The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. – Benjamin Franklin
– ??Stock exchange glitch cost U.S. trading firm $440m in just a few minutes and could lead to its bankruptcy (Daily Mail, Updated Aug 3, 2012):
The largest U.S. trader of equities on Wall Street, Knight Capital Group Inc was fighting for its survival on Thursday after a trading glitch wiped out $440 million of the firm’s capital, leaving it on the edge of bankruptcy.
The massive capital loss has forced the $1.5 billion firm to seek new funding as its shares plunged 70 percent in two days.
– Greece agrees to £9bn ‘troika’ cuts (Telegraph, Aug 2, 2012):
Greek political leaders have agreed to €11.5bn (£9bn) of austerity cuts demanded under its bailout terms, opening the way for a deal with foreign lenders within the month, Greek officials said.
The junior partners in the conservative-led coalition government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras set aside demands for an immediate renegotiation of the terms of the deal to ease talks with the troika of IMF and EU lenders.
With €3.2bn-worth of bond payments due in August, the clock is ticking for Greece to please visiting troika inspectors, who will rule on whether Athens gets more cash from its €130bn bailout.
Read moreGreece: Political Leaders Agree To €11.5 BILLION ‘Troika’ Cuts
In other news:
– Facebook share price hits all time LOW – nearly half value at float – after revealing it has more than 83million FAKE accounts (Daily Mail Aug 2, 2012)
Facebook has said that 8.7% of its 955m global users are duplicate accounts, pages for pets and those designed for spam. Photograph: Karen Bleier/Getty
– Facebook quarterly report reveals 83m profiles are fake (Guardian Aug 3, 2012):
Facebook has more than 83m fake profiles, including millions created for users’ pets and a large number of accounts the company deems “undesirable”, it has admitted.
The figure emerged in Facebook’s first quarterly report to US financial regulators since the world’s biggest social network made its much-criticised stock market debut in May.
The company said 8.7% of its 955m global users were not real.
There were 83.09m fake users in total, which Facebook classifies into three groups. The largest is made up of almost 46m duplicate profiles, accounting for 4.8% of all accounts. The company defined that category as “an account that a user maintains in addition to his or her principal account”.
Read moreFacebook Admits More Than 83 Million Profiles Are Fake
– Spain And Italy Are Toast Unless Germany Allows The ECB To Print Trillions Of Euros (Economic Collapse, Aug 2, 2012):
The financial chess game in Europe is still being played out, but in the end it is going to boil down to one very fundamental decision. Is Germany going to allow the ECB to print up trillions of euros and use those euros to buy up the sovereign debt of troubled eurozone members such as Spain and Italy or not? Nothing short of this is going to solve the problems in Europe. You can forget the ESM and the EFSF. Anyone that thinks they are going to solve the problems in Europe is someone that would also take a water pistol to fight a raging wildfire. No, the only thing that is going to keep Spain and Italy from collapsing under the weight of a mountain of debt is a financial nuke. The ECB needs to have the power to print up trillions of euros and use that money to buy up massive amounts of sovereign debt in order to guarantee that Spain and Italy will be able to borrow lots more money at very low interest rates. In fact, this is probably what European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has in mind when he says that he is going to “do whatever it takes to preserve the euro”. However, there is one giant problem. The ECB is not going to be able to do this unless Germany allows them to. And after enduring the horror of hyperinflation under the Weimar Republic, Germany is not too keen on introducing trillions upon trillions of new euros into the European economy. If Germany allows the ECB to go down this path, Germany will end up experiencing tremendous inflation and the only benefit for Germany will be that the eurozone was kept together. That doesn’t sound like a very good deal for Germany.
Right now, the yield on 10 year Spanish bonds is above 7 percent and the yield on 10 year Italian bonds is above 6 percent.
Those are unsustainable levels.
The only thing that is going to bring those bond yields down permanently to where they need to be is unlimited ECB intervention.
But that is not going to happen without German permission.
Meanwhile, the situation in Spain gets worse by the day.
An article in Der Spiegel recently described the slow motion bank run that is systematically ripping the Spanish banking system to shreds….
