Fail

Your article gives the appearance of having been ghost written by Andrew Levander and/or the JP Morgan legal department.

Back in January 2010, when in complete disgust of the farce that the market has become, and where fundamentals were completely trumped by central bank intervention, we said, that "Zero Hedge long ago gave up discussing corporate fundamentals due to our long-held tenet that currently the only relevant pieces of financial information are contained in the Fed's H.4.1, H.3 statements." This capitulation in light of the advent of the Central Planner of Last Resort juggernaut was predicated by our belief that ever since 2008, the only thing that would keep the world from keeling over and succumbing to the $20+ trillion in excess debt (excess to a global debt/GDP ratio of 180%, not like even that is sustainable!) would be relentless central bank dilution of monetary intermediaries, read, legacy currencies, all to the benefit of hard currencies such as gold. Needless to say gold back then was just over $1000. Slowly but surely, following several additional central bank intervention attempts, the world is once again starting to realize that everything else is noise, and the only thing that matters is what the Fed, the ECB, the BOE, the SNB, the PBOC and the BOJ will do. Which brings us to today's George Glynos, head of research at Tradition, who basically comes to the same conclusion that we reached 2 years ago, and which the market is slowly understand is the only way out today (not the relentless bid under financial names). The note's title? "If 2011 was the year of the eurozone crisis, 2012 will be the year of the central banks." George is spot on. And it is this why we are virtually certain that by the end of the year, gold will once again be if not the best performing assets, then certainly well north of $2000 as the 2009-2011 playbook is refreshed. Cutting to the chase, here are Glynos' conclusions.

Counterfeiting is illegal because it is the false creation of value. The counterfeiter takes low-value paper and turns it into high-value money, which is fundamentally a claim on the real productive value of the economy that issues the currency and recognizes it as a proxy means of exchanging that productive value. Counterfeiting is illegal because the counterfeiter creates no additional value--he creates only the proxy for value. Creating real value--adding meaningful goods or services to the economy--is tedious, hard work. How much easier to simply transform near-worthless paper into a claim on actual goods and services.  If this is illegal, then would somebody please arrest the Board of the Federal Reserve for counterfeiting? The Fed has blatantly printed money without creating any real value to back up their added claims on productive value. Hence they are counterfeiting, pure and simple. A government based on rule of law would arrest these fraudsters and cons at the earliest possible convenience.

Whowouldathunk it - beggars can be choosers. The country which just slashed its economic outlook, and which depends on GermAAAn capital and goodwill to preserve its well-being in the Eurozone, has just decided to pull a good gendarme to Germany's bad [insert the blank] and has voiced its opposition to German demands stripping Greece of its fiscal sovereignty.

• SARKOZY REJECTS GREECE CEDING BUDGET MANAGEMENT TO EU
• SARKOZY SAYS NO QUESTION OF PUTTING GREECE `UNDER TUTELAGE'
• SARKOZY SAYS EU TAKEOVER OF GREECE WOULD NOT BE REASONABLE, "DEMOCRATIC"

Nice try Sarko: somehow we fail to see how FraAAnce's opinion is even remotely relevant in future European decision making at this point. But an admirable attempt by the future ex-president to go for the solidarity bonus points.

