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South African Strike Season Is Back As Ten Workers Are Shot By Rubber Bullets
It was a year ago that escalating labor tensions in the country of South Africa ground its mining sector to a halt, when demands from striking workers for wage hikes were met with aggressive retaliation in the form of rubber bullets first and then very real ones, leading to a tragic collapse in the already tenuous relationship between foreign corporations and domestic labor unions. Also notably, back then collapse in production of such commodities as platinum and gold was not all that confusing for the market, and led to price surges on the realization what far lower supply means for equilibrium prices. Yet while the days of violent labor escalation appear to be back, this time the Newer Normal has established itself by representing that a drop in industrial and precious metal production is somehow price negative. In fact when it comes to commodities, everything has become a negative catalyst, very much the way every update in the equity world is positive for "values."
So since Bernanke is intent on representing the complete collapse between physical supply dynamics and spot paper prices as bearish, we anticipate a major takedown in all metals once the algos grasp that the South African violence is back on the radar screen. Reuters reports that following news that the South African gold mining union demands a wage hike up to 60%, "ten striking South African miners were taken to hospital on Tuesday after being hit by rubber bullets, police said, as labor strife swells in mines and factories ahead of mid-year pay negotiations."
So much for calm negotiations.
Auto maker Mercedes-Benz said a two-day wildcat stoppage at its East London plant had ended but the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA) squashed any relief with an immediate demand for a 20 percent pay rise.
"If our demands are not met we will have no option but to go to the streets," NUMSA national treasurer Mphumzi Maqungo told Reuters.
The currency extended its two-week slide after police confirmed that security guards had fired rubber bullets at stone-throwing wildcat strikers at a chrome mine near the platinum belt town of Rustenburg, 120 km (70 miles) northwest of Johannesburg.
The mining firm, Germany's Laxness, said the guards had fired rubber bullets in self-defence into the ground in front of protesters.
"Strike season" appears to have come early in South Africa this year:
Last week, the platinum firm Lonmin suffered a wildcat walkout at Marikana shortly after an unknown gunman shot dead a senior union official in a bar, and the National Union of Mineworkers said it would push for a pay rise of a staggering 60 percent for some categories of miner.
South Africa's car makers saw minor labor disruptions in 2012 but investors fear a repeat of the wage-related strikes that crippled the sector in 2010 as the economy was struggling to emerge from recession.
Car industry bosses said they would not entertain NUMSA's latest demands, setting the stage for a showdown when a three-year wage deal worth around 10 percent a year expires at the end of next month.
"It is common cause that the employers will not settle at 20 percent," said Thapelo Molapo, chairman of the Automobile Manufacturing Employers' Organisation.
Ironically, the local instability has translated into a plunge in the local currency which recently printed at 9.50 to the dollar, the weakest since early 2009, and with the slide accelerating another 6% in the past two weeks, inflation in South Africa is set to accelerate even more, pushing for even higher wage demands, which will be met with even more hostility and resistance out of local foreign companies.
"There is no way people are going to carry on putting their money in here when there are impending strikes in one of the biggest sectors in South Africa," said Kyle Dutton, a broker at Mercato Financial Services in Johannesburg.
While for now it is the automotive sector that has seen the bulk of the wage "negotiations", expect this to spill over to all other industries, and specifically the critical mining sector, where South Africa is a sizable producer for both platinum and gold. We can't wait to see just how the spin machine justifies the halt of their production with more double digit drop in gold and/or silver, both of which are now trading with the forced credibility of pennystocks, and where 10% daily trade ranges are the real new normal.
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Hey, be positive, at least they were shot with rubber bullets, this time anyway...
are real rubber bullets more harmful or less harmful than the emotional rubber bullets inflicted upon us non stop...9/11, boston, constant threat of iran, thug cops lawlessly abusing individuals on the street levels....family dogs being executed....... and a million more....
What do you want for nothing? Hmmm?! RUBBER BULLET?!?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYyBZE0kBtE
I always preferred a Rubber Biscuit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz0UvIZw-Y0
I really like the part, at about 0:40, where they define a 'wish sandwich'.
If there is one thing that classically kills prices, it's a lack of supply. /s
Yeah... seems kind of strange today.. the more problems with getting supply the lower the price of gold. Now, the Indian Prime Minister is considering placing more restrictiions on its citizens to buy gold... world is getting more strange everyday.
