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When times get tough, the tough . . . switch currencies. A fascinating report by Eric Garland in The Atlantic tells of the upswing in “local currencies.” In the United Kingdom, the Brixton Pound is being floated, engraved on its paper notes the likes of “David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust era.” Pegged to the British pound, it serves mainly as a scheme to promote local business and trade, though maybe it’s a tad more than mere boosterism. Bavarians are also “enthusiastically using the local currency as a protest” — the local currency being the “Chiemgauer.” And “similar currencies have...

Cats are genetically wired to behave in ways that humans see as insane. They often torment and play with their prey, for example, in a manner that we would call 'sadistic'. Sadism, to humans, is not a sane characteristic. Sometimes it seems that humans are also genetically wired to behave insanely. Let us look at the votes recently taken in Greece, France, and Germany. In all three cases, the concept of austerity (read: fiscal responsibility) has been completely rejected by their populations. In one case, France, the populace actually elected a labeled Socialist. The financial systems of most of Europe...

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee police are apologizing after arresting a man for using a $50 bill they thought was fake but that turned out to be real. Police in Shelbyville thought the bill was counterfeit after a convenience store clerk called them. The clerk said a marker used to detect false money didn't show the bill was real. (excerpt - read more at link)

Time To Accumulate Gold And Silver By Jeff Clark 05/01/12 Do you own enough gold and silver for what lies ahead? If 10% of your total investable assets (i.e., excluding equity in your primary residence) aren’t held in various forms of gold and silver, we at Casey Research think your portfolio is at risk. After speaking at the Cambridge House conference last month and talking with many attendees, I came away convinced that most investors fall into one of two categories: those who hold an abundance of gold and silver (which tends to be physical forms only), and those with...

Tennessee police are apologizing after arresting a man for using a $50 bill they thought was fake but that turned out to be real. Police in Shelbyville thought the bill was counterfeit after a convenience store clerk called them. The clerk said a marker used to detect false money didn't show the bill was real. The Shelbyville Times-Gazette reported Officer Brock Horner arrested Lorenzo Gaspar on Friday. But a police evidence technician told the arresting officer that some old bills don't react to the markers. So police gave the money to two banks to check, and they said it was...

HIZBOLLAH VICTIMS BRING HISTORIC CIVIL SUIT AGAINST MEGA-BANK May 12, 2008 For Immediate Release VICTIMS OF HIZBOLLAH MISSILE ATTACKS BRING HISTORIC CIVIL ACTION AGAINST UBS IN NEW YORK FEDERAL COURT A group of American victims of Iranian sponsored terror have filed a civil action in the United States District Court for the Southern District against the Swiss mega-bank, UBS AG. The plaintiffs, all of whom had family members injured or killed in Iranian-backed terror attacks, allege that UBS' unlawful eight year-long provision of financial services to the Islamic Republic at the time Iran was providing material support to terrorist organizations...

Should our fine financial system cease functioning cash will become a rare and precious medium. Over the years Americans have exchanged paper currency with confidence. Yet, today everyone's cash is a digital value out of hand. Our vast nationwide cash money market holdings greatly exceed any paper currency supply making any Bank run a momentary event. Should the financial house of cards crash, holders of green back US Dollars will be able to engage in trade. Gold hoarders will not know what to do. Credit cards won't work. Checks won't either. If you can't barter, cash will be king. Get...

The federal budget is guaranteed to leave Canadians penniless — literally. Among the victims of cutbacks outlined by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in the government's 2012 federal budget on Thursday is Canada's one-cent coin. Citing low purchasing power and rising production costs, the government has decided to phase the penny out of existence starting this fall, when the Royal Canadian Mint will stop distributing the one-cent coin to financial institutions. Over time, that will lead to the penny effectively becoming extinct, although the government noted on Thursday that one-cent coins will always be accepted in cash transactions for as long...

The U.S. dollar has probably been the closest thing to a true global currency that the world has ever seen. For decades, the use of the U.S. dollar has been absolutely dominant in international trade. This has had tremendous benefits for the U.S. financial system and for U.S. consumers, and it has given the U.S. government tremendous power and influence around the globe. Today, more than 60 percent of all foreign currency reserves in the world are in U.S. dollars. But there are big changes on the horizon. The mainstream media in the United States has been strangely silent...

