Most Chinese Economists Favor Gold Over US Treasuries for Their National Reserves

Barbarously inconvenient to the global dollar hegemon.

Time for another announcement of an IMF gold sale? Sounds as though China would like to know when they will be able to take delivery.

Zimbabwe Ben will simply have to pick up the slack.

In all seriousness, if China starts pressing this issue the US will have no choice but engage in the long overdue revaluation of its national gold reserves significantly higher. This would be one method of reducing the national debt to China and buying back some of the Treasury bonds.

Unfortunately in this case 'higher' would be a factor of x5 at least, or as high as an order of magnitude, x10.

Perhaps the Chinese would settle for an option on West Texas, if Mexico is not interested.

And the angel shouted, "Fallen! Powerful Babylon has fallen..." Revelation 18:2


ChinaStakes
Survey: Over Two-Thirds of Chinese Economists Favor Gold Over US Bonds
by CSC staff, Shanghai
March 02,2009

In a survey of major Chinese economists, more than two-thirds are reportedly bearish on the prospect of China increasing its holdings of US government bonds, and believe instead the nation should putting more of its hard-earned into gold.

According to a China Business News survey of 70 Chinese economists (including one foreign economist), the exact figure is 71.4% anti-bonds and pro-gold.

The use of China's huge foreign exchange reserve is a topic of concern and controversy. The remaining 28.6% of those polled believe China should continue to buy U.S. Treasury bonds. 38.6% think that China should not continue to buy, but also should not to sell US bonds. 32.8% believe that China should unload the bonds, 22.8% of whom think we should have a slight sell-off, while 10% think China should drop them like a bad habit.

All this is against a backdrop of China surpassing Japan to become America's largest US bond holder and of the ever-widening global financial kerfuffle.

The survey also brings to light the question of whether China’s gold reserves should be increased. Recent gold futures prices broke through US$1000/ounce, making gold the most outstanding asset in the financial turmoil. One economist thinks China’s current gold reserve of 600 tons is an unnecessary load and that the opportunity should be grasped to sell off a bunch of it at a good price.

21.4% of economists said that the gold reserve level was fine and leave it alone.

But 75.7% of the economists asked believe that China should increase its holdings of gold, with 48.6% opting for a slight increase while 27.1% think China should pile in.

At US$1000 an ounce?!

Barclays Asked to Account for 3.3 Billion in Lehman Bonus Money

The difference between the monies transferred to Barclay's and the amounts actually disbursed may have accounted for almost a third of Barclay's reported pre-tax profits.

One would have to wonder if the Barclay's executives were paid bonuses on such impressive financial results.

Thus do fees and bonus money provide a cornucopia of personal enrichment to the financiers at the expense of the real economy.

Financial Times
Barclays questioned on funds
By Francesco Guerrera, Greg Farrell and Julie MacIntosh in New York
March 5 2009 11:03

Lehman Brothers’ US liquidators have asked Barclays to explain what happened to an estimated $3.3bn earmarked for bonuses and other liabilities that the UK bank received when it acquired part of the bankrupt Wall Street company last year.

The move by Bryan Marsal, who heads the firm managing Lehman’s US liquidation, underlines the tension between the company’s creditors and Barclays, which acquired the North American arms of the investment bank for $1.5bn after it filed for bankruptcy in September.

The decision by Alvarez & Marsal, charged with recovering funds for creditors, to query Barclays’ use of the money could fuel controversy over bonuses paid to Lehman executives who stayed with the UK bank.

In its yearly results last month, Barclays booked a gain of £2.3bn ($3.3bn) on the difference between the fair value of the assets and liabilities acquired from Lehman and the price paid for them. The gain accounted for about a third of Barclays’ pre-tax profits and helped Barclays Capital, its investment banking arm, to record a profit of £1.3bn.

People close to the situation said Mr Marsal wrote to Barclays on February 19 asking it to reconcile the $4.2bn transferred to the UK bank after the takeover – composed of $2bn for compensation and $2.25bn for other purposes – with his firm’s estimate that BarCap has so far spent about $900m.

Mr Marsal’s letter – sent to Rich Ricci, BarCap’s chief operating officer, and Jonathan Hughes, its general counsel – says that, under the takeover deal, Barclays received $2bn from Lehman to pay bonuses and severance to transferring employees, according to people who have seen the document. However, Alvarez & Marsal estimates Barclays had to pay only about $700m in bonuses and severance, these people say.

