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A Fed decision to launch QE3 would increase the yellow metal’s appeal as an inflation hedge and bolster prices.  US house prices increased for their 4th month in a row suggesting that the US housing market recovery may be underway which dampened further hopes of any immediate easing in the US Fed’s monetary policy. The markets are playing a waiting game and investors are cautious.  Thursday’s ECB policy meeting will determine if President Mario Draghi will have the backing he needs to embark on significant policy changes to rescue the region’s financial woes.  Yesterday, German Finance Minister Schauble said in an email response to a newspaper, “The rules of the European Stability Mechanism don’t foresee a banking license to allow refinancing at the European Central Bank”.  Schauble’s comments fell like a penny in a wishing well that rippled to curb the market’s enthusiasm. Since Draghi’s initial comments to “do anything it takes” gold has increased by nearly $50/oz.

The Moody’s outlook change on Germany lets us know that this time around the debate is more than political posturing. If Germany loses its AAA status, then it’s GAME OVER for the EU: the German population, already outraged by the EU bailouts, and now facing a recession will NOT tolerate a credit rating downgrade. 

As I’ve stated many times, Germany is THE REAL backstop of the EU. And it’s comprised its own solvency as a result: the country is only €328 billion away from reaching an official Debt to GDP of 90%, the level at which national solvency is called into question. Moreover, that €328 billion has already been spent via various EU props. Indeed, when we account for all the backdoor schemes Germany has engaged in to prop up the EU, Germany's REAL Debt to GDP is closer to 300%.

Anyone hoping that the bitter animosity between Mario Draghi and Germany will be any less hostile this morning, following last week's guarantee by Draghi that all shall be well and the ECB will do "anything" to preserve the EUR, only to be followed by Germany's Schauble essentially saying this is certainly not the case, today we get a clarificationary follow up by Joerg-Uwe Hahn, a member of Merkel's junior coalition partner, FDP, who said that the German government should consider the "unusual step" of taking legal action against the European Central Bank over bond purchases. While Hahn's comments are for now seen fringe, the fact that Die Welt has openly broached the topic to an increasingly angrier population (and Spain's remarks that Germany itself has to be grateful for being bailed out after WWII will not help) will likely only strengthen the resolve of Germany to not relent to provocations by either Monti, as of the June 29 summit, but to demands from both Draghi and Juncker to accept that the ECB's printing utopia is in fact reality.

The insolvent banana continent is back. Recall back in May 2011: 

“When it becomes serious, you have to lie." -Jean Claude Juncker

Ergo, things in Europe are very serious again because the Eurogroup's head, who until recently promised he was quitting his post because "he had gotten tired of the Franco-German interference in managing the region's debt crisis", only to spoil the fun and say he was lying about that too, is back to doing what he does best - lying. To wit: "the euro countries are preparing together with the bailout fund EFSF and the European Central Bank to buy government bonds if necessary clip euro countries." And now cue Schauble: "Federal Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has rejected speculation about impending purchases of government bonds by Spanish EFSF and ECB."

When day after day, for three days in a row last week, the ECB spread rumors that it would commence buying Spanish debt in what was in retrospect nothing but a massive bluff (just as we suggested yesterday), what passes for a market postulated that since there was no official German denial, and with Merkel on vacation that would mean a statement from her finance minister sidekick Wolfgang Schauble, that Germany was ok with the reactivation of Spanish bond buying and as a result ramped risk by over 4% in 3 days. All of that is about to wiped out as Schauble has finally spoken. Quote Spiegel: "For days, it is rumored that the ECB will buy Spanish government bonds in a big way. Now Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has rejected such reports - there was "no truth". And scene. Luckily all the momo chasers who bought stocks last week on hopes their prayer-based strategy will finally play out, will be able to sell ahead of all those other momo chasers who bought stocks last week on hope their prayer-based strategy will finally play out. Or maybe not.

“Humanitarian” War Contradicts 200 Years of Liberal Thought

A lot of desk chatter about this move in risk-assets - and the entire reversion to red on the day in EURUSD - as a WSJ report now circulating suggests that ECB members are not backing reported proposals by President Draghi. Specifically, the statement referenced is the following: "Many ECB Members Surprised By Draghi's Comments Suggesting New Bond Buys, Source Tells WSJ". The bottom line here is that Draghi most likely pulled a Mario Monti (and his hanger on Mariano Rajoy), and spoke up before pre-clearing with Buba's Weidmann. Draghi thinks that, like Monti with Merkel at the June 29 summit, he can bluff the Bundesbank into submission, and Germany will agree to monetization, especially if markets have risen enough where nothing out of the ECB next week leads to a market plunge (as the WSJ explains below). The problem is that as we patiently explained, Monti got absolutely no concessions our of Merkel, as was seen in the bond yields of Spain after the June 29 summit, which hit record wides a few weeks later. Expect the same this time around too: i.e., Germany will hardly cave in to the European beggars.

