Monday, April 29, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Friday, April 26, 2013
What Do You Do When ALL The Markets Are Rigged?
Rolling Stone
Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
By Matt Taibbi
April 25, 2013
Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.
You may have heard of the Libor scandal, in which at least three – and perhaps as many as 16 – of the name-brand too-big-to-fail banks have been manipulating global interest rates, in the process messing around with the prices of upward of $500 trillion (that's trillion, with a "t") worth of financial instruments. When that sprawling con burst into public view last year, it was easily the biggest financial scandal in history – MIT professor Andrew Lo even said it "dwarfs by orders of magnitude any financial scam in the history of markets."
That was bad enough, but now Libor may have a twin brother. Word has leaked out that the London-based firm ICAP, the world's largest broker of interest-rate swaps, is being investigated by American authorities for behavior that sounds eerily reminiscent of the Libor mess. Regulators are looking into whether or not a small group of brokers at ICAP may have worked with up to 15 of the world's largest banks to manipulate ISDAfix, a benchmark number used around the world to calculate the prices of interest-rate swaps...
All of these stories collectively pointed to the same thing: These banks, which already possess enormous power just by virtue of their financial holdings in the United States, the top six banks, many of them the same names you see on the Libor and ISDAfix panels, own assets equivalent to 60 percent of the nation's GDP are beginning to realize the awesome possibilities for increased profit and political might that would come with colluding instead of competing. Moreover, it's increasingly clear that both the criminal justice system and the civil courts may be impotent to stop them, even when they do get caught working together to game the system.
If true, that would leave us living in an era of undisguised, real-world conspiracy, in which the prices of currencies, commodities like gold and silver, even interest rates and the value of money itself, can be and may already have been dictated from above. And those who are doing it can get away with it. Forget the Illuminati this is the real thing, and it's no secret. You can stare right at it, anytime you want.
Read the entire story here.
Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
By Matt Taibbi
April 25, 2013
Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.
You may have heard of the Libor scandal, in which at least three – and perhaps as many as 16 – of the name-brand too-big-to-fail banks have been manipulating global interest rates, in the process messing around with the prices of upward of $500 trillion (that's trillion, with a "t") worth of financial instruments. When that sprawling con burst into public view last year, it was easily the biggest financial scandal in history – MIT professor Andrew Lo even said it "dwarfs by orders of magnitude any financial scam in the history of markets."
That was bad enough, but now Libor may have a twin brother. Word has leaked out that the London-based firm ICAP, the world's largest broker of interest-rate swaps, is being investigated by American authorities for behavior that sounds eerily reminiscent of the Libor mess. Regulators are looking into whether or not a small group of brokers at ICAP may have worked with up to 15 of the world's largest banks to manipulate ISDAfix, a benchmark number used around the world to calculate the prices of interest-rate swaps...
All of these stories collectively pointed to the same thing: These banks, which already possess enormous power just by virtue of their financial holdings in the United States, the top six banks, many of them the same names you see on the Libor and ISDAfix panels, own assets equivalent to 60 percent of the nation's GDP are beginning to realize the awesome possibilities for increased profit and political might that would come with colluding instead of competing. Moreover, it's increasingly clear that both the criminal justice system and the civil courts may be impotent to stop them, even when they do get caught working together to game the system.
If true, that would leave us living in an era of undisguised, real-world conspiracy, in which the prices of currencies, commodities like gold and silver, even interest rates and the value of money itself, can be and may already have been dictated from above. And those who are doing it can get away with it. Forget the Illuminati this is the real thing, and it's no secret. You can stare right at it, anytime you want.
Read the entire story here.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Irish Banks Go Cyprus On Pensioners....Are You Next?
From the BoomBustBlog.com
As Forewarned, The Irish Savers Have Just Been "Cyprus'd"
And There Is MUCH MORE "Cyprusing" To Come!
Monday, April 22, 2013
Reggie Middleton writes.......
