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Iraq quadrupled its gold holdings to 31.07 tonnes over the course of three months between August and October, data from the International Monetary Fund showed on yesterday. The IMF's monthly statistics report showed the country's holdings increased by some 23.9 tonnes in August to 29.7 tonnes. That was followed by a 2.3-tonne rise in September to 32.09 tonnes and then a cut of 1.02 tonnes in October to 31.07 tonnes.  There was no data for November. It is Iraq's first major move in years to bolster its gold reserves. More recently, Brazil raised its gold holdings by 14.68 tonnes, or 28 percent, in November, bringing its bullion reserves to 67.19 tonnes. The addition comes on the heels of an even bigger increase in October when the South American country added 17.17 tonnes to its reserves. In September, it  increased holdings by 2 tonnes. Meanwhile Turkey cut its gold holdings last month by 5.84 tonnes to 314 tonnes from October. The country allows commercial banks to use gold as collateral for loans, and changes to its balance sheet are often connected to such activity.

• This is signal, the rest is noise: Russia's Putin set for stand-off with EU on Syria, energy (Reuters)
• Boehner's Budget 'Plan B' Collapses (WSJ)
• Boehner has few options in "fiscal cliff" mess (Reuters)
• Maya "end of days" fever reaches climax in Mexico (Reuters)
• Monti Praised by Merkel Favored Less by Taxed Italians (BusinessWeek)
• China probes Yum Brands' KFC over safety of chicken productsa (Reuters)
• Looting in Aregentina: 400 Border Guard officials deployed to Bariloche over looting (BAH)
• Regulatory 'Whale' Hunt Advances - Comptroller Expected to Take Formal Action Regarding JPM's Trading Fiasco (WSJ) - but no punishment
• U.K. Banks Seen Sacrificing Lending to Meet BOE Demand (Bloomberg)
• US banks face rise in bad loans cover (FT)
• Daily Gun Slaughter in U.S. Obscured by Newtown Rampage (BBG)
• China Restricts Bond Sales by Risker Companies (BBG)

The Bernanke Banking Put enriched the banks, extended the unemployment line, and created a margin call in the retail specialty sector. All in a days work.

Silver will rise as much as 29% to $40.25/oz, from $31.10/oz today, in 2013. This is based on the median estimate of 49 analysts, traders and investors compiled by Bloomberg. Global investment through silver backed exchange traded products reached a record 18,854 metric tons in November, or more than nine months of mine output, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Holdings are now valued at about $19.2 billion. Bullion dealers all over the world report robust demand for silver and there has been a shift in many Asian and Middle Eastern markets from gold to silver - due to silver's relative cheapness and undervaluation versus gold. According to Bloomberg, one of Singapore’s largest suppliers of coins and bars to retail investors, says sales tripled since October, part of a global surge in demand for silver that drove holdings to a record.

Think consumers paid enough from higher interest Libor rate rigged by banks?  Small case compared to the rigging in the oil and gasoline markets.  

Treasuries have sold off aggressively over the past 2 weeks.  Is it time for that trade to reverse to New Years??

EU confidence sparks a Euro bull run. Both the EU’s strongest and weakest economies are positively shifting. The S&P has lifted Greece’s credit rating by 5 notches to a “B minus”, and Germany’s IFO survey came in strong for the second month running indicating that business sentiment is on the rise.

• Republicans put squeeze on Obama in "fiscal cliff" talks (Reuters)
• Inquiry harshly criticizes State Department over Benghazi attack (Reuters)
• Banks See Biggest Returns Since ’03 as Employees Suffer (BBG)
• Italy president urges election be held on time (Reuters)
• Bank of England Says Sterling Hurting Economy (WSJ) - there's an app for that, it's called a Goldman BOE chairman
• China slowdown hits Indonesian farmers (FT)
• China dispute hits Japanese exports (FT)
• Market to get even more monopolized by the HFT king: Getco wins Knight with $2 bln sweetened offer (Reuters)
• MF Global Cases Focus on 'Letters' (WSJ)
• UBS fined $1.5 billion in growing Libor scandal (Reuters)
• Spotlight swings to interdealer brokers (FT)
• China Widens Access to Capital Markets (WSJ)
• With Instagram, Facebook Spars With Twitter (WSJ)

While parts of the world experience economic hardship, a team of Portuguese, UK, Japanese, Italian and Dutch astronomers has found an even bigger slump happening on a cosmic scale. In the largest ever study of its kind, the international team of astronomers has established that the rate of formation of new stars in the Universe is now only 1/30th of its peak and that this decline is only set to continue. The team, led by David Sobral of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, publish their results in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society… Dr Sobral comments: “You might say that the universe has been suffering from a long, serious “crisis”: cosmic GDP output is now only 3% of what it used to be at the peak in star production!”

