Baltic Dry Index. 3002 -07
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $3,000.
“Egol and Fabrice were way ahead of their time,” said one of the former Goldman workers.
“They saw the writing on the wall in this market as early as 2005.”
We open this morning with more on the Goldman scandal that typifies all that is wrong with parasitic casino capitalism and unrestricted hedge fund derivatives gambling. Was the great credit calamity, that nearly brought down the world’s economic system and plunged the world into the worst and continuing recession since the Great 1930s Depression, deliberately made in Goldman heaven at 85 Broad Street? But first this news from London. The “fabulous Fab” goes on the lam. Well actually just takes some time off. With the European airlines closed down and going out of business fast, and the trains and ferries that link John Bull’s advanced civilization with the natives of Europe jammed up with stranded refugees trying to get home, going on the lam from the world’s recently impoverished taxpayers isn’t exactly an option thanks to Iceland.
It’s morally wrong to let a sucker keep his money.
W.C. Fields. Goldman Ethicist.
Goldman's staffer charged by SEC takes time off
April 19, 2010, 3:08 p.m. EDT
Fabrice Tourre, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. employee at the center of a government case against the bank over its sale of mortgage securities, is taking some time off but isn't suspended, the Fox Business Network reports Monday, citing Goldman Sachs.
Tourre remains an employee, according to the report.
Reuters also reported that Tourre remains with the firm. "He remains an employee of Goldman Sachs," and has taken a "personal decision to take a bit of time off," the news service quoted a Goldman Sachs spokesman as saying. The spokesman, who wasn't identified by name, also told Reuters that Goldman had found Tourre did "nothing wrong" during an internal investigation it conducted after the Securities and Exchange Commission first contacted the bank about the case.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/goldmans-staffer-charged-by-sec-takes-time-off-2010-04-19
Below, a NY Times article we covered just before Christmas. I suspect that someone at the SEC was providing background briefing back then. I suspect that there is still a whole lot more to come out.
"The product was new and complex, but the deception and conflicts are old and simple."
SEC Director Division of Enforcement Robert Khuzami.
Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON and LOUISE STORY Published: December 23, 2009
----- Mr. Egol, a Princeton graduate, had risen to prominence inside the bank by creating mortgage-related securities, named Abacus, that were at first intended to protect Goldman from investment losses if the housing market collapsed. As the market soured, Goldman created even more of these securities, enabling it to pocket huge profits.
Goldman’s own clients who bought them, however, were less fortunate.
Pension funds and insurance companies lost billions of dollars on securities that they believed were solid investments, according to former Goldman employees with direct knowledge of the deals who asked not to be identified because they have confidentiality agreements with the firm.
Goldman was not the only firm that peddled these complex securities — known as synthetic collateralized debt obligations, or C.D.O.’s — and then made financial bets against them, called selling short in Wall Street parlance. Others that created similar securities and then bet they would fail, according to Wall Street traders, include Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley, as well as smaller firms like Tricadia Inc., an investment company whose parent firm was overseen by Lewis A. Sachs, who this year became a special counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.
----- One focus of the inquiry is whether the firms creating the securities purposely helped to select especially risky mortgage-linked assets that would be most likely to crater, setting their clients up to lose billions of dollars if the housing market imploded.
Some securities packaged by Goldman and Tricadia ended up being so vulnerable that they soured within months of being created.
------ But Goldman and other firms eventually used the C.D.O.’s to place unusually large negative bets that were not mainly for hedging purposes, and investors and industry experts say that put the firms at odds with their own clients’ interests.
“The simultaneous selling of securities to customers and shorting them because they believed they were going to default is the most cynical use of credit information that I have ever seen,” said Sylvain R. Raynes, an expert in structured finance at R & R Consulting in New York. “When you buy protection against an event that you have a hand in causing, you are buying fire insurance on someone else’s house and then committing arson.”
Investment banks were not alone in reaping rich rewards by placing trades against synthetic C.D.O.’s. Some hedge funds also benefited, including Paulson & Company, according to former Goldman workers and people at other banks familiar with that firm’s trading.
Michael DuVally, a Goldman Sachs spokesman, declined to make Mr. Egol available for comment.
----- From 2005 through 2007, at least $108 billion in these securities was issued, according to Dealogic, a financial data firm. And the actual volume was much higher because synthetic C.D.O.’s and other customized trades are unregulated and often not reported to any financial exchange or market.
----- Worried about a housing bubble, top Goldman executives decided in December 2006 to change the firm’s overall stance on the mortgage market, from positive to negative, though it did not disclose that publicly.
Even before then, however, pockets of the investment bank had also started using C.D.O.’s to place bets against mortgage securities, in some cases to hedge the firm’s mortgage investments, as protection against a fall in housing prices and an increase in defaults.
Mr. Egol was a prime mover behind these securities. Beginning in 2004, with housing prices soaring and the mortgage mania in full swing, Mr. Egol began creating the deals known as Abacus. From 2004 to 2008, Goldman issued 25 Abacus deals, according to Bloomberg, with a total value of $10.9 billion.
Abacus allowed investors to bet for or against the mortgage securities that were linked to the deal. The C.D.O.’s didn’t contain actual mortgages. Instead, they consisted of credit-default swaps, a type of insurance that pays out when a borrower defaults. These swaps made it much easier to place large bets on mortgage failures.
Rather than persuading his customers to make negative bets on Abacus, Mr. Egol kept most of these wagers for his firm, said five former Goldman employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity. On occasion, he allowed some hedge funds to take some of the short trades.
------ Mr. Egol and Fabrice Tourre, a French trader at Goldman, were aggressive from the start in trying to make the assets in Abacus deals look better than they were, according to notes taken by a Wall Street investor during a phone call with Mr. Tourre and another Goldman employee in May 2005.
On the call, the two traders noted that they were trying to persuade analysts at Moody’s Investors Service, a credit rating agency, to assign a higher rating to one part of an Abacus C.D.O. but were having trouble, according to the investor’s notes, which were provided by a colleague who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to release them. Goldman declined to discuss the selection of the assets in the C.D.O.’s, but a spokesman said investors could have rejected the C.D.O. if they did not like the assets.
Goldman’s bets against the performances of the Abacus C.D.O.’s were not worth much in 2005 and 2006, but they soared in value in 2007 and 2008 when the mortgage market collapsed. The trades gave Mr. Egol a higher profile at the bank, and he was among a group promoted to managing director on Oct. 24, 2007.
“Egol and Fabrice were way ahead of their time,” said one of the former Goldman workers.
“They saw the writing on the wall in this market as early as 2005.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/business/24trading.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2
Up next, AIG heads to the lawyers. The first of many I suspect.
AIG eyes action on Goldman over CDOs
By Francesco Guerrera in New York and Brooke Masters in London
Published: April 20 2010 00:00 Last updated: April 20 2010 01:09
AIG, the US government-controlled insurer, is considering pursuing Goldman Sachs over losses incurred on $6bn of insurance deals on mortgage-backed securities similar to the one that led to fraud charges against the US bank.
AIG’s move over the deals that caused it a loss of about $2bn is a sign that Friday’s decision by the Securities and Exchange Commission to file civil fraud charges against Goldman could spark actions from investors who lost money on mortgage-backed securities.
If AIG and others discover that their transactions had disclosure issues similar to those alleged in the SEC charges, they would be able to complain to the SEC, file a private lawsuit, or both, lawyers said.
People close to the situation said that AIG was reviewing deals to insure $6bn-worth of Goldman’s collateralised debt obligations in the run-up to the crisis. They added that AIG had yet to decide whether to take action. AIG and Goldman declined to comment.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/db7dc52a-4bee-11df-a217-00144feab49a.html
We end on the subject of Goldman’s Madoff moment in the sunlight, busy capping a 141 year record of financial success, with the WSJ covering the hedge fund that seems to have got a pass in the developing scandal. Mr. Paulson, it seems, bet on red and black in the politics of money talks.
