Ireland May Have One Month to Stave Off Bailout

From Bloomberg.com:

Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan may have just one month to stave off an international bailout.

The extra yield that investors demand to hold Irish 10-year bonds over German bunds surged to a record today as Lenihan tries to put together a 2011 budget by Dec. 7 that convinces investors he can get the country’s finances in order.

“The behavior of international bond markets suggests the government’s various announcements haven’t convinced markets that we are on a credible, stable path,” said Karl Whelan, an economics professor at University College Dublin and a former economist at the Federal Reserve. “The budget is going to be crucial in determining if we can change that attitude.”

The premium on Irish bonds has doubled since August and is now wider than the spread on Greek debt four days before it sought a European Union-led bailout in April. That’s putting pressure on Lenihan to cut the deficit and overcome both an economic slump and the rising cost of bailing out the country’s banks......read on

We Are Entering A Golden Era

By David Levenstein
1 November 2010

Gold prices bounced back firmly on Friday and were close to testing the $1360 an ounce level. Recently, the price of the yellow metal made a new historical level of $1387 an ounce. While the amount is not yet known, it seems certain that the US Federal Reserve will implement its program of further quantitative easing citing high unemployment and low inflation as the cause. In order to prevent any further deterioration in unemployment in the US, the economy needs to have a steady GDP growth of at least 2%. Personally, I doubt that this new round of monetary expansion is going to have any major effect on the high unemployment rate in the US, but I am certain that this action will lead to the further debasement of the world's reserve currency. And, as this happens, we can expect to see further dollar weakness which will certainly be highly supportive for gold.

Gold is an international currency and it is among the most liquid assets in the world. It can be readily bought or sold 24 hours a day in one or more markets around the world. And, the price is very transparent and can be seen anytime no matter where you are.......read on

John Embry - On Gold, Silver and the $US

John Embry of Sprott Asset Management discusses Gold, potential Silver price points and the decline of the $US with Eric King of King World News......listen here

Who Wants to be a Millionaire

Peter Souleles, Sydney, Australia:

On Friday, the price of gold closed at $1,359.80. With a million dollars you could therefore buy only 735 oz or 1.5% of what you could buy in 1929. In other words the dollar has lost 98.5% of its value since 1929 in comparison to gold. I think this is why US currency has the words, "In God we Trust" printed on it because to trust in the printed dollar would be lunacy.

An alternative exercise would be to calculate who the real millionaires are in 2010. Taking the 1929 amount of 48,473 oz as the mark of a true millionaire, we find that only someone with at least $65,913,585 can be considered for the title.

Do you want to try your luck with silver? Well in 1929 the average price of silver was 48.8c. Therefore a million dollars would buy you 2,049,180oz. The closing price of silver on Friday was $24.75 which would require you to have $50,717,205 to be considered the equivalent of a 1929 silver millionaire. The dollar has lost therefore about 98% of its value since 1929 in silver terms.....read in full

Gold to $US10,000/oz ?

Interesting and typical anti-gold article from the Wall St Journal making fun of someone who dares to say that Gold will go to $US10,000/oz.

I love the lines:
"Mr. McGuire is a lone voice among mainstream investors suggesting such an outsize price jump in gold's price."
- gee Mike Maloney predicted $10k years ago and more recently $15k/oz. Although if you take any fiat currency price for gold to the end state you come to the point where gold = infinity, ie as the currency approaches Zero value Gold must approach Infinity, as it did recently in Zim$.

"Most pension funds consider gold too volatile and therefore too risky"
- yeah that idea has worked out so well over the last 10yrs+ hasn't it with the SP500 and DJIA going nowhere and gold up 440% in $US.

By SUSAN PULLIAM

There are gold bulls. And then there is Shayne McGuire.

The 44-year-old pension-fund manager from Texas, who spoke recently at a gold conference in Berlin, caused a stir among the roomful of gold aficionados. His provocation: A book that predicts the price of the precious metal could soar to $10,000 an ounce, more than seven times its current price.

Like those who once boldly predicted $1,000 Internet stocks and a 36000 Dow Jones Industrial Average, Mr. McGuire is a lone voice among mainstream investors suggesting such an outsize price jump in gold's price.

Mr. McGuire's view isn't idle prognostication. He runs a $330 million gold portfolio at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas. Mr. McGuire's forecast, which he made in the recently released book, "Hard Money," makes him a very far outlier. Most on Wall Street consider the prediction outlandish.......read on

“Quantitative Easing” is Fracturing the Global Economy

By Michael Hudson:

Moreover, it may well be asked whether we can take it for granted that a return to freedom of exchanges is really a question of time. Even if the reply were in the affirmative, it is safe to assume that after a period of freedom the regime of control will be restored as a result of the next economic crisis. (Paul Einzig, Exchange Control (1934)).

Great structural changes in world trade and finance occur quickly – by quantum leaps, not by slow marginal accretions. The 1945-2010 era of relatively open trade, capital movements and foreign exchange markets is being destroyed by a predatory financial opportunism that is breaking the world economy into two spheres: a dollar sphere in which central banks in Europe, Japan and many OPEC and Third World countries hold their reserves the form of U.S. Treasury debt of declining foreign-exchange value; and a BRIC-centered sphere, led by China, India, Brazil and Russia, reaching out to include Turkey and Iran, most of Asia, and major raw materials exporters that are running trade surpluses........read on

Ongoing Iran War Preparations?

By Rick Rozoff:

The monumental expansion of arms sales and the buildup of naval and air power in the Arabian Sea region are unprecedented. They are also alarming to the highest degree.

A quarter of the world's nuclear aircraft carriers will soon be in the Arabian Sea.



The Nimitz class nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Abraham Lincoln arrived in the region on October 17 to join the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, which in turn had arrived there on June 18 as part of a regular rotation.

The Charles de Gaulle, flagship of the French navy, the country's only aircraft carrier and the sole non-American nuclear carrier, will soon join its two U.S. counterparts. The U.S. possesses half the world's twenty-two aircraft carriers, all eleven supercarriers (those displacing over 70,000 tons) and eleven of twelve nuclear carriers.........read on

Iran Announces It Has Converted 15% Of Its $100 Billion+ In Reserves Into Gold

From Zerohedge.com:

As of today, one of the world's top oil exporters disclosed that it has exchanged about $15 billion of its FX reserves into gold. Earlier, Iran announced that the country has converted about 15% of its foreign exchange reserves into gold, and "will not need to import the metal for the next ten years." There is your mystery buyer to all that gold the IMF was selling in Q3... And since Ahmadinejad said that Iran's total FX reserves exceed $100 billion, the amount of gold in stock held by Iran is more than $15 billion. Which is equivalent more than 345 tonnes at a closing price of about $1350.....read on

Gold & Silver Vigilantes Smell Blood in the Water

End of Liberty