Friday, November 9, 2012

Exclusive: Bank Of England To The Fed: "No Indication Should, Of Course, Be Given To The Bundesbank..."


"Recently, Johnson Matthey have put 172 “bad delivery” U.S. Assay Office bars into good delivery form for account of the Deutsche Bundesbank. These bars formed part of recent shipments by the Federal Reserve Bank to provide gold in London in repayment of swaps with the Bundesbank. The out-turn of the re-melting showed a loss in fine ounces terms four times greater than the gross weight loss... No indication should, of course, be given to the Bundesbank, or any other central bank holder of U.S. bars, as to the refiner’s views on them."
May 1968

Gold And The Potential Dollar Endgame

Economists the world over can take comfort that the laws of supply and demand still largely rule the marketplace. However, we believe there is a noted exception for a yellow, largely useless metal. A metal that just happens to have shaped the world’s monetary systems for the last several thousand years. Gold’s “supply” traditionally defined as global mining production is virtually meaningless in determining its’ price. How can this be? Gold, even when viewed as a commodity, is unique in that it is not consumed. Rather than supply in the traditional sense, what drives the gold price is the percentage of the existing stock (170,000 tons) that is available for sale on any given day. Gold, in our opinion is what is often referred to as a Giffen good. We believe that a massive revaluation of gold denominated in dollars can happen quite suddenly, almost overnight. But not because of any sustained long term demand for gold, but simply because owners of metal simply withdraw it from sale, sending the stock to flow ratio to infinity. This is why understanding gold’s stock to flow ratio is so vital. What happens to the “price” of gold when it ceases bidding for dollars? Zero. Or infinity. Take your pick.

Ann Barnhardt: The Economy Is Going To Implode Pt.1 of 8 

from AnnBarnhardt:


Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8


US Set to Restage Greek Tragedy


The US has finally voted and the dark visions of America’s future broadcast on television screens across the country — and most intensively in battleground states — have come to an end. Supporters of both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney had developed doomsday scenarios for what would happen if their candidate’s opponent were to win. Four more years of Obama, the ads warned, would result in pure socialism. A Romney presidency would see the middle and lower classes brutally exploited.
Read More @ Spiegel.de

The LITERAL End of the Road: A $5 Trillion Shortfall for Public Pensions

by Philip Moeller, Yahoo Finance:
As strapped state and local governments scramble for ways to balance their budgets, it’s become very clear that it will be impossible for many to honor their pension promises to new employees and even current retirees. According to a recent economic study, the cost to fully fund these promises would cost taxpayers $5 trillion over a 30-year period, or nearly $1,400 a year in higher state and local taxes and fees for every household in the country.
Put another way, contributions to pay for public employees’ retirement benefits now total 5.7 percent a year of all state and local taxes, fees, and other government charges. “Government contributions to state and local pension systems must rise to 14.1 percent” to produce fully funded pension systems, the study said, and it will take 30 years to get there.
Read More @ Finance.Yahoo.com

Jim Willie: Hong Kong For Gold Storage – New World Trade Payment System

from FinancialSurvivalNetwork.com:
According to Jim Willie, gold, far from being a barbarous relic, is about to resume its historical role as the main pillar of the world’s monetary system. China, Russia and Germany are looking forward to the day when the dollar loses its primacy and a new system is crafted to restore stability, and to facilitate world trade. Jim has numerous highly placed sources around the world’s financial system. They’re all telling him that a new trading system will be implemented as soon as the dollar hits its nadir. And when it comes to storing your gold, Jim believes there’s only one place you should consider: Hong Kong. He feels that HK’s business ethics are the world’s highest, and that Mainland China is intent on keeping it free and prosperous.
CLICK HERE FOR AUDIO INTERVIEW

The Most Important Chart To Consider For The Weekend (Or Tom Lee's Nightmare)

Sometimes, it just pays to keep it simple stupid. At some point, the dismal economic reality of our post-credit-creation-miracle boom world will reassert itself in asset prices. The catalyst may not be obvious (like a close-election reminding a nation of sheep just how divided we are as a people and implicitly as a political class - and what that means for our future fiscal probity); but it is coming. 'Cycles' cycle; the Fed has fired its bazooka; and OMT omnipotence is in doubt;and the only way we get 'moar money' from our central planners is if their hand is forced by a reversion to reality...

