Baltic Dry Index. 1430 -46 Brent Crude 64.80
A very happy and healthy Christmas
to all.
We open with the worst of all results in the
Catalan v Spain game of cat and mouse.
Catalonia went back under the control of separatist Catalonians, but
they are unlikely to be able to advance their cause of an independent Catalonia
outside of Spain. The great drag on the Spanish and Catalan economies is only likely
to get worse in 2018. The EUSSR has proven to be completely incompetent and
irrelevant in this regional dispute. Both parties in the ring seem to be
inept.
Catalonia has no central bank; no credible currency
in waiting; no army or intelligence service; no foreign service; no allies.
Spain has the dead hand of the EUSSR on its shoulder and brute force. Welcome
to Europe on the cusp of 2018. And let’s not get started on the EUSSR v Poland;
Italian banks and Deutsche Bank; Austria and Germany swinging right, Hungary,
Greece, and Malta, the EU’s Panama.
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.
Mark Twain.
Catalan Separatists Cheer Puigdemont as Rajoy Handed a Drubbing
By Esteban Duarte, Maria Tadeo, and Rodrigo Orihuela
Updated on 22 December 2017, 01:46 GMT
Pro-independence parties won back control
of Catalonia in Thursday’s regional election as Spanish efforts to contain the
separatist movement earned Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy a historic defeat.
The three separatist groups claimed 70 seats in the 135-strong assembly
to restore a majority they lost in October when Rajoy used Article 155 of the
constitution to oust the rebel administration before it could put a declaration
of independence into effect. Rajoy’s People’s Party took a hammering, losing
eight of its 11 lawmakers as voters opposed to secessionists shifted to
Ciudadanos, who’ve been demanding harsher measures against the secessionist
push.
“Rajoy and his allies have been defeated, they’ve taken a beating from
the Catalans,” Carles Puigdemont, the regional president ousted by Rajoy, told
supporters from his self-imposed exile in Brussels.
The result doesn’t suggest Catalan independence is any closer than it
was at the end of October, when Puigdemont fled for Belgium to escape a Spanish
court probe of the separatist push that saw a clutch of his allies jailed. But
it exposes the flaws in the prime minister’s strategy and the divisions in
Catalan society.
Ciudadanos claimed victory after securing 37 seats and 25 percent of the
vote, the most of any single group. The separatists won 48 percent between
them, enough to control the regional legislature, though short of the majority
that would boost their claims to a democratic mandate to break away from Spain.
More
December 22, 2017 / 1:21 AM /
Updated 3 hours ago
Catalan vote dents euro, upbeat U.S. data lifts stocks
TOKYO (Reuters) - The euro dipped
on Friday after Catalan separatists wanting to break away from Spain won a
regional election, while Asian stocks edged up on new data pointing to steady
growth in the U.S. economy.
Bitcoin fell more than 10 percent to below $14,000 on the Bitstamp exchange BTC=BTSP on Friday, extending overnight losses.
The cryptocurrency, which was at about $1,000 at the year’s start, had climbed to a record high of $19,666 on Sunday.
The euro momentarily dipped to $1.1817 EUR= early in the day as preliminary results from regional votes on Thursday showed pro-independence parties in Catalonia keeping an absolute majority. It trimmed losses to last stand at $1.1849, down 0.2 percent.
“Some speculators appeared to have sold the euro in thin trading,” said Yukio Ishizuki, senior currency strategist at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo.
“The overall impact of the Catalan vote on the euro and the wider global markets is likely to be limited, however. Catalonia cannot become a sovereign state if no other country recognises its independence. It won’t even be able to have its own currency under such conditions.”
With nearly all votes counted, separatist parties won a slim majority in Catalan parliament, a result that promises to prolong political tensions in Spain.
“The bid for independence looks set to continue with the two main separatist parties gaining more seats after the vote,” wrote Yoshimasa Maruyama, chief market economist at SMBC Nikko Securities in Tokyo.
