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

If The Economy Will Collapse When The Fed Stops Printing Money Then Lets Keep Printing … Gawker's Hamilton Nolan concludes a discussion of the European Depression with his best Zero Hedge imitation: It's only a matter of time before the Fed stops pumping money into our economy and we deflate along with everyone else and then the demographic retirement bomb hits and we have fewer youn...Read More

Franken aims at reform of credit-rating system … What is Democratic Sen. Al Franken's big idea to clean up the credit rating system? Transparency. Franken, a junior senator from Minnesota, criticizes the Securities and Exchange Commission's inaction on a 2010 amendment he sponsored that would have eliminated conflicts of interest in the credit-rating business model. "Our financi...Read More

The IRS Was Dead Right To Scrutinize Tea Party … Lost in the latest political scandal is a simple fact: The Internal Revenue Service was acting in the public interest when it opted to train its auditing power on the Tea Party and affiliated groups. In castigating government as the root of all evil while portraying taxation as a form of tyranny, the Tea Party is no less than a mass celebratio...Read More

Mises' Answer to Would-Be Conspirators: You Will Lose … Over half a century ago, Ludwig von Mises made a crucial observation. The capitalistic social order, therefore, is an economic democracy in the strictest sense of the word. In the last analysis, all decisions are dependent on the will of the people as consumers. Thus, whenever there is a conflict between the consumers' views and...Read More

Hayek has become the patron saint of conservative intellectuals – and with good reason. He went head to head with John Maynard Keynes in 1931 in an effort to stop Keynesianism in its tracks. Hayek failed, but his attempt gave him mythical status among thinkers who deplore big government and central management of the economy. Hayek became a conservative hero a second time with publication of...Read More

Cameron and his party conspire to create a European shambles … The Prime Minister's concessions over the EU referendum have eroded his authority … The tragedy for David Cameron is that before this latest farcical episode of The Muppet Show, he had arrived at a perfectly sensible policy … – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: We are the Tories and have always stood agains...Read More

Why Has $1 Billion in Gold been Shipped from New York to South Africa? … In what may be the strangest story I have seen in a while related to the gold market, it appears $982 million worth of gold has left JFK international airport in New York to some undisclosed location in South Africa. While it remains unclear what purpose this gold serves, it seems the most likely explanation is to fulfi...Read More

The BoE has upgraded its outlook for growth and expects a faster fall in inflation, Sir Mervyn King said, offering a pleasant "parting gift" in his final inflation report as Governor. The Bank of England may revise up its 2013 growth forecasts today amid signs that the UK economy is turning a corner, as Sir Mervyn King prepares to present his final inflation report as the Bank's gove...Read More

US shale energy creates global oil 'supply shock' … Booming oil production in North America brought on by the shale energy revolution has created a global "supply shock" that is reshaping the industry, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday. Shale's inexorable rise could see the US cross over from being the world's leading importer of oil to a net exporter...Read More

Import prices fell in April due to a drop in oil costs, a positive sign for household finances that also pointed to benign inflation pressures … The tame inflation environment should allow the Federal Reserve to stay on its ultra-easy monetary policy course as it tries to nurse the economy back to health. – ReutersDominant Social Theme: Good thing this technology arrived when it did.Fr...Read More

Osborne: G7 agree to target tax evasion and avoidance … George Osborne co-chaired the two-day meeting in … The G7 group of industrialised nations have agreed that there must be collective action against tax evasion and avoidance, the UK's finance minister has said. Chancellor George Osborne said after the talks that it was "incredibly important" that firms and individuals...Read More

Quitting the EU won't solve our problems, says Boris Johnson … Britain's economic problems would not be solved by simply leaving the European Union, Boris Johnson warns. This country's workers are plagued by "sloth" and under-perform compared with their foreign rivals, says the London Mayor. Writing for The Daily Telegraph, he says that if Britain left the EU, "we...Read More

U.S. broadcast TV ratings slide pressures ad rates at 'upfronts' … The increased competition will force ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC to settle for their lowest average rate hikes in three years during the "upfront" selling season, Wall Street analysts say. During the upfronts, networks preview shows for their fall schedules, trying to persuade advertisers to buy billions of dollar...Read More

Gold Gets Gutted: Here's Why … Gold's been stuck in a pretty tight range, and it's losing ground … Gold dropped three percent Friday, suffering the worst decline of any widely followed commodity as it plunged to a two-week low. Many experts blamed the weakness on the U.S. dollar. The Dollar Index, which compares the dollar to a basket of foreign currencies, has risen nearly...Read More

Thinking Utopian: How about a universal basic income? … In light of the recent Oregon Medicaid study, several people have discussed the idea of taking parts of the social insurance system and replacing them with cash benefits. This naturally brings up the debate about whether it should be a policy goal for the United States to adopt a universal basic income (UBI). These poverty-level targete...Read More

Spain is officially insolvent: get your money out while you still can … I'd not noticed this until someone drew my attention to it, but the latest IMF Fiscal Monitor, published last month, comes about as close to declaring Spain insolvent as you are ever likely to see in official analysis of this sort. Of course, it doesn't actually say this outright. The IMF is far too diplomatic fo...Read More

Gold: 3 Essential Facts For Your Future …When any market crashes, it's a shock. For a real nose dive it normally takes something unexpected and dramatic to kick it off. If people had any idea of the reason or that it was coming then the fall would start early and be more shallow. Gold is misunderstood and it is viewed as "the mad metal", so here are three things to remember whe...Read More

The United States warned Japan on Friday to stick to the rules when it came to the value 6:07am EDT of its currency, setting the stage for a potentially uncomfortable meeting of G7 finance ministers outside London. There has been concern among policymakers that Japan is engineering an export-led recovery that could hinder other regions' ability to grow. – ReutersDominant Social Theme: Th...Read More

Stock Markets Rise, but Half of Americans Don't Benefit … Dollars to doughnuts. The stock market has been doing well, reaching new nominal highs in recent weeks. Economists have been arguing that such equity gains make people feel richer, which might encourage consumers to pick up their spending despite their stagnant wages and recent tax increases. One possible problem with this hopeful...Read More

In Mexico, if you read between the lines, there is something … that gets little mention … Héctor Aguilar Camín, an expert on the bilateral relationship, says the two countries are beginning to address on their own account two issues that were deliberately left out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) almost 20 years ago because at the time they were consider...Read More