NEW YORK, Feb 25 (Reuters) - U.S. gold futures dropped onThursday, falling for a fourth straight day, as a dollar risedue to uncertainties about fiscal conditions in Europe took atoll on investor sentiment. * For the latest detailed report, click on [GOL/]. GOLD * COMEX April GCJ0 down $1.60 at $1,095.60 an ounce at10:29 a.m. EST (1529 GMT). * Ranged from $1,088.50 to $1,101.50. * Gold pressured as dollar rose against euro as worriesabout the Greek debt crisis dent risk appetite. [USD/] * Asset liquidation across the board from equities to crudeoil weighing on gold - Bill O"Neill at LOGIC Advisors. * Gold should ultimately divorce itself from followingday-to-day movements of the euro - O"Neill * Comex estimated 10 a.m. volume at 100,630 contracts. * Spot gold XAU= at $1,094.40, compared with $1,097.25late in New York in the previous session. * London gold afternoon fix XAUFIX= at $1,094.50. SILVER * March SIH0 down 15 cents at $15.790 an ounce, takingthe lead from gold. * Range $15.610 to $16.060. * Spot silver XAG= at $15.79 an ounce compared with theprevious session"s $15.96 late quote in New York. * Comex estimated 10 a.m. volume at 49,064 contracts. * London silver XAGFIX= fix at $15.92 an ounce. PLATINUM * April PLJ0 up $10.10 at $1,517.40 an ounce on bargainhunting. * Spot platinum XPT= at $1,515.50 an ounce. PALLADIUM * March palladium PAH0 down $3.75 at $418.95 an ounce, astroubles from Toyota Motors dent sentiment on autocatalystdemand. * Spot palladium XPD= at $419 an ounce.Prices at 10:38 a.m. EST (1538 GMT) Last Change Pct 2009 YTD Chg Close % ChgUS gold GCJ0 1094.00 -3.20 -0.3 1096.20 -0.2US silver SIH0 15.785 -0.155 -1.0 16.845 -6.3US platinum PLJ0 1517.90 10.60 0.7 1471 3.2US palladium PAH0 418.95 -3.75 -0.9 408.85 2.5Gold XAU= 1093.15 -4.10 -0.4 1096.35 -0.3Silver XAG= 15.78 -0.18 -1.1 16.84 -6.3Platinum XPT= 1514.50 9.50 0.6 1465.50 3.3Palladium XPD= 418.00 -2.00 -0.5 405.50 3.1Gold Fix XAUFIX= 1094.50 1.75 0.2 1104 -0.9Silver Fix XAGFIX= 15.92 16.00 1.0 16.99 -6.3Platinum Fix XPTFIX= 1514.00 4.00 0.3 1466 3.3Palladium Fix XPDFIX= 420.00 4.00 1.0 402 4.5 (Reporting by Frank Tang; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
CurrenciesSaturday, July 31, 2010
US bullion falls on diseased euro reduce risk ardour
Friday, July 30, 2010
David Beckhams immature and bullion Manchester United attempt was a bucket of tosh - the usually means he indeed supports is himself
Touching, wasnt it? Watching that loyal, diehard United hero DavidBeckham getting the roaring welcome so thoroughly deserved ofManchesters prodigal son brought tears to the uncynical eye.
But not, Im afraid, to the cynical like mine.
Beckham keeps telling us United is, and always has been, the onlyclub for him. And the inhabitants of Old Trafford seem to happily goalong with this tosh.
When the reality is that he walked out on United at the peak of hispowers for the riches of Real Madrid, then walked out on Madrid for theeven greater riches of Hollywood, and now cheats on LA Galaxy wheneverhe can with AC Milan, purely to keep himself in the World Cup frame,where England glory could bring the greatest riches of all.
Compared with genuinely loyal United heroes like Giggs, Scholes andNeville, Beckhams been a treacherous, money-grabbing, club-hopping,fame-hungry, egotistical little weasel who likes nothing better thanmaking everything all about HIM.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
What happened to Tories and the free market? Carl Mortished
There was an trembler in Britain on Friday but no one was hurt. The usually repairs was to the Tories the out-of-date repairs that David Cameron is so concerned to equivocate forward of the stirring election. The trembler was a change in the Conservative Partys perspective of energy. In a key area of mercantile process the bit that keeps the lights on, the residence comfortable and the factories humming the Tories have deserted the free marketplace and are right away resolutely in foster of a programmed economy.
If you dont hold me, review Rebuilding Security, a request published last week that spells out Tory appetite policy. It has a essential purpose: how to determine opposing aims. How do we keep the lights on and revoke hothouse gas emissions?
The Government has constructed innumerable process papers addressing these problems but zero is as in advance as this. Mr Cameron wants to do zero less than lead the appetite industry by the nose with price-fixing, market-rigging law and state-directed investment.
Consider this. The Tories will take management of appetite markets by the Department of Energy and Climate Change in and with the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the National Security Council. Ofgem, the appetite regulator, will turn a smoothness group for supervision policy.
