Archive - Jun 17, 2013 - Blog entry

So much for that revolution, but don't worry about the oil companies losing money, price rises are assured. 

China! Honestly, it comes to something when China jumps on the accusatory band-wagon asking the US administration to provide some comments about its monitoring programs and answer up to the international community.

So let’s see what happens on Wednesday. The markets will likely rally until then on hopes of more juice from Bernanke. But if he should disappoint at all (read: not announce something more or at least strongly hint at doing so) then buckle up.

The Vietnamese Central Bank sold another 25,700 taels (37.5 grams, 1.2 troy ounces) at a gold bar auction on Friday in order to try and satiate the massive public demand for gold in Vietnam.

The Central Bank hopes that the sale of gold into the market will reduce the very high premiums paid by gold buyers in Vietnam, the largest buyer of gold in Southeast Asia after Thailand and one of the largest physical buyers of gold per capita in the world.

Vietnamese people hold gold as a store of wealth for protection against war, inflation and currency depreciation. In recent months, the bursting of bubbles in the stock market (see chart) and property market and the continuing devaluation of the dong has led to record demand in Vietnam and a surging premium over the spot price of gold.

Today, the premium was close to 5.5 million dong which is the equivalent of a very high premium of $217 per ounce over spot. 

Iran is a right old sorry state (of affairs).  Plunged into recession, inflationary pressure that Abenomics wouldn’t mind having a bit of and Bernanke might just be getting if he carries on printing the greenbacks at the rate they are churning out of the Federal Reserve faster than a Ford-T in 1908.

My revelations in European banks have resulted in two top level "unexpected" resignations (Irish Central Bank head, RBS CEO). Here I'm shooting for a 3rd at Bank of Ireland!

Stick that up your douche nozzle douche weasel!

The summit opens today for two days of public display of back-slapping and hand holding, championing the things that the west does best. The summit was preceded yesterday by the parading of 8 life-size puppets with huge heads to draw attention to poverty levels in the world.

Overview of these week's key developments

The Military mind is a dangerous mind. It promotes a lack of critical thinking.

We discuss legitimate credit vs. counterfeit central bank credit, the concepts of marginal time preference and productivity, speculation, and finally resonance.