India’s perilous gold stock situation and $40 premiumshttp://srsroccoreport.com/indias-perilous-gold-stock-situation-and-40-premiums/indias-perilous-gold-stock-situation-and-40-premiums/#comments
I can't for the life of me figure out why we need the 2nd amendment. After all the thugs in power are only going to use rubber bullets against us right?
Optimist.
i thought you said to be positive...
Well, they're using something rubber on our butts.
Rubber bullets reminds me of the first time I heard it. The msm made a big deal about the Israeli soldiers using rubber bullets against the palestinians in the 90's. You know, how humane and restrained they are sort of angle. Upon research it turned out that they were using "rubber coated" steel bullets which are as non-lethal as bullets covered in a thin layer of chocolate, and just as ridiculously misleading. They are capable of punching through the hardest bone in the human body: the skull.
Big difference between rubber bullets (baton rounds) and "rubberized" bullets.
Great, now DHS will have to go out and buy moar ammo to accumulate enough rubber rounds. The JHPs are a bulk buy for practice after all...
Long rubber and copper.
South African Stock MArket just hit an ALL TIME HIGH minutes ago up over 600 points just today
Yahoo's daily hit piece on gold:
Gold ETFs are liquidating by the ton.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/gold-etfs-liquidating-ton-112206...
The funds are releasing the gold from their own custodianship, into the marketplace at depressed prices to be gobbled up and disappeared by those in the "know".
Look closer, many of these funds are actually within TBTF. It's a "two-for" as they "sell to supress prices" and then "gobble it up". Remember, "mark to fantasy" accounting allows these guys to write off the "loss" on one side of the ledger will stacking themselves. The only person losing here is the sap that bought the ETF to begin with. More paper fucking promises. I would not believe anything the PM world unless a transparent audit was performed, and that will never happen. This is all about power and control, always has been. Perception management, nothing more.
Yes, not a true exchange, a closed loop. It's a mockery of trade. Imagine you, passing goods from your left hand to your right hand, and then calling it a handshake exchange. A handshake requires two real sides, both using the same side hand. It's truly a sacred, ritual act.
Those is the "know" are loading the bullion boat to repay the 3rd Reich.
It's always strike season in South Africa. It's practically a way of life there.
up 650 now new ath
Goddamn lazy fucking liberal socialists! Next thing they will want will be safe working conditions and Obamacare too! It's all just another tax on the job creators. Ridiculous!
Keep 'em fighting. Keep 'em down.
Where's the land of milk chocolate and honey promised by Nelson Mandela? And where is that commie turd now?
Not sure of his exact location, but I'm quite sure he is no longer imprisoned for having brown skin. You cunt!
Damn, even the South African government can't wrestle any ammo away from uncle sam... Inhale to the cheif.
He wasn't imprisoned for having brown skin, lefty libtard hater. He was imprisoned for advocating murder of whites in a white country. He has never repented but thanks to the domination of Marxism in a once clean, free, and prosperous country, he gets away with it.
White country! White country! Are fucking mad? He refused to accept being a second class citizen to a white minority in a black African country. Does the insanity have any limits!
I'm still waiting to hear people like you cry about the fact that the land that comprises today's South Africa was violently taken from the indigent Koisan herdsmen and Pygmies by the west African Bantus whose ancestors live there today. But then that fact doesn't fit the global neo-Marxist liberal agenda, now does it.
You're the one who's insane. South Africa was created, developed and built by the whites. Calling it a black African country, black population majority notwithstanding, is like saying that the United States is a native American Indian country.
As for Mandela, he only became a reconciliator later on. At the time he got sent to the slammer, it was for essentially pushing terrorism and violence...not for, as you put it, "refusing to accept being a second class citizen".
So we got a Foreign Corp in the country and domestic police shooting at domestic workers?
How we come to this?
Are they gonna use rubber bullets to herd the striking fast food workers back into all the KFCs and McDees?
Now up 700 to another ATH....crazy
It's not just Strike Season but also BrownOut Season. The electricity grid is running at capacity, with consumers urged to cut usage voluntarily or risk brown outs as in 2008. And it's going into peak usage season with the winter coming on . . .
Up 850 points on the day now, incredible ramp to ATH
South Africans have time to strike in between all the raping and genociding? Who knew!
up 1000 points fuck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynIuZ-CrenU