saveyourassetsfirst3

ROIC: Valuation Makes This REIT A Buy
5 Things You Can Do Right Now to Stop the Economic Plundering of Our World
“No People, No Problem”: The Baltic Tigers’ False Prophets of Austerity
Year End Review – 2012 Outlook
Gold For Bonds
Underestimated Physical Gold Demand
Silver: $50 and Much Higher
Markets Anxiously Awaiting News From Europe
Corvus Gold Expands High-Grade Vein Deposit at its Terra Project, Alaska 3.4 metres @ 11.6 g/t Gold and 106.5 g/t Silver
Master Soros Warns Again
Ratings warning catches 'star pupil' Germany off guard
South American Silver Reports Surface Sampling and Drill Results from Escalones Copper-Gold-Silver Project and Initiates Phase II Exploration Program
Carmakers’ $7 Billion Platinum Bill Shrinking Glut: Commodities
Which countries are the largest gold producers?
Gold & Silver Warrants: an Insider’s Insights
Gold For Bonds’ in Japan as Bond Buyers Get Gold Coins - May Enhance Returns 5.9 Times
Japan Promises Gold Coins to Buyers of Its Reconstruction Debt
Why Gold Stocks Have Underperformed and What Lies Ahead
Endeavour Silver Continues to Extend High Grade Silver-Gold Mineralization in the Daniela Vein at the Guanajuato Mine in Mexico; Drilling Intersects 391 gpt Silver and 6.6 gpt Gold Over 3.7 Meter True Width
GOLD: What Rogers and Faber Agree On
Euro crisis: Why no nation is safe from a downgrade
New research shows why everyone should own some gold
LISTEN: Martyn Element talks with Dominic Frisby
Flight to Quality & 2012 Gold Takeovers
These popular tax deductions could soon be history
Morning Outlook from the Trading Desk
The Worst In The World
Silver well set up for another tilt at $50 and much higher
Afghanistan hopes to raise millions through gold production
Year End Trading

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:59 AM PST

By Ryan Vanzo:

Blank Check Company to Diversified Retail REIT: Transforming from a SPAC in late 2008, Retail Opportunities Investment Corp. (ROIC) has one of the best balance sheets, asset bases, and management teams in the REIT industry. Led by industry stalwart Stuart Tanz, the company targets retail shopping centers with large, financially stable anchor stores. These locations have proven better able to ride out rough markets as the company's most common anchor store (established grocery chains) draws large crowds regardless of the economy.

Investment Thesis

Forced Selling in Industry with No One to Buy: Leading up to the recent collapse in property prices, many larger REIT's saddled up with debt, adding many small non-core assets. With credit tougher to access and debt to service, many companies were forced to sell smaller properties outside their scope of operations, leading to a further collapse in prices. The only buyers in the market (smaller REITS)

Complete Story »

5 Things You Can Do Right Now to Stop the Economic Plundering of Our World

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:52 AM PST

Article courtesy of Mike Adams (Natural News)

The economic plundering of our world is well under way, with the Goldman Sachs "white shoe boyz" taking over entire national economies as they confiscate the wealth of the working class. They aren't the only evildoers wreaking havoc across the world, of course: A cabal of powerful [...]

“No People, No Problem”: The Baltic Tigers’ False Prophets of Austerity

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:09 AM PST

By Jeffrey Sommers, an associate professor of political economy in Africology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and visiting faculty at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, Arunas Juska, associate professor of sociology at East Carolina University and an expert on the Baltics, and Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist and a rofessor at University of Missouri, Kansas City . Cross posted from Counterpunch.

The Baltic states have discovered a new way to cut unemployment and cut budgets for social services: emigration. If enough people of working age are forced to leave to find work abroad, unemployment and social service budgets will both drop.

This simple mathematics explains what the algebra of austerity-plan advocates are applauding today as the "New Baltic Miracle" for Greece, Spain, and Italy to emulate. The reality, however, is a model predicated on economic shrinkage as a result of wage cuts. In the case of Latvia, this was some 30 percent for Latvian public-sector employees (euphemized as "internal devaluation"). With a set of flat taxes on employment adding up to 59% in Latvia (while property taxes are only 1%), it would seem hard indeed to present this as a success story.

But one hears only celebratory praise from the neoliberal lobbyists whose policies have de-industrialized and stripped the Baltic economies of Lithuania and Latvia, leaving them debt-ridden and uncompetitive. It is as if their real estate collapse from bubble-level debt leveraging that left their basic infrastructure in the hands of kleptocrats, is a free market success story.

