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The announcement by the United Nations this week that it will license the minting of silver and gold bullion coins bearing the UN logo may be the button that launches metal prices into orbit. In its wide-ranging report this fall, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) stated that the system of currencies and international banking practices within today’s economies were inadequate, and responsible for the present economic crisis. The report advocates that the present monetary system, wherein the dollar acts as the global reserve currency be re-examined “with urgency”. The UNCTAD Report was the first time a major...

Last week we flagged an interesting announcement from The Treasury regarding a proposed invesment from China in a gold mine in Nevada. In announcing its intention to block the deal, the Treasury cited national security issues. Well this is music to the ears of Molycorp -- a company engaged in the mining of rare earth metals -- which has received subsidies from the government, as well as a major investment from Goldman Sachs (GS). The company has made a big deal out of the fact that that China is expanding its global mining share, and thus it should be eligible...

The Swiss franc pulled back from a nine-month high against the euro on Monday amid speculation that the Swiss National Bank had intervened to stem the currency’s rise. The Swiss franc broke through SFr1.50 against the euro on Friday for the first time since March when the SNB announced that it was going to act to halt the strength of its currency as it fought against deflation. The rise in the Swiss franc came amid increasing concerns over the health of the eurozone banking system, which sparked haven demand for the Swiss currency. Many had expected the SNB – which...

On October 9 I published an article that postulated that the gold market is a Ponzi scheme because it sells gold that doesn’t exist by implementation of the principles of fractional reserve banking. Since writing that article further information has come to light which supports this claim and allows an estimate of how much gold has been sold that doesn’t exist if the owners of the gold ask for it. In other words there are several owners for each ounce of physical gold. By complete coincidence Paul Mylchreest of The Thunder Road Report has just written an in-depth study into...

In What's Next for Gold's Brutal Sell-Off?, apart from commenting on the current situation and suggesting that gold didn’t reach a major bottom yet, I also examined the situation in China. I wrote the following: Considering the high savings rate in China (mostly in the 30% to 40% area in the previous years), gold is a logical investment for the Chinese and it’s possible that billions of dollars in Chinese private investment could move into gold in coming years. Already there's talk of China overtaking India as the world’s largest consumer of gold. It was only in April of this...

China, once a proud holder of United States post-World War II debt, is getting scared. For years the People's Republic has bought U.S. Treasuries, eventually becoming the largest holder of U.S. debt ($799 BILLION to be exact!). Those days are long gone, though. During 2009, China hasn't been buying many Treasuries and has been unloading dollars in a way that makes Geithner shiver at night. And other big U.S. debt carriers like Japan may follow suit if confidence is lost. This presentation, courtesy of RBS, takes a deeper look into China's holdings and associated volumes since 2005. Get ready for...

Oh, and it doesn't stop with just money either: The GCC also agreed to create a joint military strike force – akin to the EU’s rapid reaction force – to tackle threats such as the incursion of Yemeni Shiite rebels into Saudi territory earlier this year. They nevertheless repeated on Tuesday that “any military action against Iran” by Western powers would be unacceptable. Well there you have it. China will be next with a Pan-Asian common currency and exchange system. The rumblings have been coming from there too, and they'll be followed by action - if for no other reason...

Remember all that pooh-poohing when the gulf states were talking about their own currency? About how silly that would be? That it would never happen? Yeah well, sort of looks like it might. True, there is a deep and very comfortable denial in the United States such that the country can spend anything it wants, pump debt to any level it likes, play whatever games it wishes with the way it counts spending, and still enjoy the benefits of a reserve currency indefinitely. That denial may be just about ready to hit reality: “The Gulf monetary union pact has come...

N.Korea to Bar Foreigners North Korea reportedly plans to ban foreigners from the country from Sunday until early February, apparently to allow unrest caused by this month's shock currency reform to die down. Ju Sang-song, the minister of People's Security, is in China, according to the North's Korean Central News Agency, though it gave no reason for his visit. The trip by the North's top internal security official may aim to seek cooperation from Beijing in preventing a mass exodus of North Korean middle class citizens angry over the devaluation of their savings. One source in China said that Pyongyang...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The dollar rose to the highest level in more than two months on Tuesday as stronger-than-expected U.S. economic reports lifted the greenback and concerns over the potential for European banks encountering a new round of problems weighed on the shared euro. Currency traders also positioned themselves as the Federal Reserve began its two-day monetary policy meeting. The dollar index /quotes/comstock/11j!i:dxy0 (DXY 76.91, +0.63, +0.82%) , which tracks the greenback against a trade-weighted basket of six major counterparts, rose to 77.022, compared with 76.351 late Monday. During the session, it touched 77.092, the highest on a closing...

