Federal Reserve And Bank Of Japan Caused Gold Crash (Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard)

Compare Ambrose Evans-Pritchard’s article to …

– Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: The Assault On Gold – Assault On Gold UPDATE


Fed and Bank of Japan caused gold crash (Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard April 17, 2013):

Commodity prices have been falling since September, culminating in a rout over the past two weeks. That is a classic warning for the global economy.

It is becoming ever clearer that the roaring boom in global equities since last summer has priced in an economic recovery that does not in fact exist. The International Monetary Fund has had to nurse down its global growth forecasts yet again. We are still stuck in an old-fashioned trade depression, with pervasive over-capacity in manufacturing plant and a record global savings rate of 25pc of GDP.

German car sales fell 17pc in March. That should puncture the last illusions that Germany is about to pull Europe out of a self-inflicted slump.

As you can see from the chart below, the divergence between stock markets and the Deutsche Bank index of raw materials is astonishing to behold, so like the pattern in early 1929.

Read moreFederal Reserve And Bank Of Japan Caused Gold Crash (Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard)

China’s Animal Apocalypse Spreads To DOGS

China’s Animal Apocalypse Spreads To Dogs (ZeroHedge, April 17, 2013):

First it was floating dead pigs, then ducks, then black swans, then mass chicken exterminations, then fish, and now more pigs and also a brand new entrant to the Chinese animal apocalypse: dogs.

AP reports that hundreds more pigs have been found dead in China – this time together with dozens of dogs. ” A total of 410 pigs and 122 dogs were discovered in homes and at farms earlier this week in a village that comes under Yanshi city’s jurisdiction in central Henan province, authorities said Wednesday. The city’s propaganda office said that the deaths were being investigated but that they suspected they had to do with nearby chemical factories. The factories have been ordered to suspend production and help police with a criminal investigation into the incident, according to a report on a Henan provincial news website.”

One would assume that something is responsible for these mass animal  deaths, and one of these years, not the propaganda office, but someone actually accountable (so not CNN) will report what it is. Although we are not holding our breath, which if one were to live in Beijing, would not be a bad idea.

Read moreChina’s Animal Apocalypse Spreads To DOGS

Egan-Jones Downgrades GERMANY’s Credit Rating From A+ To A, Outlook Negative

Egan-Jones Downgrades Germany From A+ To A, Outlook Negative (ZeroHedge, April 17, 2013):

The more you try to shut them up, the more they have to say…Just out from Egan-Jones

4/17/2013: Federal Republic Of Germany: EJR lowered A+ to A (Neg.) (S&P: AAA) (3413Z GR)

Read moreEgan-Jones Downgrades GERMANY’s Credit Rating From A+ To A, Outlook Negative

FDA Allowed Drugs With Fraudulent Testing To Remain On The Market

Fraud Alert: FDA Allowed Drugs with Fraudulent Testing to Remain on the Market (Liberty Blitzkrieg, April 17, 2013):

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Essentially the entire U.S. economy is one gigantic fraud.  No one has honor anymore in this society, it is a totally forgotten and discarded virtue.  The ethos of the land is to take whatever you can however you can.  It doesn’t matter who you hurt or what sorts of immoral acts you need to do to get it.  One of the key dynamics that allows for such blatant theft is that the regulatory agencies that are supposed to protect us are in fact gatekeepers from the criminals in their respective industries.  In the financial area, this manifests with the SEC and CFTC revolving door to Wall Street.  In healthcare, it manifests with the FDA.  I’ve highlighted the FDA’s shadiness previously, most notably in my piece:  The FDA is Caught Spying on its Employees and Creating an “Enemies List.”  Now in this latest story, we find how little the FDA concerns itself with public health.

From Pro Publica:

On the morning of May 3, 2010, three agents of the Food and Drug Administration descended upon the Houston office of Cetero Research, a firm that conducted research for drug companies worldwide.

Read moreFDA Allowed Drugs With Fraudulent Testing To Remain On The Market

Massive Fertilizer Plant Explosion Shakes Texas, Town Evacuated, Toxic Fumes, Up To 70 Dead (Video – Live Stream)

Massive Fertilizer Plant Explosion Shakes Texas, Town Evacuated, Toxic Fumes, Up To 70 Dead – Live Stream (ZeroHedge, April 17, 2013):

In the aftermath of the Boston horrors, a massive explosion has occurred at a fertlizer plant in the town of West, Texas (near Waco). This week is the 20th anniversary of the deadly seige in Waco. There are at least 10 other buildings are on fire, including the town middle school, and a large swath of the town was “leveled” in the explosion. The explosion occurred around 7:50pm local time. A fireball of nearly 100 feet high has been reported along with a massive power outage. The images and scale of this explosion are incredible and reports are coming in people still trapped. The explosion could be heard from 100 miles away in Dallas. The explosion followed the outbreak of a fire at the plant – and occurred as firefighters were working on the blaze.

