Financial Crisis

[flying]

Well it seems to me that those in power already control a considerable share of the world's total gold, not to mention big armies. Puppies who own the rest will be the big dogs in their respective neighborhoods...

Go to the head of the class

It is never considered that TPTB are in fact well prepped for a change.

Instead many only considered how to hang on to a dying system that TPTB are actually letting collapse...albeit in a slow controlled manner....for now.

Edited September 20, 2010 by flying

[flying]

Oh well, at least its official.

No possibility of a double dip anymore, they have ruled against that. If a recession strikes again, it will be a NEW one!

Well they feel that will stop us from claiming they are throwing good money after bad.

Perhaps get a fresh new bailout.

After all this is a Fresh New Recession in need of fresh new help sadly for the same old too big to fail

Edited September 20, 2010 by flying

[Naam]

adding some text that image is displayed.

Edited September 21, 2010 by Naam

[Naam]

Well it seems to me that those in power already control a considerable share of the world's total gold, not to mention big armies. Puppies who own the rest will be the big dogs in their respective neighborhoods...

but if the display the attitude of big dogs, their respective neighbourhoods might become extremely dangerous.

[flying]

but if they display the attitude of big dogs, their respective neighborhoods might become extremely dangerous.

Confucius say....

Any extremely dangerous neighbors found on my property at night will be found on my property in the morning.....in a considerably less dangerous state

Edited September 21, 2010 by flying

[Naam]

but if they display the attitude of big dogs, their respective neighborhoods might become extremely dangerous.

Confucius say....

Any extremely dangerous neighbors found on my property at night will be found on my property in the morning.... in a considerably less dangerous state

Confucius did not live in The Greatest Nation on Earth™ where one is allowed to shoot intruders at will

[cloudhopper]

Yeah sometimes I miss my guns but if the SHTF at some point you're gonna feed that last shell through the Saiga if it all goes feral there Flying.

Making oneself a useful member of the community will be a good long term strategy wherever you are though...

[flying]

Yeah sometimes I miss my guns but if the SHTF at some point you're gonna feed that last shell through the Saiga if it all goes feral there Flying.

Making oneself a useful member of the community will be a good long term strategy wherever you are though...

Ah those Saiga's are popular aren't they?..I like my Remy Express 18" for that class of tool though I use to have a Franchi Spa

Hopefully we never see the thing you describe. Although as for last shell... As a long time reloader for competition I have more than the average bear would ever need.

Useful member of the community as in having skills is always a good thing. Surrounding yourself with family another.

That is one thing about Thailand's country families...They all live next door to each other. Not a bad thing IMO

[cloudhopper]

A rather lengthy piece on the history and future of the global economy -

http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson09202010.html

[jazzbo]

It is said that Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. knew it was time to get out of the stock market when he received stock tips from a shoe-shine boy. (Wikipedia)

When every other commercial on FoxNews is from G. Gordon Liddy or some other guy telling you NOW is the time to buy gold, it may be time to do the same.

[12DrinkMore]

Let's take a look at this from the BoE.

http://www.bloomberg...-more-help.html

The Bank of England signaled that it's moving closer to more asset purchases, joining the Federal Reserve in contemplating further stimulus to revive a flagging economic recovery.

and

Mackinnon said that the central bank could consider large- scale purchases of securities such as mortgage-backed securities and commercial paper. The minutes didn't specify what further measures may be considered.

This sounds to me not a "stimulation" for the UK industry, for that they would probably offer a "good ol' cuppa", but more another sneaky bank bailout, as those lads in the banks are having it pretty tough at the moment, and Christmas bonus time is coming up.

Getting a few balance sheets to meet the wanke_rs requirements is possibly a good start.

What really annoys me is the constant blather about how this will reduce the interest rates for industry so that more investment in manufacture will take place. Now this is, IMO, utter hogwash and <deleted>. We are being taken for the most enormous ride,

1. The UK government needs to sell a few more bonds to finance its deficits, kicking out a chunk of the payroll will doubtless incur more costs, even if there are savings a few years down the road.

