RENTERS struggling to find a home in Perth should move to Melbourne.
The southern capital's rental vacancy rate has risen to 4.4 per cent, the result of a surge in apartment building and slowing population growth.
Western Australia's mining boom has kept renters on their toes, with only 1 per cent of rental homes vacant, December figures from SQM Research show. A vacancy rate of 3 per cent usually signals a ''balanced'' market.
Melbourne's high vacancy rate is likely to put downward pressure on rents, particularly in places such as St Kilda Road and Southbank, where apartments and vacancies are peaking.
Rental accommodation remains tight in popular inner-city suburbs such as Fitzroy and Abbotsford, where vacancy rates hover around 1 per cent.
''The north-east suburbs of Melbourne, where there is demand for affordable rental accommodation, have also been holding up better,'' said SQM's Louis Christopher.
Sydney's rental market remains relatively tight, with a vacancy rate of 2 per cent.
Settling into suburbs such as Gordon, Strathfield South and Rhodes has been made easy, with between 8 and 13 per cent of rental properties vacant.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/melbourne-full-of-empty-homes-20120125-1qhn7.html#ixzz1kWLvkwHZ
Merkel Makes Appeal for Time to Solve Crisis
German Chancellor Angela Merkel appealed to business leaders at theWorld Economic Forum to give policy makers the space they need to tackle the debt crisis, pledging that Europe will pull together and restore confidence.
“I would like to ask all of you who are here as the representatives of the business community” to recognize how democratic governments work and to “please take the long-drawn- out processes with a degree of acceptance,” Merkel said in a question-and-answer session after opening the forum yesterday in Davos, Switzerland.
Merkel’s comments underscore her shift in approach to taming the debt crisis now in its third year, having ditched rhetoric about conducting a “battle” between markets and politicians. At the same time, Merkel rejected adding any new money to fight the crisis and reiterated the need to curb debt and deficits while boosting competitiveness as the main thrust of her strategy to keep the 17-nation euro area together.
“Europe will become more attractive once we have conquered this crisis, and I’m absolutely convinced that we will be able to master this crisis,” she said. European leaders will discuss measures to raise competitiveness and create growth and jobs at their Jan. 30 summit and again in March, she said.
Private Meeting
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-25/merkel-makes-davos-appeal-to-investors-for-time-to-solve-europe-s-crisis.html
No Way Out-Hyperinflation by 2014
No Way Out-Hyperinflation by 2014
with John
Williams
Jim welcomes
back John Williams from Shadow Government Statistics. John sees no way to avoid
hyperinflation, as some of the warning signs are getting worse: rising real
inflation rates, massive Fed monetization, foreign nations dumping dollars, and
the US losing its triple A credit rating.
29 comments:
Sometimes there are advantages to being OLD. Last night hubby and I watched Barney Miller. The episode featured a husband who had sold EVERYTHING HE HAD to buy gold. His wife wanted him arrested. It went on to speak to the exact same instances that the far out gold bugs are proclaiming now--how paper wouldn't be worth anything; government bonds and municipal bonds were dangerous, etc. The husband finally relented enough to allow his wife to buy her furniture back (and some of her clothes).
It made me think (once again) that while it is GOOD to prepare for any eventuality, cycles repeat in history, politics, and finance and you can't always prepare.
It's been quoted HERE time and again that you must keep your perspective! Empty homes, time, hyperinflation, elections, it is GOOD to read and educate yourself but don't fall into the trap that makes this your entire life or you will miss out on the NOW.
Enjoy your day all!
Personally I think I will fortify my house with window bars, steel doors with plenty of guns and ammo. We'll mortgage the house, sell everything I have and buy gold and silver. 24 hour a day alarm system, camera monitors and lots of guns. My local coin dealer has a sign that says "there is nothing inside worth dying for."
How is that for gold buggery? Of course that is all sarcasm, but it looks like John Williams is convinced that hyper inflation is coming and it cannot be stopped. I am not so sure. At least we won't have Geithner to kick around next year as he will get some cozy job with JPM or GS. He did what he what he was supposed to do save the banks and that was his goal. He did a heckuva job.
CL I never saw that episode on Barney Miller on of my all time favorites. What was the title and I might be able to find it on netflix.
