Gold has big year in 2020 and outlook for this year robust. Learn about monetary expansion and gold future prices.Read More

The gold futures price reached US$1,767/ounce this week before retreating, which was the second time it has surpassed US$1,760 in the past two months, marking some of gold's highest levels in several years.Read More

Deflation Isn't What's Holding Europe Back … As the European Central Bank gets ready for quantitative easing, overriding German arguments that buying government debt creates moral hazard in debt-laden countries, it is reacting to the threat of deflation. Yet slow-growing prices aren't at the heart of what ails the euro area, and QE won't fix the deeper problems that are. &nda...Read More

Obama Urges Congress To Renew Push For "CISPA-style" Internet Laws After Sony Hack … This week, Obama announced a renewed push for tighter internet regulations in congress, citing the need for additional cyber-security in light of the recent hack on Sony. The White House has been taking this opportunity to initiate strategies that had already been planned for years. … During...Read More

Uncle Sam stoked to hash out marijuana in 2015 … It's high time for Uncle Sam to hash out America's marijuana situation. Now that four states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational cannabis better regulation is warranted for commerce and safety reasons alone. Without the federal government tweaking laws to consent to the will of the states, the fledgling industry wi...Read More

Nearly 1 in 10 U.S. Families Don't Exchange Holiday Gifts … Forty-four-year old Michelle Morton's Christmas celebration probably doesn't look like yours — but you might wish it did. That's because, for the past few years, the Raleigh, N.C., resident and her sisters and husband have instituted a no-gift policy for the holidays. "It was stressful and expensive gettin...Read More

The Government Problem … Some believe the central political issue of our era is the size of the government. They're wrong. The central issue is whom the government is for. Consider the new spending bill Congress and the President agreed to a few weeks ago. It's not especially large by historic standards. Under the $1.1 trillion measure, government spending doesn't rise as a perce...Read More

U.S. Stocks Rise; Dow Ends Above 18000 … Strong U.S. GDP Data Fuel Stock-Market Gains The DJIA hits a milestone following strong GDP data …The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 18000 for the first time Tuesday after data showed the U.S. economy posted its strongest growth in more than a decade. The blue-chip index climbed 64.73 points, or 0.4%, to 18024.17, marking its 36th rec...Read More

OPEC will not cut output even at $20 a barrel … OPEC will not cut oil production even if the price drops to $20 a barrel and it is unfair to expect the cartel to reduce output if non-members do not, Saudi Arabia said. "Whether it goes down to $20 a barrel, $40, $50, $60, it is irrelevant," the kingdom's Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said in an interview with the Middle East Economi...Read More

Central Bankers Weren't Meant to Be Heroes … The U.S. recovery is starting to look halfway respectable. Europe's economies, meanwhile, face the risk of a third recession in seven years. There's a lesson in that contrast: Good economic policy means never having to ask your central bank to be a hero … Sadly … heroic central bankers are all too likely to remain in demand...Read More

Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses … Since the day President Obama took office, he has failed to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects — an official government program conceived and carried out in the years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He did allow his Justice Department to investigate the C.I.A.'s destruction of videotapes of torture s...Read More

Investigators Said to Seek No Penalty for C.I.A.'s Computer Search … A panel investigating the Central Intelligence Agency's search of a computer network used by staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who were looking into the C.I.A.'s use of torture will recommend against punishing anyone involved in the episode, according to current and former government officials....Read More

Colombia Is One Of Latin America's Most Promising New Tech Hubs … Ten years ago, the idea that Colombia would become a burgeoning hub for any dynamic industry beyond its notorious drug trade would have struck most observers as far-fetched. As recently as the turn of the century, conventional wisdom had it that the tropical, Andean nation was on the verge of becoming a failed state. Fast...Read More

US stocks leap after Fed signals patience on rates … U.S. stocks surged on Thursday, extending Wall Street's best day of the year, after the Federal Reserve said it would be patient in increasing interest rates. Equities came off session highs, however, as oil turned lower. – CNBCDominant Social Theme: Things are looking really good for the dollar and US stocks. Who expected this,...Read More

Maybe There's No Such Thing as a Business Cycle … Is the U.S. economy's current expansion past its sell-by date? Will we soon go back to the employment levels we had before 2008, or did the recession do lasting damage? Macroeconomists wrestle with these questions, but usually without much success. To understand why it's so hard to predict business cycles, you need to realize that...Read More

Frothy.com … A new tech bubble seems to be inflating. But when it pops, it should cause less damage than the dotcom crash of 2000 … In December, 15 years ago the dotcom crash was a few weeks away. Veterans of that fiasco may notice some familiar warning signs this festive season … Janet Yellen, the head of the Federal Reserve, has warned that social-media firms are overvalued&mda...Read More

Deflation Stalks the Globe … Crude oil trading at less than $60 a barrel for the first time in five years means lower gasoline prices and more money in consumer's pockets, right? And the knock-on effect of driving down consumer prices is great for everyone, correct? And the global economy needs all the help it can get as it drags itself out of recession, so what's not to love about l...Read More

Russia's Problems Are Everyone's Problems … "Cyprus with nukes." That's how someone, maybe me, referred to Russia in an IM conversation this morning. It's not really a fair comparison; Russia is a vast country loaded with natural resources, not a tiny island banking haven. But it does express a very real fear: that the world is about to experience a major financial...Read More

EXCLUSIVE: New York Mag's Boy Genius Investor Made It All Up … In an exclusive Observer interview, Mohammed Islam, said to have investment returns of $72 million as a hs senior, admits he invented the whole story … It's been a tough month for fact-checking. After the Rolling Stone campus rape story unraveled, readers of all publications can be forgiven for questioning the proce...Read More

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Why Paul Krugman is wrong … Central banks can always create inflation if they try hard enough … He is wrong that you cannot create inflation when interest rates are at the zero bound, says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard … Professor Paul Krugman is the world's most influential commentator on economic issues by a wide margin. – UK TelegraphDominant Socia...Read More

Waters Warm, and Cod Catch Ebbs in Maine … In the vast gulf that arcs from Massachusetts's shores to Canada's Bay of Fundy, cod was once king. It paid for fishermen's boats, fed their families and put their children through college. In one halcyon year in the mid-1980s, the codfish catch reached 25,000 tons. Today, the cod population has collapsed. Last month, regulators effectiv...Read More

There Is No Retirement Crisis … You're probably going to be hearing a lot about a "retirement crisis" over the next few years. And Democrats think they know just what to do about it. Some academics are convinced that Americans aren't saving enough, or being provided enough by the government, to sustain themselves in old age. Many Democrats think their party hasn't adequ...Read More