Saturday, 4 December 2010

What's serious, what's funny, who is authoritative, who is a joke?

I have included this post in the 'Serious' section, because I was slightly 'stung' by your text remark that you thought that some sections of the 'RedBox' were 'very funny'.

I think it is a very serious point on who or what is authoritive.

This is a video that I am putting in the Sources section:




Which can be found at:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/RoleofFe

And this is the 'Funny Video' I put in one of my serious Posts:




What's the difference?

Well actually virtually nothing! Barring a few jokes virtually nothing. In fact the second video is ALMOST a TRANSCRIPT of first.

There are two obvious differences:

1. One is delivered by someone who until 2008 was a very highly respected economist (see below for David Malpass's CV).

2. The other is delivered by two animated 'sock puppets'

There are two other differences:

1. The C-Span interview with David Malpass was received 140 views
2. The 'sock puppets' on Youtube got 3.2 million hits

So why is it that someone who until recently would have been guaranteed a pretty wide audience if he had spoken, now seems to have to rely on his friends knocking up a 'Youtube' video with animated sock puppets, to get his message out?

Well, for that you probably have to have either studied 'Sociology', either in the highly intellectualised form my Mum did (esp. Gramsci on 'Hegemony') or the more diluted form my 19 daughter has just done through 'Media Studies'.

The fact is that 'the powers to be' are deliberately stifling this message, and replacing it with a new one.

You mentioned that you enjoyed reading Antole Kaletsky in the Times. We clearly have different views on Kaletsky. I personally think that he is a complete, Breshnev-era communist-trained and educated crackpot with no experience beyond being a 'hack journalist' and no fundamental understanding or sympathy at all with 'capitalist' economics (see below for Anatole's Kaletsky's  CV).

So why did Kaletsky get a column in 'The Times'?
A: Gordon Brown liked to surround himself with economic crackpots like this, trained in apparatik-style toadying . Murdoch obliged.

Why can't you read Kaletsky so easily anymore?
A: What has happened to Gordon Brown?

OK, so Kaletsky has good things to say, Malpass has soon good (& vice-versa) things to say. But be careful how you are being manipulated here, and how heavy is the manipulation.

AND REMEMBER OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES AND SOCK PUPPETS....

Pete

____________________________________________________________________

Who's who:

David Malpass

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Malpass sits on the boards of the Economic Club of New York and the National Committee on United States-China Relations.
Co-author of a weekly column in Forbes


CV
Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary 1984-88,
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State 1989-93,
former Chief Economist of Bear Sterns,
former Senior Managing Director of Bear Sterns,

How authoritative is/was he? Well:

1. Malpass' team at Bearn Sterns ranked second in the Institutional Investor ranking of Wall Street economists in 2005, 2006, and 2007

2. In 2008 he was important enough to be a member of the US & Global Forum hosted by Jean-Claude Trichet President of the ECB,

3. This man was called to give testimony before a great many US Congressional Committees.


Antole Kaletsky

Mr Kaletsky was born in 1952 in Moscow, USSR and also spent his childhood in Poland and Australia.


He has lived in England and the US since 1966.


Mr Kaletsky was educated at King's College at the University of Cambridge where he graduated with a first class honours degree in Mathematics and at Harvard University, where he was a Kennedy Memorial Scholar and gained a master's degree in Economics.


CV


 1976-9       Journalist with The Economist, writing about business and finance.
 1979-90     Journalist  Financial Times, including New York Bureau Chief, Washington Correspondent,  International Economics Correspondent and Moscow Correspondent.


1990-1996   Economics Editor of The Times, responsible for all economic news and analysis,
1996 to date  Founded Consultancy Practice. The Times’s principal commentator on economic and financial affairs, Editor-at-Large writing for The Times Comment pages on Thursdays and for the Times Business section on alternate Mondays.

As noted on Wikipedia:

Many of his economic predictions have been proven wrong by subsequent events, and this tendency was noted by the satirical magazine 'Private Eye'.


 ----------------------------------------------------000000000---------------------------------------

Note: My harsh judgement on Kaletsky comes from reading this article, which advocates policies that strongly echo those led to the in collapse of the Russian economy in the late 1990s...

...and shows zero understanding of the paramount importance of protecting savers within capitalism economics....