Capitol Hill lawmakers want to change the color of money amid growing concerns about the federal deficit and the constant pressure for Washington to live within its means. The House and Senate each have introduced legislation that would replace the dollar bill with a $1 coin. “Change can be difficult,” Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said. “But doing things as we’ve always done has contributed to our debt. We've got to latch on to any reasonable handhold we can find to climb out of this hole.” This is not the first time Washington has considered eliminating the paper dollar, which became...

It was a sobering dinner party last night... Hosted by a London billionaire in his exquisite home...but the conversation between the ten of us was stone-cold serious... "You know what my biggest fear is?" our host asked. "It's not really Obama, for what he's done is to accelerate what the liberals have been slowly doing for decades -- so quickly that their socialism is obvious to everyone. Which means the solution is obvious to everyone. My biggest fear is that voters will give Republicans the power to repair America on November 2nd -- and the Republicans won't have the courage...

Handicapping The Collapse Stock-Markets / Global Debt Crisis Mar 09, 2012 - 12:36 PM By: Jim Willie CB Scattered diverse and almost uniformly unfavorable and dangerous events are unfolding, as the global economy and financial structure undergoes the equivalent of endless earthquakes and bombardment of solar emissions. Reporting is difficult, since information is distorted toward the sunny side. Events are moving fast, as quickly as the danger level is rising. As conditions worsen, the hype and spin has risen almost out of control. The political machine, tied at the hip to the banking apparatus, has ramped up the growth story...

Xi Jinping, likely to be China's next president, visits President Obama in the White House this week. This visit ensures that the ongoing currency war between the United States and China will be on the list of things that Obama and Xi discuss along with the looming war with Iran, the North Korean succession, and other geopolitical issues. Currency wars arise when a country steals growth from trading partners by cheapening its currency to promote exports. The new currency war began in 2010 when President Obama declared in his State of the Union address that it was the policy of...

Let's think about the kind of mess that we're in. Federal 2010 Medicare and Medicaid expenditures totaled $800 billion. The projected annual growth of both programs is about 7 percent. Social Security expenditures are more than $700 billion a year. According to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare trustees reports, by 2030, 49 percent of federal revenues will go for Social Security and Medicare payments. The unfunded liability of both programs is already $106 trillion.But not to worry. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it's possible to sustain today's level of federal spending and even achieve a balanced budget. All...

Jim Grant’s rise to power may be delayed. The legendary Wall Street writer, publisher of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, has been mentioned by two of the rivals for the Republican presidential nomination. Newt Gingrich said if elected president, he’d name Grant to help run a commission looking at a possible return to the gold standard. And Ron Paul said, if elected president, he’d go all-in and name Grant — one of Wall Street’s best-known gold bugs — as the new chairman of the Federal Reserve. As Paul wants to abolish the Fed, it would doubtless be a temporary post. But...

Constitutional money is identified in the plain and unambiguous language of the U. S. Constitution itself. Article I, Section 8, clause 4 contains the following clause: The Congress shall have power to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures. This means that the Congress, elected to represent the interests of the citizen, has the responsibility to regulate the value of our money. The value of money is regulated by how much or how little money is created. If too much money is created than the value and therefore the...

So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (AP Photo) During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent. When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the city average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.79, according to the BLS. (The figures are in nominal dollars: not adjusted for inflation.) Five months later in June, unleaded gasoline was $2.26 per gallon,...

...Therefore, this whole idea that we can live the high-life, be whatever we dream and never have to pay the consequences is simply dead wrong. The confusion that the Gold Standard advocates have created is this misconception that we print money and that is “fiat” that results in inflation. This is a far too simplistic view of finance. It presumes “printing” of actual dollars without restraint. Simply put, HAD WE PRINTED dollars instead of BORROWING DOLLARS, the national debt would be about 40% of its current size. Printing is MUCH LESS inflationary than borrowing. The reason, borrowing necessitates the creation...

Why Rising Debt Will Lead To $10,000 Gold Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012 Jan 07, 2012 - 09:55 AM By: Nick Barisheff Good afternoon, it's a pleasure to speak about gold at this Outlook for 2012. Today, I'd like to focus on one important idea: the direct relationship between the rising price of gold and the rising levels of government debt that result in currency debasement. Since we measure investment performance in currencies a clear understanding of the outlook for currencies is critical. In order to understand gold's relationship, it's important to understand that gold is money. It is...

This clip, taken from C-Span, from a House session dating back to March 2001, shows Ron Paul stating there is nothing to fear from a global currency.... as long as it's backed by gold, of course. Listen at 0.32 (more in your face numerology), where Paul states there being nothing to fear from a "single, worldwide currency." He then goes on to praise the wonders of globalism, which he also claims is nothing to fear. Is the establishment running scared of Ron Paul, or is that what "they" would like you to think? Is it so absurd to think they...