Meet Alex - The Real 'Not Lazy Bastard' Greek


While Mr. Panos has often been used as the poster boy for the Greek people, his shortened premise is - we will keep taking the Europeans money until they no longer want to give it to us. In the meantime, the Greek people have suffered due to the previous largesse of their government and need for a 'reversion' to the mean of their relative wealth. The following brief clip offers some insight (or defense) of who the real man-on-the-street is in Greece. Not the media's interpretation of a lazy, cheating, ungrateful, helpless, corrupt, violent, rude, racist, tax-evading, trouble-making thieving vandal - that lives with his mother; but a scapegoat for all that is wrong in Europe and remains shocked, confused, frustrated, and upset. It's someone's fault, right? Why not Alex?

Worst Week In 5 Months For Stocks

Cash equity markets closed the day very marginally in the green - ending the worst week in over five months. S&P 500 futures are bleeding red after-hours as we note significant volume came in after the President began speaking - from which we closed down 1%. Cross-asset correlations were extremely high today as it seemed all about equities (and equities were all about AAPL). Credit markets (and volatility) were not enjoying the morning party as much as stocks but by the close equities reverted back down to reality. Gold remains the week's big winner (post-election) but we note that 10Y yields fell from over 1.75% into the election to under 1.60% at their lows today. The USD ended the week +0.6% and Treasury yields down 10-15bps. AAPL gained 1.75% (phew) but traded extremely technically with heavy volume around VWAP into the close which helped Tech slightly outperform Financials on the week (-2.5% vs -3.1%). A day of technical bounces and all eyes on stocks...

The Sh*t Always Hits the Fan Before Real Change Occurs

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 1 hour ago
Anyone investing in the gold (&silver) must accept the following: The gold market is managed. There's a difference between managed and controlled. Those that cannot recognize its management should not trade it. Investing and trading gold are not the same. The message of the market is the only "truth" that matters. Everything else is assumed COMPLETE bullshit unless proven... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
 

Rising Consumer Expectations Bullish (Really Bullish) For Gold

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 6 hours ago
Rising "confidence" is not bearish for gold long-term. Strong negative correlation between gold and consumer expectations during secular bull market phases debunks this well-traveled inference. The price of gold will accelerate to the upside when confidence finally cracks to the downside. The current setup 'smells' a lot like 1976. If you believe I'm full of it, ask Jim. He... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] 
 

Avoiding The Fiscal Cliff = QE To Infinity

Dave in Denver at The Golden Truth - 7 hours ago
*There is no reason to expect that renewed efforts at federal budget deficit reduction will result in anything more than the usual smoke and mirrors, further increasing, not reducing, long-term U.S. sovereign-solvency risk. In reality, the U.S. economy has not recovered, and no recovery is pending. Consumer liquidity remains severely impaired, and broad business activity continues to falter anew. As a result. the actual federal budget deficit going forward will be much worse than the relatively rosy numbers being used as the basis for government negotiations*- John Williams, www... more » 

Home Gardening Bad! CIA Drug Running Good?

from TheAlexJonesChannel:

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is using drug money to fund Rafael Correa’s opposition in the coming 2013 Ecuadorian elections, intelligence sources have revealed to Chilean independent media. The accusations do not stand alone. In October, former UK diplomat Craig Murray said that the CIA had tripled its budget to destabilize the government of Ecuador.
The allegations were made public by President Rafael Correa on November 3rd on national television, just days after his official visit to Chile to meet with President Sebastian Piñera.


