CoinMiner

How Paulson Gave Goldman the Lehman Heads-Up

Yesterday (10.20.09) Fresh Air on National Public Radio ran a half hour piece with Sorkin. He generally came across as an apologetic for Paulson, The waiver was brushed off as something that had to happen, naturally, to save the world.

Of course the incident you highlight, and other high crimes, were never brought up.

Missed the Move in Gold? Crude Oil Could Be an Alternative Commodity Play

Hi, I like paired trades myself.

One thing not yet noted here, however, is that much of the GLD rise has been underpinned by physical Au purchases. China, India and other asian and mid-east countries have been strong buyers of physical gold for the past couple years.

This forces up the paper price, and GLD - which must maintain a certain level of physical gold in storage (at least according to their prospectus) - must then purchase even more physical gold.

You can verify this thesis by noting the premium that physical gold, especially small fractional gold pieces, has held over the spot price the past 12 months (although the premium has backed off recently).

*Extremely few organizations or banks or individuals hold physical oil.*

p.s. I like your web site.

Wall Street Securitizing Life Insurance Policies. Seriously.

Well, someone will have to artificially lower the life expectancy of all those insured peoples whose policies have been pooled. Think of all the jobs created!

S&P / Case-Shiller Home Price Numbers

Case-Shiller Home Price Numbers – A Deeper Look

A first glance of the recent Case-Shiller index sees seasonal strength. This is expected as summer typically provides a stronger period of both home price and demand.

Yet, will this seasonal strength provide a cyclical floor?

Let’s look at some projections in debt quality:

Fitch rating services shows a plunge in the Cure rate.

www.housingwire.com/20.../

Note that Fitch reports the CURE rate for prime plummeted from 45% to 6%. This is huge! That is, only 6% of troubled homeowners who have slipped into problems (and temporarily bailed out by taxpayer largess) will STAY out of trouble. The other 94% will sink yet again into insolvency.

And this is the report for prime loans. The subprime and Alt-A are even worse. Fitch reports that only 5% of delinquent homeowners will be able to eventually become current on their mortgage payment after rate resets.

Now, those who have been following the national US housing market already realize that the foreclosures for sub-prime homeowners has already peaked. Following near cessation of subprime home foreclosures the national housing price has only regained 1.3% - this is the heralded ‘recovery’!

More ominous clouds on the horizon are the large wave of Alt-A resets just now coming online. This wave is just as large as the subprime loans.

Per Fitch, the numbers of Alt-A debtors who can expect to survive payments is now at just 5%, and falling.

Bottom line: Sell now to the ‘speculators’, if you can.

The buying opportunity will arise in another 2-3 years.

6 Ways to Play Clean Energy

Good article. Indeed Ormat is very well run company. This Israeli firm has ramped up staffing commensurate with production and production commensurate with price. They hold strategic properties.

One critical piece of information I did not see here is the sheer necessity to understand the water rights issue for these firms. Without the water rights, and especially, the actual available quantity, it really doesn’t matter what property you own or quality of staff and management.

To that point the states of Nv and Utah this week agreed to begin de-watering the snake and thousand spring valley to pump into the Las Vegas Basin. This is just one of those issues that bears monitoring for anybody plying in the sector.

Disclaimer, I currently hold HTM.

Smart Grid Stimulus Applications: $2.85B and Counting

Never be too reliant on just one source of energy, food, water, income, etc.

If the utility can 'monitor' your energy use, they aren't too far off from having the ability to hit the switch and turn off energy to your loop.

The beauty of this smart energy movement is the flip side - micro energy plants (mills, turbines, arrays) that the homeowner can install which is off the 'smart grid' - true energy independence.

Let them tax the system you let them know about and gain true independence with the system they don't know you have.

Duoyuan Global Water: 'Liquid,' With Good Potential

The quality of chinese water quality monitoring systems and components must come a LOOOONNNG way to match quality of the US and German manufactured products. I suppose their product is sufficient for their uses and their growth will expand commensurately with internal demand. However, once they meet national market saturation is see growth very limited against better equipped manufacturers.

The World's Top 10 Gold Miners by Value

How is this for an exercise in frustration: try to find an accessible and transparent 10-q or equivalent financial statement for Zijin.

Might as well be looking for the company environmental and safety programs...

Exxon's Biofuel Bet

Smart bet by Exxon,

Right at and immediately after Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska the petroleum industry began earnestly searching for alternative means of oil spill response. The old model of scrubbing oil mechanically off birds, waves, rocks and beaches no longer worked as a practical matter.

Bio-remediation came into being, where we learned how to harvest and keep happy certain strains of bacteria that would eat fuel as a food source. The technique has come a long way in 15 years.

Using bacteria as a FUEL itself, is the next logical step in our efforts to understand and better live within the Carbon and Nitrogen cycles. For far too long our society has made our living on just one or two areas of the carbon and nitrogen cycles.

Learning to match our behavior, fuel and energy uses synergistically with our bacteria friends will continue to yield ever increasing benefits.

Should I Invest 10% of My Portfolio in Gold?

The replacement for the USD will not be an existing currency. Instead a new currency will replace the role and function of the current USD; the dollar may still exist for national trade.

One cannot dismiss the intent behind the Russian president, Medvedev, passing out a new coin to the leaders at the G8 summit. Currently, three of the eight have publically called for a new unit of international trade.

Just a matter of time before that minority position becomes a majority position. And yes, do believe gold will function quite well as that shelter in the storm during the transition period.

Why Hazardous Waste Companies Are Hazardous to Your Portfolio

Those firms are prime candidates to turn existing infrastructure into co-generation plants, 'clean diesel/coal' cells and other green energy. I am not counting out the big four just yet. In addition to eliminating 80% of their competitors, they have locked up the politicians. Now THAT industry has a high entrance fee!

California - And by Extension the U.S. - Headed for Permanently Smaller Economy

One point of disagreement with the articles thesis:

America indeed enter an inflationary recession in 2000. This changed into a deflationary depression beginning the fourth quarter of 2006.

Gold Price Manipulation: So What?

Sure, maybe manipulation or control in a market manages the price of an asset. Perhaps an artificial price of that asset does little to change the FUNCTION of that asset.

However, intervention on a scale to constitute manipulation will - over time - completely erode public confidence in that particular market. That market will fail and ultimately be replaced by another with greater transparency.

There ARE reasons to consider the pros and cons of 'managed' economies irrespective of the price of any one thing on any given day.

Poor Demographic Prospects Point to Higher Gold Price

Long term demographic studies show that as a person ages they tend to turn illiquid assets into more liquid assets so they can then either spend on short term needs (insurance, medical treatment) or pass along to their heirs without triggering tax sales (inheritance tax or capital gains tax).

So, the boomers *should* be selling gold at this point of their life. However, the reality is that they *should* have - but never did -bought more metals and other tangible assets, rather than hock themselves into debt as they've actually done.

Thus, the supply of boomer metals for sale is not at the high cycle it should be.

Instead, the latent demand for metals/hard assets from the next two generations will increase as they realize the mistake their parents and grandparents made and be forced to choose savings/hard assets over debt/paper.

Two Paths to Platinum Lead to UBS

One must wonder why a major bank would open an exchange (short PAL) that doesn't trade. Hard to believe they did not conduct market research before hand. What's the angle...