Gold World News Flash |
- Dutch government comes half clean on gold reserves
- God, Gold, Groceries, and Guns
- It’s the money supply stupid, what some investors still don’t get about silver and gold
- Global Demand for Gold & Silver at Unprecedented Levels
- Weekly metals review and Markopolis interview at King World News
- An internationally accessible posting of Fort Knox episode on 'History Decoded'
- Gold is not an investment
- The Dutch Central Bank Answers 10 Questions About Its Gold
- Operation: Occupy Your Mind
- Chart Of The Week: European “Fear And Loathing” Hits Record $1.3 Trillion
- Ignorance Is Not Bliss
- It Won’t Be An Accident: The Build Up to World War III
- Confessions of a Liquidity Junkie
- Jim Willie: US Treasuries Sanctioned Gov.’t Bubble, Financial Collapse Returning, Gold Targeted But Holding Firm
- King World News posts Davies audio and precious metals demand reports
- Sol Sanders | Follow the money No. 87 -- Hello? Something in the water?
- Will Gold Drop as Low as $1,200 Before Spurting to $2,000?
- Precious Metals continue Range Bound - Ditto for the HUI
- GOLD AT A MAJOR CROSSROADS
- "Dexia's Funeral Will Be Announced On Sunday" As "Weakest Link" Slovakia Prepares To Bury The Euro
- "Dexia's Funeral Will Be Announced On Sunday" As "Weakest Link" Slovakia Prepares To Bury The Euro
- French populism advocates metallic currency and smashing big banks, IMF, ECB
- The Unfolding Economic Disaster
- Surviving the Death of Money
- Jim's Mailbox
- Gold and Silver Stocks Bottom Materializing Right Now?
- Finding Silver's Bottom!
- Let The Dust Settle Before Getting Into Apple
- This Past Week in Gold
- Chart Of The Week: European "Fear And Loathing" Hits Record $1.3 Trillion
| Dutch government comes half clean on gold reserves Posted: 09 Oct 2011 05:33 AM PDT The Dutch blog Vrijspreker today reports that the Netherlands secretary of the treasury has answered half-candidly the questions put to him by the Dutch Socialist Party about the disposition of the Dutch National Bank's gold reserves. According to Vrijspreker: -- The Dutch National Bank has not loaned gold since 2008 but has sold 1,100 of its 1,700 tonnes of gold since 1991.
|
| God, Gold, Groceries, and Guns Posted: 09 Oct 2011 02:22 AM PDT Why should you care about the four G's? Why should you imagine that things will not repeat? The financial system held up after 1980. Why won't it hold up today? Why won't things be business as usual? One good reason is that it is clearly not government as usual. The size of the deficit, the gridlock in Congress, the desperation of the unemployed, the ineffectiveness of the Federal Reserve, the inability of the economists to offer a solution, the unwillingness of small businesses to borrow, and $1.7 trillion in excess reserves in the banks all point to a continuing crisis that is not going away. The government is helpless. The Keynesian solutions are not working.
|
| It’s the money supply stupid, what some investors still don’t get about silver and gold Posted: 08 Oct 2011 05:01 PM PDT It is true this upward movement in price for precious metals is seldom a straight line. Sometimes the market enthusiasm overreaches itself and prices dip back, like silver in April or gold last month. Would a global asset sell-off like the one in late 2008 pull gold and silver prices down for a while? Yes but not for long as central banks will fear deflation and print even more money.
|
| Global Demand for Gold & Silver at Unprecedented Levels Posted: 08 Oct 2011 04:05 PM PDT  King World News is continuing to get reports from sources around the world regarding tremendous physical demand in both gold and silver. The Perth Mint, one of the largest mints in the world, communicated to its customers on Friday, "Demand for our coins is currently running at unprecedented levels and we have been inundated by high levels of web and telephone traffic from clients all around the world. This has put tremendous pressure on our business systems and Customer Service department which have struggled to cope with the number of enquiries and orders."
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Weekly metals review and Markopolis interview at King World News Posted: 08 Oct 2011 03:11 PM PDT 4:10a BST Sunday, October 9, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver): The weekly precious metals review with Bill Haynes of CMI Gold & Silver and futures market analyst Dan Norcini has been posted at King World News here: http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2011/10/8_K... And full audio of the King World News interview with whistleblower Harry Markopolis has been posted here: http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2011/10/8_H... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT For Continuous Wealth Creation, the Hera Research Newsletter The life cycles of companies that produce natural resources allow investors to allocate assets among companies at different stages of development and to profit from transitions between stages. Based on natural resource company life cycles, the Hera Research Newsletter maximizes profits through deep, fundamental analysis at each stage of development and by moving gains back to earlier-stage companies in a continuous wealth-creation process. Hera Research covers a pipeline of high-quality natural resource companies at different stages of development. The companies span discovery and production of gold, silver, and platinum group metals, select base metals, oil and gas, green energy, agriculture, rare earth elements, uranium, and more. Discover the unique value of the Hera Research Newsletter by visiting: http://www.heraresearch.com/newsletter.html Or call Ron Hera at 360-339-8541x101. Join GATA here: The Silver Summit http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference http://www.neworleansconference.com/ Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins: https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12 Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Golden Phoenix Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire and Reopen Santa Rosa Gold Mine in Panama Company Press Release SPARKS, Nevada -- Golden Phoenix Minerals Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: GPXM) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 60 percent interest, with an option to buy an additional 20 percent interest, in the Santa Rosa gold mine in Panama, now owned by Silver Global S.A., a Panamanian corporation. Santa Rosa produced more than 100,000 ounces of gold from 1996 to 1998 before being closed in part to low gold prices, which are now more than five times higher. Golden Phoenix intends to acquire its initial 60 percent interest in Santa Rosa by acquiring 60 percent of the share capital of a recently created company under the name Golden Phoenix Panama S.A., formed to hold and operate the mine. Tom Klein, CEO of Golden Phoenix says: "The agreement establishes a solid framework from which we can advance Mina Santa Rosa to production-ready status." For Golden Phoenix's complete statement, please visit: http://goldenphoenix.us/press-release/golden-phoenix-signs-definitive-ac...
|
| An internationally accessible posting of Fort Knox episode on 'History Decoded' Posted: 08 Oct 2011 02:24 PM PDT 3:23a BST Sunday, October 9, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: While the recent Fort Knox episode of the History Channel television program "History Decoded" in which GATA figures heavily is not accessible at the History Channel's Internet site outside the United States and Canada, it appears to have been posted in the clear in its entirety, 44 minutes, accessible internationally, at least for the time being, here: http://www.watchonlineseries.com/brad-meltzer%e2%80%99s-decoded-se2ep1-f... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Be Part of a Chance to Discover Multi-Million-Ounce Gold and Silver Deposits in Canada Northaven Resources Corp. (TSX-V:NTV) is advancing five gold and silver projects in highly prospective and politically stable British Columbia, Canada. Check out the exploration program on our Allco gold/silver project : -- A large (13,000 hectare) property, covering more than 15 square kilometers of a regional mineralized trend just 3km from a recently announced 1.2-million-ounce gold and 15-million-ounce silver deposit. -- The property hosts historic high-grade silver workings and many mineral showings as well as former mines at the property's northern and southern boundaries. -- A deep-penetrating airborne geophysics survey has just been completed on the entire property and neighboring deposits and its results are eagerly awaited. To learn more about the Allco property or Northaven's other gold and silver projects, please visit: http://www.northavenresources.com Or call Northaven CEO Allen Leschert at 604-696-3600. Join GATA here: The Silver Summit http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference http://www.neworleansconference.com/ Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins: https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12 Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT The United States Once Again Can Establish a Stable Dollar Worth Its Weight in Gold Lewis E. Lehrman, chairman of the Lehrman Institute, sponsor of The Gold Standard Now project, has released a plan to restore economic growth through a stable dollar. The plan, titled "The True Gold Standard: A Monetary Reform Plan Without Official Reserve Currencies," responds to the recurrent economic crises of the last century and outlines a detailed proposal for America's leadership on "how we get from here to there." That is, how we get from the present unstable paper dollar to a stable dollar as good as gold. James Grant, author and editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, says of the Lehrman plan: "If you have ever wondered how the world can get from here to there -- from the chaos of depreciating paper to a convertible currency worthy of our children and our grandchildren -- wonder no more. The answer, brilliantly expounded, is between these covers. America has long needed a modern Alexander Hamilton. In Lewis E. Lehrman the country has finally found him." To learn more and to sign up for The Gold Standard Now's free, noncommercial, weekly report, "Prosperity through Gold," please visit: http://www.thegoldstandardnow.org/gata
|
| Posted: 08 Oct 2011 01:00 PM PDT With gold appreciating against nine of the world's major currencies, one could easily conclude that gold has been an attractive 'investment', but appearances can deceive. Gold does not ...