Having taken command, ministers will tinker with the short-term appetite marketplace with the high cost spikes and troughs, giving a regulator management to sequence new capacity, forcing utilities to invest. Mr Cameron wants cost guarantees (feed-in tariffs) for breeze and call appetite operators. He would supply the CO marketplace with a smallest CO cost to safeguard that CO2 is unequivocally expensive. He would progress investment in chief and renewables and damn spark for eternity. Finally, he would set up a immature investment bank arising immature supervision holds for open investment in purify energy.
The subject is how all this sits with Tory meditative about the economy, as it has zero to do with marketplace forces. It is about manipulation, executive formulation and ministerial control. It is the reincarnation of the Central Electricity Generating Board, but the good of ownership. The Tories who liberalised Britains appetite economy, the celebration that privatised gas and power, is on the behind foot. The ideas that non-stop up appetite markets, and led to rare declines in consumer prices, are banished.
What happened to the consumer? At most appropriate Mr Cameron pays lip-service; at misfortune he is disingenuous. Towards the finish of the document, he discusses slicing the cost of security. The last dual difference are the giveaway because, distinct old Tory thinking, this is not about slicing cost at all. It is about the most higher prices we contingency compensate to encounter the check for smallest CO prices and on trial prices for renewable energy.
Mr Cameron wants you to hold these will reduce prices by shortening risk for investors, that will reduce the cost of capital. What tosh. He wants to repair CO prices since the Tories wish to supply the marketplace in foster of renewables. The marketplace says make make use of of spark and gas, since these are the cheapest fuels. Energy security is not a problem. Coal and gas are abounding and prices have collapsed, but process dictates that this is wrong and the cost vigilance is to be ignored.
Instead of tinkering with markets, the Tories should be honest and do the essential thing. When governments wish to meddle for the open good, they should make make use of of the taxation system, penalising smokers, fatiguing income to compensate for open health. What is wrong with a CO taxation solely that it would be unpopular? If CO threatens the future, certainly we contingency all compensate for it as consumers at the point of fossil-fuel combustion? That would be intellectually honest. But removing probity out of career politicians is rather similar to extracting CO from the appetite sequence really difficult.
hair wigLabour ire as Lord Ashcroft escapes inquiry
Jenny Booth & , : {} Lord Ashcroft is not the initial abounding counterpart to tumble tainted of open annoy after being less than pure over his non-domiciled taxation status.
In 2007 the Scottish Tory Lord Laidlaw of Rothiemay was forced to take lengthened leave of deficiency from Westminster after it emerged that he had unsuccessful to keep a guarantee to turn a UK taxation proprietor but remained in taxation outcast in Monaco.
Lord Laidlaw, a charming figure who certified to sex obsession after being held in a Monaco road chateau room with 4 prostitutes and a masculine paramour in an Apr 2008 sting by the News of the World, ranked series 100 on the Sunday Times abounding list in 2007 after offered his interest in his general discussion commercial operation for 713 million.
He was nominated as a intensity hold up counterpart by Iain Duncan-Smith in 2004. The House of Lords Appointment Commission (HoLAC) pronounced that he betrothed during his vetting routine that he would compensate UK taxation in future, but did not do so.
Related Links"Sex drug dependant peer" survives pile-up landingTax-exile counterpart Laidlaw stops appropriation ToriesSex-addict Tory counterpart gives 1m to giftHoLAC pronounced in the in the annual inform for 2006 - 07: "During open 2004, the Commission vetted a list of party-political nominees. One of the people on the list, Irvine Laidlaw (now Lord Laidlaw of Rothiemay), was not proprietor in the UK for taxation purposes.
"Following an sell of association and a face-to-face meeting, the Commission supposed an declaration from Lord Laidlaw that he would turn proprietor in the UK for taxation purposes from Apr 2004. On the basement of this declaration the Commission found no conflict to his appointment.
"The Commission would have taken a opposite perspective on Lord Laidlaws assignment if it had well well known that he would not be proprietor in the UK for taxation purposes from Apr 2004."
Lord Laidlaw was allocated to the House of Lords in Jun 2004 and spoke multiform times in the house. But his failure, notwithstanding reminders, to turn a UK taxation proprietor in the future led the HoLAC to make use of the usually permit it has opposite erring peers - to name them in the annual inform and to move up his box with Downing Street. It additionally motionless to harden the position on peers who do not compensate UK tax.
"Lord Laidlaw has not turn proprietor in the UK for taxation purposes. The Commission has drawn the Prime Ministers courtesy to the situation," HoLAC pronounced in the annual report.
"The Commission reviewed the process on residency in 2005 and right away declines to scrutinize any hopeful who is not proprietor in the UK for taxation purposes. It will go on to ask all nominees, and the domestic parties that commission them, to endorse that they are and will sojourn proprietor in the UK for taxation purposes."
Until the sum of the agreement in between Lord Ashcroft and the right away gone Political Honours Scrutiny Committee are published, it is unfit to contend with faith either Lord Ashcroft has breached the undertakings he gave prior to he was postulated a peerage.