UPDATE: Entire town (within a mile radius) to be evacuated – toxic fumes may be spreading

UPDATE: Hospital told to anticipate 100 people with injuries, Hospital CEO tells CNN

UPDATE: Up To 70 Dead, 38 seriously injured included blast injuries, orthopedic injuries, large wounds and a lot of lacerations and cuts.

UPDATE: *AS MANY AS 80 HOMES DESTROYED IN TEXAS FERTILIZER BLAST: CNN

CNN Reports from Dr. George Smith, the emergency management system director of the city:

Fire officials fear that the number of casualties could rise as high as 60 to 70 dead,

“That’s a really rough number, I’m getting that figure from firefighters, we don’t know yet,” he said.

“There are lots of houses that are leveled within a two-block radius,” Smith said. “A lot of other homes are damaged as well outside that radius.”

“It was an apartment complex that was devastated, and the nursing home. The fire was close to a residential area,”

And from the Mayor:

“There’s a lot of people who won’t be here tomorrow

“Blast ‘took out’ a five-block radius

Stunning clip of the explosion (at around 25 seconds)

Read moreMassive Fertilizer Plant Explosion Shakes Texas, Town Evacuated, Toxic Fumes, Up To 70 Dead (Video – Live Stream)

The Dumbest Of The Dumb Money Has Finally Decided Now Is The Time To Buy Manhattan Apartments

Ring the Bell for Manhattan Real Estate: Calpers Buys the Top Again (Liberty Blitzkrieg, April 17, 2013):

The dumbest of the dumb money has finally decided now is the time to buy Manhattan apartments.  The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (colloquially known as Calpers) just loves taking assets off of other people’s hands at the top.  Let’s not forget the 10,200-acre desert site in Arizona they bought for $400 million in 2006, which was then sold for $32.5 million in 2011.  Well the not so savvy managers of California’s retirement funds are at it again, once again paying the sum of $400 million, but this time for 345 apartments in Manhattan’s wildly overinflated real estate market.  If there was ever the equivalent of a bell ringing at the top this has to be it.

From Bloomberg:

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System bought 345 apartments in two adjacent Manhattan towers from a partnership including Carlyle Group LP (CG), gaining rentals in New York as lease rates approach a peak.

Read moreThe Dumbest Of The Dumb Money Has Finally Decided Now Is The Time To Buy Manhattan Apartments

U.S. Mint Sells Record 63,500 Ounces Of Gold In One Day

US Mint Sells Record 63,500 Ounces Of Gold In One Day (ZeroHedge, April 17, 2013):

One of the more curious revelations of the New Normal is the fundamental dichotomy when investing between paper “investors”, or those who chase returns based on intangible, fiat-based and central bank-backed promises, such as capital appreciation or cash flow streams, and those who would rather convert their paper money into hard assets, even if said assets can not be, in the immortal words of Warren Buffett, fondled, or otherwise generate a cash-based return. Such as gold.Today provides perhaps the perfect example of how the former increasingly trade on nothing but momentum and speculative mania (such as the previously reported record inflow of foreign capital into the Japanese stock market well after the bulk of the easy upside has already been made and at this point there is mostly downside) and where buying begets only more buying, while rampant selling only leads to liquidations, while those who invest in hard assets (and thus have little to no leverage) have become the true value investors, purchasing more as the price of the underlying asset drops. Yes, a novel concept to most High Frequency Trading vacuum tubes, and the momentum-chasing, equity trading “expert” du jour, but nothing new to Indians, Australians, Chinese or the Japanese.

And apparently to at least some Americans.

According to today’s data from the US Mint, a record 63,500 ounces, or a whopping 2 tons, of gold were reported sold on April 17th alone, bringing the total sales for the month to a whopping 147,000 ounces or more than the previous two months combined with just half of the month gone.