2. The banks will be happy to dump more toxic crap onto the BoE, but will they reduce the interest rates they charge to industry and also start pushing out more loans? I doubt it.

3. Is there really such a massive pent-up demand for credit to invest in substantial job creating manufacturing plants?

I hope there is a massive public backlash when these dam_n banks announce their bonuses for another good job done in destroying the economy 2010. But maybe all the peeps are looking forward to 50 inch 3D LED TV's so they can watch fartball, drink low cost high alcohol beer and stuff themselves on "Golden Arch's' meals?

It looks to me as though they have considered the effect of the first QE drops, found that well, nothing really happened except

1. the banks did extremely well

2. the peeps said nothing

3. house prices did not fall as much as in the US

4. the GBP fell 30%

5. interest rates came down

6. inflation did not race out of control

7. the gov was seen as doing something (Saving the World, yeah thanks Brown)

8. the deficit bills could be paid thanks to Merv beaming the GBP's across to No 11.

9. the FTSE had a little boom

So, the only obvious victims of this were

a. the voiceless savers

b. the voteless expats with GBP assets

On that result, who would stand in the way of a bit more?

Pretty much only the voteless and the voiceless.

Stand by for more QE from the UK and US...... And, IMO, get the hel_l out of GBP's.....

[cloudhopper]

It looks to me as though they have considered the effect of the first QE drops, found that well, nothing really happened

Stand by for more QE from the UK and US...... And, IMO, get the hel_l out of GBP's.....

Stand by for more QE from just about everyone on the planet.

[Abrak]

Stand by for more QE from the UK and US...... And, IMO, get the hel_l out of GBP's.....

I have a view that GBP may well strengthen in the next 3 months. When I say I have a view I dont hold any nor do I intend to, so maybe a 'guess' is a better word.

My thinking is this.

The real focus on the UK is going to be its 'austerity' package. I think Cameron is very committed to this despite the economic consequences - by that I mean he is prioritizing it against growth. In fact I think he sees himself as a 'fiscal' Hitler in much the same way as Maggie saw herself as a 'monetary Hitler'. ST pain for LT gain.

A 'firm', 'disciplined' and 'responsible' approach to fiscal policy (October 20 D Day) will likely strengthen sterling to begin with - it will be called 'brave' to begin with, it will show 'leadership'. Then as the economy falls out of bed, the coalition starts crumbling, unions find that people turn up to their meetings. People find it difficult to reconcile huge spending cuts with the word 'fair', then QE will be needed badly and sterling will tumble.

And I only think QE will work at all this time around if it is focused at flattening the yield curve.

The UK is about to embark on one of the most interesting economic experiments of the last 40 years (they are different from the Euros due to their flexible exchange rate.)

Tightening fiscal policy should appreciate the currency but allow you to mitigate this by lowering interest rates. QE should allow you to reduce interest rates. Recap of banks should help too. That's great apart from interest rates on the bank funding side are effectively zero already.

[Abrak]

An update on Thailand....

Things dont quite look to be as rosy on the economic front for Thailand at the moment. Rather remarkably it actually might fall back into a temporary double dip in the next 6 months. I say this on the basis that a lot of the economic press has been relatively upbeat about Thailand's prospects of late just as the economic fundamentals are rolling over.

Essentially July data was very weak, the economy has benefited from the restocking cycle and has recovered so fast it has run out of steam. Its a bit like if unemployment in the US had rebounded to 5%, a slowdown wouldnt be a big surprise.

There is also a bit of confusion on the numbers which is created by methodology. There are essentially two ways of measuring growth.

1) YOY% change

2) QOQ% change annualized (SAAR) (basically x 4)

The US and Europe tend to use 2. and normally it doesnt matter much. Thailand basically uses 1. but mucks about a bit with both. When numbers are volatile it makes a big difference. So take Thai GDP YOY%/QOQ% SAAR for the last 3 Q - 4Q 09 5.9/16.0 1Q 10 12.0/13.6 2Q 10 9.1/0.9.

