Política e economia internacional

[Orion]

Já em 2008 os Russos queriam destruir a economia dos EUA, só que os chineses não quiseram. Da próxima vez pode não ser igual:

Russia 'planned Wall Street bear raid'

(...)

"When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac started to become unglued, and you know there were $5.4tn of securities relating to Fannie and Freddie, $1.7tn outside of the US. The Chinese were the biggest external investor holding Fannie and Freddie securities, so the Chinese were very, very concerned."

Or to put it another way, the Chinese government owned $1.7tn of mortgage-backed bonds issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it was deeply concerned it would incur huge losses on these bonds.

Mr Paulson: "I was talking to them [Chinese ministers and officials] regularly because I didn't want them to dump the securities on the market and precipitate a bigger crisis.

"And so when I went to Congress and asked for these emergency powers [to stabilise Fannie and Freddie], and I was getting the living daylights beaten out of me by our Congress publicly, I needed to call the Chinese regularly to explain to the Central Bank, 'listen this is our political system, this is political theatre, we will get this done'. And I didn't have quite that much certainty myself but I sure did everything I could to reassure them."

In other words, China had lent so much to the US that Mr Paulson needed to do his best to persuade its government and central bank that China's investment in all this US debt would not be impaired.

Now this is where we enter the territory of a geopolitical thriller. Mr Paulson:

"Here I'm not going to name the senior person, but I was meeting with someone… This person told me that the Chinese had received a message from the Russians which was, 'Hey let's join together and sell Fannie and Freddie securities on the market.' The Chinese weren't going to do that but again, it just, it just drove home to me how vulnerable I felt until we had put Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship [the rescue plan for them, that was eventually put in place]."

For me this is pretty jaw-dropping stuff - the Chinese told Hank Paulson that the Russians were suggesting a joint pact with China to drive down the price of the debt of Fannie and Freddie, and maximize the turmoil on Wall Street - presumably with a view to maximizing the cost of the rescue for Washington and further damaging its financial health.

Paulson says this guerrilla skirmish in markets by the Russians and Chinese didn't happen.

But this kind of intelligence from China on Russian desire and willingness to embarrass the US in a financial sense may help to explain - in a small way - why President Obama shows little desire to understand Crimea as seen by Mr Putin.

And maybe if the US is being a bit more robust than the EU in wanting to impose economic and financial sanctions on Russia, that may not all be about America's much lesser dependence (negligible dependence) on Russian gas and oil.

BBC

No ano passado a China fartou-se das politiquices:

China has critcised the "pitiful" and self-inflicted political deadlock in America over raising the country's borrowing limit, as premier Li Keqiang added his voice to concerns that the world’s biggest economy could default on its debt.

Mr Li told John Kerry, US secretary of state, that China was paying “great attention” to the issue of raising America's $16.7 trillion (£10.5 trillion) debt ceiling.

China is the largest foreign owner of US debt, holding more than $1.277 trillion in Treasury bills.

Mr Li's remarks, published by the state-owned Xinhua News Agency, follow comments by vice finance Minister Zhu Guangyao on Monday that "the clock is ticking" and any US default would have global repercussions.

A spokesman for the US government said Mr Kerry had made clear to Mr Li that President Barack Obama was "committed to resolving the issue."

...

Telegraph

 

[Orion]

Is the World Bank enabling agribusiness land grabs?

Experts and government officials from around the world have gathered at the World Bank in Washington, DC to chart a course to help lift the billion people who live on less than $1.25 a day out of extreme poverty within 15 years.

A tall order - but one made nearly impossible by the Bank's own practices. The organisation's approach to land rights in the developing world undermines its very mandate to fight poverty - by putting the interests of foreign investors and corporations before those of locals.

That must change. The World Bank and its rich-country funders must stop facilitating the theft of land and resources that belong to poor farmers, herders, and Indigenous Peoples. Such exploitation deprives millions of the ability to provide for their families, leads to environmental degradation, and undermines food security for the world's most vulnerable people.

One of the World Bank's most destructive weapons may seem mundane - the so-called "Doing Business" rankings, which aim to measure the "ease of doing business" in different countries. The rankings champion countries with minimal regulation, such as those that have commoditised their land - thereby make it easier for foreign investors to acquire it.

Foreign investors, lenders, and aid donors decide where to deploy their money according to the rankings. So if developing countries are to attract foreign investment, they must follow the bank's dictates. That creates a "race to the bottom," with countries competing to out-deregulate one another.

Liberia, for instance, implemented 39 recommended reforms between 2008 and 2011, including a reduction in corporate taxes and relaxed rules on environmental impact assessments. Within this period, foreign direct investment increased four-fold. But what the World Bank considers good for business is disastrous for the developing world's residents.

