LIR – Germany Puts The Boot In.

Baltic Dry Index. 726 -27 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsGermanys demands have sparked fury in Greece, with education minister Anna Diamantopoulou calling them the product of a sick imagination and finance minister Evangelos Venizelos claiming on Sunday that the country, with €350bn debts, was capable of sticking to its promises. Our partners know that European unification is founded on the institutional equality of member states and respect for national identity, he said before heading to a Brussels summit already threatened by strikes from three Belgian transport unions. The Telegraph January 30 2012 It’s

LIR – Recovery? What Recovery?

Baltic Dry Index. 784 -24 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsJohn Bull can stand many things, but he cannot stand two per cent.Walter Bagehot.For more on John Bull and two per cent scroll down to Crooks Corner. Are ultra-low interest rates helping or hurting the global economies? Is ultra-low, too low to stimulate growth? Are ultra-low interest rates self-defeating?Is America’s relative boom real? While Europe stays mired in what looks to be a double dip recession, America had shown weak signs of building on a recovery. Yesterday that recovery was shaken, stirred and rocked.

LIR – “Capitalism’s Broken.”

Baltic Dry Index. 784 -24 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs640K ought to be enough for anybody.Bill Gates, 1981 Another day, more posturing by Europe’s vainglorious inept politicians, but still no sign of relief for Club Med, nor of Club Med facing up to the reality that either they or Germany must leave the snake bit European Currency Union. We open with yesterday’s developments. For the first time Chancellor Merkel seems ready to toss the work and tax shy Greeks out of the currency union. Stay long physical precious metals. Greeks, Iberians and Italians

LIR – Doom, Gloom, Default.

Baltic Dry Index. 807 -34 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsThis sucker could go down.George W. Bush. Is Greece being set up to forced default? It seems that way to me at least. The banksters can run thorugh the numbers as well as anyone, and it’s obvious that Greece has to default at some point. But a default is best done early and suddenly. Right after Greece has received whatever new currency it’s going to impose and right after a deal is struck with the ECB over Greek issued euros. More and more it

Comment : Brinkmanship, Stalemate & Revulsion!

We seem to be currently experiencing an even more intense form of the risk-on/risk-off mentality that represented the year that was 2011 . The Greek talks on debt restructuring are once again the central fulcrum for market reaction. The rates complex has increasingly dismissed any serious repercussions as yields slowly creep higher and yield curve plays are entered into. Nonetheless the restructuring talks are hardly complete and as an evident game of brinkmanship is played out almost publically between the various stakeholders in this negotiation, it increasingly begs the question whether it would not simply be best to allow

LIR – Listing.

Baltic Dry Index. 841 -21 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs“The boom can last only as long as the credit expansion progresses at an ever-accelerated pace. The boom comes to an end as soon as additional quantities of fiduciary media are no longer thrown upon the loan market.”Ludwig von Mises. From the bridge of the SS Britannia this morning, the ocean view isn’t pretty. Off on the right the SS Costa Europa seems to have hit the rocks and is listing, with the crew running round in circles rearranging the deck chairs. Far away

LIR – Europe’s Dragon.

Baltic Dry Index. 862 -31 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsThe paper standard is self-destructive. Hans F. Sennholz It is the first day of the Chinese year of the dragon, and Xinhua informs us that some 30,000 sanitation workers in Shanghai are busy clearing up the rubbish from 1,000 tonnes of fireworks. It’s year three of the dragon for Greece, where their own version of the dragon is ravaging the economy. While the great and the greater talk up a storm in Davos, we open with Greece still struggling to reach a restructuring agreement

LIR – Davos

Baltic Dry Index. 926 -48 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsWhile there is an effort to engage young people via the Global Shapers initiative that will bring 70 individuals under the age of 30 to Davos this year, the forum will remain dominated by a very small slice of the top 1%. If the arrival brochure is informing participants where to land their private jets, it’s safe to assume that many of them will not be taking the complimentary shuttle bus from the Zurich airport to Davos. The 1% are about to assemble in

David Morgan Forecasts 'Massive austerity across the board - like it or not.'

