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If Gold < $1175, Then Cyprus Out Of Eurozone?
One of the unexpected consequences of the recent plunge in the price of gold (for whatever reason, and there are many proposed explanations for why gold has tumbled, none of them completely accurate or comprehensive) is that when the European Commission set the precedent with the forced sale of Cypriot sale for a total of €400 million "to cover ELA losses" as Mario Draghi dictated to the aptly named head of the Cyprus Central Bank, Panicos, he set a line in the sand especially when it comes to German expectations. Because while the size of the Cypriot bailout will likely keep expanding, the one fixed component is the €10 billion loan that Merkel has still to get approval for in parliament. This number is set in stone, and any additional bailout "funding" will have to come from either further depositor impairment (until eventually even the insured depositors become impaired, again) or as the case may be, the country is forced to sell all of its sovereign hard assets, like its gold. Which means that no matter what, Cyprus will have to sell enough gold to cover a €400MM shortfall, as point 29 of the Debt Sustainability Analysis demanded.
And therein lies the rub.
While a week ago, when gold was $1600/ounce the self-funded component (read "gold sale") of the Cypriot bailout amounted to just over 10 tons of gold, as of today's price and EURUSD rate, Cyprus would now have to sell 12 tons of gold to cover the gap, if it were to hit the sell button today (assuming a price of $1385/ounce and a 1.315 EURUSD exchange rate). As far as we know, Cyprus hasn't sold one ounce yet. But what if gold keeps tumbling as it has in the past three days? Well, the problem as most know, is that as of March based on IMF data, Cyprus only has 13.9 metric tons of "excess" (as the EC defined it) gold.
This means one can extrapolate below what price Cyrpus is out of luck and the proposed European Commission bailout fails as one of the key self-funded elements simply will not have enough cash to fill the €400 MM hold. That price for gold, once again assuming a 1.315 EURUSD, is roughly $1175/ounce.
So if the coordinated selling (straight to Goldman's traders) were to continue, and gold did plunge to the threshold price, or even drop into triple digit territory, and Cyprus simply did not have enough gold to sell, what then?
Will the Cyprus rescue operation fail?
Will the European Commission make a market in spare body parts and demand every odd Cypriot sell an excess kidney?
Or will the ECB simply realize it is too much of a hassle, and instruct the BIS, which has so far been selling paper gold (on margin), to ramp the price higher?
Inquiring minds want to know, because with all the central planning out there, someone has to think outside the box.
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The threat of taking your money out of the bank, austerity, & lack of work unions to keep pay up leads to deflation. Deflation stops china & other countries from buying USTs because they don't need to devalue their fiat anymore relative to the USD. UST yields going up and the overvalued USD decreases US manufacturing production; both lead to less US gov money. What next? More money printing or higher taxes? Hyperinflation?How? Deflatiinary death spiral? Other?
Those that would buy Cypriot gold with Euros do not understand the political capital invested in Europe. They vastly underestimate what the Euro means for the Europeans, for the Euro area.
From gold teeth to Cypriot gold, Gemany's lust for the yellow metal endures!
Sadly, it appears to be a Cypriot surrender flag, as opposed to a battle standard.
The bankers accept, unconditionally, of course.
This is so Ironic it's funny.
The barbarous traditional relic drops below a threshold price so as to make the transfer impossible at the contracted terms. When likely the price smackdown was done with the consent of the central banks...
As if according to Paul Krugman, gold means anything anyhow and that collecting it is nonproductive.
Wait.... now it all makes sense. Non productive assets being held by non productive governments...
Hmmmmm
As if of all people the germans have been asked ...
if you really believe this is about Cypruss gold i got a bridge to sell ... and Yes, I do accept CASH!
common man this is one of the worse sales in 20-30 years and for what ... Cypruss ... right ... thats where is the New Center of Universe ... thanks for clearing it up!