The Arab states of the Gulf region have agreed to launch a single currency modelled on the euro, hoping to blaze a trail towards a pan-Arab monetary union swelling to the ancient borders of the Ummayad Caliphate. “The Gulf monetary union pact has come into effect,” said Kuwait’s finance minister, Mustafa al-Shamali, speaking at a Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) summit in Kuwait. The move will give the hyper-rich club of oil exporters a petro-currency of their own, greatly increasing their influence in the global exchange and capital markets and potentially displacing the US dollar as the pricing currency for oil...

Congressman Ron Paul’s “Free Competition In Currency Act” Won’t Solve The Problem But Still Raises Vital Issues Politics / Fiat Currency Dec 15, 2009 - 11:58 AM By: Richard_C_Cook While Congressman Ron Paul’s Free Competition in Currency Act is not a workable proposal, it points to a deeply serious problem with the Federal Reserve System that must be faced if the U.S. economy is to have a future. Over the last 40 years the Federal Reserve, with the acquiescence of Congress and the executive branch, has become the primary regulator of the economy. The prevailing philosophy is called monetarism, and...

Yes, there is no typo in the headline of this article. Today there is still an unbelievable opportunity to invest in gold that will disappear over the next several years as this monetary crisis deepens. Despite the general widespread sentiment of Western financial advisers that they have missed the run-up in gold and now it is too late to buy, this is not true at all. In fact, to illustrate how little people understand about the reasons to buy gold, of all my friends that I urged to buy physical gold more than six years ago when gold was less...

How Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke are destroying the dollar — and perhaps ushering in the amero First under the Bush Administration and even more so under President Obama, the federal government has been seizing power and spending money as it hasn’t done since World War II. But as bold as the Executive Branch has been during this financial crisis, the innovations of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke have been literally unprecedented. Indeed, it is entirely plausible that before Obama leaves office, Americans will be using a new currency. Bush and Obama have engaged in record peacetime deficit spending; so too...

Bullish on commodities and real assets, Jim Rogers says gold will be a great investment over the next decade as it is expected to test USD 2000 per ounce levels by then. PART1.

Many years ago, John D. Rockefeller, Sr. famously stated, “Competition is a sin.” He preferred a monopoly, the very antithesis of economic freedom, in order to increase profits. A monopoly accomplishes for its creator the opportunity to gouge the public, a consequence generally well-known, and generally despised. There is, however, one commodity existing as a monopoly that the public does not loathe, the creation of money. This monopoly seems to most Americans to be the only way to proceed. They are unaware that our nation once had competing currencies and this competition led to honesty in the field of money....

"Developed countries, especially the U.S. and western Europe, produced an enormous amount of paper that represents assets that are unaccounted for," he says. The Bank for International Settlements put total notional value of outstanding derivatives at $591 trillion at end of 2008. "The amount of paper you have in America and western Europe that is unanchored to anything you can put your hands on is enormous," "Why should you be listening to me, a Latin American? Because we know something about flooding a market with paper." He's alluding to such crises as Argentina's repeated bouts with inflation or the loose...

It's taken all of recorded history, but this year China finally looks set to overtake India as the world's number one gold consumer. It may struggle to hold that position in the short term, as the one-off factors that have slowed India's gold demand fade, but in the long term China's rapidly growing economy and investment demand could see it add gold to the long list of commodities where it is the world's largest buyer. The story this year is mostly about falling demand in India -- down by more than half in the nine months to end-September, according to...

Congressman Ron Paul has introduced a new bill in the House of Representatives. The bill calls for the elimination of legal tender laws, the elimination of laws that prohibit the operation of private mints and the elimination of capital gains and sales taxes on gold and silver coins. His statement introducing the bill in the House is here.

But silver is where the real opportunity lies. Jim Rogers has been doing the media rounds lately, and yesterday evening he showed up on CNBC talking to Maria Bartiromo. He remains -- not surprisingly at all -- bullish on gold and silver. CNBC: With central banks now buying gold and many people worried about paper money, gold will be a great investment over the next decade and relatively few people are invested in it, he said. At a speech in Prague Rogers surveyed about 300 people, including big money managers, and 76 percent had never owned gold, he said. "So...

