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Dear CIGAs,
Screw them once, but not twice!
You think the Chinese are going play nice, and hold all those Treasuries?
If you believe that you are academic ass.
That would be getting screwed twice.
They will not.
China may put new curbs on overseas investments
Wed Jan 7, 2009 11:44pm GMT
SHANGHAI, Jan 8 (Reuters) - China’s Ministry of Commerce may ask Chinese companies to apply for approval from the ministry if they want to invest $100 million or more overseas, it said in new draft rules published late on Wednesday, after a few major Chinese companies reported big book losses on investments abroad.
Companies may also need the ministry’s approval if they want to invest in countries which have no diplomatic relations with China, foreign infrastructure projects or highly risky countries or regions, it said in new rules that were published to seek public feedback until Jan. 20.
Hit by the global financial crisis some Chinese firms have seen the value of their overseas investments dwindle, with the country’s second biggest insurer, Ping An Insurance (Group) (2318.HK) (601318.SS), booking a loss of about 15.7 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) on its investment in Fortis NV (FOR.BR) (FOR.AS).
The country’s $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corp (CIC), has also suffered heavy paper losses on its high-profile stakes in U.S. private equity firm Blackstone Group (BX.N) and bank Morgan Stanley (MS.N). ($1=6.834 Yuan) (Reporting by Lu Jianxin; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Who caused all this pain? The OTC derivative manufacturers, that is who.
Who will pay for all this pain? What blood suckers are out there counting their billions without any consideration for those that suffer?
Read the legal sites and you will see how they are spending their time and money - by hiring major names in defence attorneys.
They are hiring the best bankruptcy attorneys to devise methods of insulating their billions from those that lost it all to them. The Madoff situation is egregious, yet not different from the Hedge Fund managers raiding good, decent, and growing situations. It is no different on the chat sites that flow rancour to benefit their own positions.
How long will the public remain silent like lambs after the slaughter, wrapped and packed in cold silence? These people are criminals worse than Willie Sutton, worse than any mobster ever has been.
They are Ivy League snobs that will be dealt with, BECAUSE THAT IS NATURE’S WAY.
I feel the pain and suffering of the masses out there. I know exactly how bad it is going to get. I have been there, seen it, and have done my utmost to protect you.
These people do not care a fig about you. May they all burn in their personal hell. Their time is drawing close and they will not be the last man standing.
Pink slips pile higher amid deepening recession
By JEANNINE AVERSA
AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pink slips are piling higher as companies scramble to cut costs even deeper to survive the country’s economic and financial storms.
Just days into the new year, managed care provider Cigna Corp., aluminum producer Alcoa Inc., data-storage company EMC Corp. and computer products maker Logitech International were among those announcing layoffs to cope with a recession that has just entered its second year. The flurry of job cuts suggest the employment picture will remain grim this year.
A barometer on layoffs is expected to show Thursday that the number of newly laid off people signing up for state unemployment insurance last week rose to 540,000, up from 492,000 in the previous week, according to economists’ projections.
The number of people continuing to draw jobless benefits is projected to stay near 4.5 million, demonstrating the troubles the unemployed are having in finding new jobs.
Electronic unemployment filing systems have crashed in at least three states in recent days due to the crush of newly jobless Americans seeking benefits.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Weimar is here, the Dollar is DEAD and Gold is alive.
Changing Gold’s weightings in the Commodity Index is a sick joke by sick amoral people in a totally criminal world.
Protect yourselves because nobody else will protect you.
I can direct you, educate you, desire your safety for you and believe in you, but it is you who must take action.
In six months nobody will be able to help you. You are your own responsibility.
God helps those that help and believe in themselves.
Obama calls for ‘dramatic action’
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
I was there 10 years ago. There is only one excuse here - EGO.
He was going to show us.
He made himself clear.
He called it a non-producing asset.
He made it clear Gold would never produce.
He invited other central banks to follow his lead.
Listen to nothing else.
He made an ass of himself then and now.
He would be better advised to say, "I was wrong then and now."
Gordon Brown’s decision to sell half of the UK’s gold reserves ‘cost UK £5billion’
Gordon Brown’s decision to sell off part of the country’s gold reserves 10 years ago cost the public purse nearly £5billion, official figures show.
By Christopher Hope, Whitehall Editor
Last Updated: 7:47PM GMT 07 Jan 2009
The sale of more than half of the country’s gold reserves between 1999 and 2002 has proved to be deeply controversial.