What then does a neoliberal "free market" mean?

After a half-century struggle for independence, the Balts emerged in a world where neoliberal policies were the global fashion, and where the dress code and face control were initially enforced by the world's international financial institutions–and later even more aggressively internalized by Baltic policymakers themselves. Twenty years of neoliberal policy after emerging from Soviet rule have left the Baltics a mess. On the lead up to the 2008 global economic crisis and the world's biggest collapses the financial press was praising the Baltic Tigers for dutifully imposing rule by bankers.

Now, after the storm has quieted in the Baltics, Anders Aslund and other apologists are at it again as they promote the Baltic model. Aslund did so most recently with his Petersen Institute banking industry funded book on Latvia's "remarkable" rebound. The only thing he failed to mention was that Latvians were voting with their feet in record numbers. Latvians were exiting at a rate of roughly 1% of the population per month in an exodus of Biblical proportions. Indeed, Latvian's census makers were horrified when they discovered that that the country's population had decreased from 2.3 to 1.9 million people from 2001-2011.

The situation was close or even worse in neighboring Lithuania where a massive outward migration triggered by the start of global economic recession and collapse of the housing bubble in 2008 now threatens the future viability of this nation state. As the economic crisis intensified, unemployment grew from a relatively low level of 4.1% in 2007 to 18.3% in the second quarter of 2010 with a concomitant increase in emigration from 26,600 in 2007 to 83,200 in 2010. This was the highest level of emigration since 1945 and comparable only with the extensive the depopulation of the country during World War II. Since the restoration of independence in 1990, out of a population of some 3.7 million 615,000 had left the country; three fourths were young persons (up to 35 years old), many of them educated and with jobs in Lithuania. By 2008, the emigration rate from Lithuania became the highest among the EU countries (2.3 per 1,000), and double that of the next highest country, Latvia (1.1 per 1,000).

Forecasts for the period 2008-35 suggest a demographic decline by a further 10.9%, one of the highest rates in the EU (following Bulgaria and Latvia). The 2011 population census seemed only to confirm these grim prognostications. Demographers previously proved to have been too optimistic in their forecasts (the latest issued in 2010) and had overestimated the size of the Lithuanian population by about 200,000. Instead of the forecasted 3.24 million, the census found that by 2011 Lithuania's population was only just over 3 million (3.054 ml)
These grim numbers suggest a kind of euthanizing taking place of the small Baltic nations.

This, ironically, after having survived two World Wars, two occupations, and several economic collapses in the 20th century. Indeed, at the end of the Soviet occupation, Latvians and Lithuanians were replacing themselves through natural reproduction. By contrast, today, the twin forces of emigration and low births have conspired to create a demographic disaster.

Enter Anders Aslund again, desperately seeking to resuscitate his reputation after the disastrous failures ensuing from his policy advice in the 1990s in the former USSR. Just this week on Monday, Aslund rhapsodized about the success of Lithuania's harsh austerity regime in the EUObserver. His article had both the upbeat tone of Joseph Stalin's famous "dizzy with success" speech, while simultaneously reciting a droll set of statistics of a kind of "Five Year Plan achieved in Four" report proving that the economy and country are in better shape than ever.

Let's look at his most important argument by his own word: that of Lithuania's "impressive" economic rebound and it high World Bank ease of doing business index rating. Aslund reports that through harsh medicine and free-markets this Baltic Tiger is back. Whether by ignorance or intention, let's assume the former, Aslund gets the facts wrong. He rightly explains that this Baltic Tiger's economy crashed by a whopping 14.7% in 2009 (although failing to mention further contractions in 2008 and 2010 on top of that). But, he asserts that this year's current annualized growth rate is some 6.6%, thus suggesting this neoliberal country is not on the road to economic perdition. This might sound impressive to some, but Aslund ignores that just last week the massive Lithuanian Snoras bank just presented Lithuania (and Latvia) with an exploding cigar that will wipe out most of Lithuania's economic growth for this year.