Again, consider Liberia. Following the reforms, British, Malaysian, and Indonesian palm-oil giants secured long-term land leases, which, according to Friends of Earth International, have reached over 1.5 million acres of land formerly held by local communities. Should the World Bank really help foreign investors seize locals' resources - and build plantations instead?

The Bank also has a tenuous relationship with property rights. Last year, it actually praised land grabs by foreign companies, saying in a report, "while a smallholder model has a proven track record in promoting equitable development, in some situations access to significant tracts of land must accompany agribusiness investments." So property rights matter - as long as they're exercised by corporate interests.

Writ large, land deals struck with foreigners have disastrous consequences. According to the International Land Coalition some large land deals between 2000 and 2010 amounted to 203 million hectares (500 million acres). This number is expected to be much higher by now. That's a problem, given that family farmers account for 80 percent of all land holdings in Africa and Asia and provide about 80 percent of the developing world's food. If they become dispossessed because their governments are trying to curry favour with the World Bank, they may lose their livelihoods and their ability to provide food for the globe.

Thanks to reforms guided by the Bank, Sierra Leone has taken 20 percent of its arable land from rural populations and leased it to foreign sugar cane and oil palm producers. Across the world, land is turning from an ancestral asset with cultural significance into a commodity available to those with the most money and lawyers. The terms of many of these leases - which can run as low as $1 a hectare for 99 years - amount to contractual robbery.

The land-grab problem is about to get worse. With support from rich countries and nonprofit behemoths like the Gates Foundation, the Bank is doubling down on its rankings fetish by introducing a new programme called "Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture" (BBA). The BBA's goal is to promote "the emergence of a stronger commercial agriculture sector". Its rankings will prize deregulation of agriculture. For small-scale farmers, such an "emergence" is tantamount to foreign land grabs.

In 2013, World Bank president Dr Jim Yong Kim said, "The World Bank Group shares these concerns about the risks associated with large-scale land acquisitions."

Since then, the organisation he leads has worked even harder to deprive the developing world of its agricultural assets and heritage for the benefit of foreign agribusiness. The April 11-13 meeting is as good a time as any to end these practices.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/op...-enabling-agribusine-2014412134645827557.html

 

[Orion]

Call it the Great Stretch.

Two years ago, Greece's debt crisis almost brought the euro zone crashing down.

Now European partners are preparing to ease Athens' debt burden without writing off their loans but by stretching them out into the distant future, extending maturities from 30 to 50 years and further cutting some interest rates, EU officials say.

Greece made a successful, if artificially engineered, return to the long-term capital markets last week for the first time since its international bailout in 2010, and just two years after imposing heavy losses on its private creditors.

But with its economy shattered, the country is still a long way from being able to fund itself unassisted in the market. The International Monetary Fund says Greece is likely to need further financial help from the euro zone over the next two years.

One reason why the sale of 3 billion euros in five-year bonds at a yield of 4.95 percent went so smoothly, on the eve of a support visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, was that investors are widely anticipating official debt relief.

(...)

Who was Britain's prime minister, he asked, when it paid off its World War Two lend-lease debt to the United States? The answer is Tony Blair in 2006, more than 60 years after the war ended. Indeed, Britain still has some World War One debt to Washington outstanding, a century after that conflict began.

(...)

After two EU/IMF bailouts worth a total of 240 billion euros and a "voluntary" write-down of privately held bonds, Greece has a public debt equivalent to 175 percent of its national output, far beyond what the IMF considers sustainable.

Gross domestic product has slumped by 25 percent, wages and pensions have been cut sharply and unemployment stands at nearly 27 percent, including more than half of all young people.

(...)

Interest payments swallow nearly 5 percent of Greece's GDP, twice as much as in France. Ireland and Portugal, which also received euro zone bailouts, are also paying between 4.5 and 5 percent of their national income in debt service.

Italy, which did not take a bailout but has the euro zone's highest debt ratio after Greece at 132 percent, pays 5.3 percent of GDP in interest payments - a huge burden.

...

Reuters

 

[Orion]

Depois de dois anos a contrair, o défice orçamental grego voltou a expandir-se. O desequilíbrio das contas públicas atingiu os 12,7% do produto interno bruto helénico. Um valor que se deve, sobretudo, ao impacto da assistência a instituições financeiras.

O défice (diferença entre receitas e despesas do Estado central) atingiu os 23,1 mil milhões de euros no ano passado. O montante representa 12,7% do PIB, que se cifrou, aos preços de mercado actuais, em 182 mil milhões de euros. O défice em percentagem do PIB ficou, no ano anterior, em 8,9%.