I could use a bridge. The bigger, the better, and long, please. After I placed it as collateral at the ECB, I will gladly pay you 5 % of their loan on it, which should at least be 10 billion Euro, the following tuesday. ;-)
you know which one ... it has been standing for a long long time next to the Wall of Power ... go and claim it - if anyone gives you any problem just let me know. please send the wire to the following: :)
Have I got a deal for YOU! I can sell you a bridge for only the price of 1/10th of a normal bridge, the rest of which will be produced for you by re-hypothecation using new Bridge-Pothication Technology (patent pending)
http://www.thinkartificial.org/artificial-intelligence/evolving-lego-bri...
<sarcasm>
Und jetzt alle:
Deutschland, Deutschland üüüüüüber alles....
Third try is lucky!
</sarcasm>
The borders don't fit anymore. Maas and Memel have not been german for a long time ... that much for the third try ...
No, Cyprus should sell every single fucking ECB bond they have and keep their gold. They can use that to back up a new Cypriot pound/drachma/whatever.
People that don't read this website regularly must get thrown by the sheer number of sarcastic posts not labeled as such.
Well, they should know this is ... uhm... shit ... I promised, not to talk about it ...
Good bear. Knows the rules.
first rule of zh: all replies are sincere
-Paul K
are there rules?
I read all posts here in a sarcastic tone (other than the ones I ignore all together).
Other than all of the "our government/leaders" idiocy, it works pretty well.
Got it. Sarc. I was going to ask for clarification, but you cleared it up for me.
My comment would have been if I was sitting on a pile of Euros I would do my part to support the great euro utopian experiment by trading it for all the gold I could get ANYWHERE, just to get those notes back into circulation, mind you.
s/?
Shit! They are sarcastic? And they are not marked? I have been basing all of my investment decisions here (and Yahoo, of course.)
Maybe thats why I am broke.
are you trying to say that you enjoy life better without zerohedge? ;-)
H.H. this is the second time you have made reference to this political capital in EU.
Please elucidate, seeking only knowledge.
It was a recent Draghi response to a reporter who won't have the opportunity to ask any more questions (as he used the phrase Zero Hedge).
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-04/mario-draghi-responds-zero-hedg...
He got it from Sir Jack Meoff.
Hedgless really likes what Draghi answered to ZeroHedge's question, not long ago. see here the ZH article
but he seems to me to misunderstand the statement, particularly on what political capital means - it's in fact something Anglo-American politicians would probably never say this way
meanwhile Tyler is only hinting about certain things in the article (for example about the BIS involvement's in the gold smash) - and so treating them as rumours, and hedgless swallows bait, hook and sinker
political capital is actually a simple concept: any politician asking for an exit of the eurozone automatically puts himself in the position of having to promise something. and being able to explain why and how an exit would help the country. this means a serious party would have to pledge itself to a course, to which a serious debate would have to follow, and questions would have to be answered
and since most of it would hinge around vague things like "and then we devalue and so all our creditors get stiffed" it's a though position
because you see, until now the EUR delivered. price stability. nothing else, no. that wasn't the deal anyway. a single focus on price stability even during a full blown currency war where the Squid and the Morgue mount attacks like the one on gold
and since many continental europeans remember the times their currencies were under attack, they realize that leaving the eurozone with a small currency is akin to leaving the herd and be the new plaything of the megabanks
Thank you for your time and responce!
I come to learn from others with greater understanding.
[quote]...since many continental europeans remember the times their currencies were under attack, they realize that leaving the eurozone with a small currency is akin to leaving the herd and be the new plaything of the megabanks. [/quote]
What this tells me is that Govts, especially smaller ones, should NEVER print too much currency!
btw, regarding this new meme of "stealing Cyprus's gold" and similar things involving Panicos Demedriades, the Cypriot NCB president, here a very interesting article in the Cyprus Mail - in English
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/features/nation-s-anger-homing-central-bank-g...
my favourite part: "On March 18 ... Demetriades wanted the banks to re-open the following day, but President ... Anastasiades put a stop to it ..."
as I was suspecting all the time, the decision to keep the banks closed was not "technocratic", it was political
Ghodius, Thanks for link.