“In early 2008, the firm hired former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan…. In September 2008, Paulson bet against four of the five biggest British banks. His positions included a £350m bet against shares in Barclays; £292m against Royal Bank of Scotland; and £260m against Lloyds TSB. He eventually booked a profit of as much as £280m after reducing its short position in RBS in January 2009.” Wikipedia.
APRIL 20, 2010
Paulson Gave to Both Parties
Politicians Seek to Tar by Association, but Bank and Paulson Gave Across Aisle
John Paulson, the man at the center of the government's case against Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has held political fund-raising events in recent weeks for top politicians of both political parties.
According to people familiar with the events, Mr. Paulson organized one of the events on behalf of the Republican National Committee and featured RNC Chairman Michael Steele and Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. The other was for Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York.
Mr. Paulson's bipartisan support for politicians points to the difficulty both parties face as they try to use the case against Goldman for political gain. Goldman was charged last week by the Securities and Exchange Commission with civil fraud relating to its trading in mortgage-related investments.
Mr. Paulson wasn't accused of wrongdoing. A spokesman said: "John Paulson supports a variety of candidates in both political parties based on keeping the United States the financial and economic capital of the world."
A spokesman for the RNC and Mr. Schumer declined to comment. A spokesman for Mr. Romney didn't respond to a request for comment.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703757504575194502882068296.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn
Below, Der Spiegel on Europe increasingly laid low by Iceland’s ash not cash. A-tissue, a-tissue we all fall down.
Eyjafjallajökull's Economic Impact
Airlines Fear Losses Higher than 9/11
04/19/2010
The disruption to air traffic caused by Iceland's volcanic ash is not just affecting German airlines' bottom lines. The knock-on effect on the entire economy could be severe. The initial estimates are of losses amounting to 1 billion euros a day.
Five days of quiet, plane-free skies have left Europe's airlines furious and warning that some companies may not survive. Now Brussels says it could come to the rescue of some of the airlines that are losing millions of euros a day due to closed airspace.
On Monday, Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said that the European Union was prepared to react as it had after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. "If member states would decide to help with state aid and provided conditions for receiving state aid were not discriminatory, we are ready to think in a similar framework to after Sept. 11," he said at a conference in Brussels.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that the losses caused by the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland could be higher than those incurred after Sept. 11, which saw airlines lose more than $10 billion (€7.4 billion). Officials at German airline Lufthansa alone say the company is losing €25 million a day.
IATA has warned that if the flight ban goes on for longer than a week that some of the 150 European airlines could go bust. The smaller airlines would be the first to go, IATA President Giovanni Bisignani said on Monday.
Airlines Slam Government
According to a study by the Swiss bank UBS, Europe's six biggest airlines -- Easyjet, Ryanair, British Airways, Iberia, Air France-KLM and Lufthansa -- together have seen losses of up to €140 million a day.
The ongoing paralysis is hitting Europe's airlines on the stock markets, as well. Shares in airlines fell by between 3.5 and 4.5 percent on Monday, with Germany's biggest airlines Lufthansa and Air Berlin each losing 5 percent of their value.
The two airlines have sharply criticized the flight ban in Germany, which after being eased somewhat on Sunday, has been re-imposed until 2 a.m. on Tuesday.
The two companies have slammed Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer and German Air Traffic Control (DFS) for closing German airspace. Lufthansa boss Wolfgang Mayrhuber said that the safety concerns had been unfounded.
----Meanwhile, his colleague Economy Minister Rainer Brüderle in Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet says he fears that the affects on the wider German economy could be significant. "If the global economic value-added chain is interrupted for a long period of time, then we get to a serious situation, because many of our industrial giants are dependent on air transport," he said in Berlin on Monday.
-----For example, replacement parts and components for machines and facilities built by German manufacturers cannot be transported. Many medical supplies are also usually delivered by air. "Urgent, perishable or high quality goods" cannot simply be transported by trucks or ships instead of by air he said.
Around 35 to 40 percent of international trade is conducted by air. This would amount to trade worth around €350 billion from Germany, the equivalent of around €1 billion a day. There are, of course, compensatory factors and some businesses can make up the losses later "but not 100 percent," according to Trier.
The affect is already being felt in one of Germany's leading companies. Carmaker BMW is not able to send important components to the United States, a spokesman said on Monday. While the production in the plants was continuing as normal, if the flight ban continues for two more days, the situation could get critical. "In the worse case scenario the conveyor belts might stop," he said.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,689883,00.html#ref=nlint
APRIL 20, 2010
Vow to Renew Flights Clouded by Ash Warning
European Regulators Suggest Loosening Ban, but Pilots Ask for More Research; U.K. Sees New Plume From Iceland's Volcano
European regulators planned to start lifting flight bans Tuesday, but news late Monday put those plans in doubt even as pilot groups and scientists called for more caution before putting planes back into European skies clouded by volcanic ash.
Britain's National Air Traffic Services agency said late Monday that flying conditions were "worsening" in some areas. "The volcano eruption in Iceland has strengthened and a new ash cloud is spreading south and east towards the U.K.," the air-traffic agency said in its latest update. The agency said it still hopes to clear some airports to reopen Tuesday, though not the London gateways that handle the bulk of the country's air traffic.
The news came after European air-safety authorities agreed earlier Monday to relax flight bans that it enacted after Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano (ay-yah-FYAH'-tlah-yer-kuh-duhl) started erupting violently Thursday, spewing a cloud of fine but potentially dangerous dust high into the atmosphere. Days of airspace closures across most of northern and central Europe, the world's biggest restriction of flights since 2001, have left more than eight million passengers dislocated and cost airlines at least $1 billion dollars.
Following criticism by airlines that authorities were being overly cautious in grounding flights, European Union officials agreed Monday to divide EU airspace into three zones based on ash concentrations in the atmosphere. European aviation authorities will establish a "limited" no-fly zone surrounded by a buffer area. Airlines will be allowed to fly outside the zone once they are opened by national authorities.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704671904575193292611544742.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hps_LEFTTopStories
In other European news, Greece edges closer to default. They may be out of sight amidst all of Iceland’s ash, and not a feature in this particular Goldman scandal that threatens to bring to an end Goldie’s 141 year Wall Street checkered career, but Greece is not helped if Europe’s tourists can’t get to visit and spend their hard earned cash. Europe’s fix-its and the IMF team had a hard time getting there too.
If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damn fool about it.
W.C. Fields.
Greece’s Uncertain Future Weighs on Bond Market
By MATTHEW SALTMARSH Published: April 19, 2010
Yields on Greek bonds pushed to fresh highs on Monday and shares in Athens sank as investors continued to worry about the country’s near-term ability to finance its debt. Some raised the specter of default even if international aid arrived soon.
Analysts said traders shifted out of Greek bonds amid worries about the country’s ability to raise more than 11 billion euros, or $14.8 billion, in May, especially in light of the delay of a crucial meeting that was to be held Monday between European, Greek and International Monetary Fund officials.
Vassilis Papadimitriou, a spokesman for the Greek government, said the meeting, postponed because of travel chaos in Europe, would go ahead Wednesday provided that European Union and central bank officials were able to get to Athens. Airports across Europe remained closed Monday because of the volcanic eruption on Wednesday in Iceland, which has spread potentially hazardous ash across the Continent.
Bill Murray, a Washington-based spokesman for the I.M.F., confirmed on Monday that most members of the I.M.F. team had arrived in Athens to discuss “policies that could be the basis for a fund financing program.” He declined to comment on the duration of the mission.
Even with those talks expected to move ahead, investors were worrying about the country’s financing needs — in coming months and years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/business/global/20drachma.html
So, Goldman is a serial arsonist that has turned betting against its clients' interests into a science. The Times article makes it clear that shorting subprime and luring gullible investors into the trap, was standard operating procedure. Goldman's CEO Lloyd Blankfein dismisses the criticism with a wave of the hand saying, "They were sophisticated investors," which is the same as saying "buyer beware". It's worth noting that shorting subprimes exacerbated the pain in housing by creating incentives for originators to issue more mortgages to people with poor credit. This prolonged the housing boom and deepened the recession when the bubble finally burst. The eventual downturn was largely engineered by Wall Street.