The political and environmental debates swirling around the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas miss a crucial point, energy analysts say: The Canadian oil is needed to replace fast-dwindling production from two other major suppliers of oil Mexico and Venezuela. The United States remains the largest consumer of oil in the world, requiring more than 8 million barrels a day of fuel imports to feed its appetite, with nearly half of that coming from oil-rich neighbors in Latin America as recently as 2005. But oil production south of the border has fallen off dramatically, and Canadian...

Foreign individuals, pension funds and trusts will be able to subscribe to public offers of an Indian company. "Qualified foreign investors will be able to invest in initial public offers or follow-on public offers as well," a finance ministry official said. The issue of voting rights for QFIs is also under discussion with market regulator Sebi, which is expected to issue a detailed notification by January 15, the official said. India had on Sunday announced its decision to allow QFIs to directly invest in the Indian equity market. A QFI is an individual, group or association resident in a foreign...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's currency hit a new record low to the U.S. dollar on Monday, two days after President Barack Obama signed into law a bill targeting Iran's central bank as part of the West's efforts to pressure Tehran over its nuclear program. State radio said the Iranian currency's exchange rate hovered around 16,800 riyals to the dollar, marking a roughly 10 percent slide compared to Thursday's rate of 15,200 riyals to the dollar. The riyal was trading at around 10,500 riyals to the U.S. dollar in late December 2010. The bill signed by Obama on Saturday includes...

At a meeting in London last month I listened with mild amusement as a senior sales executive discussed the rollout of a banking campaign to promote the rise of China’s renminbi as a global currency. Advertising in the U.S. would make little sense, as Americans aren’t ready to believe in — much less prepare for — the inevitable day when the Chinese currency overtakes the U.S. dollar as a major reserve currency, ran the strategy, detailed by the executive with the requisite cultural dig. It’s certainly just coincidence that the U.S. Dollar Index DXY is up more than 4% since...

With credit rating agencies warning that the deal struck by EU leaders this month might not save the single currency from collapse, the Sunday Times has revealed that the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office is drawing up plans to evacuate thousands of British expatriates from Spain and Portugal should their banking systems collapse. With one million Britons living in Spain and some 50,000 UK resident in Portugal – The Foreign Office is concerned that expats who have invested savings in their adopted countries could be left stranded, unable to withdraw cash and facing losing their homes if the banks call...

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan will shoot down any U.S. drone that intrudes its air space per new directives, a senior Pakistani official told NBC News on Saturday. According to the new Pakistani defense policy, "Any object entering into our air space, including U.S. drones, will be treated as hostile and be shot down," a senior Pakistani military official told NBC News. The policy change comes just weeks after a deadly NATO attack on Pakistani military checkpoints accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, prompting Pakistani officials to order all U.S. personnel out of a remote airfield in Pakistan. Pakistan told the U.S. to...

Submitted by Jeff Clark of Casey ResearchStart Thinking in Terms of Gold PriceA young woman – let's call her Andrea – inherited some money from her father in late 1997. She was only nineteen at the time. Not knowing the first thing about investing, she kept the money in stocks and bonds as her father had, wanting to hold on to it until she really needed it. She played it "safe."She got married last year and so began to withdraw the money. She was pleased to see a chart from the broker that showed her portfolio was up about...

My Dear Extended Family, We all know bank’s balance sheets are cartoons due to FASB’s capitulation on the fair market value issue, that the euro financial leaders do not deserve the title leader, and that the Fed is the source of liquidity for Euroland in unlimited cheap dollar swaps, but there is more. That more is the first failure of a major clearing house. Clearing is the mechanism of all markets. It is the guts of the system. It is the engine under the hood of finance. It is the pulleys that turn inside the watch. It is basic to...

New Energy: The latest salvo in the administration's war on energy may be new rules and permits to regulate a process to get oil and gas from porous rock, sacrificing jobs and economic growth while under review. There are a few areas of the U.S. that are booming. Two of these are in North Dakota and Pennsylvania, states that sit atop two massive shale rock formations, the Bakken and the Marcellus. Extraction of oil and natural gas from these formations have created jobs and economic growth in the midst of a stagnant and parched economy. The oil and gas is...