In a chit combined to William Hague in Mar 2000, the Tory donor gives "my transparent and undeniable declaration that I have motionless to take up permanent chateau in the UK again prior to the finish if this monthly calendar year". He continues: "I hereby resolutely determine that I will not find to be introduced to the House of Lords until I have taken up residency in the UK inside of the timescale on top of mentioned. I will additionally rught away renounce as the Belize deputy to the United Nations, that abdication to take outcome prior to Mar 31 this year. These are my honest and contracting undertakings to you."
The chit creates no approach anxiety to his monetary affairs or his taxation arrangements. Lord Ashcroft pronounced yesterday that the Hague memo was a thoughtfulness of the promises he done to the inspection committee.
"In unbroken discourse with the Government, it was strictly reliable that the understand in the initial endeavour of the difference "permanent residence" was to be that of a "long tenure resident" of the UK," Lord Ashcroft added, observant that it was on that basement he took up his chair in Oct 2000.
Today Lord Mandelson expel doubts on that version of events. "What Lord Ashcroft is claiming is that he reached a understanding 10 years ago that he would turn a prolonged tenure proprietor in this country, and compensate taxation accordingly. In fact, that arrangement, and the standing of prolonged tenure proprietor in this country, was usually combined in 2008," pronounced the Business Secretary.
"So that couldn"t have been the basement on that he was eventually since his peerage. And that needs clarifying, people need to know the law about Ashcroft and the basement on that he has dodged all this time, and what unbroken Conservative leaders competence have well well known about this dodge."
It is misleading either Lord Mandelson is scold in presumption that Lord Ashcroft"s promises contingency have enclosed profitable full UK tax. It appears to have been usually in the last five years - at the time of Lord Laidlaw"s box - that the initial grave moves began to bar new peers who did not compensate full UK tax. Lord Laidlaw appears to have been the initial to have been held up in the new meridian of regard about such arrangements.
The House of Commons was due to pass legislation currently that will eventually dissuade "non-doms" from fasten the legislature.
The Conservatives have additionally lifted questions over Lord Paul of Marylebone, a non-dom Labour donor who was done a hold up counterpart in 1996 - similar to Lord Ashcroft, a little years prior to the new regulations were adopted. There are alternative non-domiciled peers in the Lords. HoLAC has done solid that it has no powers to fortify an existent peer, to hold any kind of retrospective review in such circumstances.
hair wigMonday, July 26, 2010
Harman calls for Tory heads to hurl over Ashcroft taxation row
The Ashcroft non-dom taxation tale exploded on the building of the House of Commons currently as Harriet Harman called for Tory heads to roll.
The Leader of the House, deputising for Gordon Brown at Prime Minister"s Questions, pronounced William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, had not a fragment of credit on the issue.
During a inclement 30-minute session, Ms Harman pronounced the nation had been misled in to desiring that the Tory counterpart was profitable full taxation in Britain.
What has happened to the tens of millions of pounds that the shade unfamiliar cabinet member betrothed would be paid by Lord Ashcroft, she asked.
Related LinksNew questions over Ashcroft taxation understanding as row deepensPledge damaged to win Ashcroft a peerageThat pong? Dead equine Dave doesn"t wish us to whipMr Hague, as Tory personality a decade ago, had pronounced the preference to accede to the counterpart his chair in the Lords would good the Treasury by tens of millions of pounds a year.
She pronounced the nation was possibly misled by Lord Ashcroft himself, or by Mr Hague. They cant both be right - one of them should go, she told a loud Commons.
The Prime Ministers deficiency to hail the President of South Africa during his state revisit meant all parties were fielding their B teams in the chamber.
Such an arise would customarily be energetically expected by the Tories, pitting the well-spoken despatch box actor Mr Hague opposite Ms Harman.
But the arise betrothed to be worried for Mr Hague, following the explanation that Lord Ashcroft has outlayed the past 10 years avoiding taxation on his worldwide income, notwithstanding a oath to turn a permanent proprietor of the UK. It was Mr Hague who cumulative Lord Aschoft his nobility after he was twice incited down.
This House puts the top worth on the subject of integrity, pronounced Ms Harman, who did not primarily impute to Lord Ashcroft by name as she answered Mr Hagues questions on the economy.
Tax has a piece to fool around in shortening the deficit, she pronounced in an reference to the taxes Mr Hague in 1999 betrothed that Lord Ashcroft would pay.
Mr Hague attempted to advise her off with a spiny fun about her husband, Jack Dromey winning preference in a chair where Labour had primarily programmed an all-women shortlist.
People in potion houses should not begin throwing stones, he said.
The genuine celebration appropriation issue in this nation is the energy of the Unite kinship thats wrecking British Airways and whose emissary ubiquitous cabinet member - her father - has only left by an all women shortlist to be selected. She might not to recognize matrimony in the taxation complement but she certain does in the domestic system.
With the Speaker struggling to keep order, Mr Harman responded: The Shadow Foreign Secretary stands here but a fragment of credibility.
Mr Hague responded: I think we know what a unfortunate be scared the supervision are in.
He pronounced Mr Brown should ask the Queen for a retraction of Parliament when he saw her at the Buckingham Palace accepting for the South African president.
Ms Harman taunted Mr Hague that Lord Ashcroft, in addressing his nobility in his autobiography, had written: I owe it all to William.