GAW you should like Jim Sinclair interview on KWN (just for laughs) as he thinks gold is heading for 2100.00 soon and then onward to 5000.00. The man in incensed with gold and the debasement of paper money.
Mammoth although I took 100 ounces of silver out of the bank to sell, it is going right back in the bank. Silver on a percentage basis is out performing gold. I now know what I don't like about The Silver Doctor. He rotates posts 3 times a day. Twice at the minimum. The offer for the Canadian Wolves is a bad deal for me so I will not be selling. I he calls me an ups the price then I will reconsider. Those are some rare coins.
I kept my promise and did not watch the State of the Union. Not even clip on the cable news. I have no idea what he said and I don't care. God help us if Mitt or Newt are in the White house. At least Obama is an empty suit and can't do much harm.
Never mind the Barney Miller episodes as they are only on DVD and I will ne pay Netflix for that service. Only the streaming.
I did not watch the State of the Union address, either, but then again we do not have cable TV nor a converter box.
However, I did download a transcript of the speech...but I um...haven't gotten around to reading it yet.
According to a comment on the Silver Doctors blog, though, the President did not mention Silver or Gold even once.
queen-Season 4 THE SIGHTING. (It's also the one where Wojo sees the UFO and the 'captain' in Air Force comes in. It's a hoot!
We invested in the entire set as it was a series we really enjoyed. I saw where the Netflex 'streaming' didn't do too well last quarter (report on CNBC). Also articles abound on Penny's. It sounds to me that they are going to clear out a lot of 'good' merchandise (better grade) to buy the imports of cheap c*ap. They are going to model themselves after WalMart. ROT abounds, eating away like cancer. The young ones won't wake up until something shocks them into it. Please God your sarcasm (well done, by the bye ) never takes hold!
As an INDEPENDENT (one of the favored groups right now that everyone is courting) I may vote for the MUPPET that is running. I can't vote Newt. I can't vote Mitt. I WON'T vote for O. Where is that guy who was running on the Smothers Brothers? Bring him back...please!
The rise in price of gold/silver is in inverse correlation to the fall of the US $, after Banana Ben made his speech.
Which is OK, as long as the $ continues to weaken. A risky proposition though, since the next major bad news story out of Europe, due, oh, any minute now, will send the US $ right back up again.
The biggest risk of that will be a Friday night release of wide Euro area downgrades by the Ratings Agencies. The market had "priced in" the S&P action, so it seems, but I don't see anyone talking about what happens when Moody's and Fitch follow suit, and S&P does a mass downgrade of EUro Banks and large corporates - all of which are coming soon.
The risk there is that many Pension Funds etc will have to dispose of Euro area debt, as their charters do not allow them to hold anything not rated 'AAA' by 'at least 2 major ratings agencies' - a condition which will no longer be possible.
I think John Williams has eaten too many twinkies and the sugar affected his brain. Nice quadruple chin there John.
He apparently believes the US $ will plummet in value, while other currencies would then have to strengthen - currencies are a game of relative value, not absolute.
But that would require the rest of the world to stand idly by, as the US $ falls and crushes their economic competitiveness.
Which I can assure you China, Japan, EUrope, and everyone else will not do. A massive fall in the US $ would destroy the Chinese economy, and that of every other nation who wants 'export growth'. A massive fall in the EUro value is required to fix EUrope's problems, and Japan's....
You can see that currency wars are a distinct possibility, and the US $ won't fall off a cliff in isolation.
He ought to stick to analyzing economic stats, projecting what will happen in 2014 is not really doing him any credit. I recall reading similar predictions on his site years ago, and he was as wrong on those as he probably is on this call.
I think his thesis is overly simplistic and curve-fitting - he is a hard core inflationista, so all data he interprets only supports the conclusion he has already made.
Others may disagree.
GAW, we are reading in the news about other countries backing away from the $USD and trading in one another's currencies.
So at some point in the game, it is possible if enough of this happens - then the $USD will become less relevant and may then plummet in value.
However, for the moment wa can probably definitively state that the $USD is not the ugliest girl at the dance.
The USA is about to experience a debt crisis, as in way too much of it, just like Greece or Portugal or Spain etc.
Has hyper-inflation broken out in EUrope yet, because of that? Hardly.