De acordo com os números inscritos no documento enviado ao gabinete de estatísticas europeu, na primeira notificação ao abrigo do Procedimento dos Défices Excessivos, publicados esta segunda-feira 14 de Abril, o défice helénico sofreu com “o impacto do apoio estatal dado a instituições financeiras”.

O impacto deste apoio no défice geral corresponde a 10,6% do PIB. Quer isto dizer que, excluindo este apoio aos bancos, o défice orçamental grego seria de 2,1% em 2013, face aos 6,2% do ano anterior. Estes números são diferentes dos que são utilizados no programa de ajustamento económico e financeiro, que não tem em conta esta influência.

A dívida pública helénica também manteve a trajectória ascendente em 2013. O valor nominal atingiu os 318,7 mil milhões de euros, o que corresponde a 175,1% do produto interno bruto. Um aumento em relação aos 157,2% do ano passado e também aos 170,3% registados em 2012, ainda antes da reestruturação de dívida que ocorreu nesse ano.

A contribuir para a subida destes rácios está, em parte, o facto de a economia helénica estar a contrair há seis anos consecutivos. Aliás, entre 2010 e 2013, os anos que estão incluídos no documento hoje revelado, é visível que a economia grega perdeu 40 mil milhões de euros. Em 2010, o valor nominal do PIB era de 222 mil milhões de euros. Em 2013, passou para 182 mil milhões.

O governo grego, liderado pelo conservador Antonis Samaras, espera inverter esta tendência no presente ano. O executivo prevê crescer este ano, pela primeira vez em sete anos.

JdN

Quem se ri com isto tudo, entre outros, são os banqueiros. "Trabalhem preguiçosos", já dizia a Lagarde.

 

[Orion]

A study by Spain’s second biggest bank BBVA says unemployment will take over a decade to recover to pre-crisis levels, as workers in the country earn 20 – 40 percent less than those in leading European countries.

The bank’s report says the Spanish economy continues to be hampered by low wages, low skills and a lack of investment and research.

BBVA found that Spanish spending on research and development is 70 percent below the EU average or the US, and that the eurozone's fourth biggest economy suffered from low skills and lack of technology in the work place.

The researchers found that even with a 2 percent increase in employment it would still take ten years just to reach 2007 levels.

“All of these differences derive from an inadequate legal and intuitional system of incentives,” as the Guardian quotes the study.

Figures released Monday by the Bank of Spain also showed that public debt rose by €8.1 billion ($11.1 billion) in February, meaning that the total owed by the Spanish government is now at a record €988 billion ($1,363 billion), equivalent to 95 percent of the country’s GDP.

The study called on Spain’s traditionally small and medium sized companies to enlarge and seek international markets, and for the creation of “balanced, solid and inclusive” growth to bring per capita income in line with US and eurozone competitors.

Despite protests against the number of home repossessions in Spain and a massive over capacity in the Spanish housing market, foreign investment in property has increased for the fourth year running with 2013 up 16 percent on the previous year, with €6.5 billion ($8.9 billion) invested. This is the first time foreign property investment has risen above €6 billion ($8.2 billion) since 2004.

But figures for the internal health of the Spanish housing market are less encouraging. Average house prices were down 7.8 percent, although this was a slower fall than in the last two years. While the number of new house sales were down 2.2 percent, and the number of new mortgages fell by 27.8 percent in 2013, the lowest in the past five years.

Spanish investment in property abroad was also down to €355 million ($489 million), the lowest in 12 years.

The latest report by BBVA comes after some better news for the beleaguered Spanish economy.

Spain’s Economy Minister Luis de Guindos, told parliament in January that the economy had grown by 0.3 percent in the final quarter of 2013, the fastest growth the country has seen in six years.

The number of unemployed also dropped in December by 107,570. This was the second biggest monthly drop in 14 years, but there are still 4.7 million people out of work in Spain. However critics say the quarterly unemployment surveys are more accurate, which show that there are six million people on the dole in Spain, 26 percent of the population; the second highest total in the EU after Greece.

RT

Berlusconi vai ter de servir refeições durante um ano.

Um ano de serviço numa instituição social fará de Silvio Berlusconi um cidadão exemplar, assim espera o tribunal de Milão, que proferiu a pena. Ex-primeiro-ministro italiano foi condenado por fraude fiscal.

Expresso

 

[Orion]

Em relação à aldrabice das obrigações americanas (manter a todo o custo as taxas de juro baixas), é a "Bélgica" que tem vindo a salvar o dia:

A small country of 11m that recently managed nearly two years without an elected government has assumed a muscular presence among nations that hold US Treasury bonds.

In recent months, Belgium has vaulted past countries known for their financial centres, including the UK and Switzerland, as well as major oil-exporting nations to become one of the major holders of US government debt.

According to US Treasury data released on Tuesday, Belgium’s holdings of US debt rose by a further $30.9bn during February, to reach $341.2bn.