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney04192010.html
At the Comex silver depositories Monday, final figures were: Registered 48.85 Moz, Eligible 66.08 Moz, Total 114.93 Moz.
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Crooks & Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, you really couldn’t make this nonsense up. Yet another reason for the UK to leave the insane European Union. The world doesn’t just owe Europe a free living Greek style, it owes them free or subsidized holidays as well. Another unintended consequence of the error of the great Nixonian error of fiat money.
April 18, 2010
Get packing: Brussels decrees holidays are a human right
AN overseas holiday used to be thought of as a reward for a year’s hard work. Now Brussels has declared that tourism is a human right and pensioners, youths and those too poor to afford it should have their travel subsidised by the taxpayer.
Under the scheme, British pensioners could be given cut-price trips to Spain, while Greek teenagers could be taken around disused mills in Manchester to experience the cultural diversity of Europe.
The idea for the subsidised tours is the brainchild of Antonio Tajani, the European Union commissioner for enterprise and industry, who was appointed by Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister.
The scheme, which could cost hundreds of millions of pounds a year, is intended to promote a sense of pride in European culture, bridge the north-south divide in the continent and prop up resorts in their off-season.
Tajani, who unveiled his plan last week at a ministerial conference in Madrid, believes the days when holidays were a luxury have gone. “Travelling for tourism today is a right. The way we spend our holidays is a formidable indicator of our quality of life,” he said.
Tajani, who used to be transport commissioner, said he had been able to “affirm the rights of passengers” in his previous office and the next step was to ensure people’s “right to be tourists”.
The European Union has experience of subsidised holidays. In February the European parliament paid contributions of up to 52% towards an eight-day skiing trip in the Italian Alps for 80 children of Eurocrats.
Tajani’s programme will be piloted until 2013 and then put into full operation. It will be open to pensioners and anyone over 65, young people between 18 and 25, families facing “difficult social, financial or personal” circumstances and disabled people. The disabled and the elderly can be accompanied by one person.
In the initial phase, northern Europeans will be encouraged to visit southern Europe and vice versa. Details of how participants are chosen have not yet been finalised, but it is expected the EU will subsidise about 30% of the cost.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7100943.ece
Below, the more things change the more they stay the same. Goldie has form as they say.
In the early 20th century, Goldman was a player in establishing the initial public offering market. It managed one of the largest IPOs to date, that of Sears, Roebuck and Company in 1906. It also became one of the first companies to heavily recruit those with MBA degrees from leading business schools, a practice that still continues today.
On December 4, 1928, it launched the Goldman Sachs Trading Corp. a closed-end fund with characteristics similar to that of a Ponzi scheme. The fund failed as a result of the Stock Market Crash of 1929, hurting the firm's reputation for several years afterward. Of this case and others like Blue Ridge Corporation and Shenandoah Corporation John Kenneth Galbraith wrote: The Autumn of 1929 was, perhaps, the first occasion when men succeeded on a large scale in swindling themselves.
Wikipedia.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished March:
DJIA: +168 UP. NASDAQ: +370 UP. SP500: +196 UP. The great Bull market goes on with the all three continuing higher in positive numbers.
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Help the LIR fight Banksterism, the EU, and for sound money.
If you can, help the LIR stay around and make a difference. Please make a donation at the PayPal link on the website or better still become a sponsor for what looks like an exciting 2010. Capitalism not banksterism. Many thanks to all who have helped.
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Showing posts with label the new Dalton Minimum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the new Dalton Minimum. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
“Where on earth has the SEC been?”
Baltic Dry Index. 2982 -39
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $3,000.
Those have a short Lent, who owe money to be paid at Easter.
Benjamin Franklin
For the next few days of Holy Week there won’t be a daily LIR update. Check with the blogs for possible updates as news warrants. We wish all our Christian readers, and all who are celebrating Easter at this time, a very happy and holy Easter 2010. The next regular update will be on Monday April 5th.
More on the SEC later. We open today with Climategate, and the UK’s “independent” enquiry into the University of East Anglia’s dodgy Climate Research Unit. Operating on the traditional British fair play rules of hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil, especially when it involves a British institution and all 3 UK political parties are signed up members of the global warming camp, the investigation is widely expected to come up with the desired result. So how independent is a “Perfidious Albion” enquiry into dodgy climate science and cover up? Below, the Telegraph covers the story.
There has been a curious by-product of the attempts being made by the University of East Anglia to whitewash last November's embarrassing leak of documents from its Climatic Research Unit. Since it set up not one but two supposedly "independent" inquiries into the "Climategate" affair, climate sceptics were intrigued but not entirely surprised to find that almost all their members were committed, even fanatical advocates of global warming, and hence unlikely to be over-critical of the CRU's bizarre record.
Most recently, the sceptics have been particularly intrigued by the background of the man chosen by the university to chair an assessment of the CRU's scientific record. Lord Oxburgh declared on his appointment that he is linked to major wind-farm and renewable-energy companies. He admitted that he advises Climate Change Capital, which manages funds worth $1.5 billion, hoping to cash in on the "opportunities created by the transition to a low-carbon economy", in a world market potentially worth – its website boasts – $45 trilllion.
What Lord Oxburgh kept quiet about, however, is that he is also a director and vice-chairman of a strange little private company few of us had heard of known as Globe International. The name stands for "Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment", and it describes itself as a worldwide network to lobby governments to take more drastic action on climate change. Globe is certainly well-connected, as it showed just before last December's Copenhagen conference by staging a seminar addressed by, among others, the conference's chairman Yvo de Boer, as well as Nancy Pelosi and Ed Markey, the leaders of the campaign to push a cap-and trade-scheme – which could make a lot of people fabulously rich – through the US Congress.
The international president of this lobbying organisation turns out to be none other than Stephen Byers MP, now best known for his description of himself on last week's Dispatches as "like a cab for hire", happy to take £5,000 a day for using his influence as a lobbyist.
Globe clearly knows how to pick its men. Its UK parliamentary team also includes Elliot Morley MP, Globe's former president, and David Chaytor MP, both of whom now face criminal charges for fraud in connection with their expenses claims, Considering the record of some of his colleagues, it is perhaps not surprising that Lord Oxburgh was not too keen to declare his interest in this odd little outfit when he was appointed to chair an inquiry as to whether the world can rely on the evidence produced by the CRU to support its advocacy for global warming.
The fund-raising requirement was announced after the National Asset Management Agency said it will apply an average discount of 47 percent on the first block of loans it is buying from lenders as part of a plan to revive the financial system. The central bank set new capital buffers for Allied Irish Banks Plc and Bank of Ireland Plc and gave them 30 days to say how they will raise the funds.
“Our worst fears have been surpassed,” Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said in the parliament in Dublin yesterday. “Irish banking made appalling lending decisions that will cost the taxpayer dearly for years to come.”
The agency aims to cleanse banks of toxic loans, the legacy of plunging real-estate prices and the country’s deepest ever recession. In all, it will buy loans with a book value of 80 billion euros ($107 billion), about half the size of the economy.
“The information that has emerged from the banks in the course of the NAMA process is truly shocking,” Lenihan said.
---- Ireland may not be able to afford to pump more money into the banks. The budget deficit widened to 11.7 percent of gross domestic product last year, almost four times the European Union limit, and the government spent the past year trying to convince investors the state is in control of its finances.
The premium investors charge to hold Irish 10-year debt over the German equivalent was at 139 basis points yesterday compared with 284 basis points in March 2009, a 16-year high.
Ireland’s debt agency said it doesn’t envisage additional borrowing this year related to the bank recapitalization. It is sticking to its 2010 bond issuance forecast of about 20 billion euros, head of funding Oliver Whelan said in an interview.
“The bank losses, awful as they are, represent a one-off hit. It’s water under the bridge,” said Ciaran O’Hagan, a Paris-based fixed-income strategist at Societe Generale SA. “What’s of more concern for investors in government bonds is the budget deficit. Slashing the chronic overspending and raising taxation by the Irish state is vital.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aiI8N1UP2rFM&pos=1
Over on the other side of the Atlantic, an ex-Clinton appointment, Robert Reich Secretary of Labor, finally gets it right on how Wall Street’s banksters were given free reign in the last decade. Rarely have I been on the same side as Clinton appointment, so this is perhaps a cheap shot, but where were you Mr. Reich from 2002-2007 as Mr. Greenspan and Co. unleashed the real estate bubble and triple-A swindle?