|
| The Dutch Central Bank Answers 10 Questions About Its Gold Posted: 08 Oct 2011 12:00 PM PDT Three weeks ago, the Dutch asked their central bank where their gold is. The central bank has responded. Courtesy of Vrijspreker, here are both the replies, as well as the key follow up questions. And while the bulk of the answers are expectedly trite, and generic form, "DNB's physical gold holdings function as the ultimate reserve and anchor of trust in times of financial crisis. Further, gold is being held for diversification reasons." This appears just slightly different from our own Chairman's definition of gold as mere barbarous tradition. We repeat the questions of the Dutch Socialistic Party with the answers of the Secretary, and follow up with first comments of the Vrijspreker. We think further questions are justified!
1. Did the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) loan part of their gold? No. DNB has informed me that they have stopped loaning out gold as of 2008. Comments Vrijspreker: if so, why doesn't DNB make that clear in the annual report? Why hide such crucial information. 2. Why are gold and gold loans stated as one line item in the annual report 2010 instead of mentioned as 2 separate items? DNB follows the rules for valuation, determination of result and balance sheet presentation of the European system of Central Banks. The asset 'Gold and Gold Receivables' reflects the physical gold inventory. Comments Vrijspreker: good international accounting standards oblige companies to separate cash from receivables, as they're clearly different. Why wouldn't these standards apply to central banks? In times of increasing civil unrest because of opaque financial schemes being set up by governments, central and commercial banks and the demand for more transparency, how would you justify these special rules for central banks? Are they above the law? 3. Can you give an overview of the yearly yields of the gold loans during the past years? No gold has been loaned out over the past years. 4. Where IS the physical gold of DNB? At which locations and how much is where? DNB has a location policy, which means that the gold has been spread over the following locations: New York, Ottawa, London and Amsterdam. Comments Vrijspreker: why doesn't the Secretary answer all the questions? What is the amount per location? And what exactly is the location policy? Why New York instead of any random other city? Also it's important to know how often and by whom the vaults are audited. 5. What was the most important reason for DNB to sell the gold in the past? Are the storage costs a reason? What are the actual costs to store the gold? By selling gold in the past, DNB has tried to align its gold holdings with other gold holding countries. The storage costs were not a factor in the decision to sell the gold, because they are relatively low. Currently, DNB's total annual storage costs paid to other central banks amount to a few hundreds of thousands of euros. The costs vary per location. Comments Vrijspreker: why would DNB want to align its gold holdings with other central banks' holdings? Is there a coordinated central policy amongst all central banks? Has this been prescribed by the Bank of International Settlements? Are the recent gold purchases by developing countries' central banks not conflicting with this international policy. Could you outline the details of this policy? 6. Can you confirm that since 1991 of the 1700 tons of gold about 1100 tons have been sold? Since 1991, 1,100 tons of gold have been sold. Back then it was concluded that DNB held relatively much gold compared to other central banks. Decided was to align the amount of gold with other important gold owning countries. Sales proceeds have been added to DNB's general reserves and have been invested in interest generating investments. Comparing the actual, as a result of the financial crisis, higher gold price with the historical gold price does indeed lead to more or less the amount as mentioned by Mr. De Waard. However, one has to take into account the investment income generated since selling the gold and the fact that the result of said calculations heavily depend of the strongly fluctuating price of gold. Comments Vrijspreker: again, why align the gold holdings with that of other central banks? What exactly is the purpose of that policy? 7. How much of the National Debt has during the past 20 years been paid off with the proceeds of the gold sales? Are you of opinion that the sustainability of the national debt will be improved by paying off the debt and at the same time selling the gold? Gold is an asset of DNB. The sales proceeds have been invested in other assets and have hence not been used to reduce the national debt. The return on investments will flow back to the Dutch government as a result of DNB's dividend payments. 8. What is in your opinion the present function of the gold stock? DNB's physical gold holdings function as the ultimate reserve and anchor of trust in times of financial crisis. Further, gold is being held for diversification reasons. Comments Vrijspreker: clearly DNB sees value in gold. For that reason, it needs to be more transparent, and so should all central banks. 9. What is the relation between the size of the market of the gold stock and the size of the market of gold derivates? What are the possible consequences of this? The size of the physical gold market and derivatives market cannot easily be compared because of diverging measures for the size. For the trade in physical gold the turnover is measured: in the most important market (London) this amounted to USD 136 billion in the second half of 2010 according to the London Bullion Market Association. For the derivatives market the underlying value of outstanding derivatives (swaps, future contracts and options) is of importance. For the second half of 2010 these amounted to USD 396 billion according to the Bank of International Settlements. In general one can say that the availability of derivatives markets promote efficient price discovery. 10. Can you confirm that recently a number of countries have even enlarged their physical gold stock? Do you have an explanation for this development? Buyers are developing economies that show strongly growing official reserves or where gold traditionally only constituted a small portion of the reserves. There is also a wide group of countries that have sold gold the past decade (including France, Spain, UK and Switzerland)
|
| Posted: 08 Oct 2011 11:14 AM PDT by Silver Shield, Dont-Tread-On.Me:
We have seen the Tea Party occupy Washington with a Million Man March. We have seen Occupy Wall Street protest Wall St. Now we now have Alex Jones getting together a protest to Occupy the Fed. (Which is a copy of something Anonymous tried a few months ago. While this strikes closer to the heart of the beast, nothing will come of it.) Collective action will not solve a collective problem. "You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew." – Albert Einstein If you want to "Occupy" something, I would like to suggest that you Occupy Your Mind. This is an individual action where one becomes fully awakened and is able to be truly independent of the system that seeks to manipulate you. Once you take control of the only thing you can control, you, then you take your power back to do and think what is best for you. Once you have that, the world is yours.
|
| Chart Of The Week: European “Fear And Loathing” Hits Record $1.3 Trillion Posted: 08 Oct 2011 10:47 AM PDT from ZeroHedge:
The topic of the European "Ice-nine"phenomenon is nothing new to regular Zero Hedge readers: every day we point out the increasing freeze in European interbank lending (in both the traditional and shadow formats), in various money markets, in commercial paper, in broad fixed income issuance, and in the overall collapse in market liquidity, so deftly masked for now by daily political and central bank rhetoric, which for all its market kneejerk reaction glory is merely unsubstantiated innuendo and lies – keep in mind that the last time the incoherent and disorganized Troika came to an actual decision was July 21, with the second Greek bailout, and even that has not yet been implemented! So while hopes still percolates faintly on the surface, the riptide just below it has grown to record proportions. Presenting the chart that everyone who has an opinion on Europe, one way or the other, has to see. Here, courtesy of Diapason's Sean Corrigan, is the epic "Fear and Loathing" in the European banking system, in all its $1.3 trillion glory, or nearly double where it was when Lehman filed for bankruptcy.
