Aircraft Carrier Enterprise Sets Off On Final Journey - Direction Iran

Today at noon Eastern, the storied aircraft carrier Enterprise, aka CVN-65, left its home port of Naval Station Norfolk one final time for its final voyage with a heading: Arabian Sea, aka Iran. There in a week it will join CVN 72 Lincoln and CVN 70 Vinson, as well as LHD 8 Makin Island, all of which are supporting any potential escalation of "hostilities" in the Persian Gulf region. As a reminder, back in January we learned that the Enterprise's final voyage will be in proximity to Iran, and in the meantime, the aircraft carrier held extended drills off the Florida coast to attack a "faux theocracy"  consisting of fundamentalist "Shahida" states. Why the Arabian Sea in about 7-10 days will be home to not two but three aircraft carriers and a big deck amphibious warfare ship is very much an open question, although we may have some thoughts. 

Silver Price Forecast: Long-term Silver Chart Analysis Indicates Why Silver Is Likely To Pass $150

by Hubert Moolman:
I would like to point out some interesting signals on the long-term chart for silver.
Below, is a long term chart for silver:

On the chart, I have highlighted two fractals (or patterns), marked 1 to 4, which appear similar. What makes these two fractals so special is the similarity of the circumstances in which they exist.
There was a significant peak in the Dow (1973 and 2007) between point 1 and 2 of both fractals. Both peaks in the Dow came about 7 years after the peak in the Dow/Gold ratio. After point 2, on both fractals, the oil price made a significant peak (1974 and 2008), about 8 years after the peak in the Dow/Gold ratio.
Read More @ HubertMoolman.Wordpress.com

AGXIIK: Silver Will Be in a Severe Supply Shortage by August 2012

Placing my a** hat on the table in front of me, I predict that silver will go into a severe supply shortage by August 2012 or sooner.
Why?
Greek sort of got bailed out, leaving the price of silver to float upwards as opposed to downward should central banks and private owners need to dump PMs to get liquidity. Absorption of silver continues apace with speculative and aggressive longs outnumbering shorts two to one.
The discount to real silver value will not go unnoticed for long. Sovereign wealth funds in China and Middle East have over $2 trillion in funds ready to deploy. War brings out the best in wealthy buyers. They buy for safety when the chips are down and financial insecurity abounds.
Read More @ SilverDoctors.com

India Revokes Cotton Export Ban After China Complains: Limit Down Open For "Widowmaker" Trade?

If there was any confusion as to who calls the shots in the world, the following anecdote should provide some needed clarity. Hint: it is not the US. After last week India announced it would proceed with a Cotton export ban, two days ago China logged "a formal protest against India's ban on cotton exports amid signs that India is rethinking the ban that was implemented a few days ago." As a result hours ago India announced that less than a week after enacting said ban, it is now overturning it. Of course, there is the diplomatic snafu of just why it did, and for India it has to do with "protecting" the interests of its farmers, who "complained that, due to higher production this year, they were already suffering from lower prices than they had expected and needed to export to recover their domestic losses." Of course, the farmers' position was well-known before the ban overturn. What wasn't known is just how vocal China would be, as suddenly it would scramble to find alternative sources as it fills its strategic cotton reserve. Turns out it was quite vocal. And India, unwilling to risk a trade war with the world's biggest economic power, promptly relented. As a result, any and all commodity traders who bought up the widowmaker trade may find themselves staring into a limit down market post open.

Guest Post: An Open Letter to Jamie Dimon

Dear Mr. Dimon,
Why do you impugn your character and reputation by allowing your firm to engage in these immoral activities? Sure, the regulators have failed to assess you any meaningful punishments that would deter you from this conduct on a strict, short-term dollars and cents analysis. Every penny of earnings counts, I get it. But, sir, you do not strike me as someone who is trying to pump your company’s stock price for a quarter or two. You are the face of JPMorgan Chase and, I would assume, you plan on being there for a while. Why intentionally destroy any and all goodwill your firm has to make additional revenue that is mostly insignificant in the short-term and, quite possibly, deleterious in the long-term? The only reason I can think of is: because you can. And, that, sir is where hubris starts.

