Greece Bank Run Shows No Sign Of Stopping: Deposit Outflows Continue In November

The year is not over yet, and already Greece's banks have lost €36.7 billion of their deposit base in 2011, and a whopping €64.6 billion since the beginning of 2010, which is down from €233 billion to €173 billion in under two years. In October another €3.5 billion was withdrawn from Greek banks and likely either redeposited somewhere deep in the heart of Switzerland, or converted to various inert metals and buried somewhere in the back yard. The good news: the outflow is just over half of October's record €6.8 billion. The bad news: at this rate of outflows, Greek banks will have zero deposits in around 4 years. Which at the end of the day is all the matters, because while the Troica can keep funding capital shortfalls indefinitely, all faith in the country's banks has now been lost and Greece is officially a zombie economy. The fact that the country's deficit as a % of GDP is about to be re-revised even higher is no longer even meaningful: the Greek economy and its banking sectors are now officially dead. We merely feel bad for anyone who still has cash in banks as, just like gold in 1930s America, any residual cash may soon be "sequestered" for national security purposes. After all there are bankers who need record bonuses, and Military sales from Europe and the US that have to proceed using what will likely soon be "commingled" deposit cash.

Hungary Folds, Ready To Change Its Laws To Get European Bailout Money

If there is any one more vivid confirmation of Mayer Rothschild words "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws" then we have yet to find it. Today Hungary, which had "valiantly" defied Europe and the IMF in ignoring pressure to make its central bank more "malleable" finally folded, following a recent explosion in its bond yields, a surge in CDS to records, and a collapse in its currency. And to think how easy it is to subjugate a state to slave status in our "globalized" days without shedding one drop of blood. Reuters reports: "Hungary's government is ready to consider modifying disputed legislation if the European Commission deems it necessary, Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi told the bloc's executive and European Union partners. "We fully respect the authority of the European Commission, the guardian of the EU treaties," Martonyi wrote in a letter dated January 6 and published by his ministry on Tuesday. "We stand ready to consider changing legislation, if necessary."" As Rothschild foresaw so effectively over 200 years ago, selling out your sovereignty only takes a few pieces of (paper) silver.

Ron Paul's 2002 Predictions All Come True - Incredible Video!

On Mitt Romney's Defense Of Bain Capital And The Private Equity Industry - Here Are Some Facts

Lately, Bain founder and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has found himself in a spirited defense of the private equity industry, doing all he can to spin decades of data which confirm, without failure, that PE Leveraged Buy Outs are nothing but "efficiency maximizing" transactions whose only goal is the "maximization" of EBITDA in the pursuit of dividend recap deals, IPOs or outright sales, while loading up the company with untenable amounts of leverage. All this with a 3-5 year investment horizon, which ignores the long-term viability of a company and seeks to streamline (read fire as many as possible) operations as quickly as possible in the goal of maximizing short-term returns. We wish him luck in his endeavor. As for the other side of the equation, we recreate a post we penned back in November 2009 which analyzes just how effective the mega-LBOs have been for the economy, and the workers involved. In other words - the facts. In a nutshell, here they are: "The Disastrous Performance Of Private Equity: Of The Top 10 LBOs, 6 Are In Distress, 4 Have Defaulted." Read on for the full details.

Huntsman Supporters Admit Creating ‘Racist’ Video To Smear Ron Paul?

by Paul Joseph Watson, InfoWars.com:

A John Huntsman forum appears to show Huntsman supporters bragging about how they created a racist anti-Huntsman ad that the media instantly attributed to Ron Paul supporters in order to smear Paul and his voters as extremists.
However, the forum thread could just as easily be a satire, created by Ron Paul supporters, Huntsman voters, or someone with no interest in either candidate.
The lesson to take away from it all is not to believe that one anonymous Internet post represents any one candidate or campaign, which is just what the establishment media did when they instantly seized upon the suspicious anti-Huntsman ad to smear Ron Paul voters and by extension Ron Paul himself as racist.
Read More @ InfoWars.com

Gold and Silver is still on SALE...did you BTFD?...Keep Stacking...

Gold Storms Above 200 DMA

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/10/2012 - 08:48 200 DMA Displaced Moving Average
Remember when various economics professors and self-anointed Ph.D'ed market timers said to sell everything because the gold 200 DMA had been breached to the downside, never to be crossed back again, to which our simple retort was, "Many are doing their damnedest Ph.D.-best to somehow fuse economic theory and technical charting, and state that a breach of the 200 DMA in gold is indicative of imminent price collapse. And then there are facts. Such as this nugget from Stone McCarthy which looks at previous episodes of the 200 DMA breach and concludes based on severity of trendline penetration compared to average, that "this is just one reason we see strong potential for a rebound as participants reduce short exposure." So much for technicals." Sure enough: less than a month later, and $100 higher, gold is right back above the 200 DMA. Oh, and we expect to hear nothing from said academics for a long time.

