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

Aging Nations Like Low Prices Over High Income: Cutting Research … An elderly woman walks through a shopping street in Okayama, Japan. Wealth effects differ the world over as consumers in Europe and Japan are less affected by changes in equity and home prices than those in the U.S. The older a country's population, the lower its inflation rate, posing a challenge for central banks in the...Read More

The threat of “deviant” globalisation … The threat of “deviant” globalisation And yet it seems hardly surprising. Nor does it seem any more damaging than regular globalisation. A smart member of the global warrior elite “discovers” the next big threat … This convergence is what Stavridis calls “the dark side of globalization.” – The...Read More

IMF: Our Greek bailout was full of 'notable failures'… The International Monetary Fund has published a scathing internal self-assessment of its bailout of Greece three years ago. It isn't pretty. The IMF underestimated the damage that fiscal austerity would do to the Greek economy in its earliest rescue of the nation in 2010. It was too slow to promote a write-down of the nation&...Read More

The Obama climate move that nobody noticed … The Obama administration just made a fairly significant move on climate change, and it flew right under the radar … The [social cost of carbon] estimates using the updated versions of the models are higher than those reported in the 2010 [report]. By way of comparison, the four 2020 SCC estimates reported in the 2010 [report] were $7, $26, $...Read More

There's a worse crisis on the way unless we get serious about tackling debt … For all of the talk of austerity, Britain is still drowning in debt, private as well as public. 'Together, families and non-financial firms' debt is still worth 208pc of GDP and is merely back to levels last seen in mid-2007, a time when leverage was already utterly unsustainable. – UK TelegraphDo...Read More

Property prices turn one in five middle aged workers into paper millionaires … One in five middle aged people in Britain is a millionaire – on paper at least, a study of official figures shows. It has previously been estimated that around one in 10 people are living in millionaire households but the new analysis shows among some groups the figures is almost three times that. … In...Read More

MPs warned: block referendum law and it will be 'hung around your necks' … Politicians who attempt to block new legislation to ensure there will be a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU will have their actions "hung around their necks", the Conservative MP behind the proposed laws warns today. – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: There is no need for deba...Read More

Brazil calls in army to defuse conflicts over Indian lands … President Dilma Rousseff's government said on Tuesday it would send 110 federal troops to the Brazilian farm state of Mato Grosso do Sul to try to prevent more violence between Indians claiming their ancestral territory and ranchers. The government has been struggling to defuse tensions with indigenous tribes over farmland in s...Read More

The Fed and Inequality … Is the Federal Reserve a driving force behind the post-recession growth in inequality? It's a provocative idea, voiced by writers including Neil Irwin and Robert Frank. It is certainly true that inequality, in terms of both income and wealth, has widened since the recession. A study by the lauded economist Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley,...Read More

'Tuned Out' Investors Under Spell of QE: BIS … Equity markets shrugged off weak economic data and uncertainty in recent weeks and continued to extend their "relentless" gains fueled by the prospect of further stimulus, leaving them more vulnerable to shocks, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) said on Monday. – CNBCDominant Social Theme: The BIS is very worrie...Read More

The Economist explains… How did the global poverty rate halve in 20 years? Poverty is easy to spot but hard to define. America sets its poverty line at $11,490 of income per year for a one-person household, or just over $30 a day. Any income below that amount is judged inadequate for the provision of fundamental wants. Other rich countries set their poverty lines in relative terms, so an inc...Read More

Retirement at 70 will be 'new norm' … Retiring at 70 will soon be the "new norm", as the number of Britons saving enough for old age reaches an all-time low. Less than half of Britons are saving enough for their twilight years, according to Scottish Widows. – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: Save more. Spend less. Simple.Free-Market Analysis: Is it an idle question...Read More

IRS woes grow with report of conference spending … The Internal Revenue Service, already under fire after officials disclosed that the agency targeted conservative groups, faces increased scrutiny because of an inspector general's report that it spent about $50 million to hold at least 220 conferences for employees between 2010 and 2012. The report by the Treasury Department's inspec...Read More

Enough shale gas to change UK energy balance, says IGas UK shale gas explorer … IGas says its licence area in northwest England could hold enough gas to meet the country's entire consumption for over five years, dwarfing a previous forecast and national proven reserves. IGas chief Andrew Austin said only some of the vast shale gas reserves would be recoverable but still had the potential...Read More

Abe Offers $32 Billion to Africa as Japan Seeks Resources … Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged 3.2 trillion yen ($32 billion) to Africa as his government seeks to catch up with China in pursuing resources, markets and influence on the continent. Abe announced the five-year commitment of public and private support in a speech today at the Tokyo International Conference on African Deve...Read More

European countries to be allowed to ease austerity… The European Commission has said it will allow some EU member states to slow their pace of austerity cuts, amid concerns over growth. France, Spain, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands and Slovenia are all being given more time to complete their austerity plans. France will get two more years to bring its budget deficit below 3% of GDP. Commi...Read More

Eurozone unemployment reaches new record … The seasonally-adjusted rate for April was 12.2%, up from 12.1% the month before. An extra 95,000 people were out of work in the 17 countries that use the euro, taking the total to 19.38 million. Both Greece and Spain have jobless rates above 25%. The lowest unemployment rate is in Austria at 4.9%. The European Commission's statistics office, Eu...Read More

Households Still Haven't Rebuilt Lost Wealth … Americans have recovered only 45% of the wealth they lost during the recession, adjusted for inflation, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis estimated. The findings were released as part of the St. Louis Fed's 2012 annual report, which was made public on Thursday. In the report, the Midwestern bank announced the launch of a new Center f...Read More

Tiananmen group condemns Chinese leader Xi Jinping … Relatives of victims of the 1989 Tiananmen killings have criticised Chinese President Xi Jinping for failing to initiate political reform. The open letter, from the Tiananmen Mothers group, came ahead of the 4 June anniversary of the crackdown. It also came as Mr Xi departed for a tour of Latin America and the Caribbean that will culminate...Read More

Is the Dollar Dying? Why US Currency Is in Danger … The U.S dollar is shrinking as a percentage of the world's currency supply, raising concerns that the greenback is about to see its long run as the world's premier denomination come to an end. When compared to its peers, the dollar has drifted to a 15-year low, according to the International Monetary Fund, indicating that more count...Read More