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

Two-speed Britain as London soars away from the rest … In London, there are more cranes on the skyline than in the rest of the country put together. Evidence is growing that a recovery is under way, but there are now fears that only the south-east is benefiting, leaving the nation more divided. – The GuardianDominant Social Theme: This is an unpredictable element of the recovery.Free-M...Read More

Gen X Has New Reason to Resent Boomers as Retirement Looks Bleak … Generation X, the unlucky cohort of Americans who became young adults during the boom years of the 1990s only to suffer a midlife bust, is facing bleak retirement prospects, according to a study. The Pew Charitable Trusts said the typical Gen X couple, born between 1966 and 1975, only has enough savings to replace half of its...Read More

House lawmakers reach tentative deal to revamp immigration … Prospects for passage of a major immigration bill improved on Thursday when a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House of Representatives declared they had reached a tentative deal, resolving disputes that had threatened to torpedo negotiations. The breakthrough came at the end of a two-hour private meeting of seven Republican an...Read More

Credit Suisse: 'Gold Is Going To Get Crushed' … Bearish sentiment toward gold has prices for the yellow metal tumbling again. On Wednesday, George Soros revealed through a regulatory filing that he cut his gold exposure during the first quarter. In a new note to clients, Credit Suisse's Ric Deverall forecasted that gold would plunge to $1,100 this year and eventually to $1,000 wi...Read More

LONG before Baobab became a lowly journalist he scraped a living as a lowly academic. "If you're so clever why aren't you rich?" was a favourite tease of his less bookish but better-paid peers. The Africa Progress Report, prepared by an expert panel led by Kofi Annan, a former UN secretary-general, was unveiled last week at the World Economic Forum conference in Cape Town, and de...Read More

According to the economic history books, the one great conference that resolved [global economic] tension – for a quarter century – was "Bretton Woods," a convocation of 44 countries in the White Mountains of New Hampshire less than a month after D-Day and the beginning of the end for the axis powers in World War II. What would the post-war world economy look like? That was t...Read More

'Dreaded' Unwinding Easier Said Than Done … It ought to be the clearest sign yet that the crisis is over. The Wall Street Journal's Fed-Watcher-In-Chief Jon Hilsenrath has told us that the U.S. central bank has 'mapped out' a way to dial back its mighty $85 billion- a-month bond-buying program. We don't yet know precisely how and we don't conference in Chicago, Fr...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