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What Needs To Be Done To Get Out Of The Mess
Gold: Not A Hedge Against Deflation And Inflation, But Soon Could Be A Buy
How Bank Of America Became Like An Airline
“SILVER COT Report Is MORE Bullish than EVER”
China: Fueling The Global Recession
Indian Silver Demand Leads to ‘Supply Issues’, Airline Capacity Stretched and Higher Premiums
Gold ETFs Slightly Lower As Markets Eye Bernanke
This collapse is bigger than governments and central banks, Turk tells King World News
A Rock, A Hard Place and Gold
Is Gold Mining Returning to Yukon?
Riverstone Reports Multiple High Grade Gold Intercepts at Yaramoko
Numbers to Watch in Comex Silver and Gold
No QE3 and AU and AG drop a few points. Why?
Demand for Physical Gold and Silver Increasing
Special VB Update – October 4, 2011
Tinka Results
The Senate may have just started a U.S.-China currency war
These beaten-down energy stocks could be due for a big rebound
Why the big banks are plummeting again
A Golden Age For Gold Loses Some of Its Luster
James Turk's AIER speech
BrotherJohnF – Silver Update – “BOA is DOA”
WATCH: The Hyper Report 10.4.11
Investing Genius
Dow/Gold Ratio heading lower
Asian Demand 'Insatiable' as Western Gold Moves East
Gold to regain glitter, say bankers to the rich
Gold posts big Q3 gain despite sharp monthly drop
COMEX owner tries to lure more gold out for bullion bank leasing
Battered gold bugs still defying bear raid: Peter Brimelow

What Needs To Be Done To Get Out Of The Mess

Posted: 04 Oct 2011 04:44 AM PDT

By Lok Sang Ho:

The recent declines in global stock markets do not bode well for the economy, and they reflect a collapse in confidence about the remedies that government ministers and central bankers have prescribed to "help the economy." You cannot blame people for this loss of confidence, because the remedies that have been proposed so far have either fallen short of what was necessary to deal with the problem, or even worse, have worsen the outlook for the economy and hence the outlook for effectively dealing with the debt problem.

One of the basic lessons that students of macroeconomics learn is that in order for the debt problem not to blow up, one necessary condition is for the nominal growth rate of the economy to be higher that the interest rate paid on the national debt. This requirement is easy to demonstrate. It is not a sufficient condition

Complete Story »

Gold: Not A Hedge Against Deflation And Inflation, But Soon Could Be A Buy

Posted: 04 Oct 2011 04:40 AM PDT

By Avi Gilburt:

I'm being bombarded by emails from many different sources, each with their own take on gold. Some of them claim that gold is a major short opportunity now, while others are still pushing to get in for the rise to $5,000. As I have stated many times in the past, I am in neither camp at this point in time.

The major, near term, short opportunity in gold has most probably passed, and I advised you of it BEFORE it began. Additionally, the potential for gold to reach $5,000 from this level at any time within the next year or two is truly not in the cards either, in my humble opinion.

Common Misconceptions

I have recently written several articles regarding various analysis techniques for precious metals. The purpose of these articles was to give my perspective on where these metals were headed in the short term. In fact, in

Complete Story »

How Bank Of America Became Like An Airline

Posted: 04 Oct 2011 04:22 AM PDT

By Dana Blankenhorn:

Bank of America's (BAC) $5/month fee on debit cards may be the most misunderstood pricing move of the year.

It turns out to have a lot more in common with airline pricing decisions than anything previously seen in banking.

Airlines are careful about increasing fares. If other airlines don't follow an increase, it's withdrawn. Prices are adjusted continually in response to competition, and perceived changes in demand.

Banks are in the early stages of this complex pricing dance.

In the case of the $5 fee, BofA is sending a signal to other big banks with extensive ATM networks, and a hope they will follow suit. After all, consumers can avoid the fee by removing cash from Bank of America ATMs for small purchases, and by using credit cards for larger purchases.

