youngdan wrote:

There is not a silver coin for sale in the entire country save individuals on e-bay etc. The mass delusion of fiat still holds but I reckon a few up in Iceland are learning the hard way.

'Tis alright for some Danny boy. The people who saw the writing on the wall some years ago and got in early are happy campers.

Like anything else, it's just an asset and one who hasn't bought early has to watch with envy and possibly wait for a short term correction to buy. At this point, I'm content to believe the train has left the station on this asset for me.

The question now are the CBs going to start printing money to pump up Western economies? The rise in commodity prices today are giving the inflationary pundits a lift. I also note that the futures contract on the Euro/Dollar rate is stabilising with the March contract showing some bullish Euro sentiment. Of course, a concerted round of rate cuts by CBs will fuel the inflation pundits for the short term.

On the other hand, there is at least the same amount of write-downs for banks as they've already processed which gives the deflationary pundits a good foundation to argue their case in the long term.

There's an almighty battle between the two sides about which side will come out on top on the short term. I'm leaning a bit to the inflationary stimulus side in the run up to the elections and christmas and a return to sobriety in the new year. gl

youngdan wrote:

There is not a silver coin for sale in the entire country save individuals on e-bay etc. The mass delusion of fiat still holds but I reckon a few up in Iceland are learning the hard way.

Try India or Japan. I believe as a non resident there is an upper limit on what you can buy in India something like 100 Kilos. Not at all sure what the duties are and how easy it is to export. I have had presents made for special occasions and didn't encounter any problems, but it is a country that thrives on regulations. More regulations than anyone could possibly remember.

You can also buy gold there. The place is awash with the metal. Some Banks sell gold coins and probably sell silver as well. As with anything else take care re the source of sale.

There may be problems that I am not aware of but do a bit of research and who knows?

rockyracoon wrote:

There's an almighty battle between the two sides about which side will come out on top on the short term. I'm leaning a bit to the inflationary stimulus side in the run up to the elections and christmas and a return to sobriety in the new year. gl

Obama is going to win the election so don't expect reality to set in any day soon.

Surely the looming problem is massive deflation? Even if confidence returned by Christmas, and given a fair wind and no problems, it will take at least 1-2 years for that to feed through the system. So provided we tighten up on credit the likely outcome is deflation for the next few years?

They intend to inflate for sure and this week will tell the tale. A bad gilt sale of 10 years today. Barely got it sold. Further proof that Ireland wouldbe unable to borrowebnough for a pint., The Brits were only borrowing a billion or so.

Everything depends on the next 3 days. Probably a big coordinated rate cut but they have no effect on anything and watch interest rates rise if they do this.

rockyracoon wrote:

Squire wrote:

rockyracoon wrote:

Could part of the problem be those who hold the trillions of dollars in currency aren't inclined to keep their dosh in Western institutions? Are excessively wealthy Middle Eastern billionaires sequestering their cash in their own banks or possibly in Far Eastern banks? Given the internationalism of capital and the ease with which money can be transferred, it's not impossible to imagine a scenario where wealth is fleeing to apparent safe havens outside the US and Europe. It should be noted that the Japanese Yen is actually appreciating against the dollar (one of the few currencies to do so) indicating a flight into that safe haven. Of course, Dollars and Eurodollars can flow into any safe haven outside the EU and US as well.

It is not just the Middle Eastern billionaires. I had this discussion with YoungDan some time ago. I took a decision that the Euro, Dollar and Sterling were over valued and were heading for difficult times and acted accordingly. Swiss, Yen and Renminbi and some other Eastern currencies. It was as much a matter of convenience as strategy as basically we moved interests east ahead of the various property bubbles peaking. The problem now, what currency is safe? What Banks can you safely use? Having to watch currencies is a real headache that we could do well without. By the way signs of trading in gold and silver instead of currency out East!! But some countries like the mystique of precious metals.

I've noted with some interest that Swiss banks have been particularly chipper, even smug, these days. And they had fairly large exposure to US toxic junk. Have Eurodollar deposits migrated into these banks?

Haven't been a fan of the gold bug myself, and the weakness of poor man's gold (silver), indicates that the big punters aren't so keen on the bullion these days. At some point in the future, if the price is right, I will indulge a wee bit of capital in bullion, but it is a long term project for myself.

I believe the reason the Swiss banks are more "chipper" as you put it is that the toxic stuff is out in the open. UBS are down 44 billion and Credit Suisse are down something in the region of 17 billion. The necessity to be open with the damage is partly due to the EBK (bank regulator) forcing them to be and partly self-interest. If they try to hide stuff, their own domestic customer base will exact retribution by moving to another bank. Also, there are a great many banks here, not widely known outside Switzerland, who have no exposure to outside toxic debt and they are doing quite well out of this. Bank Julius Bär is one that springs to mind but there are many others.

So for the big two, the worst is behind them.

Big falls in Asia overnight

http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=asia

Squire wrote:

Big falls in Asia overnight

http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=asia

Nikkei fell nearly 10%
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks/movers_index_nky.html

All Asian indices down except KL - could we see a swing to Islamic banking? No harm if they were all under the eye of Sharia Law would it?

UK moving to nationalise their banks today and pump 50 billion pounds in. British citizens get a stake in the banks ... Looks like a ton of Sinn Feins policies in the last election are coming true. Time to go back and read them again to see what else might be in store for us.

How will today pan out for the ISEQ? Will it finally reach youngdan's predicted 1000?

Alistair Darling announces the 50 billion and the FTSE opens 2%+ down ... on RTE a half an hour after the ISEQ opens as the index plummets towards the 2000s, the news is that in its first few minutes the ISEQ opened up .. WTF?

Watch the Money Masters folks, there's something rotten behind this.

Squire wrote:

rockyracoon wrote:

There's an almighty battle between the two sides about which side will come out on top on the short term. I'm leaning a bit to the inflationary stimulus side in the run up to the elections and christmas and a return to sobriety in the new year. gl

Obama is going to win the election so don't expect reality to set in any day soon.

Surely the looming problem is massive deflation? Even if confidence returned by Christmas, and given a fair wind and no problems, it will take at least 1-2 years for that to feed through the system. So provided we tighten up on credit the likely outcome is deflation for the next few years?

Is it a question of either/or? There are big pressures for stagflation, particularly affecting the poor. Overall contraction of economic activity are inevitable and at the same time food and oil prices are big inflationary pressures.

http://www.slate.com/id/2185919/

Out of date Stiglitz (Jan. 08) on stagflation: worth the read
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jan/02/stagflationcometh

How yees this fine foggy morning.?

Well, Slim, I agree with your observation on Swiss banking but I also noted they were almost smug. There has been no talk of nationalising Swiss banks in the least and they are a financial hub to boot. I have to believe that loadsa dosh is flooding into their system, especially the Eurodollar deposits.

Squire, I tend to agree with you but something isn't just quite right and the markets are reflecting (stock markets for all the ballyhoo about their forward pricing sagacity, are often as not just as reactionary) the growing uncertainty between long term credit destruction and short term stimulus. Youngdan has a far better grasp of how the Fed and others are injecting 100's of billions into the system and where this money is coming from and ultimately resting.

Given the markets' decline today and over the last several days, one has to feel that even the big boys and girls in the unit, hedge and sovereign funds are bailing out of the markets. I'm personally committed to stay out of the markets until I see a quantifiable return to "normalacy" and then a bit more. Yet, I can see some lovely bargains lying around the market floors.

In the "real" world there are many viable businesses that will need access for day-to-day funding facilities and this is where everyone's attention is focused. I'm not talking about grand building projects but on payrolls and stocking inventory. Every Western govt, it seems, is scrambling to gather enough cash to inject into the credit pipe line. They are borrowing these funds. From who? I'm tending to believe that they are letting the printing presses slide a little which is evidenced by some commodity price increases.

Hell, the "experts" in govts have called this all wrong, and at this point I wonder if anyone really has a grasp on the entire situation. The ad hoc national approach in Europe tends to confirm the suspicions that there is no short-term or long-term grasp on the situation. gl

I think all of this is going to get very geopolitical soon. We are already realising the implications of Russia lending money to Iceland after everyone else turned their backs on them.
Who will Ireland turn to for help?
Brussels? They'll be laughed out of the place.
The U.S.? very

floatingingalway wrote:

I think all of this is going to get very geopolitical soon. We are already realising the implications of Russia lending money to Iceland after everyone else turned their backs on them.
Who will Ireland turn to for help?
Brussels? They'll be laughed out of the place.
The U.S.? very

I hadn't really throught that far ahead. I tend to believe that the Brussels/Frankfurt avenue will be available to us, as we're in the Eurozone. The costs applied, both monetarily and regulatory, might be a wee bit expensive. Eye-wateringly expensive. Maybe we can tap the few oil shieks (spelling)? Sell the odd passport for, say, €10 billion a pop.

rockyracoon wrote:

floatingingalway wrote:

I think all of this is going to get very geopolitical soon. We are already realising the implications of Russia lending money to Iceland after everyone else turned their backs on them.
Who will Ireland turn to for help?
Brussels? They'll be laughed out of the place.
The U.S.? very

I hadn't really throught that far ahead. I tend to believe that the Brussels/Frankfurt avenue will be available to us, as we're in the Eurozone. The costs applied, both monetarily and regulatory, might be a wee bit expensive. Eye-wateringly expensive. Maybe we can tap the few oil shieks (spelling)? Sell the odd passport for, say, €10 billion a pop.

I wouldn't bank on it......




Sorry, couldn't resist that

floatingingalway wrote:

I think all of this is going to get very geopolitical soon. We are already realising the implications of Russia lending money to Iceland after everyone else turned their backs on them.
Who will Ireland turn to for help?
Brussels? They'll be laughed out of the place.
The U.S.? very

China? We've been so very nice to the Chinese people studying and working here.

Quote :

Hell, the "experts" in govts have called this all wrong, and at this point I wonder if anyone really has a grasp on the entire situation. The ad hoc national approach in Europe tends to confirm the suspicions that there is no short-term or long-term grasp on the situation. gl

I am not so sure that there is a solution, in the terms that people are thinking of some fix-up that will allow us to go back to business. I think we are at a pivotal historic point in which the boom and bust propensities of capitalism have built up to Krakatoa proportions and are wreaking terrible destruction. Any band-aid job would only limp along for an even shorter period than it has since the dot-com burst. In finance substantial nationalisation of the banks is proving to the only way of preventing their collapse. I think we have to be thinking about how people are going to be fed and housed, not how we can prop up a system that is apparently designed to make a very small number of people mind-bogglingly rich.

This is not looking good.

http://www.ise.ie/app/p pup_graph.asp?INDEX_TYPE=

I'm going to the bank to get a few bob out to feed the kids.

Shelter and food are a right taken as given for every other animal except the human animal. What is fundamentally wrong with the capitalist system is that it attempts to put a price on things that should not have a price on them.

People keep wondering when the "bottom" will be. The "bottom" will be when the ordinary people realise that a small number of people have made huge profits on keeping up the illusion that food and shelter have a value.

Debt slavery is about to be blown out of the water, with any luck.

Well, Rocky, UBS lost a lot of customers domestically to other banks, some of them colleagues and friends of mine who just said that, since the Swiss government only guarantees CHF30,000, they didn't want to run any unnecessary risk. So they moved. Fortunately for them, they are in Switzerland and there is a myriad of banks to choose from. One moved to the wonderfully named Banco Populare di Sondrio in Bellinzona where he is getting 4% on deposit, which for a Swiss is incredibly attractive.

Small or private banks are the big beneficiaries of all this. If it turns out that UBS or CS have been telling porkies, they will profit even more. It's an ill wind, eh?

cactus flower wrote:

I am not so sure that there is a solution, in the terms that people are thinking of some fix-up that will allow us to go back to business. I think we are at a pivotal historic point in which the boom and bust propensities of capitalism have built up to Krakatoa proportions and are wreaking terrible destruction. Any band-aid job would only limp along for an even shorter period than it has since the dot-com burst. In finance substantial nationalisation of the banks is proving to the only way of preventing their collapse. I think we have to be thinking about how people are going to be fed and housed, not how we can prop up a system that is apparently designed to make a very small number of people mind-bogglingly rich.

CF, weren't you asking about help and insight, not so long, into financial and economic matters? A wolf in sheep's clothes perhaps - or one damn quick leaner. (Just slagging!) I had no more finished my musings above than the very thought you've articulated sprang to mind. It requires greater analysis. In the short term, the band-aids will stabalise the markets. The duration that the band-aids will be able to their job is open to discussion. No doubt when the dust settles, there will be major moves on regulation of the credit markets. However, I listened to some of the UK's discussion on their rescue plan, and one thing became cyrstal clear. They still want the consumer to borrow in order to spend. Yet, somehow, while acknowledging that this is a double edged sword, this is suppose to be a solution to the problem. It isn't. Not by a long shot. There well may be a vacumn in Western financial and economic thinking and forward planning.