Capital outflows from Spain more than quadrupled in May to €41.3 billion ($50.7 billion) compared with May 2011, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Spanish central bank.
In the first five months of 2012, a total of €163 billion left the country, the figures indicate. During the same period a year earlier, Spain recorded a net inflow of €14.6 billion.
If those numbers sound really bad to you, that is because they are really bad.
At this point, authorities in Spain are starting to panic. According to Graham Summers, Spain has imposed the following new capital restrictions during the last month alone….
- A minimum fine of €10,000 for taxpayers who do not report their foreign accounts.
- Secondary fines of €5,000 for each additional account
- No cash transactions greater than €2,500
- Cash transaction restrictions apply to individuals and businesses
How would you feel if the U.S. government permanently banned all cash transactions greater than $2,500?
That is how crazy things have already become in Spain.
Read moreSpain And Italy Are Toast Unless Germany Allows The ECB To Print Trillions Of Euros
– The Fed’s Gold Is Being Audited… By The US Treasury (ZeroHedge, Aug 2, 2012):
When we started reading the LA Times article reporting that “the federal government has quietly been completing an audit of U.S. gold stored at the New York Fed” we couldn’t help but wonder when the gotcha moment would appear. It was about 15 paragraphs in that we stumbled upon what we were waiting for: “The process involved about half a dozen employees of the Mint, the Treasury inspector general’s office and the New York Fed. It was monitored by employees of the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm.” In other words the Fed’s gold is being audited… by the Treasury. Now our history may be a little rusty, but as far as we can remember, the last time the Fed was actually independent of the Treasury then-president Harry Truman fired not one but two Fed Chairmen including both Thomas McCabe as well as the man after whom the Fed’s current residence is named: Marriner Eccles, culminating with the Fed-Treasury “Accord” of March 3, 1951 which effectively fused the two entities into one – a quasi independent branch of the US government, which would do the bidding of its “political”, who in turn has always been merely a proxy for wherever the money came from (historically, and primarily, from Wall Street), which can pretend it is a “private bank” yet which is entirely subjugated to the crony interests funding US politicians (more on that below). But in a nutshell, the irony of the Treasury auditing the fed is like asking Libor Trade A to confirm that Libor Trader B was not only “fixing” the Libor rate correctly and accurately, but that there is no champagne involved for anyone who could misrepresent it the best within the cabal of manipulation in which the Nash Equilibrium was for everyone to commit fraud.
Far more importantly, for all those financial novices who fail to grasp the simplest relationship between assets and liabilities, the allegation expounded by the “conspiracy theorists”, as the LA Times calls them, has never been that the gold at the NY Fed is not there. It is by all means there: after all what safer place to keep it than 80 feet below the Federal Reserve itself, the same Fed which has exclusive access to the 1000+ strong Federeal Reserve Police whose “primary duty is to provide force protection to Federal Reserve facilities. Secondary responsibilities, depending on the particular location, may include liaison work with other law enforcement agencies and/or investigative work related to administrative matters.”
And not only the gold belonging to the US: it is well known that the bulk of Europe’s sovereign gold is also contained deep under downtown Manhattan: we wish them all the best when they attempt to repatriate the physical when they need it, such as the day after the EUR finally collapses.
No – what the “conspiracy theorists” allege is that claims existing in paper format on the physical gold held under Liberty 33 are orders of magnitude greater than the actual physical gold these claims supposedly have recourse to. Indeed, this too was a conspiracy theory until the failure of MF Global proved it to be a conspiracy “fact” and the entire asset-liability rehypothecation daisy-chain threatened to begin unwinding in November of 2011, at which point forced delivery of hard assets would expose the entire facade of the modern financial system to be a hollow sham.
So unless the Treasury will also conduct a full “audit” of every single paper trail and every physical bar is mapped to all of its existing obligors, then the entire operation is absolutely meaningless and simply a waste of taxpayer money. Because the physical gold may well be there (and furthermore it is the gold at Ft. Knox that was questionable; never the gold held by the Fed, but who cares about details). The problem is if the paper claims on this gold are far greater than the actual deliverable physical gold for that moment when the latest attempt to kick the can down the rehypothecated road finally fails.
