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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Is it possible that protection of the Hedge Fund bullies has run its course?
It is possible the destructive bullies like JO have shot their wad but don’t know it.
Is the end of all this misbehavior and destruction of value finished by Madoff and the displays of Wall Street disdain for normal humanity?
How about King Street and Bay Street with their jitney crimes?
Where is your outrage with last one minute sellers?
You can borrow mine because I have more than enough to go around.
They will have their comeuppance one way or another. This I promise you personally.
Obama Calls Bonuses ‘Shameful’ as Dodd Vows to Reclaim Money
By Dawn Kopecki and Julianna Goldman
Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) — PresidentBarack Obama fed a swelling populist revolt against Wall Street bonuses, calling it “shameful” that banks doled out $18.4 billion as taxpayers bail out companies and the U.S. remains mired in a recession.
The bonuses are “the height of irresponsibility,” Obama said today before meeting Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House. Firms need to “show some restraint and show some discipline,” Obama said.
The president joined politicians such as Senator Christopher Dodd, who today called for using “every possible legal means to get the money back.” The bonus pool for 2008 by New York City financial companies was the sixth-largest ever amid record losses in the securities industry, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a report yesterday.
Banks and financial firms have fired 265,000 people since the collapse of the subprime mortgage market triggered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed, while Merrill Lynch & Co. was taken over by Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group. and Morgan Stanley converted into bank holding companies. The Treasury Department program has injected about $200 billion into banks across the country from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
It is quite probable that the bombastic gold and gold share legal and illegal short sellers no longer carry all the Aces.
The Holy Ganges starts with a trickle and becomes a roar. At $900 gold is no trickle.
Hedge funds offer to price in gold
ByJames Mackintosh and Javier Blas
Published: January 29 2009 00:15
A hedge fund has begun offering investors the chance to have their investment denominated in gold, as worries grow over governments debasing their currencies by printing money.
Osmium Capital Management, a $178m hedge fund manager based in Bermuda, is launching a new share class allowing investors to hold shares measured as troy ounces of the fund, rather than US dollars, sterling or euros.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
A simple common recession has been turned into a planetary economic disaster. None of this ever needed to happen.
Greed devoured common sense and a blind eye was turned against the obvious worthlessness of OTC derivatives under even mild market pressure.
From this point we are proceeding toward a Global Weimar in which only gold has value. Everything else churns, value wise, violently as in a death spiral.
All of this is the doing of the OTC derivative manufacturers and distributors who are now pig rich as their reward for bloody murder of the planet’s formerly sound economies.
Among humans, these mass murders are "Siafu" and should be referred to as "Siafu." Siafu are predacious by nature.
Where is your RAGE?
Airlines report ’shocking’ plunge in traffic
By Kevin Done, Aerospace Correspondent
The airline industry reported on Thursday an "unprecedented and shocking" plunge in global air cargo traffic.
Air freight accounts for 35 per cent of the value of goods traded internationally and the International Air Transport Association said traffic volumes had fallen by 22.6 per cent year-on-year in December.
Giovanni Bisignani, Iata director general, said, "there is no clearer description of the slowdown in world trade. Even in September 2001 (after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US), when much of the global fleet was grounded, the decline was only 13.9 per cent."
International passenger traffic fell in December by 4.6 per cent. Iata said the drop was less dramatic than in cargo, as volumes had been supported by year-end leisure travel that had been booked in advance.
Airlines are still struggling to reduce capacity to match falling demand, however, and are flying with more empty seats. Capacity was reduced by 1.5 per cent year-on-year in December, resulting in airlines filling only 73.8 per cent of available seats, down from 76.2 per cent a year ago.
"Until this comes into balance, even the sharp fall in fuel prices cannot save the industry from drowning in red ink," said Mr Bisignani.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Are you tired of the manipulation of gold on the Comex? There is a very easy way to make right what is clearly WRONG!
Get into the fight, and stop fighting with your mouth.
Dan, Monty and I can lead, but we need a few warriors with us.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
The following cartoon was sent in courtesy of CIGA Annette.
