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“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, 1926. The financial position of the federal government of the United States has been gradually deteriorating for decades. It is now rushing headlong to the financial tipping point that will cause it to default onRead more

Yesterday’s speech by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen roiled markets across the globe. Any increase in US dollar interest rates has been postponed yet again. As a consequence, it is not surprising that the dollar tanked, and gold jumped higher in a spell of <frenetic short-covering>. While Fed officials often speak in a nuanced way,Read more

The precious metals have been in a 2-year trading range. Though gold rose 10.2% in 2011 and 7.0% in 2012, these rates are below the 16.8% average annual appreciation gold has achieved over the past twelve years. Importantly, by being in a trading range, it is clear that the precious metals have refused to breakRead more

Congressman Ron Paul says that “central bankers are intellectually bankrupt”. This is actually the title of an excellent op-ed article he wrote last week for London’s Financial Times in which he clearly explains that controlling interest rates is a form of price fixing.

Back in 2009 when the Greek crisis was just starting to make headlines, I wrote an article concluding that sovereign debt defaults would bring the end of socialism. My premise was straightforward and based on financial reality.

In the April edition of The Casey Report, Doug Casey tackles the matter of gold price manipulation. He does this in an excellent article comparing gold’s bull market today with the one in the 1970s, which both he and I remember well given that we are about the same age and both were active participants in it.

March 21, 2012 – Earlier this week Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke gave a lecture to students at George Washington University. It was the first of a four-part series in a course entitled “The Federal Reserve and Its Role in Today’s Economy.” Interestingly, ZeroHedge notes that in his lecture: “The words Gold and Standard appearRead more

The rise in commodity prices over the past several months has been unrelenting. Equally unrelenting has been the stream of central bank apologists aiming to re-direct the blame for soaring prices to almost everything imaginable except the real cause, which of course is unrestrained money printing.

December 30, 2009 – The Federal Reserve needs more money to continue purchasing US government debt, the aggregate amount of which is soaring because of ballooning deficits.  But the Fed has a problem. The US government doesn’t pay its bills with ‘cash currency’, the green paper Americans carry around in their pocket.  So the FedRead more

While the debate continues whether inflation or deflation will be the dollar’s eventual fate, the Federal Reserve is pursuing a pernicious policy that is insidiously debasing the dollar. This policy has generally been met with indifference, if it has even been noticed at all.