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-- Posted Sunday, 12 November 2006 | Digg This Article
The following are some snippets from the most recent issue of the International Forecaster. For the full 19 page issue, please see subscription information below. SATURDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2006NOVEMBER 2006 (#1) Vol. 10 No. 11-1 P. O. Box 510518, Punta Gorda, FL 33951-0518 An international financial, economic, political and social commentary. Published and Edited by: Bob Chapman E-mail Address International_forecaster@yahoo.com CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE www.theinternationalforecaster.com
SUBSCRIPTION and RENEWAL INFORMATION: 1-YEAR $129.95 U.S. Funds. Make check payable to Robert Chapman (NOT International Forecaster), and mail to P.O. Box 510518, Punta Gorda, FL 33951-0518. Please include name, address, telephone number and e-mail address. We accept Visa and MasterCard charges. Provide us with your card number and expiration date. We will charge your card US$129.95 for a one-year subscription. Foreigners please use foreign U.S. dollar denominated checks or Money Orders. Note: We publish twice a month by surface mail or twice a week by E-mail. international_forecaster@yahoo.com ***** RADIO APPEARANCES: To check out all of our radio appearances click on this link below: http://www.theinternationalforecaster.com/radio.php US MARKETS There is no question that the recent mid-term election results showed George and the neocons that their wars, occupations and policies have been totally rejected by the electorate. The elitist corporate fascist state has been soundly rejected. The Democrats have a 23-seat edge in the House, which is a very powerful neutralizer of neocon policies. George is now officially a lame duck. As we write two Senate seats are undecided. If they are both won by Democrats that would seal the fate of the former Republican dominated government. We, as stated for four months, we see an Iraq and Afghanistan withdrawal initiated by elitists from behind the scenes. They control both parties and their plans supersede all others. Foreign policy will change dramatically over the next 20 years and the elitists will stick to business and make their inroads for world government in that manner, not by war. The government of arrogance is over. Patience on Iraq and Afghanistan has reached their limit with the public. What Republicans failed to do defeated them. They failed to pass Social Security reform and tried to pass unacceptable immigration reform. Those are practicalities never mind the orgy of self-indulgence, narcissism and scandal. Their production of pork projects was colossal. It put the Democrats to shame and that did not go unnoticed by the voters. Republicans proved their virtue was for sale. We now ask have they learned their lesson, did they get the message? Many Americans are paying more for health care then rent for their businesses. That is why 46 million Americans are uninsured and 40% of Americans have no insurance through their employer. This, while wages fail to keep up with living costs. In the past six years, health care premiums have risen 87%. If costs continue to increase at 10%, they will double again in seven years. Only 4% of the 155 million enrolled in employer-sponsored plans have high-deductible policies, compared with 60% in preferred-provider organizations. Bush administration consumer driven plans have increased costs to workers since employees do not get the benefit of large, group discounts when they bargain individually for health services. The Medicare drug prescription plan, Part D, will cost the elderly $53 billion next year and it’s nothing more than a cruelly contrived “doughnut benefit”, which offers no coverage when your total drug expenses range from $2,250 to $3,600. Instead of getting the lowest price on drugs, Medicare is perversely forbidden from doing that – by law. It became law to enrich the drug companies. If all of this were not bad enough, premiums are soaring for the drug plan for 2007. The cheapest policies will cost Americans 44% more as private insurers are boosting premiums. Built into the Medicare boondoggle are $4.6 billion in payments to Medicare Advantage providers, private managed care companies, and $10 billion for a PPO stabilization fund to encourage the growth of new regional PPO’s. It is all funded by taxpayer dollars through the Medicare Modernization Act. Overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans and regional PPO’s could easily cost more than $60 billion over the next ten years. The Medicare law is a poster child for what not to do if you are going to reduce health care costs. This is all headed in the wrong direction and we cannot afford it. In time only the rich will get health care, the rest will die. There is a consensus of opinion that a national public or private program must be established to ensure protection against very high out-of-pocket medical costs for everyone. The administration behind the mask posing as conservatives and right-wingers, but governing as national socialists on spending, illegal immigration and judicial appointments, has proven to be an unmitigated disaster at the polls. Distaste regarding Iraq, an ebbing economy, falling house prices, falling living standards, an illegal immigration morass and record debt and the concentration of wealth has hit the Republicans and many other incumbents with a staggering blow. ... Henry Paulson of Goldman Sachs and now our Treasury Secretary led the “Working Group on Financial Markets” and the Fed to propping up the market, bonds and the dollar since his tenure as it turns out to no avail. The current pets of the elitists, the Republicans, crashed and burned in the voting booth. His handy work is already starting to come unglued. His protection racket was a failure. What does he do next with a shriveling economy and a collapsing housing market? Oil prices as well as natural gas prices are already ready to move back upward along with gold and silver. GDP is faltering. In fact, so badly that the Treasury as well as the Fed is doing repos. All this leads to higher inflation, which is effectively stealing from American citizens. ... Bankruptcy experts by 70% expect bankruptcies to increase in 2007. Forty-eight percent say the reason would be higher interest rates, followed by home prices; commodity prices, global competition and an equity bear market. They said 80% expect the real estate and construction