Critics say that signalling such a large sale of bullion to gold traders helped to drive the precious metal to a 20-year low.
In 17 auctions, Mr Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer sanctioned the sale of 395 tonnes of gold.
Figures released by the Treasury show that the total proceeds from the sales was around $3.5billion. According to a Parliamentary answer, if the gold was sold last month, on December 15, it would have raised $10.5billion.
The difference - $7billion - would be worth £4.7billion if the proceeds were converted into pounds yesterday.
The figure, which moves with the value of gold, is far higher than previously thought. Grant Thornton calculated two years ago that the figure lost to the Exchequer was £2billion.
The news comes as the Government considers whether to sell major public assets, including a stake in the Royal Mail and the bookmaker the Tote, to raise funds for public finances.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
If you think Gordy did some dumb things before in his notable career this will be his Maximus Opus! The planet is headed towards Weimar.
Printing money is not the solution, Gordon
From The Times
January 9, 2009
Printing new money is a Zimbabwe-style policy which will simply lead to rising prices and stagflation
Sir, Gordon Brown is contemplating a Zimbabwe-style policy to get him out of his economic troubles — simply print more money (report, Jan 8). It will produce the same effect — stagflation.
When governments print money and spread it around, people do feel richer. So they do go out and spend, which is what the Government wants. But all this new spending just pushes prices up again, the new money buys less, and eventually people realise that they are actually no better off. By that time, businesses have to abandon all the investment they have made to capture the extra money, which just adds to our troubles.
Furthermore, the new money that government creates is not dropped uniformly across the economy. It goes into government industries and agencies, and is supposed to spread out from there. This can take a long time, and have many perverse effects on the way. And while the rest of us are cutting back, a spending boost for our bloated public sector is unlikely to be popular.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
This is just the stuff Weimar is made of.
US commercial paper outstanding grows with Fed help
Thu Jan 8, 2009 11:06am EST
NEW YORK, Jan 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. commercial paper market expanded the most since November in the latest week as the new year began, with much help from the Federal Reserve, Fed data showed on Thursday.
The U.S. central bank’s support of this cornerstone of short term funding for companies’ daily operations, is a key factor helping to buoy the market, analysts said. The commercial paper market has been sharply eroded by the global credit crisis since summer 2007.
"We don’t know to what extent the Federal Reserve played a role in the latest increase," said Tony Crescenzi, chief bond market strategist with Miller, Tabak & Co. "But increasingly the private sector has been gobbling up commercial paper and the Fed has not been a sole buyer," Crescenzi added.
More information about how much the Fed contributed to last week’s rebound in commercial paper will come with the weekly data on bank borrowings from the Fed and the central bank’s support to financial institutions and securities markets which the Fed is due to release at 4:30 p.m. EST.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
When you do the same thing again anticipating different results what did Einstein say you were?
An Afghanistan ‘Surge’ Is a Losing Battle
So why is Mr. Obama betting on it?
By BRAHMA CHELLANEY | From today’s Wall Street Journal Asia
Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s visit to Afghanistan this month — even before President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration — will underscore the new administration’s priority to ending the war there. But their planned "surge first, then negotiate" strategy isn’t likely to work.
The Obama-Biden team wants to weaken the Taliban militarily then strike a political deal with the enemy from a position of strength. This echoes what the Bush administration did in Iraq, where it used a surge largely as a show of force to buy off Sunni tribal leaders and other local chieftains. Current Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen has already announced a near-doubling of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, to up to 63,000, by mid-2009.
Sending more forces into Afghanistan is a losing strategy. The Soviets couldn’t tame the country with more than 100,000 troops. With the backing of Robert Gates, whom Mr. Obama will keep on as defense secretary, Central Command Commander General David Petraeus is thus looking for ways to win over local commanders and warlords — the mainstay of the Taliban. General Petraeus wants to explore truces and alliances with local tribal chieftains and guerrilla leaders and set up lightly trained local militias in every provincial district.
This idea turns a blind eye to the danger that such militias could terrorize local populations. It is also naïve to expect an Iraq-style surge-and-bribe experiment to work in Afghanistan, whose mountainous terrain, myriad tribes, patterns of shifting tribal and ethnic loyalties, special status as the global hub of poppy trade and history of internecine conflict set it apart from any other Muslim country. In a land with a long tradition of humbling foreign armies, payoffs won’t buy peace.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
All that protected the Weimar citizens from their officialdom and the Papiermarc was Gold.
