Monday, June 27, 2011
Lindsey Williams - "Game Over"
This is a continuing discussion with Pastor Lindsey Williams, the first part is on this blog here.
Syrian update
Syrian troops have moved close to the Turkish border in a bid to prevent more Syrians crossing into neighbouring Turkey.
Drachma return talk 'immense stupidity'
Perhaps the Fat Cats in the Greek Parliament could set an example for the benefits of an austere life, but then again they might just get eaten if the drachma makes a come back.From The Sydney Morning Herald:
Greece's Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos has blasted suggestions that it would be better for his country to abandon the euro and return to the drachma as an "immense stupidity".
"Those who say this are extremely stupid. While they may be analysts, university professors or economists, saying that is an immense stupidity," Pangalos told daily Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
Debt-wracked Greece has been told by European peers that it cannot hope to continue receiving aid from a 110-billion-euro ($148.9 billion) rescue package agreed with the EU and the IMF last year without biting budget reforms and privatisations.
Greece's Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos has blasted suggestions that it would be better for his country to abandon the euro and return to the drachma as an "immense stupidity".
"Those who say this are extremely stupid. While they may be analysts, university professors or economists, saying that is an immense stupidity," Pangalos told daily Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
Debt-wracked Greece has been told by European peers that it cannot hope to continue receiving aid from a 110-billion-euro ($148.9 billion) rescue package agreed with the EU and the IMF last year without biting budget reforms and privatisations.
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The Greek parliament will vote on an austerity package this week but some economists have argued that Athens needs to restructure its debt and leave the euro to become economically competitive again.
"Returning to the drachma would mean that on the following day banks would be surrounded by terrified people trying to withdraw their money, the army would have to protect them with tanks because there would not be enough police," said Pangalos.
"There would be riots everywhere, shops would be empty, some people would throw themselves out the window ... And it would also be a disaster for the entire European economy."
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/drachma-return-talk-immense-stupidity-20110627-1gmwu.html#ixzz1QSbmJNoa
Why are Greeks buying gold?
From The Daily Mail:To many modern economists it must seem an irrational response, about as helpful as marching to the top of the Acropolis to pray for the assistance of the goddess Athena.
In fact, it is the most practical course that the unfortunate Greeks can take as individuals.
In the present situation of the Greek economy, gold is the most likely unit of exchange to survive the currency crisis and maintain its purchasing power, particularly if Greece has to leave the Eurozone.
Greece will probably be forced into default. If there is a default in Greek bonds, it may well involve a rise in the gold price as the bonds fall in value
There are historic examples. In June 1940, at the time of the fall of France, refugees headed south en masse - away from the German tanks and towards those parts of the country which were still in French hands.
When they went to buy petrol, they found no one would accept their francs, though they were still legal tender. The petrol stations would, however, still sell fuel to those French peasants who had kept their money in gold coins.
Greece will probably be forced into default. If there is a default in Greek bonds, it may well involve a rise in the gold price as the bonds fall in value.
There is also then likely to be a rise in the price of gold in terms of the euro, the dollar, the yen and the pound. An investor in gold will not only maintain the value of his investment, but make a profit.
One of the historic functions of money is to serve as a store of value. Quite a number of commodities have been a good store of value over long periods of time. That has been true of farmland, which has, with fluctuations, maintained its real value for 300 years or more. That has, among other things, helped individual farmers to trade on a constant capital.
Yet farmland, useful as it is as a stable asset, is not liquid, unlike such metallic currencies as gold and silver. Farmland cannot be assumed to be immediately available for purchase or sale: for example, a farmer may have to wait for a neighbouring farmer to retire or die. Yet gold or silver can be sold immediately in almost any part of the world at a readily ascertained current price.
For traders, liquidity is an essential virtue in any form of money. However, the combination of liquidity and real value is almost unique to metallic currencies.
But they have a further highly significant advantage. Paper currencies are issued by governments and central banks. The dominant currencies of the past two centuries were the pound and then the dollar. One can see how little security they give from the mottos printed on their notes.
The ten-pound note offers as its underlying security the statement: 'I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ten pounds,' signed by the Chief Cashier.
The dollar, rather more frankly, observes: 'In God We Trust.' Neither the Chief Cashier, nor God Himself, is in any position to offer such a guarantee.
The truth is paper currencies are only worth the paper on which they are printed, and sometimes not even that.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2008068/WILLIAM-REES-MOGG-The-Greeks-buying-gold--you.html#ixzz1QQ9zZkH9
BIS Says Gold Held in Swap Contracts Rose 18%
Why anyone, let alone a country, would swap Gold, a stable form of money for over 5,000 years, for access to a few more computer generated zeroes of fiat currency on statement or balance sheet is beyond me.From Bloomberg:
The Bank for International Settlements held 409 metric tons of bullion related to gold swaps contracts as of March 31, up 18 percent from a year earlier.
The BIS held 346 tons of gold in connection with swap operations through March 31 last year, the Basel, Switzerland- based bank said in its annual report today. Under swap contracts, the bank exchanges currencies for physical gold, which it must return at the end of the contract.
The bank’s gold investment assets stood at 119 tons, down from 120 tons a year earlier, it said......read on
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