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CITIC Missing Half Its Alumina, Seeks Legal Action As Qingdao Rehypothecation Scandal Goes Nuclear
Copper, Iron Ore, Rebar, Rubber, and now Cotton are all at multi-year lows as the Qingdao CCFD ponzi probe continues to broaden to all the commodities we warned about previously. As CottonCN reports, the probe's increased uncertainty and scrutiny of shipments may hurt imports of of cotton in the form of consignment sales, as international traders delay shipments or deliveries to wait for clear policies as authorities continues their investigation. Even soybeans and palm oil have been on a notably downswing since the probe intothe collateral evaporation started. Then comes the news that Chinese commodities trading firm CITIC admission that over half of its 220,000 tonnes of alumina are missing. This is far from over...
Cotton has been sold down to 2010 lows as the probe widens...
Along with Iron Ore...
Rebar...
Copper...
Chinese commodities trader CITIC Resources Holding Ltd said on Wednesday that more than 100,000 tonnes of alumina stored at Qingdao port was missing, deepening fears that firms exposed to a metals financing scam at the port could face big losses.
...
"The company has been notified that in the enforcement of the sequestration orders obtained by the group, the Qingdao court has been unable to sequester about 123,446 MT (metric tonnes) of alumina which the group has stored at Qingdao port," the firm said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
CITIC Resources said it had title to 223,270 tonnes of alumina and 7,486 tonnes of copper stored at the port pending payment by and delivery to buyers.
CITIC said it did not have information on the current status of an investigation by Qingdao authorities and was not yet able to accurately assess the impact of the alleged fraud on the company.
And, of course, as we noted previously, none of this should come as a surprise...
...the copper "monetary metal" funding pathway is best known, and in fact we covered the inevitable end of the Chinese Copper Financing Deals in gruesome detail last May in "The Bronze Swan Arrives: Is The End Of Copper Financing China's "Lehman Event." What happened next was that despite repeated warnings by the PBOC and SAFE that it would end the hot money inflows masked by funding deals, China not only encouraged more CCFDs but aggressively expanded into other commodities, such as iron ore, and as we now learn, weird and wacky commodities such the abovementioned soybeans, palm oil, rubber, zinc, aluminum, gold and nickel. To be sure this was largely precipitated by the near collapse in the overnight lending market in June of 2013 when China's first and so far only real tapering attempt nearly destroyed the domestic financial system.
So what has changed since May, in addition to the realization that virtually every hard asset is now being used by China to mask hot money inflows into the Chinese economy taking advantage of rate differentials between the Renminbi and the Dollar? Well, this time around China may finally be serious about normalizing its epic credit bubble, which as we pointed out before, added a ridiculous $1 trillion in bank assets in just the fourth quarter of 2013 alone. Specifically, as Goldman notes in a just released analysts on the future of CCDS, "the recent managed CNY depreciation is a signal that the government wants to increase FX volatility and reduce the hot money inflow pressure gradually."
In other words, the day when the Commodity Funding Deals finally end is fast approaching.
And in this context, an unwind of Chinese commodity financing deals would likely result in an increase in availability of physical inventory (physical selling), and an increase in futures buying (buying back the hedge) – thereby resulting in a lower physical price than futures price, as well as resulting in a lower overall price curve (or full carry) (Exhibit 11).
Simply put - all that exuberance based on the high prices of industrial (and non-industrial) commodities was misplaced... shadowy credit expansion and what we now know as ponzi financing merely provided a mirage of demand that hid the true nature of the economy... unfortunatley that mirage sent signals to the world that everything was hunky dory and mal-investment and speculation followed. We are sure, however, that this will all end calmly as investors line up in an orderly fashion and leave the burning theater.
And just in case you thought the rule of law would help...
"[Citic Resources] will conduct its own investigation to ascertain why the court has been unable to enforce its sequestration order in respect of all of the group’s alumina..." said in the statement.
The company will also consider “legal proceedings if necessary”.