Many small merchants hope they do just this. Having finally gotten the right this year to set minimums on

Complete Story »

“SILVER COT Report Is MORE Bullish than EVER”

Posted: 04 Oct 2011 04:07 AM PDT

From Clive Maud:
On silver's year-to-date chart we can see how the brutal plunge that wiped out many leveraged small silver speculators, and which enabled us to make a fortune in a matter of days, abruptly terminated at the zone of support shown in Far East markets on Monday, after which silver rallied to close the day almost at its highs, leaving behind a large very bullish "Dragonfly Doji" on its chart which we will look at a little later on the 3-month chart. The ferocity of the decline is thought to be partly or even largely due to a wave of margin calls going out to leveraged small speculators, who had been set up to be fleeced by their cheerleaders egging them on for weeks, having apparently learnt nothing from the May plunge just a few months earlier.

CLICK IMAGE FOR A LARGER VIEW

The latest COTs show a TRULY MASSIVE DECLINE in Commercial short and Large and Small Spec long positions in silver, which comes on top of earlier declines for several weeks. The Commercials have never been long silver and make money by playing the swings and this is as close as they have got to being long. This is THE MOST BULLISH COT CHART FOR SILVER THE WRITER HAS EVER SEEN. It alone suggests a stunning turnaround in the silver price before long. How could this be? If we couple this strongly bullish silver COT chart together with the strongly bullish euro COT chart shown in the Gold Market update (and the dollar COT chart is very bearish), the story it appears to be telling is that the dollar rally may soon be history, which suggests that some kind of breakthrough may be imminent regarding the crisis in Europe. This would logically involve more integration and the commitment to a massive blast of QE, Fed style, in order to mitigate the liquidity problems arising from the insolvency of member states. Needless to say, if Europe graduates to the elite super QE club, it will be great news for gold and silver, and for commodities generally.

In conclusion it would appear that silver has bottomed and that we are now in a base building process that may be completed a lot sooner than would normally be the case. Silver and silver related investments may be accumulated in the "accumulation zone" shown on the 3-month chart, and should be bought aggressively whenever it dips towards the intraday lows of last Monday towards $26, and this would be an excellent zone to go for the leverage of options.

Read more at GoldMoney.com

Special VB Update – October 4, 2011

Posted: 04 Oct 2011 02:32 AM PDT

Web log notice:

Vultures (Got Gold Report Subscribers) please log in to the password-protected GGR subscriber pages for an important Vulture Bargain Update posted today, Tuesday, October 4. We want to update our Vulture Bargain Hunting strategy during this negative cascade event, including our thoughts about low-volume-panic-spike opportunities which may soon occur and why our "LVPS" targets on the charts in blue are located where they are.

To continue reading, please log in or click here to subscribe to a Got Gold Report Membership.

Tinka Results

Posted: 04 Oct 2011 02:00 AM PDT

VANCOUVER, Oct. 4, 2011, 2011 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) -- Tinka Resources Limited (the "Company"), (TK) (frankfurt:TLD) (pinksheets:TKRFF), announces the results from the first five drill holes testing the Ayawilca zone on the Company's wholly-owned Colquipucro silver-zinc-lead property, west-central Peru.

All holes intercepted altered siltstones and fine to coarse grained sandstones, randomly crosscut by semi-massive to massive sphalerite veins and intervening stringer and breccia style pyrite-sphalerite and minor galena mineralization.

Mineralized intervals, dominated by sphalerite, included:

The rig is currently drilling immediately to the east of the main target area to test for mineralization at depth; it will then move to the northern end of the main zone for further drilling.

On completion of the Ayawilca drilling program the rig will move to Zone 1 to drill the northern extension of the NI 43-101 compliant resource.

Mr Carter said; "This is a positive result as it confirms that there is mineralization in areas other than Zone 1 at Colquipucro and the possibility of defining further resources. The priority now is to complete the drilling at Ayawilca and recommence drilling at Zone 1 to test the northern extension".

___________________________________________________________

VANCOUVER, Aug. 4, 2011, 2011 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) -- TSXV - TK; Frankfurt - TLD; Pinksheets - TKRFF

Tinka Resources Limited (the "Company"), (TSXV - TK; Frankfurt - TLD; Pinksheets -TKRFF). The Company advises that diamond drilling is continuing at its Colquipucro silver project, west-central Peru. The fourth hole, of a planned program of ten holes at the Ayawilca zone was commenced this week.

All core is being logged and split on site under the supervision of Tinka geologists, with sampling done on two metre intervals, and samples are being transported by company staff to the laboratory in Lima, Peru. Analytical standards and blanks are routinely introduced in the sample suites sent to the laboratory. Results will be released once they have been received and reviewed.

