Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kingfisher who wrote (91266)	6/9/2012 12:08:50 AM
From: Cogito Ergo Sum	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217545

Germany, the supervisor of the pact and presumed inheritor of the gold if the loans are not repaid, Not sure how that works considering this Countries using the scheme (most would, including Germany, because of generally high debt-to-GDP ratios) Germany is over 80% I believe.. Which makes me wonder just who the source of the loans is .. I must be missing something here .. guess it's late

To: kingfisher who wrote (91266)	6/9/2012 1:14:24 AM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217545

Gold save the world? Giggle.... Kleptocratic politicians and wastrel electorates can waste gold as easily as they can waste anything. Gold will be another false promise of salvation. Virtuous Victorian Values of Learn, Work, Save, Invest, Spend frugally and with high return on expenditure are what's needed. Whether it's gold or some other medium of money doesn't matter except that gold is an expensive thing to use as money and is prone to criminal activity. Gold was good for an era of jungle-based hunter gatherer societies with no electronics or mobile Cyberspace. The way to save the euro is to leave borrowers and lenders to sort out by way of legal process or civili insurrection who owes what to whom and who owns the existing issued euros. The euro issuing authority just keeps track of who has them. If the issuing authority finds a central bank creditor goes belly up, then they can take over that bank's assets and sell them to the highest bidder. The shareholders and other creditors of the bung banks would have to join the queue to see if they get any money back. Government "workers" would have to get real jobs more suited to their talents as their opm stream dries up. Greeks, Spaniards, Italians and other citizens would abrogate the loans which have been forced on them against their will. Those who decades ago were saying government money was risk-free investment would learn the opposite. It was always obvious that owning shares in companies should NOT have a risk premium compared with government bonds. While governments can and do use eminent domain to rob shareholders of private companies, they are more likely to rob holders of their bonds which are just glib promissory notes issued by politicians. Mqurice

To: kingfisher who wrote (91266)	6/9/2012 8:38:45 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217545

Moody's cuts credit ratings of six German banking groups and Austria's three largest banks underscoring that even the euro zone's strongest economies face risks if the region's debt crisis deepens. Moody's cuts German, Austrian banks on euro risks Wed Jun 6, 2012 7:43am EDT <SPAN class="articleLocation">(Reuters) - Moody's Investors Service cut the credit ratings of six German banking groups and Austria's three largest banks on Wednesday, underscoring that even the euro zone's strongest economies face risks if the region's debt crisis deepens. The downgrades to Commerzbank AG ( CBKG.DE), Germany's second-largest lender, and several smaller German banks are part of a broad review of financial institutions in the euro bloc that has had investors on edge, but were mild compared with cuts for banks in weaker economies such as Spain and Italy. Moody's said German lenders face risks to the quality of their assets if the euro zone crisis worsens or the global economy slows more, while also noting the relative strength of the German and Austrian economies. Adding to fears of an escalation in the crisis, Spain said on Tuesday it was losing access to credit markets and appealed to its European partners to help revive its banks, a move likely to intensify global pressure on Europe to move quickly to the aid of its fourth-largest economy. "We wanted to identify vulnerabilities from further potential shocks from the euro area debt crisis and how this would affect investor confidence in institutions across Europe," said Moody's Managing Director for banking, Carola Schuler. The ratings agency was particularly concerned about a potential slip in the value of banks' portfolios of international commercial real estate, global ship financing, euro zone periphery sovereign bond and private sector assets, as well as a backlog of structured credit products, she said. "German banks have limited capacity to absorb losses out of earnings and that raises the potential that capital could diminish in a stress scenario," Schuler added. Commerzbank saw its long-term rating cut by one notch to A3 from A2 and assigned a negative outlook, with Moody's noting it had sizeable exposures to borrowers in Europe's periphery. Commerzbank declined comment, as did other lenders. Moody's action was widely expected, bankers said, noting that share prices showed little reaction on Wednesday. "The fact that the debt crisis is intensifying again is affecting all banks," said Georg Fahrenschon, president of Germany's savings bank association, DSGV. The downgrades leave the banks around the middle of Moody's rating spectrum, with Scandinavian banks generally rated higher. Other German banks Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg and Norddeutsche Landesbank GZ were lowered to A3 from A2 and given stable outlooks while Italy's UniCredit ( CRDI.MI) saw its German unit cut to A3 from A2 and given a negative outlook. The agency delayed action on Germany's biggest lender, Deutsche Bank AG ( DBKGn.DE) and its subsidiaries, saying that will come with reviews for other global firms with large capital markets operations that are expected to be completed by the end of June. DOWNGRADES OVER-RATED In Austria, Moody's cut the long-term rating for Erste Group Bank AG ( ERST.VI) by two notches to A3 from A1 and assigned a negative outlook while UniCredit Bank Austria AG was cut to A3 from A2, also with a negative outlook. Raiffeisen Bank International AG ( RBIV.VI) was cut to A2 from A1 and assigned a stable outlook. For the Austrian banks, Moody's noted vulnerabilities from operating conditions in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Austria's central bank has been urging lenders to shore up their balance sheets, which it says are undercapitalized compared with international peers, but it has also taken issue with critics of banks' exposure to emerging Europe. Austrian banks' operations in emerging Europe are primarily in stable markets with good growth prospects, central bank Governor Ewald Nowotny said on Wednesday, pointing out that the downgrades were in the context of a Europe-wide review of banks. "This does not come as a surprise and not should be over-rated," Nowotny said in a statement. Austria's central bank said last week analysts had to differentiate more about the risks posed by countries in the region, and noted Austria had adopted an early-warning mechanism that flagged potential problems from excessive loan-to-deposit ratios. It also pointed out that Austrian banks had only slight exposure to southern Europe so "the risk profile is significantly better than in other European banking systems". Ratings agencies see Austria's relatively large financial sector as a potential risk to sovereign ratings should the state need to step in again to prop up lenders. Austria had to nationalize two banks during the 2008/09 financial crisis and has just got a large minority stake in ailing Volksbanken AG ( OTVVp.VI). Moody's said on April 13 it would begin issuing conclusions to various reviews for European banks and global financial securities firms, including big U.S. investment banks. (Additional reporting by Ian Chua, Michael Shields, Jonathan Gould, Andreas Kroener and Klaus Lauer; Editing by Mark Potter)

