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	<title>The Daily Gold &#187; China</title>
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		<title>Gold, Stocks and Euro All Down after China Manufacturing News, Bullion Refiners &#8220;Stocking Up&#8221; for Europe but Concerns Over Liquidity &#8220;Cap Upside&#8221; for Gold</title>
		<link>http://thedailygold.com/gold-stocks-and-euro-all-down-after-china-manufacturing-news-bullion-refiners-stocking-up-for-europe-but-concerns-over-liquidity-cap-upside-for-gold/</link>
		<comments>http://thedailygold.com/gold-stocks-and-euro-all-down-after-china-manufacturing-news-bullion-refiners-stocking-up-for-europe-but-concerns-over-liquidity-cap-upside-for-gold/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:20:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>BullionVault</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[PRICES TO buy gold bullion on the wholesale market dropped to $1630 an ounce during Monday morning's London session – a 2.3% drop from where they started the month]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong id="internal-source-marker_0.7266838869545609"><br />
Gold, Stocks and Euro All Down after China Manufacturing News, Bullion Refiners &#8220;Stocking Up&#8221; for Europe but Concerns Over Liquidity &#8220;Cap Upside&#8221; for Gold</p>
<p>PRICES TO buy <a href="about:blank">gold bullion</a> on the wholesale market dropped to $1630 an ounce during Monday morning&#8217;s London session – a 2.3% drop from where they started the month – while stock markets and industrial commodities also traded lower following the release of preliminary Chinese manufacturing data.</p>
<p>&#8220;Gold remains in a short-term bear channel,&#8221; say technical analysts at bullion bank Scotia Mocatta.</p>
<p>&#8220;We would expect a test of support from the long-term uptrend&#8230;[which] comes in around $1600.&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="about:blank">Silver bullion</a> dropped to near 3-month lows, hitting $31.09 per ounce ahead of the US session.<br />
Ahead of the Federal Reserve meeting which starts tomorrow, the US Dollar gained against the Euro, despite news that the International Monetary Fund has almost doubled its effective crisis-lending capacity.</p>
<p>European stock markets sold off heavily, with the UK&#8217;s FTSE down 1.7% by lunchtime, and Germany&#8217;s DAX off 2.7%.</p>
<p>Activity in China&#8217;s manufacturing sector has continued to contract this month, according to data published Monday. The HSBC purchasing managers index (PMI) for this month came in at 49.1 – up from 48.3 for March (a figure below 50 indicates sector contraction).</p>
<p>The slight rise in the PMI figure &#8220;suggests that the earlier easing measures have started to work and hence should ease concerns of a sharp growth slowdown,&#8221; according to HSBC&#8217;s Chief Economist for China Qu Hongbin.</p>
<p>&#8220;The pace of both output and demand growth [however] remains at a low level in an historical context and the job market is under pressure. This calls for additional easing measures in the coming months.&#8221;</p>
<p>The international community has pledged a total of $430 billion in additional IMF contributions – a move that would almost double the Fund&#8217;s lending capacity – IMF managing director Christine Lagarde revealed at the IMF&#8217;s Spring Meetings, which ended at the weekend. The US however declined to increase its contribution.</p>
<p>IMF money will not be earmarked for any particular country, an official statement said, although its latest World Economic Outlook last week carried a section on sovereign funding stresses in the Eurozone.</p>
<p>The report advises that the European Central Bank &#8220;should lower its policy rate while continuing to use unconventional policies to address banks&#8217; funding and liquidity problems.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;None of the advice of the IMF has been discussed by the Governing Council,&#8221; said ECB president Mario Draghi on Friday.</p>
<p>The government debt of Eurozone nations rose to a Euro era high of  87.2% of gross domestic product last year – up from 85.3% a year earlier – according to official European Union data published Monday.</p>
<p>Reports on Monday morning suggested Netherlands prime minister Mark Rutte was on the verge of resignation, after the Freedom Party walked out of talks on austerity measures and said it was ending its agreement to support Rutte&#8217;s minority government. The Netherlands is expected to record a government deficit of 4.6% of GDP this year, compared to a target of 3%.</p>
<p>Over in France meantime, Socialist Party candidate François Hollande led the first round of the French presidential election, the results of which were announced Sunday. Hollande received 28.6% of the vote, compared to 27.1% received by incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. Marine Le Pen, leader of Front National, came third with 18.1%.</p>
<p>&#8220;The first round may offer a glimmer of hope for Sarkozy,&#8221; says Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank.</p>
<p>&#8220;But it also entails a risk that he could pander to right-wing sentiment on European issues in the next two weeks. Stronger calls for a &#8216;growth mandate for the ECB&#8217; and the like may not go down well in Berlin and Frankfurt.&#8221;</p>
<p>Calls for economic growth as well as price stability to form part of the ECB&#8217;s mandate have become a campaign issue in the French election, and form part of Hollande&#8217;s manifesto.</p>
<p><a href="about:blank">Gold bullion</a> refiners have been stocking up on small <a href="about:blank">gold bars</a> popular with European gold buyers, in preparation for an escalation in the Eurozone crisis, according to <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/37326456-62cd-11e1-9245-00144feabdc0.html#_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.ft.com/cms/s/0/37326456-62cd-11e1-9245-00144feabdc0.html_blank?referer=');">John Dizard at the Financial Times</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;Somewhere near Geneva airport,&#8221; writes Dizard, referring to a major hub of the gold refining industry, &#8220;candles are being burned in front of the image of François Hollande. I think that simple faith will be rewarded soon.&#8221;</p>
<p>However, &#8220;concerns over Europe are capping [gold's] upside,&#8221; says Tobias Merath, head of global commodity research at Credit Suisse.</p>
<p>&#8220;The situation in Europe has the potential to lead to deteriorating liquidity conditions&#8230;as we saw at the end of last year, gold is a hedge against all kinds of crises, but not against a liquidity problem, when people are liquidating assets to raise much-needed cash. They also sell gold in this environment.&#8221;</p>
<p>Over in India meantime <a href="about:blank">gold dealers have reported</a> a pickup in business ahead of tomorrow&#8217;s Akshaya Tritiya festival – traditionally seen as an auspicious day to <a href="about:blank">buy gold</a>.</p>
<p>On New York&#8217;s Comext exchange meantime, the difference between bullish and bearish contracts held by noncommercial <a href="about:blank">gold futures</a> and options traders – the so-called speculative net long – rose 2.2% in the week ended last Tuesday, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data published late Friday.</p>
<p>Although spec long positions fell by the equivalent of almost 11 tonnes of <a href="about:blank">gold bullion</a>, noncommercial Comex traders reduced their aggregate short exposure by nearly double that, with short positions falling by the equivalent of 20.7 tonnes.</p>
<p>&#8220;While investors are not overly bullish,&#8221; says Standard Bank commodities strategist Marc Ground, &#8220;the drop in short positions is somewhat encouraging as a sign that investors are cautious of running too short.&#8221;</p>
<p>Ben Traynor<br />
<a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">BullionVault</a></p>
<p><a href="http://gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldValue" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldValue?referer=');">Gold value calculator</a>   |   <a href="http://gold.bullionvault.com/How/BuyGold" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/gold.bullionvault.com/How/BuyGold?referer=');">Buy gold online at live prices</a></p>
<p>Editor of <a href="http://goldnews.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/goldnews.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">Gold News</a>, the analysis and investment research site from world-leading gold ownership service <a href="about:blank">BullionVault</a>, Ben Traynor was formerly editor of the Fleet Street Letter, the UK&#8217;s longest-running investment letter. A Cambridge economics graduate, he is a professional writer and editor with a specialist interest in monetary economics.</p>
<p>(c) <a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">BullionVault</a> 2011</p>
<p>Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.</strong></p>
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		<title>China Contraction Sees Gold Fall Again, &#8220;Downtrend Continues&#8221; in Silver as G7 Weighs Emergency Action on Oil Price</title>
		<link>http://thedailygold.com/china-contraction-sees-gold-fall-again-downtrend-continues-in-silver-as-g7-weighs-emergency-action-on-oil-price/</link>
		<comments>http://thedailygold.com/china-contraction-sees-gold-fall-again-downtrend-continues-in-silver-as-g7-weighs-emergency-action-on-oil-price/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:04:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>BullionVault</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Commentaries]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thedailygold.com/?p=14652</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[WHOLESALE bullion fell hard in early London trade on Thursday, with the gold price dipping to nearly its lowest level in 2012 as world stock markets and commodity prices also fell.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong id="internal-source-marker_0.11478549567982554"><br />
<a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">BullionVault</a><br />
Thurs 22 March, 09:15 EST</p>
<p>China Contraction Sees Gold Fall Again, &#8220;Downtrend Continues&#8221; in Silver as G7 Weighs Emergency Action on Oil Price</p>
<p>WHOLESALE bullion fell hard in early London trade on Thursday, with the <a href="http://gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldPrice" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldPrice?referer=');">gold price</a> dipping to nearly its lowest level in 2012 as world stock markets and commodity prices also fell.</p>
<p>India&#8217;s jewelry sector remained on strike in protest at last week&#8217;s doubling of import duties, and &#8220;with physical demand not at full strength and waning investor enthusiasm, the potential for further downside in [the <a href="http://gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldPrice" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldPrice?referer=');">gold price</a>] remains exposed,&#8221; says today&#8217;s note from Standard Bank.</p>
<p><a href="about:blank">Silver prices</a> also dropped over 1% in London trade, touching their lowest level against the US Dollar since Jan. 25th at $31.70 per ounce.</p>
<p>Worse-than-expected European data was this morning preceded by news that China&#8217;s manufacturing activity has now contracted for five months running.</p>
<p>&#8220;Shrinking manufacturing activity in March signals slower demand for resources,&#8221; notes a column from Thomson-Reuters Breakingviews.</p>
<p>&#8220;Strong imports have heightened the risk of overstocking in precious metals.&#8221;</p>
<p>Late-January&#8217;s Chinese New Year – a peak season for consumers to <a href="about:blank">buy gold</a> – coincided with sharp falls in the volume of bullion being imported to China from Hong Kong, falls which followed an earlier surge in <a href="about:blank">China&#8217;s gold imports</a> during late 2011.</p>
<p>Albert Cheng of global market-development organization the World Gold Council said earlier in March that Beijing and Shanghai stores had reported &#8220;fantastic&#8221; sales over <a href="about:blank">the Lunar New Year</a>, &#8220;completely clear[ing] out the inventory they had built up.&#8221;</p>
<p>In the wholesale market, &#8220;A lot of people are on the sidelines at the moment,&#8221; said Yuichi Ikemizu, commodities chief in Tokyo for Standard Bank, to Reuters early on Thursday.</p>
<p>&#8220;We saw some bearish signs, but the [<a href="http://gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldPrice" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldPrice?referer=');">gold price</a>] seems to be holding well. The upside at $1,800 is still looking quite heavy, and investors are waiting for a cue.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;We feel that gold is consolidating and remains vulnerable to the next leg lower,&#8221; reckons Russell Browne at Scotia Mocatta, commenting shortly after Wednesday&#8217;s US close.</p>
<p>&#8220;Silver also continues to consolidate&#8230;[in] a daily downtrend providing near-term resistance around $32.60.&#8221;</p>
<p>The ratio of silver to gold prices yesterday hit a 1-month high at 51.6. The Gold/Silver Ratio rises when the <a href="http://gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldPrice" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldPrice?referer=');">gold price</a> outperforms silver, and vice versa.</p>
<p>Last April the Gold/Silver Ratio hit a 32-year low, with each ounce of gold equivalent in price to just 30 ozs silver. It peaked near 85 in the wake of Lehman Brothers&#8217; collapse in September 2008.</p>
<p>Early Thursday, &#8220;Speculation of reduced demand for raw materials from China has continued to weigh on risk sentiment,&#8221; says Swiss refinery and finance group MKS in a note.</p>
<p>&#8220;People are concerned about China&#8217;s economic growth,&#8221; Reuters quotes a Hong Kong bullion dealer.</p>
<p>&#8220;If growth slows down and inflation eases, people may choose not to <a href="about:blank">buy gold</a>.&#8221;</p>
<p>Following the Chinese news on Thursday, European economic figures also came in below analyst forecasts, with Germany&#8217;s manufacturing PMI contracting faster and Eurozone industrial orders falling 3.3% in January from 12 months before.</p>
<p>UK retail sales also undershot analysts&#8217; predictions, shrinking 0.3% last month from January.</p>
<p>Crude oil prices meanwhile fell 1% Thursday morning, with Europe&#8217; benchmark Brent price slipping to $122 per barrel after French industry minister Eric Besson said that major G7 governments are considering a co-ordinated release of emergency stockpiles to push prices down.</p>
<p>A Gallup poll this month found that 85% of US citizens think Washington &#8220;should take immediate actions to try to control the rising price of gas.&#8221;</p>
<p>Brent crude hit fresh all-time highs in mid-March for both Eurozone and UK oil consumers, peaking 3% above the previous all-time high of July &#8217;08, reached two months before the global banking crisis accelerated with the Lehman Bros. collapse.</p>
<p>&#8220;We can reel off a whole load of airlines that are teetering on the brink or are really gone,&#8221; said Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airlines in Dubai, the world&#8217;s biggest international carrier, to Bloomberg on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Pointing to record oil prices and a slump in demand, &#8220;Roll this forward to Christmas, and we&#8217;re going to see [the airline] industry in serious trouble,&#8221; says Clark.</p>
<p>Adrian Ash<br />
<a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">BullionVault</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/gold-price-chart.do" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/gold-price-chart.do?referer=');">Gold price chart, no delay</a>   |   <a href="http://gold.bullionvault.com/How/BuyGold" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/gold.bullionvault.com/How/BuyGold?referer=');">Buy gold online at live prices</a></p>
<p>Adrian Ash is head of research at <a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">BullionVault</a>, the secure, low-cost gold and silver market for private investors online, where you can <a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">buy gold today</a> vaulted in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.</p>
<p>(c) <a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">BullionVault</a> 2012</p>
<p>Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.</strong></p>
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		<title>China &#8220;Must Boost Consumer Demand&#8221;, ECB Forcing Europe &#8220;To Go Begging&#8221;, Gold Below $1690 Could Spark Fresh Selling</title>
		<link>http://thedailygold.com/china-must-boost-consumer-demand-ecb-forcing-europe-to-go-begging-gold-below-1690-could-spark-fresh-selling/</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:25:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>BullionVault</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[DOLLAR gold prices briefly dipped back below $1700 an ounce Monday morning in London, as stocks, commodities and the Euro all fell before recovering some ground, following news that China has cut its official growth target.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong id="internal-source-marker_0.09785464033484459"><br />
Monday 5 March 2012, 09:00 EST</p>
<p>China &#8220;Must Boost Consumer Demand&#8221;, ECB Forcing Europe &#8220;To Go Begging&#8221;, Gold Below $1690 Could Spark Fresh Selling</p>
<p>DOLLAR <a href="about:blank">gold prices</a> briefly dipped back below $1700 an ounce Monday morning in London, as stocks, commodities and the Euro all fell before recovering some ground, following news that China has cut its official growth target.</p>
<p><a href="about:blank">Silver prices</a> dropped to $34.06 per ounce – 2.2% down on Friday&#8217;s close – before making up some of the loss.</p>
<p><a href="about:blank">Gold prices</a> did manage to stay above last week&#8217;s low of $1691 per ounce. <a href="about:blank">Gold prices</a> fell by $100 an ounce last Wednesday following Fed chairman Ben Bernanke&#8217;s appearance before Congress.</p>
<p>&#8220;We would expect fresh liquidation of long gold positions on a move below $1690,&#8221; says the latest technical analysis from bullion bank Scotia Mocatta.</p>
<p>Well-known investor and Gloom, Boom &amp; Doom Report publisher Marc Faber has said that <a href="about:blank">gold could fall below $1500</a> an ounce, though he remains a gold owner and dismisses the notion of a gold bubble.</p>
<p>China has lowered its official growth target from 8% annual growth to 7.5%. China was the world&#8217;s biggest gold buyer in the fourth quarter of last year, according to <a href="about:blank">World Gold Council data</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;China&#8217;s economy is encountering new problems,&#8221; premier Wen Jiabao told the annual National People&#8217;s Congress in Beijing on Monday, adding that &#8220;expanding consumer demand&#8221; is his first priority.</p>
<p>&#8220;We will vigorously adjust income distribution, increase the incomes of low- and middle-income groups, and enhance people&#8217;s ability to consume,&#8221; Wen said. Several economists have argued recently that <a href="about:blank">China&#8217;s economy needs to rebalance towards domestic demand</a>.</p>
