Germans hoarding mountains of gold

Germans are gathering vast quantities of gold - a study showed that the average German owns close to €6,000 worth of the shiny metal.

Even though Europe's largest economy has weathered the world economic crisis relatively well, Germans have still been extra jittery about their savings, a study by the Steinbeis Research Center for Financial Services in Berlin revealed.

Around 32 percent of the gold owned in Germany in the form of bars and coins was accumulated since the financial and economic crises began, the study concluded.

Commissioned by precious metal trading group Heraeus, the study also found that people with surplus cash are becoming gold-greedier. The number of Germans with a net monthly income over €4,000 who say they intend to invest in gold has doubled in the current year.

On average, every German owns around 117 grammes of gold, comprising 55 grammes of jewellery and 62 grammes of bars and coins, the study, which surveyed 2,000 people, found. Taken together with gold securities, the average German owns some €5,750 of gold. Read more >>

Italian PM warns of the break-up of the Eurozone and the European Union

The big news this morning is coming from an interview Italy’s Mario Monti gave to German magazine Der Spiegel, in which he warned that growing Italian resentment against Germany risks the break-up of not just the eurozone but the European Union itself.

He said the eurozone tensions “bear the traits of a psychological dissolution of Europe,” adding that Europe “must work hard to contain it.” Asked about a strengthening in resentment between the allegedly profligate southern European nations and the bloc’s thrifty northern members, Monti told Der Spiegel “it is very alarming, and we have to fight against it. Yes, there is a front line in this area between north and south, there are reciprocal prejudices,” according to AP’s report of the interview.

 In the meantime, tensions between Germany and Italy appear to be on the rise. The news comes after an Italian newspaper splashed its front page on a photo of Angela Merkel with her arm raised and the headline “Quarto Reich.” Read more >>

Acceleration Of Financial Meltdown Can't Be Stopped

A picture of a bank run outside a branch of Northern Rock in Birmingham, United Kingdom in 2007, when there was speculation about problems with bank.

Steve Quayle
The Iron boot has been firmly planted to the pedal of this runaway tractor trailer that is heading off the cliff. All of the Euro banks including my former associates at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)  are all prepped and ready for the Euro collapse.

What we in the inside are calling "Spanish Flue" is now running hot with temperatures that are setting ten year yields sky high. What many do not realize is that Bankia's demise has started a breach in all the firewalls and safety measures that are in place in the Eurozone. This had an immediate effect on the Italian markets as you can now see the pandemonium that is there.

Abu Dhabi hotel installs gold vending machine

ABU DHABI — There's no mistaking what's in this vending machine. The well-heeled in the Gulf can now grab "gold to go" from a hotel lobby in the United Arab Emirates, when the need for a quick ingot strikes.

On Thursday, a day after its inauguration, the shiny machine attracted spectators of many different nationalities who gathered to watch whenever an enthusiast was struck with the urge to splurge on a bar of the precious metal.

Abu Dhabi's Emirates Palace Hotel became the first place outside Germany to install "gold to go, the world's first gold vending machine," said a statement from Ex Oriente Lux AG, the German company behind the vending machine.

"In addition to one-gram, five-gram and 10-gram bars of gold, the machine also dispenses gold coins," it added.

Gold rates are constantly updated inside the shiny machine -- itself gold-plated -- in the hotel's lobby, courtesy of a built-in computer connected to a dealer which sells gold online.

"This eliminates the risk premiums usually associated with precious metal trading," the German company said.

Hotel general manager Hans Olbertz said they wanted the hotel to be the first in the world to offer guests what he called "this golden service."

The Emirates Palace is often used by visiting foreign dignitaries, and its top floor is reserved for the rulers of the UAE federation's seven emirates, each of whom has his own suite.
Source (AFP)