This is the first time any firm has actually admitted its missing commodities... let the orderly selling/scramble for collateral begin...
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So are we seeing inflation or deflation?! Depends on what you read, but shows the complete and utter detachment of markets from reality. Schizophrenia....or rather schitzophrenia.
I think it's called crimeflation
I think it is called a rigged manipulated market
where is the sec & cftc
ohhhhh wait
they are looking for their balls
because the morgue & sucks has them by the
gh0atrider thinks he saw some of the missing alumina over his house today. A little white line in the sky that gets thicker and thicker as the hours pass...
I you're who I think you are, you might be interested to know I go to my first BTC Meetup Thurs. One thing they will be talking about is security, hiding your trail to throw off the hounds...
***
When gold becomes the missing (big time) commodity, then maybe the curtain comes down.
I was just in Peru, our business has slowed up in recent months. But, my friend who sells capital equipment to Lat Am says his business with Peru is doing great! So, mixed signals from a lil ol commodity exporting place in S America...
Very nice, gh0atrider is going to try and make one in Vancouver...
DoChen, I am in the tooling business, metal working, tungsten carbide and PCD/CBN and we are really busy. Overtime for all busy. I cannot for the life of me understand where all these cutting tools are being used for, but I know we supply military, aerospace and auto big time. I make tools for the two contractors for the guns, M4/M16/M240 etc. and we are really busy. Who knows what else but some of these customers won't allow any sales persons beyond the front offices. Just saying. I'm making hay while the sun shines.
cutting tools and tungsten? ...hmmm.....Well of course you're busy!
That's interesting. I was not allowed to take pictures at the bearing plants in Korea I visited in 2012 (super-modern, proprietary technology).
And when I went to visit Noreen Firearms (Belgrade, MT -- Google them, add "blog" to your key words, and see what you get, LOL...), they would not let me see where they made their Big Bore Sniper rifles (.30-06 all the way up to .50 BMG). No pictures because they make weapons for our Armed Forces, apparently the best semi-auto sniper rifles around...
Some parts of our economy really are cooking. So, yes, I hope you make a pile now. And don't spend it all in one place...
:)
We're down another 20% from last year...and less than half of what we did in 2007.
"We" are miners/manufacturers of Aggregate (Rock and Sand), Ready Mix Cement, Retail Steel Sales and Sttel Fabrication (privately owned). I am the corporate controller aka bean-counter. I do the details of the fifty companies I 'control'.
After our annual audit (two weeks of hell while I'm busy trying to close May) I've had time to do a bit of analysis. Our annual sales for this fiscal year (04/01/2013-03/31/2014) was 80% tied to the goverment in some way. In 2007, our sales to the government was 20%. In 2007, our annual Sales were $65 million, this year $23 million.
In 2007 I got 'itchy' with the economic news and we put all administrative employees on a 35 hour work week. They've been on that schedule since 2007 and we haven't laid them off (we have replaced under-performers, though...usually younger people that we hire that just didn't work out...[I'll leave that statement to your comments])
We've offered minor perks to our employees like cash cards for safety performance and cash cards for monthly hitting goals. Our administrative employees make about $14 per hour here in Commiefornia and those piddling extra amounts are shamefully significant.
In 2009 we had paid off all outside debt. The only debt we had was to our owners funding our operations from their not-so-deep pockets and a locally funded ine of credit that had no liability.
Sitting in budget meetings over the last ten years with a budget I've put together with my expeccted trends...then having operations declare expected sales and capital requirements...My initial sales projection and net income has been dead on. The fantasy projection made by operations has been drawn from government statistics and BLS bullshit.
The owners, based on these projections, bought out a competitor in September and December...for $5.5 million in financine at 4.5%. As much as I hate debt, I'm inclined to think that they made an inspired move. There is no other compitition in the market they bought...we own it. I've already been surprised by the much smaller losses of the active locations than I expected. And they're ramping up. Buying that market could potentially dump another 10%, or more, to the bottom line.