Following the completion of drilling at the Ayawilca zone, the drill rig will be moved to Zone 1 to test the northern extension of the NI43-101 compliant resource.

At Tibillos, the Company´s copper porphyry project south of Lima, work is commencing on the preparation of access roads, pads and accommodation. Due the lack of availability of reverse circulation drill rigs, the first six of the eighteen permitted holes at Tibillos will be completed using a diamond drill. Drilling will commence as soon as the construction work is completed.

The Senate may have just started a U.S.-China currency war

Posted: 04 Oct 2011 01:22 AM PDT

From Zero Hedge:

A few hours ago, the maniac simians at the Senate finally did it and fired the first round in the great U.S.-China currency war, after they took aim at one of China's core economic policies, voting to move forward with a bill designed to press Beijing to let its currency rise in value in the hope of creating U.S. jobs.

As Reuters reports, "Senators voted 79-19 to open a week of Senate debate on the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011, which would allow the U.S. government to slap countervailing duties on products from countries found to be subsidizing their exports by undervaluing their currencies.

"Monday's strong green light for debate on the bill bolsters prospects it will clear the Democrat-run Senate later this week...

Read full article...

More Cruxallaneous:

WARNING: When this news breaks, the euro could crash

Reports say billionaire George Soros has dumped all of his gold

Porter Stansberry: The buying opportunity of a lifetime is approaching

These beaten-down energy stocks could be due for a big rebound

Posted: 04 Oct 2011 01:02 AM PDT

From Frank Holmes of U.S. Global Investors:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average experienced its worst quarter since the beginning of 2009. The S&P 500 Index fell 14 percent during the third quarter, with the materials sector as the worst performer, falling 25 percent. Many base metal commodities saw double-digit declines, but not surprisingly, gold increased 8 percent over the quarter. It appears that fear of a "2008 repeat" drove investors from stocks despite positive long-term fundamentals.

Coal was relatively flat for the quarter, but what's interesting is that coal companies were severely discounted. Over the last two years, coal stocks and the commodity have closely tracked each other, until this summer, when worries about a global slowdown caused coal stocks to fall off a cliff, not once, but twice, in August and again in early September.

This extreme divergence between coal companies and the commodity seems unwarranted when...

Read full article...

More on coal:

This energy sector is headed for a huge crash

It could be a great time to buy this forgotten energy commodity

Commodity investors should pay attention to this little-owned emerging market

Why the big banks are plummeting again

Posted: 04 Oct 2011 12:59 AM PDT

From The Big Picture:

Morgan Stanley in a free fall. Goldman Sachs at multi-year lows. Citigroup looking ugly. Bank of America off 50% from recent highs.

You may be wondering what is going on with the major firms in the financial sector. While each of these firms have different problems -- vampire squids to Countrywide acquisitions -- they all have something in common: Their balance sheets are opaque.

This is no accident. Indeed, it was by design that execs in the banking sector, and their outside accountants, hatched a scheme in 2008 to...

Read full article...

More on the banks:

The big U.S. banks were CRUSHED today

The euro collapse could wipe out this big U.S. bank

No longer "Too Big to Fail": This U.S. bank is in serious trouble

A Golden Age For Gold Loses Some of Its Luster

Posted: 04 Oct 2011 12:06 AM PDT

Paper pushin'comic relief for us...

The yellow metal is in a gray area.

For investors in commodities, the fourth quarter of 2011 opens on a cliffhanger: Will gold regain its cachet for safety and resume its climb or has its glittering run come to an end?

It is a straightforward question after a month in which this famed "safe haven" underperformed a falling stock market by some 50%.

The answer, though, is anything but straightforward and has to be found in gold's complex and tortuous relationship with other investments.

Enlarge Image

CloseChinaFotoPress/Zuma Press

Skeptics now are questioning gold's credentials as one of the few shelters from financial storms and some investors have begun to wonder whether this is the beginning of the end for gold's spectacular surge. Above, a 99.999 percent pure gold bar which weighs 99.999kg is displayed at Nanjing Central Emporium last month in Nanjing, China.
Look at it this way: If the gyrations of commodities markets were to be turned into a movie, gold would be the sad sack with unexpected powers of redemption, played by Paul Giamatti.