Mayor Mike … Technocracy Is ‘The Bomb’

from The Daily Bell:

Mayor Bloomberg Signs Emergency to Establish Odd-Even License Plate System for Gasoline Purchases to Reduce Wait Times … Mayor Bloomberg today signed an emergency order to establish an odd-even license plate system for gasoline and diesel purchases to reduce wait times and lines at gas stations in the five boroughs. Hurricane Sandy caused significant flooding and damage to petroleum infrastructure throughout the tri-state region – causing refineries to shutdown, pumping stations to lose electricity and terminals in the region to close. – Mike Bloomberg.com
Dominant Social Theme: When there is a crisis, it’s a good thing for the government to step in.
Free-Market Analysis: This isn’t the biggest story in the world but it is one with clear power elite memes. The dominant social theme obviously has to do with the need for government, the larger the better. The subdominant social theme is that oil is in short supply generally and needs to be rationed at the first sign of a crisis.
It’s always irritating to see “Mayor Mike” inflict his peculiar brand of technocratic crackpot-ism on New York City. Few realize it, but New York IS being run in a technocratic way.
Read More @ TheDailyBell.com

Mike Maloney on the Fiscal Cliff and the “Holy Sh*t” Demographic Bankrupting America!

from Capital Account:

Bloomberg reports UK prosecutors are ready to arrest former traders and rate setters at UBS, RBS, and Barclays for questioning over their role in the Libor scandal. We ask Michael Maloney, founder of Gold-Silver.com, if the larger crime is not LIBOR manipulation, but the ongoing war against the price mechanism itself through reckless central banks and fiscally irresponsible governments.
Also, today House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama outlined plans for reducing the national debt, setting the stage for a contentious debate over the Fiscal Cliff. This morning Boehner announced “I outlined a responsible path forward to avert the fiscal cliff without raising tax rates.” Meanwhile, a few hours later, Obama told reporters “If we’re serious about reducing the deficit, we have to combine spending cuts with revenue. That means asking the wealthy to pay a little more in taxes.” It seems politicians are nowhere near reaching a compromise anytime soon. Would it be so bad if the US fell off the Fiscal Cliff? According to a new Congressional Budget Office report the impact from going over the fiscal cliff would be recession in the US economy next year and an increase in the jobless rate from 7.9 to 9.1 percent by the end of 2013. A deal to avert this would mean a deficit of 503 billion dollars higher than it would otherwise have been in fiscal year 2013. We talk to Mike Maloney of Gold Silver about what the Fiscal Cliff would entail for the long term picture of the US economy, and if going off the cliff could at least be a wake-up call for politicians to do something at long last.

“Renounce citizenship” is now one of the fastest growing search terms in Google

by Simon Black, Sovereign Man :

According to Google’s trend analysis, keyword searches for terms like “renounce citizenship” have soared in the past week.
Is it any wonder? Millions of people are disconcerted, dismayed, or outright disgusted at President Obama’s victory, and they sense a continued decline of civil liberties and economic opportunities.
The frustration and apprehension is understandable. I can’t begin to tell you how many emails we’ve received over the last few days, mostly from US citizens who reached their breaking points, asking “where can I get a second passport?”
Read More @ SovereignMan.com

Fear Pushing Investors Back to Gold

The post U.S. election recovery in the gold price is yet another sign that the ‘fear trade’ is beginning to impact the gold market as investors seek safe havens again.
by Lawrence Williams, MineWeb.com
Gold’s price pattern since the results of the U.S. Presidential election has been an interesting one. Most analysts had predicted that gold would rise if President Obama retained his position, and now other factors have come into play – perhaps most noticeably that the post-election nervousness about the path of the U.S. economy, coupled with no end in sight to the Eurozone problems (indeed things appear to be getting worse with expectations that the Eurozone is heading for recession – including mighty Germany).
What had been surprising about the path of the gold price through the past year or so is that it often fell back on poor global economic news when the old safe haven arguments for the yellow metal might have been thought to come increasingly into play.
Read More @ MineWeb.com

