Loading ...Mr. Copper you know that Maddog lives in the UK right?
No man is an island! 🙂
ferrett @ 10:36
Well … if the left blow up the system and then they aren’t cohesive enough to rule, that sounds like chaos and mayhem. Perfect environment for some “Strongman” to come about!
Maddog @ 8:26 re your “France cannot be allowed to fail, or the whole EU/Euro project goes tits up”
Why do you care about France and Europe? They have been draining wealth away from the USA, they pretty much absorbed the USA before WW II. My grand parents came from Italy back in 1908. And I don’t care about Italy or any other country other than the USA.
ipso 8:37, the left in France is not like the UK or USA
It’s not a coherent force. There is no “left” to take control, the factions may band together to topple a government and then revert to their factionalism and the country stagnates with no leadership. Like Italy, and, surprisingly to me, now Germany too.
Maddog, I’m not sure about France being part of the core any more. Or even Germany. The Blob has acquired a life of its own and festers in its own bureaucratic dominance, immune to disruptions from institutions which are now on its periphery – which was always the intent. That’s why it needs the war with Russia, a final proof of its relevance on the world stage. Hopefully such arrogance will be its downfall. Having said that I can’t see how the Euro survives a French bond collapse. The EU has long been trying to issue its own debt and maybe this will be the catalyst. Whether it will succeed or not – who knows, but there is plenty of history showing that currency markets are much bigger than governments.
ipso 10:10 🙂
Silver turns
Shares are strong. I can’t imagine they won’t battle over HUI 500, but we’re just about there.
Thing is that the metals have still have plenty of room to run.
No tax loss selling this year for a change!
Buygold
Re Armstrong
He ain’t wrong….they have been advocating that for a long time and may well have spent Vlad’s dosh…..they also need the war to keep going, or Vlad and the Donald will sit down and compare notes, as to how the Globalists have been setting them up, as the Worlds bad guys, which makes all this personal….then add in all those missing Dollars and yes we can see just why they are shiiteing themselves…then add all the dirt he has on their personal habits…..like just what is Micron living with and why doesn’t Mrs Starmer seem to around ever ????
Vlad is well known for how he deals with enemies…….Once this is over I suspect , none of ’em will be buying anything but bungalows…..
Maddog
“France has a lot of Gold….$ 15/20,000….would be most welcome !!!!!”
Merveilleux, fantastique! 🙂
HUI 500?
It could happen.
I’m not sure if you guys already posted this Armstrong from ZH, but I found a couple things interesting. Europe needs war with Russia because if there’s a peace deal they will have to pay back the $350 billion in Russia’s frozen assets. He says they’ve been spending them.
ipsofacto
The EU always was built on sand…..it is only a matter of time, before it falls apart….whether France will be the catalyst, we have yet to see….the EU is hated by most, only the few that benefit like it….What this latest crisis shows, is how the mkts are now confident enough to attack the core, not just minnows like Greece….
France has a lot of Gold….$ 15/20,000….would be most welcome !!!!!
Durable Goods beats
So naturally the dollar coming back, although rates have come back down to flat. Riddle me that.
PM shares look decent, and we haven’t been mauled at the 9 am hour yet.
Never know.
Maddog @ 8:21
What a mess! It’s sad to see. It’s almost as if the left is trying to destroy the country so that they can take control. It brings to mind Napoleon … firing cannon into crowds of protestors and some time later becoming Emperor.
Re France
France cannot be allowed to fail, or the whole EU/Euro project goes tits up….France is the core member of the EU, along with Germany…up until now the Mkts have always left France alone, which is why their debt has exploded and rates haven’t followed ….now could be the beginning of the end….a major Globalist pillar is in real trouble…..
More on the French situation……sri paywalled again
Prime Minister François Bayrou has recalled parliament for a confidence vote on 8 September, betting he can outmanoeuvre a surging protest movement before it paralyzes France. The grassroots ‘Bloquons tout’ campaign, echoing the gilets jaunes and fuelled by the hard left, plans to halt trains, buses, schools, taxis, refineries and ports. It is a general strike in all but name. Bayrou’s move aims to reassert control before chaos takes hold, but with the vote just two days before the open-ended strike begins, failure could topple his government and ignite a broader assault on President Macron’s authority. This morning, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI) announced its plans to file a motion of destitution against Macron on 23 September if Bayrou falls, raising the stakes further.