“But the one-sided declaration of independence in October ended in failure and this will likely result in a strategic change.”
More
In cryptocurrency news, Goldie sees a ton of
easy money to be made for the gang.
“Call
it the Goldman Sachs test. If this is something Goldman would do to its
clients, don't do it."
Felix
Salmon.
Goldman Is Setting Up a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk
By Hugh Son, Dakin Campbell, and Sonali Basak
At least one of Wall Street’s biggest
firms is growing more comfortable with cryptocurrencies.
Goldman
Sachs Group Inc. is setting up a trading desk to make markets in digital
currencies such as bitcoin, according to people with knowledge of the strategy.
The bank aims to get the business running by the end of June, if not earlier,
two of the people said. Another said it’s still trying to work out security
issues as well as how it would hold, or custody, the assets.The move positions Goldman Sachs to become the first large Wall Street firm to make markets in cryptocurrencies, whose wild price swings and surging values have captured the public’s imagination but given pause to established institutions. Already, the bank is among just a few mainstream firms clearing a new breed of bitcoin futures offered by Cboe Global Markets Inc. and CME Group Inc. Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp., for example, have been taking a wait-and-see approach.
Goldman Sachs is now assembling a team in New York, one of the people said. While the bank hasn’t made a decision where to house the desk, one possibility is that it will operate within the fixed-income, currencies and commodities unit’s systematic trading function, which conducts transactions electronically, two people said. Darren Cohen, in the firm’s principal strategic investments group, is also looking at opportunities, another person said.
“In response to client interest in digital currencies, we are exploring how best to serve them,” Michael DuVally, a spokesman, said in a statement.
Publicly, Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein has been circumspect. He tweeted in October that his firm was looking at how to deal with bitcoin. In a Bloomberg Television interview last month, he said his bank didn’t need a bitcoin strategy yet because the digital currency is still just developing and volatile.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-21/goldman-is-said-to-be-building-a-cryptocurrency-trading-desk
Wild Speculation in Bitcoin
Tuesday, 19 December 2017 Hugo
Salinas Price
---- There are several factors which assist in the acceptance of “Bitcoin” and
which are hardly noticed.
1. Its name, “Bitcon” elegantly and simply combines the concept of
“Bits”, units of digital information used by the world’s system of information,
with the term “Coin”. The image of “Bitcoin” is deceptive, for we are presented
with images of non-existent coins which are totally imaginary, shown to us as
supposedly gold “coins”, which bear a capital “B” altered to suggest a Dollar,
with the “B” crossed with two vertical lines. This is a veiled deception
calculated to give the aspect of authenticity to the concept of the “Bitcoin”
as a monetary unit. When the “Bitcoin” was launched, the world was simply
told that it was money, and no substantiation for this claim was ever
provided.
---- The “Bitcon” embodies a radical defect: it will always be in one of two conditions in the marketplace:
1. There will be a majority that wishes to purchase the “Bitcoin”,
against a minority who wishes to sell it, or
2. There will a majority who wish to sell the “Bitcoin”, against a
minority who wish to purchase it.
It will be impossible for “Bitcoin” to achieve a condition of parity
between buyers and sellers, as is the case in the market for all goods bought
and sold in the world: in the world of commerce, purchasers wish to buy low,
but when they begin to buy, the sellers hold on to their goods, to get the best
price. And contrary-wise, when those who have merchandise wish to sell high,
they come up against those who wish to dispose of their holdings, who lower the
price offered to the sellers. In the case of all goods, there is a fluctuating
balance between bid price and offered price, which originates in the use
given to each good in the world-universe of goods.
----- There can be no “middle ground” for “Bitcoin”, because the only reason that “Bitcoin” is soaring in value, is because its value is soaring. And conversely, at some point it will be collapsing in value, simply because it is collapsing in value. The public has no real “organic” reason to own “Bitcoin”, based on its utility in the world of goods: when “Bitcoin” begins to fall, there will be no buyers to stop its fall, because at no point will there be buyers who will say to themselves, “At this price, I have a use for “Bitcoin".