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin calls for end of dollar stranglehold
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Davos
Last Updated: 11:13AM GMT 29 Jan 2009
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin has called for concerted action to break the stranglehold of the US dollar and create a new global structure of regional powers.
"The one reserve currency has become a danger to the world economy: that is now obvious to everybody," he said in a speech at the World Economic Forum.
It is the first time that a Russian leader has set foot in the sanctum sanctorum of global capitalism at Davos.
Mr Putin said the leading powers should ensure an "irreversible" move towards a system of multiple reserve currencies, questioning the "reliability" of the US dollar as a safe store of value. "The pride of Wall Street investment banks don’t exist any more," he said.
For all his bluster, Mr Putin’s bargaining power is weakening by the day. Russia’s foreign reserves have fallen by 34pc since August to $396bn (£277bn) after months of capital flight and the collapse in the price of Urals crude oil to $45 a barrel. The rouble also fell to a record low yesterday after sliding for weeks in a controlled devaluation.
Mr Putin said: "We are witnessing a truly global crisis. The speed of developments beats every record, and the strategic difference from the Great Depression is that under globalisation this touches everyone. This has multiplied the destructive force. It looks exactly like the perfect storm."
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Nail the Comex the way they deserve and gold will be at $1224-$1250 five trading days later.
I am not suggesting breaking the playing field in any way, but rather taking delivery of your Comex gold and therein reducing the warehouse supply by 50% so shorts have to have gold.
How about those new funds buying gold, the ones that are buying real physical gold, not paper. Many are readers here.
It is a real possibility as this fund is one of the most notorious of the bank short sellers. With that sceptic’s attitude maybe this fund is going to send the Comex gang a good 250,000 volt shock.
I think it might just happen on the next three deliveries.
That would be the rest of his Grandfather’s advice.
Gold attracts more flows amid recession
Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:29am GMT
By Frank Tang and Jennifer Ablan
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Gold, the traditional safe haven in times of economic turmoil, proved to be more a commodity that everyone loved to hate last year even amid the turbulence that engulfed world markets.
But as 2009 gets under way the yellow metal has found huge traction with money managers.
In the last eight sessions, gold has rallied as much as $100 (70 pounds) an ounce to hit a near four-month high of $915.30 on Monday — in spite of a rising dollar.
The furious rally in the bullion stems from expectations that the U.S. government will need to borrow about $2 trillion of debt this year to finance its rescue packages for the battered banking sector. Already, outstanding Treasury debt stood at $5.5 trillion at the end of September.
Against this backdrop, investors are largely shunning everything from U.S. Treasuries to stocks, which are down 10 percent and 7.5 percent so far this year, respectively, while pouring cash into gold.
"I think gold is rising because of fiscal deterioration and the prospect that the U.S. may be downgraded," said Tom Sowanick, chief investment officer for $22 billion in assets at Clearbrook Financial LLC in Princeton, New Jersey.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Nail the Comex the way they deserve and gold will be at $1224-$1250 five trading days later.
I am not suggesting breaking the playing field in any way, but rather taking delivery of your Comex gold and therein reducing the warehouse supply by 50% so shorts have to have gold.
How about those new funds buying gold, the ones that are buying real physical gold, not paper. Many are readers here.
It is a real possibility as this fund is one of the most notorious of the bank short sellers. With that sceptic’s attitude maybe this fund is going to send the Comex gang a good 250,000 volt shock.
I think it might just happen on the next three deliveries.
That would be the rest of his Grandfather’s advice.
Gold attracts more flows amid recession
Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:29am GMT
By Frank Tang and Jennifer Ablan
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Gold, the traditional safe haven in times of economic turmoil, proved to be more a commodity that everyone loved to hate last year even amid the turbulence that engulfed world markets.
But as 2009 gets under way the yellow metal has found huge traction with money managers.
In the last eight sessions, gold has rallied as much as $100 (70 pounds) an ounce to hit a near four-month high of $915.30 on Monday — in spite of a rising dollar.