Furthermore, even if there was a resumption economic growth, IMF estimates that its rates will remain sluggish at best indicating that probably a decade or more will be needed to return to pre-recession levels of economic activity. Thus, according to IMF projections by 2015 Lithuanian GDP as measured in $US was projected to remain 12% less (as measured in current prices) than in 2008, with unemployment at 8.5%

Finally, we need to contrast anemic IMF economic growth forecast for the next 6-8 years with disastrous social consequences of internal devaluation policies. Consider that Lithuania almost tripled its level of unemployment in Lithuania from 5.8% in 2008 to 17.8% in 2010. Although by 2011 unemployment began to decline to 15.6%, this happened not as much because of creation of new jobs, but because of mass outmigration from Lithuania. Public sector wages were cut but 20-30 and pensions by 11 percent, which in combination with growing unemployment let to dramatic increasing in poverty. If in 2008 there were 420 thousand or 12.7% of population living in poverty, by 2009 poverty rate increased to 20.6%. Although by 2010 there was a .4% decrease in the number of poor to 670 thousand, the decrease was caused mostly by downward change in measuring the poverty. Various measures of quality of life and well-being deteriorated even further indicating prevalence of deep pessimism, loss of social solidarity, trust, and atomization of a society.

The extremely high social and demographic costs of such policies put the very future of sustainable economic growth in the region into question. Investments in education, infrastructure, and public services that are preconditions of the "high," knowledge-based and higher productivity based economic development were slashed, while brain drain intensified. Although Prime Minister Kubilius was promoting his administration's economic development strategy based on knowledge and innovations, the very austerity measures implemented by his government were relegating to Lithuania to the "low road" of economic development based on low standards in salaries and labor conditions.

The mood on the ground is sour as well. Lithuanians have emigrated in massive numbers and like their Baltic brethren in Latvia, this has mostly been from people of talent, education, and of childbearing age. Indeed, like Latvia, Lithuania's latest census shows a hemorrhaging of people out of the country. A kind of gallows humor prevails on the ground too. Recently, a Lithuanian couple in Vilnius reported to the authors: Husband to wife, "we should go back to Norway to work in the canneries. There, you could leave a thousand euros on the ground, return in a year, and it would be still there." Wife, "nah, no way, too many Lithuanians there." Their humor is intact, but their sense of desperation grows.

These people deserve better than to have another failed ideology imposed on them. Let's hope they and others liberate themselves from the experiments of ideologues and stop being pawns in their game. To the rest of Europe, we counsel caution. Joseph Stalin's maxim, "no people, no problem" is no way to solve an economic crisis. Euthanizing larger nations in southern Europe through large-scale emigration would be as undesirable as it is impossible to achieve. Where would the people go?

Year End Review – 2012 Outlook

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 05:49 AM PST

Analysts and forecasters are saying that 2012 will be the year that gold breaks $2,000 per ounce and that silver will push $70!

Gold For Bonds

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 05:29 AM PST

'Gold For Bonds' in Japan as Bond Buyers Get Gold Coin
May Enhance Returns 5.9 Times

from GoldCore:

Gold is trading at USD 1,718.90, EUR 1,282.70, GBP 1,099.30, CHF 1,587.50, JPY 133,650 and AUD 1,679.40 per ounce.

Gold's London AM fix this morning was USD 1,720.00, GBP 1,098.76, and EUR 1,284.54 per ounce.

Yesterday's AM fix was USD 1,744, GBP 1,114.88, and EUR 1,296.08 per ounce.

Gold is marginally lower in most currencies (except the CHF and AUD) extending the 1.4% fall seen yesterday.

Gold traded below the 100 day moving average at $1,726.33, which it broke below yesterday and will need to rise above the 100 DMA in order to resolve the short term technical damage done.

Read More @ bi-me.com

Euro crisis: Why no nation is safe from a downgrade

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 12:43 AM PST

From Bloomberg:

Bonds from AAA rated Austria, the Netherlands and Finland are suffering as Europe's debt crisis increases volatility and erodes their haven status.

Sixty-day volatility on 10-year government debt from the three nations reached euro-era records in November, as investors increased bets the currency bloc may unravel and as yields on Italian and Spanish securities surged. The countries were among 15 put on watch for a rating cut by Standard & Poor's yesterday. Europe's leaders will try to fashion a solution to the turmoil this week after the failure of their fourth rescue blueprint sparked concern that the crisis will infect all 17 euro nations.

"Volatility clearly has increased and it makes life a lot tougher for investors," said Alex Johnson, who helps oversee $47 billion as London-based head of portfolio management at Fischer Francis Trees & Watts. "If you are invested in countries like the Netherlands you can find that what were safe-haven positions have become correlated with what's going on in the periphery, when actually the economic fundamentals are still very good."

The extra interest the Netherlands has to pay investors to hold its 10-year bonds instead of Germany's rose to a two-year high of 68 basis points on Nov. 17 and stood at 40 basis points at 9:06 a.m. London time today, more than triple this year's low of 13 basis points reached in March. A measure of 60-day volatility on the so-called spread has more than doubled to 103 percent from 49 percent six months ago.