The central banks decisons are all political. With the impact they have on their respective countries, they would have to be, yes?
sometimes when people talk or write they reveal more about themselves than about what they want to convey
let's put it this way: your question is very... uncontinental (which reminds me Marylin Monroe's song "Diamonds")
ponder about one little thing: the confederation of national/central banks called ECB has one mandate: price stability
the FED, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, etc. etc. have usually several mandates, besides what politics gives them
Funny, I thought it was a Thousand-Year Reich.
hedge, you are smarter than that. who is the grand hegemon of this planet? who spends 50% of global military expenditures? who has the biggest centralized, powerful & militarized government in history?
not us
meanwhile, what's so bad in forming political bonds that might result in a third version of the "empire"? The word means "out of many nations", too. what is so terrifying in this?
your own country was made out of peoples of many nations
are you sure you know enough of version 1 & 2? Or did you watch too much footage of that moron's attempt? Do you understand how much that changed us, too?
http://youtu.be/YjKR1aqBFA8
The gold price is fixed by bankers and not free markets.
The current five participants in the gold fixing, who must be members of the London Bullion Market Association, are:
Scotia-Mocatta — successor to Mocatta & Goldsmid and part of Bank of Nova Scotia
Barclays Capital — Replaced N M Rothschild & Sons when they abdicated
Deutsche Bank — Owner of Sharps Pixley, itself the merger of Sharps Wilkins with Pixley & Abell
HSBC — Owner of Samuel Montagu & Co..
Société Générale
you forgot... AIG getting out ~3 months later at the advise of n m rothschild's
Note: gordon brown sells 60% of london's gold at bargain-basement prices between 1999-2002... guess what house bought the gold-- it begins with a 'red shield!'???
please check the event and timelines ... start 2004
barclays plc sells barclay global [etf /ishares] to BLK. inc and the fink who runs the prop'desk for benji after they buy up lehman's trading house for peanuts [~$347ml]-- N.M. Rothchilds llc. buys up the other half, lehman bank n.a. for~ $10 bn.
when does lehman actually break the ?buck?, and what jpmc dimon did too diamond? inquiring minds want to know....
The list is current but the banks keep changing so it is possible.
What, no J.P. Morgan? Something is amiss.
conflict of collusion where naught even a plausible denial could pacify someone's 'moar'esque thingy'... often referred as -- 'an amorphous consciousness'?
I thought JPM only sold counterfeit silver.
Funny, those look a lot like the banks that set Libor.
What next? More money printing or higher taxes? Hyperinflation? How? Deflationary death spiral? Other?
War and oppression.
Correct, the "flation" debate is stupid. It is a distraction, there is no debate, this is and always has been about power and control over resources, period.
" about power and control over resources, period."
Agree, this is the Great Re-consolidation, funneling power back to a hand full of "cores."
Peripheries all go back to subservient existences. And if a German gets a gun, you don't want to be a Frenchman.
1933 gold confiscation depression & then WWII, so you may be right!
"What next ? War and oppression". Sad call but probably true.
Zero hedge ? Just gold and defiance ?
Resilience. No bets , nor hedges.
Seems that a positive for the USD could be had by dropping gold further then: Dr. Paul Craig Roberts suggests that the current attack on gold is a play to protect the USD (http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/04/13/assault-on-gold-update-paul-c...). If this pushes Cyprus under the waves then they'll have no other choice than to bail from the EU; and if they do then that would expose the emperor as wearing no clothes, the EU, the euro specifically, being crap. Gold down, gobbled up by US powers, AND USD protected. It's still, however, a race to be awarded the best looking horse at the glue factory...
The bailout will fail no matter what as it is designed to fail.
How else can the ECB and the IMF enrich themselves if there isn't an ongoing crisis by which they can raid depositor's accounts, taxpayer's wallets, and continue to foist austerity on already taxed entitlements?
The same could be said of the U.S. FED, which needs perpetual crisis to continue to bail out the banks on the backs of taxpayers.