That the fine economists at the San Fran Fed are known to spend good taxpayer money in order to solve such challenging white paper conundrums as whether water is wet, or whether a pound of air is heavier than a pound of lead (see here and here) has long been known. Furthermore, since the fine economists at said central planning establishment happen to, well, be economists, they without fail frame each problem in such a goal-seeked way that only allows for one explanation: typically the one that economics textbooks would prescribe as having been the explanation to begin with. Today, is in some ways a departure from the default assumptions. In a paper titled "Why is Unemployment Duration so Long", a question which simply requires a brief jog outside of one's ivory tower to obtain the answer, Rob Valleta and Katherin Kuang, manage to actually surprise us. And while we will suggest readers read the full paper attached below at their leisure, we cut straight to the conclusions, which has some troubling observations. Namely, they find that "the labor market has changed in ways that prevent the cyclical bounceback in the labor market that followed past recessions...  In addition, anecdotal evidence suggests that recent employer reluctance to hire reflects an unusual degree of uncertainty about future growth in product demand and labor costs."Oddly enough, this is actually a correct assessment: the mean reversion "model" no longer works as the entire system has now broken, and since the administration changes rules from one day to the next, companies are not only not investing in their future and spending capital for expansion, and hoarding cash, but have no interest in hiring: an observation that previously led to a surge in profit margins, yet one which as we pointed out over the weekend, has now peaked, and margins have begun rolling over, even as the rate of layoffs continues to be at abnormally high levels, meaning all the fat has now been cut out of the system. Yet it is the following conclusive statement that is most troubling: "These special factors are not readily addressed through conventional monetary or fiscal policies." And that is the proverbial "changeover" as the Fed has just acknowledged that both it, and Congress, are completely powerless at fixing the unemployment situation. In which case is it fair to finally demand that the Fed merely focus on just one mandate - that of controlling inflation, and leave the jobs question to the market, instead of making it worse with constant central planning tinkering which only makes it worse by the day?

What is the bottom line?  The stark decline in the BDI today should be taken very seriously.  Most similar declines have occurred right before or in tandem with economic instability and stock market upheaval.  All the average person need do is look around themselves, and they will find a European Union in the midst of detrimental credit downgrades and on the verge of dissolving.  They will find the U.S. on the brink of yet another national debt battle and hostage to a private Federal Reserve which has announced the possibility of a third QE stimulus package which will likely be the last before foreign creditors begin dumping our treasuries and our currency in protest.  They will find BRIC and ASEAN nations moving quietly into multiple bilateral trade agreements which cut out the use of the dollar as a world reserve completely.  Is it any wonder that the Baltic Dry Index is in such steep deterioration? Along with this decline in global demand is tied another trend which many traditional deflationists and Keynesians find bewildering; inflation in commodities.  Ultimately, the BDI is valuable because it shows an extreme faltering in the demand for typical industrial materials and bulk items, which allows us to contrast the increase in the prices of necessities.  Global demand is waning, yet prices are holding at considerably high levels or are rising (a blatant sign of monetary devaluation).  Indeed, the most practical conclusion would be that the monster of stagflation has been brought to life through the dark alchemy of criminal debt creation and uncontrolled fiat stimulus.  Without the BDI, such disaster would be much more difficult to foresee, and far more shocking when its full weight finally falls upon us.  It must be watched with care and vigilance...

For better or worse, all of last year had Merkel and Sarkozy on the same page.  Saying whatever it took to calm markets.  They didn’t really spend a whole lot of time worrying about their own citizens.  With the elections coming up, expect more negative and potentially confusing headlines to come out of Europe. Does Germany really want to control the Greek budget process? Sarkozy wants to “unilaterally” impose a financial transaction tax in France by August. That is the problem, what the politicians have to say to appease the voters is not always what the financial markets want to hear. The EU continues to try and perpetrate the myth that Greece is unique and that Portugal is different. Portugal has the benefit of being smaller, but they are next in line for principal write-downs (or whatever they are calling haircuts now).

Unconstitutional ... in any language.

That Europe has been unable to do the simplest thing, and come to a conclusion in its negotiation with Greek creditors, now running into its six month, is not very surprising. After all this is Europe, where nothing gets done before the deadline, only in the case of Greece the deadline also means the risk of runaway contagion. And as of today there are about 53 days left before the March 20 Greek D-Day. Yet the one thing European should at least be able to do is to have their story straight on what happens once Greece defaults. If nothing else, to show solidarity for optics' sake. Alas, it can't even do that. Because just overnight we have two diametrically opposing stories hitting the tape. On one hand we have Spanish economic minister Luis de Guindos telling Bloomberg TV in Davos that the euro region could withstand a Greek default. This is very much in line with the Jamie Dimon line of thinking that there will be limited fallout. Yet on the other hand, it is that perpetual bag of hot air, Europe's very own head propaganda master Jean Claude Juncker, who ironically told Le Figaro that a Greek default must be avoided at all costs as it would lead to Contagion (read tipping dominoes all over the place). Too bad that both Fitch and S&P said that a Greek default at this juncture is inevitable. And while Juncker's statement in itself is absolutely true, the fact that discord is appearing at the very core of European propaganda - the one place it can afford to stay united until the very end - is troubling indeed. Especially since Juncker also told Le Figaro that Germany can not be asked to do everything alone. Is that a quiet request for the Fed to keep bailing out Europe since the ECB apparently has no interest in doing so?