About a month ago, I posted in regard to what I called “the euthanasia of the saver.” This comment had to do with the fact that nominal interest rates in the United States for financial investments such as bank certificates of deposit and bank savings accounts—the kinds of investments traditionally employed by retired persons and small savers, who wish to gain income without exposing their funds to great risk of capital loss—now fall considerably below the rate of inflation, and hence the real (or inflation-adjusted) yield on such investments is negative. That is, the nominal payoff is insufficient to offset...

In the ocean of federal budgetary red ink, the tax breaks enjoyed by oil companies and targeted for elimination by the Obama administration are a ripple. The Congressional Budget Office projects the federal government will spend $973 billion more in 2012 than it takes in. President Barack Obama earlier this year proposed increasing oil industry taxes by $3.5 billion in 2012, 0.4 percent of the total deficit. The administration’s goal is not to raise money. According to congressional testimony by the Treasury Department, eliminating some preferential tax treatment for oil companies will divert investment from a 20th-century to a 21st-century...

Central banks around the world, led by the US Fed, have increased liquidity with lots of cheap cash for big banks, the headlines tell us this morning. One or two pundits have even implied that this will avert the next episode in the West's unfolding financial drama.

State-controlled media portray China's leaders as living by the austere Communist values they publicly espouse. But as scions of the political aristocracy carve out lucrative roles in business and embrace the trappings of wealth, their increasingly high profile is raising uncomfortable questions for a party that justifies its monopoly on power by pointing to its origins as a movement of workers and peasants.

Are You Prepared For What’s Coming? Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2011 Nov 16, 2011 - 05:35 AM Michael A Burnham writes: The US$ is the world reserve currency and a huge amount of it is used in international commerce and held in foreign banks. What is the real value of the US$ or any currency for that matter? Money is no longer backed by gold or anything other than “good faith”, thus coined “fiat currency". Whenever the US Treasury runs short of money, it auctions Treasury notes…IOUs. But since there are fewer interested buyers in the world today, it then...

U.S. Dollar Teetering On The Abyss Currencies / US Dollar Nov 15, 2011 - 03:01 AM By: Toby Connor We all better hope I'm wrong on this one, but I think the CRB just put in its three year cycle low in October. I'm also afraid that Bernanke has done irreparable damage to the dollar. If I'm right about both of those assumptions then we are on the brink of a historic inflationary period. I've marked the major three year cycle bottoms in both the CRB index and the dollar index on the chart below with blue arrows. (Actually the...

In this interview Rickards discusses his extraordinary new book Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis. He also lets King World News listeners know what to expect regarding gold manipulation, the ongoing currency wars and much more. The KWN audio interview with Jim Rickards is available now...

Very notable news, via Vatican expert Sandro Magister, following the aftermath of the Justice & Peace’s ill-advised white paper (emphasis mine) Precisely when the G20 summit in Cannes was coming to its weak and uncertain conclusion, on that same Friday, November 4 at the Vatican, a smaller summit convened in the secretariat of state was doing damage control on the latest of many moments of confusion in the Roman curia. In the hot seat was the document on the global financial crisis released ten days earlier by the pontifical council for justice and peace. A document that had disturbed many,...

..."John Curran, senior vice-president at a Canadian foreign exchange firm seemed confused about the results saying:"If the Bank of Canada is telling us things are going to slow down due to global scenarios, I don't see why the market is not listening to the officials that are involved with the issues”. Other experts, taking a broader view have noted that the weakness of economic situations in the left-led governments of the US and Europe are a likely cause of the strengthening of confidence in Canada’s economy to continue to do outperform"....

Krugman Warns of “Gigantic Bank Run”, “Emergency Bank Closing” and “New Lira” Commodities / Gold and Silver 2011 Nov 02, 2011 - 07:09 PM By: GoldCore Gold is trading at USD 1,727.10, EUR 1,254, GBP 1,080, JPY 134,790, AUD 1,669.20 and CNY 10,978 per ounce. Gold’s London AM fix this morning was USD 1,731.00, GBP 1,081.27 and EUR 1,257.35 per ounce. Yesterday's AM fix was USD 1,702.00, GBP 1,067.69 and EUR 1,243.06 per ounce. Cross Currency Table Gold is higher in most major currencies but especially the US dollar this morning. Although gold has lost some of its early gains...

