Someone Might Call Rep. Weiner About This

Gold coins -not semi-numismatic gold coins, but regular sovereigns - have been sold at 40% above spot, and sometimes higher. That's right, they've been sold at the equivalent of $1,700/oz.

The only trouble with informing Rep. Weiner about it is that this premium has shown up outside of Congress' jurisdiction. They sold that high in Greece.

Coinupdate.com reports that prices at which the Greek Central Bank is selling one ounce gold equivalents are as high as $1,700 (40% over spot), and prices on the black markets are even higher. The punchline, as Athens slowly returns to a forced gold standard: "A popular spot for street vendors to sell their coins is near the Athens Stock Exchange. There the traders wait for citizens to bring payments received from unloading their paper assets like stocks and bonds.” That’s good – downtown Manhattan close to the NYSE has some free space for gold vendors to set up shop as well, they just need to push some of the frontrunning/collocation boxes off to the side. And in other rhetorical ruminations, is it safe to say that the last days of the fiat experiment are among us now that people themselves are bypassing the government and enforcing their own gold standard?

This eye-opening item comes courtesy of "Tyler Durden" of Zero Hedge, as rewebbed by Prison Planet. To be fair, it isn't just a matter of a buying panic: the Greek government does impose legal restrictions upon the import and sale of sovereigns. Had the Greek gold market been more free-flowing, as the U.S.' is, then the premiums would never have gotten that high.

It does serve as an object lesson on what supply controls can do.

Details Creeping Out About Austerity Part Of Aid Package

The one to the Grecian government, that is. According to a Marketwatch report, that government is expected to agree to getting its fiscal deficit to below 3% of GDP in three years.

News reports on Friday said the Greek government has agreed to implement an additional 23 billion to 24 billion euros ($31.8 billion) worth of cuts in return for the aid. The Financial Times said Greece's parliament would likely approve the plan next week....

Reports said the measures, which equal around 10% of Greek gross domestic product, are aimed at cutting Greece's budget deficit by 10 to 11 percentage points over three years from the 13.6% of gross domestic product seen in 2009.

The package would reportedly impose a three-year pay freeze on public sector workers, while also eliminating bonuses that amount to two extra months of pay, the FT reported. The package would also eliminate seasonal bonuses for pensioners and boost the average retirement age to 67 from 53....

(53?)

The aid package will be much larger than was originally assumed, 'tis true, but that package is coming with IMF-level austerity measures. Later, the article passes on the current yield of 10-year Grecian sovereign debt: 9.47%. That's way above what the yield was when the Eurocrisis first broke. (Remember the tizzy when 10-years vaulted above 7%? It seems so long ago now.)


A cynic I may be, but I can't help remembering that the Grecian government also agreed to get its deficit below 3% of GDP when it first signed up for the Eurozone...

Moody's Downgrade Nine Grecian Banks

In the middle of a Marketwatch gold report, this item appeared:

On Friday, rating agency Moody's Investors Service downgraded the bank financial strength rates and deposit and debt ratings of nine Greek banks.

Those downgrades evidently had their effect on the gold market, upward. As of the time of this post, gold's still above $1,180.

Eurocrisis Fears Ebb...For Now

Grecian government bonds, as well as bank shares, have soared today as the IMF said that the bailout package may end up being 100-120 million Euros. An issue of Italian government bolds was well-received.


Admittedly, they were oversold yeaterday, but there seems to be a hope-springs-eternal componet as well.

New Wrinkle In Latest Installment Of Rescue-Package Drama

An unnamed official with the Grecian government has denied an earlier report saying that the Grecian government wants to squeeze the IMF out from a standby rescue package.

Reuters, citing a report by Market News International, said Greek officials were seeking to amend the plan to avoid triggering the IMF portion of the plan. The report said Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou feared the measures could trigger social and political unrest and that the premier wanted to alter the plan to bypass an IMF contribution.

Later, a report by Dow Jones Newswires, quoting an unnamed senior Greek official, said Greece wanted more clarity on how the plan would work but wasn't planning to demand a renegotiation of the agreement to exclude the IMF.

That denial may have had an influence on the greenback, and more so on gold. Although the U.S. Dollar Index has pulled back only slightly, gold has leapt up to the point where it's now in the plus column. At 9:50, the metal got as high as $1,136.60.