<p>China&#8217;s new 7.5% growth target &#8220;indicates the lowest level that the government is comfortable with,&#8221; explains Michael Buchanan, Hong Kong-based chief Asia-Pacific economist at Goldman Sachs.</p>
<p>&#8220;[It] is also a signal to local officials that they shouldn&#8217;t solely focus on the rate of expansion&#8230;China&#8217;s trend growth rate is coming down but it&#8217;s still higher than [the new target], more like around 9%.&#8221;</p>
<p>Wen, along with China&#8217;s president Hu Jintao, is among seven members of Beijing&#8217;s nine member Politburo Standing Committee due to be replaced in October.</p>
<p>In Moscow meantime, Vladimir Putin has declared victory in Russia&#8217;s presidential election, a victory which would see him take over as president again after four years as prime minister.</p>
<p>&#8220;We won in an open and honest fight,&#8221; Putin told supporters, responding to allegations of electoral fraud.<br />
Greece&#8217;s €206 billion bond swap was in doubt Monday with private investors appearing reluctant to participate, the FT reports. As part of its €130 billion bailout deal agreed last month, Greece&#8217;s private sector creditors have been asked to take losses of some 70% on their bond holdings.</p>
<p>If less than 75% of bondholders take part, Greece may have to resort to the collective action clauses inserted retroactively by the Greek government, which would force hold-outs to take part – a move which could yet trigger credit default swap payments. If less than 66% agree to take part, the CACs themselves would become invalid, putting the whole deal in doubt.</p>
<p>European banks, which collectively borrowed just under €530 billion from the European Central Bank at last week&#8217;s longer term refinancing operation (LTRO), deposited a record €821 billion with the institution over the weekend, ECB figures show.</p>
<p>Euribor interest rates, at which banks lend Euros to each other, have fallen significantly since the ECB conducted its first LTRO in December.</p>
<p>&#8220;Clearly money market conditions have stabilized,&#8221; says Barclays Capital interest rate strategist Moyeen Islam.</p>
<p>&#8220;If the ECB wants to play its proper role as a guardian against the risk of wholesale economic and financial &#8216;Eurogeddon,&#8217;&#8221; adds Holger Schmieding, economist at Hamburg –headquartered Berenberg Bank, &#8220;[then] Europe [would have] no need to go begging for &#8216;rescue shield&#8217; money in China, Russia, Brazil or at the International Monetary Fund in Washington.&#8221;</p>
<p>The ECB&#8217;s Governing Council is due to announce its latest monetary policy decision this Thursday, as is the Bank of England&#8217;s Monetary Policy Committee.</p>
<p>The Eurozone&#8217;s purchasing managers index for services, which indicates whether the sector is expanding or contracting, fell to 48.8 last month – down from 50.4 in January – figures published Monday show. A PMI figure above 50 indicates sector expansion, while below 50 implies the sector is shrinking.</p>
<p>The difference between bullish and bearish contracts held by <a href="about:blank">gold futures</a> and options traders on New York&#8217;s Comex – the so-called speculative net long – rose by 9.9% in the week ended last Tuesday to its highest level since last September, according to the latest Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.</p>
<p>&#8220;The change in the net position was once again the result of speculative longs added,&#8221; says Marc Ground, commodities strategist at Standard Bank.</p>
<p>&#8220;Another mild increase in short positioning [however] detracted somewhat from the overall improvement.&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="about:blank">Gold prices</a> fell sharply last Wednesday, the day after the period covered by the latest CoT report.</p>
<p>The next CoT is not due until late on Friday, but data from CME Group, which runs the Comex, show open interest in <a href="about:blank">gold futures</a> fell 6.3% between Tuesday and Friday last week.</p>
<p>The world&#8217;s largest <a href="about:blank">gold ETF</a>, the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), saw its holdings of gold to back its shares grow by 0.7% to 1293.7 tonnes over the week to Friday, taking its holdings to their highest level since mid-December and just over 2% off their June 2010 all-time peak.</p>
<p>The iShares Silver Trust (SLV) meantime also saw a 0.7% rise in its bullion holdings last week. As of Friday, the world&#8217;s biggest silver <a href="about:blank">ETF</a> held 9763 tonnes of silver, 14.3% less than at its peak last April.</p>
<p>Ben Traynor<br />
<a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">BullionVault</a></p>
<p><a href="http://gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldValue" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldValue?referer=');">Gold value calculator</a>   |   <a href="http://gold.bullionvault.com/How/BuyGold" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/gold.bullionvault.com/How/BuyGold?referer=');">Buy gold online at live prices</a></p>
<p>Editor of <a href="http://goldnews.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/goldnews.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">Gold News</a>, the analysis and investment research site from world-leading gold ownership service <a href="about:blank">BullionVault</a>, Ben Traynor was formerly editor of the Fleet Street Letter, the UK&#8217;s longest-running investment letter. A Cambridge economics graduate, he is a professional writer and editor with a specialist interest in monetary economics.</p>
<p>(c) <a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">BullionVault</a> 2011</p>
<p>Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.</strong></p>
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		<title>Gold Demand Trends Show Chinese Growth, Indian Weakness &amp; Revival of US Consumers as Fresh Greek Rumors Dent Euro</title>
		<link>http://thedailygold.com/gold-demand-trends-show-chinese-growth-indian-weakness-revival-of-us-consumers-as-fresh-greek-rumors-dent-euro/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:58:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>BullionVault</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Commentaries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[China]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gold]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thedailygold.com/?p=14294</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[WHOLESALE MARKET prices to buy gold bullion slipped further on Thursday in London, falling to a three-week low beneath $1709 per ounce as a raft of positive US data buoyed the Dollar, and fresh rumors broke of a Eurozone exit for Greece.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong id="internal-source-marker_0.8158837768714875"><br />
Thurs 16 Feb., 09:45 EST</p>
<p>Gold Demand Trends Show Chinese Growth, Indian Weakness &amp; Revival of US Consumers as Fresh Greek Rumors Dent Euro</p>
<p>WHOLESALE MARKET prices to <a href="about:blank">buy gold</a> bullion slipped further on Thursday in London, falling to a three-week low beneath $1709 per ounce as a raft of positive US data buoyed the Dollar, and fresh rumors broke of a Eurozone exit for Greece.</p>
<p>Last night&#8217;s phone-conference of Euro politicians said that Greece must accept extra budgetary oversight if it is to get the extra bail-out funds to meet March&#8217;s critical bond-repayment deadline.</p>
<p>US crude oil prices meanwhile ticked near five-week highs at $101 per barrel. Silver prices fell 2.4% to hit the lowest level since 25 January around $32.70 the ounce.</p>
<p>The price to <a href="about:blank">buy gold</a> fell to £1090 per ounce for UK savers, but held above €42,300 per kilo for Eurozone investors as the single currency dipped below $1.30.</p>
<p>&#8220;Key gold support is in the $1706 area and resistance is at last week’s high around $1752,&#8221; reckons the latest technical analysis from bullion bank Scotia Mocatta.</p>
<p>&#8220;Market sentiment towards [<a href="about:blank">buying gold</a>] seems broadly bullish, but some large stops lurking above $1730 are helping to keep a lid on things,&#8221; says a London dealer.</p>
<p>More broadly, &#8220;As a whole gold is adopting a more prominent role in the financial system,&#8221; said the World Gold Council&#8217;s Marcus Grubb to <a href="about:blank">MineWeb</a> this morning, launching the market-development organization&#8217;s latest quarterly <a href="about:blank">Gold Demand Trends</a> report.</p>
<p>&#8220;Central banks are [now] a key part of this market. They bought 439 tonnes last year, which is a huge move on the demand side, but they also were leasing more gold into the market&#8230;largely [to raise cash for] adding liquidity to help the European banking system.&#8221;</p>
<p>Spying &#8220;no end currently to the woes of Greece and Italy,&#8221; the <a href="about:blank">WGC&#8217;s new report</a> says that &#8220;ongoing difficulties in the [single Euro currency zone] will further stimulate <a href="about:blank">gold investment</a> demand.&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gold.org/investment/research/regular_reports/gold_demand_trends/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.gold.org/investment/research/regular_reports/gold_demand_trends/?referer=');">Gold Demand Trends</a> also shows China&#8217;s private demand overtaking world No.1 India in the fourth quarter of 2011, by holding equal with the last 3 months of 2010 by volume while India&#8217;s demand fell 42% to the lowest level since the global recession of early 2009.</p>
<p>France saw positive net gold investment in 2011 <a href="about:blank">for the third year in a row</a>, after being a consistent &#8220;dishoarder&#8221; for almost two decades.</p>
<p>Minting some 80 tonnes of gold coin, <a href="about:blank">Turkey was the world&#8217;s top bullion mint</a> once again, according to the WGC&#8217;s data.</p>
<p>On the economic front Thursday, new US jobless claims fell to a near 4-year low last week, new figures showed, while housing starts were also better than analysts forecast.</p>
<p>Excluding fuel and food, factory-gate prices in the US rose 3.0% year-on-year in January, compared with Wall Street estimates of 2.6%.</p>
<p>In contrast to US gold investment demand, which slipped 29% by value at the end of 2011, US demand to <a href="about:blank">buy gold</a> jewelry rose 12% in the last quarter compared with Christmas 2010, says the WGC&#8217;s report, reaching $2.3bn.</p>
<p>But &#8220;Household debt remains elevated by historical standards,&#8221; says a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond,  &#8220;and other determinants of consumer spending remain weak.&#8221;</p>
<p>Chinese households meantime grew their demand to <a href="about:blank">buy gold</a> jewelry 27% by value year-on-year, spending three times as much as did US consumers.</p>
<p>China&#8217;s physical <a href="about:blank">gold investment</a> demand rose 20% by value.</p>
<p>&#8220;It will probably take some time before investors in Hong Kong fully warm up to this [<a href="about:blank">gold ETF</a>] product,&#8221; writes UBS strategist Dr.Edel Tully, noting unimpressive demand for the city&#8217;s new exchange-traded gold trust, launched on Monday.</p>
<p>&#8220;One of the main appeals of gold in its key markets such as China and India is that it is a tangible, hard asset and easily accessible to retail consumers in physical form.</p>
<p>&#8220;The shift from <a href="about:blank">gold coins</a> and bars to an exchange-traded product may take some getting used to.&#8221;</p>
<p>Adrian Ash<br />
<a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">BullionVault</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/gold-price-chart.do" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/gold-price-chart.do?referer=');">Gold price chart, no delay</a>   |   <a href="http://gold.bullionvault.com/How/BuyGold" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/gold.bullionvault.com/How/BuyGold?referer=');">Buy gold online at live prices</a></p>
<p>Adrian Ash is head of research at <a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">BullionVault</a>, the secure, low-cost gold and silver market for private investors online, where you can <a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">buy gold today</a> vaulted in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.</p>
<p>(c) <a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">BullionVault</a> 2012</p>
<p>Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.</strong></p>
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		<title>China&#8217;s Rebalancing Should Be Good for Gold Demand</title>
		<link>http://thedailygold.com/chinas-rebalancing-should-be-good-for-gold-demand/</link>
		<comments>http://thedailygold.com/chinas-rebalancing-should-be-good-for-gold-demand/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>BullionVault</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Commentaries]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thedailygold.com/?p=14221</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The next stage of China's development could give gold buyers a boost...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div><strong><strong><br />
Thursday, 9 February 2011</p>
<p>The next stage of China&#8217;s development could give gold buyers a boost&#8230;</p>
<p>THERE IS an old saying: &#8220;Nobody rings a bell at the top or bottom of a market.&#8221;</p>
<p>Having said that, anyone reading about the stampede for gold during last month&#8217;s Chinese New Year celebrations might have heard a faint ringing in their ears.</p>
<p>Here are a few quotations from various press sources:<br />
</strong></strong></p>
<ul>
<li>&#8220;Some customers just walk in and buy a bunch of 100g gold bars all at once&#8230;Companies come in too to <a href="about:blank">buy gold</a> bars for presents.&#8221; – branch manager, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.</li>
<li>&#8220;Some companies are giving out gold instead of cash to their employees&#8221; –Jia Zhihong, jeweler, Wuhan.</li>
<li>&#8220;With customers crowding and rushing in, we did not even have time to eat and drink.&#8221; – gold counter sales clerk.</li>
<li>&#8220;People seem crazy about gold, snatching it up more like a cheap cabbage than such a precious metal&#8230;You have to quickly decide whether to make a purchase, or it will be taken away by others.&#8221; – Beijing shopper</li>
<li>&#8220;Think of it like investing in the stock market&#8230;Gold maintains its value much better than stocks.&#8221; – sales clerk, China Gold store.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong id="internal-source-marker_0.44843795732595026"></p>
<p>The classic signs of an investment mania are there. Mass participation, frenzied buying, an established narrative that something is a &#8216;sure thing&#8217;. But though this may look like the-mania-before-the-crash, that doesn&#8217;t mean it is.</p>
<p>China&#8217;s industrial development is still very much a work in progress. The likely next phase is a rebalancing of wealth away from industry and towards households. Given the demonstrable appetite for gold among Chinese consumers, this should be a major supporting factor for global gold demand.</p>
<p>According to World Gold Council data, Chinese gold consumption totaled 207.4 tonnes in 2003. By 2009 it had more than doubled to 457.7 tonnes. More recently, <a href="about:blank">gold imports from Hong Kong</a>, widely regarded as a proxy for total gold imports, tripled in 2011.</p>
<p>China only began deregulating its gold market a decade ago. Until the Shanghai Gold Exchange opened in late 2002, the government held a monopoly on gold ownership. It is possible that the growth in Chinese gold demand could merely represent catch-up, but this seems unlikely given how rapidly China&#8217;s economy grew over the same period. Ordinary Chinese have been growing steadily wealthier, meaning more and more people have had the wherewithal to <a href="about:blank">buy gold</a>.</p>
<p>A working paper by economists Guonan Ma and Wang Yi <a href="about:blank">published last year</a> by the Bank for International Settlements, for example, found that household savings as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) rose from 16% in 2001 to 23% by 2008 – a period in which GDP itself regularly grew by 10% or more a year.</p>
<p>The authors also found there was a considerable rise in household&#8217;s average propensity to save – that is, the proportion of disposable income that is held as savings. One possible explanation for this could be that economic growth has raised more and more Chinese to just above subsistence level, as agrarian workers urbanize and take higher-paying factory jobs for instance. As incomes grow, an increasing number can for the first time afford to save. Compared to those on higher incomes, though, these new savers must save a greater proportion of their disposable pay in order to attain a given level of savings.</p>
<p>This is not the only factor likely to have driven Chinese savings higher. Ma and Wang also argue that &#8220;precautionary savings motives&#8221; also explain the rise in personal savings. They cite the period 1995-2005, which saw a 50% fall in employment at state companies:</p>
<p>&#8216;Downsized employees received modest social welfare benefits, while many smaller money-losing state companies were shut down altogether. As a result, the enterprise-based cradle-to-grave social safety net shrank rapidly&#8230;The large-scale corporate restructuring and downsizing between 1995 and 2005 increased both income and expenditure uncertainties and weakened the enterprise-based social safety net, thus reinforcing the precautionary motives to save.&#8217;</p>
<p>Consider that for a second. Consider how it would have felt from the perspective of a &#8220;downsized&#8221; Chinese worker. Your socialist government, in power since 1949, has thrown a whole load of people out of work and done very little to help them afterwards.</p>
<p>In this context, it is understandable why people in China started saving more. One only has to think of the long shadow cast by Germany&#8217;s hyperinflation in the early 1920s, and the pathological fear Germans to this day have of price instability, to see how economic upheaval can have an enduring impact on financial behavior.</p>
<p>China therefore looks set to have a high savings rate for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, the rapid growth of Chinese gold demand suggests that many of those who can afford it choose to use some of their savings to <a href="about:blank">buy gold</a> (indeed, many have chosen to store some <a href="about:blank">savings as gold</a>).</p>
<p>Of course, this is not to say that the Chinese will continue to <a href="about:blank">buy gold</a> in ever greater quantities indefinitely. Indeed, it is impossible to know how a sharp slowdown in growth would affect Chinese gold demand. There may be some safe haven buying, especially if financial institutions collapse or people fear higher inflation as a result of any central bank response. On the other hand though, slower growth would sap the buying power of would-be gold consumers.</p>
