Dear CIGAs,
One has to marvel at the good fortune in the employment number and dollar reaction thereto coming at just the right time to meet next week’s $131 billion sale of US treasuries coming to market.
The street has proclaimed that there is a god and its name is GS.
All hail Mammon.
As Andrew Carnegie had carved into his desk, "The public be damned."
On another note, you have to love F-TV. It is more entertaining than CNN news.
Now they are bashing the "Tesla" electric car that has a range of several hundred miles, does 0 to 60mph in 3.2 seconds, and has a top speed of slightly over 150mph. These are same guys that a giddy over the GM volt.
They are not car people. That is certain.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Four bank failures released so far this Friday evening.
http://www.fdic.gov/
Bank Closing Information – December 4, 2009
These links contain useful information for the customers and vendors of these closed banks.
AmTrust Bank, Cleveland, OH
The Tattnall Bank, Reidsville, GA
First Security National Bank, Norcross, GA
The Buckhead Community Bank, Atlanta, GA
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
The only place on the planet where gold is available in quantity is from the floor traders of paper pretend gold, the COMEX.
The physical market is out of gold. Whatever physical left in size is whatever remains to be sold by the IMF.
The Chinese are trying to finesse that purchase.
What a scam paper gold is!
US Mint Ends 2009 Buffalo Gold Bullion Coin Sales, Inventory Depleted
By Mike Unser on Dec 4th, 2009 in
The United States Mint today ended the sale of 2009 American Gold Buffalo Bullion Coins, telling customers in a memo that its inventory has been depleted and that no more of the 2009-dated coins would be produced.
"The United States Mint has depleted its inventory of 2009 American Buffalo One Ounce Gold Bullion Coins," the US Mint stated in a memorandum to authorized purchasers of the precious metal coins. "No additional inventory will be made available. As additional information becomes available regarding 2010-dated American Buffalo One Once Gold Bullion Coins, you will be notified."
Despite their late Oct. 15 release date, sales of the bullion Buffalos topped those from 2008 and 2007, as the following table shows:
Iran Expands Naval Clout In Gulf: U.S. Naval Study
By REUTERS
Published: November 30, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Iran has restructured its naval forces to give an arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard full responsibility for operations in the strategic Persian Gulf in the event of a conflict, according to a new U.S. intelligence study.
The concentration of fast attack boats and cruise missiles in and along the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, known as the IRGCN, "better allow Iranian naval assets to contribute to and extend Iran’s layered defense strategy," the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence said in the study, dated Fall 2009.
The Revolutionary Guard has gradually expanded its naval capabilities over the years by incorporating Chinese, North Korean and Italian designs and technology, both military and commercial, and it now deploys some of the fastest naval vessels in the Persian Gulf, the study said.
It said the Revolutionary Guard also reportedly wants to develop or acquire "unmanned" naval vessels.
As part of the reorganization, which began in 2007, the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, or IRIN, has positioned its own naval assets further into the Gulf of Oman, according to the study, first disclosed by the Secrecy News Web site last week.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Today Bloomberg interviewed a personality of the city (London Financial Center) at 11:18 EDT. That person said the world and the planet are IRRELEVANT. Profit is the ONLY motivating factor.
He made no distinction between business and life in general, therein revealing his firm belief.
He was truthful of what the young lions of finance believe and what MOPE stands for. This also explains quite clearly what I have been telling you about OTC derivatives since the birth of this site.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
From www.shadowstats.com:
- Employment and Unemployment Not Improving,
Despite Distortions from Seasonal Factors and Revisions
- Unemployment Rate U.3 at 10.0% (SGS 21.8%)
- Fed Boosts Monetary Base Anew
"No. 264: November Employment, Monetary Base"
http://www.shadowstats.com
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Economic strength leads political and social strength.
While everyone is looking at China, China is looking at Africa.
The opportunity is in Africa for those who have vision.
