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CME Raises Silver Margin Requirements for the 4th Time
I'm trying to remember how many times the Fed raised stock margin requirement during the tech bubble, or mortgage down payment minimums and bank reserve requirements in the last credit bubble.
The spin machine and demand dampening campaigns are well underway in an attempt to rescue the pampered princes of Wall Street and the City of London from yet another overleveraged paper asset scheme gone wrong, wobbling the Anglo-American banking system.
It is the duty of the central banks and the government to preserve and protect the privileged few and their financiers not only from justice, but any pain of loss or minor inconveniences as well, no matter the cost to the public trust.
Now if only they could magically create some substantial new bullion supplies for the Comex to forestall what appears to be an approaching default on delivery, at least based on identifiable inventory and assets represented by paper in customers' hands.
As Daniel Drew once famously observed:
"He who sells what isn't his'n, must buy it back, or go to prison."
This is from Reuters:
"The following are highlights from the U.S. Treasury Department's announcement on Wednesday of its quarterly debt refunding, which will raise $72 billion in new cash.
The Treasury said it would auction $32 billion in three-year notes, $24 billion in 10-year notes and $16 billion in 30-year bonds next week.
When the note and bond sales are settled on May 16, they will exhaust the government's remaining borrowing capacity under the $14.3 trillion statutory debt limit. This will require the government to employ emergency measures to continue borrowing, but these will only be sufficient until Aug. 2, according to Treasury projections. The measures include dipping into two federal employee pension funds.
Treasury officials reiterated their view that they believe Congress will raise the debt limit in time. A Treasury official said that reduced auction sizes or frequencies were options that could be considered to refund maturing debt in case the debt limit increase was delayed."
The Treasury is reportedly asking for a $2 Trillion increase again according to Reuters:
The Treasury has told lawmakers a roughly $2 trillion rise in the legal limit on federal debt would be needed to ensure the government can keep borrowing through the 2012 presidential election, sources with knowledge of the discussions said.
Obama administration officials have repeatedly said that it is up to Congress to decide by how much the $14.3 trillion debt limit should be raised.
But when lawmakers asked how much of an increase would be needed to meet the government's obligations into early 2013, Treasury officials floated the $2 trillion working figure, Senate and administration sources told Reuters.