Read moreU.S. Mint Sells Record 63,500 Ounces Of Gold In One Day

Nigel Farage – EU Parliament, April 17, 2013: ‘You Are Common Criminals’ (Video)

Farage Unleashed: “You Are Common Criminals” (ZeroHedge, April 17, 2013):

“Years ago, Mrs Thatcher recognized the truth behind the European Project,” UKIP’s Nigel Farage reminds his European Parliament ‘colleagues’, “she saw that it was about taking away democracy from nation states and handing that power to largely unaccountable people.” In one of his most wonderfully vitriolic remonstrations, the fiery Farage blasts Europe’s leadership, “this European Union is the new communism.” Slamming Olli Rehn and his Troika cohorts for “resorting to the level of common criminals and stealing people’s money”, Farage warns, rather chillingly, that, “it is power without limits. It is creating a tide of human misery and the sooner it is swept away the better.” Simply put, he concludes, the European Parliament is living out a federal fantasy which is no longer sustainable.

Full Transcript:

Years ago, Mrs Thatcher recognised the truth behind the European Project. She saw that it was about taking away democracy from nation states and handing that power to largely unaccountable people.

Knowing as she did that the euro would not work she saw that this was a very dangerous design. Now we in UKIP take that same view and I tried over the years in this parliament to predict what the next moves would be as the euro disaster unfolded.

But not even me, in my most pessimistic of speeches would have imagined, Mr Rehn, that you and others in the Troika would resort to the level of common criminals and steal money from peoples’ bank accounts in order to keep propped up this total failure that is the euro.

Read moreNigel Farage – EU Parliament, April 17, 2013: ‘You Are Common Criminals’ (Video)

US: ‘Favorable’ View Of Federal Government Hits All Time Low

State Governments Viewed Favorably as Federal Rating Hits New Low (Pew Research Center, April 15, 2013):

Even as public views of the federal government in Washington have fallen to another new low, the public continues to see their state and local governments in a favorable light. Overall, 63% say they have a favorable opinion of their local government, virtually unchanged over recent years. And 57% express a favorable view of their state government – a five-point uptick from last year. By contrast, just 28% rate the federal government in Washington favorably. That is down five points from a year ago and the lowest percentage ever in a Pew Research Center survey.

The percentage of Democrats expressing a favorable opinion of the federal government has declined 10 points in the past year, from 51% to 41%. For the first time since Barack Obama became president, more Democrats say they have an unfavorable view of the federal government in Washington than a favorable view (51% unfavorable vs. 41% favorable). Favorable opinions of the federal government among Republicans, already quite low in 2012 (20% favorable), have fallen even further, to 13% currently.

Buy PHYSICAL Gold. NOW: The Discount Of A Lifetime: Or Why You Must Abandon The Fake Paper Gold Market

Buy PHYSICAL Gold. NOW: The Discount of a Lifetime: Or Why You Must Abandon the Fake Paper Gold Market (Gordon Gekko’s Blog, April 17, 2013):

They just showed their hands. The paper Ponzi pyramid is wobbling. It’s time to go in for the kill.

Let me explain. But first let’s get a handle on what’s happening:

“We’ve traded gold for nearly four decades and we’ve never … ever… EVER… seen anything like what we’ve witnessed in the past two trading sessions,”

Dennis Gartman, via The New York Times

“This is an orchestration (the smash in gold).  It’s been going on now from the beginning of April.  Brokerage houses told their individual clients the word was out that hedge funds and institutional investors were going to be dumping gold and that they should get out in advance…it is the Fed’s concern with the dollar because the dollar is being printed in huge quantities at the same time that other countries are abandoning the use of the dollar as international payment.

The exchange value of the dollar is (being) threatened, and if that collapses the Fed loses control over interest rates.  Then the bond market blows up, the stock market blows up, and the banks that are too big to fail, fail.  So it’s an act of desperation because they’ve got to establish in people’s minds that the dollar is the only safe place, it is the only safe haven, not gold, not silver, and not other currencies.

