Find The Lowest Price HERE

By Tyler Durden

Authored by Kenneth Rogoff, originally posted at Project Syndicate,

Are emerging-market central banks overweight in dollars and underweight in gold? Given a slowing global economy, in which emerging markets are probably very grateful for any reserves they retain, this might seem an ill-timed question. But there is a good case to be made that a shift in emerging markets toward accumulating gold would help the international financial system function more smoothly and benefit everyone.

Just to be clear, I am not siding with those – usually American far-right crackpots – who favor a return to the gold standard, in which countries fix the value of their currencies in terms of gold. After all, the gold standard’s last reign ended disastrously in the 1930s, and there is no reason to believe that a return to it would turn out any differently.

No, I am just proposing that emerging markets shift a significant share of the trillions of dollars in foreign-currency reserves that they now hold (China alone has official reserves of $3.3 trillion) into gold. Even shifting, say, up to 10% of their reserves into gold would not bring them anywhere near the many rich countries that hold 60-70% of their (admittedly smaller) official reserves in gold.

For some time, the rich countries have argued that it is in everyone’s collective interest to demonetize gold. Sure, we hold a lot of gold, these countries say, but that is a vestige of the pre-World War II gold standard, when central banks needed a stockpile.

Indeed, back in 1999, European central banks, seeing no reason to keep holding so much gold, entered a pact to start reducing their stocks in an orderly fashion. The sales made sense at the time for most of the participating countries: The real backing for their debt was the tax reach of their governments, their high levels of institutional development, and their relative political stability. The 1999 pact has been revisited periodically, though since the most recent edition in 2014, most rich countries have taken a long pause, still leaving them with extremely high gold reserves.

Emerging markets have remained buyers of gold, but at a snail’s pace compared to their voracious appetite for US Treasury bonds and other rich-country debt. As of March 2016, China held just over 2% of its reserves in gold, and the share for India was 5%. Russia is really the only major emerging market to increase its gold purchases significantly, in no small part due to Western sanctions, with holdings now amounting to almost 15% of reserves.

Emerging markets hold reserves because they do not have the luxury of being able to inflate their way out of a financial crunch or a government debt crisis. Simply put, they live in a world where a large fraction of international debt – and an even larger share of global trade – is still denominated in hard currency. So they hold reserves of such currencies as a backstop against fiscal and financial catastrophe. Yes, in principle, it would be a much …read more

Source: Ken Rogoff’s Shockingly Simple Advice To Emerging Markets: Hoard Gold

100% Pure Garcinia Cambogia Extract – Appetite Suppressant – Carb Blocker Capsules – 2100 MG – 90 Caps

Find The Lowest Price HERE

The 2014-15 theater season is one the most diverse years on record, according to a new study.

…read more

Source: Broadway hailed for its diversity this season

100% Pure Garcinia Cambogia Extract – Appetite Suppressant – Carb Blocker Capsules – 2100 MG – 90 Caps

Find The Lowest Price HERE

By Tyler Durden

Remember when the low oil price was an “over-supply” issue and nothing at all to do with the other side of the same coin – dwindling demand? Well it appears that reality is dawning that a record glut combined with tumbling global growth (confirmed by weakness in China PMI, US PMI, and now EU growth expectations) is sending crude prices lower, back to a $43 handle for the June contract…

…read more

Source: WTI Crude Tumbles To $43 Handle As Demand Fears Grow

100% Pure Garcinia Cambogia Extract – Appetite Suppressant – Carb Blocker Capsules – 2100 MG – 90 Caps

Find The Lowest Price HERE

By Tyler Durden

A key turning point in German public sentiment (and subsequent anger) against the unprecedented refugee wave swarming the nation took place during a NYE celebration in Cologne, when multiple reports suggested that as many as 1,000 men “of Arab or North African origin” participated in “monstrous” coordinated attacks on German women in Cologne. “About 90 women have reported being robbed, threatened or sexually molested at New Year celebrations outside [the city’s] cathedral,” Reuters wrote, adding that the men were “between 18 and 35” and appeared to be “mostly drunk” as well as of foreign origin.

This led to an outpouring of anger across Germany, and even Cologne mayor Henriette Reker chimed in calling the incident “unbelievable and intolerable” while Justice Minister Heiko Maas described the attacks as “a new scale of organized crime.”

It also resulted in a prompt reversal in Angela Merkel’s notoriously liberal immigration policy, the result of which was a dramatic slowdown in refugee flows using the “land corridor” entering central Europe, and leading to the infamous deal with Turkey which promised Erdogan billions if he manages to contain the millions of Syrian refugees within his borders.