When you hit the debt wall (cant' take on any more), the effect is severely deflationary, as all the bad credit goes to Money Hell, when the bad debts can't be repaid. Somebody, the holders of the debt (not those who owe) takes a massive loss, and is forced to write off a large portion of the bad debt.
Once more, for the comprehension challenged like Willisams, the effect is D E F L A T I O N. See Greece in the dictionary. We are in that phase of the Kondratiev Wave cycle, Winter, that is inherently deflationary - that is the macro-economic backdrop of our time, for most of this decade at least, and possibly beyond, as the long term chart study I linked from dShort the other day showed.
Now you can argue the Central Bank response will be to "print massive amounts of money", which will then cause inflation - the central pillar of the one-way goldbug thesis, straight from Jim Sinclair's mouth. But what if every nation is doing exactly the same? Currencies are most likely to then continue to trade within present relative value ranges, more or less, with the worst off currency areas probably seeing larger falls in value.
And on that score, the USA is still the best looking horse at the glue factory. I hear encouraging noises coming out of Washington now, as everyone seems to have recognized that future spending will be much lower than present. They will argue about how and where to make cuts, but the whole tone of the debate has changed from a few years back. If Banana Ben tries to QE3 in a massive way, Republicans will have him fired, and I doubt Ben, dim as he is, wants to go down in the history books as the first Fed chief to be dumped.
Mammoth - You are correct.The US $ can indeed fall from grace as the 'global reserve currency' - but it will still be a major currency, and they are all only valued relative to each other, and to gold.
So gold is still probably your best bet to protect yourself against a fall in your currencies value, wherever you live - unless you have a 'strong currency', which no one wants these days. The price of gold in Swiss Francs has done very little lately, as their currency is too strong, relatively.
But like I said, China and everyone else will not stand idly by while their economic competitiveness falls away - they will all print - and that is exactly what they have all been doing so far in this crisis period, so I fully expect more of the same. If the US $ did indeed plunge massively in value, factory production would flee China - and the Chinese Government is fully aware of this, I am sure.
Now if the USA printed massively, and other nations did not, the William's thesis could come to pass - but I see the odds of that as vanishingly small.
http://marketmontage.com/2012/01/26/gold-reacts-as-quantitative-easing-becomes-fait-accompli
Mark sees a big public QE3 coming, but I would argue that it won't be such a public splash like QE2, due to politics. A massive program in an election year would be correctly criticized by Republicans as an overt attempt to help Obama's re-election, and ensure he would be unceremoniously dumped soon after. The Tea Party would be ready to storm the FED barricades, etc, and the US Budget situation does not support more massive deficit spending anyway.
I would expect instead more massive back-door quiet forms of QEx, like the massive swap lines with EUro Central Bankstes etc - designed to support the Shadow Bankster system. Which has the effect of slowing a deflationary implosion of the entire financial system, but is hardly enough to cause hyper-inflation - what has been happening over the last few years, just more of the same.
The post on FT Alphaville I linked to last week came to the same conclusion - the ECB's massive LTRO programs only prevented total collapse of the EUro area (and thus global) financial system in late November, and little else - which is what it was designed to do.
Central Banksters always punt, hoping that "over time" the economy will recover and thus do much of the work for them without further intervention.
None of this points to hyper-inflation, IMHO. Others may disagree.
Reggie Middleton lays it out, in his usual bombastic fashion (he has a big ego, but is almost always right), and it is very deflationary in effect:
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/i-present-you-first-probable-us-commercial-real-estate-insolvency-many-come
"You see, we had an obvious and evident CRE bubble, particularly in retail and mall properties...
This bubble popped, as most may remember, but we never had the opportunity to have the economic cycle complete itself for the powers that be tried their darndest to defy gravity.
1. A public-private partnership of misdirection allowed the popping bubble to be disguised..
2.Money follows an economic "Circle of Life".This Circle Was Purposely Disrupted By Multiple Central Banks Worldwide!!!
3. Even with the "kicking the can down the road mentality", fundamental and macro realities are bound to rear their heads."
History has shown that Central Banksta's always act in this fashion when deflation looms, and history also shows that they always fail in the end.
Long term economic cycles can be disrupted, temporarily, and reality postponed, for a while, but in the end reality always wins - and I can assure you that this time it is NOT different.
