers and administrative intervention,”
Zhu said in an email.
U.S.
Steel Corp President and Chief Executive Mario Longhi said he was cautious
about the latest Chinese move.
“People
can say whatever they want, and I think China has been saying a lot of things
for the past couple of decades," Longhi told reporters in Washington.
"You need to ask yourself what, from a practical perspective, is really
happening. We need to see the proof in actions, not just in verbiage."
The U.S.
steel industry is under huge pressure this year from cheap imports, a strong
dollar, and falling oil prices, which have decimated demand for steel tubes
used by the oil and gas industry.
China
still has other forms of support for industry in place, including relatively
cheap and easy credit from state banks, state-regulated power prices that have
often favored industry, and low prices for other inputs such as water.
"While
it is clearly an important result, it is only one feature in a universe of
other measures that China foresees for its steel sector," said Karl Tachelet,
trade director at European steel industry body EUROFER.
More
Below, the reality of the real China.
Shanghai wealth management firm comes crashing to earth as executives arrested
Zhongjin
Capital Management made a splash in the past couple of years in Shanghai. The
wealth management firm’s imposing branch office on Shanghai’s historic Bund
pulled in many eager investors seeking the double-digit returns it promised on
short-term financing products. It had a big profile, sponsoring popular
Shanghai TV dating program "Saturday Date" and signed up domestic
billiards star Pan Xiaoting as a spokesperson.
But this
week, the image of riches and success that it had cultivated came crashing
down. Police said they arrested 21 executives linked to Zhongjin Capital on
April 5 on suspicion of "illegal fundraising," a loosely defined term
applied to irregular behavior in China's energetic but opaque shadow banking
sector.
The only
person named by Shanghai police so far has been top executive Xu Qin, who local
media said had been arrested at the Shanghai airport on his way to get married
in the Vatican.
Xu has
been described by domestic media as a high roller, who is under 30 years of
age.
Chen
Jiajing, the 29-year-old chairwoman of Zhongjin's parent Guotai Investment
Holdings, cannot be located. Public statements issued this week by two Hong Kong-listed
companies in which Guotai is a major stakeholder indicated they had been unable
to reach her.
Zhongjin
employees told Reuters that other senior managers had been arrested during a
raid on company offices. They were interrogated, allowed to use the bathroom
only if they had a police escort, then hauled off, the staff said.
Calls to
Zhongjin and Guotai headquarters in Shanghai went unanswered. Both company
websites were inaccessible on Friday. The authorities did not provide further
information about the case, and what the investigation's focus is.
"The
really strange part was that our business hit a new all-time high on April 5,
but the next day the offices were closed," one employee who gave her name
as Jiang said in a phone interview, adding that investors had been paid
off on schedule the day prior to the arrests, but were unable to withdraw funds
that were scheduled to mature on April 6.
More
The Curious Story Of The Chinese Tycoon Found "Chopped Up Into 100 Pieces" In A Vancouver Mansion
Two days ago we introduced you to "the
rich kids of Vancouver" for whom the most important
decision in any given day is whether to spend half a million dollars on a new
Lamborghini or on an investment such as "two expensive watches or some
diamonds."
We now introduce you to someone who may be one of
these rich kids' dad. Or rather was, because Gang Yuan, a 42-year-old mining
tycoon is no longer alive. His corpse was found chopped
into 100 pieces in his Vancouver home.
According to a civil lawsuit, Yuan came to Canada in
2007 with permanent resident status and made his money by investing in real
estate and Saskatchewan farmland, in the process becoming the owner of a at
least one abandoned multimillion-dollar Vancouver home... and much more.
As The
Province reports, Yuan has been linked to a government corruption scandal
in southwestern China. He is also a shining example of how most of the billions
in hot money flooding Vancouver real estate funds are sourced: illegally. This
story helps to shed some light on the origin of at least a modest amount of
that money.The scandal led to a 19-year jail term for Yunnan province official Lin Yunye. Yunye was jailed last November for selling $234 million in state mining assets to a number of businessmen from whom he accepted tens of millions in bribes - including gold bars, luxury watches and rhinoceros horns.
More
But we’ll leave the last word on wobbly smoke and
mirrors China, to America’s best economic commentator, David Stockman. China’s
Ponzi Scheme is still in deep trouble and getting in deeper.
More Bull
by David Stockman • April 14, 2016
The
robo-machines were raging yesterday based on precisely nothing except
banging 2080 on the S&P cash and a teapot’s worth of short-term
trading momentum. But a 1% or $300 billion gain in the stock market
apparently needs some fig leaf of rationalization. So the lazy hacks
who cover the casino’s daily hijinks for the mainstream media came up
with some doozies.
To wit,
JPMorgan purportedly had a bang up quarter and surprised to the upside and
China’s export machine came roaring back. This was supposedly some kind of
all clear signal. According to the bulls, the market can’t rise without
“participation” by the financials and China is still the mainspring of
global growth.
I won’t
bother to say, not exactly. You could have learned by the second paragraph that
“up” was actually “down”.
---- On the matter of China’s booming exports—-no dice. The Chinese do have a habit of moving their New Year’s holiday week around from one year to the next——so this time the “up is down” thing operated with a vengeance. The financial pundits said March exports were up by 11.5%, implying that China had regained its traction.
Not
exactly. The chart below shows that March exports were the lowest in five
years, and that the first quarter as a whole was the worst since late 2008.
Q1 exports
were down by nearly 10% and the slump was manifested in every one of its major
customer regions. Exports to Japan were down 5.5% while shipments
to South Korea were off by 11.2%, EU countries by 6.9%, the US by 8.8% and
Brazil by 47.2%.
In fact, exports are falling throughout east Asia,
meaning that the world’s great post-bubble deflation is gathering
force. South Korean exports have been down for 15 consecutive months, for
example, and were off 10% in March from prior year.
By all accounts, Singapore is the trading hub
for the Asian mercantilist exporters as a group. Its export trends leave
little to the imagination. Shipments early this year were down more than
20% from early 2014 levels.
Undoubtedly, that’s why its normally
circumspect central bankers sounded the alarms last night and reverted to
easing measures not employed since the fall of 2008. Singapore based
lending has literally ground to a halt. So the idea that there is
anything vaguely resembling an “all clear” signal coming out of Asia is not
exactly what the incoming data calls to mind.
More
No comments:
Post a Comment