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

Texas Puts Marijuana Reform on Legislative Agenda for 2015— Marijuana reform in Texas has been a long time coming, but as the end of this momentous year in cannabis legalization draws to a close, it is now on the legislative road map of reform, potentially as soon as 2015. The State Legislature plans to take up decriminalization in January, on the heels of states around states around the cou...Read More

Nanny State… The Best Regulator? That's Easy. It's the Market. … As the Goldman Sachs tapes show, regulators almost always fail. In other cases, they cheat consumers out of choices. Leave it to the market. – The Daily BeastDominant Social Theme: Regulation … what good is it?Free-Market Analysis: Remarkably, we continue to see articles about regulatory capture. The l...Read More

Behind the Mask of Altruism: Imperialism, Monsanto and the Gates Foundation in Africa … Since 2006, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to the tune of almost $420 million. Activists from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Ethiopia recently attended the US-Africa Food Sovereignty Strategy Summit in Seattle to argue...Read More

The height of idiocy: US Government hijacks the whole Swiss banking system … True story … One of our SMC members just received a package from HSBC giving him and his wife a deadline to comply with FATCA—US' global tax law … Suddenly they had just four weeks to prove that they were not US taxpayers, all because at one point they had purchased a service that gave them a U...Read More

Whole Foods to roll out rankings for produce… Whole Foods plans to start rolling out a system that ranks fruits and vegetables as "good," ''better" or "best" based on the supplier's farming practices. Most notably, the supermarket chain says its "responsibly grown" labeling system for produce and flowers will prohibit the use of several common p...Read More

The great Lira revolt has begun in Italy … Italy's Five Star Movement has thrown down the gauntlet, calling for a euro referendum to end depression and save democracy, writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard … The die is cast in Italy. Beppe Grillo's Five Star movement has launched a petition to drive for Italian withdrawal from Europe's monetary union and for the restoration of eco...Read More

Government wants farmers to quit farming … It seems that U.S. companies would follow the unprecedented action of Japan's equivalent to WalMart if they could figure out how to force farmers to quit farming their land and let the companies grow food crops exactly as they think is "sustainable agriculture." – AgProfessionalDominant Social Themes: Farmers have to work more ef...Read More

Nobel for Charles Barkley of Economics … If you could summarize Tirole's area of research in a single sentence, it would be about corporations. One might think that corporations are one of the easiest, most natural things for economists to study, but one would be wrong – in fact, many economists wonder why corporations even exist … Notice that Tirole's work on regulation...Read More

To grow cheap marijuana, Italy calls in the army – Italy legalized marijuana for medical use last year, but the high cost of buying legal pot in a pharmacy meant few people signed up. Now, the government has found a solution: get the army to grow it. Starting next year, a high-security lab in a military compound in Florence will grow cannabis for Italy's health care system in an experime...Read More

Stocks in Dubai crashed 6.5% on Sunday. This was the biggest drop in four months and brings the Dubai Financial Market General Index to its lowest level since July 20, according to Bloomberg. Dubai, which like many Middle East exchanges is open from Sunday to Thursday, led a broad sell-off in Middle East stocks, as markets in Israel, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia also sold off on Sunday. – Busines...Read More

Last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) agencies investigated the appearance of what appeared to be GE wheat on an Oregon farm, and concluded that it was an isolated incident. The investigation was closed after 'exhausting all leads,' but new GMO wheat has been detected at the Montana State University's Southern Ag...Read More

Google's Schmidt: Surveillance fears are going to end up breaking the Internet … Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore) took the opportunity to slam National Security Agency surveillance work as part of an unacceptable "digital dragnet." But the hour-long session quickly shifted from talk about the digital economy to the risks posed by government surveillance programs to human-to-human communi...Read More

Time For Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws To Meet The Same Fate As Jim Crow … One of the greatest political philosophers, Frederic Bastiat, wrote that the law should exist to protect life, liberty, and property, but unfortunately is often perverted into a means of "legal plunder." In other words, the law is used to legitimize the use of force to deprive people of their wealth. – F...Read More

Today's Markets – U.S. Stocks Rally After Fed Minutes Point to Caution on Interest Rates … U.S. stocks soared Wednesday to their biggest single-day gain this year, after meeting minutes from the Federal Reserve suggested the central bank would move cautiously on raising rates. The rally was a sharp reversal from a steep Tuesday drop on worries about international economic growth. U...Read More

Vaccine may be only way to bring Ebola under control in West Africa … As West Africa's Ebola outbreak continues to rage, some experts are coming to the conclusion that it may take large amounts of vaccines and maybe even drugs – all still experimental and in short supply – to bring the outbreak under control … "It may just keep going and going and it might require...Read More

Swiss Gold Initiative Would Hamper SNB Policy, Government Says … Asking the Swiss National Bank to hold a fixed portion of its assets in gold would hinder monetary policy, the government said today. Switzerland will vote on the initiative "Save Our Swiss Gold" on Nov. 30 that would force the central bank to hold at least twenty percent of its assets in gold. It would also forbid th...Read More

We've learned nothing in the Middle East. That isn't going to change. If you thought that two disastrous wars in the Middle East spread over 13 miserable years might cure Washington of its delusion that the next war will solve all our problems, you were wrong. The truth is that the people in power and contending for power have learned nothing. And guess what: two years from now, somebody i...Read More

Gold tumbles as US economy shows more signs of strength … The strengthening US economy has helped send gold prices below $US1200 per ounce … Strong US jobs data on Friday fuelled expectations that the US Federal Reserve will start hiking interest rates soon, sparking a 2 per cent slump in the gold price that took it to a four-year low. The precious metal on Monday extended the fall, sl...Read More

Cannabis dissolves cancerous tumor in young infant, deemed a 'miracle baby' by physician … Instead of opting for chemotherapy and radiation in an attempt to shrink an inoperable brain tumor, the father of an eight-month-old baby pushed for alternative treatment with cannabis oil. – Natural News/FitLifeTVDominant Social Theme: Cannabis is for hippies and losers.Free-Market Analy...Read More

Well This Is Just Embarrassing For The Fed Haters Business … One of the most infuriating things about the Fed haters — i.e. the people who predicted massive inflation and dollar debasement as a result of quantitative easing — is that they've never really admitted they got it all wrong. Maybe a few have, but for the most part, the people predicting doom and gloom and Weimar Ge...Read More