But I'm stil pretty pessimistic...when the market folds, as I expect it to, there will be no sales to the private market and our criminal government will enact some sort of austerity program.
Oh, I have to complerte a comprehensive Census Survery of our multiple business and locations about every four years...The government has a particular interest in our steel fabrication business.
Seems like it was 2006, the survey had a question: "If you had unlimited workers, unlimited resources and unlimited access to logistics, how would that affect your production?"
I replied, "Our production would near infinity, we have a double rail line going along side our facility, and we have a lot of unemployed people around the area. WHAT ARE YOU FUCKERS PLANNING?"
Last Census...same question..."Our production would near infinity, we have a double rail line going along side our facility, and we have a lot of unemployed people around the area. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
penny for Tylers thoughts....
when the gold is found missing - how does that affect its price? I know, I know, youve been quite clear saying that selling paper will drive it down, but wont this also coincide with a scramble for physical delivery which could offset the plunge?
Tyler - you wanna throw your hat in the ring?
Paper gold:Physical gold is roughly 100:1
When gold is found missing, holders of the paper will panic and dump, causing the price to plummet.
At that point, no physical holder in their right mind will part with their gold at the ridiculously low price, so it will be impossible to source any physical. The market will freeze up/fail completely. Holders of paper demanding delivery will be subject to force majeur and will be settled at the current cash price $500-$1000/oz. At that point, physical will be worth somewhere between $30K-100K per ounce. When this price reset is acknowledged, gold will again begin to flow in size.
If you don't hold it, you don't own it...paper is just a claim on someone else's liability. Many will look back at prices from $1180-$1950 and realize that it was the bargain of the century......twenty centuries.....
JMHO.....
I am probably a little lower on the totem pole then you gents but in my little world (oil and gas services), we are picking up big time at this quarter's end. I am working 60 hour weeks as we build inventory.
Funny though, how oil and gas stawks have been trending up since February, well before we saw any actual orders. Then this Iraq/ISIS event occurs. Evil cocksuckers...
copper shipping is going to pick up HUGE once all these warehouses scramble to be replenished so they don't violate their financing agreements
bullish
This I do not understand ...
Who has the money to "replentish" the whorehouses ?
'er warehouses, oops. damn typos !
+100 it's so blatant here in NorCal that even the retirees in this lame little suburb are talking about it.
I hate the fact that going outside here in the sierra foothills and seeing what used to be a beautiful sky now just pisses me off. Some more.
Brian Eno, Sky Saw, 1975
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXDrTZMVINo
All the clouds turn to words
All the words move in sequence
No one knows what they mean
Everyone just ignores them
It’s no wonder most of the multi-million dollar house sales in Cali are for cash and no one dare asks what the source of those funds is.
It's called 'business as usual'. Where have you guys been the last 6 years?
And it's going to end like one also, busted and done.
Schizomania
The transition from The Little King to The Concerned Villager; 1990 - 2020
by Jack Lessinger - a marvelous predictor of the turmoil we face. Read the book.
Its a deflationary world-one in which all the oligarchs trying to corner these markets-can only see inflation-because THEY have all the hot money from QE and the banks.
When you've cornered the market you have to make sure the punters have enough left to take it off of you at the profit you've "earned"
That's why you need to at least give lip service to the concept of trickle-down economics.
So again I ask; if the price of all of these commodities is tanking because of the rehypothecation ponzi why will gold be any different when it is broadcast as being part of the ponzi?
Because eventually someone is going to demand gold for oil.
hungryd
gold is not like any other commodity. There are 170,000 tons ready for sale at all times. ONLY THE PRICE keeps those sales from happening. They can sell paper all day long. Supply of paper is the same as for any commodity. No one can pry the physical loose from the strong hands now. If gold were at a much higher price the gold could suck up some of this hot money looking for safety. All the big guys can get is paper gold though. Try buying a couple of tons and see.