|
| Posted: 08 Oct 2011 10:43 AM PDT by Aubie Baltin CFA, CTA, CFP, PhD., Gold-Eagle.com: "A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable." –Thomas Jefferson "It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn." –George Washington THE CONSEQUENCES OF AUSTERITY The markets are only pricing in a 50% probability of a Greek default even though the rumors in trading circles of a default coming shortly are rampant. Bloomberg (and everyone else) reported that Germany is making contingency plans for the default. Of course, Greece has issued three denials. While Greece may still default, it is my opinion that the EU will kick the can down the road one more time, at least for another 3 months. Germany is assuming a 50% loss for their banks and insurance companies. Sean Egan (head of the bond-analysis firm Egan-Jones) thinks the ultimate haircut will be closer to 90%. And that is just for Greece. What about the rest of the PIIGS? Anyone reading my letters for the past year cannot be surprised that Greece will default."Why? It is just elementary school arithmetic, my Dear Watson."
|
| It Won’t Be An Accident: The Build Up to World War III Posted: 08 Oct 2011 10:32 AM PDT by Mac Slavo, SHTFPlan.com:
In Economic Apocalypse Goes Mainstream we opined that the financial, economic and political collapses occuring around the globe will eventually lead the industrialized nations of the world to war. The signs should already be apparent, especially in areas like the middle east, where the U.S. is vying for resource domination, monetary superiority and political control. As economies around the world implode, and citizens become more frustrated with their governments, things can quickly begin to spiral out of control domestically – regardless of whether you're in the United States, China, Russia or Europe. As a result, politicians will do what they've done historically in such instances, which is to deflect responsibility (either out of fear or by design) from themselves onto others. Usually, this means leaders and citizens oceans away will get blamed for the malaise. Aaron Hawkins of Storm Clouds Gathering provides some key insights into the many variables that will ultimately lead the world into perhaps the greatest war in history.
|
| Confessions of a Liquidity Junkie Posted: 08 Oct 2011 10:21 AM PDT by Jeff Nielson, Bullion Bulls Canada:
It is (at best) pathetic when we observe a hopelessly addicted junkie attempt to "justify" his/her addictive behavior. However, when that junkie wears very expensive suits and presides over (supposedly) one of the world's most prestigious institutions such behavior becomes both deplorable and intolerable. Who could warrant such an ignominious introduction? In a 21st century economy nearly decimated with the monetary depravity of Western bankers there is a long list of candidates. However, in this case I'm referring to the Bank of England's Chief Liquidity-Junkie, Mervyn King. Read More @ BullionBullsCanada.com
|
| Posted: 08 Oct 2011 10:10 AM PDT from Contrary Investors Cafe:
Click Here to Listen to the Interview
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| King World News posts Davies audio and precious metals demand reports Posted: 08 Oct 2011 09:59 AM PDT 11p BST Saturday, October 8, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver): The full audio of the latest King World News interview with Hinde Capital CEO Ben Davies has him talking about the gargantuan money printing that will be necessary to "recapitalize" the zombie banks of Europe and advising buying the dips in gold and silver. The audio is 19 minutes long and you can find it at King World News here: http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2011/10/8_B... Meanwhile, King World News conveys reports from a couple of major Australian coin and bullion dealers about unprecedented retail demand for the precious metals: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/10/9_Gl... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Lewis E. Lehrman on How to Solve the U.S. Debt Problem Lewis E. Lehrman, chairman of the Lehrman Institute, sponsor of The Gold Standard Now project, advises that to reduce the $1 1/2 trillion U.S. deficit, the Republican Party must initiate an investment program. Working Americans are not saving, which enables the banks to lead the country into a cycle of debt, leverage, boom, panic, and bust. Lehrman says: Eliminating the budget deficit of a trillion and a half dollars cannot be done overnight. The proposal by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan was very dramatic -- one Republican called it radical -- but it was not happily received. The solution, of course, is to design an American program for prosperity, because you can solve these entitlement problems with a growing economy. We need a tremendous program of investment, and investment comes from savings. When you pay savers, middle-income professionals, and working people 0 percent at the bank, you are not going to encourage them to save. Then we are left with a bank cycle of debt, leverage, boom, panic, and bust." To read more and to sign up for The Gold Standard Now's free, noncommercial, weekly report, "Prosperity through Gold," please visit: http://www.thegoldstandardnow.org/gata Join GATA here: The Silver Summit http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference http://www.neworleansconference.com/ Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins: https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12 Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Be Part of a Chance to Discover Multi-Million-Ounce Gold and Silver Deposits in Canada Northaven Resources Corp. (TSX-V:NTV) is advancing five gold and silver projects in highly prospective and politically stable British Columbia, Canada. Check out the exploration program on our Allco gold/silver project : -- A large (13,000 hectare) property, covering more than 15 square kilometers of a regional mineralized trend just 3km from a recently announced 1.2-million-ounce gold and 15-million-ounce silver deposit. -- The property hosts historic high-grade silver workings and many mineral showings as well as former mines at the property's northern and southern boundaries. -- A deep-penetrating airborne geophysics survey has just been completed on the entire property and neighboring deposits and its results are eagerly awaited. To learn more about the Allco property or Northaven's other gold and silver projects, please visit: http://www.northavenresources.com Or call Northaven CEO Allen Leschert at 604-696-3600.