Bad luck for Banana Ben and his contemporaries.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/01/yes-virginia-servicers-lie-to-investors-too-175-billion-in-loan-losses-not-allocated-to-mortgage-backed-securities-and-another-300-billion-on-the-way.html
"To my knowledge, the R&R report is the first effort to place a dollar figure on one type of mortgage-investor-related abuses. I’m not surprised it is so large. What I am surprised at is that no investor seems to have noticed this type of pilfering."
The looting will continue until morale improves.
There, $475 Billion going to Money Hell, and not accounted for by "conventional economists" or markets today... and that is just one sector.
----------------
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/01/philip-pilkington-is-qezirp-killing-demand.html
Why QE/ZIRP is just bad economic policy anyway, or just more of 'The Law of Unintended Consequences, Central Banksta edition'...
btw, Happy Australian Day to our Down Under friends!
G'day mates, and throw some more shrimp on the barbie! Hoist a Fosters or 3 for us.
I'm sure it is disgustingly warm and sunny there.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=17923
"Davos – an exercise in denial not solutions"
"Most of the failed political leaders and their corporate mates are in Switzerland at the moment, presumably wining and dining in fine style and pontificating about what the rest of this need to do next. The sheer preposterousness of the World Economic Forum in Davos is astounding. There remains a denial by the leaders of what has to be done. They seem insistent that the failed neo-liberal paradigm should remain intact. Apparently, calls for reforms just reflect an unrealistic nostalgia for the past. It is apparently nostalgic (meaning nonsensical) for us to long for the days when nations delivered full employment, real wages growth in line with productivity, and declining inequality. This accusation of nostalgic longing is the way the elites are avoiding facing the facts that their economic model based upon self-regulating markets has failed and will never deliver on its promises. We need a new approach that recognises the capacities and options available to a currency-issuing national government. This is not a nostalgic longing for an unchanged world. Rather it is a realisation that the macroeconomic fundamentals of a currency-issuing national state have not changed, notwithstanding the challenges that globalisation presents..."
An excellent analysis above from an Aussie Blog. More on the same topic:
http://financeaddict.com/2012/01/davos-shocked-to-hear-that-poor-people-exist/
"Davos shocked to hear poor people exist"
"Ok, I exaggerate. But that’s my cynical first impression after finding the following diagram in the briefing book for the gathering of the good and the great at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
As you can see “Severe income disparity” is #1 on the Top 5 risks list this year, after having failed to make the short list for the preceding 5 years.
Now it’s not as though the attendees of Davos were completely inattentive to the economic plight of the less fortunate all this time. “Economic disparities” was on last year’s laundry list of risks and was featured prominently in the executive summary of 2011′s report. But the urgency has been ratcheted up quite a bit this year: note the new modifier “severe” and the use of the more specific “income” rather than “economic”. But wait, there’s more..."
If you were counting on "them", the PTB, to "do something" to "solve the present crisis" - good luck with that. They are so inherently far behind the reality curve they are irrelevant to events now.
The rise in price of gold/silver is in inverse correlation to the fall of the US $, after Banana Ben made his speech.'
Well, sort of. The euro didn't really surge on the news, certainly nothing like as much as the PMs.
The miners are interesting at the moment. is this a bottom being formed?
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=GDX&p=W&yr=3&mn=0&dy=0&id=p46972308238
I think it's a bit premature. Perhps a cuatious small first buy but not much more.
GAW,
I agre with you re John Williams. The USD is still a safe haven when things get nasty. And comparatively, the US is still in better shape than Japan and most of Europe. of course, when I say US, it's more about US companies than US people, as it were.
THis is very funny:
http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2012/01/25/greetings-from-davos/
"Why Are You Buying Apple (And Other Chinese) Products?"
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=201069
"No, people argue, it's not a problem, right? "Those people" are less human than you are here in America, yes?
This system may not be pretty, they argue, but a radical overhaul would slow innovation. Customers want amazing new electronics delivered every year.
“We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on,” said one former Apple executive who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. “Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.”
Pretty? Let's just pull a few instances of "not pretty" from that source article...."
Apple, a predatory slaver economic terrorist inherently evil corporate villain - enjoy that iPhone or iPad, exploitive scum, your shiny gadget is built with blood.
mugabe - I meant the surge in US $ priced gold/silver started as soon as Ben made his speech. I don't follow the prices in EUros much, as I own no EUros, and won't.