Read moreAND NOW: The Fed’s Gold Is Being Audited … By The US Treasury
– Why Mega Banks Are The Modern Cocaine Cowboys (ZeroHedge, Aug 2, 2012):
In today’s episode of blast from the past, Bloomberg’s Jonathan Weil takes us on a time journey, which presents the Too Big To Fail bank problem from a different perspective: that of the Cocaine Cowboy roaming the streets of Miami in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Just like today’s big banks they were untouchable; just like today’s banks they were collaborating and existing in perfect symbiosis with the Federal Reserve; just like today the Cocaine Cowboys existed in an untouchable vacuum courtesy of endless bribes to the local law enforcement and judicial officials, and just like today, the TBTF institution du jour isn’t “merely an economic problem. It is a great moral failing of our society that poisons our democracy.” Back then, Ronald Reagan stepped in just when Miami (whose real estate market had soared in 1979-1981 courtesy of rampant crime and money laundering: hint hint NAR anti money-laundering exemptions) was about to be overrun, forming a task force that in the nick of time restored law and order. Today we are not that lucky, as there is not a single politican willing to risk it all just to eradicate the modern version of a classic scourge: only this time they don’t hand out 8 balls; they give away 0% introductory APR cards and 3 Year NINJA Adjustable Rate Mortgages. Both however get you hooked for life: either on drugs or on debt. Will someone step up this time and form a task force to eliminate the second coming of the Cocaine Cowboy? Sadly, we don’t think so. At least not until the next great crash happens.
From Jonathan Weil of Bloomberg:
Cocaine Cowboys Know Best Places to Bank
To grow up in South Florida during the 1970s and 1980s, as I did, wasn’t your typical American childhood experience. Back then the area was known as the most dangerous place in the country.
– San Bernardino, California, files for bankruptcy with over $1 billion in debts (Reuters, Aug 2, 2012):
San Bernardino filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday citing more than $1 billion of debts and making it the third California city to seek protection from creditors.
The city of about 210,000 residents 65 miles east of Los Angeles declared a fiscal crisis last month after a report said local government had tapped out its reserves and projected spending would top revenue by $45 million in the fiscal year that began on July 1.
The filing, made in the United States Bankruptcy Court, Central California District, states that the city has “more than $1 billion” in liabilities, and estimated that it has between 10,001 and 25,000 creditors.
Read moreCalifornia: San Bernardino Files For Bankruptcy With Over $1 BILLION In Debts
– RBS confirms it sacked staff over Libor affair (Reuters, Aug 3, 2012):
State-controlled Royal Bank of Scotland confirmed on Friday it has dismissed a number of employees for misconduct as a result of its investigations into the Libor interest rate rigging scandal and, along with other banks, is still under investigation by regulators.
– Deutsche Bank admits Libor involvement (Guardian, July 31, 2012):
Germany’s biggest bank faces regulatory action after admitting complicity in rate-fixing scandal along with Barclays
Germany’s biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, prepared the ground for regulatory action in the Libor rigging scandal by admitting that a “limited number” of its staff had been involved.
As Swiss bank UBS insisted it was not at the centre of the interest rate debacle, Deutsche said “action had been taken accordingly” against those staff found to have been involved. UBS, as the first bank to reveal the existence of investigations into Libor, is receiving leniency for co-operating with inquiries.
Read moreDeutsche Bank Admits Complicity In Libor Rate-Fixing Scandal
The number of the homeless families and individuals in England has surged by 25 percent in the recent three years, a new research shows.The number of homeless families and individuals in England has surged by a quarter in the recent three years, a new research warns.
According to data experts SSentif, the number of people classed as homeless and in need of emergency accommodation was 50,290 in 2011-12, showing an increase of over 25 percent when compared to 40,020 in 2009-10.
The research also found that regionally, the East of England faced the highest increase, with the number of cases increasing from 3,660 in 2009-10 to 5,270 in 2011-12, up by 44 percent.
Moreover, the figures revealed that the British government’s spending on tackling the problem of homelessness has dropped from £213.7m in 2009-10 to £199.8m in 2010-11.