So the slowdown has been evident for a while. Based on 2Q the Thai economy actually grew on a US based methodology less than the US itself. The other thing you can see is that the Thai economy grew 10.5% YOY in the first half and even if there is no QoQ growth whatsoever for the remains of the year, it will still achieve 7% growth which is consensus. But by 4Q YOY growth will be down to about 1-2%.

You can see the same sort of thing with say export numbers. July's numbers were up 21% YOY but down 11% on the month and lower than March earlier this year. By the year end export growth will be in single digits.

And same story for Business sentiment, Manufacturing production and Coincident indicators - down MOM in July, same level as December but 10-20% ahead of last year.

Consumption is doing better and has been rising gradually this year but fell in July. The other bright spot rather surprisingly is tourism given the problems in May. July tourists numbers were up YOY. It is kind of interesting that the yellow shirt airport fiasco depressed tourism for 5 months, while the Reds riots only had a two month impact.

Simply on a statistical basis growth is going to slow to a snail's pace by 4Q. As I say much of this has to do with the fact that virtually every indicie has already recovered to pre-recession and in many cases further - exports, production, capacity utilization.

On the other hand - production and exports - are now showing signs of coming down across a broad range of industries. The baht will not have helped and western restocking is now in decline. Negative growth Q4/Q1 is possible.

[BlackJack]

the new gold is rare earths start reading and investing

i was told there's a bar for sale in Soi Cowboy and a bar in Soi 8. both are built on rare earths. should i invest?

if they are called terbium bar or dysprosium bar yes invest and then with the profits buy me a nice bottle of wine

[BlackJack]

It looks to me as though they have considered the effect of the first QE drops, found that well, nothing really happened

Stand by for more QE from the UK and US...... And, IMO, get the hel_l out of GBP's.....

Stand by for more QE from just about everyone on the planet.

except Australia

I dont understand why the USA people dont invest their dollars in Australian banks at 7% and pay the with holding tax and still keep 4%

After all the US$ is fcked

[BlackJack]

Here's a very interesting essay on the nature of financial crisis -

http://peakcomplexit...complexity.html

how much fiat money, respectively ounces of gold, will you add to your net worth after having digested that interesting essay?

I'm not sure I understand the question. How much fiat currency of any denomination an ounce of gold can be traded for in the future depends largely on what the major political powers do. If there comes a rapid loss of faith in currencies globally however, I think gold will be the primary standard against which the subsequent global fiat currency that finally restores financial order is valued. And therefore will be the best way to preserve monetary wealth during the transition. On the other hand, if government efforts are unable to offset a deflationary financial collapse then cash in whatever form (including gold!) will become increasingly rare and gain in purchasing power. Since in the current global economy the purchasing power of credit exceeds the purchasing power of cash by around 50X, I think a deflationary collapse is inevitable despite anything governments can do except make it happen faster and badder via a currency crisis.

I would pay attention to the Chris Martenson links because in the event of an actual global financial collapse people will find that they cannot eat their gold or their cash.

The GFC effected a certain group of people in the World - namely the USA and parts of EU

it did not effect all

people still ate and lived

China India still kept building

the baht remained strong

Asia powered on

If there is another GFC only certain countries will be effected

the countries effected will be paying more through inflated prices due to rare resources

gold will still be viable

those that have it will fair better than those that dont

PLEASE dont think the Universe revolves around the USA

IT does not

as CHina and India are pointing out

[Abrak]

I dont understand why the USA people dont invest their dollars in Australian banks at 7% and pay the with holding tax and still keep 4%

After all the US$ is fcked

Cant they buy bank debentures - I thought they were free of with holding tax.

More to the point. Who do you think is funding that L/D ratio?

