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

Suspicions Run Deep in Iraq That C.I.A. and the Islamic State Are United … The United States has conducted an escalating campaign of deadly airstrikes against the extremists of the Islamic State for more than a month. But that appears to have done little to tamp down the conspiracy theories still circulating from the streets of Baghdad to the highest levels of Iraqi government that the C.I.A...Read More

Fed and TWTR Overvaluation, Evidence of Looming Market Crash … The Federal Reserve Wednesday reassured investors that it will hold interest rates near zero for a "considerable time" after it ends the bond-buying program known as quantitative easing in October. In response, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (,DJI) closed at a new record high. Former Director of the Office of Manageme...Read More

Kim Dotcom, Online Renegade, Shakes Up New Zealand Election … It was not an ordinary political rally, but it has been anything but an ordinary election. The hundreds of people who packed Auckland Town Hall on a recent evening were regaled by speeches by Glenn Greenwald, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder; and Edward J. Snowden, the former National Secu...Read More

Federal Reserve Catch of the Day: Obama's Damaging Neglect of the Fed …The Catch goes to Matt Yglesias, who writes today about "the biggest mistake of Obama's presidency: the systematic neglect of the Federal Reserve and of his ability to influence its course of action." Yglesias notes that two Fed seats remain vacant and without nominees. He gives the sorry history of disr...Read More

Alone, Scotland will go back to being a failed state … Yes supporters are hoping Scotland will become a Scandinavian paradise. But with its history of bitter internal divisions, it is likely to go the opposite way. The Union was a success partly because it sublimated the bitter Scottish divisions in a larger United Kingdom. – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: What a disaster. The worl...Read More

Competition Is for Losers … If you want to create and capture lasting value, look to build a monopoly, writes Peter Thiel … Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits. What valuable company is nobody building? This question is harder than it looks, because your company could create a lot of value without becoming very valuab...Read More

The US is now involved in 134 wars or none, depending on your definition of war …The White House spent much of last week trying to figure out if the word "war" was the right one to describe its military actions against the Islamic State. US Secretary of State John Kerry was at first reluctant: "We're engaged in a major counterterrorism operation," he told CBS News on...Read More

It was the time of unraveling. Long afterward, in the ruins, people asked: How could it happen? It was a time of beheadings. With a left-handed sawing motion, against a desert backdrop, in bright sunlight, a Muslim with a British accent cut off the heads of two American journalists and a British aid worker. The jihadi seemed comfortable in his work, unhurried. His victims were broken. Terror is th...Read More

Only a monetary 'nuclear bomb' can save Italy now, says Mediobanca …The OECD has drastically cut its growth forecast for Italy. The depression will drag on though most of 2015. The economy will contract by 0.4pc this year. It will remain stuck in the doldrums next year with growth of just 0.1pc. If so, Italy's public debt will spiral to dangerous levels next year, ever further be...Read More

Europe's Weak Because It's Uncompetitive … In the long-running debate over Europe's feeble economic recovery, monetary policy has taken center stage as if printing money to spur demand can solve Europe's troubles. According to two newly released competitiveness reports, the real problem lies elsewhere: labor costs, which have been growing faster than productivity, and underin...Read More

Warren Buffett's company subsidiary is marketing pot-growing spaces … Talk about savvy marketing. Cubic Designs Inc., a subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has sent hundreds of fliers to weed dispensaries in Colorado, Washington, and California. "Double your growing space," one flier reads in capital letters, while another page adds, "Grow your prof...Read More

Fragmentation fashion across Europe means German hegemony, if we're lucky … The German people so far remain a bastion of rationalism, holding together as others tear themselves apart. Europe is disintegrating. Two large and ancient kingdoms are near the point of rupture as Spain follows Britain into constitutional crisis, joined like Siamese twins. – TelegraphDominant Social Theme:...Read More

Professional Investors Are Preparing For A Stock Market Crash … It looks like a growing number of professional investors are preparing for a stock market crash, as hedge fund filings for the second quarter show a spike in defensive positions. In particular, legendary billionaire George Soros made a huge bet against the market. He increased his short position on the Standard & Poor's...Read More

Don't Let the Dark Ages Happen Here … Last month, Iranian-born Stanford mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani became the first woman to win the prestigious Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics. Congratulations are in order. Mirzakhani did her work here in the U.S., which illustrates an unhappy fact: Central Asian scientists are forced to come to the U.S. to do pioneering work because...Read More

The mishandling of the Scottish referendum shows exactly why Westminster is so hated … The political establishment down here in the Westminster village has been stung into hyperactivity by the sudden surge of support for the Yes campaign in Scotland. Without very much discussion with their own parties Ed Milliband and David Cameron have reached a joint conclusion: that Scotland's discont...Read More

How Europe's low inflation impedes fiscal and structural reform … Europe does not yet have its equivalent of Japan's Abenomics, but Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, pretty much advocated it in his press conference last week. Europe, he said, needs fiscal, monetary and structural policy working together, the three arrows of Abenomics. He acknowledged the ECB's...Read More

New Report: World Leaders Call For Ending Criminalization of Drug Use and Possession and Responsible Legal Regulation of Psychoactive Substances: Former Presidents of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland Join With Kofi Annan, Richard Branson, George Shultz, Paul Volcker And Others To Make Bold, New Recommendations for Major Paradigm Shift in Global Drug Policy on the R...Read More

U.S. Economy Still Missing: 3.9 Million Prime-Age Jobs … Today's U.S. jobs report, which showed nonfarm payrolls increasing by a meager 142,000 jobs and the unemployment rate falling 0.1 percentage point to 6.1 percent in August, will undoubtedly rekindle a familiar debate: How much more should the Federal Reserve do to put people back to work? – BloombergDominant Social Theme: The...Read More

India prepares for shining return of gold demand … Festival season is kicking off in India – a period in which gold sales traditionally spike in the world's largest consumer market for the precious metal. This year investors are watching the key market particularly closely, following a period of muted demand when bourses have rallied and supply has been choked. The recently elected...Read More

Mario Draghi cannot launch QE without German political assent … It is surely wishful thinking to suppose that the ECB is ready to launch full-fledged QE, given its political make-up … Mario Draghi's comments on the eurozone economy at Jackson Hole have put him in direct conflict with Berlin – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: These last five years have been a problem, but no...Read More