<p>This is not an academic consideration. China faces a number of likely headwinds going forward. Most immediately, its export-led growth model means it is exposed to any deterioration in the global economy, for example the ongoing crisis in Europe, with which China has major trade links. It&#8217;s also probable that China has more deep-rooted troubles brewing. Beijing-based economist Michael Pettis <a href="about:blank">argues</a> that China has for years been misallocating capital &#8220;on a grand scale&#8221;, with state-owned enterprises investing in projects of questionable economic merit.</p>
<p><a href="about:blank">Elsewhere</a> Pettis draws a parallel with Japan, which he argues underwent a similar phase of overinvestment, making Japan&#8217;s subsequent stagnation akin to what China might face (and also qualitatively different from the post-consumption boom crisis the US and Europe currently find themselves in):</p>
<p>&#8216;This is not the problem that that the US or Europe is suffering from.  [The US and Europe] suffer from a typical debt-fueled overconsumption boom, whereas Japan suffered from a typical debt-fueled over-investment boom, and Japan’s period of over-investment was much, much more extreme (centralized investment booms can last much longer and go much further than decentralized consumption booms).  This is why I think the Japanese experience tells us almost nothing about what Europe and the US will go through.</p>
<p>&#8216;On the other hand, it might tell us a lot about what China will go through.  In fact we can make a more general point.  Command economies (Japan, the USSR, Brazil and many others during their &#8220;miracle&#8221; periods) tend to have much more rapid investment-driven growth during the good times and much more difficult and longer-lasting adjustments.&#8217;</p>
<p>So far, so very bearish for China. But Japan&#8217;s experience in the years following World War 2 also offers longer term hope. In a <a href="about:blank">working paper</a> published last year,  Bank of Japan economists Tomoyuki Fukumoto and Ichiro Muto argue that the high economic growth rates of today&#8217;s China mirror those seen in Japan between 1955 and 1970, which they say were &#8220;initiated by vigorous investment&#8221;.</p>
<p>After 1970, Japan saw a significant rebalancing of its economy away from investment towards consumption:</p>
<p>Consumption and investment in Japan as percentage of nominal GDP<br />
Fukumoto and Muto find that one key factor behind this rebalancing was the rising share of national income that went to labor, with labor&#8217;s share of GDP shooting up ten percentage points between 1970 and 1975.<br />
Pettis <a href="about:blank">argues</a> that ongoing rebalancing towards consumption also explains why Japanese living standards have continued to rise over the last two decades despite the stagnant Japanese economy:</p>
<p>&#8216;It was the state sector that bore most of the brunt of the slower growth, and this shows up as the explosion in government debt.  Households were fine because although the GDP pie was growing at a much slower rate after 1990 than before, their share of the pie was growing after 1990, whereas it shrank before 1990&#8230;I think the same might happen, or at least could happen, in China.&#8217;</p>
<p>China&#8217;s rebalancing has barely begun; consumption as a share of GDP has continued to fall in recent years much as it has for the last three decades:</p>
<p>Consumption and investment in China as percentage of nominal GDP<br />
At the start of last year, the Economist Intelligence Unit <a href="about:blank">rated</a> the results of China&#8217;s 11th Five-Year Plan, which ran from 2006 to 2010. One of the categories was &#8216;Economic rebalancing&#8217;, a term which includes China&#8217;s external as well as internal imbalances. China scored poorly in this category, being graded a &#8216;D&#8217; for its efforts to address &#8216;external imbalances&#8217;, another &#8216;D&#8217; for &#8216;excessive investment&#8217; (see chart above) and a &#8216;C&#8217; for &#8216;innovation- and services-based growth&#8217;.</p>
<p>There are, however, signs that an internal rebalancing may be starting to get underway. The EIU scored China a B- on &#8216;boosting farm incomes&#8217;, a B+ on &#8216;social security expansion&#8217; and an &#8216;A&#8217; on &#8216;reducing regional disparities&#8217;, commenting that &#8220;economic growth has gradually shifted inland&#8221;.</p>
<p>This may go some way towards explaining the rise in household savings as a percentage of GDP noted earlier, and in particular the rise in the average propensity to save as prosperity spreads and raises more people above subsistence. (As an aside, it is worth pointing out that expansion of social security provision could in time actually lead to a fall in savings rates if it sufficiently weakens the precautionary motive for saving – i.e. to provide for contingencies such as sickness and unemployment in the absence of a social safety net).</p>
<p>There are other signs of nascent change. Recent <a href="about:blank">disputes at Apple and Microsoft supplier Foxconn</a> are the latest in a series of industrial incidents to hit China recently. Fukumoto and Muto find that China has seen a sharp rise in the number of industrial disputes since the global financial crisis began:</p>
<p>Number of labor disputes in China<br />
Industrial action can and does yield results. As CNN <a href="about:blank">reports</a>, Foxconn twice gave its Shenzhen workers pay rises in 2010 following a spate of suicides at the plant.</p>
<p>That this rise in industrial action has occurred in the wake of the financial crisis is unlikely to be mere coincidence. But the example of Japan – which saw a rise in industrial disputes from the mid-1960s, and a sharp spike following the oil price shock of the early 1970s – suggests that concessions, once given, are difficult to reverse, as Fukumoto and Muto note:</p>
<p>&#8216;&#8230;after the mid-1960s, workers&#8217; sense of entitlement to their &#8220;fair share&#8221; rose&#8230;and their bargaining power strengthened. Consequently, it became difficult to restrain the rise in real wages again after the end of the oil crisis, and the rise in the labor share [of national income] became permanent.&#8217;</p>
<p>Indeed, China&#8217;s government <a href="about:blank">announced this week</a> that the minimum wage should grow by an average of 13% a year between now and 2015. It remains to be seen how this plays out in practice, but it suggests the authorities are aware of a need to raise household incomes.</p>
<p>China is yet to undergo significant internal rebalancing of real incomes away from industry and towards people, such as that experienced by Japan in the postwar era. There is good reason to assume that, sooner or later, such a rebalancing will occur.</p>
<p>And it is people, not industry, who <a href="about:blank">buy gold</a>. So unless China&#8217;s development gets completely stuck, its gold consumption should continue to rise over the long run.</p>
<p>Ben Traynor<br />
<a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">BullionVault</a></p>
<p><a href="http://gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldValue" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/gold.bullionvault.com/How/GoldValue?referer=');">Gold value calculator</a>   |   <a href="http://gold.bullionvault.com/How/BuyGold" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/gold.bullionvault.com/How/BuyGold?referer=');">Buy gold online at live prices</a></p>
<p>Editor of <a href="http://goldnews.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/goldnews.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">Gold News</a>, the analysis and investment research site from world-leading gold ownership service <a href="about:blank">BullionVault</a>, Ben Traynor was formerly editor of the Fleet Street Letter, the UK&#8217;s longest-running investment letter. A Cambridge economics graduate, he is a professional writer and editor with a specialist interest in monetary economics.</p>
<p>(c) <a href="http://www.bullionvault.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bullionvault.com/?referer=');">BullionVault</a> 2011</p>
<p>Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.<br />
</strong></div>
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		<title>Major Catalysts Ahead to Trigger Next Breakout in Gold Market</title>
		<link>http://thedailygold.com/major-catalysts-ahead-to-trigger-next-breakout-in-gold-market/</link>
		<comments>http://thedailygold.com/major-catalysts-ahead-to-trigger-next-breakout-in-gold-market/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:36:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jordan Roy-Byrne, CMT</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Commentaries]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thedailygold.com/?p=12145</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In bull markets, corrections and consolidations are needed to periodically cleanse the market of extreme optimism and an overbought condition....]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In bull markets, corrections and consolidations are needed to periodically cleanse the market of extreme optimism and an overbought condition. After a market has strong run it inevitably reaches a point of resistance. This is where there are more buyers than sellers.  A market can correct in two ways. Either it declines and retraces much of the preceding gains relatively quickly or a market will consolidate near its highs for a long period of time. The first correction is a function of price while the second, time. The correction or consolidation ends when a fundamental catalyst emerges which triggers greater demand that overwhelms current supply.</p>
<p><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/Hy9ktVKDR148B6rjpl7mzCRXdrc8WQg2Zgi1paqAEd1qA5WsPVRwdBZnipn_mWDnVeK_fdRxH0Z9kXyByqAPmmuZd79NLftUaHzUtMYkMBEL0ocNklc" alt="" width="585" height="351" /></p>
<p>The consolidation has endured due to a working off of the overbought condition from 2009-2010 gains as well as the lack of a real catalyst. The Fed, though accomadative has been on hold while emerging markets turned their focus to inflation. European bond markets were in fair shape into the summer. However, the good news for gold investors is that a trio of major catalysts lie on the horizon and should easily trigger the next breakout.</p>
<p>The obvious catalyst is a massive bailout of European nations and European banks through a $3 Trillion debt monetization (the figure stated by many). Until last month the European crisis was limited and a hope of being contained. Since then interest rates on French bonds, which had been following Germany began following Spain and Italy higher. The 10-year yield on French bonds has surged in the past six weeks from about 2.50% to nearly 4%. Meanwhile, Ambrose Evans Pritchard, the intrepid reporter wrote<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8897775/Asian-powers-spurn-German-debt-on-EMU-chaos.html" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8897775/Asian-powers-spurn-German-debt-on-EMU-chaos.html?referer=');"> that Asian investors are pulling out of German Bunds and Europe all together.</a> Bund yields (10-year) look to be forming a double bottom just below 2%. Bunds stopped rising in last month as yields surged in Spain, Italy and France. Understandably, Germany has stood in the way of an ECB bailout. However, the sooner the crisis spreads to Germany, the sooner we can expect a German-led ECB bailout.</p>
<p>Moving over to Asia, we hear that China has started to turn its focus away from inflation and towards growth. Last weekend the Chinese Vice-Premier, Wang Qishan indicated publicly that “ensuring growth is the overriding priority,” and “unbalanced growth would be better than a balanced recession.” He also noted the persistent weakness in the global economy.</p>
<p>China’s tightening, which began October 2010 has been effective. It was recently reported that Chinese inflation rate has fallen in recent months from a high of 6.5% to 5.5% and industrial production growth slipped to a one-year low. GDP growth has slowed in recent quarters from 9.7% down to 9.1%. According to analysts at Citigroup, the slowdown could intensify. <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-22/china-s-stocks-drop-for-fifth-day-on-property-investment-slowdown-concerns.html#" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-22/china-s-stocks-drop-for-fifth-day-on-property-investment-slowdown-concerns.html?referer=');">Bloomberg</a> reports:</p>
<p>If tightening measures aren’t relaxed, property investment will “scale back significantly” in the next two quarters, “dragging down the whole production chain and GDP growth,” Minggao Shen and Ben Wei, analysts at Citigroup, wrote in a report dated yesterday. Exporting firms are also facing an environment worse than in late 2008 due to the overseas slowdown and rising costs, they said.</p>
<p>Last but not least let us consider the USA. Our bond market remains the strongest in the world while the US Dollar is likely to rally further in the near term. This combination along with lower commodity prices and a global move to inflationary policies will allow the Fed the political cover to institute another round of debt monetization. Combined with potential action in China and imminent action in Europe, this is powerful policy that should result in a massive catalyst for select markets.</p>
<p>The current investor psychology of fear, indifference, and surrender is leaving them vulnerable as they miss the big catalysts that lie directly ahead. Gold and gold stocks remain in excellent position for a potentially tremendous 2012 and 2013. Required action from Europe, a shift in Chinese policy and more monetization on steroids from the Fed is going to catapult the bull market in precious metals like we haven’t seen since the late 1970s. In our premium service, we seek to manage the short-term risks in this volatile sector while keeping focused on the major opportunities. The technicals are lined up while fundamental catalysts are soon to emerge. The combination could lead to an explosive 2012 for gold bugs. <a href="http://thedailygold.com/premium/">We invite you to learn more about our service. </a></p>
<p>Good Luck!</p>
<p>Jordan Roy-Byrne, CMT<br />
<a href="mailto:Jordan@TheDailyGold.com">Jordan@TheDailyGold.com</a></p>
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		<title>Is this the Start of the New Round of Global Bailouts?</title>
		<link>http://thedailygold.com/is-this-the-start-of-the-new-round-of-global-bailouts/</link>
		<comments>http://thedailygold.com/is-this-the-start-of-the-new-round-of-global-bailouts/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Jun 2011 20:36:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jordan Roy-Byrne, CMT</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Commentaries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[China]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Debt]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thedailygold.com/?p=6746</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[From Reuters: China to Clean Up Billions Worth of Local Debt China&#8217;s regulators plan to shift 2-3 trillion yuan ($308-463 billion) of debt off local governments, sources said, reducing the risk of a wave of defaults that would threaten the stability of the world&#8217;s second-biggest economy. As part of Beijing&#8217;s overhaul of the finances of [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>From Reuters: <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/31/us-china-economy-debt-idUSTRE74U26320110531" target="_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/31/us-china-economy-debt-idUSTRE74U26320110531?referer=');">China to Clean Up Billions Worth of Local Debt</a></p>
<p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>China&#8217;s  regulators plan to shift 2-3 trillion yuan ($308-463 billion) of debt  off local governments, sources said, reducing the risk of a wave of  defaults that would threaten the stability of the world&#8217;s second-biggest  economy.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>As part of Beijing&#8217;s overhaul  of the finances of heavily-indebted local governments, the central  government will pay off some of their loans and state banks including  some of the &#8220;Big Four&#8221; will be forced to take some losses on the bad  debt, said the sources, both of whom have direct knowledge of the plans.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>Part  of the debt will also be shifted to newly created companies, while  private investors would be welcomed in projects previously off-limits to  them, sources said.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>Beijing will  also lift a ban on provincial and municipal governments selling bonds, a  step aimed at bolstering their finances with more transparent sources  of funding.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>Many analysts see  China&#8217;s pile of local government bad debt as a major risk to the  economy, especially as the economy slows, but few see widespread banking  fallout as they believe cash-rich Beijing can step in to soak up  losses.</em></p>
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		<title>China Plays Europe Card</title>
		<link>http://thedailygold.com/china-plays-europe-card/</link>
		<comments>http://thedailygold.com/china-plays-europe-card/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:47:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dr. Jim Willie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Commentaries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[China]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Euro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gold]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Yuan]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Whether Americans and Westerners in general like it or not, the Chinese have become and will remain the key drivers to many economic and financial market developments, progress, and averted wreckage. The intrepid lapdog US press, loyal to the syndicate, is a critical element to maintain distractions. Of course, China must adapt and react to [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Whether  Americans and Westerners in general like it or not, the Chinese have  become and will remain the key drivers to many economic and financial  market developments, progress, and averted wreckage. The intrepid lapdog  US press, loyal to the syndicate, is a critical element to maintain  distractions. Of course, China must adapt and react to their own  stumbles and accidents, assured since for years they have maintained a  tight link in monetary policy. Doing so has linked their asset bubble  expansion and bust cycle to the deadly one in the United States, and  filled their coffers with US$-denominated toxic debt securities.  However, China has three advantages over the US that stand out. They  have $2.65 trillion in savings, rainy day money in a war chest. They  have a vast industrial base, courtesy of the US, the West, and Japan,  which donated the technology for the fabled disastrous low-cost  solution. They have an expanding middle class. Neither the US, the UK,  nor Western Europe has anything remotely similar to these three benefit  allowances. It is slowly becoming clear that the US granted the Most  Favored Nation status to China in return for massive gold &amp; silver  swaps to the USGovt. The Wall Street fraud kings illicitly sold the  leased bullion into the market, to sustain the American fiat paper  congame, and thus a betrayal to the Chinese.</p>
