FLASH: China knows about gold price suppression, and U.S. knows China knows

Submitted by cpowell on Sat, 2011-09-03 23:59. Section: Daily Dispatches

6:47p ET Saturday, September 3, 2011
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

China knows that the U.S. government and its allies in Western Europe strive to suppress the price of gold, and the U.S. government knows that China knows, according to a 2009 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to the State Department in Washington.

Is The FHFA Lawsuit Against The Banks Just A Subversive Res Judicata To Bail Out The Banks?

That Zero Hedge has a jaded outlook on the world is pretty much clear by now. But even our cynicism is amateur hour compared to that exhibited by some of our readers. Below we present one outlook by reader Joseph, on how the FHFA "lawsuit" against the banks, a development that as we noted before stinks to high heaven from a purely (lack of ) logical standpoint, could be nothing less than Res Judicata in sheep's clothing, whose purpose is simply to facilitate the case for QE (banks tumble), then settlement of the settlement (banks soar), but not before the crony communists have built up a solid equity position in the names, QE3 is firmly in place, and Obama is seen as the crusader against the hated banks. Is it possible? Who knows. We will find out as the affidavits start trickling in.

 

Things That Make You Go Hmmm.... Such As The Brent-WTI Disconnect And Why It Is So Sticky

Earlier today Jim Quinn rhetorically asked why the price of oil hasn't collapsed despite the contraction in the global economy. Well, in a completely unrelated letter, Grant Williams of Things That Make You Go Hmmm, answers not only the question of why Brent and WTI continue to disconnect (must read for anyone interested in the oil market), but also Grant's underlying quandary (as rhetorical as it may be): "As stock markets plummeted in August, one thing that was noticeable was the resilience of both ‘the oil price’ (in the shape of Brent Crude, of course) and that of copper - two bellwether indicators of any slowdown in growth that can be relied upon to flash signals when a recession is nigh. To be sure, the data reported in August was dreadful. In the US we saw a slew of appalling regional manufacturing reports, (the Philly Fed and Empire numbers could genuinely be described as ‘shock- ers’), shattered consumer confidence numbers and rising inflation all topped off with a big fat goose egg in the NFP report last Friday, while in Europe, as the periphery continued to confirm just how week their economies continue to be, the real shocks came from the region’s perennial powerhouse economy, Germany. So why doesn’t ‘the oil price’ reflect this likelihood? Simple: 1. China has a LOT of paper money and is happy to swap it for hard assets that it knows will ulti- mately be far more beneficial in the long run as Western governments continue to debase their currencies. 2. Western governments continue to debase their currencies."

Guest Post: Where Is Our Oil Price Collapse?

Americans pay 43 cents in taxes out of the $3.70 they pay at the pump for a gallon of gasoline. A driver in the UK is paying $4 per gallon in taxes out of the $9 per gallon cost. Gasoline costs between $8 and $9 per gallon across Europe today. The extreme level of gas taxes certainly reduces car sizes, consumption and traffic. Too bad the mad socialists across Europe spent the taxes on expanding their welfare states and promising even more to their populations. Maybe a $6 per gallon tax will do the trick. Forcing Americans to drive less by doubling the gas tax is a quaint idea, but it is too late in the game. Europe is still made up of small towns and cities with the populations still fairly consolidated. Biking, walking and small rail travel is easy and feasible. The sprawling suburban enclaves that proliferate across the American countryside, dotted by thousands of malls and McMansion communities, accessible only by automobiles, make it impossible to implement a rational energy efficient model for moving forward. We cannot reverse 60 years of irrationality. Even without higher gas taxes, the price of gasoline will move relentlessly higher due to the stealth tax of currency debasement.

Another Crushing Regional Election Defeat For Merkel, As Ruling CDU Gets Record Low Vote

One of the recurring themes on Zero Hedge ever since the announcement of the EFSF is that in addition to onboarding contagion fears by transferring financial risk from the PIIGS to itself, Germany's ruling party, and particularly Frau Chancellor Merkel, has been on the receiving end of ever increasing popular anger at putting German wealth at risk in order to rescue lying, thieving countries like Greece and Italy, which have proven beyond a reasonable doubt, they will do none of the fiscal reforms demanded of them, yet promise the world in exchange for yet another bailout tranche, or more ECB-backstopped purchases of their debt (even Sean Corrigan would be proud of that sentence). Sure enough, today we get the latest confirmation that as national elections loom ever closer, as does the specter of a government crisis following the EFSF expansion vote some time in late September (it is fluid), the ruling CDU continues to take on water. Per Reuters: "Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right bloc suffered another defeat on Sunday in a regional election in Germany's poorest state, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, with both her conservatives and their Free Democrat allies losing support. A first projection by the ARD network at 1615 GMT showed Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) falling to 24 percent from the 28.8 percent won in the sparsely populated state on the Baltic shore in 2006. It was the CDU's worst result ever there."

Doug Casey on the Continuance of the Greater Depression and the Brighter Prospects for Gold

Sunday, September 04, 2011 – with Anthony Wile

Doug Casey
The Daily Bell is pleased to present an exclusive interview with Doug Casey (left).
Introduction: Doug Casey has appeared on hundreds of radio and TV shows, and has been the subject of articles in People, US, Time, Forbes, The Washington Post, and numerous other publications. For nearly three decades, Doug Casey and his team have been correctly predicting major budding trends in the overall economy and commodity markets.
Daily Bell: Welcome, Doug. Let's jump right in. Are you still convinced we are heading into a "Greater Depression"?
Doug Casey: Yes. There is no question in my mind about that. Governments all over the world have created trillions of currency units since 2007 in the mistaken idea that it would create prosperity. The Americans – but also the Europeans, the Chinese and others – have papered things over for the short run mainly by inflating the stock markets, artificially depressing interest rates, and slowing the fall of the real estate market. All that extra currency has made people think they're richer than they are, and has encouraged extra consumption – which is a large part of the problem. Now they're out of bullets.
We are coming out of the eye of the hurricane and it's going to be much, much more serious than it was in 2007, 2008 and 2009. That's because all those currency units they created are causing tremendous price rises on the retail level. It's going to be devastating for the average guy.
Daily Bell: How long do you expect it will take before there is a complete breakdown in confidence of the US dollar?
Read More

Corporations, Mining Stocks and Speculation

Saturday, September 03, 2011 – by Anthony Wile

Anthony Wile Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) has had a good deal to say recently about corporations and corporatism. He detailed his views most recently on an Alex Jones radio program and the points he made, especially about the lack of corporate accountability, are important ones.
We've run several articles on the evolution of corporations here at the DB, though not specifically from a mining angle. The trouble is when writing about the evils of corporations, it's easy to end up sounding like a 1960s hippy railing about the establishment.
But corporations as a manifestation of power elite societal control, are an undeniable resource, a powerful instrument. They are surely NOT a manifestation of the free market, for they have been developed judicially and would not exist within a true free market.
What would exist in such a free market? Ownership, pure and simple. Ownership by individuals, partners or groups. But in every case, the responsibility for corporate malfeasance would reside SOMEWHERE. Someone would be in charge. Presumably the one making the decisions.
Contrast this to our current disease of corporatism where those who make the decisions and benefit from them are able to hide behind the corporate veil, often obscured from the results of their decisions and the ramifications.
Read More

Wall Street Banks: Too Big To Be Accountable For The Subprime Crisis?

Posted by: EconMatters

Post date: 09/04/2011 - 12:09

If history is any indication, the most likely outcome of the FHFA suits against some of the biggest banks on Wall Street could be settlements without admitting guilt.   

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