Thursday, December 1, 2011

European Debt Crisis

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Mauro Guillen, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, talks about the European debt crisis. Six central banks led by the Federal Reserve made it cheaper for banks to borrow dollars in emergencies in a global effort to ease Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis.

Jim Rogers on Bloomberg

Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, talks about his investment strategy. Rogers also discusses Europe's sovereign debt crisis, Federal Reserve monetary policy and the U.S. economy.

The Rise and Fall of the US Empire


China, Iran and the threat of WWIII

Loud sucking sound heard above Europe


From The Daily Mail:

Britain has been sucked into a second credit crunch that threatens the stability of the world’s banking system, Downing Street warned last night.

Central banks from around the world – including the Bank of England and China’s equivalent – yesterday launched a dramatic rescue bid worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

It was agreed to head off a repeat of the 2008 crash when banks simply stopped lending to each other, bringing the world economy to a halt.

The operation, led by the U.S. Federal Reserve, came amid fears that at least one major European bank may be teetering on the brink of collapse and that the eurozone countries could not be trusted to act swiftly enough to solve their problems.

Bank of England sources said last night the money being made available to struggling banks under the new facility was ‘unlimited’. But a similar scheme during the last credit crunch peaked at $583billion (£365billion) in late 2008.

Stock markets around the world rallied in response to the ‘pre-emptive strike’, with the FTSE 100 index closing up more than three per cent.

However, the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded its ratings on 15 global banks – including Barclays and HSBC – by one notch yesterday.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2068138/Britain-joins-multi-billion-pound-global-bailout-key-banks-face-new-credit-crunch.html#ixzz1fFwzxfgl

Gold & Silver vs The World

Brett le Brocque (Chief Analyst and Educator)
Management and staff at ABC Bullion wish to thank all our clients and guests who attended our investment education presentation last night. By all accounts it was very well received, with a great deal of information that rarely sees the light of day shared in an engaging way.

To those who were unable to attend, or wish to review the information presented it was recorded and we plan to release a highlights DVD of the event in the near future.


Capital Account: James Rickards on the Fed's European Bailout and a Global Central Bank

From: CapitalAccount  | Nov 30, 2011

Cold War update - Medvedev turns on missile radar

From: RussiaToday  | Nov 29, 2011

Pakistan done with US?

From: RussiaToday  | Nov 30, 2011 
A furious Pakistan is making its anger abundantly clear, over the recent NATO air strike which killed 24 of its soldiers. It's now pulled completely out of a key security conference on Afghanistan's future next week. It also promised to permanently close the alliance's key military supply route through its territory.



Pakistan's military on Wednesday released footage showing what they said was the aftermath of the NATO airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Mass strikes hit Britain

From: RussiaToday  | Nov 30, 2011

More than 2 million participants put the public sector on hold in the UK, as unions stage a massive public sector strike. It is the largest of its kind in 30 years.

Gold, Silver & Aussie$ bounce on Central Bank currency trashing

Gold, Silver and particularly the little Aussie battler have moved higher in overnight trade as a cabal of central banks announced they will create some more fiat currency in their back office and pump it into some banks that you wouldn't trust to manage a bag of minties.




From The Herald Sun:

THE world's top central banks have sprung into action to help cash-strapped banks, while the EU acknowledged it has 10 days in which to fix a crisis threatening a global financial meltdown.

The central banks of the eurozone, the United States, Japan, Switzerland, Canada and Britain collectively announced a giant shot in the arm with "liquidity support to the global financial system".

Stocks and the euro each surged on the move, intended to restore some confidence on markets wearied by the failure of leaders to act decisively to a crisis that French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe warned risks destroying Europe and a return to conflicts on the continent.

Many banks are being squeezed by the weight of downgraded government debt bonds in their books and have been finding it difficult to borrow from one another. This has raised pressure to reduce lending to businesses that would choke off economic growth.

The central banks said they would make funds available to banks at lower interest rates until February 2013 in order to "mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses"......read on

Printing a dead horse

From: Euronews  | Nov 30, 2011

Ties between Iran and Britain hit all-time low

From: AlJazeeraEnglish  | Nov 30, 2011 
 
Britain has ordered the immediate closure of Iran's embassy in London and closed its own embassy in Tehran after it was stormed by protesters.

China nervous as Burma starts to look West

An interesting story, seems the US has finally woken up to the ties between Burma and China and is trying to drive a wedge between them. What goes unsaid and is no doubt the main reason for US interest in Burma is that China was starting to use Burma as it's Indian Ocean port for its navy. As it stands China has no aircraft carrier battle groups, so it can only project military power in the North Pacific from home ports, but with access to Burma China can project into the increasingly significant Indian Ocean and its strategic sea trade routes.

Thilawa naval base, Yangoon, Burma (image from Google maps)

Chinese naval ship at Thilawa naval base

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

Signs of reform have prompted Hillary Clinton to make a historic visit to the poorest nation in south-east Asia, writes Lindsay Murdoch.

Aung San Suu Kyi stood before almost a million people outside Rangoon's gold-encrusted Shwedagon pagoda and declared her support for a multi-party democracy, defying the military dictators who had turned Burma into an impoverished pariah state over three decades of brutal misrule.

Clinton's three-day visit will not only open reclusive Burma to intense international scrutiny but will also place the country at the centre of the competing regional interests of the US and China.

A series of reforms by Burma's President, Thein Sein, a former prime minister and general in a previous military junta, have caught most Burma-watchers by surprise.

So far, the government has suspended a controversial Chinese-backed hydro-electric dam project in northern Kachin State, saying the decision was to ''respect the will of the people''. It was one that stunned China, as 90 per cent of the electricity generated at the Myitsone dam was to go across the border to China and Chinese investors were pouring $US3.6 billion into the project.

This came amid a flurry of other changes, including the release of more than 6000 prisoners, the introduction of more liberal labour laws, less press and internet censorship and a toning down of government propaganda. Last week the parliament also approved a law allowing public protests, which had been banned.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/china-nervous-as-burma-starts-to-look-west-20111129-1o58u.html#ixzz1fE1Ce7CY

 From: AlJazeeraEnglish  | Nov 30, 2011

Marc Farber - Money printing will continue to hide the problems

Marc Faber discusses equities, money printing, declining living standards, capital flight from China and so forth with Eric King of King World News......listen here