Therefore, after the apparently unstoppable rise in value of the
“Bitcoin”, there will inevitably come a moment when this rise will turn into a
sudden and swift fall: this will happen when the sellers become the majority
and want to realize their enormous profits: they will suddenly find there are
no takers and the value of “Bitcon” will collapse.
The stability of prices in the world of goods (the prices of copper,
iron, oil, aluminum, wheat, etc.) derives from the use the world gives to goods.
“Bitcoin” and its imitations are not goods, they are simply digits that move
outside the purview of official controls of the transfer of property of
quantities of money - their only real service.
“Buyer beware!”
If the financial system goes down, our business is going down and, trust me, yours and everyone else's is going down, too.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, a bitcoin story from a LIR reader too good not to share. Enjoy.
A lot of monkeys lived near a village.🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒
One day a merchant came to the village to buy these monkeys!🐵🐵🐵🐵🐵🐵
He announced that he will buy the monkeys @ $100 each. 🐵💵
The villagers thought that this man is mad.😇
They thought how can somebody buy stray monkeys at $100 each?🤔
Still, some people caught some monkeys and gave it to this merchant and he gave $100 for each monkey. 😬
This news spread like wildfire and people caught monkeys and sold it to the merchant.😬
After a few days, the merchant announced that he will buy monkeys @ 200 each. 🐵💵💵
The lazy villagers also ran around to catch the remaining monkeys!🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒
They sold the remaining monkeys @ 200 each.😋
Then the merchant announced that he will buy monkeys @ 500 each! 😮💵💵💵💵💵
The villagers start to lose sleep! ... They caught six or seven monkeys, which was all that was left and got 500 each.🙊🐵🐵🐵🐵🐵🐒
The villagers were waiting anxiously for the next announcement.🙄
Then the merchant announced that he is going home for a week. And when he returns, he will buy monkeys @ 1000 each!🐵💵💵💵💵💵💵💵💵💵💵
He asked his employee to take care of the monkeys he bought. He was alone taking care of all the monkeys in a cage.🤠🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒
The merchant went home.😎
The villagers were very sad as there were no more monkeys left for them to sell it at $1000 each.☹️😞😓
Then the employee told them that he will sell some monkeys @ 700 each secretly. 😶
This news spread like fire. Since the merchant buys monkey @ 1000 each, there is a 300 profit for each monkey.😬
The next day, villagers made a queue near the monkey cage.🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐵🐒🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑
The employee sold all the monkeys at 700 each. The rich bought monkeys in big lots. The poor borrowed money from money lenders and also bought monkeys! 🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒💵💵💵💵💵💵💵💵💵💵
The villagers took care of their monkeys & waited for the merchant to return. 😕
But nobody came! ...😤 Then they ran to the employee...🤠
But he had already left too !😉
The villagers then realised that they have bought the useless stray monkeys @ 700 each and unable to sell them! 😩😫😨😰😭😭😭😭😭😭
The Bitcoin will be the next monkey business 😜
It will make a lot of people bankrupt and a few people filthy rich in this monkey business. 🐒😉😅
Technology Update.
With events happening fast in the
development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as
they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC energy
mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards?
India to achieve target of 100 GW of solar power by 2022
Updated:
Dec 21, 2017, 02.05 PM IST
NEW DELHI: The
government is confident of achieving the target of 100 Giga Watt (GW) of solar
power capacity by 2022, Power Minister R K Singh said today.
As against the target of installing 100 GW of solar power capacity as on December 15, a capacity of 16,676 MW has been installed with another 6,500 MW capacity under installation, he said in the Lok Sabha during Question Hour.
