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by Chris Powell, GATA: Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: In his market letter for May, commodities fund manager John Butler of Amphora Capital in London describes the rationales and mechanisms of surreptitious currency market intervention by central banks, rationales and mechanisms that will be familiar to anyone who follows the gold market with even the slightest skepticism. Drawing on a long conversation he had years ago with his professor of international economics in [...] from Zero Hedge: Back in 2012, amid “intense pressure from Obama” including an appeal for its passage in his 2012 State of the Union address, Congress passed theStop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act (with 96-3 theatrical votes in the Senate, and 417-2 even more theatrical votes in the House) – a bill prohibiting the use of non-public information for private profit, including insider trading by members of Congress and other government employees. [...] The main news overnight was the Chinese February trade balance, which if the past several years were any indication, would have been a deficit in keeping with the cyclical economic weakness resulting from the Chinese Lunar New Year. Surprisingly, instead of a deficit, as SocGen explains Chinese exports came in massively above expectations in February, while imports were on the weak side. The strength of exports was bewildering, especially when [...] The 53-year-old Emanuel, who is busy raising money for his 2015 reelection campaign in the Windy City, has had discussions both over the phone and face to face in the past month with Democratic Party donors and fundraisers about a possible White House run, according to sources. It’s unclear who raised the subject—Emanuel or the donors—and the mayor’s press secretary initially didn’t offer clarity on who said what to whom Hours [...] Trying to stem the scourge of prescription drug abuse, an advisory panel of experts to the Food and Drug Administration voted on Friday to toughen the restrictions on painkillers like Vicodin that contain hydrocodone, the most widely prescribed drugs in the country. The recommendation, which the drug agency is likely to follow, would limit access to the drugs by making them harder to prescribe, a major policy change that advocates said [...] From The Reformed Broker: What could go wrong? The Fed is DJing the hottest dance party ever, and everyone is getting down. Well, not everyone, but you get the idea. Anyway, if there’s anything that could derail us, it’s an ordinary, cyclical recession. The kind we used to have before Greenspan decided they were no longer necessary. Today, I’d like to talk about the relationship between earnings recessions and economic recessions. Because we’re [...] Declaring that the nation is in a “jobs crisis,” Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is charging ahead with his economic arguments after conservatives yesterday expressed dobut that newly released positive employment figures could be accurate. Romney all but ignored the positive jobs numbers while campaigning Friday night in Florida, instead highlighting his strong debate performance and presenting a more compassionate message as he sought to overcome Obama’s narrow lead in the [...] The Iranian government, determined to limit Western influence and defend itself against cyberattacks, appears to have laid the technical foundations for a national online network that would be detached from the Internet and permit tighter control over the flow of information. The concept of a self-contained network has been reverberating within Iran for almost a decade and has often been treated with skepticism, given the significant investment in infrastructure and security [...] One of the world’s most popular and widely-owned stocks could be in big trouble Is Apple Stock About To Crash? I’m serious. Does it make you angry to read that? Do you feel like you’re doing something wrong going short America’s favorite stock? Is it a bad thing to wish awful things upon a company who provides us with such glorious technology? Fortunately as market participants, we don’t have to care about any [...] From Azizonomics: “Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria. The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell.” – Sir John Templeton Buy the fear, sell the greed. Since bottoming-out in 2009 markets have seen an uptrend in equity prices… Now it seems like the euphoria is setting in. And in [...] By Stephanie Kelton Aug 30, 2012, 6:26 AM Author’s Website My Twitter followers are constantly asking me if I think more spending would really help the economy recover. I understand their skepticism. Many are probably struggling with high debt levels, and the last thing they want is some economist urging them to rack up more debt for the good of the economy. (Bad advice, indeed.) Others have heard President Obama talk about putting Americans back to work [...] From Economic Policy Journal: The most dangerous and evil bastard in the White House, Cass Sunstein, is leaving his WH post, reports WSJ. WSJ states that: Mr. Sunstein has long been an advocate of behavorial economics in setting policy, the notion that people will respond to incentives, and has argued for restraint in government regulations. As such, he was met with skepticism and opposition by some liberals when he was chosen at the start of [...] He finally came around to what other climate scientists have been spouting for years. Richard A. Muller, a physics professor at the University of California-Berkeley, announced over the weekend that his much-publicized investigation into climate data has found that humans’ production of carbon dioxide is causing the world to slowly warm up. And this process could speed up dramatically in the next few years. Muller’s conclusions attract special attention because of his vocal [...] From Zero Hedge: Erste Group’s Ronald Stoeferle, author of the critical “In gold we trust” report has just released the sixth annual edition of this all encompassing report which covers every aspect of the gold space. What follows are 120 pages of fundamental information that are a must read for anyone interested in the yellow metal. From the report: The foundation for new all-time-highs is in place. As far as sentiment is concerned, [...] A visit from a Croatian woman who claims to see the Virgin Mary on a daily basis drew thousands of people to a small Alabama town this week. Many people travelled for days to be near the self-proclaimed visionary while one Washington woman even sold her home to take the trip. Despite skepticism of prominent Catholics, the faithful said they trekked to Sterrett with hopes of hearing a message from the mother [...] A visit from a Croatian woman who claims to see the Virgin Mary on a daily basis drew thousands of people to a small Alabama town this week. Many people travelled for days to be near the self-proclaimed visionary while one Washington woman even sold her home to take the trip. Visionary: Thousands of Americans trekked to Alabama to see Marija Pavlovic Lunetti, a Croatian woman who claims to see the Virgin [...] WASHINGTON — Millions of poor people could still be left without medical insurance under the national health care law if states take an option granted by the Supreme Court and decide not to expand theirMedicaid programs, state officials and health policy experts said Friday. Republican officials in more than a half-dozen states said they opposed expanding Medicaid or had serious doubts about it, even though the federal government would pick up all the costs in the [...] (Reuters) - Spain formally requested euro zone rescue loans on Monday to recapitalize banks that are laden with bad debts as the euro and shares fell due to investors’ skepticism that a European Union summit this week will act decisively on the bloc’s debt crisis. Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos asked for up to 100 billion euros ($125 billion) in a letter to Euro group chairman Jean-Claude Juncker, saying the final amount [...] When the Spain bailout was announced, the head of the European Commission made a big show of saying that the money would be provided on good terms for the lenders.