120110 - Financial Repression and Oil

Canadian Dollar: One Of The Best Currencies Around

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 1 hour ago

The Canadian dollar is one of the best currencies around. - *in CTV* *Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and is a regular guest on Bloomberg and CNBC.* 

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Corzine Sued by Montana Farmers Over MF Global Futures Account Money

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 2 hours ago

Following in the footsteps of AIG and Lehman Brothers collapse, money at least as far as the public is concerned vanishes without a trace ($1.2 billion but likely a lot more). The lawyers enter the fry once the cloud of uncertainty around hypothecation dissipates, but somehow investors despite a lot of official finger pointing and extensive legal wrangling investors will be left holding the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

NDAA Protests End In Ironic Swarm Of Arrests

Is it right to crush free speech as long as the message is offensive to you personally?  Do peaceful protestors really present a legitimate threat to our national stability?  Are they truly more dangerous than a corrupt government hellbent on assassinating the legal protections of our natural rights which have existed for centuries?  Would any supporter of the jackboot methodology like to explain to me in a coherent manner why they believe their skewed world view should be shielded from sincere questions?  Please, I can't wait to witness the kind of ridiculous mental gymnastics required to make such arguments palatable.  If this kind of ignorance wasn't so destructive, it might actually be entertaining.

Euro Meanders In Overnight Session As Record ECB Deposit Soak Up Entire LTRO

There was not much to note in the overnight session, where aside from artificial market-boosting developments out of China (noted here) which have carried over into a risk-on mood for the US market, however briefly, Europe has been virtually unchanged following two quiet auctions by Austria and the Netherlands. Austria sold a total of €660m of 4% 2016 bonds, and €600m of 3.65% 2022 bond. Avg. yield 2016 bond 2.213% vs 1.96% in the previous auction, in other words the shorter borrowing costs roses, and the longer ones fell. Holland sold a total of €3.105b of 0.75% 2015 bonds; the target was up to €3.5b. with an average yield 0.853%. End result EURUSD is virtually unchanged for the day at 1.2770 as of this writing despite some serious short covering earlier (as expected), while the Italian BTPs remain unch at 7.15%. What is probably more disturbing and is to be expected, is that now virtually all the free cash from the December 21 LTRO (all €210 billion of it) and then some has been allocated to the ECB, where the Deposit Facility usage rose by nearly €20 billion overnight to a new record of €482 billion, €217 billion more than the December 21 notional. The question that should be asked is just what do banks know that lemming long-only investors don't. Hint - ask UniCredit.

Frontrunning: January 10

• Italy Is Biggest Risk to Euro, Says Fitch (WSJ)
• Greek Bailout in Peril (WSJ)
• Swiss Currency Test Looms for SNB’s Jordan in Race to Replace Hildebrand (Bloomberg)
• Daley to Depart as Obama Shifts Strategy From Compromise to Confrontation (Bloomberg)
• BOE Stimulus Expansion May Not Be Enough to Revive U.K. Recovery, BCC Says (Bloomberg)
• Geithner in China to Discuss Yuan, Iran (Bloomberg)
• China Won’t See Hard Landing in 2012, Former PBOC Adviser Yu Yongding Says (Bloomberg)
• Measures to boost China financial markets (China Daily)
• Obama Panel to Watch Beijing (WSJ)

China Is Proud To Announce It Is Reflating The Bubble - Will "Actively Push" Investors Into Stocks

We did a double take when we read the following lead sentence from a just released Bloomberg report on what is about to take place in China: "China’s stocks regulator will “actively” push pension and housing funds to begin investing in capital markets, and encourage long-term investors such as insurers and corporate pension plans to buy more shares." To paraphrase Lewis Black - we will repeat this, because it bears repeating - "China’s stocks regulator will “actively” push pension and housing funds to begin investing in capital markets, and encourage long-term investors such as insurers and corporate pension plans to buy more shares." And that is the last ditch effort one does when one has no choice but to push "long-term investors" into the last giant ponzi. Of course, this being China, "long-term investors" means anyone at all, and "pushing" ultimately involves either 9MM or a 0.44 caliber. And what was said earlier about mocking mainstream media spin - well, the first opportunity presents itself a few short hours later - when Bloomberg, the same agency that wrote the above report, tells us that "Asian Shares Rise Amid Global Economic Optimism." Odd - no mention of the fact that China is now pushing habitual gamblers, which over there is another name for "investors" into what is openly an invitation (at gunpoint nonetheless) into the latest and greatest bubble. That said, we give this latest artificial attempt to boost stocks a half life of several days max before the SHCOMP plunges to new lows for the year.

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