[Naam]

I dont understand why the USA people dont invest their dollars in Australian banks at 7% and pay the with holding tax and still keep 4%

After all the US$ is fcked

why would anyone be stupid enough to invest in AUD and pay taxes when that can be done without any hassle tax free?

besides... some clever "USA people" bought Aussie Dollars mid 2008 at 98 and lost nearly 40% within a few months.

disclaimer: i like and hold AUD!

Edited September 23, 2010 by Naam

[Chunky1]

It is said that Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. knew it was time to get out of the stock market when he received stock tips from a shoe-shine boy. (Wikipedia)

When every other commercial on FoxNews is from G. Gordon Liddy or some other guy telling you NOW is the time to buy gold, it may be time to do the same.

So when you sell your gold and get your currency back, what do you plan to do with? Purchase bonds at WWI rates? Buy stocks and pray that you get 3-4% GDP growth and not another double dip 50% drop?

[Naam]

It is said that Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. knew it was time to get out of the stock market when he received stock tips from a shoe-shine boy. (Wikipedia)

When every other commercial on FoxNews is from G. Gordon Liddy or some other guy telling you NOW is the time to buy gold, it may be time to do the same.

So when you sell your gold and get your currency back, what do you plan to do with? Purchase bonds at WWI rates? Buy stocks and pray that you get 3-4% GDP growth and not another double dip 50% drop?

you got it all wrong Chunky! goldbugsfans never sell any of the gold they bought. they caress it and perhaps sit or sleep on it to do a little hatching. some (very few) of them might part with a single coin to buy a bakery when they are out of bread.

[BlackJack]

I dont understand why the USA people dont invest their dollars in Australian banks at 7% and pay the with holding tax and still keep 4%

After all the US$ is fcked

why would anyone be stupid enough to invest in AUD and pay taxes when that can be done without any hassle tax free?

besides... some clever "USA people" bought Aussie Dollars mid 2008 at 98 and lost nearly 40% within a few months.

disclaimer: i like and hold AUD!

read on

http://www.sharecafe.com.au/fnarena_news.asp?a=AV&ai=18041

[BlackJack]

I dont understand why the USA people dont invest their dollars in Australian banks at 7% and pay the with holding tax and still keep 4%

After all the US$ is fcked

why would anyone be stupid enough to invest in AUD and pay taxes when that can be done without any hassle tax free?

besides... some clever "USA people" bought Aussie Dollars mid 2008 at 98 and lost nearly 40% within a few months.

disclaimer: i like and hold AUD!

http://www.sharecafe.com.au/fnarena_news.asp?a=AV&ai=18041

maybe because the OZ government will guarantee the deposited money, QE11 is coming, times are different and also because some punters ie retired Alzheimer's oldies arent to savey in the market

these may just want to plonk and forget - pay taxes and get a return instead of watching it go down the toilet

I like and hold OZ dollars to also gold mines ore REE's gas

if anyone knows some copper juniors in Australia let me know as i want to plonk a few bob on it

ta

[lannarebirth]

An update on Thailand....

Things dont quite look to be as rosy on the economic front for Thailand at the moment. Rather remarkably it actually might fall back into a temporary double dip in the next 6 months. I say this on the basis that a lot of the economic press has been relatively upbeat about Thailand's prospects of late just as the economic fundamentals are rolling over.

Essentially July data was very weak, the economy has benefited from the restocking cycle and has recovered so fast it has run out of steam. Its a bit like if unemployment in the US had rebounded to 5%, a slowdown wouldnt be a big surprise.

There is also a bit of confusion on the numbers which is created by methodology. There are essentially two ways of measuring growth.

1) YOY% change

2) QOQ% change annualized (SAAR) (basically x 4)

The US and Europe tend to use 2. and normally it doesnt matter much. Thailand basically uses 1. but mucks about a bit with both. When numbers are volatile it makes a big difference. So take Thai GDP YOY%/QOQ% SAAR for the last 3 Q - 4Q 09 5.9/16.0 1Q 10 12.0/13.6 2Q 10 9.1/0.9.