North Korean Money Shift Sparks Violence By EVAN RAMSTAD SEOUL -- New reports emerged Tuesday of protests and deadly violence in North Korea as the country's authoritarian regime over the past week seized most of its citizens' money and savings via a new-currency issue. Open Radio for North Korea, a Seoul-based shortwave radio station that broadcasts news to the North, said police killed two men in Pyongsong, a market center outside of Pyongyang, on Friday after they divided their savings among a large group of people and urged them to exchange the money for them, attempting to get around the...

The Coming Cyclical Collapse Of The U.S. Dollar Currencies / US Dollar Dec 08, 2009 - 10:30 AM By: Bob_Clark Ask not for whom the bell tolls We are having our first winter blizzard, the windows were rattling all night. There are knee deep snow drifts in places. When I went out to feed the horse this morning, I found a coyote asleep in the hay. I guess he is a little bit deaf because he didn't jump up until I was on top of him. I don't know who was more scared. It was a most pitiful thing to...

North Korea rushes to starvation December 09, 2009 Olivia Ward North Korea's beleaguered people are used to running on empty. But a silent catastrophe that is looming in the secretive dictatorship may push the poorest beyond the point of no return. A sudden revaluation has left the currency worthless, threatening collapse of the fragile food market. "This could start widespread starvation deaths in the hungry season, after the last harvest runs out," said Andrew Natsios of Georgetown University, author of The Great North Korean Famine. "There are a number of alarming things happening at once, and people may not be...

Winter of discontent looms for N Korea By Christian Oliver and Kang Buseong in Seoul Published: December 9 2009 07:41 | Last updated: December 9 2009 07:41 The North Korean grapevine is delivering stories of increasing hunger and shortages sparking rare public dissent in the wake of last week’s redenomination of the currency just as the country’s bitter winter closes in. The change to the new won, which carry a face value of 1 per cent of that of old won, was supposed to be completed over the weekend, but reports suggest the situation is still unsettled and confused though...

The gold price dove lower, dropping $23.30 to close at $1,131.25, as investors liquidated all investments tied to the price of gold against the backdrop of a strengthening U.S. dollar. Gold mining stocks were sold aggressively, evidenced by the 4% decline in the Market Vectors Gold Mining ETF (GDX) and the 2.7% decline in Canada’s S&P/TSX Global Gold Index. Both indices declined for the fourth straight day as the U.S. Dollar reached its highest level in over a month as measured by the Dollar Index (DXY). The largest gold producer in the world, Barrick Gold (ABX), declined 4.5% today and...

/begin my translation N. Korea: Two Executed by Firing Squad for Using Others to Swap Old Bills for New 2009.12.08 09:24 There is a report that two businessmen were executed by firing squad, which was carried out off the public view. They tried to get around (strict) rules for currency swapping. Quoting its source inside N. Korea, Open Radio for N. Korea, which broadcasts into N. Korea, reported on Dec. 7 that two businessmen in the city of Pyongsung, who had old bills totaling 11 million Won(N. Korean currency unit) from their sales, tried to convert them into new bills...

'Women Power' Gathers Against N.Korean Currency Shock North Korea's women are emerging as a formidable force in the face of controversial currency reforms, sources said Monday. Most of the market traders in the North are women in their 40s and 50s trying to earn enough to feed their children. And now they are openly expressing their anger as the draconian reforms, which replace the currency at a rate of 100:1 and effectively confiscate any savings, make their lives even more difficult. "The women are tough and defiant," a source said, "and now they are angry. Markets are turning into places...

N. Korea's Currency Reform Could End in Chaos The North Korean military is on alert for a possible civil uprising following last week's sudden currency reform, according to a Russian business newspaper citing foreign diplomats in the communist country. The currency reform involved the exchange of only limited amounts of old bills at a rate of 100:1, with the state confiscating the remainder. People who are afraid of exposing the size of their wealth have no choice but to hide their old bills. It is difficult to ascertain the actual circumstances, but it is apparent the North Korean regime is...

OK, this is confusing: but this is the LINK to the original Japanese language article from the conservative/trustworthy South Korean "Chonsun Ilbo" daily newspaper website in Korean which reported from a Russian news agency just a little while ago.The headline is 北�鮮デノミ：「�民騒乱を懸念���戦闘準備� ("North Korean Currency Devaluation: Worries Over Uprising By North Korean People; North Korean Army Goes on Sub-War Status")

This is a short video clip of the top news from the major Japanese JNN Network today. The link is to a Japanese news page on Yahoo!Japan; one just needs to click the arrow to stream the report.Before streaming, please note:-Not all PC/Mac systems can stream the video but most can.-The video may be up for only a few more hours. Then (usually) the links go down. Please see while you can.-You may need to have Microsoft Silverlight installed on your machine.The horrid news report about North Korea, in Japanese, is HERE.And HERE is a clip of what the...

