Wednesday, January 18, 2012

On Greek PSI - Headlines And Reality

The Greek PSI is once again (still) hitting the headlines. Here is what we think the most likely scenario is (80% likelihood). Some form of an agreement will be announced.  The IIF will announce that the “creditor committee has agreed in principle to a plan.”  That plan will need to be “formalized” and final agreement from the individual institutions on the committee and those that weren’t part of the committee will need to be obtained.  The headline will sound good, but will leave a month or so for details to come out.  In the meantime every European and EU leader (or employee) with a press contact will say what a great deal it is.  That it confirms that Europe is on the path of progress and that they are doing what they committed to at their summits. That will be the hype that will drive the market higher (or in fact has already done so). However, the reality (as we noted earlier in Einhorn's market madness chart) is that this still leaves hedge funds to acquiesce (unlikely) and furthermore focus will switch to Greece's actual debt sustaianability post-default (yes the d-word) and as we are seeing recently, Portugal will come into very sharp focus. If they cannot bribe and blackmail and threaten their way into something they call PSI, then we will see Greece stop making payments, and then the markets will get very ugly in a hurry.

 

 

Blackout Wednesday: The Time Has Come

[Ed. Note: Related.]
by Jeffrey Tucker, Whiskey and Gun Powder:
Wikipedia, that ever-evolving monument to human collaboration in the cause of global enlightenment, goes completely black [today], Wednesday, Jan. 18. The blackout is a choice, and a brilliant one, made by founder Jimmy Wales in consultation with the whole Wikipedia community. It is a protest, a statement, a symbolic warning to the world of what can happen if governments attack the free flow of information.
The online protest is directed, in particular, against two bills roiling around Congress right now, called SOPA in the House and PIPA in the Senate. Early versions have been tabled. The Obama administration has said that it opposes the current versions, but the opposition was weak and suspiciously nuanced.
Read More @ WhiskeyAndGunPowder.com




Our Exponential Debt System

by Chris Volke, GoldMoney.com:
Gold coins The word “debt crisis“ has made it into everyone’s vocabulary by now. People are talking about how we were “living beyond our means” and are debating how spending cuts, tax raises or some combination of the two could be used to salvage the situation. However, often times there is a gross misunderstanding about why there is so much debt in the first place and why it seems to constantly grow. Many people fail to see that growth within our current monetary system relies on exponential increases in debt.
To understand the debt crisis, you have to understand that in reality this is a “money crisis”. Let me explain this further.
Today, all money is created in the banking system. It originates from the central bank and is brought into existence by an extension of its balance sheet. This means that there it is a simple booking entry: new money on the liabilities side, and debt on the assets side. Yes that’s right: money is created through credit – which is nothing but a nice word for debt. In contrast to most of human history – where money has been a tangible asset with intrinsic value attached to it, such as gold and silver – today all dollars, euros, pounds and all other currencies are based on debt. This is taken on by governments, companies and private citizens all over the globe. Implicit in this is trust on the part of lenders that this debt will be repaid one day in the future.
Read More @ GoldMoney.com




More SC Senators Come Forward to Endorse Ron Paul for President






WSJ Economist: Ron Paul’s 0% Income Tax = Massive Insourcing of Jobs into America





SuperPAC Endorses Ron Paul, Raises $400,000





‘Congress Corrupt to Core’ – US Lobby Probe Scapegoat


 

All About The Pig

from TFMetalsReport.com:
Doesn’t it seem as if everything is at a bit of a standstill? Sure, the WOPRs are slowly churning away but there doesn’t seem to be any real conviction anywhere to drive markets higher or lower. Yes, there’s a lot of uncertainty about Europe but, for me, it all comes back to The Pig.
For neo-Turdites and as a refresher for everyone else, when we discuss The Pig, we do not mean…
Read More @ TFMetalsReport.com




New York Moves to Deploy Body Scanners on Street in Search for Guns

by Kurt Nimmo, InfoWars.com:
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly told CBS in New York his department is looking to deploy Terahertz Imaging Detection scanners on the street in the war on “illegal guns.”

