Desperation Is a Tender Trap

I may not have won a yellow hat yesterday, but at least a first as a consolation prize will heal my achy breaky heart.

Got me some dry powder for tomorrow's flash decline a la Turd.

Turd: Why is there defense at $1570?

I'm surprised by the spread between silver price and that of most mines.  Anyone with suggestions?

“How did you go bankrupt?"
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

Ernest Hemingway
 

Is Your Dry Powder Gone?

Just join me sitting on my hands watching the fireworks!

Don't play into the manipulators hands: the urge to do something... anything when chaos erupts must be fought.

Now, if I can only follow my own advice...

~pickaxe

MADEIRA — Madeira police officers daily go after the bad guys, but admit their collective resolve ratcheted up a few notches when they learned a coin collection had been stolen from the home of an 89-year-old World War II veteran shortly before Memorial Day.

“Let’s just say we kind of took it personal,” Det. Tim Vogel said.

Vogel said two brothers from Southgate burglarized Joe Schirmer’s house in Madeira shortly after 11 a.m. May 21. No one was home at the time.

As Timothy Fetters kept a lookout, Vogel said, Craig Fetters broke into a lockbox and emptied a shoebox in Schirmer’s home, leaving with Schirmer’s gold wedding band and 15 Morgan silver dollars and Peace silver dollars.

“(Schirmer) kept records of all the dates on the coins, which assisted in the investigation,” Vogel said.

“We just called around to the coin places and we finally got a hit down in Cincinnati.”

Vogel said the Fetters brother sold the loot at Coins Plus in downtown Cincinnati for a total of $460.

Madeira police tracked down a video that caught the Fetters brothers cashing the check from Coins Plus at First Financial Bank in Dent, Vogel said.

He said Madeira police recovered all the stolen goods and took them to Schirmer.

“He didn’t even realize that his wedding ring was missing,” Vogel said.

“It was priceless to him, the wedding ring was.

“He just started tearing up and was so happy to get his stuff back,” Vogel said.

Schirmer said his wedding ring represents 56 years of marriage to his wife Marjorie, who died in 2003.

“I had a wonderful marriage,” Schirmer said.

Of course, Schirmer thinks a few other people are wonderful, too.

“The Madeira police did a wonderful job,” said Schirmer, who served in the Army Service Forces in Maryland and the Sixth Air Force in the Galapagos Islands.

“They came to my house immediately. I was surprised the police found (my possessions) so quickly.”

Meanwhile, Madeira officers arrested the Fetters brothers May 23 – two days after they got the burglary report.

Craig Fetters, 24, is charged with burglary, possessing criminal tools and safecracking.

Timothy Fetters, 27, is charged with complicity to burglary.

JGalt wrote

For all I know the numbers we get each day as our daily "price fix" comes from some anonymous computer geek with sausage fingers who types in a predetermined series of numbers on a computer screen at market close each day.

Ding,ding ding ding!! We have a winner! Long read from ZH, here's cliff notes.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/second-act-jpm-cio-fiasco-has-arrived-mismarking-hundreds-billions-default-swaps

• Markit Group’s founders also include four hedge funds. However, Markit Group refuses to disclose the names of those hedge funds. In response to an inquiry, a Markit Group spokesman said it was “corporate policy” to keep the names of the hedge funds secret, but he would not say why Markit Group had such a policy. It seems worth knowing whether those hedge funds have any influence over Markit Group’s published information or indexes, and whether those hedge funds are trading on that information. It would also be worth knowing whether those hedge funds or affiliated hedge funds have engaged in short selling of public companies whose debt and stock prices were profoundly affected by the information that Markit Group published.
• Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), JP Morgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) and several other investment banks also have ownership stakes in Markit Group. The investment banks received their stakes in exchange for providing trading data to Markit Group. It would be worth knowing whether these investment banks engaged in short selling ahead of Markit Group’s published indexes and price quotations.
• Markit Group is secretive about how it creates its indexes. In early 2008, The Wall Street Journal noted that the CMBX simply “doesn’t make sense” and that Markit Group’s indexes “might be exaggerating the amount of distress” in the home and commercial mortgage markets. In 2008, the average prediction for defaults on commercial mortgages was 2%. The CMBX implied that the default rate could be four times that level.
• Markit Group is equally secretive about how it derives its “prices” for credit default swaps. A spokesman for the company spent close to one hour talking to Deep Capture. He did his job well and sounded like he was trying to be helpful. But he told us as little as possible.
• However, in the course of this conversation, we did learn that Markit Group’s “prices” are not actual, traded prices. They are mere quotations. The Markit Group has what it calls “contributors” – hedge funds and broker-dealers that provide it with information. Markit Group has a grand total of 22 “contributors.” Deep Capture asked Markit Group’s spokesman for the names of these “contributors.” The spokesman said he would try to find out the names and call back later. He never called back.
• The 22 “contributors” provide Markit Group with quotations, and these quotations become the Markit Group’s “price.” In other words, the “contributors” can quote any price for a CDS that they choose, regardless of whether anyone is actually willing to buy the CDS at that price. Markit Group looks at these quotations. Then it somehow decides which quotations make the most sense. Then it publishes information that purports to represent the actual market price of that CDS. This process is certainly unscientific. And it is ripe for abuse.
• Consider, for example, the Markit Group “price” for CDSs insuring the debt of company X.  The Markit Group price strongly suggests that company X is going to default on its debt in the immediate future. Short sellers eagerly point to the Markit Group CDS “price” as evidence that company X is doomed. Panic ensues, and suddenly, company X really is doomed. But the fact is, nobody ever bought a company X CDS at the price quoted by Markit Group. Rather, that panic-inducing “price” was, in effect, pulled out of a hat. Who pulled it out of a hat? That is matter of immense importance. There are two possible scenarios:
• The first possible scenario is that the 22 “contributors” report their quotations in good faith. They should be sending the actual traded price, not just a quotation, but assume they are just doing what was asked of them. From these quotations, Markit Group somehow decides what the “price” should be. It is possible that this decision is based on some secret formula (which would be worrisome); or it is possible that Markit Group executives sit around a table debating what the price should be and take a shot in the dark (which would be even more worrisome); or it is possible that Markit Group deliberately chooses the most horrifying price possible in order to assist the short sellers who are affiliated with its owners (which would be a matter for the authorities).
• The second possible scenario is that Markit Group acts in good faith (if not scientifically), but one or more of the 22 “contributors” or their affiliates has an interest in seeing company X fail. If just one of those “contributors” sends in an astronomically high quotation, that could be enough. Markit Group factors the absurd quotation into its posted “price” and it suddenly becomes possible to convince the world that company X is about to default on its debt.  Panic ensues, the firm’s layer of debt dries up, the stock price plunges, and perhaps the “contributor” or its affiliate make a lot of money.
• As Deep Capture understands it, CDS quotations suggested by the 22 “contributors” also help determine the movement of the CMBX and ABX indexes. The movement of these indexes did serious damage to the American economy in multiple ways. The  indexes prompted write downs at most of the major banks and mortgage companies. They were ammunition for short sellers, like David Einhorn, who claimed that companies had cooked their books by not writing down to the rock bottom prices suggested by the Markit Group indexes. They helped precipitate the decline in prices of mortgage securities, and contributed mightily to the panic that spread across the markets.  A lot of people made a lot of money as result of those indexes moving downward. So, it is rather important to know more about how those indexes are formulated, and if they can be driven by the same people who are making directional bets on their movements.