Of course it'll all fail. There's no more growth AND they're major energy importers: Japan is showing EXACTLY how this plays out; Europe just has all these other moving parts that tend to make it hard to see the core of what's going on.
What is the spot price on kidneys today? Can someone check with China? They take them from the Falun Dafa practitioners over there.
always check kidney prices in Israel first
Or at your local, participating Temple.
Last Monday Arizona lawmakers passed a bill that makes precious metals legal tender. Arizona is the second state after Utah to allow gold coins created by the Fed and private mints to be used as currency. More than a dozen states have legislature underway to pass similar measures.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/arizona-becomes-second-state...
"The bill doesn’t force any constituent to use or accept gold as currency and because of problems with the local revenue department, residents of Arizona won’t be able to pay their taxes in bullion. In fact, the bill seems more symbolic than anything-- an exercise of a constitutional right."
Yet another batch of politicians making it look like they're doing something when we're already covered.
I may like cotton-candy and clowns endorse it. That does NOT mean that I endorse the clowns nor do I endorse THEM endorsing cotton-candy. As a matter of fact, all the clowns can go the fuck away so I can eat my cotton-candy because that's what I like to eat (and or exchange with my neighbor).
Hmm, talk to me when the "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" becomes unenforced.
Just print more paper gold. Problem solved.
Maybe Cyprus can dump the Euro, keep their gold and join the BRIC country alliance and use their interoperable currency trades to be THE intermediary banker state to the BRICs (like Basel is to the global central banks). Or maybe Iran and the IMF oppressed African States would be a better alliance.
Euro THIS!!
Pretty sure they'd dump the euro. Whether they're ready to join another club or not I'm not so certain...
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none.” - Thomas Jefferson
nice job Tyler on the Indian MR T :)
@ maskone909:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/datta-phuge-man-spends-14000-151...
Best quote of the article (imo): "Mr Phuge told Indian newspaper, the Pune Mirror, that the clothing will be “an embellishment to my reputation as the ‘Gold man of Pimpri’.”
I wanted one too, but I lost all of my gold in a tragic boating accident.
+1
The phrase "life saver" needs to be placed in proper concept. I'm thinking that this guy isn't looking to be boarding boats...
The same conundrum is with any wealth tax. Eventually the price doesn't provide the cash value the governments expect. That's when the whole stock market will crash imo. Let these governments confiscate wealth and it will be an utter disaster.
"Let these governments confiscate wealth and it will be an utter disaster."
It's not like it's being taken and then piled up. It's being redistributed: one can argue about who it's to or the effectiveness [or not], but it's NOT just being stacked somewhere.
The "wealth," however, cannot sustain itself ("perpetual" anything cannot exist), in which case it will ALWAYS leak down. If there is insufficient new resources with which to create "new" "wealth" the trend will be continuing leak-down.
What it all marks is a reversal of growth. And neither govt or business has authority to over-ride the ultimate authority, the BIG "wealth" holder that is Mother Nature (nature's capital).
In the end you can't get what doesn't exist or cannot be obtained.
Blaming and lashing out does NOTHING to position one for the reality that the future is going to deliver (and it's not directed by govt or business).
I smell a lot of if.
If cyprus or any country for that matter makes that stupid short term political decision to sell their nation's gold to satisfy a few EU bankers, and then don't change anything about how they go about their internal business (which is highly likely), what happens next time they're in too deep and they have no gold to sell? It's one sovereign mistake after another over there in Europe for the sake of a dying currency.
"If cyprus or any country for that matter makes that stupid short term political decision to sell their nation's gold to satisfy a few EU bankers"
Need only have stopped right there, as anything past this point is really beyond the point of any return. It's really a complete question, and the only one that need be asked.
Give me your nations gold !
In the 30 year war in Europe they called this practice "brandschatzen ". Contrary to popular belief this was not the burning down of cities and states as an act of mindless war violence.
Medieval cities in Europe and their frugal citizens and gilts kept a well hidden city treasure against all eventualities .