Since last August, Treasury debt attributed to Belgium by official US data has surged from $160bn – and this rapid growth means that the country, with a gross domestic product of $484bn, presently ranks after China and Japan as the third largest foreign holder of US Treasury debt.

(...)

“We know it’s not Belgium buying, it’s way too much. We need to look at that country’s custody services,” said Marc Chandler, chief currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman.

Gennadiy Goldberg, strategist at TD Securities, said: “We suspect that the increase in Belgian holdings may be the product of another entity moving their holdings into the nation rather than Belgium itself purchasing such a vast amount of Treasuries.”

...

FT

 

[Orion]

The US government does not represent the interests of the majority of the country's citizens, but is instead ruled by those of the rich and powerful, a new study from Princeton and Northwestern Universities has concluded.

The report, entitled Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, used extensive policy data collected from between the years of 1981 and 2002 to empirically determine the state of the US political system.

After sifting through nearly 1,800 US policies enacted in that period and comparing them to the expressed preferences of average Americans (50th percentile of income), affluent Americans (90th percentile) and large special interests groups, researchers concluded that the United States is dominated by its economic elite.

The peer-reviewed study, which will be taught at these universities in September, says: "The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."

Researchers concluded that US government policies rarely align with the the preferences of the majority of Americans, but do favour special interests and lobbying oragnisations: "When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it.

The positions of powerful interest groups are "not substantially correlated with the preferences of average citizens", but the politics of average Americans and affluent Americans sometimes does overlap. This merely a coincidence, the report says, with the the interests of the average American being served almost exclusively when it also serves those of the richest 10 per cent.

The theory of "biased pluralism" that the Princeton and Northwestern researchers believe the US system fits holds that policy outcomes "tend to tilt towards the wishes of corporations and business and professional associations."

The study comes in the wake of McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a controversial piece of legislation passed in The Supreme Court that abolished campaign contribution limits, and record low approval ratings for the US congress.

Telegraph

Chocante (ou não) As multinacionais exploram o povo até ao tutano usando os governos.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.

 

[Orion]

Bom, fazendo um resumo. Na América há leis estaduais e federais. E por vezes há conflitos por causa disso. Nos últimos dias, houve uma altercação no Nevada:

Flat on his belly in a sniper position, wearing a baseball cap and a flak jacket, a protester aimed his semi-automatic rifle from the edge of an overpass and waited as a crowd below stood its ground against U.S. federal agents in the Nevada desert.

He was part of a 1,000-strong coalition of armed militia-men, cowboys on horseback, gun rights activists and others who rallied to Cliven Bundy's Bunkerville ranch, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, in a stand-off with about a dozen agents from the federal Bureau of Land Management.

The rangers had rounded up hundreds of Bundy's cattle, which had been grazing illegally on federal lands for two decades. Bundy had refused to pay grazing fees, saying he did not recognize the government's authority over the land, a view that attracted vocal support from some right-wing groups.

Citing public safety, the BLM retreated, suspending its operation and even handing back cattle it had already seized.

No shots were fired during the stand-off, which Bundy's triumphant supporters swiftly dubbed the "Battle of Bunkerville," but the government's decision to withdraw in the face of armed resistance has alarmed some who worry that it has set a dangerous precedent and emboldened militia groups.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014...-nevada-militia-insight-idUSBREA3G26620140417

Não esquecer que a 2ª amenda americana consagra a existência de milícias armadas para que o governo não se estique na sua autoridade:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Escrevo isto para demonstrar a hipocrisia ianque. Todos aqueles que querem ignorar as leis federais são apelidados de... Terroristas.. só podia :

Never one to mince words, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, lumped supporters of Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy in with the Eric Rudolphs, Richard Reids and Timothy McVeighs.

(...)

"Those people who hold themselves out to be patriots are not. They’re nothing more than domestic terrorists,” Reid said. "I repeat: What went on up there was domestic terrorism.”

CNN

Por fim, e vendo notícias passadas, o ex-presidente do Irão era acusado de falas chocantes sobre o holocausto. Já a Imprensa Ocidental ignorou e ignora isto:

Report: Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks good for Israel

The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv on Wednesday reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel.

"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor."

Netanyahu reportedly made the comments during a conference at Bar-Ilan University on the division of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.

...

http://www.haaretz.com/news/report-netanyahu-says-9-11-terror-attacks-good-for-israel-1.244044

Mas enfim, as torres foram completamente inesperadas:

The FBI had a mole inside al Qaeda who met with Osama bin Laden eight years prior to 9/11 and knew he planned to finance terror attacks, but the bureau declined to tell Congressional investigators or the 9/11 Commission about the mole, sources involved in the case told NBC News.