To: kingfisher who wrote (91266)	6/10/2012 4:33:29 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217545

Re gold, what is require to save the world is either (i) add two (2) zeros to money of all nations of this galaxy, or (ii) subtract (2) zeros from debt of everybody in this universe So, either gold at 160,000 or 16. In other sentences, either we smash all creditor / savers, or We wreck all debtor / wastrels. I hope the electorates deliberate wisely, and choose with due care. I am not indifferent between the two extrem choices, and am biased toward option (i), because even as I am a saver, I favor bailing out the debtors. I am truly altruistic. Notes to self: 1. Am figuring that voluntary austerity talks everywhere are mostly talk, and altogether non-actionable. The math imperative shall eventually impose involuntary actions of austerity, and such involuntary math-imposed actions would make social cracks out of political fissures, so compelling nominally-independent central banking quantitative patches to bandaid wounds. 2. My alarm is that within the zirp all-risk / no-return zig-zag / to-fro / up-down / on-off market arena dominated by technical and algo-trading, increasingly the 'human-market' is not only only expressing its feel per risk on/off through the market but more than usual taking 'algo-market' hints as expressed by the devolving market place. The alarm is simply that we are playing in an increasingly devolved market - ala, the times, they are changing, calling for us to change as well, but not hinting at how to change. Quitting is not an option for everyone with any asset / savings or not, because under zirp, all, including cash and jobs, are wagers. 3. One clear and present danger, that which can strike at any moment and must strike at some point per fiat money inflation script is that (3-i) the script calls for every larger tranches of 'easying' (a/k/a print up another batch, the proverbial last batch) with ever less efficacy over a progressively shorter period of elapsed time at ever increasing frequency (3-ii) one must-happen outcome is just that at some juncture some central bank would make the natural mistake of 'not doing enough and in time' allegedly, resulting in a flame-out of the particular market even soon or immediately after a prayed-for-n-widely-expected easing (3-iii) when so, imagine the news headline on that awful day, but (3-iv) also think about the counter-action by the authorities assuming they are still functioning. Sunday morning rumination completed.