Now, according to local press reports, it turns out there was more. Germany’s The Local reports that a high-ranking police officer has alleged that his seniors tried to strike the word rape from an internal police report after the mass sexual assaults in Cologne over New Year.

The local media outlet reports that a chief superintendent in the Cologne police told the investigative committee established in the wake of the attacks that the interior ministry in North Rhine-Westphalia had sought to influence the investigations.

According to the officer, the government attempt to intervene in the narrative took place when an official from the ministry had called about a rape charge mentioned in an internal police report. “That isn’t rape. Get rid of it. Delete the report,” the ministry official said, according to the chief superintendent.

The rape report was made by a young woman who alleges she was surrounded by a group of around 50 men, some of whom pushed their fingers inside of her. When he complained about the caller’s angry and abrupt tone, the official replied “these are the orders from the ministry. I’m simply passing them on.“

While the 52-year-old chief inspector said that he had never in his career experienced an intervention of this nature from the ministry, he was quick to add that he did not believe it was part of a cover-up, even though that is precisely what it appears to have been.

“They didn’t understand what is meant by rape,” he suggested.

The government was unsuccessful in its cover up attempt, however, when hundreds of women filed similar complaints in the days and weeks after the attacks with police, alleging that they had been sexually assaulted or robbed by groups of men around Cologne’s central train station.

The superintendent’s report corroborates unconfirmed rumors made in the days after the attacks, when allegations were made …read more

Source: German Coverup Scandal: Ministry Urged Erasing "Rape" From "Monstrous" Cologne Migrant Attack Report

100% Pure Garcinia Cambogia Extract – Appetite Suppressant – Carb Blocker Capsules – 2100 MG – 90 Caps

Find The Lowest Price HERE

By GoldCore

Is Craig Wright The Creator Of Bitcoin? Frisby and Matonis On ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’

Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist, self-declared cyber security expert and entrepreneur, has claimed to be the creator of Bitcoin, the elusive ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’.

Yesterday, he published a blog post offering what was claimed to be cryptographic proof, backed up by other information, to make his case. Along with the BBC and GQ, The Economist had access to Mr Wright before the publication of his post. The BBC are definitively saying that Wright is Nakamoto. The Economist is being more cautious and their conclusion is that he could well be Mr Nakamoto,“but that nagging questions remain.”

“In fact, it may never be possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt who really created bitcoin. Whether people, particularly bitcoin cognoscenti, actually believe Mr Wright will depend greatly on what he does next, after going public.”

Wright penned his own blog post claiming to be Nakamoto but also of importance is the fact that Bitcoin Foundation chief scientist Gavin Andresen — a man that used to be the bitcoin project lead and one of the most respected experts in the bitcoin community — wrote that he, too, believed Wright was the elusive bitcoin creator.

There are other very well informed people who believe that Wright is in fact the creator of bitcoin. These include Jon Matonis, Founding Director at Bitcoin Foundation, who blogged about it yesterday here. Matonis had a “private proof session” in March and said that he “had the opportunity to review the relevant data along three distinct lines: cryptographic, social, and technical. Based on what I witnessed, it is my firm belief that Craig Steven Wright satisfies all three categories.”

Our friend Dominic Frisby, the author of Bitcoin: The Future of Money? also thinks that Wright, with others, may be Satoshi and shared his thoughts with us this morning:

“Anybody who had ever had any interest in bitcoin, has been intrigued by the mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto.

It has spawned a plethora of online sleuths – your truly included – but Craig Wright’s name had never really been thrown into the mix. But when the Wired story came out last December – broken by Andy Greenberg – who has his finger on the pulse of the cyber punks more than any journalist and Gwern who I worked with on my own book and know the be extremely thorough, you have to sit up and take notice.

Satoshi Nakamoto appears to have been the work of Wright but also of internet forensics expert, Dave Kleiman who sadly died in 2013.

From what I can deduce, Kleiman did the writing and Wright did the coding. Wrights appears to have been the ideas man and Kleiman the “heavy lifter”. If you read Wrights ‘s prose it is not as error free as Satoshi’s was which confirms my believe that Satoshi was a partnership.

In my book, I outlined how Nick Szabo was likely Satoshi but the story has moved …read more

Source: Is Craig Wright The Creator Of Bitcoin? Frisby and Matonis On ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’

    

100% Pure Garcinia Cambogia Extract – Appetite Suppressant – Carb Blocker Capsules – 2100 MG – 90 Caps

Looking for something special ? Find The Lowest Price HERE