Biderman: Fed Helping Wall Street and Corporate America Rig the Stock Market

 

CDS As Insurance Contracts

While AIG FP often made the contracts look like insurance products, the banks were very careful to make sure that the products were “credit derivatives” because they needed the regulatory capital relief provided by them.  Didn’t the Fed at some point get concerned about the counterparty exposure to AIG FP?  Isn’t counterparty risk something that the Fed is responsible for monitoring (or the ECB in the case of foreign banks)?  When the Fed let MS and GS become bank holding companies and get the ability to use Fed lending programs, didn’t they ask about the AIG FP exposure?  Goldman, which always claimed it was hedged, must have had a massive short position in AIG CDS to be hedged – again, no one at the Fed noticed this?  CDS may be unregulated, but when virtually every big financial company in the world has large notionals on with AIG, huge mark to market gains on those positions, no collateral from AIG, and big shorts in AIG CDS, couldn’t someone do their job?   This should have been noticeable in 2007!

Is Germany Actually Preparing To Leave The Euro?

from The Economic Collapse Blog:
For a long time, most analysts have believed that if someone was going to leave the euro, it would be a weak nation such as Greece or Portugal. But the truth is that financially troubled nations such as Greece and Portugal don’t want to leave the euro. The leaders of those nations understand that if they leave the euro their economies will totally collapse and nobody will be there to bail them out. And at this point there really is not a formal mechanism which would enable other members of the eurozone to kick financially troubled nations such as Greece or Portugal out of the euro. But there is one possibility that is becoming increasingly likely that could actually cause the break up of the euro. Germany could leave the euro. Yes, it might actually happen. Germany is faced with a very difficult problem right now. It is looking at a future where it will be essentially forced to bail out most of the rest of the nations in the eurozone for many years to come, and those bailouts will be extremely expensive. Meanwhile, the mood in much of the rest of Europe is becoming decidedly anti-German. In Greece, Angela Merkel and the German government are being openly portrayed as Nazis. Financially troubled nations such as Greece want German bailout money, but they are getting sick and tired of the requirements that Germany is imposing upon them in order to get that money. Increasingly, other nations in Europe are simply ignoring what Germany is asking them to do or are openly defying Germany. In the end, Germany will need to decide whether it is worth it to continue to pour billions upon billions of euros into countries that don’t appreciate it and that are not doing what Germany has asked them to do.
Read More @ TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com

The Ides of March

Well, here we are. We’ve arrived at one of The Turd’s favorite weeks of the year. Here in America, the third week of March means two things: Saint Patrick’s Day and the beginning of the NCAA college basketball tournament. Turd is very excited. However, Turd is also nervous and agitated, too. To help me cope, I thought I’d cook up this quick post before the week gets started.First of all, regarding the metals, everything looks great as we enter the week. The fundos continue to be profoundly positive. The CoTs took a dramatic turn toward a bullish sentiment. Even the charts looks great:
Read More @ TFMetalsReport.com

Silver Could Fall Below $26?

[Ed. Note: Uh oh. Last time SilverFuturist warned of a dip, a dip we got. Here he goes again.... (and where else does the news come with chickens?)]
from SilverFuturist:

 

There Will Be Euro-zone Debt Crisis Contagion, The Next Greek Tragedy

by John Mauldin, MarketOracle.co.uk:
… (December 11, 2009) – Greece’s prime minister, George Papandreou, told reporters in Brussels on Friday that European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker see “no possibility” of a Greek default, Bloomberg News reported. Papandreou also said that there was no possibility of Greece leaving the euro area, according to the report.
… (January 29, 2010) – There is no bailout and no “plan B” for the Greek economy because there is no risk it will default on its debt, the European monetary affairs commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, insisted on Friday.
… (September 16, 2010) – “Restructuring is not going to happen. There are much broader implications for the eurozone should Greece have to restructure its debt. People fail to see the costs to both Greece and the eurozone of a restructuring: the cost to its citizens, the cost to its access to markets. If Greece restructures, why on earth would people invest in other peripheral economies? It would be a fundamental break to the unity of the eurozone.” – George Papaconstantinou, former Greek Finance Minister
Read More @ MarketOracle.co.uk

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John Williams: Intensifying Crisis & Staggering Unemployment

from King World News:
John Williams just warned that the ongoing financial problems have horrendous implications for the markets and systemic stability. Williams, who founded ShadowStats, also noted that U6 unemployment levels are not being reported by the mainstream media and they are at staggering levels. Here is what Williams had to say about the situation: “The outlook for the broad economy remains bleak, despite relatively upbeat February payroll data. Deterioration in the January trade deficit and related revisions suggest negative impact on first-quarter 2012 GDP reporting, along with increasing downside pressure on the U.S. dollar from underlying economic and political fundamentals.”
John Williams continues: Read More @ KingWorldNews.com

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