Hu Jintao Unveils Major Foreign-Policy Initiative
December 3, 2009 01:54 PM Age: 20 hrs
By: Willy Lam
Chinese President Hu Jintao has signaled his administration’s readiness to play a bigger―and perhaps more constructive―role in global affairs through the release of a five-pronged foreign policy game plan. Cited by the official Outlook Weekly as “Hu Jintao’s Viewpoints about the Times,” this far-reaching initiative consists of five theories on, respectively, “the profound changes [in the world situation], constructing a harmonious world, joint development, shared responsibilities, and enthusiastic participation [in global affairs].” In a late November issue of Outlook Weekly (a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]), ideologue Zhang Xiaotong indicated that the party chief and president’s “viewpoints” amounted to a “major theoretical innovation” based on the “scientific judgment of the development and changes of the times.” This ambitious agenda has been unveiled after U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to China and before the Copenhagen climate change summit, two events that could become milestones in the Middle Kingdom’s quest for quasi-superpower status.
According to National College of Administration (NCOA) Professor Wang Yukai, President Hu’s new-look diplomacy marked the first time that a contemporary Chinese leader had arrived at a comprehensive set of theories with an international perspective. He noted that the “viewpoints” would “undoubtedly provide a theoretical guideline for China’s future participation in global affairs.” More significantly, the CCP leadership’s rejiggered worldview can be interpreted as the CCP leadership’s response to a key point recently raised by President Obama, that Washington “welcomes a strong, prosperous and successful China that plays a greater role in world affairs.” While Premier Wen Jiabao, a close Hu ally, had disputed the G-2 characterization of China and America during his meeting with Obama, Beijing seems primed for evermore stellar performances on the world stage (Outlook Weekly [Beijing], November 24; Ming Pao [Hong Kong], November 25; Reuters, November 17).
In his 7,000-word article, Zhang, an editor at the Party Literature Research Center under the CCP Central Committee, collected foreign policy statements that Hu made on public occasions as well as in internal party conclaves. He cited Hu, who heads the CCP Leading Group on Foreign Affairs (which is China’s foremost policy-setting organ on the diplomatic and security fronts) as saying that the contemporary world had experienced “historic changes” and that the same could be said for China’s relations with the world. Saluting impressive gains in China’s industrial and technological prowess, Hu noted that the Chinese were living “in an era that is full of opportunities and challenges” ―and that “the opportunities exceed the challenges.” The Chinese “economic miracle” has made it possible for the CCP Fourth-Generation leadership under Hu to make radical departures from late patriarch Deng Xiaoping’s famous diplomatic credo of “adopting a low profile and never taking the lead” in international affairs (Xinhua News Agency, November 24).
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
It is nice to see that there is some voice on this planet willing to tell the truth about these continuing and growing WMDs.
China denounces U.S. banks for ‘evil intent’ with derivatives
By Jamil Anderlini
Financial Times, London
Thursday, December 3, 2009
BEIJING — A senior Chinese official who oversees the country’s largest state-owned enterprises has publicly slammed Western investment banks for "maliciously" peddling complicated derivative products that caused huge losses for Chinese companies over the last year.
In Beijing’s strongest criticism on the matter to date, Li Wei, vice director of the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, singled out Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup in a long and highly critical article in the latest issue of an official Communist party newspaper.
The large losses suffered by Chinese state companies were "closely associated with the intentionally complex and highly leveraged products that were fraudulently peddled by international investment banks with evil intentions," Mr Li asserted. "To a certain extent some international investment banks were the chief criminals and the root of ruin for the Chinese enterprises who encountered this financial derivatives Waterloo."
In his article, Mr Li said 68 of the 130-odd state companies controlled directly by Sasac had been buying derivatives to speculate or hedge against rising commodity prices and fluctuating currencies and interest rates, even though some of them were not authorised to do so.
These 68 companies had booked total combined net losses of Rmb11.4 billion on the Rmb125 billion worth of financial derivatives products they had bought by the end of October 2008, Mr Li said.
The government has not previously revealed the full extent of losses suffered by Chinese companies that made ill-fated bets on over-the-counter, mostly offshore derivatives.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Pakistan today.
Pakistan Rawalpindi mosque attack kills many
Friday, 4 December 2009
At least 32 people have been killed and many injured in a coordinated attack at a mosque in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, military officials say.
Reports suggest there were at least two suicide attacks during Friday prayers followed by a series of explosions.
Ambulances have rushed to the scene in the busy Qasim Market area of the city.
The Pakistani security forces have been targeted in a series of recent attacks. Nineteen people were killed in an army base attack in Rawalpindi in October.
Military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said the latest attack had been coordinated.
"There was certainly more than one attacker, so there is a possibility that some of them may still be hiding in the vicinity," he told reporters.