Read moreUK Homeless Rate Surged By 25 Percent In The Last 3 Years
YouTube Added: 01.08.2012
– BNP Furious That Draghi “Jumped The Gun” (ZeroHedge, Aug 2, 2012)
– Hyper Mario And Germany On Verge Of All Out Warfare (ZeroHedge, Aug 2, 2012):
Back in March we wrote “Mario Draghi Is Becoming Germany’s Most Hated Man” for one reason: a few months after the former Goldman appartchik was sworn in to replace Trichet with promises he would not “print” Draghi did just that in a covert way via $1.3 trillion in LTROs, that immediately hit the economy and sent inflation across Europe soaring. We said that: “Slowly but surely the realization is dawning on Germany that while it was sleeping, perfectly confused by lies spoken in a soothing Italian accent that the ECB will not print, not only did Draghi reflate the ECB’s balance sheet by an unprecedented amount in a very short time, in the process not only sending Brent in Euros to all time highs (wink, wink, inflation, as today’s European CPI confirmed coming in at 2.7% or higher than estimated) but also putting the BUBA in jeopardy with nearly half a trillion in Eurosystem”receivables” which it will most likely never collect.”
Read moreHyper Mario And Germany On Verge Of All Out Warfare
GM’s CEO Dan Akerson said: ‘We have more work to do to offset the headwinds we face.’ Photograph: Jeff Kowalsky/EPA
– GM profits slip 41% as European struggles take their toll (Guardian, Aug 2, 2012):
General Motors’ profits fell 41% in the second quarter as troubles in Europe undercut strong sales in North America.
America’s largest automaker made $1.5bn in the second quarter of 2012, compared with $2.5bn for the same period last year. Revenue fell to $37.6bn from $39.4bn in the second quarter of 2011. The results exceeded analysts’ estimates, but further underlined Europe’s drag on the US economy.
“Our results in North America were solid, but we clearly have more work to do to offset the headwinds we face, especially in regions like Europe and South America,” said GM chairman and CEO Dan Akerson. “Despite the challenging environment, GM has now achieved 10 consecutive quarters of profitability, which is a milestone the company has not achieved in more than a decade.”
Read moreGM Profits Slip 41 Percent, European Division Reports Operating Loss Of $361 Million
– TEPCO receives $12.8 billion public bailout (AFP, July 30, 2012):
The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant was effectively nationalised Tuesday as it received one trillion yen ($12.8 billion) of taxpayer money to stay afloat.
The public bailout of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) in the wake of last year’s tsunami-triggered accident gives the government 50.11 percent of the utility’s voting rights.
And the deal has an option which allows the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund to raise the stake up to 75.84 percent to impose stronger control if TEPCO fails to push reforms.
The country’s biggest utility will remain under state control for a “considerably long period of time”, Yukio Edano, the minister of economy, trade and industry, told a news conference.
– ‘End of capitalism’: Bolivia to expel Coca-Cola in wake of 2012 Mayan ‘apocalypse’ (RT, Aug 1, 2012):
In a symbolic rejection of US capitalism, Bolivia announced it will expel the Coca-Cola Company from the country at the end of the Mayan calendar. This will mark the end of capitalism and usher in a new era of equality, the Bolivian govt says.
“December 21 of 2012 will be the end of egoism and division. December 21 should be the end of Coca-Cola,” Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca decreed, with bombast worthy of a viral marketing campaign.
The coming ‘end’ of the Mayan lunar calendar on December 21 of this year has sparked widespread doomsaying of an impending apocalypse. But Choquehuanca argued differently, claiming it will be the end of days for capitalism, not the planet.