All that protects you against your elected officialdom and the Papierdollar is Gold.
Some day the Rentendollar will come. That you can be sure of.
Study history or become history.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Stop trading and start insuring. It is never too late, just less useful.
Play your index fund manipulations if you wish.
Play your gold bank quarterly earnings statement games if that makes you happy.
Listen to the paid anti gold for lobbyists as you seek to be more wrong than right.
Do all of the above if you will, but at the end of the day (which is coming sooner than you think), the dollar is dead and Gold is king. Weimar is coming and will not be escaped. Weimar can be a bad or even worse than the historical experience.
This is no longer about investment or trading, this is about survival financially, physically and spiritually.
Our retirees are in the cross hairs of time and misplaced trust. Your retirement programs from self directed to corporate will be assimilated into government run programs. The Democrats will cut benefits that you had feared the Republicans would. You are going to be culled from the gene poll in four years.
Harry Schultz lead a parade years ago into money in one country, citizenship in another and body in a third when people thought such a thing was bonkers.
Now it is gold in the mayo jar and Gold shares in non US Gold shares that are incorporated in one country with no operations in the country of incorporation. Only as many units of your venue currency in the country of domicile and other places to go. No EFTs, no agents between you and yours and Gold as INSURANCE, not trading!
In the end even the Chinese will lose their cool and face, because maintaining both is going to cost them simply too much.
The dollar is dead, past tense. It is over, worthless and more are realizing it by the day.
Stop trading and starting insuring.
China Losing Taste for Debt From the U.S.
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: January 7, 2009
HONG KONG — China has bought more than $1 trillion of American debt, but as the global downturn has intensified, Beijing is starting to keep more of its money at home, a move that could have painful effects for American borrowers.
The declining Chinese appetite for United States debt, apparent in a series of hints from Chinese policy makers over the last two weeks, with official statistics due for release in the next few days, comes at an inconvenient time.
On Tuesday, President-elect Barack Obama predicted the possibility of trillion-dollar deficits “for years to come,” even after an $800 billion stimulus package. Normally, China would be the most avid taker of the debt required to pay for those deficits, mainly short-term Treasuries, which are government i.o.u.’s.
In the last five years, China has spent as much as one-seventh of its entire economic output buying foreign debt, mostly American. In September, it surpassed Japan as the largest overseas holder of Treasuries.
But now Beijing is seeking to pay for its own $600 billion stimulus — just as tax revenue is falling sharply as the Chinese economy slows. Regulators have ordered banks to lend more money to small and medium-size enterprises, many of which are struggling with lower exports, and to local governments to build new roads and other projects.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
What is it? Who did it? Weimar is here, you just don’t know it yet!
Thank you, all of you cowboys and cowgirls in the OTC derivative bankers, brokers and hedge funds biz. You killed us all and yourselves as well.
That last part is still to come. Look over your shoulders, as in time your clients, those you devastated both client and otherwise, and the law looking for a scapegoat is going to get you all.
I understand prime-real estate in Brazil is in demand. Brazilian extradition attorneys are extremely busy.
Turks and Caicos passport mills are running full tilt.
Dr. Patangi has a long line of prior Greenwichites as clients. Puts on Greenwich CT are in a confirmed bull market.
There is a glut in for sale business jets at Westerchester Airport, New York Custom suit tailors are having hard times. Upscale street pharmacies are experiencing boom times in Westchester, NY.
Did you get any mail from Madoff?
NY unemployment claim systems overwhelmed
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York’s unemployment claims systems have crashed, overwhelmed by tens of thousands of jobless New Yorkers trying to call or log in at once ahead of this week’s filing deadline.
State labor department officials say the problem started Monday and caused the phone banks at the state’s toll-free claims center to shut down, followed by the online filing system. Leo Rosales, an agency spokesman, says as many as 10,000 people per hour were trying to log into the system.
Technicians are trying to bring the systems back online Tuesday afternoon but officials couldn’t say when they’ll be back up and available.
Rosales says the system failure shouldn’t delay newly unemployed workers from getting benefits because they have until the weekend to file claims.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
On the lighter side from Zimbabwe, compliments of the Darwin Awards via CIGA Marty Mitchell.
