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With oil now hitting record highs and gold well off mid-May levels, the gold-oil ratio continues to shrink. Today, one ounce of gold only buys 8.57 barrels of oil - a ratio of 0.11.Oil hit a fresh record high of $75.78 a barrel today, boosted by strong demand in the United States and global tension ranging from Iran's nuclear work to North Korea's missile tests. Prices drew early support from a U.S. government report yesterday showing gasoline demand grew by 1.4% in the last four weeks from a year ago, with summer driving months still head. But rebel attacks in...

I'm very bearish on the U.S. dollar and have been for years. That's why I have so many of them. This sounds like a contradiction, but let me explain. The reason I have so many dollars, even though I think they're worth less and less, is because I don't hang on to them. In my mind, cash is trash. One of the reasons why we have this enormous gap between the world's haves and have-nots is because the have-nots value money -- they work for it, save it, cling to it, and lose it.A friend just bought a new SUV....

MASSIVE WORLD SPECULATION DOMINOS by Christopher Laird PrudentSquirrel.com http://www.prudentsquirrel.com/ March 20, 2006 Last year, many Asian and other foreign stock markets went up as much as 50%. There is a synchronized world housing bubble that is a very analogous follow on bubble from the Japan collapses in the early 90’s, and the Fed loosening following 9-11. We had the tech bubble crash in 2000/1, and a have now a general US stock bubble that is yet to really pop. Right now, we are about at the same DOW level before the market collapses in 2001/2. There is a massive US...

How Economic News is Spun Paul Craig Roberts Friday, March 3, 2006 Readers ask me to reconcile the jobs and debt data that I report to them with the positive economic outlook and good news that comes to them from regular news sources. Some readers are being snide, but most are sincere. I am pleased to provide the explanation. First, let me give my reassurances that the numbers I report to you come straight from official U.S. government statistics. I do not massage the numbers or rework them in any way. I cannot assure you that the numbers are perfectly...

The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse Krassimir Petrov, Ph.D.January 15, 2006 Abstract: the proposed Iranian Oil Bourse will accelerate the fall of the American Empire. I. Economics of Empires A nation-state taxes its own citizens, while an empire taxes other nation-states. The history of empires, from Greek and Roman, to Ottoman and British, teaches that the economic foundation of every single empire is the taxation of other nations. The imperial ability to tax has always rested on a better and stronger economy, and as a consequence, a better and stronger military. One part of the subject taxes went to improve the...

The prospect of further rises in interest rates in the eurozone unnerved both equity and bond markets on Thursday. ... The price of silver rose to a fresh 22-year high above $10 an ounce amid expectations that a silver exchange-traded fund would soon receive US regulatory approval.

Over the past few days, December 21st — when our first Hindenburg Omen (of whatever cluster is coming) — and Thursday December 22nd, the Federal Reserve has conducted one of the largest two-day Repo injections of money into the system since back in September 2001. On Wednesday they added $18.0 billion in reserves and on Thursday they added another $20.0 billion. Is this a coincidence, coming right as we get another Hindenburg Omen? Probably not. Is something high-risk going on behind the scenes here? Let’s review some facts at the Fed. On November 10th, 2005, shortly after appointing Bernanke to...

Has anyone heard anything?

An article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal discussed how self-proclaimed “Depression buff” Ben Bernanke claims understanding of how the Fed caused the Great Depression and precisely what he would do to prevent such a calamity from reoccurring under his tenure. Not only are his assertions naïve and egotistical, but flat-out absurd. Though he claims to have studied The Great Depression in depth, Bernanke is completely clueless as to its actual cause. However, he is partially right about one thing: the Fed did help create the Depression, but for the opposite reasons Bernanke believes. The Fed-induced credit boom of the roaring...

The price of gold has continued to rise in Asian trading, climbing to its highest level since 1981. Gains came despite concerns that the market may be set for a correction and some analysts are now predicting that prices have even higher to go. Precious metals have been given a boost as investors look to protect themselves against higher inflation and weakening currencies such as the Japanese yen. Gold climbed as high as $522.70 an ounce, before falling back. It was hovering around the $521 mark during afternoon trading in Asia. 'Dizzy high' "There's some profit-taking now, but look at...

The price of gold passed $500 an ounce last week, its highest level since the late 1980s. This is either an ominous development—or it isn't... If you'd lived a century ago, gold would have been the basis of your money. Great Britain dominated the global gold standard; its currency, the pound, was freely convertible into gold... On April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered Americans to surrender their gold coin; the country effectively went on a paper-money standard... Higher demand collides with constricted supplies; wham, prices rise... Gold is an unending mystery, because its value lies less in what...