You would think the same would happen in EUro prices, I would suspect that when the next bad news stories out of Europe break it will do so.
I am sure capital is still fleeing EUrope, and will continue to do so until after Greece/Portugal/anyone else there finish collapsing.
Which would you rather own, long term, gold or EUros? (if you didn't own gold already, and have half a brain at least?)
Queen mentioned BTC.V, it is still trading within recent ranges, though the price is looking good today so far. While other risky miners are not doing so well today. So the picture is mixed. I have not looked at the major miners charts, have to go to work now.
btw. thaks for the funny link. I want a date with Haley, she's just sooooo with it and hot!!!! LOL
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/benton-provides-update-2012-01-24
"THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO, Jan 24, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Benton Resources Corp. ("Benton") would like to provide an update on the exploration plans for 2012 and the status of the spin-out transaction...
...Management continues to work with its legal and accounting advisors to obtain conditional approval from the TSX Venture Exchange for the spin-out transaction. Management anticipates that it will shortly set the record and meeting dates for its AGM at which it will ask shareholders to approve the spin-out transaction. Management remains committed to completing this transaction which ius anticipated to conclude in Q1"
The one thing that is a VERY encoraging on Benton is the medium/long term indicators:
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=BTC.V&p=W&yr=3&mn=0&dy=0&id=p13196604454
Weekly MACD Ais saying a major bottom has been made and there's positive divergence in the RSI.
i could see an argument for making a small punt. The problem is it's so volatile that you've got to keep the bet small ... or I would anyway.
YOu could always wait for a retrace back into the range but it might not come and daily rsi is not overbought. Bear in mind that a retrace could easily meaning losing 20% of your money, and it wouldn't even mean that the chart has turned bad ... volatility
GAW, if you bought at 0.3, you might well have a nice little easrner on your hands
Deflation yes, but I have to toss in both sides from time to time. I don't want to be pigeon-holed. I think that if I stayed in the deflationary camp that we would get group think and I don't want to be Mish.
Mugabe good observation on the miners and the Euro. That is why we need you and "What me Worry" to give us that.
I sat at lunch yesterday with old workmates as everyone was going on about the new Apple iPhone and I wanted to tell them what I thought (see GAW's comments, but they really don't care. It would have just alienated me from them.
I know that Shaza and CL are Apple users, but I will be damned if I will ever buy an Apple product. It is hard to find a computer or cell phone made anywhere other than China.
I agree about John Williams and I just like to stir the pot as they say. Just like Jim Sinclair or Jim Willie or the Silver Doctor. They need to take some Xanax and look at the big picture. All is not gold and silver. BTW Bukko where the heck are you?
Queen-I use Apple because it's EASIER. Now, remember, I don't have a cellphone with a camera in it. In fact, my Nokia is so old everyone laughs. I don't text. I don't play games. I don't go online. I use it (when I remember to carry it) for emergencies. I used it when hubby was in the hospital. I take it if we go on trips or drive to Philly or someplace a bigger 'distance'. My hubby, however, has a Dell Laptop that came with Microsoft 7. He isn't even online.
I would offer to bet you based on what I'm reading that within the next 10 years WE will have to pay MORE for a regular paperback book than to get it on Kindle. Of course, having said that, once everyone owns tablets they will raise the prices for ALL books. Same thing as Netflix. The one reason I buy dvds (used for the most part) is because I want to OWN what I want. I don't LEASE a car, either.
Just watched some property show where people spent $479,000 on a Condo in Boston. I can't image the INTEREST over 30 years...or even 15. Houses suck money. If you pay it off, fine. But these two HAD to start out with 'everything new' rather than take a cheaper rancher with property they could fix up. Now I started out in a 12x60 mobile home, graduated to a twin home (on corner lot) and finally moved back home to care for my dad and inherited that. We NEVER bought what we couldn't afford. We even bought a car with no air.
Our 'vacation' was a day-trip to Philly to take daughter to see the Mint, Liberty Bell, etc. Or to go see the lights at Christmas. I can't believe what I hear. A friend's son just took her to a Sun. matinee of Porky and Bess on Broadway. The tickets were $130 a piece FOR A MATINEE!!! HOW are these people doing this? WHERE do they work? Have they saved ANYTHING??
I guess when the revolution comes I'll be at home watching Barney Miller. It's better than C-Span!
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