So the slowdown has been evident for a while. Based on 2Q the Thai economy actually grew on a US based methodology less than the US itself. The other thing you can see is that the Thai economy grew 10.5% YOY in the first half and even if there is no QoQ growth whatsoever for the remains of the year, it will still achieve 7% growth which is consensus. But by 4Q YOY growth will be down to about 1-2%.

You can see the same sort of thing with say export numbers. July's numbers were up 21% YOY but down 11% on the month and lower than March earlier this year. By the year end export growth will be in single digits.

And same story for Business sentiment, Manufacturing production and Coincident indicators - down MOM in July, same level as December but 10-20% ahead of last year.

Consumption is doing better and has been rising gradually this year but fell in July. The other bright spot rather surprisingly is tourism given the problems in May. July tourists numbers were up YOY. It is kind of interesting that the yellow shirt airport fiasco depressed tourism for 5 months, while the Reds riots only had a two month impact.

Simply on a statistical basis growth is going to slow to a snail's pace by 4Q. As I say much of this has to do with the fact that virtually every indicie has already recovered to pre-recession and in many cases further - exports, production, capacity utilization.

On the other hand - production and exports - are now showing signs of coming down across a broad range of industries. The baht will not have helped and western restocking is now in decline. Negative growth Q4/Q1 is possible.

I respect an analyst that says more than "BUY" or "SELL". You my have turned the market today. Thanks.

[cloudhopper]

PLEASE dont think the Universe revolves around the USA

IT does not

as CHina and India are pointing out

Well .........OK.

China and the US have actually been revolving around each other at an ever-tightening radius since Nixon took the US off the gold standard.

As for India - I don't do three-body problems...

[12DrinkMore]

I dont understand why the USA people dont invest their dollars in Australian banks at 7% and pay the with holding tax and still keep 4%

After all the US$ is fcked

why would anyone be stupid enough to invest in AUD and pay taxes when that can be done without any hassle tax free?

besides... some clever "USA people" bought Aussie Dollars mid 2008 at 98 and lost nearly 40% within a few months.

disclaimer: i like and hold AUD!

Withholding tax in Australia is 10%.

disclaimer: i like and hold AUD! - so do I!

But I do seem to remember Naam disparaging the "Australian Peso" some while ago. Must have been trying to push it down before buying in heavily, ala GS & Co

[Chunky1]

It is said that Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. knew it was time to get out of the stock market when he received stock tips from a shoe-shine boy. (Wikipedia)

When every other commercial on FoxNews is from G. Gordon Liddy or some other guy telling you NOW is the time to buy gold, it may be time to do the same.

So when you sell your gold and get your currency back, what do you plan to do with? Purchase bonds at WWI rates? Buy stocks and pray that you get 3-4% GDP growth and not another double dip 50% drop?

you got it all wrong Chunky! goldbugsfans never sell any of the gold they bought. they caress it and perhaps sit or sleep on it to do a little hatching. some (very few) of them might part with a single coin to buy a bakery when they are out of bread.

I don't buy into the theory that the gold standard is going to return. I think the US government will simply continue to slowly erode the value of the dollar and that all the pensioners and American citizens saving in dollars will fit the bill. For this reason, I do not plan to sell my gold/silver holdings anytime soon. While it might seem that everyone involved in finance is touting gold, the average America is still sitting there holding onto their greenbacks. I would still like jazzbo to tell me what he plans to do with the currency he receives from selling gold.