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Millions of GMO Mosquitoes Released Without Risk Assessment or Oversight

by Barbara H. Peterson, Farm wars:

Look out people of planet earth, genetically engineered bugs are here. Just in case you haven’t figured it out yet, our technocracy is working ever diligently on genetically engineering every last living cell on the planet – WITHOUT EXCEPTION. What does this mean for life here on earth? Ever hear the expression “soup sandwich?” Well, after these “scientific” geniuses are through with us, that is exactly what all life will be – a genetic soup sandwich, made in a lab, and stamped with a corporate logo embedded in our DNA.
If the following report from Testbiotech doesn’t send chills up your spine, I don’t know what will. Get ready world, because nothing will ever be the same. Ever. There is no remediation technique available to clean up genetically engineered mutations released into the wild and spread through horizontal gene transfer.
Read More @ FarmWars.info

Down the Debt Drain

by Dan Steinhart, Daily Reckoning.com.au:
Finally, the voters have spoken…the bastards!
The US has too much debt. This is no longer a controversial statement. Some may believe other problems are more urgent, or that we need to grow our way out rather than slash spending. But even the most spendthrift pundits acknowledge that the debt-to-GDP ratio of the US must decrease if we are to have a stable, prosperous economy.
The private sector has reacted to this over-indebted reality as you would expect: by deleveraging. Since 2008, households and businesses have extinguished 67% of their debt when measured against GDP. Some paid debt down purposefully, and others defaulted. For our purposes, it doesn’t matter how the debt went away. Only that it did.
Meanwhile, the government has done the exact opposite. It has upped its own borrowing by 52% of GDP since 2008.
Read More @ DailyReckoning.com.au

The Die Is Cast; There Is No Longer ANY Doubt.

by David Schectman, MilesFranklin.com:
I took Susan to see Flight with Denzel Washington this afternoon.  It’s a great movie and he is a wonderful actor.  After we stopped at Grill On The Alley, one of our favorite restaurants here in Aventura.  We sat at the bar and had dinner and a drink.  Somehow, it always seems to happen because Susan is so very friendly and social, I ended up in a conversation with two older ladies, and one of them said she had all of her money in tax-free bonds.  I gave her a very clear explanation of why that was not a good idea NOW.  With the dollar debasement and inflation that is about to sink us, the last thing anyone needs is to have all of their money in bonds, any kind of bonds, or annuities too for that matter, if denominated in dollars.  The poor old lady was frozen, like a deer in the headlights.  She heard what I had to say and maybe even agreed with it, but people just refuse to change.  Old habits die hard.
Then a man named Mustafa joined in.  He said he taught a class on credit card and debt reduction and he was overheard what I had to say.  He was educated, bright and totally misguided.  He felt taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor was the right thing to do.  He felt that debt doesn’t matter.  I asked him, “If debt doesn’t matter, why doesn’t the government send every American one million dollars.  Wouldn’t we all be better off?  He had no answer.
Read More @ MilesFranklin.com

The Dumb Money Hates Silver; Why It’s Time To Go Long The Metal


Speculators hate silver… For the past year, the positive silver headlines have been few and far between.Ever since the poor man’s gold peaked near $50 in April of last year, it’s become a despised metal.
Admittedly, it’s been languishing near $27 since early May not far from where it was for the first time – in this bull market – back in late 2010.
But as I’ll show you, right now a number of technical, seasonal, and sentiment indicators are pointing upwards for this volatile metal.
Read More @ SilverBearCafe.com

Less Than 24 hours After the Election, Obama Administration Backs UN Gun Control

from Off Grid Survival:
Less than 24 hours after President Obama’s reelection, it looks like he may be making good on his promise to curb gun rights. According to Reuters, President Obama has backed the U.N.’s attempts to reopen the UN arms treaty talks which would control and regulate the sale of firearms at an international level.
The month-long talks at U.N. headquarters broke off last July after the Obama administration, in what now looks like was only done for political reelection purposes, decided to pull out of the draft treaty. But only hours after his reelection, the Obama administration signaled that they would be rejoining talks and threw their support behind the gun control measure.
Read More @ OffGridSurvival.com

In The News Today


You can lose wealth, and you can regain it, but you can lose freedom only once. –Ueli Maurer, Defense Minister, member of the Swiss Federal Council

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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

Oh well, so much for the Bank of England suspension of monetization and new conservative approaches. That took about 3 minutes after MSM disinformation.