Kelly said the scanners would be used in “reasonably suspicious circumstances” and intended to cut down on the number of stop-and-frisks on the street. So called stop-and-frisks are considered a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
New York City is largely a Second Amendment free zone. The city’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has said that citizens “acting outside of any governmental military effort” should not be allowed to protect themselves with firearms.
“The NYPD and Department of Defense are working together testing Terahertz Imaging Detection, a new way to get concealed illegal weapons off the streets,” CBS reports. Terahertz Imaging Detection measures energy radiating from the body up to 16 feet away and can detect anything blocking it.
Read More @ InfoWars.com




Sprott Physical Silver Trust Announces Follow-on Offering of Trust Units

from Finance.Yahoo.com:
TORONTO, ONTARIO — (Marketwire -01/17/12) – Sprott Physical Silver Trust (the “Trust”), a trust created to invest and hold substantially all of its assets in physical silver bullion and managed by Sprott Asset Management LP, announced today that it has launched a follow-on offering (the “Offering”) of transferable, redeemable units of the Trust (“Units”).
The Trust will use the net proceeds of the Offering to acquire physical silver bullion in accordance with the Trust’s objective and subject to the Trust’s investment and operating restrictions described in the prospectus related to the Offering. Under the trust agreement governing the Trust, the net proceeds of the Offering per Unit must be not less than 100% of the most recently calculated net asset value per Unit of the Trust prior to, or upon determination of, pricing of the Offering.
Read More @ Finance.Yahoo.com




Germany’s Fed Up and Getting Ready to Walk

by Graham Summers, GainsPainsCapital.com:
For months I’ve been warning that when push come to shove Germany will bail on the Euro.
The reasons for this are simple:
1) The German public and court system won’t stand for QE from the European Central Bank
2) Issuing Euro bonds goes against the German constitution
3) Germany has its own share of domestic problems with a REAL Debt to GDP ratio north of 200% and its banks needing tens of billions of Euros in new capital
All of these factors lead me to believe that Germany would refuse to be the ultimate backstop for the EU. You could also see Germany preparing the legislation to allow it to walk if it wanted to:
Read More @ GainsPainsCapital.com




Karl Denninger, Leverage

How Cheap Money Will Destroy the World
from FinancialSense.com:

Leverage is an essential part of the financial system, and when used properly it allows businesses to borrow funds to invest in growth and expansion, offers opportunities for reasonably priced housing, and much more. But current imbalances in the ways in which leverage is being used by the rich and powerful in the United States and abroad have led to an alarming situation that threatens to shake the global economy to its core.
In Leverage: How Cheap Money Will Destroy the World, well-known market commentator Karl Denninger literally follows the money, tracing the path it has taken through history and discovers a shocking truth—the power to control a nation’s purse strings is addictive, and when that power falls into the hands of only a select few, they will pull the levers of government and policy to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. History is littered with the stories of collapsed monetary systems, and in every case the debasement of the currency in question, and the disasters that followed, can be directly blamed on excessive leverage, deployed in ill-intentioned and fraudulent ways by the elite.
The current Great Recession is no exception to this rule. It was no accident, and the politicians and monied interests responsible knew that it was coming. Special interests and other influential individuals have always used leverage to enrich themselves while looting the population at large. Eventually the bill always comes due and then we all have to pay.
With Leverage in hand, we can avoid this disaster, and Denninger shows how. With practical, realistic ideas for fixing the financial system, devising sound energy policies, and more, the book stands between us and a debt we simply can’t afford.
Click Here to Listen to the Interview



The Central Bankers’ Illusion of Last Resort

by Rick Ackerman:
Although the stock market is unlikely to grind to a complete halt, it seems to be experiencing what could be called nervous paralysis. Yesterday, for instance, achieving a modest rally target at 1316.75 that we’ve been using for the E-Mini S&P should have been a piece of cake. In fact, buyers were unable to push the futures above 1302.50 before retreating into the close. This tedious undulation has repeated itself perhaps a dozen times since Christmas, and although stocks have trended timidly higher over that period, the total gain has amounted to no more than about 220 points for the Dow Industrials.
Read More @ RickAckerman.com




