Tag Archive: Transparency

Eurodollar Futures: Powell May Figure It Out Sooner, He Won’t Have Any Other Choice

2018-11-20

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2018-11-20

Eurodollar Futures Curve, May - Sep 2018
For Janet Yellen, during her somewhat brief single term she never made the same kind of effort as Ben Bernanke had. Her immediate predecessor, Bernanke, wanted to make the Federal Reserve into what he saw as the 21st century central bank icon. Monetary policy wouldn’t operate on the basis of secrecy and ambiguity. Transparency became far more than a buzzword.

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The Failure of a Gold Refinery, Report 12 Nov 2018

2018-11-13

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2018-11-13

Gold and Silver Price
So this happened: Republic Metals, a gold refiner, filed bankruptcy on November 2. The company had found a discrepancy in its inventory of around $90 million, while preparing its financial statements. We are not going to point the Finger of Blame at Republic or its management, as we do not know if this was honest error or theft.

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Central Bank Transparency, Or Doing Deliberate Dollar Deals With The Devil

2018-01-25

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2018-01-25

Hong Kong HKD, Jul 2012 - Jan 2018
The advent of open and transparent central banks is a relatively new one. For most of their history, these quasi-government institutions operated in secret and they liked it that way. As late as October 1993, for example, Alan Greenspan was testifying before Congress intentionally trying to cloud the issue as to whether verbatim transcripts of FOMC meetings actually existed.

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When Health Insurance Works: A Look Inside Switzerland’s Healthcare System

2017-11-02

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2017-11-02

The enigmatic independence of Switzerland is perhaps best demonstrated in the fact that its healthcare system manages to satisfy both free marketers and the statist-socialists in the country. It is a giant social safety net woven by individual responsibility and self-made wealth. Health insurance is almost entirely consumer-based, though there are strict cantonal regulations and some governing federal laws.

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Unveiling the Silver in the LBMA London vaults

2017-07-09

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2017-07-09

Pallet
Sometime in the coming days, the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) plans to begin reporting the amount of real physical gold and silver that is actually stored in the network of LBMA vaults in London. This follows an announcement made by the LBMA on 8 May.

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Sweden’s Gold Reserves: 10,000 gold bars (pet rocks) shrouded in Official Secrecy

2017-04-28

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2017-04-28

In February 2017 while preparing for a presentation in Gothenburg about central bank gold, I emailed Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank, enquiring whether the Riksbank physically audits Sweden’s gold and whether it would provide me with a gold bar weight list of Sweden’s gold reserves (gold bar holdings). The Swedish official gold reserves are significant and amount to 125.7 tonnes, making the Swedish nation the world’s 28th largest official gold...

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Switzerland: Chocolate, Watches, And Jihad

2017-02-04

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2017-02-04

swiss luck
Swiss authorities are currently investigating 480 suspected jihadists in the country. "Radical imams always preached in the An-Nur Mosque... Those responsible are fanatics. It is no coincidence that so many young people from Winterthur wanted to do jihad." — Saïda Keller-Messahli, president of Forum for a Progressive Islam.

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European Central Bank gold reserves held across 5 locations. ECB will not disclose Gold Bar List.

2016-11-17

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2016-11-17

Eurozone
The European Central Bank (ECB), creator of the Euro, currently claims to hold 504.8 tonnes of gold reserves. These gold holdings are reflected on the ECB balance sheet and arose from transfers made to the ECB by Euro member national central banks, mainly in January 1999 at the birth of the Euro. As of the end of December 2015, these ECB gold reserves were valued on the ECB balance sheet at market prices and amounted to €15.79 billion.

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Central Bank Austria Claims To Have Audited Gold at BOE. Refuses To Release Audit Report

2016-10-27

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2016-10-27

After years of gradually securing its official gold reserves (unwinding leases) the central bank of Austria claims to have completed the audits of its 224 tonnes of gold stored at the BOE. However, it refuses to publish the audit reports and the gold bar list. What could possibly be so sensitive to hide from public eyes?

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Secret Swiss Military Bunkers Filled With Gold: Alternatives To Bank Deposits

2016-10-03

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2016-10-03

For decades, Switzerland had a reputation for bank secrecy that made it the most sought after tax haven for billionaires from around the globe. But, after more than 80 years of secrecy, a series of bilateral agreements with countries around the world, including America’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), have forced the private-banking industry in Switzerland to embrace an entirely new era of transparency that requires a full exchange of...

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Panama Tax Haven Scandal: The Bigger Picture

The “Panama Papers” tax haven leak is big … After all, the Prime Minister of Iceland resigned over the leak, and investigations are taking place worldwide over the leak. But the Panama Papers reporting mainly focuses on friends of Russia’s Putin, Ass...

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Treasury Introduces New Rules To Stop Tax Evasion, Kind Of

2016-05-07

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2016-05-07

In the wake of the Panama Papers being released, the U.S.Treasury announced that it will use existing powers in order to make two rule changes that are intended to stop tax evasion. First, in a rule which amends the US Bank Secrecy Act, the Treasury ...

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ZIRP, NIRP, QE, Bank Collapse and Helicopters Coming Too Late – The Lehman Effect Hits Europe – Hard!

2016-04-11

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2016-04-11

It's official, I'm calling a banking crisis in Europe. Things didn't go well the last time I did this. Of course, many will say, "But the rating agencies have learned their collective lessons. They would most assuredely warn us if the European banks...

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Switzerland, the Paradise of Insider Trading and Intransparency

2012-12-07

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2012-12-07

Insider Trading
Switzerland is well known as the country, where even central bankers were allowed to do insider trading. Instead the whistle blowers get problems with the courts. Some new cases of insider  trading include UBS, General Electric and Valiant, see the article on 

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