Punish savers and make them spend money

Near-zero interest rates and even a tax on bank deposits are necessary to force those with cash to use it productively

January 8, 2009

Friday, 3 December 2010

The Bunker Hunt of Copper 2010 Style!


Mystery trader captures 80pc of London's copper market

, 11:20, Friday 3 December 2010

A single trader has gobbled up to four-fifths of the copper traded in London, stockpiling it in warehouses.
The unknown buyer has been building up the dominant position since at least last week, putting a squeeze on the market.
According to the rules of the London Metals Exchange, the trader must lend out copper if it holds between 50pc and 80pc of the total to maintain day-to-day liquidity in the market. The trader is currently lending at a 0.5pc premium to the cash price.
Position limits prevent one buyer from cornering more than 90pc of the market.
The premium for spot price copper over delivery in three months' time reached $89 in the middle of this week - the highest in two years.
Stockpiles in London have fallen by more than a third since their levels at the beginning of the year.
LME copper was steady at $8,720 per tonne this morning, having reached a high of $8,732 earlier. A record price of $8,966 was hit in mid-Novermber.
The large position is not the only reason the copper price is high.
There are fears of a shortfall in supply next year, as mining production is not expected to keep pace with rebounding demand following the recession.
Two US investment banks and one UK company also want to launch exchange-traded funds linked to copper, which is likely to suck demand out of the market further.
Full Article:

Some of the 'readers comments' are as good as the article!


Rampant speculation allowed by the governments around the world is a cause of distress for more than 90% of the population in the world and a major wealth maker for the rest 10%. 

The basic mechanism of price discovery has been terminally corrupted because of the large speculative community using leveraged products like derivatives. 

Traditionally price of any commodity was derived by the actual demand and supply of users and producers. Today it is derived by the long and short speculative positions on the exchange. 

The sad part is that the rest of the population have to pay the price whatever is quoted on the exchange. 
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/...

AcePilot101
Today 04:23 AM
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If you drop a magnet down a copper tube, it falls slower than the rate of gravity due to the Lenz effect. 
Since I have money to burn, I think I will run out and buy a bit of copper tube and try this experiment. I am also wondering what would happen if you spin the tube. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... 
By the way, I am not very rich but have managed to buy two silver coins this past year.

Today 03:37 AM
This is the sort of thing that happens around price spikes in commodities. Price spikes never last long but they can go very high. Silver also has an even more dramatic price spike in place, see: http://www.arabianmoney.net/go.../
Actually silver is up 70% in 12 months.

Today 12:34 AM
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4 people
One trader isnt squeezing -poor Roweena has to write something .So why juggler are you paying 300 k for a house You are not! but the British are sheep to slaughter . I saw a flat at auction sold for 90k when 2 years earlier it was a new build at 200k at St Neots UK.They are still selling for region £200k.The sad English! We are conditioned to expect proprty to rise in value_ because of the land shortage now and the planiing system .Did anyone ask to see a planning officers bank account_they are the next dirty people to be exposed 
But new developments in Cambs, are going through with 40% affordable housing -that means we pay for the umarried women and unemployable through council taxes and central government taxes -their plot of land gets inflated in price I remember the property boom in Thatchers time . My neighbour was getting his house valued regularlyand hence reinisuring. He Had no idea it was the land increasing in value and not the house but the company loved his premiums.I was 29 years old then so I didnt say anything! Simple common sense
we kwow what happenned to Bunker -Hs too
Its taking part that counts I was once told .Play the game and gear up -and down 
We live in rip off Britain Food prices ,cars houses etc. I buy beautiful sides of meat -pig ,lamb beef -from a farming friend 60% less than you would see in Tesco and much better eating Carry on spending you sad people out there!Some people are getting rich at your expense whilst you have got used to remortgaging to enable you to live WE ARE ANOTHER PIGS COUNTRY but noone has noticed yet Itis just difficult to make word with pigs and in it init!. NEw cars in the car park all on HP and 30 % credit card debt .We AR E the third world in 20 years

Today 12:30 AM
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There is a game being played, a big serious game. I do not believe this is about some city slick speculation. As you have read in an earlier post, China consumes vast quantities of copper each year, as a prelude to buying it sends out various messages to the markets which imply it is going to dampen down growth. These are intended to unnerve the markets and suppress commodity prices; once the prices have dropped in step the buyers. My guess is that the producers have seen this happen once too often and have decided to squeeze the market in reaction to the drop signals to thwart this buyer manipulation and obtain something nearer the true market price for their goods.