The Bank of England has just crossed the line into straight government financing By Jeremy Warner Economics Last updated: November 9th, 2012
So now we know why the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee called a halt to more Quantitative Easing this week – it’s because the Chancellor and the Governor of the Bank of England have concocted a backdoor way of doing the same thing.
The latest little (actually quite big at a tidy £35bn) money printing wheeze comes about as close to outright monetising of government spending as it is possible for the Bank of England to go without simply creating the money and handing it by the lorry load to the Treasury, a la Weimar.
What the Treasury has decided to do is take the accumulated interest payments on the stock of government debt the Bank of England has bought under quantitative easing, and credit it to the Government’s books rather than the Bank of England’s. The total is £35bn, of which the government intends to take £11bn this financial year and £24bn next.
This obviously helps the deficit in these two years quite a lot, creating space, should the Chancellor wish to take it, to ease back a little on the fiscal squeeze. For instance, he might choose to take the shadow Chancellor’s advice and further delay a scheduled increase in fuel duties. It also makes it easier for Mr Osborne to meet his fiscal mandate of eliminating the structural deficit within five years. Even the supplementary target of falling debt as a percentage of GDP by the end of the parliament – the one which City forecasters now widely believe Osborne will miss without further austerity – is marginally benefited by the latest piece of sleight of hand. It’s as if Osborne has died and been reborn as Gordon Brown, who famously manipulated his own fiscal rules to destruction.
The Government excuses its actions by saying that it is only bringing itself into line with practice in Japan and the US, the other major economies to be practicing substantial QE right now. It might also be argued that to the extent the European Central Bank indulges in bond purchases, it practices something quite similar too.
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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

Even if regulators, by some miracle, wanted to regulate, they do not stand a chance against the mega-bucks legal counsels for the banksters.

CME Group sues to freeze CFTC swap reporting rules By Basil Katz
NEW YORK | Thu Nov 8, 2012 10:39pm EST

Nov 8 (Reuters) – Exchange operator CME Group asked a U.S. court on Thursday to prevent the chief U.S. derivatives regulator from enforcing swap reporting rules passed after the 2008 financial crisis.
Thursday’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington D.C., is the third industry challenge to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in its history.
In the lawsuit, CME asks that a judge issue an injunction that would prevent the CFTC from enforcing the rules against the exchange when they come into effect for it on Nov. 13.
By adopting the rules, "the CFTC acted in a manner that was arbitrary and capricious and otherwise not in accordance with law", the lawsuit said.
CME, specifically, is challenging the requirement that exchanges make available non public reports of cleared swap transactions to new CFTC-registered entities called "swap data repositories" (SDRs) which would in turn make the swap data available to the CFTC.
"CME incurs substantial costs in terms of time, personnel, technological infrastructure, and money to maintain these data in the ordinary course of business," the lawsuit said.
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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

To understand the real political process please consider this illustration.
Who is elected is only to please the masses. It is a circus for the sheeplez.


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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

Problems become predicaments. Putin apparently plans to checkmate US efforts both in the economic and military sense.
Let us see if Euroland moves more towards Russia and China and away from the USA.

