Zurich

There appears to have been a shocking lapse in security surrounding the Easter weekend heist. The security lapse reflects badly both on the company and on the police. Holding tangible assets outside of the fragile banking system is a risky exercise, if the manner in which those assets are stored is not thoroughly secure and fully insured.

Mapping the favorite locales of the world's super rich.

Yellen has created a narrative about the US economy, especially the (un)employment rate, and with the narrative is now firmly in place, Yellen and her stooges can claim they have no choice but to hike In short, Janet Yellen will go down into history as the person responsible for what may be the biggest economic crash ever, or at least delivering the final punch of the way into it, a crash that will make the rich banks even much richer. And there is not one iota of coincidence in there. Yellen works for those banks. The Fed only ever held investors’ hands because that worked out well for Wall Street. And now that’s over. Y’all are on the same side of the same trade, and there’s no profit for Wall Street that way.

Reuters Interview GoldCore. How has demand compared in different regions of Europe so far this year? p.s. Dislike term silver bug and gold bug. Pejorative and we don't call people stock roaches or paper bugs or dollar bugs   : )

- Greece warns may default on IMF loan next week - Greek bank runs continue and deposits flee  - The truth can be a scary thing sometimes … especially for those who put their head in the sand and ignore it ...

Less than a day after the head of the SNB hinted at the possibility of capital control, the head of the largest Swiss cantonal bank, and the fourth largest Swiss Bank, the Zurich Cantonal Bank or ZCB, came out and explicitly said what so many fear (and which warning they would ascribe to as the case may be "yellow journalism"), namely that "lowering Swiss National Bank’s already negative interest rate further or implementing capital controls would be "dramatic" but "certainly possible."

Greece has been borrowing its way to disaster long enough. For its part, Greece stands at a fork in the road. Syriza can move aggressively to recover Greece’s democratic sovereignty or it can desperately cling to the faltering currency and financial machinery of the Euro zone. But it can’t do both. Now and again history reaches an inflection point. Statesman and mere politicians, as the case may be, find themselves confronted with fraught circumstances and stark choices. February 2015 is one such moment.

Central bank policy is creating liquidity.  Wrong --- the growth in broad money is slowing across the world.
Central bank policy is allowing a frictionless de-gearing. Wrong --- debt to GDP levels of almost every country in the world are rising.
Central bank policy is creating inflation.   Wrong --- inflation in most jurisdictions is now back to, or below, the levels recorded in late 2009.
Central bank policy is fixing key exchange rates and securing growth.  Wrong --- in numerous jurisdictions this exchange rate intervention is slowing the growth in liquidity and thus the growth in the economy.
Central bank policy is keeping real interest rates low and stimulating demand. Wrong --- the decline in inflation from peak levels in 2011 means that real rates of interest are rising.
Central bank policy is driving up asset prices and creating a positive wealth impact which is bolstering consumption. Wrong --- savings rates have not declined materially.
Central bank policy is creating greater financial stability. Wrong --- whatever positives impact central banks are having on bank capital etc they have failed to prevent the biggest emerging market debt boom in history.

The Bundesbank, Germany’s powerful central bank, announced very publicly this morning the further repatriation of some of it’s gold being held in foreign locations – namely in Paris and New York with the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve.

"we venture that the SNB will sooner or later be forced to permit the franc to appreciate and thus to enrich the holders of low-priced, three-year call options on the Swiss/euro exchange rate. It's a long shot, to be sure--the options are cheap for a reason--but we judge that the prospective reward is worth the obvious risk." - Jim Grant, Sept 14th, 2014

From Bill Gross: "I’ll leave the specific forecasting for a few weeks’ time and sum it up in a few quick sentences for now: Beware the Ides of March, or the Ides of any month in 2015 for that matter. When the year is done, there will be minus signs in front of returns for many asset classes. The good times are over....  Be cautious and content with low positive returns in 2015. The time for risk taking has passed."

To all those wondering if everything is rigged, we have a very simple answer: Yes.

As a result of Deutsche Bank's gold-rigging problems, the German bank's practically brand spanking new Singapore gold vault, just over a year old, is about to go on sale. But while one can debate when the brand new storage facility will see a "for sale" sign attached to the main vault door, one thing is clear: Deutsche Bank's massive, and even newer, gold vault in London is already looking for offers. According to Reuters, Deutsche Bank is "open to offers for its London-based gold vault following the closure of its physical precious metals business."

Update: the robber has supposedly managed to flee the scene.

While it has yet to make the major wires, there are numerous reports of an attempted robbery taking place at a branch United Mizrahi Bank Schweiz on Nyushelershtrasse in Zurich.  According to RIA the scene has been cordoned off with a large police presence as seen in the photos below. As RIA further adds, the police is preparing to storm the bank building, where, allegedly armed robbers have barricaded themselves and may have taken hostages.

Despite the authorities' best efforts to keep everything orderly, we know how this global Game of Geopolitical Tetris ends: "Players lose a typical game of Tetris when they can no longer keep up with the increasing speed, and the Tetriminos stack up to the top of the playing field. This is commonly referred to as topping out."

"I’m tired of being outraged!"