|
| Sol Sanders | Follow the money No. 87 -- Hello? Something in the water? Posted: 08 Oct 2011 09:13 AM PDT Latest from Uncle Sol. A version of this column is scheduled to be published on Monday, Oct. 10, 2011, in The Washington Times. My question for Sol is this: Is Barack Obama trying to throw the election? -- Chris Follow the money No. 87 | Hello? Something in the water? By Sol Sanders Could more conspiratorial environmentalistas' interpretations of our times be correct, that is, someone has been putting something in the water and we are all being lobotomized, even without major brain surgery? You could make the case this week. Much of the world's leadership, even though presumably suckling their bottled water, exhibits all the manifestations of imbibing something adversely affecting the normal cognitive processes: · Pres. Barack Obama gets on television to boost his proposal for creating jobs by massive government expenditures and tax increases at a time when most Americans think the main problem – after disappeared jobs -- is a runaway federal deficit. Never mind he sent a $447 billion spend and tax bill up to the Congress without a co-sponsor in either of the houses, that his own Party's Senate leadership initially refused to look at it, then introduced something radically different as a Millionaires' Tax. All that even though the President has repeatedly endorsed his Republican opposition's claim any tax increase during a recession is job-killer. Of course, neither bill has a – woops! we can't say that any more – chance of getting through the Republican-dominated House or the splintered Democratic Senate. Hello? · Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin [soon scheduled to slip back into the presidency in Moscow's musical chairs] has dreamed up a restoration of Stalin's old USSR as a "Eurasian Union", a regional agglomerative dictatorship. Putin's vision is a world of such regional blocs, graciously allocating the U.S. the Western Hemisphere. Unable to accomplish fundamental post-Soviet reforms, he has put together helter-skelter economic collaboration with neighbors [including pumping their gas and oil] with Belorussia, Kazakhstan and a loose customs union [Common Economic Space]. He now aims bringing in the current pro-Moscow Ukraine leadership. But his present arrangements already cost Moscow $1.7 billion in tariff sharing revenues last year. Meanwhile, prospective investors in this harebrain scenario are trading every ruble to dollar they can get their hands on and tossing them out of the country – more than a record $49 billion so far this year. Hello? · Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, chairing the Eurogroup finance ministers, says "[E]verything will be done". He means in an effort to avoid Greek default and without Athens opting out of the 17-member single currency. But the rating agencies just whacked Italy's credit rating, Spain's soaring borrowing rate fell only because the already strapped European Central Bank bought its increasingly high risk bonds, and debt-ridden Portugal is failing to meet targets. The decision whether Greece will get the next tranche of its bailout was delayed until mid-November so the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF can pull themselves together to decide whether Athens has met conditions for receiving help. Latest official figures say not: the Greek budget deficit will hit 8.5 percent of GDP in 2011 instead of the 7.6 percent it promised creditors. Greek officials now pledge the 2012 deficit will be slashed 6.8 percent of GDP instead of the promised 6.5 percent if a €6.6 billion [$8.83 billion] worth of supplementary austerity and reform measures package is forthcoming by 2013 Without the "current" €8 billion [$10.71 billion] tranche, Athens would bankrupt by this November with major repercussions for Europe and the world. Hello? · Syrian Dictator Bashar al-Assad allegedly told visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu Damascus would strike Israel with missiles if NATO helps his country's rebels during his rapidly escalating civil war. "If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv," Assad warned after Turkish foreign minister conveyed a United States' polite request to clear out. Assad continued: "All these events will happen in three hours, but in the second three hours, Iran will attack the US warships in the Persian Gulf and the US and European interests will be targeted simultaneously" True, Assad is rumored to have chemical and bacterial warfare stocks. But the Israelis sit on the Golan Heights less than 75 miles, downhill to Damascus. After Assad's father tangled with the Israelis in 1982 -- the largest air-to-air combat of the jet age and one of the shortest – Syria lost 85 Soviet MiGs. Hello? Yep, must be something in the water, the wine, the arak or wherever. — Sol Sanders, a veteran international correspondent, writes weekly on the intersection of politics, business and economics, can be reached at solsanders@cox.net and blogs at http://www.yeoldecrabb.wordpress.com
|
| Will Gold Drop as Low as $1,200 Before Spurting to $2,000? Posted: 08 Oct 2011 07:40 AM PDT So*wrote**Edin Mujagic ([URL]http://www.ecrresearch.com/[/URL]) back in March of this year*inan article* which warants being reposted as what he predicted might very well be occurring at this very point in time.*Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.munKNEE.com*(Your Key to Making Money!),**has further*edited ([ ]), abridged (…) and reformatted his article below, where necessary,*for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. The author's views and conclusions are unaltered and no personal comments have been included to maintain the integrity of the original article. Please note that this paragraph must be included in any article re-posting to avoid copyright infringement. Mujagic*went*on to say:* [INDENT]Is a Tighter Monetary Policy Coming? Although the Fed Board is at odds now whether or not to tighten monetary policy, it is quite conceivable that the Fed will be forced to follow that route when inflation keeps climbing. Keeping the monetary policy at t...
|
| Precious Metals continue Range Bound - Ditto for the HUI Posted: 08 Oct 2011 07:21 AM PDT [url]http://www.traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/[/url] [url]http://www.fortwealth.com/[/url] Both silver and gold continue putting in wide-ranging price swings on a day to day basis providing plenty in the way of volatility but when the dust is settling at the end of the week, neither metal can escape its range bound trade. What we are witnessing on the price charts is merely the pictorial form of uncertainty that currently is reigning over the minds of traders/investors. The long term bullish trends for both metals remains intact but short term fears over further risk aversion trades and hedge fund long liquidation in the commodity sector is preventing both the bull camp and the bear camp from gaining a tactical advantage. Gold is unable to break through overhead selling resistance near the $1680 level but continues to attract good-sized buying, especially from Asia, on dips towards the $1600 level and below. Silver runs into selling above $32.50 from nervous longs as well as op...
|
| Posted: 08 Oct 2011 07:00 AM PDT I think next week will mark a major turning point in the gold market. Depending on whether the dollar continues higher or turns back down we will either see a resumption of the D-Wave decline or this will just turn into a normal run-of-the-mill intermediate degree correction followed by another leg up in this 2 1/2 year C-wave advance. First the pros: The COT report has now reached a maximum bullish level on the commercial contracts. In the past this has always marked major bottom turning points.  Sentiment & breadth have reached extreme bearish levels (contrary indicator).   Chart courtesy of sentimentrader.com It's possible that gold has formed a small T-1 continuation pattern (A move followed by a sideways range often precedes another move of almost equal extent in the same direction as the original move. Generally, when the second move from the sideways range has run its course, a counter move approaching the sideways range may be expected.)  There is a small problem with this interpretation as the second leg of a T-1 pattern is generally slightly smaller than the first leg. The cons: The current intermediate cycle is too short. Barring a shortened cycle, which does occur rarely, there should be one more leg down into the normal timing band for an intermediate degree cycle bottom (20-25 weeks).   Also there is a much larger T-1 pattern in play that fits the normal parameters much better than the smaller version.  You can see from the chart above that unlike the smaller T-1 the larger version does feature a second leg slightly smaller than the first, and if this pattern is playing out then we need one more move lower to test the midpoint consolidation zone. Right now the battle is being fought at the $1600 level. So far every time gold reaches that level buyers step in.  If however gold closes below $1600 that would be a serious warning sign that the current daily cycle will be left translated and that gold is indeed caught in a true D-Wave decline. If that's the case it still needs to test the consolidation zone of the large T-1 pattern and the intermediate degree cycle will bottom in the normal timing band (November). If this scenario unfolds then we can look for an A-wave advance to begin once that final D-Wave bottom is in place. As I have noted before A-waves usually test but fail to exceed the prior C wave top. They are almost always followed by a lengthy 1-1 1/2 year consolidation before the next leg up can begin.  I've had quite a few requests for a trial subscription link, so I'm going to add a permanent trial subscription offer. $10 for 1 week of full access to the premium SMT report. If you decide you like the premium newsletter your subscription will automatically convert to the yearly rate after seven days. If not, just cancel your subscription prior to your week expiring by following the directions on the premium website homepage. To access the trial subscription click here and then click on the subscribe link on the right-hand side of the homepage.       
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 08 Oct 2011 06:58 AM PDT A few days ago we mocked the market's naive belief that a loose union of 17 different countries and hundreds of separate political organizations, each torn by thousands of unique interests and lobby groups, can all agree unanimously in the pursuit of the common monetary (read: banker) good, over that of their own people. Yet that did not stop stocks from enacting the second weekly massive short covering squeeze, in 3 weeks, purely on hype, rumors, innuendo and lies. And just like the last time the market soared by nearly double digits in a few short days, only to plunge when hopes of a quick resolution were mercilessly dashed, Monday has all the makings of another epic risk off day. Because while all it takes is a rumor (of a plan for a plan) to start a squeeze, we are about to get some very nasty actual events which will demand immediate and forceful intervention by the powers that be, something which Europe (and the US) has proven is virtually impossible. The events in question are, as Reuters reports, that i) "Dexia's Funeral Will Be Announced On Sunday" and, as Bloomberg reports, that ii) Slovakia's ruling Freedom and Solidarity party won't back the overhaul of the European bailout mechanism after Prime Minister Iveta Radicova rejected the party's conditions for approval, a lawmaker said. Said otherwise, bonds are currently thanking their lucky stars the bond market is closed because not only will Europe have to deal with the headline risk that the weakest link in Europe, the tiny country of Slovakia, can scuttle the entire second Greek rescue operation, and thus, lead to the expulsion of Greece from the eurozone following its bankruptcy, but this will have to take place as Europe fights the stem the contagion resulting from the collapse and nationalization of the first Greek bank, which nobody, nobody, could have foreseen. First, on Dexia via Reuters:
Summarizing the above: nobody has any clue what the proper response here is nor how the market will react. And as for the second key event just unveiled...