January 19, 2012 -- Massive austerity across the board - like it or not. In this weeks Currency Countdown, Tracy Weslosky CEO of Pro-Edge Consultants interviews David Morgan of Silver-Investor.com about the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) losing its AAA rating and about the possibility of Greece defaulting. Anyone that really thinks theyre going to be able to make this better by backing some paper with some other paper is not in the real world, as far as Im concerned. -- For more information, contact info@pro-edge.com

LIR – America & the Fed.

Baltic Dry Index. 926 -48 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsThe global economy has entered a dangerous phase. The financial system of the largest economic bloc in the world is threatened by a fiscal and financial crisis that has so far eluded policy-makers’ efforts to contain it, said the bank in its Global Economic Perspectives. The possibility of further escalation of the crisis in Europe cannot be ruled out. Should this happen, the ensuing global downturn is likely to be deeper and longer-lasting than the recession of 2008/2009 because countries do not have the

From Murky Waters to Melkior Resources

My morning started off with a water main bursting in my downtown Toronto neighbourhood causing a flow of water, snow and mud to slide down my street. It also resulted in me boiling water so I could tread water in a shallow tub. Not the best way to start the day considering I’d been up since 5am and was fighting traffic to make my 9am meeting with Jens E. Hansen, President of both Melkior Resources (TSXV: MKR) and Beaufield Resources (TSXV: BFD). He was already waiting for me by the time I arrived at the office and we immediately

LIR – Baltic Dry Alert.

Baltic Dry Index. 974 -39 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsEuropean sovereigns and banks need to find Euro 1.9 trillion to refinance maturing debt in 2012, equivalent to around Euro 7.5 billion each business day.Italy requires Euro 113 billion in the first quarter and around Euro 300 billion over the full year, equivalent to around Euro 1.5 billion per business day. Italy, Spain, France, and Germany together will need to issue in excess of Euro 4.5 billion every working day of 2012.MoreIn less than a month the Baltic Dry Index has slumped from 1922

Comment - Default or Pay-Off

I often wonder if I am not sometimes seen as the ever dour Charlie Brown character Pigpen, with a dark cloud that hovers immediately above, based on my unremittingly less than positive market view points. Late December and into the first week and a half of the New Year we were starting to see signs that led to a risk-on mentality and the hope or possibility that we were starting to turn the corner. The rating agencies and in particular SP, rudely reminded us last week that we still had a full blown and as yet unresolved sovereign crisis

LIR – Poor Europe.

Baltic Dry Index. 1013 -40 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsLONDON (Dow Jones)--Portuguese borrowing costs rose sharply Monday as some investors were forced to sell their government bond holdings after Standard and Poors Corp. downgraded the country to junk status late Friday. Portugal is now rated as non-investment grade by all three major rating companies. Moodys rates the country at Ba2, Fitch at BB+ and Standard and Poors at BB. Poor Europe, Greece is about to default, Portugal looks to be next, SP has just downgraded the EU bailout fund along about half of

LIR – Downgraded and Doomed.

Baltic Dry Index. 1053 -52 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsWhen it becomes serious, you have to lieJean-Claude Juncker. Luxembourg Prime Minister and president of the Euro Group of Finance Ministers. Confessed liar.The existing euro seems doomed this morning with Greece headed towards imminent exit and default. While the USA takes the day off to honour Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in Euroland the hapless Eurolanders are on their own version of the Costa Concordia. With the latest downgrades from SP, only Germany is now a large economy in the European Monetary Union with

LIR – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Baltic Dry Index. 1105 -88 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs[European Monetary Union is] a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe ... [if you are prepared to give up Sovereignty to the EU] you might just as well give it to Adolf Hitler, frankly. Nicholas Ridley Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Spectator magazine, July 1990. It is Friday the 13th, what could possibly go wrong? The Baltic Dry Index continues its plunge from mid December’s high of 1922. Silver continues to flood into the Comex depositories, from wherever,

Comment - Bonne Annee!