<p>The  Beijing leaders are highly motivated to unseat the Anglo bankers from  their perched throne, emboldened by vengeance. The betrayal was to the  American people also, since waves of jobs went to China from US shores,  since the US sold not only its own Fort Knox gold inventory, but Western  Europe&#8217;s also, then China&#8217;s to boot. Those who believe the USGovt has  any gold reserves at all should donate their cerebrums to science while  still alive, a euthanized suicide. The USGovt in all likelihood is in  possession of less than zero gold, owing both Europe and China massive  amounts. It is the American ticket to the Third World, paved by lost  industry, locked by vast debt, assured by broken economic principles  blessed by high priest heresy. The US banking leaders still believe the  US can revive itself by the flood of more debt and stronger consumer  spending, without a clue of what legitimate income means or where it  comes from.</p>
<p>Before  delving deeper into this important thesis topic, a comment is in order  regarding President Obama&#8217;s State of the Union address and his plan. As  forecasted by the Jackass on repeated past occasions, the entirety of  the sacrifice to reduce the USGovt budget will come from the domestic,  non-defense, non-security side. Aid to businesses and households and  dedication to infrastructure will be removed. The higher priority war  machine will be preserved. He called it non-security measures, implying  the sacred nature of the security of the nation. Ironically, the  security of the nation has been put in peril from unspeakable banker  fraud, abandonment of industry, and neglect of infrastructure, not to  mention the continued ignorance toward capital formation and dutiful  embrace of a consumption mindset. The Obama Admin will remain committed  to gutting America, undercutting the middle class, and feeding the  deterioration of the USEconomy. He will assure a reduced domestic blood  supply and food intake. Expect more empty talk of clean energy and jobs.  The greatest potential for spending cuts are from the defense budget,  for which the USGovt spends more than the rest of the world combined. A  vast array of military bases, embassies place on foreign soil, and  weapons projects will be preserved. The maintenance of the foreign  threat will be steadfastly maintained. The ethics of drone weapons,  regeneration of enemies, destabilization of governments, and the absent  economic multiplier effect from defense/offense spending will all  conspire to weaken the United States in ways that our leaders seem  incapable of understanding. They promote the Fascist Business Model, the  very same that has contributed to the wreckage of the nation. The  victims are economic growth, rule of contract law, sanctity of private  property, and truth. The legitimate threat to the nation comes from its  internal situation and the impunity of large scale financial crimes.  When reference is made to a Sputnik moment for the United States, try  not to laugh. A deeply indebted nation with spiraling deficits latched  at the hip to a currency besieged by monetary inflation cannot afford  any grand initiative, especially when its highest national priority is  war. Survival will soon escalate to a higher priority.</p>
<p>OVERVIEW OF THE CHINA-EUROPE CARD</p>
<p>The  Chinese are well along a full court press to secure Gold bullion and  dominate in the next phase of the global chess game that will span the  next decade or more. With  the expansion in the European Dollar Swap Window by the Chinese, the  Euro currency has risen impressively. No benefit to Gold has been  realized despite the USDollar slide in the last month.  One must suspect the Chinese are busy as yellow jacket bees dumping  USTreasury Bonds. But also, the Chinese might have suspended some of  their Gold &amp; Silver purchases. They might have actually drained for a  time the COMEX gold inventory, and await its replenishment. Enter the  BIS after midnight from the loading dock. Beijing leaders might be  anticipating a high volume Gold bullion purchase flow from the back door  in Europe. Refer to EuroBonds bought at discount using the Dollar Swap  Window, converted eventually to Gold. My  guess is the harlot Intl Monetary Fund will facilitate the Gold  conversion, from the EU member nation central banks associated with PIGS  nations.  If inadequate supply of Gold is a problem with PIGS nations, perhaps  some gold swap contracts can be enabled with the help of the Bank For  Intl Settlements in Switzerland. But those swaps would seal the PIGS  nation fates, since they would hand over industrial, commercial, and  other collateral, assuring banker elite ownership of whatever keys to  the kingdom are left. Therefore, Gold is vulnerable to hits during the  time China takes its foot off the accelerator pedal. China has found a  way to purchase high volumes of Gold bullion at a discount. The discount  is essentially the EuroBond sovereign debt discount under distress,  which might be in the 10% to 20% range. So the PIGS debt will be rescued  for a while, but with forfeit of their central bank gold, or borrowed  gold.</p>
<p>TRADE AS GEOPOLITICAL LEVER</p>
<p>The  last several decades have revealed some sordid bilateral contracts,  critical deals like what was made with the Saudis. The USGovt pledged to  protect the House of Saud and their kingdom, helped along by massive  USMilitary weapon sales. The Saudis in turn would demand payment for  crude oil in USDollar terms exclusively. The entire Persian Gulf has  toed the line on US$ oil sales ever since, even other OPEC players like  Nigeria and Indonesia. A difficult balancing act has been required, and  still is required, to keep the peace and minimize the friction between  Arab nations and the headquarters of the multi-faceted syndicate helm  that has controlled the USGovt with tight reins for nine years and four  months. The USGovt prefers to enforce and sustain its global domination  with heavy handed banker tactics, financial market rigging games, export  of crippling acidic debt, usage of the World Bank and IMF tools, and  numerous clever devious nasty methods in the shadows best not described.  Lately, a chief US export has been price inflation, most evident in food prices, courtesy of the QE2 program by the USFed.  In the last decade, the chief export was toxic debt securities. The  Chinese have a different approach, one that might have been more  prevalent in the United States half a century ago. They have made 180  trade deals across the world, the exact number exaggerated. They do not  place military personnel on foreign soil. They do not lace foreign  banking systems with toxic debt. They establish multi-faceted contracts  that involve the build-out of port facilities, railroad lines, schools,  hospitals, and community living centers. They ignore ugly government  facts of life like what exist in West Africa. They operate a  sophisticated guerrilla economic warfare in sharp contrast to what the  US does. The Chinese build partnerships, not without some friction,  while the Americans ignite violent conflicts and demand that allies take  sides, while extorting bank ruin, living above their means. The source  of the ignition events is kept well under wraps. The ultimate motives of  the Chinese is likewise kept rather quiet.</p>
<p>DOLLAR SWAP WINDOW</p>
<p>The  most important factor to bear upon the financial markets globally in  the last several months, the greatest change agent, in my view, is the creation of the Dollar Swap Windows  by China. They are being erected in Europe. Their focus is on the PIGS  nation sovereign debt. The debt of Greece, then Portugal, finally Spain  very recently, and later inexorably Italy have found and will find a  major buyer in China. They will buy PIGS debt at discount. They will win  favor across the continent. They will gain advantages not well publicly  mentioned. They will cut off geopolitical opposition in extremely  subtle manner. They will open up the pathways for greater technology  transfer. They will offer a semblance of stability to the currency  markets in turmoil. They will spread their global presence, if not  dominance. They will work some backdoor deals with motives to secure  large volumes of gold bullion at discount. They will solicit more  cooperation from previously devoted Anglo tools like the Intl Monetary  Fund, and perhaps turn the IMF itself into a Chinese agent. They will  possibly pave the way to a mild colonization movement, perhaps having  already chosen Southern Spain over Southern California. The Mexican  Civil War might have frightened them off any plan to send a million  Chinese to North America, equal in intensity to the realization of  rising hostility and trade war with the USGovt. Somehow friction with  Basque Separatists and detente with Andora versus Spain seems tame  compared to roving gangs of Mexican drug lord lieutenants ready to dole  out violence on US soil, whose battle lines are drawn by tribal history  far more than the US press reports. The systemic failure of Mexico was  forecasted in the Hat Trick Letter in the summer 2007, with timing  expected for some climax events and recognition in mid-2010, a correct  forecast. The USGovt has gone from assisting China in economic and  industrial development to blaming them for the depleted US condition.  The bigger problem is obviously the deeply entrenched domestic devotion  to asset bubbles and colossal bank fraud, run in parallel with the  absurd destructive consumption mindset.</p>
<p>HIDDEN EURO IMPACT</p>
<p>So  the Dollar Swap Window has been constructed, with expansion a  certainty. The Chinese will have an opportunity to dump a big batch of  USTreasury Bonds on a regular basis. My full expectation is that the Chinese will sell far more USTBonds than they purchase PIGS nation sovereign debt.  In other words, they are building a dumping ground. Key parts of the  equation are that the Europeans have been promised a willing buyer  (although with ulterior motive) in the Chinese for PIGS sovereign debt.  The Germans are sick &amp; tired, fed up to the gills, in supporting the  Southern Europe welfare system which identifies the broken element of  the faulty European Union. Its foundation had cracks from the start,  more than the Jackass recognized admittedly in past years. The Europeans  have been promised some important support for the embattled Euro  currency. Every time the Greek crisis made the news in past months, the  Euro currency sold off with gusto. No more! A strong broad plank of  support for the Euro has been provided by China. They are selling their  USTBonds and buying EuroBonds with PIGS brand markers. The Euro currency  has risen from a January 10th low of 129 all the way to almost 137 in  this month alone. The rise has occurred despite the ongoing saga of PIGS  debt distress. The Portuguese sovereign debt has been shored up by  Chinese promises of purchase. The Irish Govt debt is a totally different  animal. They accepted and swallowed the lethal IMF poison pill, cut  their budget, and seen enormous deficits spiral out of control as their  economy craters. They have resorted to monetary inflation approaching  Weimar style as proof of the disastrous error in decisions. Translated  to US size difference terms, Ireland has expanded their Euro money  supply the equivalent of the US doing so by $12 trillion, all in the  space of three months on the Emerald Isle centered in Dublin. They are  not keeping Dublin tidy!</p>
<p><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/1B0NwtenyYP8ChyVKtB5zIr_tfwueYt1VNJvQ5gwRW-a40T6ZCT5rvcDSw_Q2CBirtiVQ69LdtFIyJ1n9-9eq7bLlqXho5kIcMivZUEZ29LCjHnZFg" alt="" width="575px;" height="360px;" /></p>
<p>The  financial news reports fail to mention the China card. They fail to  mention that China is exchanging USTBonds for Euros in order to purchase  EuroBonds with PIGS skin labels. They fail to mention that large  Chinese hands are supporting the Euro currency. My belief is that the  news media does not wish to stress the expansion of Chinese influence.  For a century, or perhaps three centuries, the cultural and heritage  linkage between Europe and the United States has been firm and solid. A  grand Chinese wedge has been inserted, not so much between Central  Europe and Southern Europe as between Europe and the United States.  China will be crucial in casting the Southern nations aside from the  European core. They will become wards of China, even for exploit. The  Dollar Swap Window constructed by China has actually isolated the USGovt  in serious ways. Relief to PIGS EuroBonds is obvious. The numerous  other effects are not, and those effects are not in the news. They are  main elements of the Hat Trick Gold &amp; Currency Report, and have been  for several months. The expansion to Spain was a forecast made in  November and December, with confirmation coming by denials in Madrid.</p>
<p>Something unique and unusual has happened in the last three weeks. The Euro currency has risen noticeably from 129 to 137, but the Gold price has fallen from $1385 to $1335 per ounce.  For almost a full decade, the correlation between the US$ DX index and  the Gold price has been in the minus 70% neighborhood. What has happened  in the last month has been a gigantic outlier. It is not just  significant with umpteen standard deviations above the norm. It is in  the wrong direction. My best guess is that the Chinese have temporarily  halted their usage of the COMEX avenue for gold acquisition. They have  permitted the corrupted COMEX to push down the gold price, using its  fraudulent paper mechanisms. They have given free rein for the Wall  Street maestros to lower the gold price for any IMF deal to secure  European gold bullion in exchange for EuroBonds. Most gold &amp; silver  contracts are settled in cash anyway these days, since the COMEX does  not have much precious metal in its possession. Imagine the day coming  before too many months when gold &amp; silver can be traded in contracts  at the COMEX with no gold or silver metal exchanging hands. That day is  coming, along with ruin of the GLD and SLV defaults, ruin, deep  discounts in share price versus the metal price, and investor lawsuits.  As for the Gold &amp; Silver price, they will rise when the Chinese  decide to resume buying. Right now, their attention is diverted to EU  gold bought at deep discount, and in volume. As usual, they are thinking  at least 20 years ahead. The Gold &amp; Silver price will rise soon  enough for the patient minded. The physical market wrests control  always, as the mid-term forces take over.</p>
<p>OBTAINING GERMAN TECHNOLOGY</p>
<p>Germany  is grateful that a new benefactor has come to Southern Europe. No  longer does the German Govt feel burdened by the welfare enforced by the  European Union dictum. The Germans are exhausted from $300 billion in  annual welfare support of a deadbeat set of children in Portugal, Italy,  Greece, and Spain. Over the last ten years, the drain of German wealth  has been $3 trillion in total. A German banker has kept me up to date on  the details. He frequently mentions that it is not a matter of  willingness for the Germans to continue to support the broken nations of  Southern Europe, complete with their grand deficits and inefficient  economies, and greatly different work ethic, and their preference for  song and dance and wine. The Germans are NOT CAPABLE of the continued  drain of $300 billion per year, since the cost has turned into a  nightmare burden.</p>
<p>In  return for the outsized Chinese relief of PIGS debt, the Germans have  offered key exports in technology. The main items are machine tools,  telecommunications, construction equipment, and cars. Germany is the  technology leader in Europe, with no close second competitor. France is a  distant second. The German Economy is not a war economy, as they  possess world class technology for domestic purposes. In the early part  of the last 2000 decade, the technology transfer was significant from  Japan to China. It enabled a great leap for Chinese industry. In many  instances, the installed Japanese technology, like with machine tools  and sophisticated manufacturing floor control systems, the Chinese  leapfrogged the US easily. Enter the current phase, where the Germans  are working with the Chinese in major deals. My view is that the Eastern  Alliance, whose participants are Germany, Russia, China, and the  Persian Gulf states, has many components not easily seen. They are  working on the New Nordic Euro currency, complete with a gold component,  in order to establish a replacement for global banking and commerce. It  could become a new global reserve currency, all in time. Expect the  alliance to include commitments for vast Russian resources, vast German  technology, vast Chinese bank reserves, and guarantees of vast Arab oil  supply. The Dollar Swap Window is an important component to the  advancement of the Eastern Alliance, in which the US and UK are not  players. They are shut out.</p>
<p>ISOLATE USGOVT IN TRADE WAR</p>
<p>A  significant hidden effect for the Dollar Swap Window has been the  interruption of the trade war alliance encouraged and solicited by the  USGovt. Evidence was clear at the most recent G-20 Meeting of finance  ministers. The USGovt attempted to find wider support for hostility  against China. They all fell of deaf ears. The American delegation was  embarrassed, isolated, and stunned. With  the Chinese acting as chief debt benefactor in Europe, with the Chinese  forging Asian, Arab, South American alliances, nobody joined the  adolescent US chatter to confront and combat China.  The USGovt is increasingly isolated in its trade war against Beijing.  The great trade war will be bilateral, with perhaps no other allies at  the side of either nation. Witness the battle for global control and  leadership. A great transition is in progress, as the global leader  mantle passes from West to East, from the US hands to Chinese hands. The  US is expert at creating enemies. As the Islamics fade in perceived  threat, enter the Chinese who &#8220;stole&#8221; the US jobs and &#8220;sit on&#8221; vast  hoard of money from &#8220;ill-gotten trade surpluses&#8221; in great ongoing  accumulation. The ugly truth is that 60% to 65% of Chinese trade surplus  from 2004 to 2008 was derived from US and Western corporations having  expanded on Chinese soil with factories, fully endorsed by USGovt and  Western Govts, often with direct support of ministries. The Europeans  are courting the Chinese, and that is big news. China is playing the  Europe card at the geopolitical table. Maybe the numerous NATO military  bases will eventually fly Chinese flags and be converted to commercial  supply transport usage.</p>