The liquidators’ analysis of Lehman’s internal documents concluded that the total amount of compensation set aside for the investment bank’s global workforce until the end of August was $1.3bn. But because Barclays bought only Lehman’s North American operations, whose 10,000-plus employees accounted for 55 per cent of the compensation pool, its expenses should have been about $700m.

The agreement between Barclays and Lehman also provided for the transfer of cash and collateral, including $2.25bn to pay for liabilities to be settled after the takeover, according to people who have seen the letter. However, in the document Alvarez & Marsal calculates that Barclays’ payments for these liabilities have been about $200m, and the estimate for the final amount is much lower than expected, these people said.

People close to the situation said Barclays had written to Mr Marsal on February 23 saying BarCap was open to discussing the issues but rejected the suggestion that the original takeover agreement should be amended.

Barclays said on Wednesday: “Alvarez & Marsal’s position is completely without merit, baseless and a serious misunderstanding of the facts. All of these matters were approved by the New York bankruptcy court in September 2008.”

Lehman Brothers Holdings, the bank’s remaining businesses, now managed by Alvarez & Marsal, said it was “not making any allegations but is simply requesting factual information from Barclays as to certain discrepancies”.

The Bank of England Begins Monetization in Earnest

The British Pound is headed to parity with the US dollar. This will add some sting to the economic downturn for the common people of Britian.

Gordon Brown was a key architect in the financial crisis and decline, and it is discouraging to see that he still holds power, in much the same way that it was disappointing to see Larry Summers as Obama's key economic advisor.

Both Britain and the US are experiencing a deficiency in political leadership with regard to the financial crisis. Gordon Brown was expected, but Obama so far has been a crushing disappointment, at least to the public.


Reuters
Bank of England cuts rates, to buy govt bonds to boost economy
By Sumeet Desai and Fiona Shaikh
Thu Mar 5, 2009 9:23am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England cut interest rates by 50 basis points on Thursday to a record low of 0.5 percent, and said it would buy 75 billion pounds of assets to expand the money supply and aid a recession-hit British economy.

Unveiling the asset purchase programme -- the start of "quantitative easing" measures employed when rates get near to their minimum -- the Bank said the likely majority of purchases over the next three months would be of gilts (UK government bonds) at medium and long maturities.

Gilts soared on the announcement, with the June future rallying more than 2.50 full points, while sterling fell against the dollar.

The latest rate reduction means the BoE has now cut interest rates for six months running by a total of 4.5 percentage points as Britain struggles with its first recession since the early 1990s.

The government has given the BoE permission to buy as much as 150 billion pounds' worth of assets with newly-created money. This figure also includes 50 billion pounds set aside in the government's asset purchase facility that hitherto would have been funded by the issue of Treasury bills.

The total of 150 billion pounds was at the top end of what analysts had been expecting.

The Bank said it would monitor the effectiveness of the asset buying programme at its future meetings. Such a policy was pursued by Japan at the start of the decade but is unprecedented in Britain and underlines the severity of the downturn caused by the global credit crisis.

The policy is intended to encourage the banks to lend more freely to households and businesses, and in turn stimulate economic growth.

The latest reduction in interest rates would itself leave a substantial risk of inflation undershooting the two percent target in two-years' time. (In what alternative universe does that follow on? If you lower rates you lower inflation eventually? Perhaps they meant 'overshooting' or perhaps they are just repeating Orwellian memes. - Jesse)

But the BoE added it was also concerned that a low level of interest rates could be counterproductive for some markets.

"It is in line with expectations. The decision to embark on an asset purchase of 75 billion is obviously the right move," said Amit Kara, UK economist at UBS. "We think it is a start and will probably end up double the size, probably over the course of the year."

MGM Mirage May Go Into Default

"MGM Mirage says it may break loan covenants this year unless more people gamble."

Is nothing sacred? LOL

There are a more tha a few brokerages behind them on this default curve as the punters start hitting the wall, and the loose money in the speculating economy continues to flow into the black hole of the money center banks.


AP
MGM Mirage casino company says it may default on debt
By Oskar Garcia, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday March 3, 5:23 pm ET

Casino company MGM Mirage says it may break loan covenants this year unless more people gamble

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Casino operator MGM Mirage says it believes it will break loan convenants this year unless the economy turns around and more people gamble.

The Las Vegas-based casino operator said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Tuesday that it will delay filing its annual report because it is still assessing its financial position and liquidity needs.

MGM Mirage says that if it breaks its covenants to lenders, it will default on its senior credit facility. The company says it has asked to modify the credit facility but doesn't know yet whether its terms will change.

MGM Mirage says its annual report will likely contain a report from its independent accountants about MGM Mirage's ability to continue as a company.