15 Dec 2012

High Frequency Scalping - Max Keiser with Peter Antonioni

Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert look at central banking meth heads and low level broker-dealer-thieves drinking the hand sanitizer that is the high frequency scalping of the last dregs of equity left in the markets. They also ask whether the US has it in for British banks. In the second half, Max Keiser talks to Peter Antonioni, author of the Economics for Dummies, about the policy of quantitative easing as economic homeopathy - it only works on the grounds that you believe it works and about the UK monetizing its debt after transferring QE 'surpluses' from the Bank of England to the Treasury. Source

It's a Trap! - Casey Research

What's Up with Gold?

David Galland: Watching the price action of gold on Wednesday after the Fed announced it was going to double down on quantitative easing, it was hard not to conclude that the precious metals were at risk of another leg down.
After all, here was Capt'n Ben announcing that the Fed helicopters were going to drop an additional $40 billion a month, bringing the dollar deluge to a whopping $85 billion a month – $1.02 trillion a year – and instead of soaring, the precious metals barely squeaked out any gains at all.
Sure enough, confirming my fears, in the overnight markets heading into Thursday, the prices of gold and silver were both smacked down smartly.
That this happened immediately on the heels of the Fed's announcement was concerning enough, but it's actually worse than that.
I say that because earlier this week Mark Carney, the incoming head of the Bank of England, the equivalent of the Fed, made a speech essentially stating that upon assuming his new job, he, too, would be advocating a large and open-ended quantitative easing.
Ditto, the sure-to-be-elected new prime minister of Japan is basing his successful campaign platform on much the same idea – an unlimited amount of new quantitative easing. Likewise, the ECB is shifting toward an accommodative policy.
In essence, in a deliberate attempt to spawn a global wave of inflation, it became clear this week that the Western world's major central banks have fallen lock-step behind a coordinated policy of extraordinary and unprecedented currency debasement.
Yet, gold and silver take it in the neck. What's going on?

Credit-fuelled globalism got us to where we are. It isn’t going to take us to a better place - The Slog

To break the rules, you must first of all recognise why the existing rules are wrong
One of the true delights of watching Camerlot in action is that the I saw you coming syndrome gets funnier with every week. Thus the way in which George Osborne told us all on Thursday that credit ratings don’t matter any more  (seven hours after which S&P seriously downgraded our outlook) was almost Gallic in its risible transparency. Little Georgie is running out of plums to pull from pies…and pork pies to bake. Our squeakiest ever Chancellor has (whether he now likes it or not) tied his credibility to Britain’s Triple-A, and even if the couch-potatoes have forgotten that, none of the media have.
But the profound truth that lies not far below the superficiality of fiscal spin is that every finance minister, central bank head, and political chief executive in the West today faces the same problem: the current model of capitalism has nowhere to go from here.
The generally accepted reality in the EU now is that Angela Merkel will try and put everything on hold until the Autumn of 2013. I severely doubt she has a cat in Hell’s chance of achieving that, but either way, the utterly selfish survival mania that all these people have continues to astonish. The European Union cannot act in concert because the national leaders put their own power and national interests way above any consideration called ‘Europe’. To argue that the Greek social disaster is all being undertaken for the good of Europe is so obscenely false, there are times when I really do wonder when the Greek people will wake up and tell Brussels-Am-Berlin to go and take a running jump…rather like Spain already has.

So now the Pope wants to count his 10,000 tons of Gold … as well?

In a sensational press release today announced the papal press office in Rome that the mythenumrankte, ancient and vast, estimated at up to 10,000 tons of Vatican gold hoard will also be subjected to a full physical count. (google translation)

Goldseiten: The competition for the biggest and best audited gold hoard in the world is opened. After the surprise spring offensive by the Fed in terms of gold transparency (Photo by Philipp Missfelder before the Fed's New York in March 2012) and the Bundesbank (disclosure of tonnage of the German state gold at all four storage locations) visited in a unprecedented media coup now even the Queen of England the Gold Treasure of the British site in the Bank of England. High Self is convinced the monarch, including Prince Consort of the proper presence of the British bars - where they otherwise include recommendations Experts such as Peter FTD R.I.P. Ehrlich ignored ("If the Bundesbank gold reserves accounted for 130 billion euros, it is not important whether the metal is actually somewhere").But that's not all: In a sensational press release today announced the papal press office in Rome that the mythenumrankte, ancient and vast, estimated at up to 10,000 tons of Vatican gold hoard will also be subjected to a full physical count.

Foreign forces must leave Afghan villages: Karzai

Afghan President Hamid Karzai
Press TV: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called on US and NATO troops to immediately leave the country, saying security transition to local forces should take place as soon as possible.

"We are working to make this transition of security happen sooner. We want all the foreign forces to come out of the villages and go to their bases so the Afghan forces can carry out the security," said Karzai during a Saturday conference on Afghan foreign policy strategy in Kabul.
"I'm completely sure that the withdrawal of international forces in 2014 will give us more opportunity to provide more security,” he added.
The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on of terror.

