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

The Government Wants to Buy 12 Acres of Marijuana – for Research …The NIH is looking for pot farmers. An arm of the National Institutes of Health dedicated to researching drug abuse and addiction "intends" to solicit proposals from those who can "harvest, process, analyze, store and distribute" cannabis, according to a listing posted Tuesday night on a federal gover...Read More

The Sky Is Falling on Chinese Corporations … The four largest banks in China, the banks that have to officially show big profits and profit growth no matter what because they're an integral part not only of the government but also of China's miraculous debt-driven expansion, are showing officially tolerated signs of increasing stress. – WolfStreetDominant Social Theme: There ar...Read More

Icahn, Soros, Druckenmiller, And Now Zell: The Billionaires Are All Quietly Preparing For The Plunge … "The stock market is at an all-time, but economic activity is not at an all-time," explains billionaire investor Sam Zell to CNBC this morning, adding that, "every company that's missed has missed on the revenue side, which is a reflection that there's a demand issue;...Read More

US Signs Agreement with Mexico to Protect Mexican Workers–Including Illegals … At a signing ceremony … the U.S. government, through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Mexican government to allow Mexican Nationals – regardless of immigration status – to "exercise their workplace rights.&quo...Read More

Current Congress might be history's worst at passing laws … It seems like there's not a whole lot being accomplished in the Capitol with the current group of legislators. The current Congress is on track to be the worst ever at passing laws since modern record-keeping began, with three of its lawmakers failing to introduce a single bill, The Post has learned. The divided House and Se...Read More

Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we're nearing collapse … Four decades after the book was published, Limit to Growth's forecasts have been vindicated by new Australian research. Expect the early stages of global collapse to start appearing soon … The 1972 book Limits to Growth, which predicted our civilisation would probably collapse some time this century, has be...Read More

Fed: US consumers have decided to 'hoard money' … One of the great mysteries of the post-financial crisis world is why the U.S. has lacked inflation despite all the money being pumped into the economy. The St. Louis Federal Reserve thinks it has the answer: A paper the central bank branch published this week blames the low level of money movement in large part on consumers and their...Read More

To Save the Rich, China Ruins Hong Kong … When they meet on Sunday, legislators from China's rubber-stamp National People's Congress are expected to disregard even the most moderate proposals to open up Hong Kong's political system. In all likelihood the decision will provoke street protests, drive moderates into the more radical pro-democracy camp and call into question the form...Read More

Why we're so blase about global warming … If you don't regard global warming as a serious problem, your company is growing. According to the survey jockeys at Pew Research Center, the percentage of Americans who think global warming is "very serious" or "somewhat serious" has declined since 2006 (from 79 percent to 65 percent). While a firm majority still consider...Read More

Germany to Europe: Help Isn't on the Way … German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has bad news for anyone hoping the European Central Bank will ride to the rescue of the ailing euro region: Monetary policy has come to the end of its instruments. I don't think ECB monetary policy has the instruments to fight deflation, to be quite frank. What we urgently need is investments, regai...Read More

Several Swiss banks pull out of US tax programme … At least 10 Swiss banks have withdrawn from a U.S. programme aimed at settling a tax dispute between them and the United States, Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag said on Sunday, quoting unnamed sources. Around 100 Swiss banks came forward at the end of last year to work with U.S. authorities in a programme brokered by the Swiss government to h...Read More

The criminalisation of American business … Corporate settlements in the United States The criminalisation of American business Companies must be punished when they do wrong, but the legal system has become an extortion racket … Who runs the world's most lucrative shakedown operation? The Sicilian mafia? The People's Liberation Army in China? The kleptocracy in the Kremlin? If y...Read More

EU to ban high-energy hair dryers, smartphones and kettles … European Union to ban dozens of high-wattage household electrical appliances in follow-up to controversial ban on powerful vacuum cleaners. A European Commission study, that is still being completed, has identified up to 30 electrical appliances to be covered by the EU's Ecodesign directive outlawing high-wattage devices includ...Read More

Economics Isn't Science or Literature … Economists use many of the same tools as scientists and engineers — matrix algebra, multiple regression, control theory. But they don't use them in the same way. In economics — especially macroeconomics — the goal is often to persuade other people of your point of view. As Federal Reserve economist Kartik Athreya writes in his...Read More

Prescription Painkiller Deaths Fall Almost 25% in Medical Marijuana States … A study that recently appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows a significant decrease in opiate overdoses in states that have adopted and implemented medical marijuana laws compared to states that have not. The authors showed that although opiate overdoses rose in states without medical mari...Read More

Colonization by Bankruptcy: The High-stakes Chess Match for Argentina … Argentina is playing hardball with the vulture funds, which have been trying to force it into an involuntary bankruptcy. The vultures are demanding what amounts to a 600% return on bonds bought for pennies on the dollar, defeating a 2005 settlement in which 92% of creditors agreed to accept a 70% haircut on their bonds....Read More

It Begins: Council On Foreign Relations Proposes That "Central Banks Should Hand Consumers Cash Directly" … A year ago, when it became abundantly clear that all of the Fed's attempts to boost the economy have failed, leading instead to a record divergence between the "1%" who were benefiting from the Fed's artificial inflation of financial assets … and every...Read More

German economy 'losing steam' as business confidence plunges again … Survey of optimism among companies adds to gloom enveloping Europe's biggest economy … Germany's businesses are rapidly losing confidence in the prospect of a recovery in the eurozone, in a further blow to the single currency's biggest economy. Companies' assessment of the business climate is n...Read More

Uber taxi service banned in Berlin on safety grounds… German capital follows Hamburg with vote to ban taxi app firm, saying it does not protect passengers from unlicensed drivers … Berlin has voted to ban Uber on safety grounds as the app-enabled taxi service continues to run up against resistance in Germany. Officials said the Californian company, which operates in 110 cities around t...Read More

Here's what it will take to trigger the next stock market correction … As Wall Street hit another new record Thursday, it is worth considering what could cause a serious setback in stock market prices around the world. Since I started writing this column in 2012, I have repeatedly argued that the rebound in stock market prices from their nadir in the 2008-09 global financial crisis was t...Read More