Fraud on the Street
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday it had begun an inquiry into two dozen financial companies to determine whether they followed accounting practices similar to those recently disclosed in an investigation of Lehman Brothers.
Where on earth has the SEC been?
It’s now clear Lehman Brothers’ balance sheet was bogus before the bank collapsed in 2008, catapulting the Street and the world into the worse financial crisis since 1929. The Lehman bankruptcy examiner’s recent report details what just about everyone on the Street has known since the firm imploded – that Lehman defrauded its investors. Even Hank Paulson, in his recent memoir, referred to Lehman’s balance sheet as bogus.
In order to look like it could borrow $30 for every dollar of its own money, Lehman shifted liabilities off its books at the end of each quarter. Its CPA, Ernst and Young, approved of this fraud against the advice of its own whistle blower, whom Ernst and Young fired.
Lehman’s practices couldn’t have been all that different from those of every other big bank on the Street. After all, they were all competing for the same business, and using many of the same techniques. Lehman was just the first to go under, causing a financial run that led George W. to warn “this sucker could go down” unless the federal government came up with hundreds of billions to bail out the others.
In other words, the TARP covered the other bankers’ assets and asses.
We now know, for example, Goldman Sachs helped Greece hide its public debt and then placed financial bets that Greece would default, using credit-default swaps to avoid risking its own capital. It’s the same tactic Goldman used for (and against) American International Group (AIG): Hide the ball, and then bet against the ball and fob off the risk to investors and taxpayers, using derivatives to remove the risky tactics from the balance sheets. Even today no one knows the fair value of the complex derivatives underlying these and related maneuvers, which is exactly the point.
But wait. We already have a law designed to stop this sort of fraud. It’s called the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time
By JOHN M. BRODER Published: March 30, 2010
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.
The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.
Under the plan, the coastline from New Jersey northward would remain closed to all oil and gas activity. So would the Pacific Coast, from Mexico to the Canadian border.
The environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska would be protected and no drilling would be allowed under the plan, officials said. But large tracts in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska — nearly 130 million acres — would be eligible for exploration and drilling after extensive studies.
The proposal is to be announced by President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Wednesday, but administration officials agreed to preview the details on the condition that they not be identified.
The proposal is intended to reduce dependence on oil imports, generate revenue from the sale of offshore leases and help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation.
But while Mr. Obama has staked out middle ground on other environmental matters — supporting nuclear power, for example — the sheer breadth of the offshore drilling decision will take some of his supporters aback. And it is no sure thing that it will win support for a climate bill from undecided senators close to the oil industry, like Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, or Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana.
The Senate is expected to take up a climate bill in the next few weeks — the last chance to enact such legislation before midterm election concerns take over. Mr. Obama and his allies in the Senate have already made significant concessions on coal and nuclear power to try to win votes from Republicans and moderate Democrats. The new plan now grants one of the biggest items on the oil industry’s wish list — access to vast areas of the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/earth/31energy.html?hp
As with nearly everything, the devil is in the details, and this policy shift is a sop to get votes to get a climate bill passed. A climate bill based on the myth of man made global warming, and designed to further the ends of the great vampire squids and carbon trading scams.
At the Comex silver depositories Tuesday, final figures were: Registered 54.24 Moz, Eligible 61.77 Moz, Total 116.01 Moz.
See the land, her Easter keeping,
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US Investigators Crack Down on Daimler's Culture of Corruption
By Dietmar Hawranek 03/30/2010
After corruption scandals involving engineering giant Siemens and truck manufacturer MAN, Daimler is now in the spotlight. The US is pressing charges against the carmaker over alleged bribery payments to foreign governments. The case will likely be settled out of court.
Sometimes two letters are enough to tell an entire story. In this case, the two letters, which were printed on the labels of three files in a safe at the Mercedes-Benz office in Istanbul, were "N.A."
The German automaker produces busses in Turkey, which it sells in countries around the world, including North Korea, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Russia. The company apparently paid €3.3 million ($4.4 million) in bribes to secure business in these countries.
This, at least, is the way the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) interprets the content of the files with the letters "N.A." -- an abbreviation for the words "Nützliche Aufwendungen" ("useful payments") -- printed on the label. It's another -- and very German -- way of saying "bribes."
The story behind the files is particularly dramatic, because it also involved the suicide of an executive. Rudi K., who worked for Mercedes-Benz's parent company Daimler in Nigeria, was apparently involved in the payments. He was faced with a difficult choice: report poor sales figures or risk a jail term.
American attorneys questioned K. for several days. He later told his wife that he was treated like a hardened criminal and was under "enormous pressure." Then K. committed suicide.
The affair has proved to be extremely expensive for automaker Daimler, which is set to pay $185 million to settle a lawsuit in the United States. The case raises many questions. How could a respected global corporation like Daimler apparently have violated German and international law for years by paying bribes in at least 22 countries around the world? Could it be that the Daimler case is in fact typical for Germany, which until recently was the world's largest exporter? Are German companies as good at corruption as they are at exporting?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,686238,00.html#ref=nlint
It was enough to arouse suspicions. For many years, there had been recurring stories about presumed bribe payments by Essen-based plant construction group Ferrostaal. In one case, the company allegedly paid 200,000 deutsche marks (€102,258, $138,099) to former Indonesian President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie. In another, the family of former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha is believed to have received 460 million deutsche marks for the construction of a metal-processing plant.
Few of these allegations have stood up in court, however, partly because some of the payments occurred during a period when so-called "useful expenditures," or payments made to procure contracts, were not yet illegal in Germany.
But since Wednesday of last week, there are many indications that bribery payments were commonplace at Ferrostaal. Klaus Lesker, a member of the executive board, was arrested last week, and the Munich public prosecutor's office is also investigating two former board members and other senior executives for "a particularly serious case of bribing foreign officials in connection with international business arrangements," as well as for suspected tax evasion.
The prosecutors' list of suspects now includes about a dozen people. Investigators have their sights set on five projects, worth a total of almost one billion euros, which the group is believed to have secured through bribery.
The investigators also believe that the numbers could quickly rise in the coming days. "What we have now is just the beginning," says one official.
A few key documents already fell into the hands of prosecutors last year, during their corruption probe into Ferrostaal's former parent company, engineering group MAN. Last July, authorities conducted a raid on Ferrostaal offices in Essen because they suspected that bribes had been paid in connection with the sale of eight oceangoing tugs to a Hamburg shipping company.
Did Ferrostaal Arrange Bribes for Other Firms?
In the proceedings that has now been launched, under case number 565 Js 33037/10, the investigators can apparently rely on the extensive testimony of two witnesses. The allegations against Ferrostaal are serious: Did the company not only pay bribes itself for years, but also do the dirty work on behalf of other companies in return for a fee?
A case in point is that of Giesecke & Devrient, a Munich-based company that specializes in banknote and securities printing. The case concerns the sale of five printing and embossing machines, as well as a system used to destroy banknotes, to the Indonesian state-owned banknote printing company. Ferrostaal is believed to have brokered the deal and, through a consultant, paid bribes to local officials.
Giesecke & Devrient, which is also under investigation, says it "has not been aware of any irregularities to date."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,686513,00.html#ref=nlint
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished February:
DJIA: +95 UP. NASDAQ: +291 UP. SP500: +118 UP. The great Bull market goes on with the all three continuing higher in positive numbers.
----During the period from 1645 to 1715, the Sun entered a period of low activity now known as the Maunder Minimum, when through several 11- year periods the Sun displayed few if any sunspots. Models of the Sun's irradiance suggest that the solar energy input to the Earth decreased during that time and that this change in solar activity could explain the low temperatures recorded in Europe during the Little Ice Age.