Conclusion: Ten years ago, there was no such thing as a credit default swap. Six years ago, a very small number of investors traded credit default swaps as hedges against the long-shot possibility of corporate defaults. Nobody looked to credit default swaps as reliable indicators of corporate well-being.

I'm not familiar with Gene Arensberg but in this video he goes into a lot of detail about the implictions of the COT reports:

Huge hat tip to you sir!  You really are a great humanitarian.  I hope someone knows Mr. Tsipras and you can help make something positive happen.  Even if he is communist.  The Greek people don't deserve destitution even if they voted for people who made them that way.

Nice confirmation @Willie
What a surprise.

While I agree with most of your thoughts, I just don't see QE coming soon.

There is another debt debate about to unfold, this thing will get very nasty due to the erection's being waved around like trumpeting elephant trunks.

We will again need to write another IOU to the Fed of a Trillion or two, which I think most of the Fed members see as a sticking point on announcing any QE before this debt BS is close to a resolve. I just think this is not the time..........If I am wrong and QE and the debt ceiling happen in tandem then PM holders could see a rocket ride past 50 and 2000 by turkey day and I will be buying bourbon and weed.

Just read an update from Simon Black about (threat) words that are scanned for (e mail) by the powers that be. There was also a post (on here) about this a few days ago.

This is really really disturbing. As only a modicum of thought leads to one of three conclusions.

The presenting intent is to crack down on terrorism (oops - that was a word). Yet this is ridiculous! When under cover operators in the war wanted to communicate to each other, they would have pre arranged words that had absolutely nothing to do with what they were planning. They knew fully and well that their comms could be intercepted.

And just like today - we all know (or at least suspect) that our comms can and will be screened. 

So instead of: "The crow fly's at midnight over the sleepy hen house".

A modern day example might be: "Avatar is playing on Sunday at four, are you up for it"?

So...this "monitoring" is not intended to catch these people at all. Complete and utter folly.

So then, what is the intent of publishing such a comprehensive list of "do not use or else" words such as: Exercise. Cloud. Leak. Sick. Organization. Pork. Bridge. Smart. Tucson. Target. China. Social media.

1) To get you always thinking about big brother. That he is there watching you 24 - 7 and you better watch what you type to your friends.

2) To collect data on any potential trouble makers and so put higher surveillance and or list for FEMA camps (oops another word).

3) To promote a constant state of fear.

Sure sounds like the start of a police state. (I suspect that this is how Nazi Germany started).

All I have to say on the subject is: Bomb laden nuke white powder etc. oops oops and oops.

Quick take on 9/11 (sorry turd) Years of planning would not have led to the added complication of bad folk needing to get connecting flights on that morning. Added security - possible delays, missed flights. Nope - not one logical piece of rationale. All had to be on station for this coordinated plan. 

Does not fit either. 

B.

A question for the Turdites....  Many major metal stocks are down today.  Is that an imminent sign of a substantial Friday smackdown?

I think Max and Stacey have already co-opted Hugo and his private jet en route to Athens.  The more support and encouragement that he gets about using silver as money, there might be time for him to understand it and put it before the electorate as Salinas-Price proposes. It could be a result changer and tip the scales against the Cartel and the EU mafia.  So, Turd I would urge you to use your good offices and other contacts to speak with Tsipras.

It's a  very complicated situation that Tsipras is in a) before the election and b) afterwards if he wins. He has to understand the mood of the people, who (right or wrong) want to keep the Euro. Will the mention of Drachmas and silver win or lose him votes? Does Greece have any of its gold in Athens, if it wanted to sell some for silver?