Gold Market Is Not a Bubble Bursting: Norman

Ross Norman, CEO at Sharps Pixley, talks with Bloomberg's Francine Lacqua about what's behind the fall in the price of gold, the precedent set by the potential reserve sale by the Cypriot government and his outlook for the market. Source

The New “Nazis” of Spain

By Wolf Richter: On Saturday, Popular Party Secretary-General María Dolores de Cospedal, number two of the governing party in Spain, said that she knew she was going to get criticized, “but this is pure Nazism.” On Sunday, rather than resigning, she repeated it. For more precision, she added that going to someone’s house to “harass” him “is a totalitarian attitude comparable to what occurred in the thirties in a European country.” A reference to Nazis marking the homes of Jews.

But these “Nazis” are folks who are standing up to the banksters and draconian mortgage laws that the government is hell-bent on protecting. And they have a special word for their action: escrache. It had become popular in Argentina in 1995 after President Carlos Menem pardoned collaborators of the Junta. Activists with banners would gather in front of the home or office of a pardoned perpetrator. They’d chant and play music to let neighbors know. While Junta members were beyond the law, they could still be publicly humiliated.
In Spain, escraches were sparked by the implosion of the housing bubble and the coincident rise in unemployment: people fell behind on their mortgages and got evicted from their homes. But unlike in the US, Spanish homeowners borrow under a draconian law where the bank, after the eviction, saddles ex-homeowners with the debt for life.
The law allows the bank to credit the mortgage with only 50% – since 2011 with 60% – of the value of the home, writes Yaiza Hernández in her exposé on escraches. After fees and sky-high default interest, the debt that the ex-homeowner owes is often as high as the original mortgage amount. The law was designed to protect the same banks that ate up subsidies, falsified their books, engaged in dubious transactions, collapsed, and were bailed out with tens of billions of euros.

Is The Takedown Of Gold A Sign That The Entire Global Financial System Is About To Crash?

Trade with Dave: Do you know the difference between these two expressions?  If you’re Mike Huckabee and you’re describing then Massachusetts’ Governor Mitt Romney’s health care plan, you don’t need to distinguish between the two and can simply refer to the “800 pound elephant in the room.”  I don’t think an “800 pound elephant” is really that big of an elephant as it would be the equivalent weight of four average-sized golfers riding in a Buick Lucerne, (not including their golf bags).  Then again an 800 pound gorilla is plenty big and probably justifies careful consideration (read: lifesaving) of the  riddle… Q: Where does an 800 lb. gorilla sit?
A: Anywhere it wants to.
In February of 2003, the investment newsletter world lost Martin Zweig who was probably most famous for his sage advice of “Don’t fight the Fed, don’t fight the tape.”  Is it possible that with the passing of Martin, we are also witnessing the passing of an era when the Federal Reserve’s ability to maintain control is finally coming apart at the seams?  Would you have to be crazy to go up against an electronic paper fiat funded naked short selling of precious metals ETF’s where the bullion banks have seemingly unlimited access to capital in an effort to drive rank and file “investors” out of the precious metals markets while simultaneously Central Banks continue to load up on the goods at ultra-cheap prices?

CRASH 2: Mrs Thatcher is lowered into the ground just as prow of SS Globecantile rises from the sea

Today will be the chapter heading for a future economic history book

The Slog: Man for all Seasons David Cameron consolidated his lead in the human cliché stakes today be remarking that”we’re all Thatcherites now”. Some of us never were, Mr Cameron – a reality one might have thought obvious by the divisive mud-slinging no-holds-barred battle between the Deists and the Demonisers since her merciful release of last week. The reality of this shallow man’s occupation of Ten Downing Street is something I remain unable to grasp, but then I felt precisely the same way about Tony Blair.
Our Prime Minister’s one attempt at stamping his mark upon the UK over the last three years was The Big Society, a concept so dense whole armies of amateur cod philosophers have been first lost and then asphyxiated in it. The situation has recently been exacerbated by the fact that not only does nobody know what it is, what Britain has become bears no relation even to what they thought it might be. Did anyone nine months ago, for example, think a crooked media mogul, three crooked bank CEOs, and a crooked monopoly supplier to government would be not only outside jail, but also thriving in public life? Well yes, we probably did: but we were sort of hoping it wasn’t what The Big Society is about.
Where I am now is a relatively small society on the verge of not being a society any more. It’s already one where beggars hassle the visitor every hour or so, middle class people can’t pay electricity or phone bills, most car traffic has disappeared, the retail trade is on its arse, and foreign financial despots are demanding more and more firstborn flesh.