For those who are still confused, here is what is going on: The bailout plan that was proposed in July, and was supposed to be operational by the start of September, has still not been ratified, and now the smallest European country is holding the entire continent, its currency, and frankly the Fed, which will have to step in and bailout Europe, hostage. In the meantime, the first actual core bank casuality is about to go 6 feet under, and unleash a falling house of cards of unpredictable consequences, which will likely make the "fear and loathing" chart presented previously double in a very short time. And in this environment, where the decisionmakers in Europe are objectively about 2 years behind the curve, are paralyzed into inactivity and torn asunder by warring political parties, the market actually believes that some actual "solid" policy intervention can about to take place? ... Oh yes, "Dexia is fine"... The stress test (the second one) said so.
|
| "Dexia's Funeral Will Be Announced On Sunday" As "Weakest Link" Slovakia Prepares To Bury The Euro Posted: 08 Oct 2011 06:58 AM PDT
A few days ago we mocked the market's naive belief that a loose union of 17 different countries and hundreds of separate political organizations, each torn by thousands of unique interests and lobby groups, can all agree unanimously in the pursuit of the common monetary (read: banker) good, over that of their own people. Yet that did not stop stocks from enacting the second weekly massive short covering squeeze, in 3 weeks, purely on hype, rumors, innuendo and lies. And just like the last time the market soared by nearly double digits in a few short days, only to plunge when hopes of a quick resolution were mercilessly dashed, Monday has all the makings of another epic risk off day. Because while all it takes is a rumor (of a plan for a plan) to start a squeeze, we are about to get some very nasty actual events which will demand immediate and forceful intervention by the powers that be, something which Europe (and the US) has proven is virtually impossible. The events in question are, as Reuters reports, that i) "Dexia's Funeral Will Be Announced On Sunday" and, as Bloomberg reports, that ii) Slovakia's ruling Freedom and Solidarity party won't back the overhaul of the European bailout mechanism after Prime Minister Iveta Radicova rejected the party's conditions for approval, a lawmaker said. Said otherwise, bonds are currently thanking their lucky stars the bond market is closed because not only will Europe have to deal with the headline risk that the weakest link in Europe, the tiny country of Slovakia, can scuttle the entire second Greek rescue operation, and thus, lead to the expulsion of Greece from the eurozone following its bankruptcy, but this will have to take place as Europe fights the stem the contagion resulting from the collapse and nationalization of the first Greek bank, which nobody, nobody, could have foreseen. First, on Dexia via Reuters:
Summarizing the above: nobody has any clue what the proper response here is nor how the market will react. And as for the second key event just unveiled...
For those who are still confused, here is what is going on: The bailout plan that was proposed in July, and was supposed to be operational by the start of September, has still not been ratified, and now the smallest European country is holding the entire continent, its currency, and frankly the Fed, which will have to step in and bailout Europe, hostage. In the meantime, the first actual core bank casuality is about to go 6 feet under, and unleash a falling house of cards of unpredictable consequences, which will likely make the "fear and loathing" chart presented previously double in a very short time. And in this environment, where the decisionmakers in Europe are objectively about 2 years behind the curve, are paralyzed into inactivity and torn asunder by warring political parties, the market actually believes that some actual "solid" policy intervention can about to take place? ... Oh yes, "Dexia is fine"... The stress test (the second one) said so.
|
| French populism advocates metallic currency and smashing big banks, IMF, ECB Posted: 08 Oct 2011 06:45 AM PDT In France, Far Right Capitalises on Euro Crisis By Geert De Clercq http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/07/europe-lepen-idUSL5E7L42R42011... AMNEVILLE, France, -- This town in the Moselle region of northeastern France does not look like a fault-line in the euro zone. The smell of grilled chicken wafts over the marketplace on a recent Saturday morning, the CD vendor plays German oom-pah music, and the sky behind the ochre clock tower is a steely blue. Yet the single currency is a target for an unusual politician canvassing stallholders and shoppers in this town near the German border. Fabien Engelmann, a 32-year old municipal plumber with tight-cropped hair, was an activist with France's leading trade union and a Trotskyist for many years. Later he joined the far-left "New Anticapitalist Party". This year he switched party again, but not on a leftist ticket. He joined France's famed far-right National Front, and he was not the only one. This year, five trade unionists have joined the minority party that made its name with the anti-immigrant rhetoric of its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Since January, Le Pen's daughter Marine has been in charge of the party, and Engelmann says she is a magnet. ... Dispatch continues below ... ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Platinum Drills 120.9 Meters Company Press Release VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) has announced the drill results received from its 2011 drilling Wellgreen platinum group elements, nickel, and copper project in the Yukon Territory. Borehole WS11-188 encountered 457 meters of mineralization grading 0.47% nickel equivalent (including 0.72 grams per ton platinum, paladium, and gold) from surface to the footwall contact. Within this larger swath of mineralization, the hole encountered a high-grade section of 17.8 meters of 3.14 grams per ton platinum, palladium, and gold, 1.03% nickel, and 0.74% copper (1.77% nickel equivalent). The hole was drilled completely outside of current resource boundaries, between the East Zone resource and the West Zone resource that was reported in the company's press release no July 14, 2011. The high-grade intercept located between the two resources not only demonstrates that the East and West Zone resource form a single, geologically contiguous body but also indicates that the higher-grade material in the East Zone continues to the west and at depth at Wellgreen. For drill result tables and maps, please see the company's full press release here: http://www.prophecyplat.com/news_2011_sep26_prophecy_platinum_wellgreen_... "It really is the arrival of Marine Le Pen that convinced me to join the National Front," Engelmann told Reuters. "She has an economic programme that is much more geared to defending the little people, the workers, the popular classes of France." Marine Le Pen is reshaping France's political landscape and the tremors go beyond people like this reconstructed Trotskyist. Her father played up worries about immigration, but the anxiety Marine addresses is economic and deep. The National Front's new target is the oppressive power of global finance, and the mood she is tapping spreads across Europe. Traditionally in France, President Nicolas Sarkozy's right-of-centre UMP party wins the votes of the self-employed, farmers and retirees. Government workers, young people and urbanites favour the Socialists. The swing voters, blue-collar workers and low-level employees are the National Front's constituency. They are tired of making sacrifices to shore up the single currency and fed up with losing jobs to global rivals. To make things better, Le Pen is promising to pull France out of the euro, reinstate protectionist barriers, and reassert the state's supremacy over market forces. Unlike her father, she is being taken seriously by French opinion makers. The media shied away from Jean-Marie's rants, but Marine has been on the front page of every magazine and newspaper and is a regular on prime-time TV. She already ranks third in polls for the April-May 2012 presidential election although she is unlikely to win. Her score in an early October Ipsos voting intention poll was 16 percent, behind Socialist challenger Francois Hollande at 32 percent and Sarkozy's 21 percent. In 2002, her father beat Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin with just 16.86 percent of the first-round votes. Sarkozy's biggest fear is that Le Pen could knock him out in the first round of the two-round vote. According to a TNS-Sofres poll in September, 16 percent of the French have a favourable opinion of the National Front, with 76 percent taking a negative view. That's the party's best rating since 2007. "Our ideas are gaining ground," says Jean-Richard Sulzer, the man in charge of the party's economic programme, who is a professor of finance at the Paris-Dauphine University, one of France's top business schools. His glee is evident as he points out a protectionist Socialist Party goal which echoes one