Russia’s Defense Spending Surges As U.S. Cuts
Doctrine calls for protecting citizens ‘wherever they may be’
by F. MICHAEL MALOOF
WASHINGTON – Moscow is to increase its annual defense spending by 59 percent by 2015 as it attempts to modernize its military – while the United States looks to ways to downside in the face of major spending cuts, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
Increased spending reflects the latest in Russia’s military doctrine that is meant to address its security strategy and what it defines as threats to the homeland. Among the five points outlined by then-Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev – called the Medvedev Doctrine – Russian defense doctrine calls for protecting its citizens “wherever they may be.”
“Our foreign policy decisions will be based on this need,” Medvedev said. “We will also protect the interests of our business community abroad. It should be clear to all that we will respond to any aggressive act committed against us.”
One element in redefining its regional and global outlook is Russia’s new doctrine in not accepting the monopoly the United States has over the global system. This also includes not accepting the Western alliance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to barge in on its regional area of influence.
Russia is expected to concentrate its modernization efforts in command and control structures and the ability to project its conventional forces within its regional area of influence, designed primarily to project Russia itself while relying more on its nuclear arsenal to thwart attempts to gain influence by other countries.
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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

Because there is a good reason. Even with FASB allowed crap paper to be valued at any level the financial institution desires, the financial institution cannot meet the liquid requirements.

Fed Delays Basel III Bank Capital Rules By Ronald D. Orol
Published November 09, 2012

WASHINGTON –  U.S. regulators on Friday agreed to delay indefinitely the effective date of a global agreement on greater bank capital buffers known as Basel III. The Federal Reserve and two other bank regulators introduced a proposal in June to implement the global agreement that suggested an effective date for institutions to comply of Jan. 1. However, the regulators agreed that "due to the wide range of views" expressed by interested institutions and others that a delay was necessary. They did not provide a substitute effective date for the rules, arguing that they are "working as expeditiously as possible to complete" them. The agreement is being implemented in response to the financial crisis of 2008. Other international agencies have delayed implementation of bank rules.
More…

 

Jim’s Mailbox


Jim,

Here we go again, just like Katrina. FEMA wheels in the trailers and housing starts and home sales are magically boosted! They should save one for Petraeus. Looks like he belongs in that kind of neighborhood, or certainly will after his wife’s attorney finishes with him. Where do the lies stop?
CIGA Kevin

Dear Kevin,

The New Normal has its foundation in a pile of bullsh*t. We need a second coming or Moses back to drive these demons out of the grand temple once known as the USA.
I think Petraeus wanted out so bad that a female CIA operative played a role to give him plausible denial. If everything seems ok with his wife and he does not get booted out of his home, this was a black operation for the boss of the CIA. Neat trick in my opinion as another older soldier just fades away.
Jim

FEMA to use manufactured housing in Sandy zones By ALICIA A. CALDWELL | Associated Press – 22 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government is moving manufactured housing into areas in New York and New Jersey that were hit hardest by Superstorm Sandy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday.
FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said the disaster relief agency has several hundred mobile homes in its inventory of emergency supplies and has started moving some of them to disaster zone. He said it is unclear yet if FEMA will need to order more of the temporary homes.
Officials still don’t know "what total demand would be," Fugate told reporters.
Forty prefabricated homes were en route from a staging area in Maryland to a staging area in New Jersey, FEMA officials said. State officials in New Jersey and New York will decide where the houses will be placed, federal officials said.
Since the storm hit last week, more than 317,000 people have registered with FEMA for financial help and the agency has approved more than $300 million in emergency aid. In New York and New Jersey, FEMA has determined that more than 101,000 people are eligible for temporary housing at hotels or motels in the region but it’s unclear exactly how many people are taking advantage of that option.
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Jim,
I have worked with fault tolerant computer systems for 31 years. All major computer systems replicate data in real time to remote backup facilities. Discs and high bandwidth data transmissions are cheap. Lost data is very expensive. By the time an ATM says "complete," the transaction is safely stored on two or more computer systems that are far apart and well protected. Annual live drills ensure that the backup systems are fully functional. It is unlikely to the extreme that more than a handful of certificates (or at least a scan or journal entry) would be lost in any disaster short of major nuclear war.
But let no crisis go unexploited. Maybe they can sweep the large amount of perennial Failures To Deliver which presumably represent activity of massive naked shorts.
CIGA RSP


Jim,
I found this commentary surprising. Is it because the Fed are making up the results?
CIGA Alex

Headline – Fed To Give Failing Stress Test Banks Second Chance
"Despite requests and complaints by banks, the Fed won’t share its models on how loans and securities perform through the stress scenario. The Fed expects banks to develop their own risk management plans and not copy those of the central bank."