It was the demand of having this "Schatz" or treasure handed
over or the place to be burned down to the ground to what the term "brandschatzen" evolved.
How fitting to what the new European "unifiers" demand
after wrecking some provinces : give me your peoples gold,
you already sold their souls so this is margin call !
Drop that Gold price! I triple-digit dare you.
Why, that'd be like Christmas in Heaven: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kntQNeSge5s
After telling my mother I went to buy silver yesterday I knew I was fine. Her response:
"But why?! The stock market is going gangbusters!"
Mothers - THE Contrarian Indicator
Yea i've tried to explain to mine about the end game coming quicker than she thinks. She isn't listening to me either.
same here.
Don't discuss money in presence of women, unless it's Money Talks.
A free people that sends their children to state-controlled schools, will live to see their country descend into tyrrany at the hand of the state.
And it could also work that way shuffling them of to the industrial giants...
BIG = FAIL (people ought to get off this kick that the problem of BIG ONLY applies to govt)
It's a ping-pong game. The ball will just be smacked over to the corporatists next (after everyone is sufficiently conditioned to believe that BIG in business is OK).
Mine is keeping bail-out money for the grandchildren
in the bank and she is doing just fine at about a bail-out
every three months or they would go to jail for not paying
their fines or so they told her. If one day she would be
considering canceling a cruise because of a low tide in her accounts I would bail in. She used to have 6 figure balances
and I`m glad loser relatives saw to it she will never have
to worry about again securing her stash. Nor me lecturing her on gold, even though she would probably listen by now.
Disclaimer : she is of aristocratic roots so money was always just a means to an end and not an end and means in itself.
if gold tumbles 20% because cyprus has to sell 10 tonnes, how far will it drop when italy has to sell 500?
20% * 500/10 == 1000%
I like your math skills. Have you considered a career in economics? The Federal Reserve is always looking for bright people like yourself!
Thank you. It think the FED must wait. EU needs my newly invented economics math with the gold liquidations.
1000%? Good. Maybe they can wrap it in Euro's so it doesn't get scratched when they ship it to me.
Is there also not an issue of what currency this drop is measured against?
Would this be good or bad for the euro? (and thus good or bad for the USD?) This might tend to lead to where the real driving forces are coming from.
If 500 tonnes are sold within critical trading hours of 5,
why wait 7 years for delivery on a non market moving volume?
"Will the European Commission make a market in spare body parts and demand every odd Cypriot sell an excess kidney?"
This might hurt a little bit....but it's for your own good. Here...bite down on this piece of shoe leather. It will all be over before you know it.
there is one already in Kosovo
For a brief moment, I wanted do downvote you, just to shoot the messenger ...
;-)
But, alas, you managed to escape all these other countries to find that you actually have a heart (left) :-) Good news on BOTH fronts :-)
They have run out of Serbs. On to Cyprus.
HERE, let big brother help you with a good stomp to ensure you bite down good and DEEP. For your own good of course
http://www.vote29.com/newmyblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/George-Orwell...
wow dat guy has a nice shirt lol
And if he were a REALLY NICE GUY he might give the shirt off of his... don't hold yer breath on this one.
If I were Cyprus Gvt, I'll be out of the Euro BEFORE they take the gold.
What a perverse way of stealing money from States and the people, merde!
The europeans, I mean the people, is all gone stupid? Don't they realize what's happening? What has been happening so far?
I'd hypothesized that Cyprus would go through the divorce and then hook up with Russia. The divorce with the EU will mean that they escape losing 100% (or any percent)- there's no way to enforce things, this is DEFAULT!
It's all kind of a rock and a hard-spot though, as on one side there's the EU bureaucrats and on the other it's the Russian mob.
See, you can wear gold.
Only if you can afford $225,000 for a gold shirt (that's how much his shirt cost).
If you need the shirt for work, is that a write off?
Yes, but only at Goldman Sachs (where their accountants have the only key to the write-off loophole).
You can eat it and you can make clothes off it. Who said gold was useless?