The furious rally in the bullion stems from expectations that the U.S. government will need to borrow about $2 trillion of debt this year to finance its rescue packages for the battered banking sector. Already, outstanding Treasury debt stood at $5.5 trillion at the end of September.
Against this backdrop, investors are largely shunning everything from U.S. Treasuries to stocks, which are down 10 percent and 7.5 percent so far this year, respectively, while pouring cash into gold.
"I think gold is rising because of fiscal deterioration and the prospect that the U.S. may be downgraded," said Tom Sowanick, chief investment officer for $22 billion in assets at Clearbrook Financial LLC in Princeton, New Jersey.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
This is total horse-shit.
A so called asset that has no market is worth nothing at all.
How packages of broken and semi broken mortgages are going to make each item have value when it is only a negotiated value as so many parts of the package are permanently broken and semi broken is as impossible as a Gordian knot to undo.
They are worthless items that accounting rules are giving a break to by allowing them to be valued at any value at all.
Here is another amoral, bombastic statement that you have no right to know the TRUTH about.
What a disgrace!
Let the banks holding your assets "Lie" to you regarding values, and all will be well. How far have we sunk into a state of total disgrace as human beings?
Let The Bank of England refuse to tell pound holders how many pounds are outstanding and all will be well.
The USA no longer publishes M3 because people might find out what is really happening in fiscal stimulation.
Why not let public companies issue shares and never tell stockholders how many are outstanding?
Where is your OUTRAGE?
Robert Rubin Says Mark-to-Market has Done ‘Damage’
By Josh Fineman and Ian Katz
Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) — Robert Rubin, who quit his post as senior counselor at Citigroup Inc. this month, said an accounting rule forcing companies to mark down assets every quarter to reflect market value has “done a great deal of damage.”
“I spent my whole life at Goldman Sachs believing in mark- to-market accounting, and having said that, if you look at the experience from the last two years, I think mark-to-market accounting has led to terrible vicious cycles in asset prices,” Rubin, the former U.S. Treasury secretary, said during a discussion at the 92nd Street Y late yesterday.
Companies including Citigroup and American International Group Inc. say mark-to-market, also known as fair-value accounting, doesn’t work when few buyers are willing to trade assets like subprime mortgages. Proponents such as the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board say the rule adds to transparency and gives investors information about companies.
Rubin joined Citigroup in 1999. Earlier this month, he announced he won’t stand for re-election to the board. Rubin, 70, proposed that a “reserve” accounting standard be adopted, which drew applause from the audience.
Citigroup received a $45 billion bailout from the U.S. government after reporting more than $85 billion of credit losses and writedowns from investments tainted by the subprime-mortgage crisis.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Money when threatened with hyper-inflation must maintain high levels of confidence. The following is the absolute opposite. It is despicable, illegal, wrong and another example of how you have no right to know you are in financial danger.
Where is your OUTRAGE?
Government Regulators Aided IndyMac Cover-Up, Maybe Others
Darrel Dochow May Not Be the Only Official Who Helped Banks Hide Financial Problems
By BRIAN ROSS, JUSTIN ROOD, and JOSEPH RHEE
Jan. 16, 2009—
A brewing fraud scandal at the Treasury Department may be worse than officials originally thought.
Investigators probing how Treasury regulators allowed a bank to falsify financial records hiding its ill health have found at least three other instances of similar apparent fraud, sources tell ABC News.
In at least one instance, investigators say, banking regulators actually approached the bank with the suggestion of falsifying deposit dates to satisfy banking rules — even if it disguised the bank’s health to the public.
Treasury Department Inspector General Eric Thorson announced in November his office would probe how a Savings and Loan overseer allowed the IndyMac bank to essentially cook its books, making it appear in government filings that the bank had more deposits than it really did. But Thorson’s aides now say IndyMac wasn’t the only institution to get such cozy assistance from the official who should have been the cop on the beat.
The federal government took over IndyMac in July, after the bank’s stock price plummeted to just pennies a share when it was revealed the bank had financial troubles due to defaulted mortgages and subprime loans, costing taxpayers over $9 billion.
