委内瑞拉物价一年涨60% 政府怪市民闹事

 2014年06月13日 11:13

（以上为路透今年2月拍摄的一名委内瑞拉学生抗议画面。）

委内瑞拉昨天公布的通胀数据显示，过去12个月消费者价格涨了60%以上。对于畸高的通胀，委内瑞拉政府归咎于一些大城市抗议示威的政治冲突。

据委内瑞拉央行公布，今年4月和5月CPI均环比增长5.7%，是2008年修改CPI统计方法以来的单月新高，而且截至4月和5月的12个月内通胀增幅分别达到61.5%和60.9%。

通胀如此高，委内瑞拉政府指责的是“集中在国内一些主要城市的政治冲突事件”。今年2月以来，这个国家的城市抗议活动多次酿成流血事件，《华尔街日报》报道称已有40多人丧生。

该报道认为，委内瑞拉经济增长始终缓慢，国内基本物资缺乏，这才是发生政治暴动的原因。

华尔街见闻网站的读者对委内瑞拉这种全球少有的“奇葩”恐怕印象深刻。今年2月网站文章提到，去年委内瑞拉大开印钞机，通胀率飙升至56.2%，委内瑞拉货币玻利瓦尔兑美元的黑市汇率是官方汇率的七倍多。

委内瑞拉政府也做出努力，为保护国内外汇市场牺牲储备。今年1月下旬，该国黄金与外汇储备由2012年底的300亿美元降至210亿美元，流动资产仅剩20亿美元。

美元告竭的委内瑞拉非金融应付账款总额当时超过500亿美元，其中包括30多亿美元的国外航空公司机票欠款，90多亿美元的私营企业进口款项。

委内瑞拉政府当时就将危机归咎于私人企业和“不负责任的”委内瑞拉普通民众。为遏制失控的通胀，政府引入了新的法律，强制商业经营的最高利润为成本的30%，否则将面临长期监禁。

不过，上有政策、下有对策。本月华尔街见闻文章提到，地下美元交易成为委内瑞拉的暴利行业，黑市的美元汇率比官方汇率高11倍多。连国内妓女也做起了倒腾美元的营生，成为这种地下交易的生力军。

文章介绍说，对国外海员来说，到了委内瑞拉，妓女就是活生生的外汇交易柜台。因为在委内瑞拉，当街买卖美元是违法的，卖淫倒合法。

高盛预测，委内瑞拉经济增速今年将下滑1.3%。该国经济发展严重畸形。除了传统的石油行业，在委内瑞拉的很多大型港口城市，色情行业是唯一欣欣向荣的行业。

以下委内瑞拉通胀率图表中最新更新为4月数据，数据来自委内瑞拉央行。

五幅图了解中东危机

 2014年06月14日 10:33

萨达姆政权被推翻十年后，伊拉克硝烟又起，危机卷土重来。本周伊拉克紧张局势升级使欧美股市下挫、黄金走高，原油上涨。

伊拉克目前形势怎样？脱胎于基地组织的恐怖组织“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯兰国”（简称ISIL）（一说“伊拉克和大叙利亚伊斯兰国”，简称ISIS）意欲何为？以下五幅图表可以形象解答。

下图较深红色的红色圆点代表ISIL武装出没的地区、控制的城市，浅绿色为伊拉克的库尔德人所在地区，爆炸图标代表袭击发生地。如图所示，伊拉克首都巴格达距离袭击地点不到50公里，华尔街见闻昨晚文章提到相距仅30公里。

细心的读者通过ISIL的全名就会发现，这个组织的野心绝不限于伊拉克，它也是叙利亚的反政府组织，其主要成员是伊斯兰教逊尼派的极端分子。

《华盛顿邮报》还以美国读者的视角制作了下图，我们可以看到，ISIL的控制范围相当于美国中部的伊利诺州到东海岸的弗吉尼亚州。

更惊人的是，ISIL的武装分子人数不多。英国《卫报》报道称，800名ISIL恐怖分子就让3万名伊拉克政府军丢盔弃甲，一举拿下伊拉克第二大城市摩苏尔。ISIL的战士总数约有7000到1万人。

攻城掠地不是关键，重要的是ISIL可能占领伊拉克石油中心基尔库克（Kirkuk）许多石油与天然气输送管道都在这一地区。下图红色为天然气管线，蓝色为石油管线。红色方块地区代表天然气田，蓝色方块地区代表油田。

《华尔街日报》近日报道指出，ISIL也不仅是伊拉克和叙利亚的威胁，他们的目标是建立叙利亚的地中海岸到整个现代伊拉克的极端伊斯兰教国家，公元七到八世纪伊斯兰教哈里发统治的帝国也就是那样的版图。

