08-16-2012

Not much in the news about this....  There was a shooting at the FRC - Family Research Council today.   They are a Conservative Christian Lobbying group.  I wonder if this will be labeled a hate crime?  He criticized the FRC's position on traditional marriage before opening fire.

The gunman posed as an Itern and Carried a Chik-fil-a bag....

This is $$Rich$$, China has imported more gold than is in Portugals ENTIRE reserve.  Courtesy of ZeroHedge. 

The Hoarding Continues: China Has Imported More Gold In Six Months Than Portugal's Entire Gold Reserve

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/15/2012 15:20 -0400
While the highly "sophisticated" traders that make up the gold market continue to buy or sell the precious metal based on whether the Fed will or will not do the NEW QE tomorrow (or just because, like Bruno Iskil, they have a massive balance sheet, and can create margin position out of thin air with impunity), China continues to do one thing. Buy. Because while earlier today we were wondering (rhetorically, of course) what China is doing with all that excess trade surplus if it is not recycling it back into Treasurys, now we once again find out that instead of purchasing US paper, Beijing continues to buy non-US gold, in the form of 68 tons in imports from Hong Kong in the month of June. The year to date total (6 months)? 383 tons. In other words, in half a year China, whose official total tally is still a massively underrepresented 1054 tons, has imported more gold than the official gold reserves of Portugal, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and so on, and whose YTD imports alone make it the 14th largest holder of gold in the world. Realistically, by now China, which hasn't provided an honest gold reserve holdings update to the IMF in years, most certainly has more gold than the IMF, and its 2814 tons, itself. Of course, the moment the PBOC does announce its official updated gold stash, a gold price in the mid-$1000 range will be a long gone memory.


If we were being shelled from Canada, or Mexico, we'd invade or send some heavy assets in to make them change their minds.   However, in Isreal it's a fact of life.  


Germany is standing firm on it's Greek Debt demands.  My bet is on Greece exiting the euro.

There's a whole lot of shaki'n going on in Lebanon right about now...   Rumors and fears of a sivil war?

 Europe really takes the privacy of it's citizens seriously.  Americans on the other hand, not so much.