The year 2011 finished in what might be deemed a more hopeful and slightly upbeat note. It looks very much as though with turkey fully digested the markets have continued on that path.Certainly risk-on has figured substantially more into the equation in the first eight sessions of the New Year, via higher yields and steeper curves.Yesterday Freddie Mac was back in the market for the first time in 3 years, with a deal that saw lots of interest with a book that built in excess of $11bn (issue size $6bn) reflecting that risk on is back.Europe while hardly resolved

LIR – Friday the 13th.

Baltic Dry Index. 1256 -50 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsThe finance of the country is ultimately associated with the liberties of the country. It is a powerful leverage by which the English liberty has been gradually acquired. If the House of Commons by any possibility loses the power of control of the grants of public money, depend upon it, your very liberty will be worth very little in comparison. William Ewart Gladstone, British Liberal Prime Minister 1868-74, 1880-85, 1886, and 1892-94. Speech in the House of Commons, 1891. We are one day before

LIR – Looming Default.

Baltic Dry Index. 1256 -50 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs“The boom can last only as long as the credit expansion progresses at an ever-accelerated pace. The boom comes to an end as soon as additional quantities of fiduciary media are no longer thrown upon the loan market.”Ludwig von Mises. For the medium term reason the euro will collapse scroll down to Crooks Corner. We open today with the tragedies of Greece and Hungary speeding towards sovereign default. Either or both have at best weeks before default becomes inevitable. In reality, if either is

LIR – Can the Euro Survive?

Baltic Dry Index. 1308 -39 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsThe second Greece program has to be implemented soon, otherwise it wont be possible to disburse the next tranche of aid loans, Ms. Merkel told a joint news conference with Mr. Sarkozy after their meeting. Can the Euro survive, asks today’s Telegraph. I think we all know the answer to that. Not in its present form. Greece is going to exit shortly late one Friday night after the markets are closed, reintroducing a national currency one to one with the euro, then to devalue

Euro Collapse Means Flight to Precious Metals for Investors

January 9, 2011 - Tracy Weslosky, CEO for Pro-Edge Inc. interviews David Morgan of Silver-Investor.com in their ongoing discussions on the collapse of the Euro. David Morgan says: As global economies and this currency problem continues, youll see a huge flight into the precious metals, silver included.

LIR – Our Dismal Times.

Baltic Dry Index. 1426 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsFor 2012, in the face of a delevering zero-bound interest rate world, investors must lower return expectations. 2–5% for stocks, bonds and commodities are expected long term returns for global financial markets that have been pushed to the zero bound, a world where substantial real price appreciation is getting close to mathematically improbable. Adjust your expectations, prepare for bimodal outcomes. It is different this time and will continue to be for a number of years. The New Normal is “Sub,” “Ab,” “Para” and then some.

LIR – Europe and Taxes.

Baltic Dry Index. 1426 -126 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsCortina is no different from the rest of the country, a local businessman, Guido Barilla, told Corriere della Sera newspaper. The situation is worse in other parts of Italy. Its not as though tax evaders are all concentrated here. Owners of luxury cars may not pay their taxes, but nor do millions of other Italians.We end the week back with those tax and work shy continental Europeans. Remember them, they’re the same wealthy Europeans asking for a hand out from the IMF to support

LIR – There Goes the EU.

Baltic Dry Index. 1552 -72 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsFaced with the choice between changing ones mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. John Kenneth Galbraith Will Hungary beat Greece into a default? The new imposed Greek Premier now says that Greece will be forced from the currency union by March at the latest, if they don’t get the next 130 billion Euro in bailout funds. Hungary seems to want to implode next week. The farce of continental Europe goes from bad

LIR – 2012 A Year of Elections.

Baltic Dry Index. 1624 -114 LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programsWe are in a world of irredeemable paper money - a state of affairs unprecedented in history. John ExterStay long physical precious metals, we are in for a year of historic change. Seven great nations plus Finland hold major presidential elections this year, starting with Taiwan and Finland this month. While China might not greatly care who gets the job in Finland, they certainly care who wins in Taiwan. After Finland on January 22, comes the Russian presidency on March 4th, the French presidency