Oh, and you can even use it as money! (or tradition)
i tortured myself and sat thru a CNBC commentary on what has happened to the only 2 forms of real money over the past few days... the Fast Money Fucks under a banner on the screen that read "ARE THE CENTRAL BANKS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CRASH IN GOLD", of course dismissed this FACT as gold bugs trying to find a SILVER lining in the obvisous selling driven by INVESTORS ABANDOMING GOLD AS A SAFE HAVEN cause there AINT NO INFLATION...
so there you have it....
Kaiser, wtf?? Are you off your depression meds??
Fuck those pricks on CNBC. They are car salesman. They work for a giant car lot- buy this or buy that- but just buy. They have one goal and that is fleecing as many people as they can get on the car lot.
When given a choice of watching paint dry or CNBC- I opt for a nice latex.
Hey Luna -
no medication for me..
just sharing the how the propanada outlets r in full banker bitch mode...
check out the headlines over at Market(FRAUD)Watch...
disclaimer: loaded up on Friday and Monday...just finished shining the shiny....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx_9MLbQD-0
I'm confused as to whether to smack you or to award you some sort of medal. I don't go near ANY MSM, call me a wimp.
This ensures they get 100% of their gold and not just 75%
Time to gold batter dip and deep fry all the Tungsten you can find Cypriots. Stealing from thieves isn't really stealing is it?
I'm sure that they still have plenty of the ever-resourceful Russian around to help guide them through all of this.
So the whole thing is being coordinated where the Germans send the least amount of wampum for Cyprus gold reserves. Lebensraum has never been so crafty.
I've been telling you for ~ 2 weeks now that "Something wicked this way comes". Final tidbit:
1. All former Presidents of the US (POTUS) get a copy of the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB).
2. One of the former POTUS's (won't say 'who') is ~ 60% into the shiny yellow metal. Not the paper kind. Can't speak for the others, but do know that another one and his family has a huge ranch in Paraguay.
THAT should tell you "What time it is". I'm off shopping, and then off on a boating trip.
+1 for ray bradbury
When loading your "ship" make sure to put heavy items as close to hull as possible.
This will act as ballast and keep the good ship from overturning.
Cheerio!
" 1. All former Presidents of the US (POTUS) get a copy of the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB)."
I tried to do a quick/half-hearted search on this but came up empty. Could you provide a reference for this? Thanks!
I recall seeing no such message but the news is welcome even now
Lloyd Blankfein "Cyprus, do you mean Muppet Island? Fuck 'em"
http://flic.kr/p/eaNjzX
Actually Tyler you are right about selling of organs. The pu**y will hit the markets very very soon there I think...
There's never any shortage of college kids (a.k.a. "stupids") sitting in the waiting room of the local plasma center whenever I walk by. All on their iPhones, of course.
At least they're not standing in line for non-existent jobs which will not produce anything. I have no love loss for the iCrap world...
Look at the 1930's
Confiscation of gold and then dollar devaluation. Their collecting gold for fiat.
Rinse and repeat.
This is a global economy now. While "their" (note appropriate spelling) actions are likely to affect things they won't rule (both China and Russia's hands are starting to firm up much more).
This is less about resurrecting some cycle than it being about pure desperation (trying to keep it from being a massive blow-up).
No matter what forces are in play the end result WILL be that things will be revalued (virtual will be deemphasized).
For those holding physical PMs who may be feeling low at the moment, just pull out one of your ignots. Touch it. Smell it. Taste it. You will feel much better afterwards. Those who try the same with a federal reserve note will be left feeling empty with a bad taste in their mouth.
WOW! I can tell the difference! One smells like dead presidents!
Mario "Dracula" Draghi to Panicos "Squid Whore" Demetriades at their last blood sucking meeting, "is that a gold molar I see in the rear of your mouth Panicos"?
Bwaaaah! I narrowly escaped disaster, as I was "this" close to taking a sip of liquids!
Nonsensical questions of the form "Why do I need a friedge if I dont' smoke" are not really helpful.