“The planets will align for the first time in 26,000 years and this is the end of capitalism and the beginning of communitarianism,” said Choquehuanca as quoted by Venezuelan newspaper El Periodiquito.Read moreBolivia To Expel Coca-Cola In Wake Of 2012 Mayan ‘Apocalypse’
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
– Woodrow Wilson“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the Field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
– Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom (1913)“A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”
– Woodrow Wilson
– Mainstream Reporter Tells The Truth About Audit The Fed And The Creation Of The Federal Reserve (Economic Collapse, Aug 2, 2012):
When someone in the mainstream media goes out on a limb to tell the truth, then the rest of us should go out of our way to applaud that effort. Reporter Ben Swann of Fox 19 in Cincinnati is one of the few local television reporters in the United States that consistently tackles the tough issues. As you can see from his “Reality Check” archives, he regularly does reports on the Federal Reserve, the emerging police state, the loss of our freedoms and liberties, the advance of globalism, the economic collapse, political corruption, etc. etc. That is one reason why his YouTube channel is rapidly approaching a million views. In his most recent Reality Check, Ben Swann asked this question: “Is auditing the Federal Reserve really necessary?” In just four minutes, Swann covered the creation of the Federal Reserve, where money comes from, the 16 trillion dollars in secret loans given out by the Fed during the last financial crisis, and why an audit of the Fed is so important. It really was extraordinary to watch a local mainstream news reporter tell the truth about these things. We could definitely use about 1000 more reporters just like him.
The video of Ben Swann’s recent Reality Check is posted below. If you have not seen it yet, it is definitely worth the 4 minutes that it takes to watch it….
What in the world would this country look like if we had hundreds of other real journalists such as Ben Swann that were willing to tackle these kinds of issues head on?
Certainly nobody is perfect, but when a reporter like Swann is willing to go out on a limb and attack the Fed we need to applaud his efforts.
– Batman Massacre: WHY and HOW and WHO (Help Free The Earth, July 28, 2012)
– The Fed On Gold Price Manipulation (ZeroHedge, July 30, 2012):
Lately various media outlets have been swamped with stories and allegations of precious metal manipulation ranging from the arcane, to the bizarre to the outright ridiculous. At issue is not that these claims of price fraud are unfounded – they very well may be completely true – but without a notarized facsimile of an actual trade ticket signed by Brian Sack, or his replacement Simon Potter, or any of the BIS traders confirming they are indeed selling gold on behalf of the Fed, BOE, ECB, SNB or BOJ simply to keep the price of the metal down, what such constant factless accusations (and no, sorry, a chart showing that the price of gold may go up or go down sharply indicates merely that and nothing about the underlying factors for such a move) do is to habituate the broader public to the real issues surrounding precious metal, and other asset class, manipulation. So instead of searching for circumstantial evidence which one can easily find everywhere, we decided to go straight to the source. To do that we go back to a post we wrote back in September of 2009, based on an internal previously confidential Fed document, which conveniently enough explains everything vis-a-vis gold manipulation and leaves nothing to speculation or misinterpretation. Zero Hedge presents the smoking gun that may provide responses to all the various open questions regarding the Fed’s Modus Operandi in the gold arena which answer the core question – motive – courtesy of a declassified memorandum, written by none other than the then Fed Chairman, and addressed to the president of the United States.
From Zero Hedge, September 27, 2009.
Exclusive Smoking Gun: The Fed On Gold Manipulation
Zero Hedge has recently presented several declassified documents from the pre-1971 “Nixon Shock” days, that endorse the case for gold as a major historical factor in US monetary and foreign policy, as demonstrated by State Department and CIA disclosure. Gold’s special status in policy and administrative decision-making was a direct factor in Nixon’s choice to abolish the gold reserve at a time of an exploding budget deficit.
Yet what about the days after 1971, and specifically, how did that critical “behind the scenes” organization, the Federal Reserve, perceive and manipulate gold in the post Bretton-Woods world? Was gold, freed from its shackles to the dollar, once again merely a symbolic representation for money?
Zero Hedge presents the smoking gun that may provide responses to all the various open questions, courtesy of a declassified memorandum, written by none other than the then Fed Chairman, addressed to the president of the United States.
Read moreThe Smoking Gun: The Federal Reserve On Gold Price Manipulation
From the article:
“I just don’t know what you are talking about. Where I live everything is just fine. The malls are packed, the restaurants are full and everybody I know is going on vacation this summer.
…
Those in charge know what they are doing and America has the greatest economy on earth.”
Hopeless!