Read moreBuy PHYSICAL Gold. NOW: The Discount Of A Lifetime: Or Why You Must Abandon The Fake Paper Gold Market

Gold Buying Frenzy Continues: China, Japan, And Australia Scramble For Physical

Gold Buying Frenzy Continues: China, Japan, And Australia Scramble For Physical (ZeroHedge, April 16, 2013):

We noted here that the plunge in the paper price of gold (and silver) had prompted considerable renewed demand for physical and now it seems the scramble among the “more stable investor base” is increasing. The shake out of ETFs and futures has left the Australian mint short of deliverables and Japanese and Chinese gold retailers seeing a “frenzied” surge in demand. The customers are not just the ‘rich’ or ‘elderly’; in China “they tend to wear water shoes and come directly from the market…;” in Australia, “the volume of business… is way in excess of double what we did last week,… there’s been people running through the gate,” and Japanese individual investors doubled gold purchases yesterday at Tokuriki Honten, the country’s second-largest retailer of the precious metal. The panic selling by a weaker ‘imminent inflation-based’ investor base has sparked physical shortages – “there’s been significant sales made as people see this as great value.” It seems our previous discussions of a rotation from paper to physical were correct and this physical demand will eventually leak back into the paper markets.

Australia (via The Age):

Gold sales from Perth Mint, which refines nearly all of the nation’s bullion, have surged after prices plunged, adding to signs that the metal’s slump to a two-year low is spurring increased demand.

“The volume of business that we’re putting through is way in excess of double what we did last week,” Treasurer Nigel Moffatt said, without giving precise figures. “There’s been people running through the gate.”

Read moreGold Buying Frenzy Continues: China, Japan, And Australia Scramble For Physical

Secret Service: Ricin-Laced Letter To Obama Has Been Found

Secret Service: Ricin-Laced Letter to Obama Has Been Found (ABC News, April 17, 2013):

A letter addressed to President Obama that field-tested positive for the poison ricin was received at the remote White House mail screening facility Tuesday, according to law enforcement officials.

The facility routinely identifies letters or parcels that require secondary screening or scientific testing before delivery.

Read moreSecret Service: Ricin-Laced Letter To Obama Has Been Found

Cyprus: Government Plans To Sell Part Of Its Gold Reserves Within The Next Months (Bloomberg)

“Cyprus’ Bottom”

Flashback: “Brown’s Bottom”


Cyprus Finance Minister Sees Gold Sale Within Next Months (Bloomberg, April 17, 2013):

The Cypriot government plans to sell part of its gold reserves within the next months, a decision that needs to be approved by the country’s central bank, Finance Minister Haris Georgiades said.“The exact details of it will be formulated in due course primarily by the board of the central bank,” Georgiades, 41, told Bloomberg TV’s Ryan Chilcote in an interview in Nicosia. “Obviously it’s a big decision.”

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades is trying to unlock 10 billion euros ($13.2 billion) of loans from the euro area and the International Monetary Fund. To do so, he must come up with a further 11 billion euros through measures including a tax on bank deposits of more than 100,000 euros at the country’s two biggest banks, the sale of assets and gold and other tax measures.

Read moreCyprus: Government Plans To Sell Part Of Its Gold Reserves Within The Next Months (Bloomberg)

Presenting Gold’s 7-Sigma Move

Presenting Gold’s 7-Sigma Move (ZeroHedge, April 16, 2013):

While yesterday’s cliff-dive in gold was impressive by any standards, the escalating drop over the past 5 days has been just as dramatic. Based on 20 years of rolling 5-day moves, the ~15% plunge is equivalent to around 7 standard deviations (in context Yao Ming is a mere 6 standard deviations taller than the average human making gold’s move the equivalent of meeting a man taller than 7’7″)

AND NOW: Paul Krugman Calls Bitcoin ‘Antisocial’

Paul Krugman Goes on the Attack: Calls Bitcoin “Antisocial (Liberty Blitzkrieg, April 15, 2013):

Anyone on the fence with regard to Bitcoin should consider coming to the side of supporting it after reading Paul Krugman’s ridiculous and riddled with errors hit-piece in the New York Times this weekend.  The key tipoff as to where he is coming from in this absurd editorial is in the title itself in which he calls Bitcoin an “antisocial network.”  Anti-social is one of the most favored collectivist/fascist terms and concepts of all time.  A term meant to demonize those in a particular society that think for themselves rather than conform to whatever the oligarchs or dictators in charge of the state deem appropriate or “social.”  Jews would have been seen as “antisocial” in Nazi Germany, just as anyone with glasses would have been deemed “antisocial” in Pol Pot’s Cambodia.  This is a very dangerous term and one that is intended to guilt people into the acceptance of a stale, authoritarian and conformist society.

Now let’s get to some of the more ridiculous passages from his editorial.  From the New York Times:

The economic significance of this roller coaster was basically nil. But the furor over bitcoin was a useful lesson in the ways people misunderstand money — and in particular how they are misled by the desire to divorce the value of money from the society it serves.

