Golden Minerals Company

Ted Butler says the MF Global was the largest volume clearing house on the NYMEX/COMEX...and number two or three on the CME. This was a huge bankruptcy...the 7th largest in U.S. history.

Jon Corzine's bid to revive his Wall Street career crashed and burned on Monday when his futures brokerage MF Global Holdings Ltd filed for bankruptcy protection following bad bets on euro zone debt.

Corzine, 64, who once ran Goldman Sachs before becoming a U.S. senator and then governor of New Jersey, had been trying to turn the more than 200-year-old MF Global into a mini Goldman by taking on more risky trades.

But once regulators forced it to fully disclose the bets on debt issued by countries including Italy, Portugal and Spain, it rapidly unraveled with no buyers willing to step in.

MF Global's meltdown in less than a week made it the biggest U.S. casualty of Europe's debt crisis, and the seventh-largest bankruptcy by assets in U.S. history.

I thank Edmonton reader B.E.O. for this Reuters story...and the link is here.

Federal regulators have discovered that hundreds of millions of dollars in customer money has gone missing from MF Global in recent days, prompting an investigation into the brokerage firm, which is run by Jon S. Corzine, the former New Jersey governor, several people briefed on the matter said on Monday.

The recognition that money was missing scuttled at the 11th hour an agreement to sell a major part of MF Global to a rival brokerage firm. MF Global had staked its survival on completing the deal. Instead, the New York-based firm filed for bankruptcy on Monday.

This story was in The New York Times yesterday...and is Roy Stephens first offering of the day. The link is here.

Jon Corzine’s risk appetite just provided Paul Volker with a demonstration of the dangers of Wall Street proprietary trading.

Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who’s advising the Obama administration, pushed for legislation to curb wagering by banks or financial companies that have federal guarantees or are so embedded in financial markets that they’re deemed too big to fail. Regulators and the industry are wrestling over the fine print in the so-called Volcker rule, which takes effect in 2012. Now, three years after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. failed, MF Global’s implosion may buttress the argument for tighter trading limits.

This Bloomberg story is courtesy of West Virginia reader Elliot Simon...and the link is here.

Tyler Durden over at zerohedge.com goes supernova on this one...and the link to that is here. [Thanks Roy!]

The U.S. Treasury Department said on Monday it will sharply increase its estimated borrowing over the next two quarters due to expected lower receipts and higher outlays.

Treasury said it expects to issue $305 billion in net marketable debt for the October-December quarter, an increase of about $21 billion from estimates issued on Aug. 1.

Treasury said it expected to issue $541 billion in net marketable debt securities in the January-March 2012 quarter, marking the second-highest quarter on record.

More Treasury paper created out of thin air for the Fed to buy with money printed out of thin air. I thank reader Bob Fitzwilson for this cnbc.com story...and the link is here.

The Latin American giant's GDP for 2011 is expected to hit $2.44 trillion (£1.51 trillion) compared with $2.43 trillion for the UK, the latest monthly forecasts from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) show.

This will see Brazil, which last year overtook Italy to become the world's seventh biggest economy, move up one more place to sixth with the UK falling to seventh.

Robert Wood, the EIU's chief economist on Brazil, said the country's surge up the table owed much to a growing consumer class and a booming trade relationship with China, based on the Asian giant's need for commodities such as soy and iron ore.

This story was posted in The Telegraph yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens once again. The link is here.

Japan sold an undisclosed amount of yen on the foreign-exchange market Monday, sending the U.S. dollar and the euro climbing sharply against the currency.

The dollar surged against the yen, trading as high as ¥79.53, according to FactSet Research data, compared to ¥75.77 in North American activity late Friday. The dollar came off of its earlier highs lately to buy ¥78.05 in recent activity.

That took the dollar back to its August level against the yen, the last time Japan intervened in currency markets.

Still, for the month of October, the dollar has lost ground against other major currencies amid worries about U.S. policy options.

This marketwatch.com story was sent to me in the wee hours of Monday morning by Casey Research's own Louis James...and the link is here.

The deal itself, unveiled dramatically in the early hours of Thursday, was met with the now obligatory "relief rally". The FTSE All-World equity index soared 4.1pc, helped by signs of renewed US economic growth. European bank shares spiked no less than 12pc on Thursday, as traders recognised, for all the official obfuscation, the latest dollop of government largesse.

By late Thursday, though, and certainly on Friday, the warning signs were there. Global bond markets, by character more sober and smarter than the excitable equity guys, were voting against the deal. This is alarming. For it is only by selling more bonds that the eurozone's deeply indebted governments can roll-over their enormous liabilities and keep the show on the road.