As against the target of installing 100 GW of solar power capacity as on December 15, a capacity of 16,676 MW has been installed with another 6,500 MW capacity under installation, he said in the Lok Sabha during Question Hour.
The
trajectory of bidding of the rest of solar power capacity has been finalised as
20,000 MW in 2017-18, 30,000 MW in 2018-19 and 30,000 MW in 2019-20.
"The government is confident of achieving the target of 100 GW of solar power capacity by 2022," Singh said.
"The government is confident of achieving the target of 100 GW of solar power capacity by 2022," Singh said.
Since
the country does not have enough manufacturing capacity at present for solar
cells and modules to meet the full demand, "both imported and indigenous
solar sells and modules are being utilised for achieving the targets," he
said.
US Takes India Back To World Trade Organisation In Solar Power Dispute
Renewable energy has become a hot area of trade friction as major economies compete to dominate a sector that is expected to thrive as reliance on coal and oil dwindles
India
has failed to comply with a World Trade Organisation ruling on solar power, the
United States will tell the WTO's dispute settlement body (DSB) next month,
triggering a fresh round of litigation, according to an agenda issued on
Wednesday.
Renewable energy has become a hot area of trade friction as major economies compete to dominate a sector that is expected to thrive as reliance on coal and oil dwindles.
Renewable energy has become a hot area of trade friction as major economies compete to dominate a sector that is expected to thrive as reliance on coal and oil dwindles.
India unveiled its national solar programme in 2011, seeking to ease
chronic energy shortages in Asia's third-largest economy without creating
pollution.
But the United States complained to the WTO in 2013, saying the programme was discriminatory and US solar exports to India had fallen by 90 percent from 2011.
The United States won the case last year, when WTO appeals judges ruled India had broken the trade rules by requiring solar power developers to use Indian-made cells and modules.
Such "local content" requirements are banned because they discriminate in favour of domestic firms and against foreign competitors.
But the United States complained to the WTO in 2013, saying the programme was discriminatory and US solar exports to India had fallen by 90 percent from 2011.
The United States won the case last year, when WTO appeals judges ruled India had broken the trade rules by requiring solar power developers to use Indian-made cells and modules.
Such "local content" requirements are banned because they discriminate in favour of domestic firms and against foreign competitors.
Under an agreement with the United States, India had until December 14 to
comply with the ruling and it told the DSB last week that it had done so.
----
But an agenda for the DSB's next meeting on January 12 showed the United States
plans to raise the dispute again, citing WTO rules on non-compliance with trade
rulings.
If India is found not to have complied, Washington could ask the WTO for permission to impose trade sanctions on India. But the WTO dispute system is struggling to process a large number of highly complex disputes, so the legal process is likely to continue for a year or more.
If India is found not to have complied, Washington could ask the WTO for permission to impose trade sanctions on India. But the WTO dispute system is struggling to process a large number of highly complex disputes, so the legal process is likely to continue for a year or more.
Once again another year draws
to a close. If you are one of the regular readers of this six days a week
update that helps support my efforts with the occasional donation via the
Paypal button, once again I sincerely thank you. If you are a regular reader
who finds the LIR informative, interesting, occasionally amusing or
entertaining, please consider making a small donation via the Paypal button on
the LIR website. For obvious reasons in our new age of almost rampant fake
news, I want to keep the LIR advertising free. But in any event thank you for
reading and sending in helpful suggestions.
Old Three Card Monte of Siena is causing havoc. He’s eating all
the livestock and demanding extortionate bailouts via his henchmen in Rome and
Frankfurt. Bankrupt very, very, very, old King Monte has decided to marry off his
daughter to a rich billionaire bitcoin scammer from South Korea, an Asian land very, very
far away….
A panto for modern times. With apologies to Richard Gauntlett
author of pantomime scripts.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished November
DJIA: 24,272 +243 Up. NASDAQ: 6,874 +289 Up. SP500: 2,648 +189 Up.
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