----The same data were later published [Penn and Livingston, 2006], and the observations showed that the magnetic field strength in sunspots were decreasing with time, independent of the sunspot cycle. A simple linear extrapolation of those data suggested that sunspots might completely vanish by 2015.These observations caused researchers to wonder whether the characteristics of sunspots are different now than in other solar cycles.http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009EO300001.pdf
Big freeze could signal global warming 'pause'
The Arctic conditions which have brought Britain to a standstill over the past week could be the start of a "pause" in global warming, some scientists believe.
Published: 9:20AM GMT 11 Jan 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6965342/Big-freeze-could-signal-global-warming-pause.html
Sunspot cycle 24: Together with sunspot cycle 25, the next two global cooling cycles. The new “Dalton Minimum?” Twenty Eight months now with low sunspots numbers, and counting. February was the 28th month of yet another low number of 18.6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum
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This week’s featured links: Silver & Gold Miners + Rare Metals.
With US trillion dollar deficits stretching as far as the eye can see, and voodoo economics the order of the day at the central banks, I think it is now time to begin selectively scaling into precious metals companies that mostly meet the following criteria:
Adequate cash reserves. Good management. Strong in-ground reserves or prospects. NAFTA based, or else located in countries with strong rule of law.
Endeavour Silver Corp. TSX: EDR. http://www.edrsilver.com/s/Home.asp
Semafo TSX: SMF http://www.semafo.com/home_company_intro.php
ATW Gold Corp. TSX.V: ATW. http://www.atwgold.com/
US Silver Corp. TSX.V: USA. http://www.us-silver.com/s/Home.asp
Excellon Resources Inc. TSX: EXN. http://www.excellonresources.com/
First Majestic Silver Corp. TSX: FR http://www.firstmajestic.com/s/Home.asp
New Jersey Mining Company. OTCBB: NJMC
http://www.newjerseymining.com/index.html
Atna Resources Ltd. TSX: ATN. http://www.atna.com/s/Home.asp
Barkerville Gold Mines TSX.V: BGM. Formerly International Wayside Gold Mines Ltd.
http://www.barkervillegold.com/s/Home.asp
Shoreham Resources Ltd. TSX-V: SMH
http://www.shoreham.ca/
ATAC Resources Ltd, TSX.V: ATC. http://www.atacresources.com/s/home.asp
Evolving Gold Corp. TSX.V: EVG http://www.evolvinggold.com/
Lydian International Ltd. TSX: LYD. Note: LYD operates in Armenia, a region carrying higher risk than our usual safer picks in NAFTA lands. http://www.lydianinternational.co.uk/
The story of rare earths and metals is mostly one of China producing and exporting, Japan, America and everyone else importing. Vital to our new technologies, and lifestyle, and critical to hybrid and electric cars, Rare Earth Elements and Heavy Rare Earths, are a strategic choke point held in China’s hands. Lately China has been squeezing that choke point. I think that AVL at Thor Lake Canada, has a property of global importance. A property with the ability to offer NAFTA access to REEs and HREs for the decades ahead. As America and the west move to reduce over dependence on oil from unstable regions, we will see demand for rare metals take off.
Avalon Rare Metals Inc. TSX: AVL. http://www.avalonraremetals.com/
We will be adding more REEs as appropriate.
Warning.
Sadly we are all in unexplored territory. The world has never before suffered a severe recession/depression while operating on fiat currency. As is widely apparent, the central banks haven’t a clue and are making up the rules as the flounder along. They never saw it coming they claim, although it was obvious to many fine writers though not unfortunately in the mainstream media, that a giant financialised derivatives gambling economy would always end badly. There are no experts now, for the simple reason that we have never before faced such a sudden synchronised and deep collapse in the global economies.
The unfortunate fact that we are operating on fraudulent currencies is highly likely to mean it all ends many months from now, in a fiat currency revulsion, but only after the monetary authorities have first tried pouring in endless amounts of newly created money. A derivatives gambling world with an estimated quadrillion dollars of face value has to be unwound and the losses absorbed. In this sort of investing environment, cash, gold and silver and tangible assets are favoured over stocks and intangible assets.
As always if thinking about making an investment, it’s important to do one’s own due diligence. No one has more at risk in an investment than you do yourself. In these difficult economic times, there will likely be several false bottoms before the real one arrives and hindsight allows us to confirm that the bottom is in. Even then, a “V” shaped rebound is highly improbable. A double dip recession seems likely. Beware the false "statistical" government subsidised "recovery." It is a "recovery" bought from a future of fiat currency collapse.
Graeme Irvine
London Irvine Report: www.londonirvinereport.com/
Graeme@londonirvinereport.com
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $3,000.
Those have a short Lent, who owe money to be paid at Easter.
Benjamin Franklin
For the next few days of Holy Week there won’t be a daily LIR update. Check with the blogs for possible updates as news warrants. We wish all our Christian readers, and all who are celebrating Easter at this time, a very happy and holy Easter 2010. The next regular update will be on Monday April 5th.
More on the SEC later. We open today with Climategate, and the UK’s “independent” enquiry into the University of East Anglia’s dodgy Climate Research Unit. Operating on the traditional British fair play rules of hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil, especially when it involves a British institution and all 3 UK political parties are signed up members of the global warming camp, the investigation is widely expected to come up with the desired result. So how independent is a “Perfidious Albion” enquiry into dodgy climate science and cover up? Below, the Telegraph covers the story.
Can we trust the 'Climategate' inquiry?
Sceptics have not been surprised to find that almost all the members of the 'Climategate' inquiry are committed advocates of global warming
By Christopher Booker Published: 6:24PM GMT 27 Mar 2010
Sceptics have not been surprised to find that almost all the members of the 'Climategate' inquiry are committed advocates of global warming
By Christopher Booker Published: 6:24PM GMT 27 Mar 2010
There has been a curious by-product of the attempts being made by the University of East Anglia to whitewash last November's embarrassing leak of documents from its Climatic Research Unit. Since it set up not one but two supposedly "independent" inquiries into the "Climategate" affair, climate sceptics were intrigued but not entirely surprised to find that almost all their members were committed, even fanatical advocates of global warming, and hence unlikely to be over-critical of the CRU's bizarre record.
Most recently, the sceptics have been particularly intrigued by the background of the man chosen by the university to chair an assessment of the CRU's scientific record. Lord Oxburgh declared on his appointment that he is linked to major wind-farm and renewable-energy companies. He admitted that he advises Climate Change Capital, which manages funds worth $1.5 billion, hoping to cash in on the "opportunities created by the transition to a low-carbon economy", in a world market potentially worth – its website boasts – $45 trilllion.
What Lord Oxburgh kept quiet about, however, is that he is also a director and vice-chairman of a strange little private company few of us had heard of known as Globe International. The name stands for "Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment", and it describes itself as a worldwide network to lobby governments to take more drastic action on climate change. Globe is certainly well-connected, as it showed just before last December's Copenhagen conference by staging a seminar addressed by, among others, the conference's chairman Yvo de Boer, as well as Nancy Pelosi and Ed Markey, the leaders of the campaign to push a cap-and trade-scheme – which could make a lot of people fabulously rich – through the US Congress.
The international president of this lobbying organisation turns out to be none other than Stephen Byers MP, now best known for his description of himself on last week's Dispatches as "like a cab for hire", happy to take £5,000 a day for using his influence as a lobbyist.
Globe clearly knows how to pick its men. Its UK parliamentary team also includes Elliot Morley MP, Globe's former president, and David Chaytor MP, both of whom now face criminal charges for fraud in connection with their expenses claims, Considering the record of some of his colleagues, it is perhaps not surprising that Lord Oxburgh was not too keen to declare his interest in this odd little outfit when he was appointed to chair an inquiry as to whether the world can rely on the evidence produced by the CRU to support its advocacy for global warming.
But I am sure we can all have every confidence as to which way his inquiry's conclusions are likely to point.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7530961/Can-we-trust-the-Climategate-inquiry.html
Below, more on Bloomberg on yesterday’s story on Irish banks. The “true” recapitalisation they need is $43 billion, it now turns out. On this basis, probably the Economist magazine is correct in assessing that the real Greek debt problem is $75 billion rather than the EU-IMF rescue package of $25 billion.