Austrian Spread

"The higher the volatility gets, the more important it becomes for investors," said Niels From, chief analyst at Nordea Bank AB in Copenhagen. "When volatility levels are high it is more difficult for investors to hold on to positions even in countries that are labeled the inner core" like Austria, the Netherlands and Finland.

Austria's 10-year spread over bunds swung between 84 basis points and a euro-era high of 192 basis points in November, even as the cabinet signed a draft law to cut its debt level to 60 percent of gross domestic product by 2020. The yield difference was 97 basis points today, compared with an average 23 basis points during the past 10 years.

The Finland-Germany 10-year spread reached a two-year high of 79 basis points on Nov. 25, from a low 7 basis points low on Jan. 12, compared with a 35 basis-points average in the past year.

S&P Warning

The fluctuations show concern that the euro-region debt crisis may deepen is outweighing the safety implied in the nations' top credit ratings and their economies' relatively strong fundamentals.

S&P said in a statement yesterday that Germany and France may be stripped of their AAA ratings as the debt crisis prompts 15 euro nations to be put on review for possible downgrade pending the result of a European Union leaders' summit.

The firm said that ratings could be cut by one level for Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Netherlands and Luxembourg, and by up to two notches for the other governments.

Austria's economy will probably expand 2.9 percent this year, Finland's will grow 3.1 percent and the Netherlands' 1.8 percent, according to the latest European Commission forecasts published last month, all bettering the euro-region's aggregate of 1.5 percent.

The nations' debt levels as a percentage of their gross domestic product are better than the euro-region average, the forecasts show, with Austria's predicted to be 73 percent in 2012, Finland's 52 percent and the Netherland's 65 percent. That compares with the 90 percent average for all 17 euro-region countries.

Overseas Investors
About 75 percent of Finland's bonds are owned by non-Finnish investors, Nordea estimates, which makes them more vulnerable to fluctuations in investor sentiment than their non-euro-region neighbor Sweden, where about 75 percent of the government's bonds are held by domestic investors.

The yield premium investors demanded to hold Finland's 10-year debt over that of Sweden reached a euro-era high of 137 basis points on Nov. 24 and was 99 basis points yesterday. That compares with an average difference of 4 basis points since the 17-nation currency was introduced in 1999, according to Bloomberg generic data.

Dutch, Austrian and Finnish bonds also suffered as investors dumped holdings of euro-region securities and pushed the euro down 3 percent against the dollar through November, amid concern that the region's leaders will struggle to bridge differences on a crisis resolution. Holders of euro-area bonds maturing between one and 10 years lost 2.6 percent last month, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes.

Geithner Meeting

With an EU summit in Brussels scheduled for Dec. 9, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is due in Frankfurt today to prod political leaders. While a deal that safeguards banks, limits damage to Italy and Spain and increases rescue funds may help ease sentiment toward Europe, a fresh test will come next year when the euro-region countries face the challenge of issuing debt that UBS AG estimates at a minimum of 730 billion euros.

"Two weeks ago we had a very big move in the spread of Netherlands versus Germany, a 20 basis-point move in a single day, which is the biggest move I can remember, even before the euro began," said Justin Knight, a European rate strategist at UBS Ltd. in London. "In a further escalation of the crisis we would see more moves like that. The real problem is that there aren't enough buyers for Italian and Spanish government bonds and until that is addressed then the crisis will probably continue."

'More Wary'

Austria needs to raise 20 billion euros in 2012, the Netherlands 45 billion euros and Finland 10 billion euros, the UBS estimates show. While the amounts are small compared with Germany, which has 184 billion euros to raise, and Italy, which needs 221 billion euros, souring sentiment may cause problems for the three nations, said Eric Wand, a fixed-income strategist at Lloyds Banking Group Plc in London.

"Investors are going to be even more wary, which is going to make all auctions more difficult," Wand said. "Holland and Austria and the other semi-core nations will probably be charged more going forward regardless of their fundamentals because of the contagion effect."

To contact the reporter on this story: Emma Charlton in London at echarlton1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Tilles at dtilles@bloomberg.net.

More on the euro:

Top manager Bass: Don't bet on euro money-printing yet

Euro DOWNGRADE: S&P puts all 17 euro countries on negative watch

Forget yesterday's "bailout"... December 9 could be "D-Day" for the euro

New research shows why everyone should own some gold

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 12:36 AM PST

From Mineweb:

During a period of extraordinarily serious economic uncertainty in the Eurozone, continued concerns about economic growth in the U.S. heading into an election year, and the possibility of an economic slowdown in China, The World Gold Council (WGC) wanted to examine the relevance of gold as a strategic asset for euro-based investors to protect their portfolios and to mitigate the systemic risks being faced.