N.Korea military on guard against unrest: reports Thu Dec 3, 3:58 am ET SEOUL (AFP) – North Korea's military was on guard as public anger grew over the communist country's shock currency revaluation, reports said Thursday. The revaluation implemented Monday has sparked fury and frustration as some citizens saw much of their savings wiped out, according to reports and observers. They said the North had tightened security against possible agitation, with a curfew reportedly imposed in a border region and shops closed across the country during the changeover period to a new currency, which ends Sunday. Military authorities have strengthened...

N.Korea's Currency Reform 'a Bid to Cement Power' The biggest motivation behind North Korea's sudden currency reform Tuesday appears to be Kim Jong-il's intention to throttle the emerging free market, which appears to hamper a smooth succession of power to his son Kim Jong-un, North Korea experts and South Korean government officials say. The North announced the won would be revalued at a rate of 100:1. But some experts say the aim is wealth redistribution, while others believe the reform is aimed at containing inflation, which has skyrocketed since North Korea introduced rudiments of a market economy in 2002. Kim,...

Here's what just happened over in North Korea: TOKYO -- Chaos reportedly erupted in North Korea on Tuesday after the government of Kim Jong Il revalued the country's currency, sharply restricting the amount of old bills that could be traded for new and wiping out personal savings. ... The revaluation replaces 1,000 won notes with 10 won notes, but strictly limits the amount of old currency that can be exchanged, news reports said. 100:1. You had $100,000, you now have $1,000. You had $100,000,000 (one hundred million), you now have one million. Oh, and if you tried to cheat by...

Run On The U.S. Dollar ....Soon Currencies / US Dollar Nov 30, 2009 - 04:33 PM By: DailyWealth Porter Stansberry writes: It's one of those numbers that's so unbelievable you have to actually think about it for a while... Within the next 12 months, the U.S. Treasury will have to refinance $2 trillion in short-term debt. And that's not counting any additional deficit spending, which is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion. Put the two numbers together. Then ask yourself, how in the world can the Treasury borrow $3.5 trillion in only one year? That's an amount equal to nearly...

(2nd LD) N. Korea revalues currency for first time in 17 yrs: sources By Kim Hyun SHENYANG, China/SEOUL, Dec. 1 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has sharply raised the value of its currency, its first such move in 17 years, in an apparent bid to tackle inflation and curb black market trading, sources said Tuesday. North Korean sources who engage in trade with China in the eastern Chinese city of Shenyang told Yonhap News Agency that the North Korean government implemented the currency reform as of 11 a.m. Monday and the exchange for the new currency began at 2 p.m. Data...

Porter Stansberry writes: It's one of those numbers that's so unbelievable you have to actually think about it for a while... Within the next 12 months, the U.S. Treasury will have to refinance $2 trillion in short-term debt. And that's not counting any additional deficit spending, which is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion Put the two numbers together. Then ask yourself, how in the world can the Treasury borrow $3.5 trillion in only one year? That's an amount equal to nearly 30% of our entire GDP. And we're the world's biggest economy. Where will the money come from? How...

The following information may be the most important we have ever published. One of our Intel sources, highly placed in banking circles, tells us that on 1/1/10 all banks that have received TARP funds have been informed by the Federal Reserve that they must further restrict any commercial lending. Loans have to be 75% collateralized, 50% of which has to be in cash, which is a compensating balance.

As an American living in Canada and a do-it-yourself (DIY) investor, I've decided to short the US dollar and to keep the majority of my holdings in Canada resource companies (oil and gas, gold mining). This is a play that has worked well so far. When the resource-heavy Canadian stock market felt serious pressure during the credit crisis I was able to pick up some bargains. I am far from alone in this strategy. PetroChina's purchase of a $1.9 billion stake in Alberta's Athabasca Oil Sands Corp. and Korean National Oil Corp.'s plan to acquire outright Harvest Energy Trust for...

Dollar Falls To 14-Year Low VS Yen, Touching 86.51 By MALCOLM FOSTER, Associated Press TOKYO – The dollar tumbled to 14-year low against the Japanese yen Thursday after indications U.S. interest rates will remain low and that the Federal Reserve isn't overly concerned about the dollar's slide. The dollar sank to 86.51 yen in Tokyo trading, the lowest since July 1995. Analysts said some investors were selling the dollar to buy gold, which surged to another record Thursday. Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said Japan "will take appropriate steps if foreign exchange rates move abnormally." A strong yen is generally seen...