ISIL要立国，其他中东国家政府也乱作一团。一年多来，黎巴嫩的什叶派武装分子进入了叙利亚，俨然叙利亚政府的武装力量。同时许多叙利亚难民逃亡黎巴嫩，现在黎巴嫩收容的叙利亚学龄儿童比本国学龄儿童都多。

在伊拉克，库尔德人割据北部地区，在土耳其帮助下与政府作对，自行出口该地区石油，成立自己的军队、海关和移民机构。

Financial Collapse and Massive Shortages in Gold Coming

Financial expert and best-selling author James Rickards’ latest book predicts “the coming collapse of the international monetary system.” One of thesign posts is countries like Russiadeclaring it will shed the U.S. Dollar as reserve currency in international trade. Rickards explains, “Putin said he envisions a Eurasian economic zone involving Eastern Europe, central Asia and Russia. The Russian Ruble is nowhere near ready to be a global reserve currency, but it could be a regional reserve currency.”

Rickards’ latest best-selling book, “The Death of Money,” was released in April. Even Rickards is surprised at how fast the economic situation is unfolding.Rickards says, “If you ask me what has happened since you finished writing the book that comes as a surprise, I would say a lot of the things I talk about in my book are happening faster than I would have expected. Things that I thought would happen in the 2015 or 2016 time frame seems to be happening now in some ways. If anything, the tempo of events is faster than expected. Therefore, some of these catastrophic outcomes may come sooner than I wrote about.”

Rickards goes on to say, “Right now, we are on the precipice now. When you are on the precipice, it doesn’t mean you fall off immediately, but you are going to fall off because you can see the forces in play. What I tell clients and investors is it’s not as if we are going to make some mistakes and some bad things are going to happen. The mistakes have already been made. The instability is already in the system. We’re just waiting for that catalyst that I call the snowflake that starts the avalanche. You don’t worry about the snowflakes; you worry about the snow and that it’s unstable and it’s just waiting to collapse. That’s what the system is right now; we are just waiting for a catalyst. People ask me all the time, what could it be? Technically, my answer is it doesn’t matter because it will be something. It could be a failure to deliver physical gold. It could be an MF Global financial failure. It could be a natural disaster. It could be a lot of things. The thing investors need to understand is the catalyst doesn’t matter. It’s coming because the instability is already there.”

On gold manipulation and when it will end, Rickards says, “It will end when the physical shortage gets to the point that someone fails to deliver; which, at that point, there will be a buying panic. There could be a buying panic or what some people call a demand shock. One of the things I said about gold manipulation is if I was the manipulator, I would be embarrassed at this point. The manipulation is obvious. The evidence is coming in from all directions. . . . The manipulation is clear. When will it end? It will end when there is a physical shortage that pops up somewhere, or it will end with a short squeeze.”

Rickards goes on to say, “We are going to get a very large demand shock coming from China and India. Let me explain those two cases. We have a brand new government in India, and they are going to repeal the import tax on gold. We also have the wedding season coming up. . . . So, India is set up for a very large surge in demand in the fourth quarter. Now, over to China, this is one of the things that it’s happening faster than I originally thought. The credit collapse story is happening in real time. I said (in my book) this might be a 2015 event, but it looks like it is happening now. Defaults are piling up. We are seeing money rise. We’re seeing people march down to the banks . . . trying to get their money back. . . . So, if they can’t buy foreign stocks, domestic stocks, don’t want to put their money in the bank and are getting out of real estate, then what’s left? The answer is gold. . . . I see a demand shock coming from China. . . . You could see a scramble to buy gold. It is going on anyway, but you could see it accelerate. That will take down the manipulation. Once the markets prevail over the manipulators, then watch out.”

Rickards says the collapse will happen, but he is not sure of when it will come. Rickards explains, “It is the thing you won’t see coming that will take the system down. Things happen much more quickly than what investors expect.” Rickards adds, “What will happen in gold is that it will chug along and then all of a sudden–boom. It will be up $100 an ounce, and then the next day it will be up another $200 an ounce. Then everyone will be on TV saying it’s a bubble—boom. It’s up $300 an ounce, and before you know it, it will be up $1,000 per ounce. Then people will say gee, I better get some gold, and they’ll find out they can’t get it because the big guy will get it. You know, like central banks and sovereign wealth funds will be able to get the gold. The typical investor will run down to the coin shop and they will be sold out, and the U.S. Mint will say sorry, we’re not shipping. You’re going to find out you can’t get it because the whole thing is set up for massive shortages in supply.”