The similarity to goldbug rhetoric isn’t a coincidence, since goldbugs and bitcoin enthusiasts — bitbugs? — tend to share both libertarian politics and the belief that governments are vastly abusing their power to print money. At the same time, it’s very peculiar, since bitcoins are in a sense the ultimate fiat currency, with a value conjured out of thin air. Gold’s value comes in part because it has nonmonetary uses, such as filling teeth and making jewelry; paper currencies have value because they’re backed by the power of the state, which defines them as legal tender and accepts them as payment for taxes. Bitcoins, however, derive their value, if any, purely from self-fulfilling prophecy, the belief that other people will accept them as payment.

This paragraph is so riddled with blatant errors it is almost difficult to know where to start.  

Read moreAND NOW: Paul Krugman Calls Bitcoin ‘Antisocial’

Major 7.8 Earthquake Strikes Iran, ‘Hundreds Of Deaths’ Expected

Major 7.8 Earthquake Strikes Iran Leaves “Hundreds Dead”; Follows 6.1 Quake From Week Ago (ZeroHedge, April 16, 2013):

It was only a week ago that Iran was shaken by a major 6.1 earthquake, striking just 100 km away from the Busher nuclear power plant: a location so “opportune” some, so inclined, saw in this phenomenon anoter demonstration of the HAARP’s capabilities. Those same people will then hardly be surprised to learn that moments ago the entire middle east, from Dubai to Delhi, shook in the aftermath of yet another massive earthquake, this time measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, which once again was located as the USGS reports, some 86 km East South East of Khash, Iran. According to preliminary reports, the USGS says there is possibility of heavy damage in area of epicenter, and an estimated 359,000 people felt very strong to severe shaking. USGS also estimates that 16K may have felt ‘severe’ shaking, 343K ‘very strong’ shaking, 1.7M ‘strong’ shaking; 1.1M ‘moderate’ shaking. An Iranian official was promptly on the tape saying hundreds of dead expected from quake in southeast of country, even as the Russian company that built the Busher NPP saying there was no damage from the quake. How much more shaking can either the existing Iranian nuclear power plant, or the much maligned nuclear facility in Fordow, sustain before they go off in a big glowing mushroom cloud: that is the question.

From Al Jazeera:

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake has struck southeastern Iran near the border with Pakistan, reportedly killing at least 40 people with casualties expected to rise.

The US Geological Survey reported on Tuesday that the epicentre of the quake was 86km southeast of Khash, Iran.

The Iranian news agency FARS is reporting 40 initial casualties.

An Iranian government official said on Tuesday he expected hundreds of deaths from the earthquake.

“It was the biggest earthquake in Iran in 40 years and we are expecting hundreds of dead,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Read moreMajor 7.8 Earthquake Strikes Iran, ‘Hundreds Of Deaths’ Expected

Nuclear Power Is NOT A Low-Carbon Source Of Energy

Nuclear Is NOT a Low-Carbon Source of Energy (ZeroHedge, April 14, 2013):

Why Do People Claim that Nuclear Power is a Low-Carbon Source of Energy?

Even well-known, well-intentioned scientists sometimes push bad ideas.   For example, well-known scientists considered pouring soot over the Arctic in the 1970s to help melt the ice – in order to prevent another ice age.  That would have been stupid.  Even Obama’s top science adviser – John Holdren – warned in the 1970?s of a new ice age … and is open to shooting soot into the upper atmosphere. That might be equally stupid.

Read moreNuclear Power Is NOT A Low-Carbon Source Of Energy

DARPA Cyber Chief Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko Heads To Google

Update: DARPA Cyber Chief Peiter “Mudge” Zatko Heads To Google (The Security Ledger, April 14, 2013):

Noted hacker and innovator Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, a project manager for cyber security research at DARPA for the past three years- will be setting up shop in the Googleplex, according to a post on his Twitter feed.

Zatko, who earned fame as a founding member of the early 1990s Boston-area hacker confab The L0pht and later as a division scientist at government contractor BBN Technologies, announced his departure from DARPA following a three-year stint as a Program Manager in DARPA’s Information Innovation Office on Friday. “Given what we all pulled off within the USG, let’s see if it can be done even better from outside. Goodbye DARPA, hello Google!” he Tweeted.

Read moreDARPA Cyber Chief Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko Heads To Google