Thus, a new study from New Frontier Advisors (NFA) entitled, "Gold as a strategic asset for European investors," was commissioned by the WGC to address these concerns. The NFA's respected optimiser is used to analyse the statistical significance of gold for adding diversification value to an investment portfolio from the currency base and perspective of a euro-based investor. It takes a conservative strategic return expectation that the long-term real return of gold is...

Read full article...

More on gold:

This China gold story could literally change your life

A "coiled spring": These gold stocks could be set for a massive rally

Gold RUSH: Another country's central bank is buying up massive amounts of gold

LISTEN: Martyn Element talks with Dominic Frisby

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 12:34 AM PST

from GoldMoneyNews:

Dominic Frisby interviews Martyn Element for the GoldMoney Foundation. They talk about gold as the best safe haven for the turbulent years ahead. They talk about mining companies and bull and bear markets for junior resource companies. They talk about the great potential for gold and how distinguishing physical gold from paper gold is extremely important. They mention Eric Sprott and John Embry's involvement in the resource sector and their prtnership with Rick Rule. They talk about economic prospects in general, investing in arable land, Berlin real estate and any other asset which might protect wealth in the midst of a worsening crisis.

This podcast was recorded on 30 November 2011.

Flight to Quality & 2012 Gold Takeovers

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 12:32 AM PST

from King World News:

With gold remaining firm near the $1,700 level, oil over $100 a barrel and S&P putting 15 European nations on negative credit watch, today King World News interviewed one of the most street smart pros in the resource sector, Rick Rule, Founder of Global Resource Investments. When asked about the latest move by S&P putting many European nations on negative credit watch, including France and Germany, Rule replied, "It's astonishing. Obviously the rating agency's perceptions have changed fairly drastically in the last couple of years. I think what probably precipitated this, Eric, had to do with the failed bond auction in Germany. The market may have been telling the rating agency something that the rating agencies didn't already understand."

Continue reading @ KingWorldNews.com

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 12:30 AM PST

From Economic Policy Journal:

CNBC has put together a list of tax deductions that may be eliminated as the deficit swells. It's not certain where cuts in deductions will come, but the below list provides a good guide as to deduction eliminations that are being proposed by various individuals. Read it and weep:

1. A higher capital gains tax is a possibility. While current rates expire at the end of 2012, the Obama administration would like to raise capital gains rates.

2. Both the administration and Congress have proposed raising the...

Read full article...

More on taxes:

Why the calls to "tax the rich" are insane

What you should know about putting gold in your retirement accounts

Must-read: A fantastic quote on the government's tax and spend policies

Morning Outlook from the Trading Desk

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 12:12 AM PST

Yesterday began very price supportive for the metals until the S & P downgrade, which took the equity markets and the metals down. Other than the window dressing and Santa rally which was referred to about six weeks ago, it is hard for me to get enthusiastic about the higher direction of the equity markets in 2012. A French and German agreement will certainly lift the markets short term and Santa still has two plus weeks to oil the sled, but the headwinds that face Europe over the next few years have to suggest a minimum of a recession if not worse. The US will be in grid-lock until after the election and China is slowing. I can see a $2 print in front of gold but can also make a case for $1,2??

The Worst In The World

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 12:07 AM PST

The Worst In The World
The U.S. Balance Of Trade Is Mind-Blowingly Bad

from The Economic Collapse Blog:

Did you know that we buy about a half a trillion dollars more stuff from the rest of the world than they buy from us? The U.S. balance of trade is not only mind-blowingly bad – it is the worst in the world. It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit for 2011 will be 558.2 billion dollars. That would be an increase of more than 11 percent from last year. As I have written about previously, the United States is the worst in the worldat a lot of things, but as far as the economic well-being of our nation is concerned, our balance of trade is particularly important. Every single month, far more money goes out of this country than comes into it. Tax revenues are significantly reduced as all of this money gets sucked out of our communities. The federal government, state governments and local governments borrow gigantic piles of money to try to make up the difference, but all of this borrowing just makes our debt problems a whole lot worse. In the end, no amount of government debt is going to be able to cover over the fact that our national economic pie is shrinking. We are continually consuming far more wealth than we produce, and that is a recipe for economic disaster.

Save Your ASSets First

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

saveyourassetsfirst3

saveyourassetsfirst3

No comments:

Post a Comment

Links

Comments? Questions?