Yesterday 11:20 PM
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bleachers " it wasn't for free markets,we wouldn't be paying £300,000 plus for a house that only cost around £30/£40,000 to build"

1. Why buy the house then?
2. Are you considering the value of the land it is built on?

Yesterday 10:40 PM
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2 people
hahaha.....we always hear about 'free markets'........

so how the hell can one trader squeeze the market?

the bunker hunts tried a similar thing.......

pretty soon noboby will have any money to buy any metal so the market will collapse..........of course banks can play monopoly because we have given them billions to play with....i wonder when the cheque will arrive with my slice of the profits?

Yesterday 09:09 PM
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7 people
its copperfinger

Yesterday 08:41 PM
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8 people
Today only copper, but tomorrow? Nothing is sacred, everything we depend on is fair game for short term speculators after a quick buck. 

Desperate governments print money and flood markets with liquidity, but exercise no control over where it flows.
This is free market ideology gone mad, yet its deluded disciples still rail against any kind of intervention. 

Financial markets should be a servant of the people, not their master. How much more evidence of a seriously malfunctioning financial system is needed before sanity prevails?

Yesterday 06:40 PM
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1 person
dear Rowena ,Hes only heavily geared: Copper stocks London Thursday 350000tons Chinas consumption last year 6 million tons growing at 20% .It makes sense for everyone to have an ETF/option/warrant or 2 ! The likes of Xstrata are keeping up but remember the chinese are stockpiling too so its a volatile market

Yesterday 06:17 PM
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9 people
More Gold has been purchased than physically exists.

If all those who purchased Gold said I want it now, they would get a nasty surprise!

Yesterday 06:15 PM
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9 people
The basic reason why your unemployed, in Debt or living in over priced housing. Wall St/City traders maipulation, greed, casion banking or mortgage Bond slicing and dicing. Where the Profits are privatised but the Debt/losses are socialised for the public to pay!

Yesterday 07:10 PM
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4 people
I'd imagine most people are in debt due to spending too much?

Yesterday 06:09 PM
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4 people
So now if you do finally get a plumber to come out he won't have any piping to finish the job.

MyGoatyBeard
Yesterday 07:13 PM
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2 people
I've got a yard or two in the garage.

Yesterday 06:01 PM
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Perhaps he doesn't trust the pound, or the dollar any more?
After all, they are printing like there no tomorrow and gold and silver are too expensive

Yesterday 08:32 PM
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3 people
yeah, if I had a lot of money right now, I would be pouring some of it into real world valuable instead of paper/numerics.

if ww3 happened tomorrow, all those with actual materials would be king, all those with numbers in the bank, would be bankrupt.

so it does make a strange kind of sense.

Yesterday 05:14 PM
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1 person
Hmm! Reminds me of Peter Tanous, and Paul Rubenstein's book. The wheat Killing?

Yesterday 03:29 PM
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Sounds all very Goldfinger to me.

Does this mean we are going to reopen the copper mines of Anglesey? Would be nice to see a return to mining in Wales under a Tory government

Today 04:52 AM
The Tories would sell it to a foreign state owned mining company, that would strip mine it, but their coffers would be nicely lined in the process.

andy_williams
Yesterday 07:07 PM
Funnily enough, there is a viability study on-going on Parys Mountain

Yesterday 02:54 PM
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"There are fears of a shortfall in supply next year, as mining production is not expected to keep pace with rebounding demand following the recession."

I thought the last 3 words were noteworthy. I must have been asleep...are we (The West) back in a boom? Am nervous that we perhaps mistake some rising asset prices and demand elsewhere with real economic recovery?

Yesterday 02:11 PM
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7 people
Have the Duke brothers cornered the market for Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice yet?! It was the Dukes, it was the Dukes....

andy_williams
Yesterday 07:07 PM
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2 people
Bet you a dollar it wasn't

Yesterday 03:25 PM
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"Mother always said you were greedy"
"She meant it as a compliment"