of the Front's. "They are spreading like an oil slick." At the entrance to the National Front's headquarters, an anonymous building in the suburb of Nanterre, stands a small statue of Joan of Arc. The 15th-century peasant girl who led French soldiers to victory is the Front's mascot. She symbolises its rejection of foreign domination. Inside the building, the party sells election paraphernalia playing on Le Pen's first name. Marine means "navy" in French and the lighters, pens and T-shirts are all in navy blue. "It is very French, navy blue. It is a colour that is part of our identity," says Marine Le Pen. Nostalgia and identity are still core National Front concerns, but Le Pen has moved beyond immigration. The new Front rejects all the ideas that have driven European economic growth in the past two decades: globalisation, free trade and the dominance of services and the financial industry. The party offers a radical alternative. To restore French competitiveness it will quit the euro; to boost employment it will close French borders to cheap Chinese imports, reindustrialize and empower the state's regulatory role. And it will bring the banks to heel. For some in towns like Amneville, scarred by the loss of jobs as its steel mills and factories close one by one, this sounds like an idea worth trying. In the eyes of the working classes, power is no longer held by politicians but by the financial markets, say Alain Mergier, a sociologist, and Jerome Fourquet of polling institute Ifop. The European Union, far from protecting workers, overexposes them to the effects of globalisation. The working classes are the most eager for France to abandon the euro, Ifop polls show: nearly one in two blue-collar workers wants a return to the French franc. It's a similar picture in Germany and the Netherlands. Le Pen also wants a return to a metallic currency standard that would include gold and silver to prevent unbridled money-printing. Another proposal -- pure heresy for the French government -- is to allow the state to fund itself with cheap loans from the central bank, rather than paying market rates to banks or bondholders. Tall, blonde and telegenic, Le Pen, 43, is a twice-divorced single mother and formidable debater, with a fast wit and a knack for killer one-liners delivered in a gravelly smoker's voice. Trained as a lawyer, she has been working for her father's party since 1998 and made her leadership bid with her father's backing in January. She won 68 percent of the votes, defeating Bruno Gollnisch, her father's longtime right-hand man. Since taking over, she has put her party's finances on a firmer footing, selling a former headquarters to clear old debts. She has also deftly distanced herself from her party's far-right ties. In March, she expelled a young Front militant after a man resembling him was pictured making the Hitler salute in front of a Nazi flag, and she has since thrown out a dozen or so other members. In a September radio appearance discussing a former comrade's plan to run for president on a right-wing platform, she told radio network France Info: "The extreme right certainly needs a candidate, since it is not me." She delights in overturning received ideas, and disdains Sarkozy's ruling UMP and the opposition Socialist party, PS, lumping them together as the "UMPS" -- no difference between them. She blasts both for turning their back on the French model of a protective state, saying they have submitted to an ultra-capitalist model of globalisation "based on the law of the jungle." "The National Front today is the only movement that proposes solutions. The other political formations, all they do is propose, under a different form, what they have already tried before," Le Pen told Reuters in an interview. She goes on to emphasise how her policies are on a collision course with the received wisdom of what she calls the evil troika: the European Commission, International Monetary Fund, and European Central Bank. "The real fault line is between nationalists and globalists, between economic patriots and those who believe that nations and borders must disappear and that there should be no obstacles whatsoever to commerce, that everything is for sale and everything can be bought, and that there should be no controls on the flows of capital, products and people," she says. Marine Le Pen's economic inspiration is visible in the books stacked on a corner of her desk: mainly French eurosceptic economists and academics including the late Maurice Allais, France's only Nobel prize-winning economist. Most of the authors are not known to have Front sympathies, and some are emphatically left-wing. But Le Pen has borrowed their ideas all the same. Jacques Sapir, a leading eurosceptic French economist, has supported a Communist-backed party in previous elections and has no links with or affinities to Le Pen. He said he had heard from friends that she was quoting him and discovered the Front's website carried links to his work. "She quotes me correctly," he said dryly. Le Pen's willingness to cross traditional left-right divides prompted the starkest shift in the Front's economic thinking. In Jean-Marie's day, the platform was 'less government,' in line with U.S. president Ronald Reagan's Reaganomics. Now the party wants a strong state, a regulated economy. Sulzer, the man in charge of the Front's economic program, says it wants a state that protects France's internal markets from foreign competition: "We cannot compete with exporting countries that do not respect any social or environmental norms." The Front also wants to regulate the financial industry and inculcate it with moral values. It favors separating retail and investment banking. Sulzer said Le Pen would have no qualms about nationalizing financial institutions that are in trouble, returning them to the market later. "We do not want to recreate the Soviet Union," he said. At home, he said, the Front wants freedom of commerce and industry, free competition and no cartels, monopolies or social abuse. "When the experts say her economic program is inapplicable, there is a fraction of the population, notably in the working classes, who answer 'that may be so, but we have already tried the left and right,'" says political analyst Jean-Yves Camus, one of France's leading specialists on the extreme right. In person, Le Pen is down-to-earth and friendly, but she also exudes determination. The youngest daughter of one of the most reviled men in France, she survived a bomb attack on her home as a child, lived down a mother who left the family and posed half-naked in Playboy magazine, and fought off an older sister to become her father's political heir. She raises her three children on her own in a hilltop villa in leafy Saint-Cloud, near Paris. With her current partner, Louis Aliot, a top Front official, she likes to go for target practice at a shooting range. "I think I am more solid in the face of adversity than most of the leaders of our country, most of whom have had an easy ride. It builds a certain shell," she told Reuters. Le Pen has a knack for speaking about complex things in simple terms, which has made the Front's economic program appealing to ordinary people. A vote for the National Front, once fringe, used to be a protest vote. But this is no longer the case, according to Mergier and Fourquet. "The vote for the National Front of Marine Le Pen is becoming a vote for, rather than against," they say in "Breaking Point," a study for the left-leaning Fondation Jean Jaures. One in two workers could vote for Marine Le Pen in the first round of the 2012 poll, they find. Le Pen's political instincts are astute, their study suggests. The working classes do indeed consider the UMP and PS to be cut from the same cloth; the left-right divide is no longer the pertinent fault line in politics. Central now is how the political alternatives differ in their ability to retake power from Europe and from the financial markets. "That then leaves just two kinds of political alternatives: those who can envision an exit from the political impotence and those who don't," Mergier and Fourquet write. To the working classes, the economic crisis has created a situation that is so painful, complex and intractable that it's like a Gordian knot that needs cutting. "The voters who see in Marine Le Pen the only politician who is able to make that cut, they do not care about the details of her program. ... They feel she is the one who is able to move beyond everything that has been tried by the parties of the left and the right." For analyst Camus, the National Front also embodies lost ideological vigor. "To them, political action is an expression of political will. From there on, anything is possible: leaving the European Union, leaving NATO, leaving the World Trade Organization, closing the borders, anything." Marine Le Pen's populism is influencing the mainstream parties. Her anti-euro stance lets her gain ground with every squabble and spat in Europe's debt crisis, forcing other parties to look closely at her policies as they work out how to chase the workers' vote. In the 2007 election, Sarkozy won them over partly by adopting the Front's anti-immigration agenda; his five-year