Bayrou’s bold move was meant to buy Macron time. But it now threatens to blow up his presidency
At the heart of this crisis is the economy. France’s debt has blown past 110 per cent of GDP and the budget hole for 2025 stands at around €47 billion. Before the summer break, Bayrou proposed the deepest spending cuts in a generation, in a country where public spending accounts for nearly 60 per cent of GDP. The unions are furious. The French are addicted to public spending and there’s a deep-seated mentality that the government owes people ever more. Mélenchon has turned the budget battle into a populist crusade against Macron’s ‘rich man’s government’, rallying the left and calling on supporters to shut the country down unless the cuts are scrapped. Gilets jaunes veterans have been readying to go back on the streets.
Within minutes of the end of the press conference in Paris at which Bayrou announced the confidence vote, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s LFI and others declared they would not support the government. It also appeared yesterday evening that the Socialists were leaning against Bayrou, an immediate slap in the face for him and indirectly for Macron. This morning, Mélenchon escalated the pressure, vowing to push for Macron’s impeachment on 23 September if the vote fails, blaming the president for the crisis rather than Bayrou.
Bayrou’s move was designed to seize the initiative before the country slides into chaos, but the arithmetic is now completely against him. To survive, he needs 289 votes. His Macron-centrist alliance can deliver barely 165. The consensus yesterday evening among journalists and leading Paris-based analysts is that the government has almost no chance of surviving. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally was the only possible lifeline, and immediately after the announcement they made clear that they would not help Bayrou. A curt statement from the RN said it was ‘not inclined to support’ the government. Bayrou and Macron’s gamble has almost certainly failed. It looks as though Macron and Bayrou completely miscalculated their move.
Le Pen no doubt very rapidly concluded that there is no need to save Macron’s prime minister to satisfy her own ambitions. Polls suggest she would emerge from early parliamentary elections as the largest force in the Assembly, even if personally she cannot run. Her party would still, however, fall short of a majority, making her refusal to back Bayrou cost-free and politically advantageous. If the government falls, Macron’s authority erodes further, and the RN’s narrative of ‘ordinary France versus Parisian elites’ hardens. Mélenchon, meanwhile, is actively pushing for Bayrou’s downfall. LFI has seized control of the anti-austerity message and united Socialists, Greens and hard-left radicals behind him. For Mélenchon, an early election offers the chance to turn street anger into parliamentary power.
Bayrou’s bold move was meant to buy Macron time. But it now threatens to blow up his presidency. If indeed Bayrou loses the confidence vote, Macron will face an impeachment process. He could try to appoint another sacrificial prime minister to preside over austerity and strikes, but no one credible will want the job. He could also call an early election, risking handing power to Mélenchon or leaving the country even more paralysed. Or he could simply sit tight and let the blockades and market jitters spiral while he waits out the end of his term. If Bayrou falls, Macron may limp on in the Élysée, but the Fifth Republic itself risks a reckoning.
As Bayrou battles parliament, the markets are signalling that France’s fiscal credibility hangs by a thread. Bond yields are creeping up. Somehow the ratings agencies haven’t yet let things slide. France has held on to its top-tier status long past the point of credibility. Perhaps this is only thanks to the assumption that the country, Europe’s second biggest economy, is too big to fail. But that indulgence has its limits. Come mid-September, when the numbers are on the table and the budget battle begins, a downgrade from the rating agencies seems inevitable. This will damage France and will certainly damage Europe. A downgrade would spike borrowing costs, potentially triggering a broader sell-off in European markets.
For eight years, Macron’s political brand has rested on him outmanoeuvring his opponents and keeping France just stable enough to get by. If the government loses this confidence vote, Macron’s authority breaks. He may cling on in the Élysée, but his presidency will be weakened beyond repair. France risks months of paralysis, street unrest and financial turmoil.