APMEX has 20,000 ounces (less than one ton) for the little guys like most of us. The CBs, major funds and uber rich are forced into art, cars and fine wine because the preferred wealth asset is simply not for sale at 1300/ounce.
If anyone knows a wealth person who has been able to take possession of gold in any large quantity please let the rest of us know. My understanding is that no large orders are being filled...not with metal anyway.
I think the University or Texas is still waiting for theirs.
The Rothschild family is wealthy. They have been able to take possession of a large quantity of gold.
Respectfully, they acquired their gold centuries ago. The difficulty is acquiring gold in size presently....
Not to worry, they have the paperwork for the whole (Inventory) lot but not the $50,000,000 USD thats (stolen/ disappeared/ moved/ laundered/ ..... (Fill In Blank)
so like I said Do not worry.....
Its not much money if you say it fast.
best laugh all day, thank you sir.
so we are back to deflation....
Deflation for everything we have to sell, inflation for everything we need to survive.
We live with "just in time" production on virtually everything, so these commodities are not actually commodities, they are "equities", investments, bets. Their value is not based on their consumptive value but on their "market" value, having only the vaguest of relationship to commodity. Their value can be manipulated just like gold because that is how they are being used. Almost everything we consume now is being treated this way because speculators have wedged themselves into the process. We see oil values going up when inventories are high and down when they are low. Its crazy, but the whole damn world is tied to the casino regardless of what it is.
No one knows what ANYTHING is really worth because every thing has a bet placed upon it.
But I know that my AU and AG are worth more than the paper fiat given to me so I continue to trade said fiat for said boat ballast.
Actually, gold and silver should go down with the boat in this coming storm. They want you to sell an ounce of gold to buy a loaf of bread... that's before the hyperinflation... then after the hyperinflation and after most people are wiped off the face of the earth you can buy two loaves of bread for an ounce of gold. In other words... I don't think anything is going to save us... and if you find something that does save you... it's probably got radiation on it.
"... don't think anything is going to save us... "
I'm betting my future on Beer, Butter and Cheese...
Our debt based money system has to grow at exponental rates, otherwise it collapses. This was easy when natural resources/fossil fules were plentiful & easily obtainable. Combine this with the fact that resources (mainly cheap oil) are now decling at exponential rates and you have two diverging exponential curves. This results in a very rapidly accelerating divergence between paper claims of wealth and real world wealth. As the late Albert Barlett said, "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." So not only do we have one exponential equation at play, we have a second moving in the opposite direction. This is why the implosion will be wicked fast & quicker than what anyone can imagine.
When the Ponzi does end tangible basic resources that people need for basic life functions will become quite valuable, and the prices for all other things will fall. Those few that can time this tranistion from paper to tangible just right can acquire much wealth. Those who are a second late with their timing will get their balls cut off.
The Takeaway Lesson:
Be prepared in a lot more ways than one.
"No one knows what ANYTHING is really worth because every thing has a bet placed upon it."
Another way of saying the same thing is: no one knows what anything is worth because the unit of measure is in a currency that no longer has any meaning.
Me reads with popcorn in hand.
*munch munch*
Did you test that popcorn to make sure that it's not GMO?
Good luck with that - By 2012, 88 percent of corn (maize) and 94 percent of soy grown in the United States were genetically modified, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
http://phys.org/news/2013-06-gmo-corn-soybeans-dominate.html
And the good black soil turns grey.
Thanks Monsanto
@ Colonel
I would have guessed nearly 100% of US corn was GM-ed...
@ R O R
Stack On!
heirloom corn
http://sustainableseedco.com/corn/
Many are collecting and creating seed banks...
Actually, popcorn is NOT GMO.
One article...
http://www.growingupherbal.com/qa-is-popcorn-gmo/
II rremember years ago reading article after article about some slant eye sitting on piles of cotton in a warehouse acting like some god because the price of what was mouldering under his stinking yellow as was going nowhere but up. I wonder if it was GMO cotton which is known to cause blindness is mice after being force fed 100Lbs of it a day for two months.