mandate has been marked by constant hammering on such National Front themes as national identity, banning the Muslim burqa and expelling Roma immigrants. The Front's economic policies are harder to adopt. Most of what Le Pen proposes is anathema for mainstream parties. Sarkozy and his ministers repeat every other day that without the euro there is no Europe. But Le Pen's new-look National Front is already making an impact. Mainstream party stalwarts are beginning to voice proposals that echo Front ideas. In a speech timed to coincide with a National Front meeting in September, a member of Sarkozy's UMP called for the reindustrialization of France. "We need to put an end to the illusion that an economy can be built on services only," said former industry minister Christian Estrosi. Socialist Segolene Royal, currently third behind Francois Hollande and Martine Aubry in polls of Socialist candidates, has called for more protectionism and last month took a swipe at the banking industry that sounded very Marine Le Pen, saying bankers must "obey, not command". Le Pen's influence could have consequences far outside France. The single currency may be a hot topic now, but Charles Grant, director of the London-based Center for European Reform, believes trade is the area where the Front would have most resonance: "This is where her arguments stand a significant chance of shifting the intellectual climate in France." Already, the Socialist manifesto promises to "strive to increase import tariffs on products coming from countries that do not respect international norms with regards to social, health and environmental matters." As well as imitating the National Front, Sarkozy's UMP is trying to tackle it head-on. One of his advisers, Henri Guaino, calls her ideas "as radical as they are disastrous". Where Le Pen asserts that disaster is already here in the form of the euro zone crisis, he replies that people have no idea what a calamity it would be if the euro were to disappear. "The very people to whom this is presented as a solution are the ones who would be its first victims. The most vulnerable, the most impoverished, the most underprivileged would pay an exorbitant price for such a decision," he said. Spearheading the UMP's anti-Le Pen drive is Ecology Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet. The National Front under its new leader has not really changed at all, she argues. "In France, when the new Beaujolais wine of the season goes on sale, we say 'Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrive.' Well, the new National Front has arrived, but nothing has changed. They have cleaned the facade, but it is the same old shop," she said. Long-time Front watchers say this is largely, but not entirely, true. The National Front's economic proposals are indeed new, they say; they point to the expulsions of anti-Semitic and overtly racist elements, as well as skinheads and Nazi sympathizers. With or without hardliners, though, the glue that binds Front members is not economic policy. A deep resentment of foreign immigrants, particularly Muslims, is still obvious, from the party leadership to the rank and file. In Amneville, two dozen Front members who gathered in the "Auberge des Amis," a cafe by the railway tracks, were not talking about the euro. Over a meal of cold cuts, a history teacher said he was trying to stop his school from offering halal meat. Another militant boasted of his efforts to organize a pork sausage party in a Muslim neighborhood of Paris. "It is true that there are still many National Front militants who like to talk about problems with immigration and security and the Islam offensive, and rightly so," says Engelmann. Even though Marine Le Pen attracted him to the National Front, some of its old ideas also appeal to him. He left his last party after it added a veiled Muslim woman as candidate. Join GATA here: The Silver Summit http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference http://www.neworleansconference.com/ Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins: https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12 Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit, Company Press Release, October 27, 2010 VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Sona Resources Corp. reports on five drillling holes in the third round of assay results from the recently completed drill program at its 100 percent-owned Elizabeth Gold Deposit Property in the Lillooet Mining District of southern British Columbia. Highlights from the diamond drilling include: -- Hole E10-66 intersected 17.4g gold/ton over 1.54 metres. -- Hole E10-67 intersected 96.4g gold/ton over 2.5 metres, including one assay interval of 383g of gold/ton over 0.5 metres. -- Hole E10-69 intersected 85.4g gold/ton over 4.03 metres, including one assay interval of 230g gold/ton over 1 metre. Four drill holes, E10-66 to E10-69, targeted the southwestern end of the Southwest Vein, and three of the holes have expanded the mineralized zone in that direction. The Southwest Vein gold mineralization has now been intersected over a strike length of 325 metres, with the deepest hole drilled less than 200 metres from surface. "The assay results from the Southwest Zone quartz vein continue to be extremely positive," says John P. Thompson, Sona's president and CEO. "We are expanding the Southwest Vein, and this high-grade gold mineralization remains wide open down dip and along strike to the southwest." For the company's full press release, please visit: http://sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR19_2010.pdf
|
| The Unfolding Economic Disaster Posted: 08 Oct 2011 05:58 AM PDT It is now clear the US economy has broken down in a BIG way. Indeed, no less than Ben "green shoots" Bernanke has stated that the recovery is "close to faltering." This, coming from a cherrleader like Bernanke is essentially an admission from the powers that be that the US economy is a disaster.
Indeed, the recent manufacturing survey just posted its second consecutive month of contraction. As ZeroHedge noted, collapse in this economic metric has been greater than any two-month period in the last ten years, including 2008.
We also see that the ISM purchasers managers' index, the Philly Fed index, payrolls, and the ECRI weekly leading index are all at or about to break into recessionary levels.
These are, of course, mainstream indicators of economic activity, which are heavily massaged. The economic realities in the US are far worse than even they proclaim as food stamp usage (43 million a record high), the labor participation rate:
… and U6 unemployment numbers reveal:
Suffice to say, the US economy is a disaster. And yet, analysts are expecting another earnings season of double-digit growth (the eighth quarter in a row). Somehow I think we're in for some major surprises to the downside this earnings season.
And this is coming at a time when the markets are already shows signs of MAJOR duress.
Indeed, I truly cannot stress enough how dangerous things are right now. This is the most dangerous market I've ever seen. We're seeing moves of 4-% in just HOURS, not even days.
And considering that leverage levels prior to this round of the Crisis were even higher than those from the Tech Bubble… combined with the $600+ TRILLION in derivatives floating around in the financial system… should give you a sense of how serious the market declines can and will be as this whole thing breaks apart.
The fact remains that we are going down, down, DOWN over the coming months. We're going to be seeing major banks go under, market crashes, food shortages, government shutdowns, and SYSTEMIC FAILURE.
Yes, I believe that before this mess ends, the financial system as a whole will have collapsed. What's coming is going to make 2008 look like a joke.
If you have yet to prepare yourself for what's coming, now is the time to do so. Whether it's by moving to cash and bullion, opening some shorts, or simply getting out of the markets altogether, now is the time to be preparing for what's coming (remember, stocks took six months to bottom after Lehman… and that was when the Fed still had some bullets left to combat the collapse).
And if you're looking for specific ideas to profit from this mess, mr Surviving a Crisis Four Times Worse Than 2008 report can show you how to turn the unfolding disaster into a time of gains and profits for any investor.
Within its nine pages I explain precisely how the Second Round of the Crisis will unfold, where it will hit hardest, and the best means of profiting from it (the very investments my clients used to make triple digit returns in 2008).
Best of all, this report is 100% FREE. To pick up your copy today simply go to: http://www.gainspainscapital.com and click on the OUR FREE REPORTS tab.
Good Investing!
Graham Summers
PS. We also feature four other reports ALL devoted to helping you protect yourself, your portfolio, and your loved ones from the Second Round of the Great Crisis. Whether it's my proprietary Crash Indicator which has caught every crash in the last 25 years or the best most profitable strategy for individual investors looking to profit from the upcoming US Debt Default, my reports covers it.