<p>The  hypocrisy is thick. However, the incessant annoying shallow charges of  currency manipulation ring hollow when the US Federal Reserve announced  the Quantitative Easing #2. They hypocrisy was extra thick, since the  USFed had heralded an end to the 0% monetary policy. The Exit Strategy  was followed by monetary inflation, US style, mimicking as best they  could the Weimar program 70 years ago. The hypocrisy was doubly thick  since the first QE round was promised to be the only round. It was  followed by QE2, as forecasted by the Jackass all last year. Expect a  QE3 later this year, to rescue states and muni bonds, but only after  government pension obligations are abandoned and smashed. In the  process, the United States has become isolated. Numerous trade deals  exclude the USGovt and USEconomy. The new perverse grand trade partners  for the United States are war continuation, war expansion, and a deep  embrace of the Printing Pre$$, the monetary inflation machinery. As  USTreasury Bond creditors have stepped away, the USFed has entered with  powerful demand from printed USDollars, all done electronically, boasted  at zero cost. In my view, the cost is infinite, with broad capital  destruction and economic disintegration.</p>
<p>BACKDOOR GOLD PURCHASE</p>
<p>Word  is gradually leaking out that the Chinese have a powerful ulterior  motive to purchase EuroBonds, not so much out of altruism, not even so  much out of global expansion of influence. THE CHINESE WISH TO CONVERT DISCOUNTED EUROBONDS TO SECURE HUGE VOLUMES OF EUROPEAN GOLD.  The Beijing leaders must for instance have a plan to convert a fixed  percentage of EuroBonds to gold bullion, even a cut deal with European  leaders and bankers, arranged carefully in advance. They wish to replace  the gold bullion possibly swindled by the USGovt. Any USGovt gold  leases to European nations from past years might be repaid directly to  the Chinese, to close out the lease contracts. The acquisition will NOT  be front page news, will NOT be discussed by European leaders, and will  NOT be publicly debated. The choice for PIGS nations has been and will  continue to be default on sovereign debt or to cut deals with China that  buy time. Since Germany has let it be known that their credit line is  cut off, China has filled the void. But Beijing leaders are crafty. They  have very likely secured deals whereby the IMF harlot will facilitate  huge gold bullion sales to China with the EuroBond securities. The IMF  has run past cover in lease close-outs from the USGovt, complete with  grand deceptions. The key to unmask the lease close-out deals is that  the IMF never identified buyers. There were none often. A sale without a  buyer is an end to a short trade after the passage of years in time.  Without some promised conversion to gold, China would not have cut the  deals. It is the quiet underpin. The common denominator in the great  majority of Chinese deals forged worldwide in the last decade is the  secured supply line of hard assets, like commodities. They also have a  preference for port facilities. Energy supplies, mineral wealth, and  foodstuffs are the main objective of the numerous Chinese trade deals,  which increasingly involve establishment of currency swap facilities and  conversion systems. See Brazil and Russia, which do not bother to use  the USDollar in trade settlement. In the future, look for commodity  deals that supply China with fresh water.</p>
<p>Expect  this trend to increase to the point that eventually the Chinese Yuan  (renminbi) is a global currency with full convertibility. Later, it  might serve as global reserve currency. What gives it the edge in such a  role is its rise, compared to the USDollar&#8217;s decline. The next decade  will see the Redback (Yuan) more and the Greenback (US$) less in banks  worldwide, and in trade settlement. The extreme wild card in the entire  equation is eventually colonization by the Chinese elite. If they aid in  government debt purchase, then hold title to property, while providing  supply lines to a wide range of consumer products (someday cars too),  what would prevent them from sending 100 thousand people per year to  occupy abandoned homes and empty apartment buildings held under proper  title? Nothing!</p>
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		<title>Long Shadows Cast Over Us Economy</title>
		<link>http://thedailygold.com/long-shadows-cast-over-us-economg/</link>
		<comments>http://thedailygold.com/long-shadows-cast-over-us-economg/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jan 2011 21:10:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dr. Jim Willie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Commentaries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banking System]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bernanke]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[China]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Euro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gold]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Housing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[US Dollar]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Numerous are the threats to the USEconomy and US financial structures. Many are hidden threats....]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>home:  <a href="http://www.goldenjackass.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.goldenjackass.com/?referer=');">Golden Jackass website</a><br />
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Jim Willie CB, editor of the “HAT TRICK LETTER”</p>
<p><em>Use  the above link to subscribe to the paid research reports, which include  coverage of critically important factors at work during the ongoing  panicky attempt to sustain an unsustainable system burdened by numerous  imbalances aggravated by global village forces. An historically  unprecedented mess has been created by compromised central bankers and  inept economic advisors, whose interference has irreversibly altered and  damaged the world financial system, urgently pushed after the removed  anchor of money to gold. Analysis features Gold, Crude Oil, USDollar,  Treasury bonds, and inter-market dynamics with the US Economy and US  Federal Reserve monetary policy.</em></p>
<p>Numerous  are the threats to the USEconomy and US financial structures. Many are  hidden threats, subtle challenges to undermine increasingly fragile  support systems, planks, and cables that hold the system together. The  year 2011 will be when the system breaks in open visible fashion, when  the explanations that justify it sound silly and baseless, when the  entire bond world endures major crashes. All thing financial are  inter-related. Recall that in summer 2007, the professor occupying the  US Federal Reserve claimed the subprime mortgage crisis was isolated.  The Jackass countered with a claim that the bond market was suffering a  crisis in absolute terms, where all bond markets were on the verge of  fracture, perhaps globally. In year 2008 the banking system in the  Western world broke, fatally and irreparably in my view. In 2009, the  solutions, the treatment, the official programs were all exaggerated for  their effectiveness while banker welfare became a fixture. Neglect of  the people on Main Street became policy. In 2010, the system revealed it  is still broken. The global monetary system after all rests atop the  sovereign bond market. This year, it must fight off a collapse. Many are  the hidden points of vulnerability. Gold &amp; Silver will continue to  be the great beneficiaries.</p>
<p>BOND OUTFLOWS</p>
<p>Huge  outflows have struck from US-based bond funds, while the outflows  continue for stock funds since may 2010. Even the flagship pimco bond  fund saw net redemptions. The public is stepping aside as the usfed does  its destructive work. No end is in sight for the stock fund outflows. A  public boycott seems firmly in place. The new event is the largest bond fund outflow in almost 30 months.  The Investment Company Institute reported that in the week ended  December 15th, another massive outflow took place from domestic stock  funds. It was the 33rd week in a row, amounting to an exit of $2.4  billion. Worse,  taxable and municipal bonds saw a nasty shocker of $8.62 billion in  outflows, which included another record $4.9 billion in muni bond  outflows.  Bond mutual funds had the biggest client withdrawals in more than two  years, as a flight from fixed income investments has accelerated. The  withdrawals were the largest since mid-October 2008, when investors  pulled out $17.6 billion from bond funds. The US bond fund retreat  showed acceleration signs, since the rise was from $1.66 billion the  week before, according to the ICI report. So outflows are in progress  for both  US stocks and US bonds!! Year to date, investors have yanked $100  billion in funds from US-focused equity mutual funds, offset by a  smaller $16 billion in comparable inflows into equity strategies via  ETFunds. The $250 billion PIMCO Total Return Fund, managed by Bill  Gross, had its first net withdrawals in two years in November as  investors pulled $1.9 billion, according to Morningstar.</p>
<p>The  public has grown jaded by stories of flash trading smears of the stock  market, insider trading scandals, and incessant internal reports of  stock support from the Working Group for Financial Markets. They sense  stock prices are heavily manipulated and not a reflection of true value.  They might on a wider basis believe that most US financial markets are  either in ruins or corrupted. The vast record outflows accompany a rise  in the S&amp;P500 stock index, which is a clear signal of USGovt prop  programs in a corrupt market. Ridiculous illogical and ludicrous  interpretations continue to be disseminated about the USEconomy in  recovery. The false story has become a billboard message of deception.  We are told that investors  are retreating from bond funds after signs of an economic recovery and a  stock market rally, which have lifted interest rates broadly.  The reality is something quite different. The selloff in USTreasurys  happened exactly after the US Federal Reserve in November offered  specific details on its pledge to purchase $600 billion in bond assets  to revive the sluggish USEconomy. The 10-year USTreasury yields lie in  the 3.2% to 3.4% range, much higher than the 2.49% in the first week of  November. The bond market contradiction to the USFed monetization plan is without precedent in US bond market history, a grandiose insult.</p>
<p><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/JKQ50GYyOucjiIMcShBPEbyegarLT0bMXYV4qQ5gZZwBCoje50G0INCGOH335Q1VmlK16DJitDtOYR7CuI7EiT07QJvGtb13oNzZF1_vlg3I_D6wXA" alt="" width="500px;" height="293px;" /></p>
<p>The  QE2 team is buying $100 billion in USTBonds per month, taking up the  slack, without producing any decline in bond yields. The USFed is  running a dangerous desperate gambit. Attempts to hold together the  ustreasury market during its QE2 strongarm episode are underway.  Obviously the USFed is the USTreasury market, with outsized USTBond  purchases as part of its QE2 program. An approved posse of market specialists is buying hundreds of $billions of USTreasury securities on the open market.  They are filling a vacuum. They are offsetting global creditors in  abandonment. They bought in 2011 a full 75% of all USGovt debt issuance,  just like Banana Republics!! They must keep the interest rates low.  They must prevent a credit derivative blowup event. The USFed is fast  losing all credibility, exhausting its power, testing its limits,  fighting off demands for independent audits. The QE2 team seeks the best  price available. However, due the fully advertised initiative and the  heavy volume, is destined to pay a premium price. They  have tipped their hand, as they buy $100 billion per month in  USTreasurys. It is not possible to be a known buyer with a schedule and  agenda, and execute favorable prices.  An unexpected backfire occurred on the way to the QE2 launch. Bond  yields fell sharply between August and November as the markets  anticipated the new program. Bond yields have defiantly risen since  details on QE2 were formally announced in November, delivering losses to  the frontrunners in the autumn months. Too much doubt was left  lingering on the volume of the program, and furthermore, whether a QE3  would launch. Bernanke actually hinted of a third launch, foolishly. The  states need several hundred $billion, another monetization object.</p>
<p>GOLD &amp; SILVER PREPARE FOR ANOTHER BREAKOUT</p>
<p>A major consolidation is taking place in the Gold price. A  near total disconnect has occurred between the physical Gold &amp;  Silver markets and the control strings from the paper futures market  held by the maestros.  Grotesque shortages exist in silver. Difficulties in gold delivery are  commonplace. The central banks and Bank For Intl Settlements scramble to  keep gold &amp; silver supplied to the exchanges, in order to avert  openly visible defaults. A strong uptrend with rising moving averages is  evident in Gold. The breakout in October has been consolidating for  three full months, while Europe experiences its open sores of sovereign  debt distress. Its price will soon encounter the uptrend lines for  likely ignition. When  a European aid package is assembled, whether of substance or not,  merely if it seems credible, the Euro currency will rebound and the Gold  bull will resume.  In year 2011, the global monetary system will fracture in visible  fashion. Its broken debt foundation will be the proximal cause. Gold is  widely regarded as a reserve asset, no longer a stodgy secure asset for  Arab sheiks. The dirtiest little secret might be that private Wall  Street firm accounts own vast Gold bullion accounts, while their  corporate banking entities in South Manhattan own the short futures  positions, soon to be dumped on the USGovt in formal fashion. The greatest propulsion force to the Gold price is obviously the USFed and its grandiose QE2 initiative.  Their purchase of $100 billion in USTBonds per month signifies that  they are the USTreasury Bond market. PIMCO is worried sick about the  unbridled monetization. The USFed monetized 75% of USGovt debt in 2011.  When the USFed is done with QE2, they will argue for a QE3, probably to  cover state debt shortfalls. The precedent has been set. The global  currency war is in full swing. Simply put, the Gold price will rise when  China is prepared to pay a higher price, after exhausting supply at  lower prices.</p>
<p><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/XHl34rnRjLEXo5YotNpe6_owSduzU8TMN_uqYk6SvZc0JlxoASR8ZcTY7E_2MTC0oNCJFpYBAUMHy8LHizkDUkD4MHaS3E-Gp0vthFPy4HCHX9z_rw" alt="" width="576px;" height="362px;" /></p>
<p>The  greatest offender in currency manipulation and currency undermine is  the United States. It is essential that the USGovt continue to make  accusations against foreign central bankers, in order to deflect  attention. The problem is QE2, and the likelihood of a followup QE3. The USGovt is without permission forcing a debt writedown on foreign USTreasury creditors by installing inflation engines.  See the commodity prices, led by food &amp; energy. The USFed and  USDept Treasury will proclaim victory by mid-summer, as price inflation  begins to rage much hotter. They will call it economic growth. Check  import price inflation from the last three months of 2011. Import prices  rose 3.7% during that brief time. Not just emerging economies like  China and Brazil are contending with price inflation. The US does too,  but it calls it growth, since its economic trackers are much more  accomplished decepticons. When job losses mount in the second half of  2011, the lies will be unmasked. The USFed is the greatest destoyer of  working capital in the history of the world. Their balance sheet is  negative $1 trillion and growing worse, their highly appropriate report  card. Their wretched financial condition matches their decaying  reputation. They are the buyer of worthless toxic bonds, the buyer of  last resort. The housing market will NOT recover to bail them out.</p>
<p>USGOVT BUDGET BATTLES</p>
<p>Budget  battles are sure to reveal the true fascist motives of those in power.  The people will be denied while the war machine is preserved, guns &amp;  bombs over bread &amp; butter, big banks over households. In fact, the  defense budgets will not be reduced. Rather, defense contractors will be  forced to eat cost overruns without volume cutbacks in weapon units at  all. The war is sacred, the signature mark of the fascist state. The  USGovt seems to have suddenly found religion in reducing the budget and  its deeply engrained deficit. It is more superficial than from the heart  with conviction. The new wave is all about perceptions. To be sure, some in the USCongress are worried sick and scared pale over the prospects of a structural $trillion deficit.  A decade ago such a deficit magnitude would be considered a telltale  signature of a Banana Republic nation sliding toward the Third World  perilously. The budget battle with the new USCongress will be extremely  revealing of the priorities for the Syndicate in full control of the  USGovt and press networks. The budget process will in my view continue  to place the war as a sacred priority not to be touched, not to be  altered, not to be disrupted. In rough terms, the USGovt budget contains  components 20.0% Defense, 21.0% Social Security &amp; Medicare, and  14.0% Safety Net System.</p>
<p>In  my view, the budget cuts will come exclusively from the people and  their homes and work centers, their pensions, their Social Security  &amp; Medicare.  Tax deduction removals and phaseouts will be a centerpiece. The war  machine has given stress to the defense contractors, who will be  expected to absorb cost overruns in weapons programs, according to  recent Pentagon pronouncements. Enormous costs are involved with the war  machine support. The base military budget is $536 billion. The extended  budget for the wars adds another $170 billion in supplemental spending,  which officials prefer to call Overseas Contingency Operations since it  sounds more sophisticated.</p>
<p><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/0Pjv-A6NHwO5GvTq-wFQVMIhEJsQHkJQqvar0Drr96udB9zL1ecqB9k2cQm3b0rj6fHRWD-VGPxSzfbBZn4Rp5Su3hl5-grWgRN83DzSJn5wojO_Fg" alt="" width="456px;" height="304px;" /></p>
<p>The  total sum, over $700 billion per year, is the sacred cost of the  USMilitary. It includes hundreds of overseas bases, lavish embassies,  and endless weapon systems, of types conventional, nuclear, and drones. The  United States spends as much on annual military investment as the rest  of the world combined, according to the Stockholm Intl Peace Research  Institute.  One must wonder if the wars are to produce enemies. The United States  maintains troops at more than 560 bases and other sites abroad. The  outsized yawning Defense spending is a primary cause for USGovt  insolvency. It has a staggering deficit impact on the budget and the  negative international image of the nation. Watch the unfolding events  as the USGovt and USCongress grapple with spending cuts. They will avoid  Pentagon and defense budget cuts with fierce opposition. This is a key  part of the Fascist Business Model, as sacred as Wall Street largesse.</p>
<p>Harken back to the 1950 decade, during the post-WW2 glow. President Dwight Eisenhower once said, &#8220;Every  gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies,  in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,  those who are cold and are not clothed.&#8221; The  words from Ike fell on deaf ears. Not until the last decade have his  words rung shrill. He never met the current crowd in control, but he  could see a path to their evolution, which he called the Military  Industrial Complex. No disrespect is meant to soldiers who have  sacrificed. One must wonder for what cause their sacrifice has been, and  toward what outsized profits to defense and service contractors, even  Syndicate bank accounts. Talk has already begun, that &#8220;out of respect for our fighting soldiers and veterans&#8221;  who have served in active duty, the defense budget will be spared of  cuts. Watch the priorities be revealed as the battle unfolds over the  budget. In my view, the potential for defense cuts and huge savings is  great but it will not be tapped. Instead the people will be asked to  expect less aid, to rely upon less, to eat less, to expect less federal  help, and endure poverty more.</p>
