TIPSTER: Spartans Will Be Slaves

Quote of the Day:

… you threaten my people with slavery and death.

Oh I’ve chosen my words carefully, Persian, perhaps you should have done the same…

THIS IS SPARTA!

King Leonidas – in the Film 300

Macro Overview

The New Old Currencies  Of  Choice

• When Sen Ron Paul quizzed Ben Bernanke about the monetary properties of Gold as a currency, Bernanke flatly refused to accept that Gold was a currency – see my comment last summer. In his mind, the only reason we talk about Gold as money today was tradition. Bernanke was wrong, Gold is a form of money, it always has been, in fact I’d go as far to say that almost everything is a form of money, but Gold has particularly good attributes.
• A few days ago, I wrote a piece called The Emerging Gold Standard which made references to how Iran was trying to circumnavigate trade sanctions by settling oil trades in Gold. The article also referenced my piece on The Marco Polo Connection, where I speculated that China’s interest in “bailing out” Italy was largely gold related (China has a huge desire for the yellow metal and Italy has the largest Gold-to-GDP ratio).
• Today we hear rumors of the EU having Greece by the Golden Balls in the latest bailout deal – see Zerohedge piece on this. It appears as scavenging eyes sniff at the carcass of another failing state they no longer salivate over paper promises. They want something tangible… “give me oil …or gold” they hiss through snarling canines. The World of Finance welcomes new old currencies.

Spartans Will Be Slaves

• Well 2.5 millenia is a long time in the scheme of politics I suppose. There was a time when Greek leaders refused to let their people be slaves. Today things are different; their Gold is seized, their Government is subordinate to higher authorities, their economic prosperity is deemed expendable by leaders in other countries. To add insult to injury, sticking with ZeroHedge – they run an article with the title: The Colonization Begins: Germany May Send 160 Tax Collectors To Greece.
• Welcome to the Currency Wars of the 21^st century. When a nation feels aggrieved it no longer sends soldiers to burn rape and pillage the region, it sends tax collectors and demands Gold in return. So I suppose 2.5 millenia is a long time in the scheme of politics – things can change in that time.
• The ink has not even dried on this new agreement and already we see EU politicians acknowledging that Greece may need a third bailout.
• Finally, a really cool video on ZeroHedge explaining Greece’s debt enslavement to Europe with reference to the LTRO “cash for trash” scheme. Something which I wrote about in my comment: LTRO = Lying To Restore Order. You have to watch this vid…

Market Overview

Gold

• I’m not going to comment on the markets really today. I’m only going to show a Chart of the Day – GOLD (of course). In my view this is not so much a euphoric rise in popularity of the metal per se, it is a representation of the lack of faith in paper promises.

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Chart of the Day

Events

Macro Events:

Update:

• UK GDP Growth Contract -0.2% QoQ

Alerts:

• Nothing Significant

Corporate Events:

Results:

• Nothing Significant

Dividends:

• Nothing Significant

Reading, Links:

Nothing Significant.

Reading, Links:

Nothing Significant.

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