100 lbs of cotton a day!!! That's not a mouse, that's Tyratasaurus!
size matters
Being cynical in the context of current global political events, has China/PBOC set a rather net trap for Wall Street/USA that they are now springing on them???
"We are sure, however, that this will all end calmly as investors line up in an orderly fashion and leave the burning theater."
I love that sentence!
And they are all yelling "Ready, Aim..." whilst queuing quietly.
They're publicly admitting that their aluminum oxide is missing to get a spot at the front of the line.
Are you the only one here besides me that knows the difference between aluminum and alumina?
Well said. Either financial assets collapse or real assets soar to bring back balance. Easiest and most stable path would be gold to go hyperbolic. In the meanwhile people, sell float scams to raise cash and buy gold. Use their bubble against them.
Could it be metals are being hoarded with the view that a total shtudown could be coming? Yes yes I think it could.
If they actually 'have' half their alumina, they still have a much higher percent of actual metal than the west has of physical gold.
So when and where does the panic begin to manifest itself? This whole thing has felt like a never ending and unsatisfying cliff hanger, easy money policy (or the anticipation of it) seems to trump all bad news.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd
it's Gone !
Compliments of Bankers International Cartel Chairman, Hu Flung Dung
If you can't trust Communists who can you trust?
This is nothing. Just wait until everyone finds out how much gold is missing.
We don't need no stinking gold. We got paper gold and for all us old farts its a lot easier to stuff in our mattress.
The gold has been missing forever... "Fort Knox" securitiy is protecting the vacum.
IMO, the bankers best use for gold was to contain it so it would not compete with their fiat. My guess is there is A LOT OF GOLD being contained. Where is anyones's guess.
Free Jon Corzine!
just monetize that shit and fuck that bald bearded fuck CORZINE
This is the sleeper story of 2014 with potentially hellacious effects on commodity pricing - and I only read it on ZH.
We should be good then. We truly do live in OZ now.
until they all start scrambling to replace it
/bullish
On the plus side, maybe next year's underwear won't be so thin you can see through it.
Notice how gold was included with the likes of rebar and soybean and palm oil?
I would suggest the price chart of gold does not look the same as palm oil.
And if we see gold go into backwardation for more than a day or two (or it goes DEEP into backwardation), yow, look out!
That would, of course, mean that NO ONE trusts anyone in lending out physical.
I can tell you where that rebar didn't go.
New construction.
One big earthquake...
Mystery solved, the other 110,000 tons was stored in Alumina Certificates.
I'm sorry, this is another story that I just don't understand. I get the rehypothecation angle. I have goods, you lend me money, I do it over and over again. I buy a house in London, move my family out of China, and have money in the bank. Ok. Now we have an unknown number of chump banks that have no title to the goods. How can they sell? They don't own it, there are other banks that own it too. Why does this depress the price of said goods? There's a hundred times less of the goods than was thought to be in existance.
Because everyone is afraid they own worthless paper. They all know the game is rigged and willing to sell at any price to get out of the investment, I mean liability. This drives down the price short term. However, those which are actually holding the asset in hand don't want to sell because they know it could go up in price after all of the paper panic ends. If there's 2x the amount of an asset on paper than in reality one or the other is way overvalued or way undervalued. Perhaps both? This creates panic especially if you're an investor looking to make a quick buck. Time to sell and get out quick!
"Why does this depress the price of said goods?"
I have the same question. Perhaps the depression of price is only temporary, and when the false commodities panic selling is over, true supply will be known (much less than previously thought), and prices will take off.
Because there is no real demand for these commodities other than using them for collateral. Same is true for the millions of empty houses in both the US and China. Same with all of the new cars, and vacant commercial properties.
In other words, they exist only as the "value" behind the currency they back.
Current prices are generally determined at spot.
First, buy what's not there and hedge your position by selling in the future...spot increases, futures decrease.