This is likely to be the biggest financial story of the month, a story that's bigger than
Cyprus, and a story that you're not going to see in American mainstream media - not by a
long shot. Let's take this from the top, for BoomBustBloggers were warned weeks in advance. On Wednesday, 27 march 2013 I published EU Bank Depositors: Your Mattress Is Starting To Look Awfully Attractive - Bank Risk, Reward & Compensation wherein I explained that the situation of extreme loss faced by Cyprus bank depositors, savers and bondholders will not be a unique story - as excerpted:
The deposit accounts that you were getting just a few hundred basis points for have developed:
- Liquidity risks: The capital controls that weren't supposed to happen (see No Capital Controls In The EMU? Liar Liar Pants On Fire), happened! See Cyprus Banks Set To Reopen, To Serve As Glorified ATMs With A €300 Cash Withdrawal Limit
- Credit risks: Your so-called safe investments will suffer up to a 40% haircut! Mainstream Media Says Cyprus Salvaged By EU Deal, I Say Cyprus Is Sacrificed By Said Deal - Thrown Into Depression
- and Market risks: Demand depositors have forcibly purchased highly speculative synthetic call options with their haircuts that are unlikely to compensate anyone for anything!
- The little app below calculates what return you should expect to receive to take on the risk of a potential 40% haircut. The second tab offers what recent Cyprus bank rates were. Do you see a disparity???
Sunday, April 21, 2013
10 SIGNS Physical Gold & Silver Are Will See Price Hikes
From The Economic Collapse Blog:
10 Signs The Takedown Of Paper Gold Has Unleashed An Unprecedented Global Run On Physical Gold And Silver
By Michael, on April 18th, 2013
The crash of the price of paper gold on Monday has unleashed an unprecedented global frenzy to buy physical gold and silver. All over the planet, people are recognizing that this is a unique opportunity to be able to acquire large amounts of gold and silver at a bargain price. So precious metals dealers now find themselves being overwhelmed with orders in the United States, in Canada, in Europe and over in Asia. Will this massive run on physical gold and silver soon lead to widespread shortages of those metals? Instead of frightening people away from gold and silver, the takedown of paper gold seems to have had just the opposite effect. People just can't seem to get enough physical gold and silver right now. Those that wish that they had gotten into gold when it was less than $1400 an ounce are able to do so now, and it is absolutely insane that silver is sitting at about $23 an ounce. If the big banks continue to play games with the price of gold, we are going to see existing supplies of physical gold and silver dry up very quickly. And once reports of physical shortages of gold and silver become widespread, it is going to absolutely rock the financial world. But this is what happens when you manipulate free markets - it often has unintended consequences far beyond anything that you ever imagined.
The following are 10 signs that the takedown of paper gold has unleashed an unprecedented global run on physical gold and silver...
#1 According to Zero Hedge, the U.S. Mint set a new all-time record for the number of gold ounces sold on Wednesday...
According to today's data from the US Mint, a record 63,500 ounces, or a whopping 2 tons, of gold were reported sold on April 17th alone, bringing the total sales for the month to a whopping 147,000 ounces or more than the previous two months combined with just half of the month gone.
#2 Precious metals dealers all over the United States are having a really hard time keeping up with demand right now. According to Chris Martenson, many are warning customers to expect waiting times of five to six weeks at this point...
In the U.S., all of the dealers I talk to are reporting huge demand and brisk buying. Silver in any form is quite hard to come by unless you want to pay premiums of 20%+ per ounce above spot price. Delivery times are 5 to 6 weeks out now – that's an unusual situation. If this recent slam was designed to scare people away from gold, it did not have that desired outcome; in fact, just the opposite.
#3 Individual dealers all over the country are confirming that we are seeing a voracious appetite for precious metals at the moment. For example, the following is what a spokesperson for JM Bullion had to say...
We still have certain things in stock, like 10 oz bars, while others, like Silver Eagles, are a bit of revolving inventory.