industry to be extremely vulnerable to an economic downturn. Two-thirds believe it will be a fall in retail consumption. Others vulnerable are airlines, manufacturing and transportation. After 24 years, Ben Bernanke tells us that money supply is no longer a reliable forecasting tool. If that is so why are they hiding M3? Ben must be upset with ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet’s comments on keeping an eye on money and credit. Then meatball retard Bernanke says, “It would be fair to say that monetary and credit aggregates have not played a central role in the formulation of US monetary since 1982.” When his statement was released by the media gold rallied. Ben is soon going to find, like Sir Alan did, that you cannot lie and get away with it. Unless interest rates are increased the dollar will fall and test 80. It closed Friday at 84.88. The Fed pause has eroded dollar support. Dollar reserves of other countries continue to fall and that will continue to put pressure on the dollar. Once it breaks 80 the dollar may lose its reserve status, that exorbitant privilege of borrowing its own currency that allows the US to stabilize their net international liability position. ... GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM, PALLADIUM AND DIAMONDS The war on gold had its last gasp on Wednesday, with gold closing down $8.80 to $616.90 and silver off $0.12 to $12.48. The December contracts closed with gold off $9.40 to $618.30, silver off $0.13 at $12.55, copper off $0.12 to $324 and the access market was minus $0.30. Open interest rose 3,164 contracts to 335,036, while silver open interest gains 1,979 contracts to 113,697. We believe that was buying and not short covering. We believe the shorts increased their shorts. Again, we will have a better take on Friday with the COT report. Gold was hit Wednesday because of Donald Rumsfeld’s sacking. They didn’t want gold to break out and up over $630 an ounce. Silver was firm most of the day because it’s believed that the Chinese were buyers. Tuesday on Tocom was slow as open interest rose 1,079 contracts and the day closed up $0.30. Tuesday saw CBOT and Comex increase open interest by 3,567 contracts or 11.09 tons. On Tuesday Tocom gold shorts increased their shorts by 4,355 contracts to 125,303 as Goldman covered 81 contracts to a net 30,842. Silver shorts increased 328 contracts to 4,064. The HUI fell 1.24 to 327.50 and the XAU lost 1.61 to 136.17. This is divergence from the fall in gold and silver prices. This is fundamentally bullish. Gold Fields has a 15-year contract to sell 300,000 ounces of gold a year from Cerro Corona to Germany, Japan and South Korea. There have been no announcements of such an arrangement from any of these companies. We wonder if any other nations have done the same. They obviously are replacing gold that they sold out of inventory or leased and cannot get back. That takes 300,000 ounces a year out of the market. Wednesday was lackluster in the market. The Dow rose 20 to 12,177, S&P rose 26 Dow points and the Nasdaq rose 54 Dow points. Oil rose $0.90 to $59.83, gas rose $0.04 to $1.56 and natural gas rose $0.07 to $7.82. The euro fell .0009 to $1.2766, the pound rose .0005 to $1.9050 and the Canadian dollar fell .07 to 88.50. The 2-year Treasury was 4.75% and the 10’s were 4.64%. Thursday was a barnburner. Gold was up $4.50 at 4:00 a.m. and never looked back. This was no dead cat bounce. $630 got taken out as we predicted like it wasn’t there. Next pause at $660 to $670. Then straight through $730 like it didn’t exist. Gold broke out of a powerful pattern technically, as well in the silver following but not as strongly. As we said after the elections gold will fly. Gold was up $7.50 to $634.40 and silver up $0.48 to $12.96. The December contracts: gold up $18.50 to $636.80, silver up $0.50 to $13.05, copper up $0.06 to $3.31 and the access aftermarket was up $0.20 after having been down $2.00. It was like a bomb was dropped on the White House. All the elitist plans blown apart. Now they have to deal with the alternative crooks. Iraq finally did George and the neocons in. The gold suppression cartel has no gold and only undeliverable coin melt left. To the refineries we say, get rid of it all so when the collapse comes the public will have good reason to hang you all. The dollar fell all day and commodities were strong, which must have helped gold and silver. The People’s Bank of China said it has a very clear plan to diversify reserves. That means more dollar sales. People’s Bank of China, Governor Zhou Xiaochuan sad, “All central banks are trying to diversify.” Gold is now up 23% this year. That was again not short covering today, it was fund buying. Rumors abound that the Chinese are buying silver. Wednesday’s Tocom volume was up 16% but it closed down $.22. On NY on Wednesday as we suspected, the attack came from the shorts and it was heavy volume as NY open interest rose 4.587 contracts and CBOT was up 1,794 or a gain of 19.8 tons of gold on the day. On Wednesday on the Tocom the big shorts increased their shorts by 3,515 more contracts to 128,818 as gold soared. Goldman increased their shorts by a paltry 266 to 31,108. It is long 134 contracts. They also reduced their silver shorts by four contracts. Technical resistance didn’t exist for the HUI on Thursday as it easily surmounted 333 closing at 341.05 and the XAU rose 5.47 to 147.64. The Commerce Department reported precious metals exports were $493 million in September, up 11% from August and up $2.539 billion, or 111% YTD. Non-monetary gold exports were $903 million in September, up 5% from August and $2.412 billion, or 58% YTD. Gold production costs at Newmont will rise to $376 an ounce in 2007, up 25% from 2006, or $297 an ounce. South Africa’s gold production fell 5.1%. ... SUBSCRIPTION and RENEWAL INFORMATION: 1-YEAR $129.95 U.S. Funds. Make check payable to Robert Chapman (NOT International Forecaster), and mail to P.O. Box 510518, Punta Gorda, FL 33951-0518. Please include name, address, telephone number and e-mail address. We accept Visa and MasterCard charges. Provide us with your card number and expiration date. We will charge your card US$129.95 for a one-year subscription. Foreigners please use foreign U.S. dollar denominated checks or Money Orders. Note: We publish twice a month by surface mail or twice a week by E-mail. international_forecaster@yahoo.com *****
-- Posted Sunday, 12 November 2006 | Digg This Article
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