– Just Open Up Your Eyes And Look – 65 Signs That The Economic Collapse Is Already Happening (Economic Collapse, July 31, 2012):
Do you want to know when the “economic collapse” is going to happen? Just open up your eyes and take a look. The “economic collapse” is already happening all around us. So many people talk about the coming economic collapse as if it is some massively hyped event that they will be able to point to on the calendar, and a lot of writers spend a lot of time speculating about exactly when it will happen. But as I have written about before, the economic collapse is not a single event. The economic collapse has been happening, it is happening right now, and it will be getting a lot worse. Yes, there will be moments of great crisis. We saw one of those “waves” back in 2008 and another “wave” is rapidly approaching. But all of the waves are part of a process that is continually unfolding. Over the past 40 years, the United States and Europe have piled up the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and now a tremendous amount of pain is heading our way. Economic conditions in the United States and Europe have already deteriorated badly and they are going to continue to deteriorate. Nothing is going to stop what is coming.
Read more65 Signs That The Economic Collapse Is Already Happening
– 11 Signs That Time Is Quickly Running Out For The Global Financial System (Economic Collapse, July 30, 2012):
Are we rapidly approaching a moment of reckoning for the global financial system? August is likely to be a relatively slow month as most of Europe is on vacation, but after that we will be moving into a “danger zone” where just about anything could happen. Historically, a financial crisis has been more likely to happen in the fall than during any other time, and this fall is shaping up to be a doozy. Much of the focus of the financial world is on whether or not the euro is going to break up, but even if the authorities in Europe are able to keep the euro together we are still facing massive problems. Countries such as Greece and Spain are already experiencing depression-like conditions, and much of the rest of the globe is sliding into recession. Unemployment has already risen to record levels in some parts of Europe, major banks all over Europe are teetering on the brink of insolvency, and the flow of credit is freezing up all over the planet. If things take a really bad turn, this crisis could become much worse than the financial crisis of 2008 very quickly.
All over the world people are starting to write about the possibility of a major economic crisis starting this fall.
For example, a recent article in the International Business Times discussed how some economists around the globe are fearing the worst for the coming months….
Read more11 Signs Time Is Quickly Running Out For The Global Financial System
YouTube Added: 31.07.2012
Description:
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the virtual virtual economy getting hit by a dustbowl and there are no gully washers or toad stranglers on the horizon to bring reliefe; meanwhile out in the virtual real economy it’s all the bath-salts and beer you can drink and scalps for sale in California as eminent domain falls into the hands of private bankers. In the second half, Max interviews Teri Buhl about the possibility of San Bernardino county using eminent domain to seize mortgages from one set of rich private investors to give them to another set of rich private investors.
– Chinese Ultra-Luxury Car Bubble Pops As 1 Year Old Used Lambo Gallardo Sells 70% Off Sticker (ZeroHedge, July 31, 2012):
Rumors are circulating that reports of the demise of the Chinese auto market may be exaggerated now that even David Einhorn is forced to defend his GM long (because it “has a strong cash position” – sure, and stuffs channels like no other) however stripped of stereotypes and hype, the reality is that even the one time impregnable ultra luxury car market in China is now faltering at an ever faster pace. BusinessWeek reports: “Waiting lists for ultra-luxury cars in Hong Kong are getting shorter and used-car lots are cutting prices on Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Bentleys in the latest sign of China’s slowdown. At first glance, the numbers are deceiving: Sales of very expensive new autos surged 47 percent in the first six months, according to industry analyst IHS Automotive. Look more deeply, however, and another picture emerges, especially in the city’s used-car lots.” The picture is ugly: ““The more expensive the car, the more dry the business,” said Tommy Siu at the Causeway Bay showroom of Vin’s Motors Co., the used-car dealership he founded two decades ago. Sales of ultra-luxury cars have halved in the past two or three months, he said. “A lot of bankers don’t want to spend too much money for a car now. At this moment, they don’t know if they’ll have a big bonus.”” Sad: they should all just go to Singapore and manipulate Libor. Oh wait, too soon?
Curiously, unlike virtually every other manipulated asset class, Hong Kong car sales provide a somewhat insulated view into the heart of China’s beating economy:
