Investing Contrarian

Euro saw 40% reduction in open interest as large speculators decided to take some of their profits off the table. What was surprising was the amount by which the open interest reduced wwhich was the largest in recorded history.

Is there a possibility that we are now in the final leg of the EURO down turn? The large speculators were dead accurate when they started to reduce their long position in November first week and 30 days later we saw the EUR/USD crack down a massive 1000 pips in 60 days flat.

Dollar Index looks bullish but the large speculators have started to get tired of the rally and moving out. In my view there is one last leg left for the dollar to hit 82.5/83 before resuming its trend down.

That brings me to my favoritye commodity for 2010. Oil!!

We are quite literally staring at Gold that is Black. $100 is on the cards here. Large and massive positions have been built over the last few months even through all the stock market volatility.

Looking at this chart it almost seems that insiders are sensing something massive like a war or Israel Iran standoff all of which could spike Oil faster than you can count the ticks.

Earlier today we posted the Oil looks all set for $100

Reproduced here and originally written by Darrly Guppy:

In July 2008 when oil was trading near $146 a barrel many companies used futures and hedging contracts to lock-in prices near $146. A few weeks later oil started its plunge to the eventual low of $33. The collapse was a high probability outcome of the parabolic trend that started to develop in May 2007. This type of trend usually leads to a rapid collapse, although the eventual fall in oil was much lower than expected.

The same type of parabolic trend is found in the current gold chart. The fall from $1,200 to $1,055 was consistent with the type of collapse associated with a parabolic trend, although the gold price retreat has not been as dramatic as the retreat in oil during 2008.

Price activity is a reflection of human behavior. This behavior may be driven by objective and verifiable factors, such as the supply and demand balance for oil. However, the behavior is modified by a wide range of emotional factors. These are often classified broadly into fear and greed but this is an oversimplification. Behavior is complex, and behavior when money is involved is even more complex. Fortunately behavior shows repeated responses and these are revealed as repeated patterns of price behavior in the market.

The parabolic trend is a result of a particular grouping of emotional behaviors. The current behavior seen on the chart of NYMEX oil does not include a parabolic trend but it does include patterns that provide a guide to the emotional thinking of the market. Better price chart analysis helps understand the status of the commodity and its economics, and the status of the market for the commodity. It suggests there is increased probability oil will move towards $100 during 2010.

The weekly NYMEX oil chart shows an uptrend that has paused but this has not developed into a downtrend. The pause is defined by an up-sloping wide trading channel. The chart has several bullish features and they suggest markets are moving towards higher oil prices.

The first important feature is the long-term uptrend line starting from the low in February, 2009. From then to October last year the uptrend line acts as a support level. In December, 2009, the price dropped below the uptrend line. This price fall signaled a change in the nature of the uptrend line from a support feature to a resistance feature.

Starting December 2009, the uptrend line acts as a resistance level. The price rise in January 2010 to $83 retreats from the value of the uptrend line. The uptrend line is now the resistance level. This line defines the general behavior of the long-term trend.

The second important feature is the up-sloping trading channel. The upper edge of the trading channel starts from the high at $73 in June, 2009. The line touches the highs of $80 and $83. This is a resistance level. The lower edge of the trading channel starts from near $65 in July 2009. This line touches the lows in $66 and $69 and $71.

The third important feature is the strong historical resistance level near $88. This is the mid-year upside target for oil. The bullish environment for oil is confirmed when the oil price retreats to the historical support level near $78 and uses this for a rebound rally. This is a very bullish signal and will allow prices to move very quickly towards $88 or higher. A sustained move above $88 has an upside target near $98. The current rate of trading band momentum makes this target achievable towards the end of 2010.

The longer-term outlook for oil suggests increasing prices but the rate of increase is slower than the rate of increase in 2009.

Oil looks all dressed up. Lets see if it can take down the all important $88 and then $100.

BusinessInsider reports

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ANOTHER FIRE AT REACTOR #4, TWO WORKERS MISSING
INVESTING CONTRARIAN

Tagged with: Dollar

BusinessInsider reports

Continued here:
Here’s That Huge, Bullish JPMorgan Report On Rare Earth Company MolyCorp
INVESTING CONTRARIAN

Tagged with: FED

JessesCafeAmericain reports
What has been hidden will be revealed.
The Independent ” UK
Saudis Mobilise Thousands of Troops to Quell Growing Revolt
By Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Saudi Arabia was yesterday drafting up to 10,000 security personnel into its north-eastern Shia Muslim provinces, clogging the highways into Dammam and other cities with busloads of troops in fear of next week’s
INVESTING CONTRARIAN
See the article here:
Saudi Arabia Mobilises Troops: Provinces in Revolt as the Empire Declines

Tagged with: crash, precious metals, reserve

ZERO HEDGE reports

The key catalyst for Goldman’s suddenly cautious view on gold (which still has a $1,690 price target): the end of QE2 in June 2011. So, presumably, when QE 3 is announced in May in order to allow the continued monetization of $4 trillion in debt issuance over the next 2 years, that should be very bullish for gold, yes? Irrelevant: Goldman has become just one more glorified Jim Cramer: pumping anything that is green, and dumping anything in which there is even a modest (CME margin hike driven) correction.
From Jeffrey Currie’s just released report, “The cyclical commodities join the rally as gold falters.”
That said, the firm is still recommending a long gold (and platinum) trading recommendation:
And here is the summary outlook/key issues on key commodities:
WTI (target $105.50/bbl):
Brent (target $103.50/bbl):
Incidentally, this should make for a great compression arbitrage. If Goldman is even remotely correct, going long WTI and short Brent should generate a substantial IRR.
RBOB (target $2.62)
NYMEX Nat Gas (PT $4.50/mmBtu)
LME Copper (PT:$11,000/mt) ” better hope the “Cold Fusion” story is a hoax here..
Gold (PT: $1,690)
Silver (PT: $28.2)
Cocoa (PT: $2,4000/mt)
Much more in the full report:
?

INVESTING CONTRARIAN
Continue reading here:
Goldman Goes Gaga Over Cyclical Commodities, Says Gold Run Is Ending As QE2 Comes To A Close (Full Commodity Update)

Tagged with: currency, yields

ZERO HEDGE reports

Denmark Gives Away $7B USD, or 2% of GDP to Carbon Credit Traders
The Danish tax authority has been robbed blind by a carbon
trading scandal that has rocked the market for carbon off sets: while the story
saw some press a year ago, significantly higher losses have since been reported
and the MSM has ignored the story.?
The Danish Auditor General is on the case now as the scope
of the crime has become obvious, and grown exponentially since it was first
reported.? Originally discussed as a quasi-small-time
dollar scam, the reality a year later is a lot larger: Europol is estimating a
value on the case of 38 Billion Kroners and the values seem to keep going up.
Connie Hedegaard, then the Climate & Energy Minister for
Denmark ?is now the EU Climate Commissioner.? While she was with the Danish government, she
helped set up and manage a system where there were no background checks on the
listings of permitted traders.? This removal
of identification was done even though the EU requires at least passport.? This helped a group of fake, rogue traders
set up a program that looted the Danish economy of up to 2% of its gross GDP in
lost VAT taxes.?
Here’s How:
The Denmark CO2 permit registry was setup with
extremely lax rules and regulations, possibly intentionally. ?In 2007, Ms. Hedegaard removed the requirement
for identification and in a very short period of time traders figured out the
loopholes and started to back up the proverbial truck.? How? To put it simply: you could round robin
CO2 credits, booking the VAT as a bonus each time.
What is painfully obvious is that over 1,100 of the 1,256 (or
about 88%) of the registered traders listed in their system were bogusly set up
for fraudulent activity. The traders have since been delisted as the scope of
the crime becomes obvious.?
The fake but registered traders used made up, unique addresses
for their business: in one famous case, a trader was listed as trading out of a
parking lot in London.? In another, the
trader took the name of a dead Pakistani national.?
The fraud centered on the use of VAT as a mechanism to
generate real non-taxed cash flow.? An
international trader would buy VAT free credits from one nation, and then resell
them to a VAT added customer in a second nation, pocketing as much as 25% of
the cost of the trade as a personal commission.?
The trader then kept the VAT difference in lieu sending in the VAT to
the necessary tax system, effectively arbitraging the VAT system (See, e.g.,
Cap and Trade; Leaving Las Vegas, “The Hole You’re In”).
This trade was coined a “carousel” as the traders would
re-export the credits, claiming the VAT only to reimport the credits and
reselling them again with a new VAT assigned.?
They could wash, rinse and repeat booking up to a 25% VAT in the process
each time.
Here is the Danish
Emissions Trading Registry CR User Manual. ?The how to manual.
Jack H Barnes was named the audited Top Stock Picker in 2005
by Forbes’s “Best
of the Web”.? He is a retired hedge
fund manager.? He now writes about Global
Macro Economic issues at jackhbarnes.com.
His twitter feed can be reached here.?
Links of Interest to Story
WUWT
Lawrence
Solomon
Guardian

INVESTING CONTRARIAN
View post:
Denmark Gives Away $7B USD, or 2% of GDP to Carbon Credit Traders
Tagged with: ECB, eur/dollar

ZERO HEDGE reports

Diapason Securities’ Sean Corrigan is rapidly emerging as one of our favorite macro commentators. With his dose of weekly skepticism, he has quickly assumed the position vacated by Goldman Sachs’ Jan Hatzius when it comes to the 3Ms: market, monetary and macroeconomic commentary (courtesy of the now well-known and very infamous flipping by the German strategist on his outlook on the economy). In his latest outlook piece, Corrigan dissects recent moves in the bond market, noticing a 6 sigma, three-decade statistical aberration when it comes to the 2s5s30s butterfly, and continuing through the implications of increasing bond vol on other risk assets (a topic which we believe will receive much more focus in the coming weeks and months), on fund flows (his views on the implications of the December Z.1 statement are worth the price of admission alone), on the cooling off of the European “economic miracle”, and lastly, on what China’s refusal to attempt a soft landing means for global risk. His conclusion is as always absolutely spot on: “in short, that risk assets can continue to rise, pro tem, it also means that RISK itself will be climbing inexorably up the scale and on into the danger zone.”

From Sean Corrigan’s December 17 edition of Money, Macro and Markets
As the increase in the total of US Federal debt outstanding since the LEH-AIG collapse reached the $4 trillion mark, another week began and another sell-off took place in the bond market, with 2004 Euro$ now a cool 140bps off their early November highs in one of those classic, up by the stairs, down by the escalator moves to unwind the previous four months’, Fed”inspired rally.
Only a little less dramatic has been the thumping taken by the belly of the curve where ” for example ” the 2×5-30 butterfly has jumped 120+bps in just five weeks, a sizzling six-sigma move in a three-decade statistical record.

When we note that this was preceded by a 3? sigma, 28-year outperformance of the middle versus the wings, taking it then to a series record low ” and that half the rejection move occurred just during the past week ” we can perhaps grasp some measure of the dislocation being suffered (as well as give vent to our usual despair at the idea that modern financial markets somehow exist to assist in the rational allocation of scarce capital!)

Interest rate markets had, of course, been under pressure in any case ” partly as a result of the slow diffusion of core European creditworthiness out to its prodigal fringe, via the ECB and its market support operations; partly because basis swaps showed “˜Zone banks were again scrambling for USD roll-overs; and partly due to the year end reallocation of funds into an equity market which had only struggled back to par as late as early September, but which finally made a new high on the very day the bond rout began.
It did little to deter the liquidation/allocation switch when Tweedledee and Tweedledum agreed not to have a battle over the US budget but just to let everyone eat cake (or, rather, pork) instead. Given that November saw the worst deficit on record in seasonal terms (despite the pick-up in receipts attributable to the weak recovery), it was no surprise that the Ghosts of Bond Vigilantes Past were moving the furniture about at the prospect of another large slug of deficit finance.

All in all, Blackhawk Ben must be well pleased with himself: since his infamous Jackson Hole address, the S&P500 has returned no less than 25% in excess of 7-10yr USTs, with the S&P600 Small Cap adding a further 10% on top of that.
Fully living up to their embarrassingly undifferentiated, “˜risk asset’ status, commodities ” as per the DCI index ” have matched the broad equity market more or less bp for bp, tracing out an r2 with them of 0.95 over the past six months and never varying by more than 5% from the mean of their combined ratio.
At least until the point where the market again feels happy to hold bonds for income, rather than playing them, as everything else, for leveraged beta on their capital value, both the potential widening of the deficit and the Fed’s decision to help fill it should continue to be of help to equities and commodities. With the private sector still frying to pay down debt (with one rather glaring exception we shall come to in a moment), government incontinence is the fuel on which the printing press will run. As the following graphs, reveal, this has, indeed, become the primary mechanism for inflating prices in the US.

Remember, that for as long as people accept the money it spends into existence, a maintenance ” or even a debilitating over-expansion ” of the quantity of the medium of exchange needs no other agency than a determined treasury acting in concert with its willing accomplices at either the central bank alone, or among the commercial counterparts over which that engine of inflation broods and clucks, in addition.

Though we have yet to parse the report in detail (thanks to the demands made by a hefty year-end writing project with which we are currently wrestling), a cursory glance at the quarterly Flow of Funds release did reveal some interesting quirks in the vexed matter of “˜deleveraging’.
For instance, the household sector seems to have disposed of a signal $540 billion (all numbers saar) in corporate and foreign bonds in the third quarter, but a closer inspection shows that the bulk of this could be set against a net $400bln contraction in outstanding ABS paper (bonds -$460b1n; CP +$60b1n) which was effectively the flipside of that same household bloc paying down (or defaulting on) $290b1n of its own stock of mortgage and credit card debt (the rest of the ABS paydown comprising another incestuous-cancellation of GSE holdings). Again, non-corporate business ” shrinking its collective balance sheet once more ” relieved itself of $118bln in mortgages, more or less accounting for the registered $100bln reduction in funding corporation loans.
Meanwhile, commercial banks and the foreign sector between them issued -$330b1n in bonds, more or less satisfying the $345b1n in demand for paper emanating from Lifers and mutual funds.
This effectively left foreign banks domiciled in the US (+$440b1n) and bank holding companies ($98b1n) to finance the hearty $490b1n appetite for more credit expressed by non-financial corporates ” something which should have been a cheer to all those anxiously awaiting the next debt-fuelled orgy of ill-judged hiring and gross malinvestment.What a shame, then, that the funds were put to no more productive use than manipulating the P/E ratio ” while hiding executive comp dilutions ” by buying back $370bln of equity (the largest amount since Bear, Stearns went under) and in financing a $113 billion inventory accumulation which was the largest in the 58-year record.The markets have not exactly been kind to European fixed income, either, with mid-strip contracts adding 75bps and a whole series of chart lines giving way. Basis swaps have also been heading south once more; forex risk-returns have not shown much follow through since their initial, feeble bounce and ” whisper it ” peripheral yields and spreads are moving the wrong way, once more. The battle for the Euro is by no means over yet.

Part of the problem for the market is that ” unlike in the US ” the business of reinvigorating the flow of money peaked no less than 22 months ago and has been decelerating ever since (though this has been offset somewhat by the more aggressive use to which this money is being put, at least in Germany).

If past is in anyway prologue, the story for the next few quarters should be one of relative disappointment in economic performance, with the disappointment in economic performance, with the IfO and the business revenues (to which the survey tends to respond) peaking out and headline inflation potentially catching up.

In these same German revenue data can be seen the global dichotomy, writ in rather large letters and bearing the rubric: “˜Go EAST, young man!”
Tellingly, the domestic component of sales is still some 10% below its peak of almost three years ago (with domestic consumer goods a woeful 13% off their best). Similarly, sales to the benighted Eurozone lie 11.5% from the top for the category. Contrast this lingering depression with the score for non-EZ exports (only 4.3% down) and the capital goods portion of these latter (-3.0%) and we can see that the Chinese Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere is still of primary importance in helping keep economic activity going elsewhere in the world.
Thus, the crucial significance of this past weekend’s Chinese Central Economic Work Conference and its seemingly pusillanimous decision not to raise interest rates in the face of rapidly mounting consumer prices and a pace of monetary creation which has quickened again in the past two months.One can only suppose that the Chinese have clung to the hard lesson that there is nary a single successful instance of a “˜soft landing’ being engineered, once a malinvestment boom has truly taken hold, but have not followed the reasoning through to the necessary conclusion that the longer remedial action is postponed, the higher the eventual bill tends to become.
Perhaps they hope that food prices will come down at the next harvest (or that they can import ” and subsidise ” enough grain to supplement the domestic supply). Perhaps they fear a further influx of “˜hot money’ and doubt their ability to sterilize the same. Perhaps they are dimly aware of the size of the tiger to whose tail they are clinging ” frightened it will devour them in an inflationary upsurge if they do not fight it and equally terrified that its claws will shred them if they if do not keep it fed instead with sufficient credit to support the vast array of sub-economic projects they have called into existence these past few years.
If this last is the case, they might just be keeping their fingers crossed that the deceleration in real money supply already in evidence for some time past will temper the pace of industrial activity and even allow for an amelioration of the rate of price rises, as has typically happened in the past.

The problem with relying on the working of such a macroeconomic comovement to spare them this toughest of decisions, however, is that it both makes the fatal mistake of assuming ceteris is indeed paribus AND that the inevitable magnitudes and delays ” inherent in what is not, after all, a law of hard, physical science, but merely a dim mirror of the combined effects of millions of subjective human choices ” will not come to bite them most grievously in the behind.
That the debate may not yet be fully settled may be seen in the official Xinhau mouthpiece which ran a post-Conference piece saying, correctly, that:-
“It is one thing to be patient with the fight against inflation, it is another thing to make an urgent and exact diagnosis of the root cause of mounting inflationary pressures. In fact, after the country announced a record harvest for this year, it has become clear that the latest round of inflation is not so much about food supply as the double-digit food price hikes suggested.”
“If that is the case, Chinese policymakers should promptly acknowledge excess liquidity as the main culprit behind soaring inflation. It is high time to take the firewood from under the cauldron as 5.1 percent consumer inflation in November is biting deeply into the pocket of Chinese consumers, who can currently enjoy a one-year interest rate of only 2.5 percent for their deposits.”
In the meantime, what we can say is that for so long as they fail to act, the malign effects of too-easy money being drawn into its own self-fuelling vortex of higher prices, a larger collateral, more concentrated leverage, and fleetingly greater gains will not receive much of a check from one of its main contributors.
If this means, in short, that risk assets can continue to rise, pro tem, it also means that RISK itself will be climbing inexorably up the scale and on into the danger zone.

INVESTING CONTRARIAN
Originally posted here:
Sean Corrigan On Six Sigma Events In The Bond Curve, “Inexorably Rising Risk”, And Other Observations
Tagged with: bond, eur/dollar, gold, goldman

ZERO HEDGE reports

With Julian Assange’s arrest now seen by many to be a matter of days if not hours, it seems that the Wikileaks founder has taken some modest retaliation precautions, primarily along the lines of the infamous “letter in the mail should something happen to me.” Using Bit Torrent, Wikileaks has distributed an “insurance” file, which however is encrypted, and the contents of which are unknown, although may possibly contain at least some of the infamous BofA incriminating selection. It is very possible that Wikileaks will release the encryption code upon Assange’s arrest. That said, the insurance file, which can be downloaded from Pirate Bay at the following link, is merely 1.4 GB, and far less than the expected 5 GB which the BofA data is supposed to contain. Since Zero Hedge is read by quite a few hackers, we would like to extend the challenge to all to find the proper key to decrypt the insurance file and spill its contents to the general public.
More from MSNBC:
And some more from German website dnews.de, google translated:
Once again, for all with bittorrent client access, the wikileaks insurance file can be downloaded here.

INVESTING CONTRARIAN
Read more:
Who Will Be The First To Decrypt The Wikileaks “Insurance” File

Tagged with: bric, Economy, eur/dollar, silver, yields

ZERO HEDGE reports

One may be forgiven to believe that via its FX liquidity swap lines the Fed only bailed out foreign Central Banks, which in turn took the money and funded their own banks. It turns out that is only half the story: we now know the Fed also acted in a secondary bail out capacity, providing over $350 billion in short term funding exclusively to 35 foreign banks, of which the biggest beneficiaries were UBS, Dexia and BNP. Since the funding provided was in the form of ultra-short maturity commercial paper it was essentially equivalent to cash funding. In other words, between October 27, 2008 and August 6, 2009, the Fed spent $350 billion in taxpayer funds to save 35 foreign banks. And here people are wondering if the Fed will ever allow stocks to drop: it is now more than obvious that with all banks leveraging the equity exposure to the point where a market decline would likely start a Lehman-type domino, there is no way that the Brian Sack-led team of traders will allow stocks to drop ever”¦ Until such time nature reasserts itself, the market collapses without GETCO or the PPT being able to catch it, and the Fed is finally wiped out in one way or another.

The 35 companies in question:
UBSDexia SABNP ParibasBarclays PLCRoyal Bank of Scotland GroupCommerzbank AGDanske Bank A/SING Groep NVWestLBHandelsbankenDeutsche Post AGErste Group Bank AGNordLBFree State of BavariaKBCHSH Nordbank AGUnicreditHSBC Holdings PLCDZ Bank AGRepublic of KoreaRabobankSumitomo Mitsui Banking CorporationBanco Espirito Santo SABank of Nova ScotiaMizuho Corporate Bank, Ltd.Syngenta AGMitsui & Co LtdBank of MontrealCaixa Geral de Dep?sitosMitsubishi UFJ Financial GroupShinhan Financial Group Co LtdMitsubishi CorpAegon NVRoyal Bank of CanadaSumitomo Corp

INVESTING CONTRARIAN

See original here:
Meet The 35 Foreign Banks That Got Bailed Out By The Fed (And This Is Just The CPFF Banks)

ZERO HEDGE reports

Since once again we may have been a little too far ahead of the curve in demonstrating just who the biggest beneficiaries of the Irish taxpayer funded bailout are, we would like to repost an analysis from over a month ago presenting the key bondholders in Anglo Irish bank, who incidentally happen to be the cross-holders across most of the Irish capital structure, and which banks will likely be next in line for the bailout wagon. Not surprisingly, there are some names here (especially one) which Zero Hedge readers are all too familiar with.
Are Irish Taxpayers About To Bail Out Goldman? Is Peter Sutherland Stealing From His Own People To Give To The Vampire Squid? (Zero Hedge, October 17, 2010)
It is deja vu all over again. To little media fanfare the dire
financial situation in Ireland is nothing less than a repeat of the
Lehman collapse in those dark days of September 2008. With the recent
nationalization of half of the country’s six big banks,
and the blanket guarantee over the rest of them, the Irish government
has effectively made sure that bondholders in all banks, even those
which such as long insolvent Anglo Irish bank will be made whole by the
long-suffering Irish taxpayers. And despite rumors of haircuts for at
least sub debtholders, actual facts validating this possibility remain
unseen. Which begs the question why is everyone in the world so
terrified of taking mark to market losses on even a few billion in debt?
Simple: as all of the world’s banks, but Europe more so than anyone
else, are now caught in the biggest circle jerk ever imaginable, with
one entity’s liabilities making up another’s assets, which in turn are
someone else’s liabilities, and so forth in a MC Escher (or is that HR Giger?)-esque flow chart of the surreal (as can be seen here),
even one dollar of write downs can spiral and affect tens if not
hundreds of billions of downstream assets (and thus liabilities). Which
explains why the ECB and everyone else in Europe is so intent on
preventing a failed auction in Ireland (we previously disclosed that virtually every September auction of
Irish bonds was purchased by the ECB, either directly and indirectly):
should the banks that are on the hook actually validate their
impairment, Europe is one step away from activating its own $1 trillion
TARP package. Yet what is amusing is that inbetween the cracks of
exclusively European-bank based senior and subordinated bondholders in
such bankrupt banks as Anglo-Irish, a familiar name emerges: Goldman Sachs.
Yes,
nested quietly inbetween the €4,034,756,880 in face value of Anglo
Irish bondholders is the name that managed to pull the strings (via its puppet Hank Paulson)
and get bailed out when AIG threatened to make Goldman management and
investors insolvent. Is Goldman, via its UK-based Goldman Sachs Asset
Management Intl. subsidiary, currently petitioning Brian Lenihan to be
the only US-based bank to receive a direct bailout on its Anglo bond
position? Or is it, as always behind the scenes, negotiating on behalf
of 80 other European banks, among which Lombard Odier, Rothschild, and
Deutsche, and achieve what it always succeeds in: escaping scott free,
and stuffing taxpayers with the bill? We are confident Irish taxpayers,
and drivers of cement trucks, would be fascinated in getting the correct answer.
Guido Fawkes, who managed to obtain the Anglo Irish bondholder list, shares the following commentary:
Spot
on question. And as the highlighted area in the chart below
demonstrates, we would like to add Goldman Sachs to the list of
bailoutees. Surely, few firms in the world deserve to be redeemed as
much as god’s little helpers.

Little else that can be added here”¦ except for this amusing anecdote of another Goldman Sachs International Chairman, one Peter Sutherland,
former Ireland attorney general and EU commissioner who just so happens
was a chairman of British Petroleum (remember those guys?) previously.
To wit from the Irish Times:
Surely,
this great son of Ireland, who obviously has Lenihan in his back
pocket, is in active negotiation on behalf of his current employer,
Goldman Sachs. Yet something tells us Mr. Sutherland will be the last
person to share light on Goldman’s twilight relationship vis-a-vis the
Irish government.
Lack
of revisionism is not too surprising coming from a person whose
personal, and future, fortune, is based on the past generosity of
American, and now Irish taxpayers. Because his wealth is certainly not
due to his skill at anything related to his actual career:
Perhaps
instead of driving trucks full of cement into Parliament, Irish
taxpayers can be a little more proactive, and ask one of their most
respected “leaders” just on whose behalf he is working on in this latest
bailout, which could easily be Ireland’s last.
h/t Niall
?

INVESTING CONTRARIAN
Tagged with: Economy, eurozone, PIIGS, precious metals