The shipments are going out as soon as inventory comes in.
Our main challenge right now is actually getting the silver into the boxes and shipped out – we have been experiencing astounding volume.
This appears to be a widespread phenomenon. Just check out what other dealers are reporting...
“There has been a marked increase in demand since the plunge,” said Mark O’Byrne, executive director at Dublin-based investment and bullion specialist GoldCore, referring to the drop in gold prices seen Friday and Monday. Gold futures lost more than $200 an ounce, or over 13%, on those two days. They were at $1,392 an ounce, moving higher ahead of the close on Thursday.
GoldCore has seen more buying than selling on Wednesday and Thursday, with buy orders “lumpier and from high net worth clients, and with most of the selling in small orders of less than 50 ounces, said O’Byrne.
On Wednesday, David Beahm, executive vice president at Blanchard & Co., said his precious-metals investment firm has seen “2008-like demand” for gold since Monday.
#4 Large international banks are also experiencing tremendous demand for physical gold and silver by customers right now. The following is what Keith Barron told King World News about what he is hearing...
At the Bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto the gold window has been absolutely swamped. I have confirmed there were people lined up in droves recently for multiple-hours at a time to buy gold and silver bars and coins....
I then confirmed with UBS today in Zurich, Switzerland, that they are experiencing exactly the same thing. They told me people are waiting in long lines for bullion related bars and coins. The physical market is incredibly tight, and there is a huge buying opportunity right here.
The damage in gold will not be long-term because physical supply is already drying up. Asian countries have been aggressively buying gold. This really is an unprecedented opportunity for investors. This takedown in the metals has created incredible demand for both gold and silver, and anyone who wants to unload dollars or euros and put them into gold because they don’t trust the currency, now is the time to do it.
#5 The demand for physical gold and silver is heating up over in Europe as well. For example, the following is from an emergency message posted on the website of a precious metals dealer in the UK...
Due to the unprecedented demand triggered by the recent fall in the Gold Price we are currently not able to guarantee Next Day Delivery of orders.
We anticipate that all orders will be delivered within 7 days of receipt by us.
Whilst we appreciate that these delays are frustrating for our customers we would like to stress that all accepted orders are guaranteed at the order price and will be dispatched as soon as possible.
It is necessary for all of our staff to be utilised in fulfilling orders and we ask for your cooperation by not calling us to query delivery times. If you do need to contact us, please do so by e-mail and we will endeavour to respond within 48hrs.
#6 On the other side of the globe, demand for precious metals is skyrocketing as well. According to Bloomberg, people are "running through the gate" to get gold in Australia...
Gold sales from Australia’s Perth Mint, which refines nearly all of the nation’s bullion, surged after prices plunged, adding to signs that the metal’s slump to a two-year low is spurring increased demand.
“The volume of business that we’re putting through is way in excess of double what we did last week,” Treasurer Nigel Moffatt said by phone, without giving precise figures. “There’s been people running through the gate.”
#7 Reuters is reporting that customers are waiting for up to three hours to buy gold in Japan...
A week ago, as the yen-denominated price neared a new peak, jewelry stores and gold merchants across Japan saw long lines of mostly older Japanese looking to cash in on unwanted jewelry and other items that they had held for years.
But on Tuesday, buyers outnumbered sellers by a wide margin. At Ginza Tanaka, the headquarters shop of Tanaka Holdings, gold buyers waited for as long as three hours for a chance to complete a transaction.
#8 According to a Chinese article quoted by the Blaze, there is a mad rush to buy gold in China right now...
People have to rush to buy gold … gold bullion out of stock yesterday, investors yesterday to spend as much as 600 million yuan to buy 20 kilograms of gold bars
The mad pursuit gold insufficiency is not just a game for the rich. Yesterday, the Yangcheng Evening News reporter learned from the East flowers to Bay store, many growers, pork traffickers, fishmonger recently put down his job went straight to the mall to buy gold.
