Rioting Breaks Out In Egypt
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/25/2011 07:46 -0500When we reported three days ago that 59 outbound shipments of gold were intercepted at the Egypt airport, we predicted that the country's oligarchs were proactively preparing precisely for what they knew is coming imminently. It has arrived. From Al-Jazeera: "Hundreds of protesters have begun to take to the streets in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, chanting slogans against the police, the interior minister and the government, in scenes that the capital has not seen since the 1970s, Al Jazeera's correspondent reported.Downtown Cairo has come to a standstill, and protesters are now marching towards the headquarters of the ruling National Democracy Party. "It is unprecedented for security forces to let people march like this without trying to stop them," Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh reported from the site of the protest."
UK GDP Comes At Huge Miss To Expectations As Weather Is Blamed, "Inflationary Surge" Causing Big Head Scratching
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/25/2011 07:21 -0500The UK department of economic "truth, statistics and everything else" sure has learned a thing or two from America. Such as blaming snow for appearing in December. As BLSy as it may sound, it is precisely this that the surprising collapse of the UK economy in Q4 has been blamed on. Per Bloomberg: "Britain’s economy unexpectedly shrank the most in more than a year in the fourth quarter as construction slumped and the coldest December in a century hampered services and retailing." What? They don't have a seasonal adjustment for "cold" winters? How quaint. "Gross domestic product fell 0.5 percent after increasing 0.7 percent in the previous quarter, the Office for National Statistics said in London today. Growth would have been “flattish” without the impact of the weather, it said.The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 33 economists was for an increase of 0.5 percent." And even more shockingly, the GBP fell after the market was shocked, shocked, that the insolvent European continent may just be a little ahead of itself with expectations of interest rate hikes: "The pound dropped after the report, which shows the U.K. recovery faded even before Prime Minister David Cameron’s government increased sales tax to 20 percent this month, which may damp consumer demand this year. The data may reinforce calls for the Bank of England to hold off increasing its key interest rate to curb inflation." But how will the UK halt what Posen last week called a "temporary surge" in inflation. Does this actually mean that, gasp, surging inflation, temporary or otherwise, is occurring even in very developed countries that suddenly appear to have massive economic slack. But... didn't the.... Chairman.... no, it can't be. He was 100% confident.
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