For breathtakingly stupid political ideas and catastrophic “solutions” to America’s biggest problems, it’s hard to beat the New York Times op-ed page.  There, joined by such jihadists of the Left as Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd, resides the peerlessly wrong-headed economist Paul Krugman, whose Nobel Prize was as well-deserved as the one Yasser Arafat received for helping to bring Peace to the world. Until yesterday, we might have thought Krugman had cornered the market for the absolute worst ideas on how to revive the economy.

• BOJ Should Be Allowed $643 Billion Fund to Buy Foreign Bonds, Iwata Says (Bloomberg)
• Banks Hoarding ECB Cash May Double Company Defaults (Bloomberg)
• China Police Open Fire on Tibetans as Protests Spread (Bloomberg)
• Sarkozy Presidential Rival Hollande Would Lower Retirement Age, Lift Taxes (Bloomberg)
• IMF takes tougher stance over Greek debt (FT)
• Iran threatens to act first on EU embargo (FT)
• PM says ‘no complacency’ on economy (FT)
• George Soros: How to pull Italy and Spain back from the edge (FT)
• Japan's NEC to slash 10,000 jobs (Reuters)
• Obama Planning Corporate Tax Overhaul (Bloomberg)

For a new investor in gold and silver, here is the most lucid piece of advice I can offer. Identifying severe undervaluation points in gold and silver, buying gold and silver assets during these times, and not worrying about interim short-term volatility, even if the immediate volatility is downward, is much more likely to impact your accumulation of wealth in a positive manner than trying to perfectly time market tops and bottoms in the highly manipulated gold and silver game.

Easily the best news of the day:

GEITHNER SAYS OBAMA WOULDN'T ASK HIM TO STAY FOR A SECOND TERM - BBG

Oh well, life is tough. Surely that basement office at Goldman Sachs will have some daylight and a TruboTax manual to make post-administrative life bearable for Geithner.

Even as the Euro-Dollar 3 Month basis swap has contracted to a nearly 6 month low at -75 bps, on residual hopes that the LTRO will do anything to fix Europe (it won't - just compare it to the €442 billion 1 year LTRO from June 2009 which worked until it didn't for the simple reason that Europe does does not have a liquidity problem), Europe has once again reemerged as a source of risk off (not least of all because the fulcrum security benefiting from the LTRO - the Italian 2 year BTP is for the first time in weeks wider by 17 bps). Why? The same reason as always: Greece, with a touch of Portugal. As BBG observes the positive sentiment in Asia earlier was retraced in the European session, with commodities, FX, equities lower, especially after ECB demurred from accepting losses on its Greek bond holdings. What that means is that as we patiently explained over the weekend, the imminent Greek default (just listen to Soros over in Davos spewing fire and brimstone on Europe for allowing the situation to get to a place where a Greek default is inevitable) will create so many subordinated junior tranches of Greek debt it will make one's head spin. But while the fate of Greece is all but sealed, and a CDS triggered virtually factored in (note: a Greek CDS trigger, in isolation, won't have much of an impact as repeated here before - in fact it will return some normalcy to the market as CDS will be a hedging vehicle once again over ISDA's corrupt trampled corpse), it is what happens to Portugal and its bonds that has the market gasping for air. Because as Zero Hedge pointed out first, a Greek default will be impossible to be enacted in Portugal in its currently envisioned format, as stupid as it may be. In fact, due to the pervasive and broad negative pledges in most medium-term Portuguese bonds, any priming Troika bailout is impossible without providing matching collateral for everyone else under UK indenture bonds!

In case one was wondering how the Goldman trading team was axed in Apple, we now know that they are pushing their inventory of stock in the name out of the door and to clients harder than ever, having just released a forecast with a $600 price target. However, with nearly 200 hedge fund holders in the name, and pregnant to the teeth in the stock, we fail to find who the incremental buyer of GS' AAPL stock will be.