New Zealand

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When most people think of Brazil, it’s the incredible beaches that come to mind. Or the crazy parties of Carnival. Or the spectacular vistas and great weather. Or how indescribably gorgeous (and welcoming) the locals are. But here’s a little known fact, and it’s something that sets Brazil apart from most other places: Brazil’s constitution prohibits the extradition of Brazilian citizens to other countries. This is a rare gem in the world… I’ll explain.

A month ago we ended up with the hilarious situation where the US was actively considering releasing petroleum from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve even as China was demonstratively and concurrently adding to its strategic inventory. Now, as the developed world is seeing day after day of gold hammering on amusing flights of fancy that central banks won't be forced to engage in more and ever bigger rounds of monetary dilution, and where the seller apparently has no regard for getting a "good" price, but merely seeks to crash the bid stack slams various PM prices, we see the same inversion with gold. Because as Bloomberg reports, "Mainland China's gold imports from Hong Kong surged more than sixfold in the first quarter, to 156 metric tons, adding to signs that the country may displace India as the world's largest consumer of the precious metal on an annual basis." And the punchline: "The purchases through Hong Kong may signal that the mainland is accumulating reserves, London-based brokerage Sharps Pixley Ltd. said in February. The nation last made its reserves known more than two years ago, stating them at 1,054 tons." Yep ladies and gents: the PBOC is very grateful that it can add hundreds of tons of gold to its reserve holdings in a stealthy operation which it will announce only after its conclusion, at which point, like true 13F chasing lemmings, retail will send gold soaring. But in the meantime, dear hedge funds worried about your margin calls and 1 month performance reports, please proceed calmly along with the lemming herd, and keep pushing gold lower and cheaper for our new Chinese overlords, and for everyone else who, without P&L timing constraints, takes delight in such brief arbitrage opportunities.

While Charlie Munger has so far to comment on the 24K content of made in the basement tribalware, he and his partner have made quite a few other statements on items ranging far and wide, during the annual Berkshire Omaha convention, which year after year represents the annual pilgrimage for thousands to a crony capitalist Mecca, and which with the passage of time, has become increasingly more irrelevant. Why? Because with a $58 billion bet (on $37.8 billion in cash and equivalents) that asset prices will go higher, it is rather clear on what side of the 'bail out' argument, and its 'all in' fallback: central planning, Warren Buffett sits. 

While much of the panel's discussion is the somewhat typical growth, recovery, global diversification mantra of a homogenized investment community, The Milken Institute's 'Reading The Tea-Leaves' panel was dominated by some deeper thoughts from John Rutledge of Safanad SA. John sees the world not as a series of equilibria like any and every mainstream economist but the exact opposite with earthquakes and tsunamis capable of occurring at any time. In three-and-a-half minutes, Rutledge analogizes investing today as "living on the crust of a molten marshmallow" and notes that 'investing' to him now is "trying to figure out situations in which some stupid policy has created a big wedge between returns on different assets that causes people to redeploy capital" and that is what moves prices. Claiming that the two most destructive inventions of the twentieth century were Modern Macroeconomics and Modern Portfolio Theory (which have caused more loss of wealth than anything else he knows), the optimistic father-of-six goes on to discuss the three storm systems that must be navigated in the world currently: 1) Europe; 2) China's growth; 3) the extraordinary growth of Central Bank balance sheets. He concludes with some insights into why not to own bonds and what bonds say about scarcity of future cash-flows, and sees the greatest risk today is that "investors are mentally unprepared for the world we invest in"

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Why America is extremely vulnerable to BSE. At a steep cost to the beef industry.

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All you need to read.

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No, it’s not Greece Prime Minister and bankster puppet Lucas Papadermos who serves his former masters at Goldman Sachs rather than the people of the country he was “appointed” to lead.  No, it’s not German Chancellor Angela Merkel who is putting the interests of the banks and bailout recipients above her fellow Germans at the risk of a continually devaluing euro.  And no, it’s not European Central Bank president Mario Draghi whose cheap euro policies are propping up both the banking sector and governments of the periphery at the expense of capital investment in sectors that would result in actual wealth creation rather than sustaining a clearly unsustainable status quo. Meet Ed Houben.  He is not solely responsible for the slow implosion of the poster boy of New World Order also known as the Eurozone, but the results of his career certainly play a part.  So who is Ed Houben? Well, he is not a politician buying votes with stolen funds.  Nor is he a banker looking to use taxpayers to cover his poor investments.  Mr. Houben is just a lowly entrepreneur.  His business just happens to be in putting a strain on the various welfare states which permeate throughout the Eurozone. Ed Houben is a sperm donor; but he is not just any sperm donor.  The “fruits of his labor,” pardon the phrase, have thus far granted him 82 children; with at least 10 more on the way.

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Last week, when we commented on the amusing spread between the Chinese PMI as measured by HSBC on one hand (plunging) and the official number (soaring), we had one very simple explanation for this divergence: "the Schrödinger paradox - where the economy was doing better and worse at the same time - which was experienced for the past three months in the US (and is now finished with the economy rolling over), has shifted to Shanghai, where it is now the PBOC's turn to baffle all with bullshit. Why? One simple reason: despite what everyone believes, China still has residual and quite strong pockets of inflation. So while the world may be expecting an RRR, or even interest rate, cut any second now (just as China surprised everyone literally house before the November the global FX swap line expansion by the Fed in November 2011), the PBOC is just not sure it can afford the spike in inflation, or even perception thereof." It appears we were correct, following the just released Chinese CPI number, which in March printed at a far greater than expected 3.6%, on expectations of a 3.4% print, and well above the February 3.2%.