[Naam]

I dont understand why the USA people dont invest their dollars in Australian banks at 7% and pay the with holding tax and still keep 4%

After all the US$ is fcked

why would anyone be stupid enough to invest in AUD and pay taxes when that can be done without any hassle tax free?

besides... some clever "USA people" bought Aussie Dollars mid 2008 at 98 and lost nearly 40% within a few months.

disclaimer: i like and hold AUD!

read on

http://www.sharecafe.com.au/fnarena_news.asp?a=AV&ai=18041

assumptions and opinions as far as the future is concerned. the fact remains that AUD has been an extremely volatile currency for the last three decades vs. a bunch of major and even minor currencies like Thai Baht.

i still remember spring 2001 when one US-Dollar bought 2.10 Aussie Dollars and of course 2008 when in the cash market one had to shell out 1.03 US-Dollars to buy one Aussie Dollar. but only three or four months later one AUD bought 60 US-Cents!

by the way, i admire people who are able to have a good night's sleep having invested AUD in long term deposits which makes a switch impossible without incurring big losses. but then, they are people... not investors

a complete different story is of course when you live in Oz and your expenses are in AUD.

[12DrinkMore]

Stand by for more QE from the UK and US...... And, IMO, get the hel_l out of GBP's.....

I have a view that GBP may well strengthen in the next 3 months. When I say I have a view I dont hold any nor do I intend to, so maybe a 'guess' is a better word.

My thinking is this.

The real focus on the UK is going to be its 'austerity' package. I think Cameron is very committed to this despite the economic consequences - by that I mean he is prioritizing it against growth. In fact I think he sees himself as a 'fiscal' Hitler in much the same way as Maggie saw herself as a 'monetary Hitler'. ST pain for LT gain.

A 'firm', 'disciplined' and 'responsible' approach to fiscal policy (October 20 D Day) will likely strengthen sterling to begin with - it will be called 'brave' to begin with, it will show 'leadership'. Then as the economy falls out of bed, the coalition starts crumbling, unions find that people turn up to their meetings. People find it difficult to reconcile huge spending cuts with the word 'fair', then QE will be needed badly and sterling will tumble.

And I only think QE will work at all this time around if it is focused at flattening the yield curve.

The UK is about to embark on one of the most interesting economic experiments of the last 40 years (they are different from the Euros due to their flexible exchange rate.)

Tightening fiscal policy should appreciate the currency but allow you to mitigate this by lowering interest rates. QE should allow you to reduce interest rates. Recap of banks should help too. That's great apart from interest rates on the bank funding side are effectively zero already.

I can't see any substantial appreciation of the Squib until Merv puts up the interest rates to make it once again attractive to hold GBP. As we have discussed, the banks already can obtain funds free of charge. And all that happens is that this free money is stuck back into slightly higher interest bearing bonds, allowing the banks to recapitalise their balance sheets. I wonder just how much real demand there is for debt

- to fund new businesses

- to fund consumer durable stuff such as 3D LED TV's, cars etc

- to improve the cash flow of existing business

- to buy bricks and mortar, putting themselves into lifelong debt

When the austerity package hits the streets, then the economy, unless some major piece of smoke and mirrors can work a wonder, then the GDP, that semi-religious icon of measuring prosperity simply has to take a hit.

The big problem I have difficulty in seeing any corner from which a recovery can come from, even if the GBP is taken down to a ridiculous level of say 20 Baht, ie less than the USD, which is, I think, going to go to 25 at some point.

As you say, this is very interesting and 40 years is to short, I think this is the biggest experiment in trying to fix an economy ever. I don't think it will work.

[Naam]

1. I don't buy into the theory that the gold standard is going to return.

2. I think the US government will simply continue to slowly erode the value of the dollar and that all the pensioners and American citizens saving in dollars will fit the bill. For this reason, I do not plan to sell my gold/silver holdings anytime soon.

3. While it might seem that everyone involved in finance is touting gold, the average America is still sitting there holding onto their greenbacks.

4. I would still like jazzbo to tell me what he plans to do with the currency he receives from selling gold.

1. anybody with basic maths knowledge can figure out that this is impossible.

2. not only the US government!

3. if that was the case then gold would be already priced 5k an ounce.

4. perhaps he does not accept any currency?