France is getting targeted by the Mkts………sri no link as behind a paywall.
Its debts are out of control. There is very little space left to raise taxes any further. And the political establishment can’t agree on anything apart from postponing the whole issue for another year or two. It is a description that could apply to plenty of countries, and not least the UK. But right now, it is one that applies most acutely to France. With yet another government about to fall, and the CAC-40 stock market index falling sharply, the real question is this: will Paris be the centre of the next financial crash?
The French prime minister François Bayrou yesterday took the plucky, if foolish, decision to recall parliament on 8 September for a vote of confidence. He is struggling to pass a Budget that would put in place some modest controls on public spending – not cuts, of course, but a slowdown in the rate of increase – as well as some symbolic gestures such as scrapping two public holidays. It seems highly likely that Bayrou will lose his vote of confidence. As such, the government will fall and President Emmanuel Macron will have to look for another PM – or else call fresh elections.
The hedge funds are clearly targeting France
It is hardly surprising that investors are growing increasingly nervous about France’s debt. The deficit is forecast to exceed 5 per cent of GDP this year and may well go over 6 per cent. Economic growth has ground to a halt. The tax rises imposed last year have done nothing to fix the hole in the nation’s finances, while the debt-to-GDP ratio has climbed over 110 per cent and state spending now accounts for 58 per cent of total output. Lots of European countries are addicted to state spending, but France is leading the way. It already has the third largest stock of outstanding debt in the world, after the far larger American and Japanese economies, and yet it keeps adding to it.
Investors are fretting over the prospect of yet another government falling. The benchmark CAC-40 fell heavily on Monday and was down by another 2.1. per cent this morning, far more than by any other major market. The yield on the country’s 10 year debt is now among the highest in the eurozone. It has already overtaken Greece and Portugal, nations at the heart of the last crisis, and it is very close to overtaking Italy.
Shares in major French banks such as Societe Generale and BNP Paribas, both of which are assumed by investors to be heavily exposed to French government debt, are down by 7 per cent and 5p per cent respectively today. The hedge funds are clearly targeting France, and shorting bank shares is the easiest way to play that trade.
The high-risk scenario is that the bond markets crash, one or more of the major banks run out of money, and the European Central Bank has to step in with a rescue. Once that happens, no one knows how it will play out. But one point is clear: it will be very messy.
Of course, it may well blow over – as it has in the past. President Macron may be able to find a prime minister who can cobble together a Budget. Or fresh elections may elect a centrist administration that can start the hard grind of bringing spending under control. But right now, it does not look very likely. No one knows where the next financial crash will start. But Paris is looking increasingly like the trigger.
The churn
We were sporting some modest gains in the overnights but now we are back toward flat. The dollar is giving up a little ground, but rates are up a couple bips to 4.29%, they had hit 4.3% earlier.
Oil is the big loser this am, down over a buck back to $63.72. Crypto is mostly flat to up 1%, Bitcoin is flat.
Eco data today is moderate with durable goods leading the way, followed by Consumer Confidence and the Richmond Fed.
What’s it all mean? I have no clue other than volume is fading and our little market is even easier to manipulate. End of the month, algo-driven shares rule the day. Yesterday, they treated the shares decently. Today? Who knows.
I thought this idiot was supposed to be talking peace.
Zelensky Wants EU To Provide $1BN Monthly Allowance To Fuel War Against Russia
goldielocks
Re Iran…..hopefully it is true and if so really good news….
Maddog
Thanks for the news.
Serious problems developing in Iran, as population is getting more and more pissed off…with Mullahs
sounds like Mossad is stirring it all up bigtime.
Radioactive shrimp
I’m tracking where a company got the shrimp to track were the cesium was coming from and why and wasn’t China. It was Indonesia.
Frozen shrimp packaged in Indonesia by PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati (BMS Foods) and distributed by Southwind Foods and Beaver Street Fisheries (for Walmart’s Great Value brand) were found to be potentially contaminated with Cesium-137, a radioactive isotope. This led to recalls of various brands of frozen shrimp sold in multiple states across the U.S. by Walmart and other retailers.Â