Unwind = sell what's not there and buy back your short future...spot decreases, futures increase.
And for Gold/Silver. First, sell what's not there...then unwind = buy what's not there. Voila! Backwardation. Backwardation is what porkchop was referring to when people need/want physical now over later.
The banks hold contracts giving them the right to buy/sell the commodities...contracts that are fast becoming worthless because (it's now blatantly obvious) nothing is backing them...hence the "unwind".
That's my take on it anyhow...
And what is the price of a worthless contract?
ZERO?
All of it gone, spent on opium and Jim Beam.
So can they seize houses in Vancouver and Irvine to unwind this mess?
and the rest of the money they just wasted.
they own plenty of assets yet in china before you would even have to joke about that
Is there some way that people could sell a bunch of oil they don't have so we can all get a break at the pumps?
+ $106 !!
high oil prices are necessary to maintain the bernanke asset bubble
Touche!!
If money must be printed to rescue the impaired banks that loaned on non-existent assets, then prices rise after a short selling panic.
Fade the selloff.
if you had a lot of something that people want, which is selling at barely a profit to you, because of central bank policy, and you perceived that policy was about to end, and hyperinflation was the result, would you sell that thing today when tomorrow it would worth 10X that amount? assets are being taken off the market, if you want gold, bitchez, buy it now
" Why does this depress the price of said goods? There's a hundred times less of the goods than was thought to be in existance. "
True, but consider WHY people were buying goods. Forget about commodities and think about houses. We're all buying houses. I borrow against the house and spend it. I find that I can borrow against the same house multiple times, from multiple banks, leading to multiple banks thinking they own my house at the same time. Knowing that I can do this, I want to buy another house and borrow against that house 5 times. Why stop there? I should buy more houses and borrow against those. I'm not even sure if I'm buying actual houses. I'm just buying a piece of paper from some guy who says he's selling a house, and I use that house (that I've never physically seen) to get several new mortgages. Being able to use the house (or copper/gold/silver) to scam banks is the source of demand. When this ponzi scheme ends, the price of houses completely crashes because I no longer have a reason to buy six unoccupied houses, nor does anyone else. 100 houses on paper turn out to be 10 real houses, and all 10 of them are worthless because nobody had any intention of living in them.
This also leads to a credit crunch. Ponzi finance is sustainable as long as credit is continually expanding. My income isn't enough to pay 5 mortgages on the same house, but what I can do is mortgage it again to another bank then use that credit to pay the interest on the loans I've already taken out. When banks start asking for paperwork, the game ends. I can't pay these mortgages, so I default. Now 5 or more banks are all trying to take ownership of my house. 4 of them will walk away with nothing, marking it down as a complete loss because I can't pay them and there's no collateral. Suddenly these banks are insolvent. All of their liabilities still exist, but what they thought existed as assets do not exist. This is what happened to Lehman Brothers. This starts a chain reaction because banks owe money to depositors and other banks. Bank A might be holding preferred shares of Bank B and using that as Tier 1 capital. When that goes to zero, Bank A is insolvent. This goes on and on.
This is why it's best to avoid creating credit bubbles. They always lead to severe deflation, and people are forced to liquidate assets because there's a complete lack of credit. If you're smart enough to cash out before it pops, you can buy all kinds of stuff for pennies on the dollar. If you are stuck with the bag, you're the poor guy selling everything for pennies on the dollar.
+1. Spungo. Best translation/clarification yet. Nice job.
Excellent summation, needs to be brought out a bit farther though. Please outline the gov't/fed reaction to said credit bubble bursting since they require about 3 trillion/year in tax receipts and printing to exist? Please outline the result of said reaction with respect to currency valuations and the ability to secure oil and other necessary imports?
Nice write up.
Hell of a way to run a financial system.
I have always said the engineering equivalent is a bridge that fails if it is full. 99% of the time it is never full, so it never fails. But the time when it needs to be the strongest is the time when you are certain it would fail.