The eurozone must be consolidated. World leaders should similarly force European banks to disclose their losses, we all take the hit and then we move on. Instead, we are served-up, in ever more complex variants, the same "extend and pretend" non-solutions. It gives me no pleasure to write this, but I give this deal two weeks.

This story appeared in the Saturday edition of The Telegraph...and I borrowed it from yesterday's King Report. The link is here.

The review, involving every major government department, emerged as the Prime Minister bluntly accused France and Germany of orchestrating “constant attacks” on the City of London through new EU red tape on the financial sector.

Mr. Cameron’s attack is the latest escalation in the tension over Europe since this week’s record rebellion by Conservative MPs demanding a referendum on the EU. Ministers at the Foreign Office are privately backing plans by back-bench MPs and peers to set out a “menu” of demands from the EU, including repatriating powers on employment regulations and human rights legislation.

Some Tory MPs believe that the process should start next month when leaders begin formal talks on changing EU treaties to allow a rescue package for the eurozone.

This is another story from The Telegraph I lifted from yesterday's King Report...and the link to that news item is here.

Democracy went down in a blaze of glory last week. Both the German Bundestag and our own House of Commons put up one hell of a fight against the dying of the light. Maybe history will record that fact in an elegy on the demise of the great 18th-century experiment in government by the people: they were eloquent to the end. Because at the end, eloquence was all they had.

Trying to hold back the resurgence of oligarchy – the final dismantling of democratic responsibility in the governing of Europe – has been looking pretty hopeless for a long time. That eruption of excellent rhetoric and faultless argument which sprang to the defence of the rights of the governed (and in Germany’s case, of constitutional legality) made the loss seem all the more tragic, but no less inevitable.

So this is where we are. The agreed EU “stability union” triumphantly paraded before the media in Brussels will have the power to approve or disapprove budgets of countries in the eurozone – that is, to vet and police them – before they are submitted to the elected parliaments of those countries. In other words, parliaments which are directly mandated by, and answerable to, their own populations will not control the most essential functions of government: decisions on taxation and spending. Even without the ultimate institutions of economic and political union, which still elude the EU, actual power over fiscal policy will be taken from the hands of national leaders. And if, as a voter, you cannot influence your prospective government’s tax and spending policies, what exactly are you voting for?

This story was posted in The Telegraph late Saturday night...and is another Roy Stephens offering. The imbedded photo is chilling...and worth the trip all by itself. The link is here.

Matters are turning serious.

Italy’s labour minister Maurizio Sacconi has just warned that a rushed shake-up of the labour market – as demanded by the EU – risks setting off a fresh cycle of terrorism in the country.

“We must stop creating tension over labour reform which could lead to a new wave of attacks. I am not afraid for myself because I have (armed) protection. I am afraid for the people who are not protected and could become a target of political violence that is not extinct in our country,” he said.

This is not exaggeration. The Red Brigades-PCC assassinated Massimo D’Antonna in 1999 and Professor Marco Biagio in 2002 for spear-heading labour reforms.

Opposition leader Pier Luigi Bersani praised Mr. Sacconi for speaking out at last. “We are in deep trouble. If we ignite the powder-keg of social discord instead of cohesion we will do dramatic damage to the country.”

This Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering from yesterday's edition of The Telegraph is another Roy Stephens offering...and the link is here.

Italy's borrowing costs have once again surged to danger levels amid growing doubts over the viability of Europe's bail-out machinery, dashing hopes that last week's summit deal would at last contain the crisis.

Yields on 10-year bonds jumped to 6.18pc on Monday, while spreads over German Bunds reached 410 basis points, nearing the critical level where LCH Clearnet raises margin requirements. This, in turn, triggers further selling.

Intesa Sanpaolo Giovanni Bazoli said the spreads are unsustainable "not just in the medium run, but in the short run as well". He warned of a credit crunch in Italy as banks struggle to meet higher capital ratios set by EU leaders.

The renewed jitters came as the OECD club of rich states slashed its eurozone growth forecast for next year from 2pc to just 0.3pc, implying an outright recession over the winter.

This is another Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering from yesterday's edition of The Telegraph...and, once again, I thank Roy Stephens for sharing it with us...and the link is here.

Responding to the riots that followed last week’s proposal, as well as dissent from within his own Socialist party, Prime Minister George Papandreou said: “The command of the Greek people will bind us. Do they want to adopt the new deal, or reject it? If the Greek people do not want it, it will not be adopted.”