NBC

 

[Orion]

A violência na Síria continua e desta vez não foi aplicada contra rebeldes do regime de Bashar al-Assad, mas sim em cristãos.

Em entrevista à Rádio Vaticano, esta sexta-feira, a irmã Raghid, revelou que membros da Jihad (grupo extremista islâmico) crucificaram cristãos que se recusaram a aderir ao culto da fé de Alá.

Atualmente a viver em França, a freira assumiu funções como diretora da escola do patriarcado grego-católica, em Damasco, na Síria.

«Em cidades ou vilas ocupadas por elementos urbanos a Jihad e todos os grupos extremistas muçulmanos oferecem aos cristãos a fé muçulmana ou a morte. Em alguns casos pediram resgate», afirmou a irmã Raghid.

Segundo a mesma fonte, a recusa perante o Islão levou a que os crentes na religião católica sofressem «um martírio».

«Numa ocasião, um jovem foi crucificado em frente ao seu pai, que foi morto de seguida, em Abra, na periferia de Damasco», declarou,

De acordo com a freira, no final dos massacres os elementos afetos à Jihad «pegaram nas cabeças das vítimas e jogaram futebol com elas», levando os bebés das mulheres para os pendurarem «em árvores com os seus cordões umbilicais».

http://abola.pt/mundos/ver.aspx?id=472806

O exército do país é tido como "rebeldes do regime"

A Síria antes não era assim:

...

Three years into its civil war, Syria is deeply wounded, its 23 million people in a state of shock at the magnitude of the destruction, incredulous that their nation, once known for its religious moderation and cultural tolerance, has become a sectarian killing ground.

Some express hope that major combat could be over by the end of the year, as President Bashar Assad has predicted. Others worry that the war could drag on for years, perhaps rivaling neighboring Lebanon's 15-year sectarian conflict, which ended in 1990.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/w...rms-sent-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all

The Obama administration, stung by reversals in Ukraine and Syria, appears to have decided to expand its covert program of training and assistance for the Syrian opposition, deepening U.S. involvement in that brutal and stalemated civil war.

This stepped-up assistance program is likely to be discussed during talks Friday between President Obama and Saudi King Abdullah. U.S. endorsement of the program would tighten America’s links with Saudi Arabia after a period of noisy disagreement about Syria policy. But it also would complicate already tense relations with Russia and Iran, the two key backers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Obama appears more comfortable with a covert approach than with direct military intervention, as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another selling point is that the enhanced aid program would have a counterterrorism focus. The United States would help train Free Syrian Army fighters to combat al-Qaeda extremists, even as the rebels launch guerrilla attacks against Assad’s army.

...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...717e6a-b5ff-11e3-8020-b2d790b3c9e1_story.html

Muito fácil de perceber. Antes da guerra, a presença da Al-Qaeda era limitada. Mas agora os islamitas estão a ganhar terreno. Então a solução é armar os rebeldes para matarem não só o exército sírio mas também os islamitas. Brilhante.

Já em 2012 saiu esta notícia:

Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster, according to American officials and Middle Eastern diplomats.

That conclusion, of which President Obama and other senior officials are aware from classified assessments of the Syrian conflict that has now claimed more than 25,000 lives, casts into doubt whether the White House’s strategy of minimal and indirect intervention in the Syrian conflict is accomplishing its intended purpose of helping a democratic-minded opposition topple an oppressive government, or is instead sowing the seeds of future insurgencies hostile to the United States.

“The opposition groups that are receiving the most of the lethal aid are exactly the ones we don’t want to have it,” said one American official familiar with the outlines of those findings, commenting on an operation that in American eyes has increasingly gone awry.

The United States is not sending arms directly to the Syrian opposition. Instead, it is providing intelligence and other support for shipments of secondhand light weapons like rifles and grenades into Syria, mainly orchestrated from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The reports indicate that the shipments organized from Qatar, in particular, are largely going to hard-line Islamists.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/w...rms-sent-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all

Não é giro? Sabem que as armas vão para os islamitas e estão-se a borrifar. Em vez de se cortar o fornecimento de armas aos islamitas o que é que se faz? Dá-se mais armas aos outros intervenientes para se matarem a todos.

 

[Orion]

 

[Orion]

Já aqui referi que a China acumula ouro como se não houvesse amanhã (preparando-se para o colapso das fiat currencies). Apesar do imenso secretismo, só Hong Kong exportou 53 mil milhões de dólares de Ouro.

China has begun allowing gold imports through its capital Beijing, sources familiar with the matter said, in a move that would help keep purchases by the world's top bullion buyer discreet at a time when it might be boosting official reserves.

The opening of a third import point after Shenzhen and Shanghai could also threaten Hong Kong's pole position in China's gold trade, as the mainland can get more of the metal it wants directly rather than through a route that discloses how much it is buying.