Irish Banks Need $43 Billion on ‘Appalling’ Lending
By Dara Doyle and Colm Heatley
March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Ireland’s banks need $43 billion in new capital after “appalling” lending decisions left the country’s financial system on the brink of collapse.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7530961/Can-we-trust-the-Climategate-inquiry.html
Below, more on Bloomberg on yesterday’s story on Irish banks. The “true” recapitalisation they need is $43 billion, it now turns out. On this basis, probably the Economist magazine is correct in assessing that the real Greek debt problem is $75 billion rather than the EU-IMF rescue package of $25 billion.
Irish Banks Need $43 Billion on ‘Appalling’ Lending
By Dara Doyle and Colm Heatley
March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Ireland’s banks need $43 billion in new capital after “appalling” lending decisions left the country’s financial system on the brink of collapse.
The fund-raising requirement was announced after the National Asset Management Agency said it will apply an average discount of 47 percent on the first block of loans it is buying from lenders as part of a plan to revive the financial system. The central bank set new capital buffers for Allied Irish Banks Plc and Bank of Ireland Plc and gave them 30 days to say how they will raise the funds.
“Our worst fears have been surpassed,” Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said in the parliament in Dublin yesterday. “Irish banking made appalling lending decisions that will cost the taxpayer dearly for years to come.”
The agency aims to cleanse banks of toxic loans, the legacy of plunging real-estate prices and the country’s deepest ever recession. In all, it will buy loans with a book value of 80 billion euros ($107 billion), about half the size of the economy.
“The information that has emerged from the banks in the course of the NAMA process is truly shocking,” Lenihan said.
---- Ireland may not be able to afford to pump more money into the banks. The budget deficit widened to 11.7 percent of gross domestic product last year, almost four times the European Union limit, and the government spent the past year trying to convince investors the state is in control of its finances.
The premium investors charge to hold Irish 10-year debt over the German equivalent was at 139 basis points yesterday compared with 284 basis points in March 2009, a 16-year high.
Ireland’s debt agency said it doesn’t envisage additional borrowing this year related to the bank recapitalization. It is sticking to its 2010 bond issuance forecast of about 20 billion euros, head of funding Oliver Whelan said in an interview.
“The bank losses, awful as they are, represent a one-off hit. It’s water under the bridge,” said Ciaran O’Hagan, a Paris-based fixed-income strategist at Societe Generale SA. “What’s of more concern for investors in government bonds is the budget deficit. Slashing the chronic overspending and raising taxation by the Irish state is vital.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aiI8N1UP2rFM&pos=1
Over on the other side of the Atlantic, an ex-Clinton appointment, Robert Reich Secretary of Labor, finally gets it right on how Wall Street’s banksters were given free reign in the last decade. Rarely have I been on the same side as Clinton appointment, so this is perhaps a cheap shot, but where were you Mr. Reich from 2002-2007 as Mr. Greenspan and Co. unleashed the real estate bubble and triple-A swindle?
Fraud on the Street
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday it had begun an inquiry into two dozen financial companies to determine whether they followed accounting practices similar to those recently disclosed in an investigation of Lehman Brothers.
Where on earth has the SEC been?
It’s now clear Lehman Brothers’ balance sheet was bogus before the bank collapsed in 2008, catapulting the Street and the world into the worse financial crisis since 1929. The Lehman bankruptcy examiner’s recent report details what just about everyone on the Street has known since the firm imploded – that Lehman defrauded its investors. Even Hank Paulson, in his recent memoir, referred to Lehman’s balance sheet as bogus.
In order to look like it could borrow $30 for every dollar of its own money, Lehman shifted liabilities off its books at the end of each quarter. Its CPA, Ernst and Young, approved of this fraud against the advice of its own whistle blower, whom Ernst and Young fired.
Lehman’s practices couldn’t have been all that different from those of every other big bank on the Street. After all, they were all competing for the same business, and using many of the same techniques. Lehman was just the first to go under, causing a financial run that led George W. to warn “this sucker could go down” unless the federal government came up with hundreds of billions to bail out the others.
In other words, the TARP covered the other bankers’ assets and asses.
We now know, for example, Goldman Sachs helped Greece hide its public debt and then placed financial bets that Greece would default, using credit-default swaps to avoid risking its own capital. It’s the same tactic Goldman used for (and against) American International Group (AIG): Hide the ball, and then bet against the ball and fob off the risk to investors and taxpayers, using derivatives to remove the risky tactics from the balance sheets. Even today no one knows the fair value of the complex derivatives underlying these and related maneuvers, which is exactly the point.
Congress is now struggling to come up with legislation to stop this from happening again. And the Street is struggling to stop Congress. As of now, the Street’s political payoffs seem to be working. Proposed legislation still allows secret derivative trading in foreign-exchange swaps (similar to what Goldman used to help Greece hide its debt) and in transactions between big banks and many of their corporate clients (as with AIG).
But wait. We already have a law designed to stop this sort of fraud. It’s called the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
Think back to the corporate looting scandals that came to light almost a decade ago when the balance sheets of Enron, WorldCom, and others were shown to be fake, causing their investors to lose their shirts. Nearly every major investment bank played a part in the fraud — not only advising the companies but also urging investors to buy their stocks when the banks’ own analysts privately described them as junk.
Sarbanes-Oxley – Sarbox, as it’s come to be known – was designed to stop this. It requires CEOs and other senior executives to take personal responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of their companies’ financial reports and to set up internal controls to assure the accuracy and completeness of the reports. If they don’t, they’re subject to fines and criminal penalties.
Sarbox is directly relevant to the off-the-balance-sheet derivative games the Street played and continues to play. No bank CEO can faithfully attest to the accuracy and completeness of its financial reports when derivatives guarantee that the reports are incomplete and deceptive.
So where has the SEC been?
http://robertreich.org/post/485015444/fraud-on-the-street
We have finally reached the end of the month and end of quarter. The Fed’s market wizards and others, take to the field today to window dress the markets. The great disconnect from economic reality has never been greater. In our Kafkaesque, Alice in Wonderland, bankster mark to the model accounting world, the bailed out banksters are back betting the ranch in too big to fail “prop trading,” and busy paying out the bonuses before the next Lehman hits. Stay long precious metals. There is no reason to think it ends any better second time around.
We end for today and Easter with the NY Times on a major policy shift in US energy plans. The US government is finally making plans to reduce US oil dependency on ever more unstable overseas supply. Of course, that assumes that oil is actually found in commercial quantities and gets exploited.
http://robertreich.org/post/485015444/fraud-on-the-street
We have finally reached the end of the month and end of quarter. The Fed’s market wizards and others, take to the field today to window dress the markets. The great disconnect from economic reality has never been greater. In our Kafkaesque, Alice in Wonderland, bankster mark to the model accounting world, the bailed out banksters are back betting the ranch in too big to fail “prop trading,” and busy paying out the bonuses before the next Lehman hits. Stay long precious metals. There is no reason to think it ends any better second time around.
We end for today and Easter with the NY Times on a major policy shift in US energy plans. The US government is finally making plans to reduce US oil dependency on ever more unstable overseas supply. Of course, that assumes that oil is actually found in commercial quantities and gets exploited.
Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time
By JOHN M. BRODER Published: March 30, 2010
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.
The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.
Under the plan, the coastline from New Jersey northward would remain closed to all oil and gas activity. So would the Pacific Coast, from Mexico to the Canadian border.
The environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska would be protected and no drilling would be allowed under the plan, officials said. But large tracts in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska — nearly 130 million acres — would be eligible for exploration and drilling after extensive studies.
The proposal is to be announced by President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Wednesday, but administration officials agreed to preview the details on the condition that they not be identified.
The proposal is intended to reduce dependence on oil imports, generate revenue from the sale of offshore leases and help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation.
But while Mr. Obama has staked out middle ground on other environmental matters — supporting nuclear power, for example — the sheer breadth of the offshore drilling decision will take some of his supporters aback. And it is no sure thing that it will win support for a climate bill from undecided senators close to the oil industry, like Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, or Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana.