#9 According to Reuters, dealers in Singapore are having significant trouble finding enough of a supply to keep up with the intense demand for gold that has erupted this week...
"People are actually buying everything, gold bars, gold coins. People are rushing to get a hand on it. We have a problem meeting the demand because we are unable to get new supply," said Brian Lan, managing director of GoldSilver Central Pte Ltd in Singapore.
#10 Bloomberg is reporting that over in India people are "flocking to stores" to purchase gold jewelry and coins...
Gold buyers in India, the world’s biggest consumer, are flocking to stores to buy jewelry and coins, betting a selloff that plunged bullion to a two-year low may be overdone.
“My daughter is just six months old, but I think it is never too early to buy gold,” said Sharmila Shirodkar, a 28- year-old housewife, while displaying a new pair of earrings she bought from a store in Mumbai’s Zaveri Bazaar. “I had been asking my husband every day if prices will go down more. I couldn’t wait anymore.”
If the big banks were trying to scare people away from gold and silver by crashing paper prices for those metals then they have utterly failed.
Instead of being frightened away, the global appetite for physical gold and silver is now more voracious than ever.
If the prices for gold and silver stay this low, we are eventually going to start seeing some very serious shortages in the marketplace.
And once reports of shortages of the actual physical metals become widely circulated, it will cause an "adjustment" in the marketplace that will shock everyone.
So hold on to your hats. We are entering a period of time when there will be unprecedented volatility for the prices of precious metals. It will be quite a roller coaster ride, but if you can handle the ups and downs it will be worth it in the end.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Tuesday, April 16, 2013 Financial News
What The Heck Happened To Metals?
Force Majeure Was The End Game All Along!
What If The COMEX Collapsed?
California so see up to 50% increase in taxes to pay for State Pensions
Ex-Soros Advisor Sells ALMOST ALL Japanese Holdings - Shorts Bonds -
Sees Market CRASH!
Congress Exempts Most Federal Workers From Insider Trading Reporting
Rio Tinto's Kennecott Mine In Utah Suffers Massive Landslide Closing
Worlds Largest Copper Mine - USA's 2nd Largest Silver Mine - Poof It's Gone
Someone Trying To Create Nationwide Panic....Like 2001 - What Are They Hiding?
Force Majeure Was The End Game All Along!
What If The COMEX Collapsed?
California so see up to 50% increase in taxes to pay for State Pensions
Ex-Soros Advisor Sells ALMOST ALL Japanese Holdings - Shorts Bonds -
Sees Market CRASH!
Congress Exempts Most Federal Workers From Insider Trading Reporting
Rio Tinto's Kennecott Mine In Utah Suffers Massive Landslide Closing
Worlds Largest Copper Mine - USA's 2nd Largest Silver Mine - Poof It's Gone
Someone Trying To Create Nationwide Panic....Like 2001 - What Are They Hiding?
Dollar Decline Heading Our Way
From the Smart Money Blog:
http://smartmoneytracker.blogspot.com/2013/04/dollar-decline-confirmed.html
read the rest of the article here....
http://smartmoneytracker.blogspot.com/2013/04/dollar-decline-confirmed.html
TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 2013
DOLLAR DECLINE CONFIRMED
Just another quick post tonight. As I have been saying for over a year now, the dollar will not make new highs, and it will collapse as the consequences of QE infinity ultimately take their toll.
Today the dollar confirmed that an intermediate degree decline has begun by closing strongly below the previous daily cycle low. A new pattern of lower lows and lower highs has now begun.
As I've been saying for months, the dollar rally was a mirage. The only reason the dollar index was strong was because the yen, euro, pound and Canadian dollar were all moving down into intermediate or yearly cycle lows together. That gave the illusion that the dollar was rising. The dollar was simply benefiting from people selling everything else.