Gold Price Benefiting From QE Speculation

by Roman Baudzus, GoldMoney.com:
Fed meeting room Signs of a decelerating global economy will likely prompt central banks to take drastic new measures in terms of fiscal expansion. This is especially true for China, where GDP growth continues to slow. Market participants also suspect that the US Federal Reserve may be edging closer to announcing more quantitative easing, in an effort to help the economic recovery in America. This speculation has led to gains in the gold price, which climbed as high as $1,667 per troy ounce in trading yesterday – although it lost some of these gains later in the day. Nevertheless, this marked a new five-week price high which could open the way for more gains.
Besides the People’s Bank of China and the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England (BoE) is also expected to announce new quantitative easing measures soon. As the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) announced at the beginning of this week, the BoE is expected to extend its bond purchasing programme to £400 billion. This announcement caught the attention of market observers, as during the second half of 2011 the BoE already decided to extend its gilts purchasing programme from £200bn to £275bn. Economists expect the UK economy to be officially back in recession by the spring.
Read More @ GoldMoney.com




Spiralling Debt and the Fracture of the European Monetary System

by Bob Chapman, The International Forecaster via GoldSeek.com:
European politicians, bureaucrats, bankers and assorted other lose more and more credibility each day as we are inundated each day with more lies and deliberate misdirection regarding the course of financial events within the European Union.
The key to solving the debt crisis is Germany. The Greek debt crisis is worse today than it was two years ago. 65% of Germans want out of the euro zone and the euro and want to return to the Deutschemark, but for more than two years their political representatives have denied them that. Finally breaks in the political armor are beginning to appear. All efforts to fix the Greek problem have been futile. If the Federal Reserve hadn’t stepped into the breach a couple of weeks ago who could guess where things would be now. The CDU, Christian Democratic Union, Mrs. Merkel’s party is in serious trouble because she has operated in opposition to her own constituency in trying to keep the euro afloat, at the expense of her fellow Germans. That was duly reflected in the election this past year. In spite of banks having $1 trillion at their disposal those funds will last a year or so unless fractional banking is employed. Policymakers continue to convene, but continue to come up with little concrete policy. As we said in this publication more than two years ago and on Greek radio, television and in editorials that the only solution for Greece was default, a return to the drachma and for the Greeks to solve their problems on their own. Greek debt is unpayable and Greeks do not believe they should be responsible for it. Bankers and politicians caused these problems, not the man and woman on the street. This latest infusion of funds by the Fed should carry European banks this year through the trauma of Greece and perhaps others leaving the euro. The Ponzi scheme widens and deepens.
Read More @ GoldSeek.com





This Is America Today, Part I

by Gonzalo Lira:
A true story: A fifty-ish woman I know was diagnosed with breast cancer. Dutifully, she and her husband contacted their insurance company to start the process of paying for her medical bills.
But lo and behold, the insurance company started dragging its feet—then tried to claim the woman’s breast cancer was a “pre-existing condition”.
That she had breasts in fact was a “pre-existing condition”—a “pre-existing condition” she had had since she was fourteen.
But the cancer? That was brand new.
Read More @ GonzaloLira.Blogspot.com




Nigel Farage: Fiscal Union Treaty to be Forced Through Without Referendums









World Bank Warns Emerging Nations to Prepare For Slump

The World Bank warned developing countries on Wednesday to prepare for the “real” risk that an escalation in the euro area debt crisis could tip the world into a slump on a par with the global downturn in 2008/09.
by Reuters, Telegraph.co.uk:
In a report sharply cutting its world economic growth expectations, the World Bank said Europe was probably already in recession. If the euro area debt crisis deepened, global economic forecasts would be significantly lower.
“The sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone appears to be contained,” Justin Lin, the chief economist for the World Bank, told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday.
“However, the risk of a global freezing-up of the markets and as well as a global crisis similar to what happened in September 2008 are real.”
The World Bank predicted world economic growth of 2.5pc in 2012 and 3.1pc in 2013, well below the 3.6pc growth for each year projected in June.
“We think it is now important to think through not only slower growth but sharp deteriorations, as a prudent measure,” said Hans Timmer, director of development prospects at the bank.
Read More @ Telegraph.co.uk