The Senate is expected to take up a climate bill in the next few weeks — the last chance to enact such legislation before midterm election concerns take over. Mr. Obama and his allies in the Senate have already made significant concessions on coal and nuclear power to try to win votes from Republicans and moderate Democrats. The new plan now grants one of the biggest items on the oil industry’s wish list — access to vast areas of the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/earth/31energy.html?hp
As with nearly everything, the devil is in the details, and this policy shift is a sop to get votes to get a climate bill passed. A climate bill based on the myth of man made global warming, and designed to further the ends of the great vampire squids and carbon trading scams.
At the Comex silver depositories Tuesday, final figures were: Registered 54.24 Moz, Eligible 61.77 Moz, Total 116.01 Moz.
See the land, her Easter keeping,
Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
Burst at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices...
Charles Kingsley
Charles Kingsley
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Crooks & Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
Groucho Marx.
The envelope please. Today, it’s the turn of the crooks and scoundrels in Germany’s giant export industries. There may be another reason that Germany doesn’t want to bailout Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland. According to Der Spiegel below, it looks like much of Germany’s export success depends on “useful payments” to corrupt officials in the importing countries. Perhaps without the payments, Germany’s export miracle will turn into a bust.
Below, the SEC of all people, get on Germany’s case. The useless, toothless US Agency that looked the other way while the fraudster Madoff bilked mostly Jewish organizations and charities all around the world of up to 60 billion dollars, and who did nothing while Wall Street’s great vampire squids did “God’s Work,” and packaged and securitized, and sold on to unsuspecting brain dead “sophisticated” global investors, hundreds of billions of fraudulent “triple-A” toxic waste, even as they bet against the rubbish they were selling, nearly collapsing the whole global financial system in the process, this agency is now hot on the case of $4.4 million of alleged German bribes in East Europe. It’s a funny old world, on fiat money, regulatory selective enforcement and back door protectionism. My guess is that in retaliation it won’t be long before Brussels is putting Microsoft and others through the wringer again. And didn’t GM just demand German bribes to remain manufacturing in Germany? Whatever else it is, it isn’t capitalism in any meaningful sense.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
Groucho Marx.
The envelope please. Today, it’s the turn of the crooks and scoundrels in Germany’s giant export industries. There may be another reason that Germany doesn’t want to bailout Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland. According to Der Spiegel below, it looks like much of Germany’s export success depends on “useful payments” to corrupt officials in the importing countries. Perhaps without the payments, Germany’s export miracle will turn into a bust.
Below, the SEC of all people, get on Germany’s case. The useless, toothless US Agency that looked the other way while the fraudster Madoff bilked mostly Jewish organizations and charities all around the world of up to 60 billion dollars, and who did nothing while Wall Street’s great vampire squids did “God’s Work,” and packaged and securitized, and sold on to unsuspecting brain dead “sophisticated” global investors, hundreds of billions of fraudulent “triple-A” toxic waste, even as they bet against the rubbish they were selling, nearly collapsing the whole global financial system in the process, this agency is now hot on the case of $4.4 million of alleged German bribes in East Europe. It’s a funny old world, on fiat money, regulatory selective enforcement and back door protectionism. My guess is that in retaliation it won’t be long before Brussels is putting Microsoft and others through the wringer again. And didn’t GM just demand German bribes to remain manufacturing in Germany? Whatever else it is, it isn’t capitalism in any meaningful sense.
US Investigators Crack Down on Daimler's Culture of Corruption
By Dietmar Hawranek 03/30/2010
After corruption scandals involving engineering giant Siemens and truck manufacturer MAN, Daimler is now in the spotlight. The US is pressing charges against the carmaker over alleged bribery payments to foreign governments. The case will likely be settled out of court.
Sometimes two letters are enough to tell an entire story. In this case, the two letters, which were printed on the labels of three files in a safe at the Mercedes-Benz office in Istanbul, were "N.A."
The German automaker produces busses in Turkey, which it sells in countries around the world, including North Korea, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Russia. The company apparently paid €3.3 million ($4.4 million) in bribes to secure business in these countries.
This, at least, is the way the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) interprets the content of the files with the letters "N.A." -- an abbreviation for the words "Nützliche Aufwendungen" ("useful payments") -- printed on the label. It's another -- and very German -- way of saying "bribes."
The story behind the files is particularly dramatic, because it also involved the suicide of an executive. Rudi K., who worked for Mercedes-Benz's parent company Daimler in Nigeria, was apparently involved in the payments. He was faced with a difficult choice: report poor sales figures or risk a jail term.
American attorneys questioned K. for several days. He later told his wife that he was treated like a hardened criminal and was under "enormous pressure." Then K. committed suicide.
The affair has proved to be extremely expensive for automaker Daimler, which is set to pay $185 million to settle a lawsuit in the United States. The case raises many questions. How could a respected global corporation like Daimler apparently have violated German and international law for years by paying bribes in at least 22 countries around the world? Could it be that the Daimler case is in fact typical for Germany, which until recently was the world's largest exporter? Are German companies as good at corruption as they are at exporting?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,686238,00.html#ref=nlint
Germany's Ferrostaal Suspected of Organizing Bribes for Other Firms
By Jörg Schmitt 03/30/2010
German engineering group Ferrostaal is under suspicion of paying bribes to secure contracts and of organizing bribery payments on behalf of other firms for a fee. The case could have repercussions for the whole of German industry, says one former executive of MAN, Ferrostaal's former parent company.
By Jörg Schmitt 03/30/2010
German engineering group Ferrostaal is under suspicion of paying bribes to secure contracts and of organizing bribery payments on behalf of other firms for a fee. The case could have repercussions for the whole of German industry, says one former executive of MAN, Ferrostaal's former parent company.
It was enough to arouse suspicions. For many years, there had been recurring stories about presumed bribe payments by Essen-based plant construction group Ferrostaal. In one case, the company allegedly paid 200,000 deutsche marks (€102,258, $138,099) to former Indonesian President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie. In another, the family of former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha is believed to have received 460 million deutsche marks for the construction of a metal-processing plant.
Few of these allegations have stood up in court, however, partly because some of the payments occurred during a period when so-called "useful expenditures," or payments made to procure contracts, were not yet illegal in Germany.
But since Wednesday of last week, there are many indications that bribery payments were commonplace at Ferrostaal. Klaus Lesker, a member of the executive board, was arrested last week, and the Munich public prosecutor's office is also investigating two former board members and other senior executives for "a particularly serious case of bribing foreign officials in connection with international business arrangements," as well as for suspected tax evasion.
The prosecutors' list of suspects now includes about a dozen people. Investigators have their sights set on five projects, worth a total of almost one billion euros, which the group is believed to have secured through bribery.
The investigators also believe that the numbers could quickly rise in the coming days. "What we have now is just the beginning," says one official.
A few key documents already fell into the hands of prosecutors last year, during their corruption probe into Ferrostaal's former parent company, engineering group MAN. Last July, authorities conducted a raid on Ferrostaal offices in Essen because they suspected that bribes had been paid in connection with the sale of eight oceangoing tugs to a Hamburg shipping company.
Did Ferrostaal Arrange Bribes for Other Firms?
In the proceedings that has now been launched, under case number 565 Js 33037/10, the investigators can apparently rely on the extensive testimony of two witnesses. The allegations against Ferrostaal are serious: Did the company not only pay bribes itself for years, but also do the dirty work on behalf of other companies in return for a fee?
A case in point is that of Giesecke & Devrient, a Munich-based company that specializes in banknote and securities printing. The case concerns the sale of five printing and embossing machines, as well as a system used to destroy banknotes, to the Indonesian state-owned banknote printing company. Ferrostaal is believed to have brokered the deal and, through a consultant, paid bribes to local officials.
Giesecke & Devrient, which is also under investigation, says it "has not been aware of any irregularities to date."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,686513,00.html#ref=nlint
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.
Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished February:
DJIA: +95 UP. NASDAQ: +291 UP. SP500: +118 UP. The great Bull market goes on with the all three continuing higher in positive numbers.