But now it's the dollar's turn. Let's face it, in the real world you can't print unlimited amounts of money and not have something bad happen. The real world just doesn't work that way. Maybe in fairy tale land were magic works, but not here in the real world.
Today the dollar confirmed that an intermediate degree decline has begun by closing strongly below the previous daily cycle low. A new pattern of lower lows and lower highs has now begun.
As I've been saying for months, the dollar rally was a mirage. The only reason the dollar index was strong was because the yen, euro, pound and Canadian dollar were all moving down into intermediate or yearly cycle lows together. That gave the illusion that the dollar was rising. The dollar was simply benefiting from people selling everything else.
But now it's the dollar's turn. Let's face it, in the real world you can't print unlimited amounts of money and not have something bad happen. The real world just doesn't work that way. Maybe in fairy tale land were magic works, but not here in the real world.
read the rest of the article here....
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Time To Wake Up!
Talking heads on CNBC and Bloomberg smugly announced that gold was officially dead and the markets took a nose dive of 201 points. The prices of Gold, Silver and other metals plunged along with stock exchanges yesterday on the fear that the bull run in metals was finished. Apparently no one told the largest purchasers of gold on the planet, In India, buyers flocked to markets and bazaars to buy gold at bargain prices, prices that haven't been seen here since September 2011. The the Bloomberg article here.
If you can stomach watching the American MSM long enough you would have thought that there was a global sell off in gold. O' not so! Indians flocked to buy gold yesterday along with the rest of Asia - The Chinese along with Hong Kong and Singapore saw huge buying of gold as well.
This was a planned and well orchestrated manipulation takedown of metals by the FED and various bullion banks like J.P. Morgan along with computer driven macros that buy or sell while adjusting for market moves. When pushed these macros create a cascade of
water fall selling which break through stops placed in the market, creating more selling.
Large trading firms can see where your stops are placed and push through your stops to
force your account to sell. Whether by natural market forces or manipulated takedowns like you saw yesterday - you get screwed. Why? Because you aren't on the inside - with
inside knowledge of what the FED and big banks are going to do. Don't believe that the
markets are fixed? What about that supposed little slip by the FED last week e-mailing information to insiders before they announced to the markets? - Article here -
Just an accident?! Right! Would you trade on that info? Doesn't matter. You didn't get the e-mail, insiders did.
Do you have any physical gold? Did you sell your metals yesterday? Are you scared that you have to sell to protect your capital? Did anything change dramatically in the market to dissuade you from holding metals?
The facts haven't changed have they?
Governments globally are still printing massive amounts of fiat paper. QE's & Bailouts
Think Japan, USA, Europe, China....
Governments globally are still using deficit spending to stay afloat.
Global derivatives, Medicare, Medicade, Multiple wars, War on Terror, pension shortfalls, etc. are still growing.
Governments can't afford to let interest rates rise or they will be crushed by debt payments.
What exactly has changed in the above list to deflate the pricing of gold & silver?
Nothing that I can see, so, one has to conclude this is a market manipulation.
Remember back in 2008, when the markets saw this same kind of take down of the
metals market? Two months later we had Lehman & AIG collapse. Nothing has changed
and I would argue it is much worse now that in 2008. The banks haven't recapitalized,
they still have huge derivatives on their books, thousands of empty houses that they refuse to sell because they would have to take losses and fail.
Look around globally, China bought almost 100 tonnes of physical gold in February,
the rest of Asia bought 125 tones in February as well. Russia is buying physical gold, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore are buying gold. What does Asia know that you don't know? The financial punch bowl is tipping towards developing nations that produce goods, real physical goods and they see gold as real, tangible money vs. paper fiat currencies.
So should you.
Cyprus should have been your "AHA!" moment when you realized that the "Too Big To Fail Banks and their corrupt government sponsors will steal everything from you in a last ditch attempt to keep the the financial body from flat lining.
Time to wake up!