China does not release any trade data on gold. The only way bullion markets can get a sense of Chinese purchases is from the monthly release of export data by Hong Kong, which last year supplied $53 billion (31 billion pounds) worth of gold to the mainland.

...

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/20/uk-china-gold-idUKBREA3J0MF20140420

Já no ano passado eram reportadas notícias de ações semelhantes da Rússia:

When Vladimir Putin says the U.S. is endangering the global economy by abusing its dollar monopoly, he’s not just talking. He’s betting on it.

Not only has Putin made Russia the world’s largest oil producer, he’s also made it the biggest gold buyer. His central bank has added 570 metric tons of the metal in the past decade, a quarter more than runner-up China, according to IMF data compiled by Bloomberg. The added gold is also almost triple the weight of the Statue of Liberty.

“The more gold a country has, the more sovereignty it will have if there’s a cataclysm with the dollar, the euro, the pound or any other reserve currency,” Evgeny Fedorov, a lawmaker for Putin’s United Russia party in the lower house of parliament, said in a telephone interview in Moscow.

...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...ld-into-bullion-as-russia-out-buys-world.html

Ao contrário do Ocidente que despreza o Ouro, o Oriente tem uma posição contrária:

Gold demand in China, which overtook India as the largest user last year, will rise about 25 percent in the next four years as an increasing population gets wealthier, according to the World Gold Council.

Consumer demand will expand to at least 1,350 metric tons by 2017, the London-based council said in a report today. Growth may be limited this year after 2013’s price decline spurred consumers to do more buying last year, it said. China accounted for about 28 percent of global usage last year, the council estimated in February.

Buying accelerated last year as prices slumped 28 percent, the most since 1981, and the nation became the top buyer in place of India, where import restrictions curbed demand. China’s economy will expand 7.4 percent this year, economists surveyed by Bloomberg estimate. While that’s set to be the least since 1990, it’s still more than double expected growth in the U.S.

...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...ising-25-by-2017-as-buyers-get-wealthier.html

Como é hábito nestas coisas, muito provavelmente o "peak gold" já foi atingido. A partir de agora, os custos de produção são sempre a subir (os preços de mercado estão enviesados):

Iamgold Corp. (IMG), the gold producer with mines in Canada and Mali, says the metal will rise to a record $2,500 an ounce as global output peaks and ore grades decline.

The industry has exploited its best-quality gold reserves and is being forced to tap lower-grade and higher-cost deposits, Iamgold Chief Executive Officer Steve Letwin said.

“I really think now we are at Peak Gold,” Letwin, 57, said in a Jan. 10 interview at his company’s Toronto headquarters. “Nobody has seen the kind of production profiles they thought they were going to see.”

...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-17/iamgold-sees-peak-gold-forging-2-500-price.html

 

[Orion]

Há uns tempos escrevi que a Segurança Interna Americana comprou mais de mil milhões de balas de ponta oca. Ora, eu escrevi (controversamente eu sei) que é para preparar para a futura batalha civil que virá após o colapso económico. Ora, (numa notícia do ano passado) essa mesma agência governamental anda(va) a treinar com alvos que incluem grávidas, avózinhas e crianças:

Minnesota-based Law Enforcement Targets, Inc (LET) has been awarded $5.5 million in contracts with the federal government, including $2 million with the Department of Homeland Security.

In light of this fact, it’s no wonder that the American people were outraged last week when it was uncovered that the firm had released a series of gun practice targets featuring a pregnant woman, a child, a young mother and grandparents.

This No More Hesitation series includes seven total targets, each subject armed: Pregnant Woman, seen in front of the backdrop of a nursery, Older Man 1, stands in his home, in front of a bookshelf and Older Man 2, Older Woman, is depicted in a bathrobe in her kitchen. The Young Mother, seen on a playground, is holding a toddler’s hand in one hand, gun in the other.

Then there is Young Girl standing in a driveway with a sack purse slung over her shoulder, and Little Brother, a very little person indeed, is depicted in a backyard with a privacy fence behind him. “Older man” stands in his home, in front of a bookshelf.

LET said that the targets were requested by law enforcement agencies and designed in order to “train police officers for unusually complex situations.”

A statement released to Reason’s Mike Riggs, states:

“The subjects in NMH targets were chosen in order to give officers the experience of dealing with deadly force shooting scenarios with subjects that are not the norm during training. I found while speaking with officers and trainers in the law enforcement community that there is a hesitation on the part of cops when deadly force is required on subjects with atypical age, frailty or condition (one officer explaining that he enlarged photos of his own kids to use as targets so that he would not be caught off guard with such a drastically new experience while on duty).