And ALL of this is available for FREE under the OUR FREE REPORTS tab at: http://www.gainspainscapital.com.
|
| Posted: 08 Oct 2011 05:57 AM PDT by The Gold Report, MarketOracle.co.uk: When the currency system as we know it dies, some people will become very wealthy. In this special report from the Casey Research/Sprott Inc. Summit "When the Money Dies," The Gold Report cornered Global Resource Investments Founder and Chairman Rick Rule, Casey Research Senior Editor Louis James and Casey Energy Opportunities Senior Editor Marin Katusa for a roundtable discussion on the best strategies for thriving during the coming economic transition. The Gold Report: Since we are at a conference called "When Money Dies," please explain who killed money and how, after all these years of governments around the world trying everything from quantitative easing to bank bailouts, we are still in the midst of the weakest global economy in this generation's history? Rick Rule: The answer is in an old Pogo Cartoon that reads: "I have seen the enemy and he is us." Collectively in the West, we have lived beyond our means for a substantial amount of time. We rely on a government that we have paid to steal from our neighbors. Money is how we deal with transfers. Dealing with transfers dishonestly by making more of the medium that isn't backed by any value is the process by which money dies. Louis James: Read More @ MarketOracle.co.uk
|
| Posted: 08 Oct 2011 04:54 AM PDT Census: Housing bust worst since Great Depression CIGA Eric The housing bust will get worse before it gets better. U.S. Median Home Price (MHP) And MHP to Gold Ratio Headline: Census: Housing bust worst since Great Depression New census figures show homeownership over the past decade saw the biggest drop since the Great Continue reading Jim's Mailbox
|
| Gold and Silver Stocks Bottom Materializing Right Now? Posted: 08 Oct 2011 04:41 AM PDT There are times when we need to have the courage of our convictions, even when we are losing money in the process. (That’s where the courage part comes in. Like Ernest Hemingway said: “Courage is grace under pressure.”) We are still bullish on the precious metals sector in both short- and long term. Although the whole sector moved lower again early this week, important support levels remained firm. Many of our readers are probably concerned, as it is easy to get emotional at times of uncertainty. This is why we need to underline that although mining stocks took a hit, we have not changed our mind about our long position. If the situation was very oversold before, now it is extremely oversold. We are of a view that the precious metals sector is forming a bottom. Such pullbacks are healthy as they indicate gold has much, much farther to go.
|
| Posted: 08 Oct 2011 04:35 AM PDT Silver prices appear to have found a bottom at the $30.00 level, however, we are looking at a very short time period and such micro analysis can make monkeys out of us. A few months ago silver prices looked to have bottomed at the $34.00 level, but the ensuing rally was short lived and once again silver got clobbered. From a technical standpoint we can see that the RSI is now trending north and from a low level too, which gives it the room to move a little higher from this point and we view it as a positive indication. The MACD is also well and truly in the oversold zone and about to form a crossover which will be another positive indication of where silver prices are going next.
|
| Let The Dust Settle Before Getting Into Apple Posted: 08 Oct 2011 04:32 AM PDT
By EconMatters
Steve Jobs is really gone forever this time. Many questions surrounding where Apple as a company would be headed without Jobs. Jobs has such a rare combination of artistry, business savvy, and salesmanship that the void left by his untimely death probably will never be filled.
While the current executive team at Apple is no doubt quite capable of running the company, but gone are the days of the continued stellar AAPL stock returns and the pace of new product introductions could slow considerably vs. the iSteve era, and investors are now looking for the next Apple. (See graphic below) .
The mobile phone market is very competitive particularly with Google Android gaining market share among cell phone manufacturers (See Chart Below). And signs of vulnerability of an Apple without Jobs is already emerging upon the release of the iPhone 4S, the first new product launch under the new CEO Tim Cook.
From Digitimes:
On the positives, in addition to iPhone 4S with a new iOS 5 operating system, so far, Apple also has the following new products:
Moreover, Wedbush Research estimated that Apple has only 228 operators distributing the iPhone and only 68 countries for the iPad, vs. an estimated 600 operators distribution channel for RIM and Nokia. So tremendous market growth potential for both iPhone and iPad remains even in the face of fierce competitions.
Another potential niche growth market for Apple TV is the content streaming service for movies and TV shows, etc. which lacks a clear market leader. However, the marketing and vision of that entry is where Jobs' creativity and leadership would be sorely missed.
Bottom line: We remain neutral on AAPL. We do think Jobs most likely has left a rich approved product development pipeline that Apple could be expected to still deliver above expectation performance in the next 3-5 years. But the downside risk increases on a longer time horizon as Tim Cook's is mainly an operations/numbers guy, so the creative course of Apple without Jobs is hard to chart.
We also think the delay of iPhone 5 opens the door for others such as Samsung and Motorola to gain on Apple, and there's a risk (similar to RIM) of consumers becoming disenchanted if Apple fails to keep pace with the new products by competitors. Furthermore, the global macroeconomic uncertainty would be an even greater downside risk as AAPL would not be spared in the case of a market sell-off en masse.
Near term, although investors reacted negatively to iPhone 4S and Jobs death, Apple should have good earnings in this holiday season (Christmas Rally) with the iPad, iPhones (4, 4S, 3GS) among the popular devices along with Samsung Galaxy S II, as well as the Motorola Droid Bionic and HTC Ryhme.
From a technical perspective, AAPL is now trading in the bear territory, and has broken below the 50-day moving average of $383.42. The next support level would be around $$350 to $360 levels and the next support at around $340. (See Chart Above)
A break below $320 (which we think is fairly easy based on AAPL historical movement) would be an extremely bearish sign, which could be an attractive entry point. However, we caution investors to do some root cause analysis before rushing in to buy on the dip.
In the case of a broad market sell-off (a la 2008), Apple stocks would most likely hold up better due to its high branding, customer loyalty, and could find major support at $250 with $200 as the next major support level.
Apple's Sept. earnings release is scheduled on Oct. 17, AAPL by and large should have blow-out results rallying into earnings, and would find strong upside resistance around $400 levels.
On a side note, although AT&T lost its exclusive iPhone contract, but since the new iPhone 4S includes AT&T's 4G technology (HSPA+), vs. only 3G for the others, AT&T could have a significant marketing advantage over Verizon and Sprint. We also like AT&T as an attractive alternative to CDs in the new normal of negative real interest rate (Read our complete analysis on AT&T Here)
Further Reading: The Rise and Rise of Apple, Time For A Split? 5 Dead Money Plays in Technology Is Android The Next Gold Mine For Google?
© EconMatters All Rights Reserved | Facebook | Twitter | Post Alert | Kindle
|
| Posted: 08 Oct 2011 03:38 AM PDT Summary: Long term - on major buy signal. Short term - on sell signals. Risk management has prevented us from taking on new positions recently and kept us out of harm's way. Gold cycle is near a bottom and we shall wait for new buy signals. Read More...
|
| Chart Of The Week: European "Fear And Loathing" Hits Record $1.3 Trillion Posted: 08 Oct 2011 02:49 AM PDT
The topic of the European "Ice-nine"phenomenon is nothing new to regular Zero Hedge readers: every day we point out the increasing freeze in European interbank lending (in both the traditional and shadow formats), in various money markets, in commercial paper, in broad fixed income issuance, and in the overall collapse in market liquidity, so deftly masked for now by daily political and central bank rhetoric, which for all its market kneejerk reaction glory is merely unsubstantiated innuendo and lies - keep in mind that the last time the incoherent and disorganized Troika came to an actual decision was July 21, with the second Greek bailout, and even that has not yet been implemented! So while hopes still percolates faintly on the surface, the riptide just below it has grown to record proportions. Presenting the chart that everyone who has an opinion on Europe, one way or the other, has to see. Here, courtesy of Diapason's Sean Corrigan, is the epic "Fear and Loathing" in the European banking system, in all its $1.3 trillion glory, or nearly double where it was when Lehman filed for bankruptcy. Banks may say they trust each other, they may promise the system is viable, they may even submit bogus (if increasing) Libor indications to the collusive organization that is the BBA, but the truth is, in vivid color, presented below. Never before have European banks parked as much of their hard earned cash with the only two remaining pillars of "stability", the Fed and the ECB. And with Dexia about to be nationalized, and an unpredictable, and highly contagious, waterfall chain of events about to be unleashed on Europe all over again, will the worst case scenario transpire and the ECB's credibility be swept away? If so, prepare for all the money in the world to funnel into the binary number-based safety deposit box located in the servers of 33 Liberty street. Then the two ultimate questions become: how long before the Fed's own viability is questioned by the global vigilantes (who have finally started asking the right questions), and who will bail out the central bank tasked with bailing out the world?
Source: Diapason
|
Tekoa Da Silva speaks with 
).
| You are subscribed to email updates from Save Your ASSets First To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment