Free Republic

Gold has gotten a bad rap. Long seen as the investment choice of the cranky and the fearful, the metal yields nothing; as Warren Buffett has said, it just “looks at you.” This year has been especially lackluster for gold. Its price has slumped 8%, to about $1,200 an ounce, and is off more than 35% from its high of $1,900 in 2011. Adding insult to injury, Vanguard will soon rechristen the largest gold-oriented U.S. mutual fund and shift its focus away from the metal. But this out-of-favor asset class now deserves a place in investment portfolios. Compared with stocks...

Full title: Pressure mounts on Tesla as it gets hit with a third securities fraud lawsuit in wake of Elon Musk's 'funding secured' tweet Tesla is facing another lawsuit accusing CEO Elon Musk of manipulating the company's stock price. The suit follows two lawsuits filed against the company last week by investors alleging securities fraud. A complaint filed on Monday in US District Court in California alleges that some investors purchased Tesla stock "at artificially inflated prices and suffered significant losses and damages once the truth emerged" that Musk had not secured the funding necessary to convert Tesla into a...

By surrendering to the triple-lens competition, Apple has once more given away the high-ground to manufacturers such as Samsung and Nokia who are expected to have triple-lensed cameras on handsets before the end of the year. Once more the iPhone will be playing catch-up, hoping its fan base will be happy to wait for ‘new’ technology already available in the mainstream.

* Trump has kept his spotlight hot and raised smirks by speculating about a White House run, but now he's scheduling speeches in early primary states * 'A lot of people believe I'm having fun with it, and I enjoy the process,' he said during an Economic Club of Washington event, but 'the country's in serious trouble' * He lashed out at potential opponents including Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz * Couldn't come up with a 'single nice thing' to say about Hillary Clinton and insists Sen. Elizabeth Warren will give her serious competition * Trump has flirted with running...

I don't know too much about Jim Rickards, just found this to be an interesting video about the overall economy and some tidbits about what our government agencies are up to. The video is a 45 minutes long interview of sorts and discussion. Just posting in the event other are interested.