Inert and largely useless, in boom periods gold sits around in its drab living room moping, ignored by investors and outshone by racier assets such as stocks and mortgage-backed securities.

But as economic gloom spreads and recession fears grip the world, gold, helped by its more-volatile buddy silver (Owen Wilson), stages a triumphal comeback, riding to the rescue of scared fund managers.

I have a title for this tale of an unlikely hero for our troubled times: "No Yield"—the feature that sets gold apart from most other assets.

For the past decade, the script has been playing out pretty much as expected, with gold rising nearly sixfold to a record $1,888.70 per troy ounce in August (not adjusting for inflation).

Then, a major plot twist. September was horrible, with gold prices falling 11%—the most since the dark days of October 2008. Much of the damage was done a fortnight ago, when gold recorded its worst week since 1983.

Has gold's stunning run come to an end? And, more importantly, is its status as a safe haven in danger? According to Francesco Guerrera on The News Hub, after a horrible September, investors are starting to lose faith in the yellow metal.
More worrying, the plunge occurred as stocks and other "risky" assets were falling, making the yellow metal a decidedly unsafe haven.

Skeptics now are questioning gold's credentials as one of the few shelters from financial storms and some investors have begun to wonder whether this is the beginning of the end for gold's spectacular surge.

In truth, nobody knows. Gold's very nature defies calculations of its "true" value. It has few economic uses other than jewelry and some electronics, so its price is less influenced by supply and demand than other metals.

And because gold yields no income, unlike bonds or stocks its worth can't be reduced to an Excel-friendly equation.

The metal's penchant for evading precise valuations is, in many ways, its strength.

No expert can definitively tell whether gold is over- or undervalued, in a bubble or in a slump. So, over the years, investors and central banks have bought gold for wildly different reasons: as a hedge against inflation, an alternative to the dollar as a store of value, a blanket coverage against all of the world's ills or a pure speculative play.

Call it reverse alchemy: Instead of looking for a "philosopher's stone" to transform other metals into gold like their Middle Ages ancestors, investors have found a way to turn gold into whatever they want it to be.

In practice, gold performed abysmally at some of its assignments. Take its best-known role, as a buffer against inflation. Between 1980 and 2005, consumer prices in the U.S. more than doubled yet gold lost some 20% of its value.

The link with stocks hasn't been perfect either. While gold tends to rise when stocks fall, the recent setback is a reminder that there are exceptions to that rule.

A reason for gold's seemingly counterintuitive movements is that, when it rallies, investors faced with losses on other assets raise funds by selling it.

There is some evidence that some of the sellers in the latest meltdown were indeed "stale bulls"—the unflattering market jargon for this strategy. Long-term investors such as exchange-traded funds, by contrast, barely sold.

Research by James Steel at HSBC raises another possibility. Mr. Steel has unearthed a strong correlation between gold's ups and downs and stocks' volatility. When shares go on a roller-coaster ride, so does gold.

Seen through this prism, gold looks at lot less "safe," at least in the short term. If the yellow metal is buffeted just as stocks are, then investors trying to time the market are in for a rocky run.

This also would explain the stale-bull phenomenon. When the waves of a crisis mount, gold is the ballast that gets thrown frantically into the sea to keep the ship afloat.

Add the fact that gold prices are sensitive to both current and expected interest rates—the higher those levels, the higher the cost of holding an asset that yields nothing—and a clearer picture begins to emerge: Gold's safety is in the eye of the beholder. The yellow metal naturally appeals to long-term investors with a bleak view of the world while hot-money types might find its allure ephemeral.

Happy hunting for gold, but remember, no commodity market is based in Hollywood. Happy endings aren't guaranteed.

—Francesco Guerrera is The Wall Street Journal's Money & Investing editor. Write to him at: currentaccount@wsj.com.

James Turk's AIER speech

Posted: 03 Oct 2011 11:00 PM PDT

Those who hold gold and silver who have been perturbed by the recent sharp correction in both metals cannot lose sight of the fundamentals underpinning the bull markets in these assets. James Turk's ...

BrotherJohnF – Silver Update – “BOA is DOA”

Posted: 03 Oct 2011 10:42 PM PDT

Brother John looks at Clives work, suggests again the bottom is gold and silver is in and that Bank of America is running out of oxygen.

~TVR

WATCH: The Hyper Report 10.4.11

Posted: 03 Oct 2011 10:40 PM PDT

In the 10.4.11 Hyper Report:

Greece Falls Into 'Death Spiral': Rising Debt, No Growth
China Is An Economy On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown
Trade War with China Looms
Why Investors Should Buy Gold Now
Fed Members Dropping Hints On QE3
Bank Of America Locks Out Its Online Clients For Second Day In A Row

Please prepare now for the developing economic and social unrest.

Investing Genius

Posted: 03 Oct 2011 10:36 PM PDT

H/T Barry Ritholtz Likely Related Posts Political Humor Gold — Bubble or Not? Johnny Cashless Explains The Economy Hydrogen Barackside Humor — Insults Without Four-Letter Words Share/Save

Dow/Gold Ratio heading lower

Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:15 PM PDT

Concerns over the health of the Franco-Belgian bank Dexia added to the bearish mood affecting stock markets yesterday. Dexia's shares slid 10% on the news that Moody's Investors Services ...

Asian Demand 'Insatiable' as Western Gold Moves East

Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:01 PM PDT

¤ Yesterday in Gold and Silver

The gold price opened quietly higher in Far East trading during their Monday morning...and by 2:15 p.m. Hong Kong time the price was up a magnificent seven dollars or so from Friday's New York close.

Then the price caught a bit of a bid...with the high of the day coming at the London a.m. gold fix around 10:30 British Summer Time [5:30 a.m. Eastern]. But minutes after Comex trading began in New York, gold got sold off about fifteen dollars or so. The tiny rally that followed got sold off the moment that Comex trading ended...and trading in the New York Access Market began.

Gold hit its New York low just a few minutes before 3:30 p.m...and then rallied back almost to the Comex opening price. Gold finished at $1,600.90 spot...up $36.10 on the day. Estimated net volume was around 140,000 contracts.

Silver's price was more 'volatile' in early Far East trading. A sustained rally began about 11:30 a.m. Hong Kong time...with the price spike and high of the day coming shortly after 1:00 p.m. London time...8:00 a.m. in New York.

Then, like the gold price, moments after trading began in New York, the selling began...and a not-for-profit seller peeled 90 cents off the price in just over an hour. From there, the silver price never got back above $31...or below $30.40.

Once the thinly-traded electronic session started at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time, the silver price got sold off about 80 cents, before recovering a hair into the close. The price finished the day at $30.49 spot...up 52 cents. Net volume was around 40,000 contracts.

The gold shares gapped up...and hit their peak about fifteen minutes after the equity markets open...and then began a long, slow slide. Despite the fact that the gold price finished up 2% on the day, the shares couldn't hold their gains...and the HUI finished down 1.19%.

Despite the fact that silver finished up on the day as well, the silver shares got hit pretty hard...and Nick Laird's Silver Sentiment Index finished down 2.40%.

(Click on image to enlarge)

It's pretty much a given that if the general equity markets hadn't tanked yesterday, the precious metal shares would have done much better.

The CME's Daily Delivery Report for October 3rd showed that 216 gold and 7 silver contracts were posted for delivery tomorrow. The biggest long/stopper/receiver was JPMorgan in its client account with 156 contracts. The link to the action is here.

There wasn't much activity in GLD yesterday, as a very tiny 9,732 troy ounces were added...and there were no changes reported in SLV.

It was a pretty big sales day for the U.S. Mint yesterday as 8,500 ounces of gold eagles...3,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes...and 737,000 silver eagles were reported sold on October 1st.

It was a busy day for one of the Comex-approved depositories on Friday. A total of 1,237,734 ounces of silver were shipped in...and a very skinny 9,420 ounces were shipped out. Virtually every ounce received ended up in Scotia Mocatta's vault. The link to that action is here.

After such a tumultuous week, silver analyst Ted Butler had a rather long essay for his clients on Saturday. Here's a free paragraph...