Also, I can't help think China, who has been very quiet during this turmoil, is learning some salient lessons. They may have been happy to buy US debt to establish and increase their industrial and manufacturing infrastructure but they will be choosy, imo, about whom they lend credit to in the future. There will be strings attached and you can bet your last Euro that the Chinese will profit from what they learn. No free lunches from the Chinese or any other for the matter when it comes to dear old Ireland. We can't forget that the blanket gaurantee on deposits (and some bonds) has increased our costs of borrowing.

Floating. We have a saying in Monaghan: "don't be at it". Sort of means, fair enough but desist as we can't rebut your statement(s).

Quote :

Floating. We have a saying in Monaghan: "don't be at it". Sort of means, fair enough but desist as we can't rebut your statement(s). Smile

I thought they were statements worthy of discussion.

Slim Buddha wrote:

Well, Rocky, UBS lost a lot of customers domestically to other banks, some of them colleagues and friends of mine who just said that, since the Swiss government only guarantees CHF30,000, they didn't want to run any unnecessary risk. So they moved. Fortunately for them, they are in Switzerland and there is a myriad of banks to choose from. One moved to the wonderfully named Banco Populare di Sondrio in Bellinzona where he is getting 4% on deposit, which for a Swiss is incredibly attractive.

Small or private banks are the big beneficiaries of all this. If it turns out that UBS or CS have been telling porkies, they will profit even more. It's an ill wind, eh?

The bank name sounds like the some fairy-tale title! It nice to have the option of so many with regards to banking.

What I'm speculating about are massive transfer of funds by wealthy individuals, hedge funds and sovereign funds. Many of these funds are denominated in Eurodollars and rested all over Europe. I know that the Swiss banking practices have been amended with regard to their privacy requirements, etc, but Zurich is still a fairly significant financial centre and the coordination of their operations, alone, make them a reasonable place to park cash. Like I said, I'm just speculating about international cash flows. It's impossible to get concrete facts until the flows have been parked for some time. In the meantime, the best we can do guessestimate.

floatingingalway wrote:

Quote :

Floating. We have a saying in Monaghan: "don't be at it". Sort of means, fair enough but desist as we can't rebut your statement(s). Smile

I thought they were statements worthy of discussion.

Indeed, they are but I can't really come up with worthy retorts or insights. I'm flumoxed by the entire situation. Though I do see that the Euro bourses are starting to rally from their lows. Maybe Libor and the Euribor are starting to come down?

rockyracoon wrote:

Slim Buddha wrote:

Well, Rocky, UBS lost a lot of customers domestically to other banks, some of them colleagues and friends of mine who just said that, since the Swiss government only guarantees CHF30,000, they didn't want to run any unnecessary risk. So they moved. Fortunately for them, they are in Switzerland and there is a myriad of banks to choose from. One moved to the wonderfully named Banco Populare di Sondrio in Bellinzona where he is getting 4% on deposit, which for a Swiss is incredibly attractive.

Small or private banks are the big beneficiaries of all this. If it turns out that UBS or CS have been telling porkies, they will profit even more. It's an ill wind, eh?

The bank name sounds like the some fairy-tale title! It nice to have the option of so many with regards to banking.

What I'm speculating about are massive transfer of funds by wealthy individuals, hedge funds and sovereign funds. Many of these funds are denominated in Eurodollars and rested all over Europe. I know that the Swiss banking practices have been amended with regard to their privacy requirements, etc, but Zurich is still a fairly significant financial centre and the coordination of their operations, alone, make them a reasonable place to park cash. Like I said, I'm just speculating about international cash flows. It's impossible to get concrete facts until the flows have been parked for some time. In the meantime, the best we can do guessestimate.

Nobody ever sees what is really going on with regard to cash flows in this country. Nobody talks about money here. Ever. It is even illegal to quote a salary in a Job ad in a newspaper.

I have no doubt that there is a lot of money of all kinds flowing in here but nobody talks about it. It is not in the press and not on TV. It's nowhere to be found. But everybody believes it's happening. That's what banking secrecy, Swiss-style, means. They don't even tell themselves.

Quote :

Maybe Libor and the Euribor are starting to come down?

That's where I get "flumoxed". I have no idea what the significance of that is. I am not an economist by any stretch of the imagination. What I can see, though, is the bigger picture and I am not liking what I am seeing; in fact I'm starting to brick it!

I understand that an ECB rate cut has been announced.
4.25 -> 3.75

It was part of a coordinated effort with the Fed and the Bank of England

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7658958.stm

OK. Now I'm getting scared - Riots in Hong Kong