<p>SHADOW HOME INVENTORY</p>
<p>The  standard inventory of homes comes from brokers and multilists. The  hidden inventory of homes adds another 50% to 80% to the working supply,  half of that from pending seizures, half from bank owned units  festering on their balance sheets. Home prices cannot rise in such a  deeply distressed climate. The unofficial shadow inventory is another  one million homes. Any economist who overlooks the hidden supply of  homes is a hack. The housing market cannot recovery for another two  years, until it works off the hidden inventory. The problem is that the  ongoing home foreclosures results in more bank seizures, and a steady  source of renewed hidden inventory. Housing is a crippled market, one that acts like a gigantic millstone around the USEconomy.  Housing prices will descend further in 2011, as the shadow inventory  acts with powerful forces upon the Supply &amp; Demand equation. It  still applies despite any messianic proclamations from banking high  priests or Wall Street marketing agents. The mainstream has finally  begun to grasp the wreckage and ruin, but not that the housing sector will cause a systemic failure for the nation.  It is most assuredly coming. The contradictions and shallow work of  Roubini are worth a pass. His work has been ridiculed in the past by the  Jackass, like a few months ago when he expected the gold market to turn  down. Instead, it rose another 10% to 15% in a string of breakouts. Yet  he is still revered, and sought as a guest on the financial networks.</p>
<p><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/GUnYdnJqrgJ7uJITPBrwzvuLv12KszNXu4X3WgudB4kGVXivD2ST5omjhzHxLwGbwqKHyml2IMfztUq5YBtLEem9kdO_Nq0tBsgbQrlSEj2uMxZflQ" alt="" width="486px;" height="315px;" /></p>
<p>Nouriel  Roubini offers some obvious commentary, followed by contradictory  nonsense about a USEconomic recovery. His inconsistency earns him a &#8216;C  Minus&#8217; grade in his own class. The professor is a fool once again. Roubini acknowledges that the housing market is in a double dip, as prices can only go down.  He brought attention to what he called below trend economic growth as  baseline, but also two negative factors specific to the housing market.  The first factor  is the expiration of federal home buyer tax credits for first-time home  buyers. The housing prices have been falling every month since the tax  credit expired last May. He correctly identified the stolen demand from  the future to take advantage of the home buyer credit. So he makes an  obvious point. The second factor  putting downward pressure on home prices is the ongoing chaos with  mortgage documentation, and the related temporary moratorium by banks  for mortgage foreclosure proceedings. The suspension appears to be  ending. Aware of an imminent flood of housing supply, Roubini said &#8220;There  has been an effective moratorium on foreclosures. The shadow inventory  of not-yet-foreclosed homes, due to the moratorium, will surge in the  next year. Supply will increase, demand will drop.&#8221; Obvious points, enough to force a USEconomic recession without a remote chance otherwise.</p>
<p>Roubini  remains a shallow economist without strong basis for his opinions, even  plain contradictions. He does not expect a double dip recession, since  he believes the USGovt kool-aid on doctored statistics. The dull blade  Roubini said, &#8220;The  rest of the economy is recovering. Most of the numbers are consistent  with a growth rate of 2.7%, still below trend. So unemployment will  likely remain above 9%. The EuroZone shock, long-term structural  deficits, and state &amp; local governments operating near bankruptcy  are other ominous economic signs on the horizon. The 12 million  households are already in negative equity and 8 million more have an  Loan-to-Value between 95% and 100%. Thus even a 5% fall in home price  will push an extra 8 million in negative equity with risk of millions  walking away from their home, i.e. jingle mail.&#8221;  Without realization, he undermines his own assessment of slow  USEconomic growth, and provides ample justification for a worse  recession than already is in progress. His housing market observations  contradict his economic outlook. He does not realize (or admit) that  price inflation is running at over 7% right here, right now. Therefore  the GDP estimates are all way high, exaggerated by 5% or more. The  USEconomy is mired in a deep recession. Sadly, Roubini is a victim of  the establishment, which ordered him to compromise his work in order to  continue to occupy an important post. See the CNBC article (CLICK <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/40828545" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.cnbc.com/id/40828545?referer=');">HERE</a>).</p>
<p>The  Great Roubini is awakening to the disaster in housing, but he does not  yet grasp how it will result in a systemic USEconomic failure. He begins  with a slow growth scenario, then cannot justify it, even to contradict  it while discussing relevant factors. He will be one of the first  shoddy economists to claim the USEconomy is in recovery, as price  inflation accelerates, which will incorrectly be labeled it growth. My  theory is simple. If  the entire USEconomy depended upon the housing boom to expand from 2003  to 2007, then it will be capable of collapsing the same structures  given the extreme vulnerability to debt.  The vicious cycle will be powerful, unstoppable, and deadly. It has  been game over since the September 2008 events when the US banking  system collapsed and died, led by Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, and AIG.  The weight of the continuing housing market decline, combined with  strangulation in the banks with toxic debt paper and a surplus of home  inventory, is easily sufficient to cause a systemic failure to the  entire USEconomy. The big banks are stuck in mud at the cemetery gate.  That failure is in progress with momentum. Guys like Roubini and Krugman  will be the last to realize the collapse. They are celebrated  cheerleaders within the system, compromised souls.</p>
<p>LABOR MARKET STEP-DOWN</p>
<p>The  economic step-down is a hidden powerful effect in the  de-industrialization of America. The job growth is not a sufficient  condition for the USEconomy recovery. People are taking lesser jobs,  with huge declines in income. Fewer opportunities exist, while survival  demands tough decisions. The endless USEconomic recession has an ugly  trademark. People are taking steep pay cuts, enduring lasting reductions  in wages. People are taking jobs far below their skill levels. Between  2007 and 2009, more than half the full-time workers who lost jobs (held  for at least three years) and found new jobs later reported wage  declines, according to the USDept Labor.  The detail is 36% of them reported the new job paid 20% less than the  previous lost job. An effect rarely seen in recessions since the Great  Depression, wages have taken a sharp and swift decline for a significant  slice of the labor market. THIS IS A THIRD WORLD HARBINGER. It is worse  for many others. The unemployment rolls include 14.5 million people,  even 6.4 million stuck jobless for more than six months. A key part of  earnings losses, according to the survey, is that workers skills  acquired over the last two decades that are fast becoming outdated and  obsolete. Then instead of gaining new skills for a higher paying job,  they often settle for a lower wage and stop their job hunts, unable to  benefit from training. Lack  of retraining programs is a huge dropped ball by the USGovt, whose  economists cannot find their hind parts with their hands.  Research shows that children of displaced workers also suffer in a  domino effect. Even those fortunate to remain on the same jobs have seen  wage cuts. Many assume more duties too.</p>
<p><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Ys53jfl-B30s438lZkrmLkGdv5lv-0V-L-XsfOd5bBSaUGSlNRLHwgmJ-TCJf7cmBc0D1xfXeth0XcD6MI_T5xwTIPM9n48GtXVwMGifFPiBRi1TSA" alt="" width="432px;" height="238px;" /></p>
<p>RETAIL LEADERS ON THE ROPES</p>
<p>Howard  Davidowitz screams his case on the broad retail distress, with details.  He warns of huge unresolved problems with commercial property loans,  with great stress for landlords. A Paradigm Shift is underway, for  smaller footprint shopping centers, as the United States footprint is  double anything reasonable. The consumer model is fast breaking down.  Davidowitz does not mince words, as he destroyed the illusion of a  USEconomic recovery, pointing out absolutely no consumer renaissance.  During a recent Bloomberg interview, retail expert Howard Davidowitz  shattered the consensus klapptrapp, with quality content and logical  thought. He said, &#8220;I am not surprised by the strength of retail sales, because I knew that 30% of consumers are responsible for retail sales, and these 30% did much better because of the performance of capital markets.  I do not think it is indicative of anything going forward. I do not  think the economy is going to get any better. If you look at our fiscal  and monetary policy, we went two trillion dollars in the hole last year.  Two trillion, to produce this, and unemployment went up to 9.8%! We  have spent two trillion dollars. We are printing money. We are going  bananas. Our the balance sheet, we have $2.6 trillion on there, and for  what? Look at government securities, and mortgage backed securities. If interest rates go up a point Bernanke&#8217;s bankrupt.  Everything he has bought is underwater. All the mortgage bonds are  underwater, the whole country is underwater. Does anyone see the issue  now with why rising interest rates, aside from predicting a supposed  recovery, may also, courtesy of its [greatly increased wrecked bond  investments], actually predicts the insolvency of the Federal Reserve?&#8221; His comments are not a breath of fresh air, strewn with honesty.</p>
<p>Davidowitz  provided several key observations on the supposed retail renaissance.  Wal-Mart makes for 10% of US retail sales, has 150 million customers,  and its stock it is down six consecutive quarters, not a good sign.  Sears is the largest department store in America, but their stock is in  terrible shape. Best Buy suffered a huge earnings miss. The financial  loss recorded by ToysRUs increased last quarter. Supermarket chain  A&amp;P recently filed for bankruptcy. Department store chain Loehmanns  just filed for bankruptcy. Charming Shoppes announced plans to close 100  stores. TJMaxx just liquidated AJRight. Davidowitz honed in on Sears  for crucifixion. Sears is in the tank, ready to fold its tents in his  opinion. Eddie Lampert took over the company recently from his hedge  fund position, lacking any conceivable operational experience. He has  engrained a policy that departs from price competition. He has not  invested in capital equipment upgrades. He has sold his best stores. His  online investment has not succeeded. The corporation is gutted, heading  for the dumpster, then cemetery. If Lampert were smart, he would sell  the company to a greater fool. A joke has surfaced, that A&amp;P might  merge with Stop &amp; Shop, with a new corporate name of Stop &amp; Pee,  which would open enormous marketing potential.</p>
<p>In  addition to dissecting the collapse of Sears, analyst Davidowitz  observed what should be a loud glaring alarm signal for guys like Ackman  and all those who are betting on the resurgence of the US mall  storefront with vehicles like General Growth. The bulk of retail store traffic is moving online,  where incidentally the only jobs created are those of packagers and  quality control line people either in China or in some warehouse in  Texas, California, or Florida. Davidowitz said, &#8220;Online sales have to lead you to question the whole retail selling strategy. We have 21 square feet of selling space for every man woman and child in this country. We already have double of what we need.  With the explosion of online sales, what happens to all these retail  malls and shopping centers which are marginals? Huge changes are going  to be taking place as people continue shopping online. A  revolution in retail is coming in both size and location of stores, a  trend starting with the advent of much smaller Wal-Mart stores.  In the end what to do with the retail space is going to be a huge  question for retail in the next ten years. That is why Wal-Mart is  starting to build smaller stores. That is why Wal-Mart is building more  overseas than they are building here. It is going to be the biggest  retail change that we have ever seen.&#8221; The bulldozing of half the US retail malls will be a positive move for economic progress, but extremely disruptive.</p>
<p>The  biggest losers in the maverick analyst&#8217;s estimation will be commercial  real estate landlords. Expect great pain for the REIT investments (stock  trusts). Howard continues in his railing, making the point of  commercial loans next collapsing, a point made by the Jackass for the  last 18 months or more. He said &#8220;Landlords  better start figuring it out pretty quick because they already have  occupancy problems, rent problems, and everything else right now. I do  not think the Commercial Real Estate (CRE) problems are fixed by any  means. That is why we are going to close hundreds of community banks going forward.  We are going to close hundreds more. Those CRE debts are coming due and  they will not be able to be rolled over. We have lots of problems still  coming up in the banking system, and the problems in the real estate  issue is here for a long time. In other news, Kool Aid to be served in  aisle 5 of the next door Sears box from now until permanent closing  time.&#8221; The man is solid as a rock in his retail analysis, accurate as a sharp knife, with no nonsense.</p>
<p>COMPLEX SOCIETIES &amp; SYSTEMS</p>
<p>Complex  societies do not last forever. They break down from internal stresses  as often as from external. A society must maintain its system, with more  energy expended when more complex. The reserves can be tapped  repeatedly if crisis is not averted from regulatory machinery. In time,  neglect enters the picture, as stresses break the fabric. Joseph Tainter  is well-known for his classic book entitled &#8220;The Collapse of Complex Societies&#8221;  despite his expertise as an archeologist. He must have done much  thinking about the collapse of societies whose ruins he unearthed in  massive digs. Tainter is on record with his developed thesis, born out  of his dissatisfaction with prevailing collapse theories. His argument  is straightforward. Human societies are problem solving organizations, which supply the necessities along with entertainment, as well as training to ensure continuation. The over-arching Sociopolitical systems require energy for their maintenance. If left without proper tending, they fall apart like a garden without attention. Increasing complexity carries with it increased cost per capita. Simple monarchies need much less maintenance than democracies, as voices are heard and justice grinds slowly. Investment in sociopolitical complexity often reaches a point of declining marginal returns,  as time passes, interest wanes, justice disappoints. When debt  saturation occurs, like today, the cost of maintenance and decline can  be overwhelming. The complex system becomes vulnerable to collapse after  great stresses and what Tainter calls perturbations, better thought of  as disruptions or disturbances.</p>
<p>Stress and perturbation are a constant feature of any complex society, always occurring somewhere in its territory. The developed operating regulatory machinery is designed to deal with unplanned changes.  Imagine spotty agricultural failures, border conflicts, large scale  accidents, social eruptions, and disease outbreaks. Such localized  stress tends to recur with regularity, and thus can be anticipated with  preparations. To meet major unexpected stress surges, the society must have some form of net reserve.  It can take the form of excess productive capacities in farm output,  stored energy, or stockpiled minerals, or hoarded surpluses from past  production, even reserve savings. Stress surges of great magnitude  cannot be accommodated without such a reserve. A society beset by  regular self-inflicted crises will be forced to draw upon its stored  reserves too quickly. As declining marginal returns are experienced, the  society must contend with rising systemic risk. The costs outweigh the  yield put in reserve. Excess productive capacity will at some point be  exhausted, and accumulated surpluses allocated to current operating  needs will be used up. Even when the adversities are met and the surges  are dealt with, a detriment to the system as a whole occurs. The society  is weakened in the process, and made more vulnerable to the next  crisis. Once a complex society develops the vulnerabilities of declining  marginal returns, collapse might require the sufficient passage of time  to render probable the occurrence of an insurmountable calamity.</p>
<p>More importantly, declining marginal returns make complexity a less attractive goal to maintain.  The problem solving strategy takes a secondary role to instituting  simpler systems. The society tends to accept the option for less costly  and less sophisticated social forms. The alternative embraced eventually is an endorsed level of disintegration.  This has occurred to the United States in grand style. As marginal  returns deteriorate, tax rates rise with less benefit to the local  level. Irrigation systems go untended, bridges and roads are not  maintained, the frontier is not adequately defended, product liability  is not protected, and fraud prevention is compromised. Notice in the US  how cities exhaust their funds with pension programs, unable to provide  proper services like police protection. Notice how the US has countless  bridges and pipelines (water, sewer, energy) that have gone without  proper care. The nation has turned too much attention to war.</p>