Staging a referendum, reportedly to be held in January, threatens to throw the eurozone further into crisis as the majority of Greeks object to the bail-out, according to a survey published last week.

If Greece were to reject the plan, which requires deep spending cuts, it would risk a full-scale default and possible ejection from the euro. The country could even run out of money to pay civil servants or state pensions if the troika decided to pull the plug.

This story was filed in The Telegraph just before midnight last night...and I thank Roy once again for providing this excellent story, which is definitely worth the read. The link is here.

The Greek authorities are bracing for a broader campaign of civil disobedience as a nation infuriated by austerity and incensed at the engagement of EU and IMF "monitors" takes matters into its own hands.

Sales of generators have shot up as households, resisting further belt-tightening, have sought to bypass a new property tax that the beleaguered government will collect through electricity bills.

Announcing the measure in a desperate attempt to plug a budget black hole, the finance ministry warned that failure to pay the tax would automatically result in power supplies being disconnected.

"But when 70% of Greek households don't pay it what are they going to do, cut off the whole lot?" asked Giorgos Zisimos, a shop owner-cum-driver.

This item was posted in The Guardian on Sunday...and I thank Swiss reader B.G. for sending it along...and the link is here.

The ruling euro-sceptic ODS party in the Czech Republic wants to push for a referendum on the country's future eurozone accession, claiming that the rules have changed since 2003 when Czechs said yes to the EU and the euro.

The recent agreement on another bail-out for Greece and on boosting the eurozone's bailout fund is fuelling Czech calls for a referendum, said Czech MEP Jan Zahradil, leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists.

"We should allow non-eurozone members – such as my country the Czech Republic – to decide again whether they wish to enter. We signed up to a monetary union, not a transfer union or a bond union in our accession treaty. This is the major reason why the Czech Prime minister wishes to call the referendum on this matter," Zahradil said in a statement.

This story was posted over at the euobserver.com website last Friday...and I thank Roy for this item as well. The link is here.

Welcome to the new euro, a wholly owned subsidiary of China, Inc.

That, at least, is the implication of the embarrassingly hasty arrival in Beijing of Klaus Regling, the chief of the European Financial Stability Facility. The ink was still drying on the late-night agreement between European leaders as he boarded the plane for the middle kingdom, seeking to learn just how much of China's $3.2 trillion reserves might be tempted to invest in the great euro bailout.

"The foreign exchange reserves of China go up every month, therefore there is a need for investment," Regling told the assembled media as he arrived for talks with officials from China's central bank and finance ministry.

This UPI story filed from New York yesterday is also worth your time, if you have it. It's Roy Stephens final offering of the day...and the link is here.

China has stressed it will not be a "saviour" to Europe as President Hu Jintao embarks on an official visit to the continent that will take in this Thursday's crucial G20 summit in Cannes.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said Beijing had a "major role to play" in proposals to expand the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) to €1 trillion (£877bn), possibly through a special purpose investment vehicle that would attract backing from sovereign wealth funds.

The official Xinhua news agency, used to communicate Communist Party policy, said Europe must address its own financial woes. "China can neither take up the role as a saviour to the Europeans, nor provide a 'cure' for the European malaise," it stated. "Obviously, it is up to European countries themselves to tackle their financial problems."

I thank reader David Ball for sharing this story out of the Sunday edition of The Telegraph...and the link is here.

While it's not the bears doing the explaining in this latest all-too-realistic summary of the European non-bailout, it is the next best thing.

This 2:49 video cartoon is posted over at zerohedge.com...and I thank reader U.D. for sharing it with us. The link is here.

And just in case you need further help in the Q.E. explanation department, here are 'down under' comedians John Clarke and Bryan Dawe to really set the record straight. The youtube.com clip runs for 2:31...and I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand for sending it along. The link to this absolute must watch video is here. It's hilarious!

GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk told King World News yesterday why he's encouraged about the recent price action in the precious metals. Turk adds that the burgeoning competitive currency devaluations around the world will leave the metals as the only currencies that can't be debased.

I was surprised that James never even mentioned the surprise intervention in the currency market by the Japanese central bank. The KWN headline reads "James Turk - Silver Formation Projects Spike to $60 - $75 Level". I thank Chris Powell for wordsmithing the introduction...and the link to the blog is here.

Sprott Asset Management's John Embry told King World News yesterday that gold's decline amid the devaluation of the Japanese yen is more evidence of intervention by central banks.

The link to the KWN blog that Eric has headlined "John Embry - Gold & Silver shares waiting to be unleashed" is here.