...

http://communities.washingtontimes....aining-practice-targets-featuring-children-p/

Diminui-se a componente "moral" dos soldados. Assim-se é mais fácil matar civis num quadro de caos civil. Certamente é tudo coincidência (as balas e os alvos), porque as avózinhas são uma ameaça gigantesca à segurança de um país...

 

[Orion]

No contexto mundial, o "óbvio" está a acontecer:

A Rússia procura outros compradores para o gás:

Russia said on Wednesday it was close to signing a deal to sell natural gas to China, a long-sought agreement which President Vladimir Putin could use to show Western sanctions over Crimea cannot isolate his country.

The deal is the Holy Grail for Russia after at least 10 years of talks and Moscow hopes it can be signed when Putin visits China next month.

There was no immediate comment by China, whose negotiating position has been strengthened by Western threats to impose more sanctions on Russia if Moscow sends its armed forces into eastern Ukraine following its annexation of Crimea.

As talks between state-controlled Gazprom and Chinese officials continued in China, Arkady Dvorkovich, a deputy prime minister, said the sides were close to sealing a deal that would also involve construction of a pipeline to carry 38 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas a year.

...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/09/russia-china-gas-idUSL6N0N11XM20140409

Até ri-se porque descobriu mais um depósito de petróleo:

A new oil field with roughly 300 million tons of oil and 90 billion cubic meters of gas has been discovered in the Astrakhan region of Russia.

“The field’s reserves are unprecedented, this discovery confirms the high potential of the Astrakhan region in terms of these major discoveries,” Sergey Donskoy, Russia’s Natural Resources Minister said on Wednesday.

The field, called “Velikoe” (The Great) was discovered by the AFB Oil and Gas Company, which will likely seek out larger partners to develop it.

...

http://rt.com/business/oil-field-astrakhan-discovery-948/

E a notícia mais importante. O progressivo fim do petrodólar:

Russian state-controlled oil producer Gazprom Neft said it had received positive responses from Asian clients about the possibility of using euros as a settlement currency instead of the dollar.

Company head Alexander Dyukov said this week Gazprom Neft had broached the idea of dropping the dollar, traditionally the currency of choice for the global energy sector, in response to a possible new round of Western sanctions over Russia's annexation of Crimea.

He said the company had discussed with buyers the possibility of switching contracts to euros and that 95 percent had said they were ready to do it. Gazprom Neft ships around 30,000 barrels per day of oil eastward.

"Gazprom Neft has held discussions with its eastern partners about the possibility of completing settlements in the European currency. They, in turn, expressed their potential readiness for this," the oil arm of top Russian top natural gas producer Gazprom said in emailed comments on Thursday.

Three buyers in Japan and China said they had been approached by Gazprom to settle oil payments in currencies other than the dollar. Two of the buyers said they were still considering the proposal, while the third said his company had bought crude using euros before and did not see it as a problem.

...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/10/russia-gazpromneft-euros-idUSL6N0N22EH20140410

Como já escrevi, isto não é uma notícia de pouca importância. O Petróleo (e outros materiais) é comprado usando dólares. Se esta moeda deixar de ser utilizada, o USD (devido ao escesso de notas) perde completamente o seu valor e a economia dos EUA vai ser, entre outros países, Argentina e Zimbabwe 2.0. Será 2008 muitas vezes pior.

Curiosamente, ou talvez não, o Irão já decidiu deixar de usar o Dólar:

“[Iranian] government has made up its mind to phase out vehicle currencies such as dollar and euro in its [foreign] trade,” Hosseini told reporters on the sidelines of the first meeting of the heads of Economic Cooperation Organization’s tax organizations in Tehran on Monday.

He added that after the imposition of sanctions on Iran by the US and the EU, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) immediately moved to change the country's hard currencies reserves into euro and gold which “was beneficial to the country.”

The Iranian minister noted that a change in trade model would reduce the country’s need to vehicle currencies, including dollar and euro.

...

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/01/14/283517/iran-to-phase-out-euro-dollar-in-trade/

Adição:

A Austrália, um dos países que mais fornece matérias-primas para a China, também celebrou um acordo comercial com a China em 2013. Qual o principial tópico de interesse? Óbvio, o dólar deixa de ser necessário:

Australia and China have agreed to allow each other's currencies to be directly converted, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Monday. Starting Wednesday, the Australian dollar will be directly convertible into the yuan and vice versa.

Australia will be only the third country to have such an arrangement with Beijing, which is expected to cut costs for local companies doing business in China, Australia's biggest trading partner. Only the U.S. dollar and Japanese yen are at present directly exchangeable with the yuan.

The agreement does away with the need for companies and currency traders to first convert their Australian dollars or yuan into U.S. dollars.