Thatchers £10M Funeral and Protests

Morris: A Ten Million £ Parade for the time when greed was enshrined as normal. Source

Technocratic Pickpockets: EU is the New Communism - Nigel Farage

ukipwebmaster: Watch out for the political pickpockets raiding your bank account. Source

EUNATICS & EUNUCHS: We need more media balance about unpaid lenders and unrepentent invaders

The Slog: Nearly nine out of ten Greeks believe the Athens government should pursue Germany over the outstanding issue of Second World War reparations, according to a new survey carried out by Marc for Alpha TV. Close on 90% of respondents felt that Greece should seek damages from Germany. Last week, when the Telegraph’s Ed West tweeted to the effect that this pursuit “is new”, I was moved to point out that it isn’t. Wolfie in dem Wheelchair lies happily that the issue “was settled long ago” but it wasn’t. Most of Berlin’s leaders, in fact, insist that Germany’s inherent triumphalism was buried in 1945 along with Hitler. But there are increasing signs of a flaw in that assertion; and the flaw is prone to revelation on both macro and micro bases.
Sitting in a very traditional southern European restaurant last night with a delightful new friend, we watched as a tall, German woman and her fat-backed bloke held an animated conversation about something. What drew our attention to them was the woman’s expression (which I described quietly to my guest as one of “manic intensity”) and within that visage, her eyes which – as my chum knows Mancunian slang) I whispered were “stickin’ out like two chapel ‘at pegs”.

The BBC Sucks O Cocks Daily News

The Artist Taxi Driver

German Reader Tackles Question "What Percentage of the Vote will Anti-Euro Party AfD Receive in Upcoming Election?"

Mish: Polls show the support for the anti-euro Alternatives for Germany AfD party as high as 17% according to the Financial Times.
However that 17% is the number of voters who would "consider" voting for an anti-euro party, not the number of people committed to that outcome.
Specifically, the FT article states "AfD is a late entrant for the election on September 22 and might not be radical enough to attract protest voters it needs in order to make it over the five per cent vote threshold for seats in the Bundestag."
The AfD, led by economics professor Bernd Lucke, is dominated by former CDU members who became disillusioned with the chancellor’s European policy that is broadly supported by a majority of the public."
Underestimating the Vote
In contrast to the possibility AfD receives less than 5% of the vote as mentioned by the Financial Times, reader Bern who lives in Germany believes AfD is going to receive substantially more than 10% of the vote.

India's Response To The Gold Sell Off: A Massive Buying Frenzy

Submitted by Tyler Durden: Panic, depression, rage, suicidal ideations: watching the US mainstream media, one would think that these are the prevailing sentiments among those who unlike the prevailing "developed world" speculative class, are invested most heavily in physical old - Indians, who collectively comprise the largest end-demand consumer segment for gold products. One would be very wrong.

Because while apparently it is incomprehensible to the "sophisticated" financial crowd in the US that someone may have conviction in their beliefs, and not just lunge from extreme to another, merely riding momentum and technicals like so many "professional" investors, Indians are doing precisely what a buyer should do when the price of the desired product plunges: doubling down, literally.
Bloomberg reports of the immediate aftermath to the past few days' gold plunge: "Gold buyers in India, the world’s biggest consumer, are flocking to stores to buy jewelry and coins, betting a selloff that plunged bullion to a two-year low may be overdone." Wait, so instead of jumping out off high buildings, Indians are being cool, calm and collected and... buying more? Unpossible. Do they not get CNBC in Mumbai? Apparently not: "My daughter is just six months old, but I think it is never too early to buy gold,” said Sharmila Shirodkar, a 28- year-old housewife, while displaying a new pair of earrings she bought from a store in Mumbai’s Zaveri Bazaar. “I had been asking my husband every day if prices will go down more. I couldn’t wait anymore.”
Indeed - the buying frenzy in India has been unleashed:

Iceland Is First in Europe to Sign Free Trade Pact With China

By Omar R. Valdimarsson: Iceland became the first European country to sign a free trade agreement with China in a bid to sell its expertise in geothermal energy to the $7.3 trillion Asian economy.

Iceland’s Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphedinsson signed the deal with Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng in Beijing yesterday, bringing to a close six years of talks, according to Iceland’s Foreign Ministry. Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir started a three-day visit to China yesterday, meeting her Chinese counterpart Premier Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping.

Iceland is working on deepening ties with China that could help speed up efforts to emerge from its 2008 economic collapse, when its three-largest banks defaulted on $85 billion in debt. The north Atlantic nation is seeking to resuscitate its $14.4 billion economy by returning to the industries it once relied on for growth, such as tourism, fishing and energy.
“It’s important for Iceland to conclude pacts like this to strengthen trade following the economic collapse,” Sigurdardottir said in an interview. The free trade agreement will “increase the soundness of business transactions and presumably the interest among Chinese and Icelandic companies that are cooperating” in geothermal power.

Force Majeure Was the End Game All Along, COMEX Will Default in the Next Week! ???

The Doc: The COMEX will default in the next week or several weeks and people will be “settled” with Dollars, no more metal will be delivered!  So, knowing that “game over” has arrived, they are dumping a massive volume of  paper contracts with impunity to push the metals prices as low as possible before the “default”.  This way the “shorts” do not have to and will not be “covered” when “supply” cannot be obtained because of “an act of God”.  They will be settled in cash (at a profit no less) because these “unforeseen” disruptions in supply.  “Who could have seen it coming?” will be the mantra.  I would suspect that banking stress and “bail ins” will also become prevalent globally.  The pricing structure” will now push any and all physical sellers away from the markets and the “door” to safety is effectively being shut.  Either you own metal or you don’t. After the closure of the COMEX and LBMA doors there will be no availability and “price” will be meaningless.  Your ability to protect yourself is right now for all intents and purposes being eliminated.