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Europe Is On The Verge Of Collapsing
Photo by Dieter Heinemann
The scale of impact is unpredictable, but potentially worse than that of the recent toxic assets crisis. The European bloc is the second largest economy, the first trade partner of China, the largest importer of Russian energy and the first buyer of high quality raw materials (it still holds the Hilton quota, the world’s most expensive meat quota).
All over the world European debt holders and many states maintain their reserves in euros. China, for example, has one-fourth of its reserves in such currency and holds a large amount of Greek, Portuguese and Spanish debt bonds….
Without debt restructuring involving important debt amount reductions and extended maturities, Greece will not be able to meet her commitments, just like the rest of Europe’s debt-overhung Europe’s periphery economies – Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy, and the effects would certainly contaminate the rest of Europe including the region’s strongest economies.
The illusion of dampening the fire by deferring debt maturities is just that – a chimera. Unless public and private bondholders’ debts are reduced and longer maturities granted, default and meltdown are Read more…
Gold/Silver Ratio Heads Back Up: Trend Might Continue Without QE3
I previously heralded silver’s breakout above $40, as well as gold’s breakout above $1600, as the dawning of the next leg up for precious metals — one that would send silver past its previous high of above $49 reached earlier this year. I still believe that silver will find its way well into triple digits in the coming years, as monetary demand from the global sovereign debt crisis is only escalating and will be the primary driver of silver’s price, but I’m not so sure it will happen imminently; in light of the tumultuous events of this past week, I’ve taken off some of my silver positions in exchange for gold instead. My rationale is as follows:
1. Because of its industrial role — silver is used to create a wide variety of goods, such as warfare weapons and solar panels — silver is more associated with risk. If we see the return of the bear market in equities like we saw in 2008, silver is going to get hit harder than gold.
2. I expected the gold/silver ratio to fall below 40 and approach its previous low of 33. Instead, we saw a bounce off 40. I still believe that silver will unofficially be re-monetized, and that this process will Read more…
Gold passes $1,700 an Ounce
The price of gold topped $1,700 an ounce Sunday evening as fears of a global economic meltdown intensified.
According to the Times of India, “An unprecedented downgrade to the US credit rating sent investors scrambling out of riskier assets, hammering equity markets and the dollar. US gold futures touched an intraday high at $1,702.7 an ounce, while cash gold, which hit its 11th record in 19 sessions, could rise further if pledges by the Group of Seven nations to support battered financial markets fail to bear fruit.”
The Times reported, “The one notch downgrade by Standard & Poor’s of the US long-term rating on Friday added to the threat of contagion from the euro debt crisis, fears over recession in the United States and even the possibility of Read more…
The Invisible IQ Lowering Drug Most Americans Consume Daily
Did you know there’s an “invisible” drug that a majority of Americans consume on a daily basis—a drug so harmful it’s been proven to cause serious health issues, including damage to your bones and teeth, as well as your kidneys, thyroid, pineal gland, and even your brain. This drug is so pervasive that over 40 percent of all American teens between the ages of 12 and 15 show visible signs of having been overexposed to it, and, shockingly, recent international studies indicate that even small doses of this drug can lower the IQ in children.
What is this drug? Read more…
Arctic “death spiral” or dead sensor?
As many readers have noted, one of the Arctic sea ice extent plots on our WUWT sea ice page took a Serreze style nosedive today:
According to DMI (Danish Meteorological Institute), this is the source of the data:
The ice extent values are calculated from the ice type data from the Ocean and Sea Ice, Satellite Application Facility (OSISAF), where areas with ice concentration higher than 30% are classified Read more…
China willing to facilitate military cooperation with Russia: senior military officer
MOSCOW, Aug 07, 2011 (Xinhua via COMTEX) — Chen Bingde, chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China, stressed here on Sunday that China is willing to further promote military cooperation with neighboring Russia.
Chen, who visited Russian military units from Friday to Sunday, said that China’s army would like to work with the Russian forces to further advance their military ties, exchange their beneficial experience on building forces, and share with each other the achievements of military reforms.
China wants to step up its cooperation with Russia to mutually promote the army building in both countries, said Chen.
During his stay, Chen has visited several Russian units, including the Read more…
CONFIRMED ! Comet Elenin on SOHO .. 200,000+km WIDE coma (1/6th size of the sun)
Copter Downed by Taliban Fire; Elite U.S. Unit Among Dead
S. Sabawoon/European Pressphoto AgencyAfghan insurgents on Saturday said they had shot down a Chinook transport helicopter similar to the one seen loading troops in Kabul in 2004
The attack in Wardak Province killed seven Afghans.
KABUL, Afghanistan — In the deadliest day for American forces in the nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan, insurgents shot down a Chinook transport helicopter on Saturday, killing 30 Americans, including some Navy Seal commandos from the unit that killed Osama bin Laden, as well as 8 Afghans, American and Afghan officials said.
The helicopter, on a night-raid mission in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province, to the west of Kabul, was most likely brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade, one coalition official said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, and they could hardly have found a more valuable target: American officials said that 22 of the dead were Navy Seal commandos, including members of Seal Team 6. Other commandos from that team conducted the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Bin Laden in May. The officials said that those who were killed Saturday were not involved in the Pakistan mission.
Saturday’s attack came during a Read more…
US stocks plunge, Dow falls more than 500 points
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 4.3 percent Thursday, its worst one-day drop in more than two years, as global markets melted down over fears of another world economic downturn.
The Dow was down 512.76 points to 11,383.68; the broader S&P 500 lost 4.8 percent to 1,200.07, while the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite plunged 5.1 percent to 2,556.39.
More turmoil over sovereign debt problems in Europe and feeble US economic data are stoking “fear that the economy is heading for a double-dip recession,” said Peter Cardillo of Rockwell Global Capital.
“The market is pricing that in,” he said.
Markets worldwide were on edge over fiscal weakness in Italy and Spain and the eurozone’s ability to contain more crisis, as the two countries’ borrowing costs surged in recent days.
Meanwhile the US Labor Department reported that weekly claims for unemployment benefits remained at a high 400,000 last week, as business and government layoffs persisted while new job creation remained sluggish.
All of the Dow’s 30 blue-chip stocks were hit by the sell-off, but losses were most pronounced in the basic materials sectors, energy and financial companies.
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