Print, Baby, Print!

By Steve Saville: According to an article by Jonathan Laing in the 9th August edition of Barrons magazine:

"The Fed should, and probably will change its tune by the fall and fire up the printing presses. Its current stance of watchful waiting in the face of slowing economic growth, inflation cycling below its preferred target rate of 1.7% to 2% and naggingly elevated unemployment strikes some observers as nothing short of mind-boggling. With good reason, these critics are pushing the Fed to adopt the deflation-fighting strategy that Bernanke mentioned in 2002, when he was a newly minted Fed governor. He suggested that the Fed could always buy long-term government bonds and corporate debt to mainline more liquidity into the financial system to counteract incipient deflation."....read on

Bullion As An Alternative To 'Shorting'

By Jeff Nielson: In a recent commentary, I characterized gold and silver bullion as a "superior" asset-class, versus virtually any other investment options. In this series of commentaries, I'm going to focus upon the versatility of bullion as an investment.

Experienced precious metals investors are familiar with the many "drivers" which have been identified for the precious metals market. However, this is simply another way of saying that bullion is a good proxy for many of the dynamics in markets (and the overall economy) today.

This is a concept which is especially useful with respect to investing in a "short" position (i.e. betting that a particular investment will go down rather than up). "Shorting" a market is inevitably a much more high-risk investment than going "long".

To begin with, there is the potential for infinite losses. Bet "long", and you can never lose more than 100% of your investment (assuming we avoid the insanity of "margin" in our accounts). Bet "short" however, and there is no limit to potential losses, since there is no (theoretical) limit on how high any particular investment could rise (except for bonds). Add to that the further risk of being forced-out of your short-position, and we can see that this is a particularly precarious form of investing, best left to trading experts.....read on

Silver Has Potential To Be One Of Best Performing Assets Over The Next Five Years

By David Levenstein: Much of what applies to gold also applies to silver. And, as I have mentioned in previous articles, silver is also a monetary metal whose price is influenced by similar factors that influence the gold price. Invariably, the price of silver mirrors that of gold and more often than not, its moves are greater in percentage terms than the moves in gold. So if the price of gold moves 1% silver can be expected to move between 2%-6%. With the price of silver being so undervalued at the moment, the percentage moves we can expect to see in the future are going to be quite spectacular.

According to World Silver Survey2010 released in May by The Silver Institute, silver has continued to make gains as the European sovereign debt crises continues. "Silver's status as a precious metal was unequivocally reaffirmed last year by investors who purchased it not only as a speculative commodity-play on economic recovery but also as a safe haven asset, particularly at a time when the global financial crisis was raging," the Survey noted....read on

Gerald Celente

Gerald discusses trend analysis, future forecasting and fascism.....watch here

Chinese Inflation to Boost Gold Prices?

From ArabianMoney.net: A recent report from Credit Suisse has warned that wage inflation in China is going to put pressure on the profit margins of major Western brands dependent on Chinese manufacturing over the next 12 months.

Over the past decade Chinese manufacturing salaries have risen from $1,000 to $3,900, according to The Daily Telegraph yesterday. But a series of strikes at key factories have sent wage inflation soaring to 25-30 per cent this year.

The low cost of manufacturing in China has been the secret of low inflation in the West in the 2000s. That deflationary force is gone. This is inflation at a very basic level. Eventually manufacturers will have to pass this higher cost on with higher prices or inflation.

Now we hear the selling of gold by Chinese banks is being liberalized. The Chinese are not immune to inflation either and will want to buy protection in the form of gold, the one currency that cannot be printed...read on

Gold & Silver charts

Thanks to Jesse's Cafe Americain for the charts....click on each chart to see in detail.

Tensions Rise in Greece as Austerity Measures Backfire

From Spiegel Online: The austerity measures that were supposed to fix Greece's problems are dragging down the country's economy. Stores are closing, tax revenues are falling and unemployment has hit an unbelievable 70 percent in some places. Frustrated workers are threatening to strike back.

The feast of the Assumption of Mary on Aug. 15 is the high point of summer in the Greek Orthodox world. Here in one of the country's many churches, believers pray to the Virgin for mercy, with many of them falling to their knees.

The newspaper Ta Nea has recommended that the Greek government adopt the very same approach -- the country's leaders have to hope that Mary comes up with a miracle to save Greece from a serious crisis, the paper writes. Without divine intervention, the newspaper suggested, it will be a difficult autumn for the Mediterranean state.....read on

To Be or Not to Be?

Latest essay from Martin Armstrong, Martin discusses the many flavours of default throughout history.....read here

The "Flight to Safety" Trade Your Broker Won't Tell You About

By Graham Summers: Quietly and with little fanfare, Gold has made a MAJOR change in its status. The precious metal is largely viewed as THE anti-paper money play by investors. Given that the world's central banks (with perhaps the exception of China) have maintained only one response to every issues that arises in the markets (print or spend money) Gold should be soaring.

Indeed, EVERY single new bailout or stimulus or monetization should push Gold higher. In fact, we should be seeing a kind of gradual awakening for investors as they realize that each one of these bailouts brings us closer to the "end game" in which throwing money at the world's financial problems has failed......read on

How Much Gold Remains In Fort Knox?

By Chris Weber: Yesterday marked the 39th anniversary of the day when the US Government declared bankruptcy. Oh, they didn't call it that at the time. But what happened on August 15, 1971 was that the US defaulted on its promise to pay gold for dollars.

Before that day, gold was the legal linchpin of the world monetary system. Although every currency was defined in terms of the US dollar, the dollar itself was legally defined as 1/35th of a troy ounce of gold.

Since then, there really has been no center to the international monetary system. The "reserve currency" continues to be the US dollar. But there is no official definition of what a dollar is. Like every other currency, its value changes every ten seconds as it is traded on the global currency markets. It is a promise to pay nothing. Its value has been devalued for years. On top of that, enormous effort has since been put into the global currency markets: buying, selling, manipulating...none of which has caused anything productive to the world economy. Oh, sure, currency investing has made some of us rich, but is it really the same kind of wealth that, say, Steve Jobs has created with Apple?......read on