GEAB 70 - 2013, The First Steps into The "World Afterwards" in Complete Chaos

Here are the highlights of GEAB 70 (December 2012) entitled "2013, The First Steps into The "World Afterwards" in Complete Chaos":

• 2013, The First Steps into The "World Afterwards" in Complete Chaos - As the world enters into a global recession in 2013, it will become more fragmented into regional blocks. Although  the Euroland, South America and Asia should come strengthen from the crisis, the US, the United Kingdom, Israel and Japan should be greatly weakened.
• Politics in Germany until 2017 – Weaking of main political parties, and increase in the number of small parties.
• Yearly evaluation of LEAP anticipations – 75% success rate en 2012. By their own assessment, before new anticipations are published in GEAB 71 next month.
• Global systemic crisis: Assessments of 40 « country-risks» - LEAP 2020 team looks into 40 countries, and how they are likely to handle the 2013 crisis.
• Strategic and operational recommendations. Stock markets are likely to slide downwards, banks will suffer and it may be wise to spread assets among several banks,  prudence is required when investing in real estate, and keep stocking up Gold.
• The GlobalEurometre - Results & Analyses. 66% (vs 48% in November) of respondents experienced price increases..

The full GEAB 70 report (PDF format) is available to LEAP 2020 subscribers for 200 Euros per year for 10 new issues + the 6 issues published before registration.

Jim Rogers: Politicians Want To Fool Us This Year

Jim Rogers is interviewed by CNBC on the 30th of January 2012.

They firstly talk about bank bonuses, then about prospects for US and Europe in 2012. Jim Rogers is not worried about the Euro this year, because of the elections around the world, which will lead to more printing by the central banks and more spending by politicians.

Anonymous Looking to Investigate International Banks

Anonymous Analytics (@AnonAnalytics) has just tweeted the following:
Anonymous Analytics is seeking an analyst with significant experience analyzing international banks: anonanalytics [at] hushmail [dot] com

So after investigating Chaoda Modern Agriculture (0682.HK)and releasing a damning report leading to its suspension on the Hong Kong stock market, it seems they are now in the progress of checking out some international banks.

Chaoda Modern report took about 20 days to be ready. So we may receive a new report about an international bank within 30 days, if they manage to find a volunteer.

Jim Chanos Says China Banks Deteriorating

Jim Chanos Interview on Bloomberg on the 11th of October 2011.

He's still bearish on Chinese banks even though the government has stepped up to buy Chinese banks shares.

He emphases that his company focuses on the property market in China and that this market has only started to decline.

In the second part of the interview, they discuss US politics: GOP debate, his support for Obama and income inequality in the US.

Finally, he talks about European banks and the need for recapitalization.

Jim Rogers: Bernanke Has Already Announced QE

Jim Rogers is interviewed on CNBC's Larry Kudlow on the 10th of October 2011.

He discussed about the current bailout of European banks and called for letting the market work and let bad banks fail.

He's still long commodities and expects the ECB and FED to print more money.

QE is already there as Bernanke said interest rates will be kept low for 2 more years.

Jim Chanos: China Debt Worse than Europe Debt

James Chanos is interviewed by Bloomberg on the 20th of September at Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting.

During the first 3 minutes (up to 3:30), he talks about the European debt crisis and the shorting ban on European bank stocks. He says that regulators do not understand how markets work, as major short sellers are other financial institutions that edge their bets. If they can not meet those edging needs, they also run into troubles.

His view is that the austerity measures in Europe will lead to less growth, and that government spending in Europe is a larger part of GDP than in the USA (25% for the US vs. 35 to 50% for European countries).

Then they discuss about China in the middle of the interview (3:30 to about 9:40).
Chinese growth is beginning to sputter and property stocks and real estate developers are leading the declining. Sales of real estate are down 50% in major Chinese cities this year.

The Chinese government balance looks good on paper. But if we look at state enterprise (that are implicitly backed by the government), the debt to GDP ratio went from 100% to 200% that is the same or even worse than European countries, especially the PIIGS.

Jim Chanos explains that most people will be surprised (on the downside) by the Chinese growth by the end of this year and/or beginning of next year. He even quoted the CEO of Japanese company who said he had trouble getting paid for his escalators.

Even if the Chinese government tries to reign in the increase in debt, many real estate developers turn to the black market, and that experts expect 50% of new loans to go bad, that kind of issue could wipe out the Chinese GDP growth this year. A Chinese slowdown of that scale would negatively affect the global economy (remove 1% of global GDP growth).

In order to play the Chinese crash, Jim Chanos is short Chinese banks, Rel Estate developers, commodities and any company that sells to China. He is however long Macau casinos.

At the end of the interview, he gives his views on the US. He agrees with the Buffett rule as taxes are now a small part of the GDP and says he is still short healthcare stocks (as the US government needs to reign in Medicare costs) and Netflix (as the DVD business is dying).