The Old Normal: Presenting 140 Years Of Market Cycles

Tyler Durden's picture Edson Gould, deceased author of the once-famous Findings & Forecasts investment newsletter often said that "History always repeats, only the details change". This insight, a handful of carefully chosen technical indicators, and a deep understanding of crowd psychology enabled him to make some remarkable calls during his career. The graphic below, courtesy of Addogram, plots Gould's "Sentimeter" ("the market price of $1 of dividends") the inverse of the US 10-year Treasury yield, the gold price and an index of commodity prices. Needless to say he was quite right; "History always repeats, only the details change".

Cascade With Dave - NWO Time Line

Trade with Dave: God Save The Queen – from the looks of this cascade, President Obama is certainly not going to do it.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Personal_flag_of_Queen_Elizabeth_II.svg/500px-Personal_flag_of_Queen_Elizabeth_II.svg.png October 30th – Reports Germany wants its gold back
November 5th – LBMA announces the cessation of SIFO reporting (silver forward)
November 6th – President Obama is re-elected
November 6th – Turkey gets a credit rating boost from Finch for loading up Iran with gold
November 8th – Bart Chilton announces implementation schedule for Dodd-Frank
November 12th – Erskine Bowles suggests that the fiscal cliff and privatizing social security is our “magic moment”
November 14th – DTCC at 55 Water St. New York announces plan to “dematerialize” paper certificates
November 15th – China Gold & Silver Exchange announce new Loco Hong Kong silver contract

The Illegitimacy of The Income Tax System

Joseph R. (Joe) Banister, a former IRS Criminal Investigation Division Special Agent who learned of serious constitutional questions relating to the federal income tax and the federal banking and monetary systems. Mr. Banister's expertise in the fields of accounting, finance, taxation, and law enforcement enabled him to not only understand these issues but realize that he could play a role in bringing the issues into the public arena for analysis and debate. Source

Soviet-style disintegration awaits US: Gorbachev

Press TV: The last head of state of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, has warned the US of an imminent Soviet-like collapse if Washington persists with its hegemonic policies.

The last head of state of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Sergeyevich GorbachevSpeaking at a Thursday conference on the future of the Middle East and the Black Sea region in the Turkish city of Istanbul, Gorbachev noted that disintegration was the atonement that the former Soviet Union made for its mistakes and the same fate awaits the US if Washington continues to repeat similar blunders.

On 26 December, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the world's first and largest Communist state, was formally dissolved into fifteen independent republics, marking an end to the Cold War.

He said the Soviet Bolsheviks sought to undermine Islamic values while in power, and noted that during the Cold War era, the world powers used religion as a tool and a weapon.

The Beef Industry’s Deadly Secret: “Blading” and “Needling”

By Wolf Richter: I love steaks. Rare. So I’m biased. But now there is the report of a year-long investigation by The Kansas City Star into the industry practice of mechanical tenderization. Meat packers take certain cuts and run them through a mechanical tenderizer where dozens of needles or double-edged blades perforate them. The result is a “bladed” or “needledsteak. It’s tenderer, and perceived to be of higher quality, so it can be sold for a higher price. And more profit. The perfect alignment of American values. The process can do something else, however: push potentially deadly E. coli into the core of the steak.
It’s been going on for decades. By 2008, according to a USDA survey, over 90% of the beef producers were blading or needling certain cuts. But nothing on the label said so. Turns out, steak lovers have been deluding themselves into assuming that any E. coli bacteria would remain on the surface and would be killed by the heat.
The US beef industry is a powerful lobby. Packers employ 260,000 people who handle 26 billion pounds of beef a year. After a bout of Wall-Street engineering, beef packers have coagulated into essentially four companies: JBS USA, owned by JBS of Brazil, the largest beef packer in the world; Tyson Foods; Cargill; and National Beef of Kansas City. Together they slaughter 87% of all heifers and steers.
This concentration has allowed the industry to become more efficient, presumably putting downward pressure on prices, though you might not have noticed while under sticker shock at the grocery store.
Though the incidence of E. coli illnesses has declined over the years as industry standards have improved (we hope), they still occur at an alarming rate.

Newtown, CT Elementary School Shooting Tally Rises To 27 Dead, Of Whom 20 Children + Connecticut School Massacre Looks Like False Flag Says Witnesses, "I DID NOT DO IT"

Tyler Durden's picture

Update 4: the NYT has released a brief biopic on Lanza's, who it turns out had Asperger's Syndrome:

He carried a black briefcase to his 10th-grade honors English class, and sat near the door so he could readily slip in and out. When called upon, he was intelligent, but nervous and fidgety, spitting his words out, as if having to speak up were painful.

Pale, tall and scrawny, Adam Lanza walked through high school in Newtown, Conn., with his hands glued to his sides, the pens in the pocket of his short-sleeve, button-down shirts among the few things that his classmates recalled about him.

He did all he could to avoid attention, it seemed.

Until Friday.

Jim Grant: Honey, I Shrunk the Yield Curve!!

Whether it's going over the fiscal cliff or Spanish house prices suffering a severe fall, there seems to be a universal financial fear of gravity. Even though we are certainly scared of falling, we don't seem to have much fear of altitude. But should we? We talk to Jim Grant, founder and publisher of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, about his bi-monthly outlook for some answers.