In March 2012, Okayama Metal & Machinery became the first Japanese pension fund to make public purchases of gold, in a sign of dwindling faith in paper currencies. Okayama manages pension funds for about 260 small and mid-sized companies in the Okayama area. "By diversifying currencies, we aim to reduce risks associated with them," said Yoshi Kiguchi, the fund's chief investment officer. "Yields become stable if you put small amounts into as many types of holdings as possible." Of its 40 billion yen ($477 million) in assets, the fund has invested around ¥500 million-¥600 million in gold, he said. Initially, the fund aims to keep about 1.5% of its total assets of Y40bn ($500m) in bullion-backed exchange traded funds, according to chief investment officer Yoshisuke Kiguchi, who said he was diversifying into gold to “escape sovereign risk”. Other pension funds in Japan are following their lead according to the Wall Street Journal. Japanese pension funds are diversifying into gold "largely to mitigate the damage from possible market shocks"... Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation said it has secured more than Y2 billion in investments from two pension funds for a gold fund it started in March.

What happened on December 14, 2012 was obviously a horrific tragedy that my simple mind can’t possibly wrap itself around, but what I can do is send my deepest thoughts, prayers and sympathies to all of those affected.  I can’t imagine the level of pain and suffering you are all experiencing.  This article; however, isn’t directed at you.  There is nothing I can do to ease your pain.  This article is for the rest of us who weren’t directly affected by the incident, but may be indirectly affected by certain parties’ emotional response to it and by those that will exploit it to justify agendas.

Isn't it amazing that you can get more notoriety for showing your ass and a pretty smile than you can get for outing the scam of the decade through intellectual analysis? More money was lost through the Facebook scam IPO at $38 than Bernie Madoff could ever have pulled off.

Update 3: Final sequence of events: as we expected, cops confuse name, CNN reports it, and media goes wild. From the AP: "Adam Lanza's older brother, Ryan, 24, of Hoboken, N.J., is being questioned by police, said the first official. Earlier, a law enforcement official mistakenly transposed the brothers' first names."

Update: the reason for the confusion is that the first name reported today by CNN and promptly carried by the rest of the media, Ryan Lanza, may be incorrect, and should likely be Adam Lanza. At this point until the police correctly identify the suspect it is probably best to ignore all further updates from CNN or otherwise on the matter.

The shooter has been idenitifed by CNN as one Ryan Lanza, 24, out of New Jersey. A quick Facebook scan has identified one Mr. Ryan Lanza in the 18-24 year old age group, out of Hoboken, NJ who lists Newtown, CT as his home city. There is one unconfirmed account of a suspect born in Newtown, CT and currently living in Hoboken, NJ, although it appears it is not the suspect in question. The mother of the suspect was a teacher at the Sandy Hook school, and she is among the dead.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip visited the Bank of England’s gold vault and wonders like most people how the things got so bad.   Back in 2008, when the monarch visited the London School of Economics she described the credit crunch as ‘awful.’ .  Fast forward to 2012, the heart of Europe’s  4 year-old debt crisis while the Queen of England hears a financial expert compare the debt crisis to a flu epidemic or an earthquake, as hard to predict. This comparison is truly patronizing and an insult to the Queen’s intelligence. Although I am not English have some respect for your elders, especially your Queen, Britons!  Pensioners in England can recall hard times during the World War when items like sugar were a luxury.  In this new era of credit you have people complaining if they can’t borrow to have their new BMW financed to match their Cotswold’s country house or Spanish holiday home. The Queen was informed that since financial risk has been managed better (need we mention Libor?) than it was in the past, people became complacent.  She smiled and said, ‘But people had got a bit...lax, had they?’  Her Royal Highness also suggested that the Financial Services Authority may not have been hard-line enough in its policing. She said: ‘The Financial Services – what do they call themselves, the regulators – Authority, which was really quite new … it didn’t have any teeth.’ It’s rather ironic that the tour showed the gold vault since a good portion of the UK gold reserves were sold off from 1999-2002, when gold prices were at their lowest in 20 years. 

The most commonly forwarded arguments against the implementation of a true 100% gold-backed sound money system can easily be disproven and thoroughly debunked with a small dose of history and another dose of logic.