Who Rules America: Power Elite Analysis and American History

by Charles A. Burris, LewRockwell.com:
Power Elite Analysis (also called Libertarian Class Analysis or Establishment Studies) is a theme I have repeatedly stressed at LRC to understand both present-day and past historical events. Knowledge is power. Empower yourself by learning about Power Elite Analysis and how it impacts specifically upon the welfare-warfare state and the parasitical elites which benefit from this leviathan within our midst.
In July of 2010, Angelo Codevilla’s magnificent manifesto, “The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It” was published initially online in The American Spectator (and later in book form). It immediately went viral on the Internet and started a widespread national conversation about America’s hubristic power elite and the arrogant way they reign over the rest of us.
When Codevilla’s article appeared I stated that it was the most important essay I had ever read. I still believe this because it is a superb synthesis of class analysis with keen insights on contemporary power elite relationships regarding today’s rulers and the ruled.
This class division of present-day America into two factions, Court and Country, has absolutely nothing to do with any Marxian view or analysis. It is a reaffirmation of the seminal insights of Bernard Bailyn’s Pulitzer Prize winning volume, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, and Murray N. Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty.
Read More @ LewRockwell.com




Can Ron Paul Win as a Third Party Candidate?

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com:

In a new poll, out yesterday, 7 out of 10 Republicans and right leaning independent voters believe Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee for President. (Click here for that poll.) Does that mean it’s over for Congressman Ron Paul? I think it is safe to say it is probably a long shot he will be the Republican nominee, but what about a third party run? Can Ron Paul win as a third party candidate? I say that is much less of a long shot, and here’s why.
Let me first say, Dr. Paul has repeatedly said that he has no interest in running as a third party candidate. I do not know (or have talked to) anyone in his campaign. This is my objective analysis and nothing more. Ron Paul as a third party candidate would be much different than the third party candidates of the past. Conservative presidential candidate Ross Perot of the 1992 and 1996 elections predominantly took votes away from the Republican candidates. In 1992, national exit polls had Perot splitting the Republican and Democrat vote equally, but it was not split equally in every state. (Click here for more on this.) A president is voted in by winning each state’s Electoral College votes. It’s a winner take all game, so every state gives a certain number to the winner of each state. Also, Perot spent millions hammering Bush in the 1992 primaries; so, Perot mostly had a negative effect on the Republicans. The ultra-liberal Ralph Nader’s third party campaign in 2000 took votes away from Al Gore, the Democrat. More than 97,000 voted for Nader in Florida alone. Gore would have easily won the election and Florida if Nader would have not run.
Read More @ USAWatchdog.com





112 Questions To Ask Yourself In 2012

from The Economic Collapse Blog:

The beginning of each year is a great time to evaluate the direction of your life and to ask yourself some very important questions. Often we get so busy just living life that we lose our perspective. It is important for each of us to take time once in a while to reassess how our lives are going. It is also important for all of us to reassess the direction that our nation is heading in every so often. The truth is that America has gotten badly off track. We have abandoned the principles which once made this country great, and this country is literally falling apart all around us. Hopefully the questions below will not just get you focused on our problems. Hopefully they will also spur you to think about solutions. Both individually and as a nation, we are in a lot of trouble. We need to start asking better questions and we need to rediscover the things that once made America the greatest nation on earth. If we are willing to humble ourselves and change course then there is hope for us. If not, then the road that we are currently on will only lead to national disaster.
The following are 112 questions to ask yourself in 2012….
Read More @ TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com




Global Systemic Crisis – 2012: The Year of the World’s Great Geopolitical Swing

from Europe2020.org:

This GEAB issue makes it six years that the LEAP/E2020 team have shared their anticipations with their subscribers and readers of their public briefing on the development of the global systemic crisis each month. And, for the first time, in the January issue which presents a summary of our anticipations for the year to come, our team anticipates a year which will not result solely in a worsening of the world crisis but which will also be characterized by the emergence of the first constructive elements of the “world after the crisis” to use Franck Biancheri’s phrase from his book « The World Crisis: The Path to the World Afterwards ».
According to LEAP/E2020, 2012 will in fact be the year of the world’s great geopolitical swing: a phenomenon which will without any doubt be the bearer of serious difficulties for most of the planet but which will also allow the emergence of geopolitical conditions favourable to an improvement of the situation in the years to come. Contrary to the previous years, 2012 will not be a “wasted” year, stuck in the “world before the crisis”, through lack of audacity, initiative and imagination on the part of the world’s leaders and because of people’s great passivity since the beginning of the crisis.
Read More @ Europe2020.org




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