After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped.
Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies.
The deception wasn’t discovered for 3 days.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Everyone on the bandwagon while the bandwagon is still there to be had!
The Dollar is dead.
Philippines, Turkey Sell $2.5 Billion of Dollar Bonds (Update2)
By Clarissa Batino and Lester Pimentel
Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) — The Philippines and Turkey sold $2.5 billion of bonds in international markets, joining a push by developing nations to take advantage of a decline in borrowing costs to finance budget deficits.
The Philippines sold $1.5 billion of 10-year notes to yield 8.5 percent, or 6 percentage points more than U.S. Treasuries, while Turkey sold $1 billion of eight-year bonds to yield 5.01 percentage points above Treasuries. Brazil and Colombia each sold $1 billion of bonds earlier this week.
The Philippines sale, which is triple the amount it issued all last year, will help the government arrange financing for a stimulus plan that aims to pull the Southeast Asian nation out of its worst economic slump in eight years.
“The Philippines has a first-mover advantage and good timing before the rest crowd international debt markets,” said Vishnu Varathan, a regional economist at Forecast Singapore Pte. “Chances are that credit will become tighter down the road given the huge fiscal expansion of governments including the U.S.”
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Do you feel Mother Nature might be unhappy about spaceship Earth carrying so many criminals supported by so many other criminals that are left free to run amuck?
Flu Found Resistant to Main Antiviral Drug
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: January 8, 2009
Virtually all the flu in the United States this season is resistant to the leading antiviral drug Tamiflu, and scientists and health officials are trying to figure out why.
The problem is not yet a public health crisis because this is a below-averageflu season so far and the chief strain circulating is still susceptible to other drugs — but infectious disease specialists are nonetheless worried.
Last winter, about 11 percent of the throat swabs from patients with the most common type of flu that were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for genetic typing showed a Tamiflu-resistant strain. This season, 99 percent do.
“It’s quite shocking,” said Dr. Kent A. Sepkowitz, director of infection control at theMemorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “We’ve never lost an antibiotic this fast. It blew me away.”
The single mutation that creates Tamiflu resistance appears to be spontaneous, and not a reaction to overuse of the drug. It may have occurred in Asia, and it was widespread in Europe last year.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Let us all pray for Neil Young’s well being.
As Forrest Gump says, "That is all I have to say about that."
He Has a Heart of Gold and a Car of Biodiesel
By NATE CHINEN
Near the midpoint of his sprawling, deeply satisfying show at Madison Square Garden on Monday night, Neil Young asked a simple question: “Where did all the money go?”
Near the midpoint of his sprawling, deeply satisfying show at Madison Square Garden on Monday night, Neil Youngasked a simple question: “Where did all the money go?” He sang this line and repeated it, for emphasis or symmetry. And a few moments later he issued variations on the wording — “Where did all the cash flow?/Where did all the revenue stream?” — that confirmed that it wasn’t such a simple question after all.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
What a dangerous world we live in. If the crooks do not get you and you sidestep your elected officials then the nukes will. Damn!
Former Pentagon chief predicts Iran crisis soon
By ROBERT BURNS
WASHINGTON (AP) — William Perry, who headed the Pentagon during a 1994 nuclear standoff with North Korea, predicted on Thursday that President-elect Barack Obama will soon face a nuclear crisis with Iran.
Iran is "moving inexorably toward becoming a nuclear power," with ominous implications for the Middle East, Perry said.
"It seems clear that Israel will not sit by idle while Iran takes the final steps toward becoming a nuclear power," Perry told a conference on foreign policy challenges facing the incoming Obama administration. The former Clinton administration defense secretary held out hope that more vigorous U.S. and international diplomacy could reverse North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. But he was less confident about stopping Iran’s ambitions.
"President Obama will almost certainly face a serious crisis with Iran," Perry said. "Indeed, I believe the crisis point will be reached in his first year in office. So on the nuclear front, President Obama will face a daunn!ting set of problems, none of which can be solved unilaterally."
Iran denies that its nuclear program is intended to build weapons. The Bush administration, while dismissing Iran’s claims of pursuing only peaceful uses of nuclear power, declined to negotiate directly with Iran.
Obama has said he favors "tough and direct diplomacy with Iran without preconditions," and that his administration, working with allies, will seek a comprehensive settlement with Iran to end its nuclear ambitions.