If you can stomach watching the American MSM long enough you would have thought that there was a global sell off in gold. O' not so! Indians flocked to buy gold yesterday along with the rest of Asia - The Chinese along with Hong Kong and Singapore saw huge buying of gold as well.
This was a planned and well orchestrated manipulation takedown of metals by the FED and various bullion banks like J.P. Morgan along with computer driven macros that buy or sell while adjusting for market moves. When pushed these macros create a cascade of
water fall selling which break through stops placed in the market, creating more selling.
Large trading firms can see where your stops are placed and push through your stops to
force your account to sell. Whether by natural market forces or manipulated takedowns like you saw yesterday - you get screwed. Why? Because you aren't on the inside - with
inside knowledge of what the FED and big banks are going to do. Don't believe that the
markets are fixed? What about that supposed little slip by the FED last week e-mailing information to insiders before they announced to the markets? - Article here -
Just an accident?! Right! Would you trade on that info? Doesn't matter. You didn't get the e-mail, insiders did.
Do you have any physical gold? Did you sell your metals yesterday? Are you scared that you have to sell to protect your capital? Did anything change dramatically in the market to dissuade you from holding metals?
The facts haven't changed have they?
Governments globally are still printing massive amounts of fiat paper. QE's & Bailouts
Think Japan, USA, Europe, China....
Governments globally are still using deficit spending to stay afloat.
Global derivatives, Medicare, Medicade, Multiple wars, War on Terror, pension shortfalls, etc. are still growing.
Governments can't afford to let interest rates rise or they will be crushed by debt payments.
What exactly has changed in the above list to deflate the pricing of gold & silver?
Nothing that I can see, so, one has to conclude this is a market manipulation.
Remember back in 2008, when the markets saw this same kind of take down of the
metals market? Two months later we had Lehman & AIG collapse. Nothing has changed
and I would argue it is much worse now that in 2008. The banks haven't recapitalized,
they still have huge derivatives on their books, thousands of empty houses that they refuse to sell because they would have to take losses and fail.
Look around globally, China bought almost 100 tonnes of physical gold in February,
the rest of Asia bought 125 tones in February as well. Russia is buying physical gold, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore are buying gold. What does Asia know that you don't know? The financial punch bowl is tipping towards developing nations that produce goods, real physical goods and they see gold as real, tangible money vs. paper fiat currencies.
So should you.
Cyprus should have been your "AHA!" moment when you realized that the "Too Big To Fail Banks and their corrupt government sponsors will steal everything from you in a last ditch attempt to keep the the financial body from flat lining.
Time to wake up!
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Gold Is Money - FED Scam - Japanese Money Bomb
Currency Wars - Japan Launches Giant Money Bomb
Bruce Krasting
Gold & Silver Are Money & Have Never Been DeMonetized
Armstrong Economics
The Bull Market Has Entered An Euphoria Phase & It Is Artificial
The Smart Money Tracker
Trust In Gold, Not Bernanke As US States Promote Bullion As Currency
Bloomberg News
Barbarous Relic - Gold - Is Actually A Currency
The Golden Truth
Former Communists Have Lowest Tax Rates - Go Figure
Armstrong Economics
INsider Trading INside The BeltWay - FED Accidentally Release FOMC Early
Karl Denninger - Market-Ticker.org
Bruce Krasting
Gold & Silver Are Money & Have Never Been DeMonetized
Armstrong Economics
The Bull Market Has Entered An Euphoria Phase & It Is Artificial
The Smart Money Tracker
Trust In Gold, Not Bernanke As US States Promote Bullion As Currency
Bloomberg News
Barbarous Relic - Gold - Is Actually A Currency
The Golden Truth
Former Communists Have Lowest Tax Rates - Go Figure
Armstrong Economics
INsider Trading INside The BeltWay - FED Accidentally Release FOMC Early
Karl Denninger - Market-Ticker.org
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Monday, April 8, 2013
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
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