"From the recent high point in the total commercial net short position in COMEX gold futures of over 287,600 contracts on August 2nd, that position has been reduced by 121,000 contracts (12.1 million oz) to the current reading of 166,700 contracts. This is the lowest total commercial net short position in more than two years, back to when gold was priced at less than $1000 an ounce. Since August 2nd, the commercials first covered to the upside (unexpected) and then to the downside in price (expected). Over that time, the price of gold first rose by $300 and then fell by that same amount. During this almost two month period of time, there was little notable net change in the reported holdings in gold ETFs or other documentable holdings. The most significant and verifiable net change in world gold holdings occurred on the COMEX, to the tune of the 12.1 million ounces just described. In a nutshell, the net change in the COMEX commercial net short position was what drove the price; nothing else visible in the world of gold drove the price. As a reminder, just like in silver, the COMEX futures market is clearly setting the price. This is in stark contrast to commodity law, which holds that futures trading should discover, not set the price. It further suggests that the CME Group, owner of the COMEX, is every bit the criminal enterprise I allege it to be."

October 1st is the National Day of the People's Republic of China. It is also a public holiday. The National Day marks the start of one of the two Golden Weeks in the PRC.

Here's a really neat picture of a 99.999% pure gold bar that weighs 200 kilos...one tenth of a tonne...or 3,215 troy ounces. It was on display in a department store/mall in China.

There are quite a few more pictures of this monster taken from different angles...and you can find them posted at the fofoa.blogstpot.com website linked here. They are well worth the look, and I thank Manchester, U.K. reader 'John R' for sharing that with us.

I have a huge list of stories and interviews for you today. I'm posting everything, because world events are now moving so fast that news stories have a very short [sometimes only hours long] shelf life these days. As always, the final edit is up to you.

We are getting pretty far down the slippery slope towards the collapse of the economic, financial and monetary world as we know it. It's just a matter of what blows up [or melts down] first.

Gold posts big Q3 gain despite sharp monthly drop. Gold to regain glitter, say bankers to the rich. Qatari wealth fund plans $10 billion gold mine buying spree.

¤ Critical Reads

SEC finds failures at credit raters

No! Really? Who would have thought that?

Securities and Exchange Commission staff found "apparent failures" at each of the 10 credit rating agencies they examined, including Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch, the agency said on Friday in its first annual report on credit raters.

The SEC sent letters outlining the staff's concerns to each of the ratings firms and demanded a remediation plan with 30 days, an agency official said in a conference call with reporters.

The SEC staff said concerns include failures to follow ratings methodologies, failures in making timely and accurate disclosures and failures to manage conflicts of interest.

This is a Reuters story from last Friday...and I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for sending it along...and the link is here.

View full GSD edition

Meet the Texan investor who made millions from the credit crunch... and now he stands to make 65,000% profit if Europe goes down the drain

A Greek default would make it pay down its debt by around 70 per cent, meaning every $1,100 bet would net him an astonishing $700,000, Kyle Bass said.

He said his mother tells him to put his money in 'guns and gold'.

Mr. Lewis recalled him pulling out a huge gold brick from his desk drawer and saying: 'We've bought a lot of this stuff.'

Mr. Bass, who lives in a 40,000 sq. ft. house, has also bought 20 million nickels for $1 million. He said the metal inside each coin is worth 6.8 cents.

'It may not be the end of the world,' Mr. Bass added. 'But a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money. Our goal is not to be one of them.'

This story was in the U.K.'s Daily Mail yesterday...and I thank British reader Tariq Khan for sending it to us...and the link is here.

View full GSD edition

Thousands rally in Portugal to protest austerity plans

Thousands demonstrated in Portugal Saturday against the government's austerity measures amid projections that the economic situation is far worse than expected.

In April, Portugal became the third eurozone country after Greece and Ireland to request an emergency bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to deal with its mountain of debt.

In exchange for the 78 billion euro ($106 billion) the country agreed to impose reforms demanded by its creditors, including tough budget cutting measures.

Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho's right-of-centre government, which unseated the Socialists in a June vote, has promised further austerity, which is favoured the EU and IMF, but loathed by those on the streets Saturday.

This AFP story was posted over at the france24.com website on Saturday...and is Roy Stephens first offering of the day. The link is here.

View full GSD edition

Greeks Move to Slash State Jobs for 30,000

After marathon talks with foreign auditors, the Greek government said Sunday that it had reached a deal on how to slash its unwieldy public sector by putting 30,000 workers on a scheme that would lead to early retirement for some and dismissal for others, in a bid to meet conditions set by foreign lenders for the release of crucial emergency loans.