December 5, 2005 The market price for an ounce of gold rose to over $500 last week, a significant milestone for economists watching precious metals and commodities markets. The last time gold topped $500 was December 1987, in the wake of the “Black Monday” stock market collapse earlier that fall. Gold prices historically rise when faith in paper currencies erodes, as investors seek the intrinsic value of gold to protect themselves from inflation. It’s interesting to note that while the U.S. dollar has regained some of its value relative to other paper currencies like the Euro, it continues to lose...

As gold flirts with 20-year highs, we are hearing more from the "gold bugs" or, as they are sometimes appropriately called, the "doom-and-gloomers". Appropriately, because a gold bug's current outlook for the future of traditional financial assets such as stocks, bonds and currencies is not optimistic, particularly in the US. A gold bug traces today's financial problems back to the removal of gold backing from global currencies; without such backing, there is no limit to the amount of money that politicians and the banking system can create. Monetary inflation inevitably leads to price inflation, and creates asset bubbles and excess...

"All the perplexities, confusion and distresses in America arise not from defects in the Constitution or confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, as much from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation." [1] Abstract Ignorantia juris non excusat (ignorance of the law does not excuse) is a well established principle dating back thousands of years. Roman and English law, precursors of the American system of jurisprudence, both recognized the maxim. Be it not forgotten – justice excuses not the law. The laws of the land are to be made in pursuance of the Constitution. The...

On March 23, 2006, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System will cease publication of the M3 monetary aggregate. The Board will also cease publishing the following components: large-denomination time deposits, repurchase agreements (RPs), and Eurodollars. The Board will continue to publish institutional money market mutual funds as a memorandum item in this release. Measures of large-denomination time deposits will continue to be published by the Board in the Flow of Funds Accounts (Z.1 release) on a quarterly basis and in the H.8 release on a weekly basis (for commercial banks).

The October Newsletter The Leaves Won't Be The Only Thing To Fall! Enrico Orlandini Lasco Report 17 Oct, 2005 We're heading into that time of year where the word "crash" tends to command a bit more respect among market specialists, i.e., the months of October and/or November. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I see an ominous cloud on the horizon. Actually, I see a large mass of clouds and they're as black as night. Anyone who's invested in the stock market over the last three or four years has little or nothing to show for it and, if you're...

For over four decades, observant and open-minded individuals have become deeply concerned about the future of our great nation. They refused to accept the rosy official and media testimony regarding our nation's fiscal and monetary integrity. Similarly, they did not believe the negative rhetoric directed towards gold. Just as these independent thinking and far-sighted people recognized that one plus one would always equal two they also knew that no one, nor no nation, could create something from nothing. Throughout this period they witnessed the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve banking system work together to create U.S. dollars from thin...

SAN FRANCISCO (AFX) -- Gold futures climbed to a high of $472.40 an ounce, a level not seen since 1988, according to monthly charts. December gold was last at $471.10, up $7.80, or 1.7%. Prices found support as rallying energy prices sparked worries over inflation This story was supplied by MarketWatch. For further information see www.marketwatch.com

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Federal Reserve released a staff study Monday saying the federal subsidies bestowed on government-chartered companies Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM - News) and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE - News) are far higher than any previous estimates and the two do little to increase homebuying, lowering mortgage costs by just a fraction of previous estimates. "Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's ambiguous relationship to the government imparts an implicit subsidy to GSE shareholders and homeowners," the study reads, placing a dollar value on that relationship at between $119 billion and $ 164 billion. The report, prepared by staff economist Wayne...

A big drop in bond yields offered little encouragement for a tired stock market. For the week, the Dow and S&P500 posted slight declines. The Utilities were about unchanged, while the “defensive” Morgan Stanley Consumer index added 1%. Economically sensitive issues gave up some ground, as the Transports dipped 2% and the Morgan Stanley Cyclical index declined 1%. The broader market reversed recent strong relative performance, with the small cap Russell 2000 declining 2%. The S&P400 Mid-cap index was unchanged. The technology sector suffered mild declines. The NASDAQ100, Morgan Stanley High Tech, and The Street.com Internet indices declined 2%....

Loss of Jobs in America Paul Craig Roberts Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2003 Are we being spun on jobs by the White House and the rah-rah Bush media like we are being spun on Iraq? Make up your own mind after considering the following. Only a few of the 116,000 private sector jobs created in October provide good incomes: 6,000 new positions in legal services and accounting – activities that reflect corporations gearing up to protect their top executives from Sarbanes-Oxley. The remainder of the 116,000 new jobs consist of temps, retail trade, telephone marketing, and fund raising, administrative and waste...

“…I have come up a plan, which I refer to as the Save Our Butts Plan. It works like this. We put everybody and everybody's money into a huge life insurance policy, see, declare some wars, release a few deadly viruses, wipe out half the population, and pay off the policy. In the end, there will be half as many people, creating job openings out the wazoo, each survivor will have twice as much money, and this will fuel consumption. With plentiful jobs and more money to spend, the recovery will commence!...” The Mogambo Guru St. Petersburg, Florida - The...