<p>As  the process degrades, many of the social units that comprise a complex  society no longer pursue the increased general advantage, and instead  pursue a strategy of personal independence. Then begins a different  pursuit of their own immediate goals rather than long-term goals of the  networked hierarchy. They see little benefit coming from systemic  contributions. Behavioral interdependence (constructive groups) yields  way to broader independence (working on one&#8217;s own). Shrinking resources  are strained even more, as control slides away and is lost. The  investment in regulatory systems is crucial, as efficiency devices.  When they degrade into support systems for corruption, the system  falters from its own rotten moral fabric and invites the seeds of  rebellion.  Eventually, perturbation occurs from within, as civil disobedience  takes root. The lack of justice, the apparent predation by the upper  hierarchy levels (bankers), and public frustration breeds anarchy like  thousands of microdots within the society. See the home mortgage  voluntary defaults. Justice is a delicate factor within a society. When  justice is dealt, order tends to be preserved. When justice is absent,  like for the big US banks, like for military aggression, the people  object and depart from norms. The  presence in the last two decades of bigger amplitudes in the crisis  pain and cost, together with greater frequency of events in cycles, has  combined to deplete the reserves of the nation.  The Rubin Doctrine of surviving today even if taking aware reserves  from tomorrow has assured much greater risk of systemic ruin. In my  view, it has guaranteed ruin and collapse. See the Naked Capitalism for a  thought provoking article (CLICK <a href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/01/is-a-tainter-style-collapse-in-our-future.html" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/01/is-a-tainter-style-collapse-in-our-future.html?referer=');">HERE</a>). Complex systems are fascinating, especially when they enter a period of dysfunction.</p>
<p>THE HAT TRICK LETTER PROFITS IN THE CURRENT CRISIS.</p>
<p>From subscribers and readers:</p>
<p>At  least 30 recently on correct forecasts regarding the bailout parade,  numerous nationalization deals such as for Fannie Mae and the grand  Mortgage Rescue.</p>
<p>&#8220;As  for your financial and economic analysis, I appreciate your  contemptuous style and how you bring facts and commentary to your  readers before most of the alternative media and light years ahead of  the mainstream press. You are a beacon in a dangerous storm.&#8221;</p>
<p>(DanC in Washington)</p>
<p>&#8220;You  have the unique ability to sift through the mountains of disparate  economic data and hearsay and weave them into a coherent compelling  storyline. The amount of unbiased factual information you provide is  unparalleled in the industry (and desperately needed in these scary  times). I love your no holds barred approach to dealing with the narrow  minded purveyors of dis-information in the industry.&#8221;</p>
<p>(BobA in North Carolina)</p>
<p>&#8220;I think that your newsletter is brilliant. It will also be an excellent chronicle of these times for future researchers.&#8221;</p>
<p>(PeterC in England)</p>
<p>Jim  Willie CB is a statistical analyst in marketing research and retail  forecasting.   He holds a PhD in Statistics. His career has stretched  over 25 years. He aspires to thrive in the financial editor world,  unencumbered by the limitations of economic credentials. Visit his free  website to find articles from topflight authors at  <a href="http://www.goldenjackass.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.goldenjackass.com/?referer=');">www.GoldenJackass.com</a>. For personal questions about subscriptions, contact him at  <a href="mailto:JimWillieCB@aol.com">JimWillieCB@aol.com</a></p>
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		<title>CHINESE TAKE-OUT (OF USECONOMY)</title>
		<link>http://thedailygold.com/chinese-take-out-of-useconomy/</link>
		<comments>http://thedailygold.com/chinese-take-out-of-useconomy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:03:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dr. Jim Willie</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Commentaries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[China]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gold]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Silver]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The Chinese really must think the American strategy and behavior to be braindead and self-destructive. The US helped them assemble a manufacturing industry, replaced US income with debt, and finally faces the Grim Reaper in a national episode of systemic failure. The US leadership is as stupid and mindless as the population is driven by [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>The  Chinese really must think the American strategy and behavior to be  braindead and self-destructive. The US helped them assemble a  manufacturing industry, replaced US income with debt, and finally faces  the Grim Reaper in a national episode of systemic failure. The US  leadership is as stupid and mindless as the population is driven by  compulsive consumption over the cliff, as the nation faces ruin. The  Jackass warning has been for five years that the Chinese experiment  would end in tragedy, and that when a preponderance of USTreasury debt  is owned by foreigners, especially a single foreign nation, the Untied  States will lose its sovereignty.  It is worse. It lost its vitality entirely. With its financial  engineering backfire, the nation is broken from a sequence of repeated  asset bubbles &amp; busts. With its wartime economy, the nation seeks  new enemies and prefers exports of weapons to productive goods. The  nation is like a Sherman Tank sinking in a sea of quicksand with credit  cards as banners flown, all overdrawn and canceled. The globe has come  full circle from a century ago. The export of opium by Britain to China  back then, the US monopoly on narcotics nowadays. Uncle Sam prefers  selling contraband to legitimate industry.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>A  spectacular sequence of events has taken place with respect to China  and the United States in the past decade. The disastrous outcome was  extremely visible long ago to the competent economists. This article  cannot fully discuss and analyze the entire sequence, which in my view  took the USEconomy from imbalanced, debilitated, and on the verge of  ruin in ten years to chronic insolvency, accelerated breakdown, and  systemic failure today. The official policy toward China by the USGovt  on bilateral trade highlights the incredibly stupid and irresponsible  nature of American leadership, especially in economic and financial  matters. Let this piece serve as an outline of ruinous self-destructive  policy, resulting in a climax failure in the Untied States. At the  doorstep to a much darker poorer place, with countless traits associated  with the Third World, the US as a nation with its USGovt and Wall  Street compromised leadership refuse to admit grotesque errors. They do  what they usually do, create more money to toss at half-baked solutions,  and create a new enemy to lay blame on foreigners. This time though,  the Chinese object of criticism, rebuke, hostility, and retaliation is  the largest USTreasury creditor. The  counter-attack from Beijing after an amateurish display of ignorance  and tantrums seems directed at purchases of Gold &amp; Silver, along  with developing a stranglehold on the commodity supply chain.  The financial managers in China have found inventive ways to discharge  vast amounts of USTreasury Bonds. Their challenge includes finding  secure worthwhile investment locations for the over $20 billion in  bilateral trade surplus they build each month with the US, a formidable  challenge indeed.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>MOST FAVORED NATION TICKET</p>
<p>The  rationale for the Clinton Admin to grant a Most Favored Nation status  to China in its closing months in 1999 was a mystery to me. To be sure,  the gesture went a long way toward developing detente with the  slumbering giant. But it awakened the Middle Kingdom after two centuries  of quiet, marred by a half century of harsh communism. Without  question, some big promises were made in bilateral agreements. My  suspicion is that the USGovt sought a lock on a new large scale  creditor to purchase USTreasury debt securities, regardless of the  consequences.  Perhaps the USGovt sought a bagholder both either USTBonds or USAgency  Mortgage Bonds, or both. With Japan and South Korea as neighbors, China  would surely not resort to purchasing US weaponry. Given the coincident  timing with the handover of Hong Kong from the British at the end of its  99-year lease, one must suspect that China  might have promised not to transform HK into an economic prison camp  shrouded in communist rules that would render it a wasteland, if the US  and UK would only promise to assist the Asian giant with technology  transfer, industrial support, and massive business investment. China probably promised some big bait of cheap imports to the USEconomy, the grand US achilles heel. The US was well along its pattern of consuming itself to death.  Witness the retail emphasis within its economy, its crippling reliance  upon debt, its junk food preferences, and its obesity. The China might  have laid a great trap, and the US took it. Maybe the entire deal was  well planned, a leftover of Mao Tse Tung days when he was a member of  the Skull &amp; Bones group.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>The  Most Favored Nation status was the ticket that opened the door, a New  Open Door policy, for investment, lower cost in production, and the  general awakening of the sleeping giant. What followed was a natural  course of events to unseat the Untied States, converting it into a  hopeless debtor with neither the prospect nor the means to repay its  debt. Enter the new age of China, all perhaps the plan, the ever patient  giant. The parallel to the destruction was a course taken by former  USFed Chairman Greenspan. He guided the nation through the avenue to  financial engineering and consequent implosion brilliantly, offering  ideological justification, legislative obfuscation, and near the end, a  nearly total abdication. He was a tremendous mesmerizing high priest.  Greenspan&#8217;s second paycheck from his Swiss masters is consistent with  working an agenda toward the demise of the American Empire.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>INVESTMENT PARTNER</p>
<p>The  first active stage between the United States and China was as  investment partners. Rough figures of Western corporation (US, Canada,  Europe) investment were $23 billion for the years 2001, 2002, and 2003.  It was probably more. The Chinese industrial base expanded to the point  that 60% of all Chinese trade surplus originated from Western  corporations new to the scene. Yet the US leaders complained about the  big surplus gathered, being part of its process. Worse, the Chinese  factories often were equipped with the next generation Japanese  machinery, like in machine tools, automation, and fabrication. A few  years later, the German machinery entered the factory floors to some  extent. US corporations saw an opportunity to tap the cheaper Chinese  labor, and did so. The consensus opinion was that China could not be  ignored for another century, so include them, partner with them, bring  them into the fold. China quickly became the centerpiece to the globalization movement.  One must wonder if the Western economist corps was so clueless as to be  ignorant of the downside effects. China would draw countless jobs from  the US and Europe. China would accumulate reserves rapidly. China would  own foreign debt securities well beyond a critical mass. When the Hat  Trick Letter started in 2004, my warning was constant and consistent,  that China would eventually became a rival then a trade war opponent.  The differential in labor costs would lead to a gigantic arbitrage that  ended up at a breaking point, with extreme conflict at the end chapter.  We are there. It will be a miracle to avoid a hot war.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>THE LOW COST SOLUTION</p>
<p>The  people of the United States no longer hear about the famed Low Cost  Solution bandied about in 2002 and 2003 endlessly. It was supposedly a  good thing, to reduce the cost of home electronics and housewares. For a  idiot consumer society, that is a good thing supposedly. For a wise  nation, it is a prescription for disaster. That was how the Jackass saw  it. The solution of a lower production cost had a flip side, with  staggering consequences that would put the US as a nation on a collision  course with the Third World abyss. Simply stated, China&#8217;s gain would be  America&#8217;s loss. The new jobs created in China to enable the lower cost  in producing exports to the US consumer, hellbent on consuming his  entire house in home equity, hellbent on consuming his entire future in  order to live for today. The result would be assuredly lost jobs in  America. It  was obvious to all except the clueless cast of hack US economists. They  proclaimed that the lower costs of production would enable cheaper  imports into the USEconomy, a new wave of spawned growth with ripple  effects in benefit, wider distribution from this vast Asian pool, more  retail jobs, and a new American growth spurt. What utter nonsense! But they continue to ply their trade.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>Quickly  the jobs vanished from the USEconomic scene. Home appliances took much  of the news headlines. The drain of jobs spread to Japan, as its robust  economy began to feel the impact. In time the majority of consumer items  like cell phones and home stereos were built in China for export to  Japan. The labor arbitrage in globalization spares no advanced economy,  which must operate under a higher cost structure. Follow washing  machines, dryers, dishwashers, stoves, and more, came housewares and  hardware items. The crowning blow was the announcement that Wal-Mart had 160 Chinese manufacturing sites in place.  Sam Walton would not approve, as his motto was Made In America. The die  was cast. Then came the problems of quality and reliability. Food  imports from China had gradually earned a tarnished reputation of  recycling chicken from reject sources and even roadkill for fresh  caramel color and quick export to the US grocery shelves. The home  building industry saw problems with drywall quality, even carpet  chemicals. The SARS epidemic eclipsed the news headlines though,  usurping attention. The same type of software reliability problems seen  in the 1990 decade from India were experienced from Chinese exports. The  greatest impact in the early stages of the Chinese industrial  experiment were</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>the loss of US jobs in favor of growth in China</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the loss of income from value added tangible industry in the USEconomy</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the rise of home equity debt from US households</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the US dependence upon asset bubbles for economic growth</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the growth of income in China</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the growth of the bilateral trade deficit with China</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the growth of the mammoth FOREX reserves in Chinese Sovereign Wealth Funds</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the increasing share of Chinese ownership of USTreasury Bonds</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>the increasing share of Chinese ownership of USAgency Mortgage Bonds</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>reduced quality and reliability of imported products to the USEconomy</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>strain for the macro economic impact to the USDollar and Chinese Yuan</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>strain for the macro economic impact to the USGovt debt and USTreasury Bond</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>resentment in the US for jobs stolen by China</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>blocked large firm acquisitions (see Unocal, BHP Billiton, 3Com)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>new areas of friction (e.g. bank rules, security rules like Google)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>a fast rise in tariffs and protectionism</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>ALARMING FOREX RESERVES</p>
<p>For  US-based economists not to foresee a simple direct consequence of fast  rising, alarming levels of FX reserves being accumulated by China, the  American economists showed their true stripes as short-sighted and  incompetent. The  Jackass siren call was that eventually the Chinese holdings of  USTreasury Bond debt would grow so great that US sovereignty would be  challenged, compromised, then lost.  The concept never entered the corrupted thought chambers of US  economists and the cranium cavities. The challenge became so great  within China for managing such huge sums of money, each and every month,  that they created several Sovereign Wealth Funds. The Arab nations  developed the concept, as did South Korea and Singapore, but the Chinese  saw such funds flourish. When they collectively tipped the $1 trillion  mark a few years ago, the news captured global attention. Nowadays, the Chinese total reserves from diverse accounts totals $2.65 trillion, a center of great power.  Heck, that is almost as much money as has been stolen by past US  presidents, and stolen by US defense contractors, which happens to be  about $1.5 trillion from Fannie Mae and $2.2 trillion from the Pentagon  misappropriations. One must love the verbiage, as misappropriation  sounds better than stolen. And that does not even address the $2.3  trillion in counterfeit USTBonds sold (over and above issuance) into the  market by JPMorgan Chase, whose evidence was in the Building #7 at the  World Trade Center, turned into a heap with pervasive thermite residue.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>In  recent months, the US-China bilateral trade deficit has remained over  $20 billion per month in stubborn fashion. The labor arbitrage is a  dynamic that will not go away. Chinese labor, as the Jackass wrote in  2005, could rise by 50% and still be far below the US wage scale. In  order to cement their grip on trade, and assure a reliable supply line,  which keeps firm their surplus revenue stream and economic vitality, the Chinese embarked on a fortification strategy.  They bought the Long Beach California port facility. They bought much  of the Vancouver port facilities. They bought much of the Mexican port  facilities. In the last year, they expanded to building the primary  Brazilian port facility. Call it a stranglehold of deep water ports. The  major challenge for China with gargantuan reserves and fast growing new  entries into reserves is the management of them. They have major  challenges in investing all that money. Well actually, it is not money,  but rather credits acknowledged to contain value in recognized purchase  power. The Chinese have been engaged in extremely brisk investment plans  to secure energy supply, metal &amp; mineral supply, and on the other  side to secure markets to sell their finished goods. Instead of weapon  sales, they typically promise to build community centers, schools,  hospitals, marketplaces, railroads, and port facilities. Of course in  the process, they ignore local dictatorships. They have made great  inroads in West Africa, a region the US ignores except for Nigeria,  where the common practice is to use muscle and bribery it seems. See the  ex-VP Cheney case. China has made great inroads in the Persian Gulf and  in Turkey, opening up Middle East markets and African markets.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>SCAPEGOAT FOR US WRECKAGE</p>