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Help the LIR fight Banksterism, the EU, and for sound money.
If you can, help the LIR stay around and make a difference. Please make a donation at the PayPal link on the website or better still become a sponsor for what looks like an exciting 2010. Capitalism not banksterism.
If you can, help the LIR stay around and make a difference. Please make a donation at the PayPal link on the website or better still become a sponsor for what looks like an exciting 2010. Capitalism not banksterism.
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Sunspots – A 22 year colder world? (From 2004?)
Spotless Days March 30 Current Stretch: 0 days
2010 total: 6 days (7%)2009 total: 260 days (71%)Since 2004: 776 daysTypical Solar Min: 485 days
http://www.spaceweather.com/
The long minimum seems to have ended.
Spotless Days March 30 Current Stretch: 0 days
2010 total: 6 days (7%)2009 total: 260 days (71%)Since 2004: 776 daysTypical Solar Min: 485 days
http://www.spaceweather.com/
The long minimum seems to have ended.
New Solar Cycle Prediction
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29may_noaaprediction.htm
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29may_noaaprediction.htm
Are Sunspots Different During This Solar Minimum?
-----But something is unusual about the current sunspot cycle. The current solar minimum has been unusually long, and with more than 670 days without sunspots through June 2009, the number of spotless days has not been equaled since 1933.
-----But something is unusual about the current sunspot cycle. The current solar minimum has been unusually long, and with more than 670 days without sunspots through June 2009, the number of spotless days has not been equaled since 1933.
----During the period from 1645 to 1715, the Sun entered a period of low activity now known as the Maunder Minimum, when through several 11- year periods the Sun displayed few if any sunspots. Models of the Sun's irradiance suggest that the solar energy input to the Earth decreased during that time and that this change in solar activity could explain the low temperatures recorded in Europe during the Little Ice Age.
----The same data were later published [Penn and Livingston, 2006], and the observations showed that the magnetic field strength in sunspots were decreasing with time, independent of the sunspot cycle. A simple linear extrapolation of those data suggested that sunspots might completely vanish by 2015.These observations caused researchers to wonder whether the characteristics of sunspots are different now than in other solar cycles.http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009EO300001.pdf
Big freeze could signal global warming 'pause'
The Arctic conditions which have brought Britain to a standstill over the past week could be the start of a "pause" in global warming, some scientists believe.
Published: 9:20AM GMT 11 Jan 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6965342/Big-freeze-could-signal-global-warming-pause.html
Sunspot cycle 24: Together with sunspot cycle 25, the next two global cooling cycles. The new “Dalton Minimum?” Twenty Eight months now with low sunspots numbers, and counting. February was the 28th month of yet another low number of 18.6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum
Smoothed sunspot numbers (SSN). 2007, Oct. 0.9. The end of cycle 23.
Sunspot cycle 24: Nov 1.7. Dec 10.1. Jan 3.4. Feb 2.2. Mar 9.3 April 2.9. May: 2.9. June 3.1. July 0.5. August 0.5. Sep 1.1 Oct. 2.9. Nov. 4.1 Dec 0.8. Jan 1.5. Feb 1.4. Mar 0.7. Apr 1.2. May 2.9. June 2.6. July 3.5. Aug. 0.0. Sep 4.2. Oct 4.6. Nov 4.2. Dec 10.6 Jan 13.1 Feb 18.6
Sunspots. http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml
The count. http://sidc.oma.be/products/ri_hemispheric/
Why a New Minimum. http://sesfoundation.org/dalton_minimum.pdf
The “Carrington Event,” September 1, 1859.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/06may_carringtonflare.htm
Current Space Weather.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
Sunspot cycle 24: Nov 1.7. Dec 10.1. Jan 3.4. Feb 2.2. Mar 9.3 April 2.9. May: 2.9. June 3.1. July 0.5. August 0.5. Sep 1.1 Oct. 2.9. Nov. 4.1 Dec 0.8. Jan 1.5. Feb 1.4. Mar 0.7. Apr 1.2. May 2.9. June 2.6. July 3.5. Aug. 0.0. Sep 4.2. Oct 4.6. Nov 4.2. Dec 10.6 Jan 13.1 Feb 18.6
Sunspots. http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml
The count. http://sidc.oma.be/products/ri_hemispheric/
Why a New Minimum. http://sesfoundation.org/dalton_minimum.pdf
The “Carrington Event,” September 1, 1859.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/06may_carringtonflare.htm
Current Space Weather.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
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With US trillion dollar deficits stretching as far as the eye can see, and voodoo economics the order of the day at the central banks, I think it is now time to begin selectively scaling into precious metals companies that mostly meet the following criteria:
Adequate cash reserves. Good management. Strong in-ground reserves or prospects. NAFTA based, or else located in countries with strong rule of law.
Endeavour Silver Corp. TSX: EDR. http://www.edrsilver.com/s/Home.asp
Semafo TSX: SMF http://www.semafo.com/home_company_intro.php
ATW Gold Corp. TSX.V: ATW. http://www.atwgold.com/
US Silver Corp. TSX.V: USA. http://www.us-silver.com/s/Home.asp
Excellon Resources Inc. TSX: EXN. http://www.excellonresources.com/
First Majestic Silver Corp. TSX: FR http://www.firstmajestic.com/s/Home.asp
New Jersey Mining Company. OTCBB: NJMC
http://www.newjerseymining.com/index.html
Atna Resources Ltd. TSX: ATN. http://www.atna.com/s/Home.asp
Barkerville Gold Mines TSX.V: BGM. Formerly International Wayside Gold Mines Ltd.
http://www.barkervillegold.com/s/Home.asp
Shoreham Resources Ltd. TSX-V: SMH
http://www.shoreham.ca/
ATAC Resources Ltd, TSX.V: ATC. http://www.atacresources.com/s/home.asp
Evolving Gold Corp. TSX.V: EVG http://www.evolvinggold.com/
Lydian International Ltd. TSX: LYD. Note: LYD operates in Armenia, a region carrying higher risk than our usual safer picks in NAFTA lands. http://www.lydianinternational.co.uk/
The story of rare earths and metals is mostly one of China producing and exporting, Japan, America and everyone else importing. Vital to our new technologies, and lifestyle, and critical to hybrid and electric cars, Rare Earth Elements and Heavy Rare Earths, are a strategic choke point held in China’s hands. Lately China has been squeezing that choke point. I think that AVL at Thor Lake Canada, has a property of global importance. A property with the ability to offer NAFTA access to REEs and HREs for the decades ahead. As America and the west move to reduce over dependence on oil from unstable regions, we will see demand for rare metals take off.
Avalon Rare Metals Inc. TSX: AVL. http://www.avalonraremetals.com/
We will be adding more REEs as appropriate.
Warning.
Sadly we are all in unexplored territory. The world has never before suffered a severe recession/depression while operating on fiat currency. As is widely apparent, the central banks haven’t a clue and are making up the rules as the flounder along. They never saw it coming they claim, although it was obvious to many fine writers though not unfortunately in the mainstream media, that a giant financialised derivatives gambling economy would always end badly. There are no experts now, for the simple reason that we have never before faced such a sudden synchronised and deep collapse in the global economies.
The unfortunate fact that we are operating on fraudulent currencies is highly likely to mean it all ends many months from now, in a fiat currency revulsion, but only after the monetary authorities have first tried pouring in endless amounts of newly created money. A derivatives gambling world with an estimated quadrillion dollars of face value has to be unwound and the losses absorbed. In this sort of investing environment, cash, gold and silver and tangible assets are favoured over stocks and intangible assets.
As always if thinking about making an investment, it’s important to do one’s own due diligence. No one has more at risk in an investment than you do yourself. In these difficult economic times, there will likely be several false bottoms before the real one arrives and hindsight allows us to confirm that the bottom is in. Even then, a “V” shaped rebound is highly improbable. A double dip recession seems likely. Beware the false "statistical" government subsidised "recovery." It is a "recovery" bought from a future of fiat currency collapse.
Graeme Irvine
London Irvine Report: www.londonirvinereport.com/
Graeme@londonirvinereport.com
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