"This is a huge advantage for Australia," Ms. Gillard told reporters in Shanghai, flanked by executives from some of Australia's biggest banks. "It's a strategic step forward for Australia as we add to our economic engagement with China."

...

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323550604578409743048988874

Adição 2:

Acordo Comercial entre a China e Nova Zelândia (grande fornecedor de laticínios) na semana passada:

New Zealand's economic ties with China have been strengthened with a deal to allow direct trading of the New Zealand dollar against the Chinese currency the renminbi or yuan.

The deal, struck relatively swiftly negotiations began in April last year, will reduce costs for exporters and importers by removing the necessity for transactions to be settled in two foreign exchange trades via a third currency - usually the US dollar.

...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11221953

China vs UE (2013):

China launched a currency swap deal with the euro zone on Thursday, in the country's latest push to transform the yuan into a major world currency.

The foreign exchange (FX) swap—an agreement to exchange one currency for another at a set rate at a certain time in the future—will have a maximum size of 350 billion yuan ($57.2 billion) and 45 billion euros ($60.9 billion) and will be valid for three years.

"From the perspective of the euro system, the swap arrangement is intended to serve as a backstop liquidity facility and to reassure euro area banks of the continuous provision of Chinese yuan," said the European Central Bank in a news release.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101102163

 

[Orion]

O défice esloveno foi de 14,7%, enquanto o grego se situou em 12,7% do PIB. Em ambos os países houve uma subida do défice já que se tinham situado em 4% e 8,9%, respectivamente, em 2012.

Na lista dos cinco países com maior défice estão ainda a Irlanda (7,2% em 2013 face a 8,2% em 2012), Espanha (7,1% em 2013, abaixo dos 10,6 % de 2012) e o Reino Unido (5,8% em 2013 e 6,1% em 2012). Portugal fechou o ano com um défice de 4,9%, semelhante ao da Croácia, e está na lista dos dez países que registaram um défice acima de 3%.

Contrariamente, o Luxemburgo conseguiu um superavit de 0,1%. A Alemanha teve défice zero. A fechar a lista dos cinco países com saldo orçamental mais equilibrado estão ainda a Estónia, a Dinamarca e a Letónia.

No seu conjunto, os países da União Europeia fecharam 2013 com um défice de 3,3%.

Grécia, Itália e Portugal são os mais endividados

Já do lado da dívida pública, Grécia, Itália e Portugal são os que apresentam maior endividamento face ao PIB. Os gregos viram o rácio aumentar de 157,2% do PIB em 2012 para 175,1% no ano passado. Itália também registou uma subida da dívida, de 127% para 132,6%, enquanto em Portugal a dívida passou a representar em 2013 129% do PIB, o que compara com um nível de 124,1%.

Os países menos endividados são a Estónia (dívida de 10% do PIB), Bulgária (18,9%), Luxemburgo (23,1%), Letónia e Roménia (ambas com 38%). Por seu lado, a Alemanha conseguiu no ano passado reduzir a sua dívida de 81% para 74% do PIB.

No conjunto da União Europeia o rácio subiu de 85,2% para 87,1%.

http://economico.sapo.pt/noticias/e...-tiveram-os-maiores-defices-da-ue_191786.html

 

[Orion]

Russia's parliament has agreed to write off almost $10 billion of North Korea's Soviet-era debt, in a deal expected to facilitate the building of a gas pipeline to South Korea across the reclusive state.

Russia has written off debts to a number of impoverished Soviet-era allies, including Cuba. North Korea's struggling communist economy is just 2 percent of the size of neighbouring South Korea's.

The State Duma lower house on Friday ratified a 2012 agreement to write off the bulk of North Korea's debt. It said the total debt stood at $10.96 billion as of Sept. 17, 2012.

The rest of the debt, $1.09 billion, would be redeemed during the next 20 years, to be paid in equal instalments every six months. The outstanding debt owed by North Korea will be managed by Russia's state development bank, Vnesheconombank.

Russia's Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak told Russian media that the money could be used to fund mutual projects in North Korea, including a proposed gas pipeline and a railway to South Korea.

The two Koreas remain technically at war and are separated by one of the world's most militarised frontiers. Parts of the international community have been seeking to re-engage with North Korea amid hopes that the reclusive state's government would seek ways to end years of isolation and poverty.

Russia's state-owned top natural producer Gazprom, has long planned to build a gas pipeline via North Korea to South Korea with a view to shipping 10 billion cubic metres of gas annually.

Moscow has been trying to diversify its energy sales to Asia away from Europe, which, in its turn, wants to cut its dependence on oil and gas from the erstwhile Cold War foe. Moscow aims to reach a deal to supply gas to China, after a decade of talks, this May.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/19/russia-northkorea-debt-idUKL6N0NB04L20140419