<p>Is Europe's planned programme of banking recapitalisations going to work?</p> <p>It depends how it is done, but the omens aren't good. The message from bankers at the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) annual dinner in London this week was a concerning one.</p>

The Senate has voted to punish China for keeping its currency undervalued against the dollar. Many see China's currency policy as a big factor in the flood of Chinese imports that has led to American factories shutting down and workers getting laid off. The 63-35 vote Tuesday evening shows the growing anger over the U.S. trade relation with China. The Asian nation built up a $273 billion surplus last year bolstered by monetary policy that makes its exports cheaper and American sales to China more expensive. But the bill to punish China is likely to hit a dead end in...

Senators--mostly Democratic, but not exclusively--are incensed at China's artificially low currency, which reduces the value of its exports to the US, and increases American firms' propensity to source overseas. Taken as an isolated phenomenon, this costs the US manufacturing jobs. Critics of China specifically, and global sourcing generally, are reluctant to recognize the domestic benefits flowing from outsourcing, e.g., lower domestic consumer prices; money flowing to more efficient and competitively advantageous domestic uses thereby creating jobs in new growth industries. Neither do they care that a stronger Chinese Yuan will merely shift the venue of sourcing, not its incidence. The...

[Go to the site link then look for the 'Listen to MP3' icon on the lower left-hand side and click on that to listen to the interview after it loads.]

US Senate to take up China currency bill Posted: 02 October 2011 0958 hrs WASHINGTON: The US Senate this week takes up a bill to punish China for its alleged currency manipulation, a measure that has divided the Republican presidential field and put the White House in a bind. The legislation -- backed by Democrats and Republicans in the polarized Congress, but opposed by Beijing and potent US business groups -- faces a key procedural vote set for 5:30 pm (2130 GMT) Monday. Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, a key author of the measure, predicted the bill would clear that hurdle...

The United States is looking at building fences along the border with Canada to help keep out terrorists and other criminals. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has proposed the use of "fencing and other barriers" on the 49th parallel to manage "trouble spots where passage of cross-border violators is difficult to control." The border service is also pondering options including a beefed-up technological presence through increased use of radar, sensors, cameras, drones and vehicle scanners. In addition, it might continue to improve or expand customs facilities at ports of entry. The agency considered but ruled out the possibility...

There is a movement brewing among House Republicans to replace the traditional $1 bill with metal coins, which supporters say will save the country billions because of their longer circulation life. Arizona Republican Rep. David Schweikert introduced the Currency Optimization, Innovation and National Savings (COINS) Act last week, which would require the Federal Reserve Banks to end production of the $1 paper currency within four years of passage. > In the Senate, Massachusetts Sens. John Kerry, a Democrat, and Scott Brown, a Republican, introduced the Currency Efficiency Act, aimed at preserving the paper dollar bill. The reason to stick with...

Very rarely in political history has any faction or movement enjoyed such a complete and crushing victory as the Conservative Eurosceptics. The field is theirs. They were not merely right about the single currency, the greatest economic issue of our age – they were right for the right reasons. They foresaw with lucid, prophetic accuracy exactly how and why the euro would bring with it financial devastation and social collapse. Meanwhile, the pro-Europeans find themselves in the same situation as appeasers in 1940, or communists after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They are utterly busted...

...Meanwhile, a credible key to explosive jobs growth begins to come to the fore: a credible monetary policy prescription for a seriously stable dollar. A sure signal of a rising policy vector? The Washington Post sends forth a top gunslinger to attack the gold standard and the GOP candidates for considering it. See Steven Pearlstein's Sept. 10 column, “The magical world of voodoo ‘economists’“: If you came up with a bumper sticker that pulls together the platform of this year’s crop of Republican presidential candidates, it would have to be: Repeal the 20th century. Vote GOP. They reject as thoroughly...

With the European banking system tottering on the brink of collapse, nervous holders of cash have flooded the U.S. banking system with $1.2 trillion of deposits. Panicky holders of large amounts of cash are taking advantage of a provision of the Dodd-Frank Act that provides unlimited FDIC insurance coverage on noninterest-bearing transaction accounts. The Dodd-Frank Act provides unlimited deposit insurance coverage regardless of the account balance or type of ownership. [snip] After the near total meltdown of the financial system in 2008, investors are taking steps to move their money into government guaranteed accounts. The revelation that money market funds...

Deflation Is Here Graham Summers September 12, 2011 I’ve been warning that the markets were on the verge of another round of Deflation. By the looks of things, it’s here with the US Dollar breaking out of its massive wedge pattern. The ultimate target for this pattern is the mid-80s. So consider this latest breakout the first leg up of a much larger move that will affect all other asset classes in a big way. In order for a move of that caliber to occur in the US Dollar, we’ll need to see a full-scale crisis hit the markets (the...