Alex,

That is it but in truth thanks to FASB they all would fail because they have market worthless paper.
Jim

US Stock Market and Gold Headed in 2013 Despite Fiscal Cliff CIGA Alex
Politicians guided by their crisis playbooks should produce yet another (half-ass) solution that kicks the can only as far as the next election.  This leaves central banks (including the Fed) as the main economic problem solvers until 2016.  This means liquidity, liquidity, and more liquidity.
Jim is correct to suggest that
The end result of this on other central banks will be to increase stimulus by orders of magnitude
The US stock market and gold should see new highs 2013 despite the "fiscal cliff" drama of 2012.  The green boxes below shade periods of risk-on during up cycles.  The red boxes shade periods of risk-off during down cycles.  Another down cycle is not due until 2015.
Chart: Large Cap Stocks Total Return Index (LCSTRI) and Risk On/Off (1=Risk On)
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Headline:  Wall Street drops for second day on fiscal worries
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks fell on Thursday and could be in line for more weakness as worries about Washington’s ability to find a timely solution to the "fiscal cliff" dominate investor thinking in coming weeks.
The S&P 500 dropped for a second day and closed below its 200-day moving average for the first time in five months.
The moving average is a measure of the market’s long-term trend, and a significant break through that level would be seen as a sign of weakness. Just minutes before the closing bell, stocks accelerated their declines and the S&P 500 fell more than 1 percent.
Source:  finance.yahoo.com

Headline: $5 Trillion Price Tag for Public Pensions
As strapped state and local governments scramble for ways to balance their budgets, it’s become very clear that it will be impossible for many to honor their pension promises to new employees and even current retirees. According to a recent economic study, the cost to fully fund these promises would cost taxpayers $5 trillion over a 30-year period, or nearly $1,400 a year in higher state and local taxes and fees for every household in the country.
Put another way, contributions to pay for public employees’ retirement benefits now total 5.7 percent a year of all state and local taxes, fees, and other government charges. "Government contributions to state and local pension systems must rise to 14.1 percent" to produce fully funded pension systems, the study said, and it will take 30 years to get there.
Source:  finance.yahoo.com
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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

CIGA Brian brings this to our attention.

Jim,
Stimulus to infinity can only be produced by QE to infinity. There is no other option or other tool.
CIGA Brian

How Many Businesses Have Announced Closings or Layoffs Since Obama Won A Second Term?

In the last 48 hours, the following major corporations have announced layoffs in America (links take you to news stories about the layoffs – with details from the companies):

Boeing (30% of their management staff) – Boeing Co. said Wednesday it plans to employ 30% fewer executives at its Boeing Defense, Space & Security unit by the end of 2012 compared to 2010 levels.

Energizer – The St. Louis-based company said Thursday that it expects to shed about 1,500 employees. When finished, the restructuring should lead to $200 million in pretax yearly savings, Energizer said. It aims to have most of its restructuring steps finished by the end of September 2014.

Exide Technologies – Exide Technologies announced Thursday that it will be idling its lead-recycling operations in Laureldale and laying off 150 workers, effective no later than March 31.

Westinghouse – Westinghouse Anniston, the contractor responsible for shutting down Anniston’s chemical weapons incinerator, has reduced its workforce by another 50 employees.

Research in Motion Limited – Research in Motion Ltd., the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, laid off about 200 people at its U.S. headquarters in Irving on Wednesday, according to a source close to the company who did not want to be named.

Lightyear Network Solutions – More than one dozen employees at a Pikeville company lost their jobs this week. Officials with Lightyear Network Solutions said they are consolidating offices in Louisville and Pikeville to save money.
More…

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