The guy who built the Tacoma Narrows bridge took the honerable path and committed suicide.
I am expecting the FED and Banksters to do the same thing. Any guesses how long I will be waiting?
For some reason when I read these "bronze swan" postings I have this BK post from September 2012 about IRS tax changes on commodity investing by Mutual Funds in the back of my mind:
"$50Bn of Commodity Investment at Risk?"
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-09-18/50bn-commodity-investmen...
Baammmm! Fortune cookies for everyone!
as ususal i will not get the story, just wondering if they learned from goldmans wrehouses.
meaning the western warehouse system established in US is as hollow as the chinese?
but they missed the point that everything missing gets actually declared as en route to another warehouse.
Hey man! what did Rebar ever do to you?!
Keep your building in one piece as it fell over? Show some respect!!!
"... in gruesome detail ... despite repeated warnings ... the hot ... inflows ... aggressively expanded into ... weird and wacky ... palm oil, rubber ....
To be sure this was largely ... overnight .... when ... that ... hard asset is now ... taking advantage of ... its epic ... bubble ... the fourth ... just released ... a signal ... to increase ... the hot ... inflow pressure gradually."
p.s. Perhaps my speed-reading course was a waste of money.
Funny.
In 2006 it was over valued mortgages.
Now it's no-value collateral.
Guess these loans won't be getting paid back. Whoopsie!!!!
This shouldn't cause much of a ripple effect.
Chinese make good fall guys. I bet they are the only ones doing this. LMFAO!!!!! Yep, no one else is doing it.
I just spoke to Blythe. I reminded her that alumina is already a synthetic material.
"Yes yes darling. That is why I'm so comfortable with it. Isn't this fun?! - Didn't I say you had chosen the wrong career?"
meanwhile HK futures flying
because in china, qingdao is like a molehill on a mountain
>>>
...weird and wacky commodities such the abovementioned soybeans, palm oil...
<<<
_weird_, _wacky_, _soybeans_, _palm oil_?
Try googling 'Tino De Angelis' or 'Salad Oil Scandal'.
Nothing ever changes, I really ought to charge for my memory...
Watson
just pretend it never happened like we do in the usa. problem solved.
Copper has been rising since this missing copper scandal started in March. The commercials are going longer. Don't believe this nonsense that missing supply means lower prices. 2 months ago they were spinning it that these deals were some financing deal that would unwind and all the supply would hit the market, crushing it. Now we find out all the metal is missing and prices are still supposed to fall. The fact is these are simple import export deals where the product was never delivered. That's it. They will have to buy it back. This all comes from Goldman being short copper and at the same time unable to deliver any of it from their warehouses. They are just scared and cornered. Goldman and the other sellers of stuff they don't own cannot just walk away from this. They execute people for this kind of thing in China.
HehHeh-at the end of the day the Western Bankers have been trading against what's left of cultural Judeo-Christian restraint in the USA/Europe.
SE Asia/Chinese are not so "constrained"-as any serviceman serving in the South Pacific after 1940 can tell you
The chinese invented many things including corruption and taxes. HSBC leads the way!
Sh et I wish I knew who hacked my account and took all my Bitcoins couple weeks back not that it would do me any good at this point.
nothing is missing.... it was phoney documentation used to create false inventory and pump money out of china.... sukka
like sending shiploads of sheep to the ayatollah that never existed...
or making trainload of aluminum ingots disappear in moscow..
PAPER TRUMPS PHYSICAL EVERY TIME... oh yeah when is germany getting its gold back... LOL
Even if none of these were missing, you still have to wonder about how many times stuff was re-hypothecated.
I guess if one re-hypothecates something that did not exist in the first place we should expect an exponential increase, or perhaps that is too conservative?
Since I am not a Princeton educated economist, I also wonder how great an amount of liquidity will be removed from China's economy if loans based on supposed commodities existence were to stop being made? One might imagine that their central bank will find itself forced to print more to fill that vacuum.