That appears to have been a crock. Based on scuttlebutt printed in El Mundo (via Sharecast), here are some of the contemplated terms: No payments until 2017 Given that Spain’s 10-year bonds are currently trading at yields over 6%, [...] From Washington’s Blog: The market rallied for a couple of hours on news of the $100 billion dollar Spanish bailout (which everyone is calling the Spailout) … and then crashed. Bloomberg notes: U.S. stocks fell, following the biggest weekly rally in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index this year, as optimism over Spain’s bailout plan gave way to skepticism it will succeed in halting the debt crisis. The extent to which the latest Spanish bank bailout is coming without strings — a key claim made by the Spanish government — is in question.
ZeroHedge points to this article in El Pais, which includes this line. In return for subsidized rates, Spain cede sovereignty over its financial system, but also lose tax sovereignty, contrary to what the Government said yesterday. Meanwhile. Analyst skepticism is growing. CNBC’s Kelly Evans writes: What all the fancy-sounding acronyms in [...] Will Spain’s bailout boost the markets on Monday? As Abram Brown points out the markets are eager for good news. But there are serious question marks over the bail out. Not least that the Spanish can’t seem to agree on what they have agreed to. And Euro zone members don’t actually know how they are going to pull off this refinancing. What they believe they have done is create a plan that [...] Ryan W. McMaken Another one of the positive side effects of the current economic crisis is that even the government’s statistics, once accepted uncritically by the media, are now faced with some skepticism. As someone who examines government statistics often, I can say that government stats definitely have their uses, assuming you consider the methods used, and take it all with a grain of salt. But for years, [...] 04/23/12 China has lost its edge. There was lots of skepticism about a piece in my March letter called “The Great Comeback No One Will Believe” about the revival of U.S. manufacturing as China loses its cost advantage. But I continue to find evidence that the piece was spot on. I had a good talk with Scott Huff, a principal at Innovate International, which does product development work and contract manufacturing for several industries. Scott’s [...] From Peter Tchir of TF Market Advisors Europe Has Its Parti Quebecois Moment I have said and written that I expect to see more nationalism come into play as the crisis continues. I may have been a bit early, but we are seeing growing signs of it, with Marine le Pen’s strong showing in yesterday’s French election being the most obvious example. The Dutch Parliament’s failure to approve “austerity” is another sign [...] Nine U.S. Banks Said to be Examined for Overdraft Practices By Carter Dougherty and Margaret Collins
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is scrutinizing nine banks including JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America on how they persuade customers to enroll in overdraft protection and their justification for fees. Planning enforcement against banks that “exploit consumers with deceptive marketing”, the agency will examine marketing material and customer service scripts to determine whether [...] by Todd Wasserman A month after Apple delivered its new iPad, rumors are heating up about a new iteration of the tablet designed to compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire. The latest rumor to make the rounds is that Apple is planning to produce 6 million smaller iPads for sale some time in the third quarter. The report, from Chinese portal NetEase, was translated by Kotaku. The NetEase report is based on “Taiwan media reports” and is said to be based [...] Jurriaan Maessen At a January 25 2011 lecture titled Stabilising the global population: Where next for the Millennium Development Goals for health and nutrition professor Anthony Costello of the Institute of Global Health told his audience that “climate denialism” in the US is “a major problem”, both culturally and politically, “that’s got to be addressed.” Preceding these remarks Costello stressed that the phrase “climate skeptics” needs to be removed from the vocabulary [...] Global warming alarmist equates climate denial with racism Paul Joseph Watson Comparing skepticism of man-made global warming to racist beliefs, an Oregon-based professor of sociology and environmental studies has labeled doubts about anthropogenic climate change a “sickness” for which individuals need to be “treated”. Professor Kari Norgaard, who is currently appearing at the ‘Planet Under Pressure’ conference in London, has presented a paperin which she argues that “cultural resistance” [...] From Bloomberg: As VIX drops below 15 for the first time in almost a year, the clarion calls of ‘all-clear’ should perhaps be tempered with the record-steepness of the volatility term-structure. Simply put, everyone and his mom is now selling short-dated vol but mid-term vol remains stubbornly high — in English, we’re safe today but tomorrow could be a disaster — or given medium-term risk outlooks, short-term traders are the most [...] From Bloomberg: The International Monetary Fund intends to contribute 18 billion euros ($23.6 billion) in fresh funds to the second aid package for Greece, scaling back IMF help for the nation that triggered Europe’s debt crisis. The planned IMF contribution disclosed yesterday represents 14 percent of the 130 billion-euro second rescue of Greece being arranged with the euro area. The IMF accounted for 27 percent — or 30 billion euros — of [...] Raleigh, N.C. – Newt Gingrich heads into South Carolina election day as the clear front runner in the state: he’s now polling at 37% to 28% for Mitt Romney, 16% for Rick Santorum, and 14% for Ron Paul. Gingrich’s lead has actually increased in the wake of his ex-wife’s controversial interview with ABC. Although one night poll results should always be interpreted with caution, he led the final night of [...] |
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