Following two days of desperate attempts by the ECB to talk down record peripheral bond yields without any actual action, it is only logical that while Merkel is on holiday, we get a third day of talking to buy some time purely thanks to rhetoric and jawboning, before the Chancellor comes back and spoils the party. Sure enough, here it comes via French Le Monde, whose host nation knows very well that after Spain and Italy, France is next:

• ECB PREPARING TO BUY SPANISH, ITALIAN DEBT, LE MONDE SAYS

But while the cat may be away, the Bundesbank has decided to take at least some matters into its own hands:

• BUNDESBANK SAYS IT HASN’T CHANGED STANCE ON ECB BOND BUYING, REMAINS OPPOSED TO FURTHER BOND BUYING BY THE ECB

Then just to confirm that nobody in Europe has any clue what is going on and its politicians are now just making things up on the fly, we get this:

• HOLLANDE-MERKEL TO SPEAK BY PHONE AT 1 PM ON HELP: LE MONDE

And the logical response:

• STREITER SAYS `DOESN'T KNOW' ABOUT MERKEL-HOLLANDE CALL

Sigh - when one sees such relentless lies and confusion what else can one say but... "Europe."

Earlier we heard Goldman's talk down of Draghi's comments, which we will not tire of saying, were absolutely nothing new. Now here is Citi's Jurgen Michel throwing cold water in the face of all those who believe that the ECB (which can't really do more LTROs unless it is willing to accept Zynga's virtual farms as collateral) will save the day with more direct intervention. To wit: "in our view, such action is only likely to be taken after governments have taken action first, i.e. by activating the bond market support facility for Spain and Italy." In other words, nobody believes Draghi, despite his stern warning to "believe" him - everyone wants action out of the ECB head, not talk.

Even as Europe has become an utterly dysfunctional experiment in everything relating to modern economics and monetary theory, it has one redeeming feature: it has proven that the Defection regime under Game Theory is 100% correct. It says that once the defections from an unstable Nash equilibrium begin, there is no stopping until the entire system collapses under its own weight. This is precisely what has happened in Spain, where first Catalunya, then Valencia on Friday, and now virtually everyone else is set to demand a bailout. From Bloomberg: The Balearic Islands and Catalonia are among six Spanish regions that may ask for aid from the central government after Valencia sought a bailout, El Pais reported. Castilla-La-Mancha, Murcia, the Canary Islands and possibly Andalusia are also having difficulty funding themselves and some of these regions are studying plans to tap the recently created emergency-loan fund that Valencia said it would use yesterday, the newspaper said, without citing anyone."

The latest development in yesterday's Bulgarian bus bomb explosion, is the identification of the alleged bomber. According to Times of Israel he is Mehdi Ghezali, "reportedly a Swedish citizen, with Algerian and Finnish origins. He had been held at the US’s Guantanamo Bay detainment camp on Cuba from 2002 to 2004, having previously studied at a Muslim religious school and mosque in Britain, and traveled to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. He was also reportedly among 12 foreigners captured trying to cross into Afghanistan in 2009."

European equities are trading in minor positive territory on light volume and a light economic calendar with the exception of the IBEX and the FTSE MIB which are down 0.3% and 0.4% respectively as US participants begin to come to their desks. Headline employment data from the UK was for the most part in-line with expectations, though the jobless claims change for June showed a 6.1K increase compared with the 5.0K expected, with downward revisions to May’s figures. The BoE minutes showed the July increase in APF was not unanimous at 7-2, and a GBP 75bln increase was also discussed, and that should the additional easing measures not work, a further rate cut would be examined. The final comment caused a spike to the upside in the short Sterling strip of 6 ticks, Gilt futures rose to make highs of 121.78, and GBP/USD to slide back below 1.5600, though the pair has since come off its lows and trades back above this level.

In lieu of the election of Socialist President Francois Hollande and a Socialist Party collision as the majority in France’s Parliament, the New York Times recently asked “what does it mean to be a Socialist these days, anyway?”   According to The Grey Lady, socialism today is “certainly nothing radical” and simply meant the “the emancipation of the working class and its transformation into the middle class” during its heyday.  Essentially the article categorizes the contemporary socialist as one who is a rigorous defender of the welfare state.  The piece quotes French journalist Bernard-Henri Levy as saying “European socialists are essentially like American Democrats.”  It even accuses center-right political parties in the West of being quite comfortable with socialism’s accomplishments. So is the New York Times correct?  Is socialism just a boogeyman evoked by the “fringes” to scare the public into questioning the morality and efficiency of the welfare state?

A lack of transparency, a lack of enforcement of law and a compliant media which failed to ask the hard questions and do basic investigative journalism led to the price fixing continuing and the manipulation continuing unchecked on such a wide scale for so long - until it was exposed recently. Similarly, the gold market has the appearance of a market that is a victim of “financial repression”. Given the degree of risk in the world – it is arguable that gold prices should have surged in recent months and should be at much higher levels today. The gold market has all the hallmarks of Libor manipulation but as usual all evidence is ignored until official sources acknowlege the truth. However, like LIBOR the gold manipulation 'conspiracy theory' is likely to soon become conspiracy fact.  It will then – belatedly - become accepted wisdom among 'experts.'  Experts who had never acknowledged it, failed to research and comment on it or had simply dismissed it as a “goldbug accusation.”  Financial repression means that most markets are manipulated today - especially bond and foreign exchange markets.