The Greek government is in a race against time to convince representatives of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, known as the troika, that it will make good on pledges to put its financial house in order. Without the release of about $11 billion in aid — part of a 110-billion-euro bailout agreement reached last year — Greece could run out of money this month and face a default that would shake the euro zone and global markets.

This story was posted in The New York Times on Sunday...and is Roy Stephens second offering of the day. The link is here.

View full GSD edition

Bad News from Athens: Greek Budget Figures Complicate Bailout Efforts

This spiegel.de story was posted the day after the above story appeared in The New York Times...and shows how fluid the situation really is...and steep the slippery slope has become.

What a difference a weekend makes. On Sunday, Greece announced that its 2011 budget deficit will be 8.5 percent of gross domestic product, well higher than the 7.6 percent it targeted last year as part of its ambitious plan to return to fiscal health. And on Monday, new figures indicate that the country's economy will contract by 2.5 percent in 2012 instead of the hoped for growth of 0.6 percent. Stock markets around the world plunged as a result.

The figures have been made public as officials in Athens struggle to put together a budget for 2012 amid growing doubts that the country will be able to avoid insolvency.

This third Roy Stephens offering was posted over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and the link is here.

View full GSD edition

Merkel and the Euro: Is Germany's Finance Minister Going Rogue?

Many conservative parliamentarians, regardless of their position on the common currency, feel as if they are being treated with contempt. His statements made during the euro crisis have rarely been unequivocal; he always leaves himself a way out. Not only does this confuse his political friends and foes, it also flusters the financial world, with its propensity for panic.

Many German politicians are also insinuating that he has a hidden agenda. They fear that one of the last fully committed supporters of the European project is taking advantage of the crisis to advance his dream of a United States of Europe -- at almost any price. Even the chancellor is sometimes annoyed by the finance minister's moves.

This is another Roy Stephens offering from spiegel.de yesterday...and the link is here.

View full GSD edition

Gold to regain glitter, say bankers to the rich

Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:01 PM PDT

Gold to regain glitter, say bankers to the rich

Wealthy individuals should buy gold as it has become an attractive investment following last month's sharp reversal, private bankers in Asia said on Monday.

"Gold at $2,000 is absolutely, potentially on the up-track, despite the selloff. That is sort of the immediate target," Marcel Kreis, Credit Suisse's head of private banking for Asia-Pacific, told the Reuters Wealth Management Summit in Singapore.

The $2,000 per ounce level was Credit Suisse's 12-month target, he added.

I thank reader 'David in California' for sending me this Reuters story filed from Singapore yesterday...and the link is here.

Gold posts big Q3 gain despite sharp monthly drop

Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:01 PM PDT

Gold posts big Q3 gain despite sharp monthly drop

Gold rose on Friday on lingering worries of a global economic slowdown, and the price of bullion notched its biggest quarterly gain of this year even after a sharp pullback from a record hit this month.

Gold posted a quarterly gain of 8 percent -- its biggest this year, despite a drop of 11 percent for September -- its largely monthly decline in three years.

This Reuters story from Friday is Roy Stephens last offering of the day...and the photo alone is worth the trip. The link is here.

COMEX owner tries to lure more gold out for bullion bank leasing

Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:01 PM PDT

COMEX owner tries to lure more gold out for bullion bank leasing

Gold? Sure, We'll take more of that, says the CME...

CME Group will today increase to $500 million the amount of physical gold its U.S. clearing members can post as collateral for margin requirements, from the existing $200 million.

The step is the latest in a string of moves by exchanges and other financial services firms to increase the use of gold as collateral, which essentially places the precious metal in the top tier of asset classes.

This story was posted over at The Wall Street Journal yesterday...and I thank Edmonton reader 'Ray' for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.

Battered gold bugs still defying bear raid: Peter Brimelow

Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:01 PM PDT

Battered gold bugs still defying bear raid: Peter Brimelow

Gold bugs have been shaken by the size of what they see as a manipulative bear raid, but they still believe that Asian off take underpins the market.

Gold had been declining for several days, but in the early Asian hours of Monday Sept. 26 it was struck a terrific blow, plunging $130 in a few hours before recovering.

Save Your ASSets First

Tuesday, October 4, 2011