<p>As  the disaster unfolds from a mindless self-destructive pathway toward  the climax in consumerism coupled with labor market abandonment, the  USGovt has followed its usual pattern of blaming the trade partner.  China has been labeled a currency manipulator, a thief of jobs,  everything but the old heartless yellow scourge. Save that label for  last. The USGovt, with its recent Wall Street masters, has been deeply  involved in wrecking the integrity of most every financial market it  touches. The USTreasury Bond market has a scad of naked shorts, failures  to deliver, and leverage from Interest Rate Swap contracts that help to  maintain the high value and low rates. The USGovt keeps the Consumer  Price Index under wraps, preventing an unwanted rise from appearing. In  the 2000-2007 period, the rising home price component was carefully  removed from the CPI. It featured the home equivalent rent component  instead, a tame moribund figure. After 2007, the stat rats decided to  include the home price component again, since it is falling. Now the CPI features a home price item that consists of 25% of the index incredibly.  Then the USDept Treasury assures that enough Treasury Investment  Protected Securities are bought by the USFed, so that the early warning  system on price inflation is cooled by a bathtub of cold water at all  times. Then the USGovt uses suppression of the gold price in order to  keep the USDollar elevated. The currency stabilization funds are  commonly recognized mainstays of USGovt financial management. In fact  such stabilization funds have about 20 to 30 hidden agencies busily  defending the USDollar value, our freedom, and our way of life. During  all this market manipulation, the USGovt has angered its creditors to  the extreme.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>So  the USGovt reveals its many currency manipulator sides. A scribe would  be negligent not to mention the Shadow Banking System that is the  province of the US banking industry, fully supported by the USFed and  the USDept Treasury. The  hidden banking network has the unique feature of profiting from other  nations as their financial structure heave from the great stress, and  decline into a wrecking field.  Keep in mind they include vast import of fraudulent bonds from the US  issuers. The shadowy system used to boast $1400 trillion in credit  derivatives and other nuclear sewage, now perhaps only $1000 trillion in  a celebrated deleverage initiative. Try not to laugh. These instruments  go a long way to manipulate the value of USTBonds, the USDollar, and  the entire usury costs of the US universe of corrupted value.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>The  USGovt finally has complained about Chinese Yuan currency manipulation  so much and for so long, not to mention with such shrill vacant thought,  that the world has isolated the US on the global stage. Take the South  Korean G-20 Meeting a month ago. The US was given lip service as  appetizer hors d&#8217;oeuvres, and a cold shoulder at the dinner table.  Nobody followed the US lead, nobody. It was the most shameful G-8 or  G-20 Meeting in Untied States history. The finance ministers took their  cues from the Chinese delegation. The crowning climax to duplicity has  taken shape in the last year. Early  in 2010, the professor occupying the USFed Chairman post repeatedly  mentioned his plan for an Exit Plan from the 0% rate corner.  The Jackass dismissed such nonsensical propaganda, along with equally  lunatic delusional notions like Green Shoots of USEconomic recovery. If  Bernanke were graded like a graduate school student for accountability  on forecasts, analysis, and white papers, he would fail quickly and exit  the program (a very different exit strategy). As the distress to the  USEconomy and US financial system became acute in 2010, the USGovt  blamed China for more currency manipulation. It became a tired old song  with little or no meaning, more like a blunt stick to beat the Chinese  investment partner from 2002, to pummel the creditor. How quickly we  forgot our trade partner, our source of Low Cost Solutions!!</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>The  climax came with admission that the USFed would embark on Quantitative  Easing #2, a correct Jackass forecast cited all through the first six  months of 2010.  The USFed would print money, buy USTBond debt, flood the bond market  with liquidity, and directly manipulate the USDollar currency in the  process. The debt monetization in 2009 and 2010 was much bigger than the  exposed QE1. The USDollar has been in downtrend ever since. Gold has  been in powerful uptrend. The duplicity comes from the USGovt  continuation of charges that the Chinese Govt manipulates its Yuan  currency. The DC spin has no other message. To be sure, China keeps a  loosely managed peg to the USDollar, never to permit too fast a rise.  But the USGovt by comparison is the undisputed world champion of  currency manipulation, debt production, market undermine, statistical  distortion, and bank ruin. See the Flash Trading in the stock market.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>CURRENCY WAR &amp; TRADE WAR</p>
<p>The  Competing Currency War has ramped up, heated up, and agitated every  single major and secondary nation in the global economy. The primary  detonation trigger for the currency war was QE1, the printing of $1.4  trillion of phony money by the venerable USDept Treasury, blessed and  managed by the august USFed, and subsequent purchase of two gaggles of  USTBonds and one gaggle of USAgency Mortgage Bonds. The world watched in  horror, as the USGovt gradually lost its buyer base in Treasury Bond  auctions. The totally lost USFed under the myopic stewardship of  Professor Bernanke, the great student of Great Depression revisionist  history, pounded the podiums about an Exit Strategy once again. Except  this time after the nutty home buyer tax credit expired, the USEconomy  slid further into recession. The  lies told and reports published on price inflation, which rages higher  at 8% according to Shadow Govt Statistics competent analysis, permit a  5% to 6% lie to be built into the GDP calculations.  If price inflation is not really 2% to 3% as reported, then the GDP  growth is not 3% as reported, but actually minus 2% to minus 3% instead.  If simple annual GDP is compared to annual GDP from a year ago, then  the GDP is running at a 7% recession. This revelation is astounding!!</p>
<p><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/FU0Ry89bjpvhjb0JjO717YBWsXdkvPaXzVIASmotYD_jO-pFv1NkxN5YYXfCyQHeO9T6GAXrMWWY79FHxVsMXWt-eY0PnnFCiMhy-7NjZz9OZr4mcw" alt="" width="400px;" height="302px;" /></p>
<p>So  the USGovt refuses to effectively stimulate the USEconomy, since  beholden to Wall Street for $trillion welfare programs. The USGovt  conducts revolving door sessions on home loan modification, offering  much sweeter incentives to the foreclosure mills run by the FDIC for the  big banks. And the USFed admitted in August and September that the QE2  project would be unleashed. The  engine for the global Competing Currency War is clearly the United  States, where the asset bubbles were engrained in policy, where the  multi-$trillion bond fraud originated for global export, where the  criminal prosecution is nowhere, where the multi-$trillion monetary  press is hard at work.  The response from global trade partners is shock and horror, followed  by hasty actions. The central banks around the world are busily  responding to rising currencies. The December Hat Trick Letter gold  report shows evidence in the TIC Report on USTBond holdings by major  nations. Some nations are reducing US$ exposure by USTBond sales. Other  nations are quickly buying up USTBonds to prevent a fast rise in their  native currencies. Other nations are part of the hidden US-UK network  that conceals their vast USTBond purchases, all of which are denied by  Bernanke before the USCongress. Why would the United Kingdom be so busy  if not part of the illicit game of currency ruin in a desperate survival  initiative? The  United Kingdom, despite being locked in an intractable downward spiral  with insolvent banks, wrecked home equity, and horrendous national  deficits, has somehow seen fit to increase its USTBond holdings by more  than triple, from $126.8 billion in September 2009 to $459.1 billion. And China is a currency manipulator!!</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>The  Competing Currency War has a long way to go. Healthier nations with a  brisk export trade must be careful not to suffocate under a  strengthening currency, as the USDollar steers itself down into the  devaluation morass. The brain trust of the Wall Street and London  pedigree know full well that the game is over, the fiat USDollar is  trash, and that the Paradigm Shift features a power handoff to China and  the East from the insolvent West, whose flagship in the US &amp; UK is  preoccupied by war. The Competing Currency War is utterly fascinating, since it can be pre-written according to a tight script.  Japan is buying USTBonds to prevent a fast rise in the Yen currency,  which has already done harm to their export trade. The emerging nations  are being flooded with speculative funds chasing higher bond yields,  proceed funds from commodity sales, and much more. They will be harmed  by rising native currencies. See Brazil for example, which has  instituted new rules and taxes on incoming speculative money flow. They  have a food price inflation problem, which is not from speculation, but  rather from in my non-expert opinion a result of three decades of  cutting and burning the Amazon Rain Forest. Their rain patterns have  changed radically.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>The  real big battlegrounds are between the US &amp; China and among nations  within the European Union. The Europeans cannot continue with the  fractured common Euro currency more longer, especially with defaulting  sovereign bonds underneath them. Its  Euro Bonds are so different, that arbitrage pulls apart the Euro at a  time when the sovereign debt structure is falling like a series of  dominos.  The big enchalada is clearly Spain, which is near default. It will  change the EU landscape radically. Today some silly nonsense propaganda  deception news was promulgated that $40 billion would be needed to fix  Spain and its banks. If Spain is three times larger than Greece, and the  Athens banks needed $110 billion, one might use lower math to conclude  that perhaps over $300 billion would be needed to come to Spain&#8217;s  rescue. A rising Euro renders great harm. So again, according to script,  the EU leaders and the EuroCB chieftains will do what they can to bring  down the Euro currency, an exceptionally easy task. Such an easy task  to order more Euros and bail out more European banks. The  decision is simple, and in the process of pushing down the Euro  exchange rate, the Gold &amp; Silver prices rise substantially. The Competing Currency War swirls. The only winner is Gold and its shiny quicker brother Silver.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>GRAND CREDITOR &amp; LIQUIDATOR</p>
<p>China  has become the world&#8217;s great creditor. So far they have not abused  their role and position. They tend to cut trade deals more than weapons  deals like the US has done with the entire Persian Gulf for five  decades. The  most clever action so far by China in the last two years was to  establish a Dollar Swap Window for Greek Govt debt conversion.  They obviously are using USTBonds in a dumping exercise. They are  building a broader Dollar Swap Window for conversion of Portuguese and  soon Spanish Govt debt. They have won a freeze on trade war decisions at  the governmental level across the entire European continent in a  brilliant stroke. They won access to world class German industrial  products. They have an avenue to dump USTBonds and in a sense enter the  EU as a member nation, its creditor partner. The maneuver essentially isolates the Untied States further.  Just this week, the clownish notion of US insulation from PIIGS  sovereign debt was smashed. The US banks are vulnerable, despite past  denials.</p>
<p><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/ApE2SIl2hR7-bOcS5stcPAZLVbu4fAXGAtIAkjWY6g60IMYRJCS1T7pXfR-pwPiy1PuIgsVdJDHsHxCV3aZGvzpq7xHipvPUri7rJuUs-RZ4wTeQQQ" alt="" width="500px;" height="323px;" /></p>
<p>China  has discovered that it can dump far more USTBonds by purchasing  discounted EU member nation debt securities than it ever could in buying  up West African deposits or Persian Gulf energy sources or South  American deals. American observers shook quake in their boots, since  China has learned how to enter the world of high finance. Sovereign debt is the closest thing to currencies in existence.  The bonds are the obverse side of the currency. China has begun to  expand its Yuan convertibility. Moves with Brazilian Real were followed  by a less significant move with the Malaysian Ringgit. In late November  moves with the Russian Ruble were cemented. In two years, the Chinese  Yuan might be on nearly equal footing as the USDollar as a global  reserve currency. The fact that it is rising will be one of its  strongest features.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>GOLD CENTER OF RETALIATION</p>
<p>The trade war has blossomed from import &amp; export of goods &amp; products to the financial sector. The resentment over currency manipulation has a backfire. China is heavily motivated to purchase Gold and to convert reserves to Gold.  They are using USTreasury Bonds to buy Gold. They are fast exhausting  the available supply of gold bullion, the real tangible physical version  with inherent value. They are encouraging the Chinese population to buy  gold in any form, relaxing the rules. At the same time, they are  playing the Wall Street and London corrupt rigged game. They are using  USTBonds to purchase layers of indexes futures contracts in gold. So as  they buy up gold bullion, they pack underneath layers of long contracts  at slighly lower prices. It is like a rugged strangling of the victim  about the neck while covering the mouth &amp; nose with a brutal cupped  hand. The Chinese has engaged in the active war of words. They have  called the USDollar a joke for a global reserve currency, unworthy since  it is linked to gargantuan deficits. They carefully avoid accusations  of bond fraud. The Chinese have called the USDollar the ultimate in  currency manipulation, due to its open abuse as a monetization  instrument. The mere fact that the USDollar is the object of a new carry  trade, on then off, is another insult. Imagine using the USDollar at 0%  cost as the source to fund speculative trade. It guarantees a powerful  longstanding enduring decline.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>GOLD &amp; SILVER BREAKOUTS</p>
<p>The  breakouts in the Gold &amp; Silver prices will continue for the next  two years and beyond. Every several weeks, a fresh record high will  come. The unique aspect of the precious metals breakout is its  foundation in a crumbling global monetary system. Demonstrated proof is that the Gold &amp; Silver prices are making record highs in all major currencies.  The gold chart is less impressive than the silver chart. The long held  favorite by the Jackass is silver. Central banks own none, and industry  demands plenty, as substitutes are few. Gold &amp; Silver have found  their place as global reserve assets and currencies within FOREX  accounts during the global assault on sovereign debt. The claims that  Gold &amp; Silver are in a bubble are as stupid as they are humorous.  Money is never in a bubble. The big bubble is USTreasurys. The  desperation of the captains of fiat fraud is showing like underwear worn  on the outside in plain public view.</p>
<p><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/xDyP_OwCHhjGBLv0W7Y8byXDxd2NGM4fHgomyYnBoUulhKnpyJrV-WXobPucvB7ldoSKxeru8Gmi69lnmBa2FXqLOQ61GP_e0CyLv-RnMwYVQMRlQg" alt="" width="298px;" height="257px;" /><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/vzqCN2wTTHy3GtQAavvAu1OGG2HnCh4xoiqc99-y4CptXjLoeAadGc4q5CEyOOscFMmhSNDtZDoDikoy0Gn1Jngg4YemIlXF2Yms3f-pcMkBPHr-fQ" alt="" width="298px;" height="257px;" /><br />
<img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/uGO0y76XYBwBEFMnpMxegyrOPqxh-Wb9Nxt6SCYA_CnqeK-pie8r5fglwPSEQb72cUP3uLPWqP-g7AYUzBOVTxxnoE0cpPDel8vmmvgZyx5lFMBVwg" alt="" width="298px;" height="256px;" /><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/KUJ1a7jU9jZr2TR4R6sOwxWXhGTR2r3EX7kqbghh0-R9iAhnIpGHWGD44Us1QvDSSvMDQAF1SL6y6mQHbtA1bkaKxHO0qyuGsFYI1BX815moUBggHA" alt="" width="296px;" height="255px;" /></p>
<p>Note  the Silver price breakouts in all four major currencies, from upper  left to lower right in the US$, the Euro, the Pound Sterling, and the  Yen. The  promised land for many precious metals investors has been to witness a  bull run in all currencies. It has begun, and it will continue until the  series of pre-ordained climax events occurs.  It will be as tragic as exciting. The global monetary system is  collapsing, led by sovereign debt ruin and amplified monetary expansion  that brings no viable solutions anywhere. The major banks are collapsing  in insolvency and futile defense of their broken fortresses. Government  deficits are spiraling out of control, whose solution in fiscal  austerity only makes the economies weaker. The metals exchanges are  being systematically drained, even as revealed for the leveraged paper  fraud they operate. They buy and sell paper gold and paper silver  without too much benefit of physical, permitting naked short sales by  the biggest US and London banks. Their game is being called. The Swiss  banks are under critical eye for foot dragging on gold &amp; silver  withdrawals from Allocated accounts.</p>
<p><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>The  Chinese have done something remarkable, only to be done if they know  the game is over and the victory over fiat paper money is complete. The  Chinese have laid out their game plan, their modus operandi, their  tactics if not strategy, through an anonymous London broker.  Hats off to the King World News for sharing the invaluable information  that should encourage even the most timid and reticent investor. The  Anglo bankers are stuck!! They are running out of physical metal to sell  in a fractional scheme. They cannot afford to pounce too hard on the  price, with either naked shorts or higher margin requirements. Doing so  only plays into the Chinese hands, which are grabbing all the bullion  available. So the challenge is for the Anglo bankers to control the pace of the demise of the Gold &amp; Silver metal market.  This is game over. In these times of monetary hyper-inflation, called  euphemistically and absurdly Quantitative Easing by another name, the  prospects for a double and triple in the Gold &amp; Silver price is  utterly obvious.</p>
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Jim Willie CB, editor of the “HAT TRICK LETTER”</p>
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<p>Jim  Willie CB is a statistical analyst in marketing research and retail  forecasting.   He holds a PhD in Statistics. His career has stretched  over 25 years. He aspires to thrive in the financial editor world,  unencumbered by the limitations of economic credentials. Visit his free  website to find articles from topflight authors at  <a href="http://www.goldenjackass.com/" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.goldenjackass.com/?referer=');">www.GoldenJackass.com</a>. For personal questions about subscriptions, contact him at  <a href="mailto:JimWillieCB@aol.com">JimWillieCB@aol.com</a></p>
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