Vietnam devalued its currency by 5.4 per cent against the dollar yesterday and raised interest rates by a full percentage point in an effort to cut inflation and underpin the beleaguered dong. The dong has come under pressure recently as inflation started climbing and domestic demand, driven by the country's $8bn stimulus programme, drove the current account deficit to close to $2bn a month. It was trading on the grey market at 19,800 to the dollar on Tuesday but came back to 19,500 after the government move. Analysts, however, questioned whether financial markets would believe the latest move had put...

Is a continued weakening in the dollar in the first half of 2010 a fait accompli? Not so fast. The median prediction in Bloomberg's survey of as many as 43 strategists shows the dollar gaining against the euro, British pound, yen, Swiss franc, and Swedish krona by September 30, 2010, Bloomberg News reported Monday. However, the Bloomberg survey also indicated that the top, or most accurate forecasters in the survey predict that the dollar will continue to weaken even as the U.S. Federal Reserve starts to increase short-term interest rates, which Fed officials have said is an extended period away....

If Central Banks around the world continue what they are doing, then they will destroy their currencies. Change is required

Another Crisis Looms Right Around The Corner by: The Housing Time Bomb November 24, 2009 Folks, I consider this to be one of my most important posts. I am going to offer a warning and some advice. I am extremely concerned about the things that I am seeing in the markets. The US dollar carry trade, soaring gold, and the apparent imminent passing of health care reform are the last straws that are going to eventually break this market's back. As a result, I have tweaked my investment strategy. I will explain my concerns in further detail later on in...

Any good ideas what to invest in to protect against further currency devaluations and economic drops? What are you doing or thinking of doing?

Visitors to America might have noticed the television ads urging us to buy gold. One such “spokesman”, formerly in charge of managing the government’s hoard of the yellow stuff, including the ingots buried at Fort Knox, points out that the value of gold has never fallen to zero. Why investors are expected to find such a modest claim reassuring I can’t imagine. But something is persuading people to buy gold, driving the price to and past $1,100 per ounce, from about $270 at the beginning of this decade, and around $700 when the financial crisis first hit.

Visitors to America might have noticed the television ads urging us to buy gold. One such “spokesman”, formerly in charge of managing the government’s hoard of the yellow stuff, including the ingots buried at Fort Knox, points out that the value of gold has never fallen to zero. Why investors are expected to find such a modest claim reassuring I can’t imagine. But something is persuading people to buy gold, driving the price to and past $1,100 per ounce, from about $270 at the beginning of this decade, and around $700 when the financial crisis first hit. This is not...

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The dollar held on to its gains against the euro and other higher-yielding currencies Friday morning as revived concerns about how fast the global economy will rebound prompted investors to shun riskier assets. Declines in stocks, gold and oil that began earlier in Asian and European trading continued early in New York as demand for growth-sensitive and riskier assets evaporated. That pushed the greenback to intraday highs against its major rivals. Adding to the overall negative sentiment were comments by the head of the European Central Bank, hinting on removal of credit support lines, as well as...

Velocity Of U.S. Money Supply Is Finally Edging Up Prieur du Plessis November 20, 2009 Despite ballooning Fed reserves to bail out banks, money supply as measured by the growth in money supply with a zero maturity (notes and coins, check accounts, savings deposits and money-market accounts collectively) continues to slow. The slowing growth is contra to what normally happens when the Fed lowers the Federal funds rate. In real terms, the growth rate is also slowing.[snip]

There is a very good reason why China should make the yuan stronger. Most commentators have it completely wrong on why. In a comment on his blog, Stefan Karlsson separates the wheat from the chaff and explains the real reason China should drop its foolish policy of propping up the dollar. Karlsson writes: ...I think China should make the yuan stronger. Not however, for the reasons most pundits argue but rather because China needs to rein in the obvious inflationary excesses of their current boom, and currency appreciation would be one way of achieving that. And furthermore, yuan appreciation would...

The very delicate global economy just got a little more delicate. Asian currencies came under pressure on Thursday after a move from Brazil to further curb foreign inflows sparked fears that other countries would follow suit. Brazil moved overnight to close a loophole that had allowed investors to avoid a 2 per cent tax on foreign investment in equities and bonds announced last month. The government announced a 1.5 per cent tax on American Depositary Receipts. Guido Mantega, Brazil’s finance minister, said some foreign investors had been buying ADRs to get exposure to the local equity market while avoiding the...