Kiss Gold Bull Market Goodbye … In the beginning of this year, we looked at some of the trading errors commonly made by gold investors during this cycle. At the time, gold had fallen 38 percent from its 2011 peak. Yesterday, spot gold traded at less than $1,242 before closing slightly higher. Gold is hitting new multiyear lows relative to the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. J.C. Parets...Read More

Ex-Bankers Upgrade the Good Life to Get a Violin-Shaped Pool … What's ambitious about Jay Dweck's bathroom isn't the television by his whirlpool tub or the screen that will face his toilet and bidet. It isn't the wide nook in his shower for a third TV and one more across from the sink, or his plan to have each turn on automatically when he's nearby. It's that Dweck, a...Read More

Senate must rein in the NSA … The House of Representatives seemed poised last month to rein in the government's ability to spy on its citizens by prohibiting the bulk collection of Americans' telephone records. On the eve of the vote, however, the Obama administration and House leadership intervened. In secret negotiations, they took a carving knife to the bill, removing key privacy...Read More

Federal Reserve Officials Are Trying to Disarm the $2.58 Trillion Bomb They Built … It will be six years in October 2014 that Federal Reserve officials started building the monetary bomb. Now that the bomb has reached $2.58 trillion, some reporters and broadcasters have found a problem. Fed officials are now talking about plans to dismantle the bomb with no troublesome side effects. Some of...Read More

Global watchdogs rattled by lack of fear in the markets … A storm alert … from Simon Derrick at the Bank of New York Mellon. He cites three warnings from leading central bankers, all alarmed by the remarkable disregard for risk in the equity, credit, and currency markets. The Bank of England's Deputy Governor Charles Bean says the lack of volatility is "eerily reminiscent"...Read More

Risen Ready to Take Fight to Jail After Supreme Court Refusal … 'I don't know what they're going to do,' the Pulitzer Prize winner says. New York Times reporter James Risen isn't sure if federal prosecutors will still seek his testimony. – New York TimesDominant Social Theme: This reporter is sticking up for truth, justice and the American way.Free-Market Analysis:...Read More

The Shocking Real Reason for FATCA, and What Comes Next … If you've never heard of the obscure and seemingly boring Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), I don't blame you. Few people have, and even fewer fully grasp what it really means or the terrible things that it's a harbinger for … Now that FATCA has become a fait accompli, the foundation has been laid for GATCA...Read More

Despite election results, reason still rules Europe … When can a vote of 25 percent be described as a "stunning victory" or even a "political earthquake"? According to the European establishment, it's when these votes go to a rabble of odd-ball extremists, ranging from overt racists and even disciples of Adolf Hitler to unreconstructed Stalinists and comically naï...Read More

Is it the Bilderberg conference – or conspiracy? The world's most powerful people begin their annual meeting on Thursday. So what have they got to hide? … Conspiracy theorists may chuckle when they learn a debate entitled "Does Privacy Exist?" is to feature at this year's Bilderberg conference, the notoriously secretive gathering of the world's most powerful banke...Read More

Secrecy's out, so here's what Swiss banks can still offer … If Swiss banks were to cast off their usual discretion and make a marketing pitch these days, it might start off something like this: Dear Potential Client, While we would be delighted to open an account and manage your money for you, once you've complied with our anti-money laundering provisions, please be advised that...Read More

Capitalism is worth fighting for – it is a force for good … Capitalism must have a social purpose and be used to the long-term benefit of companies and their employees … The workplace is a crucial arena for individual progress, where the meritocracy that sustains every democracy is most often played out … Capitalism is certainly far from perfect, but most of us believe that...Read More

Nobody Wants To Host The 2022 Olympics … The next Olympics to be awarded, a little more than a year from now, will be the 2022 Winter Games. Rather than going to the strongest bid, the games may end up going to the last city standing—a long list of potential hosts have given up on their Olympic dreams because the whole thing is one huge, useless waste of money. – DeadspinDominant...Read More

Three Ms for economics re-education … Many economics students are unhappy with what they are being taught. A network of 62 groups from around the world has drawn up a petition calling for more "pluralism" in instruction. The malcontents find the dominant neoclassical model too narrow and want to know why so few experts predicted the 2008 financial crisis. They also want less abstra...Read More

U.S. Training Elite Antiterror Troops in Four African Nations … United States Special Operations troops are forming elite counterterrorism units in four countries in North and West Africa that American officials say are pivotal in the widening war against Al Qaeda's affiliates and associates on the continent, even as they acknowledge the difficulties of working with weak allies. The secr...Read More

It's been sunny almost every day with a cool ocean breeze, and temperatures in the 70s and 80s. Sure beats the freezing cold and snowy weather we came from in Vermont. Our big workout down here is taking a swim in the pool or the ocean versus digging out of huge snow piles back in New England. But it wasn't just the sunny skies, year-round warm weather, and beautiful ocean beaches that dre...Read More

European Parliament election: Eurosceptic parties claim victory in UK … Right-wing Eurosceptic parties stormed to victory in European Parliament elections in the UK and France, as exit polls showed voters turning their backs on mainstream politics. UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage claimed victory in the British election, as early results showed his party beating both the Cons...Read More

Worldwide Campaign: Cannabis for Therapeutic Purposes is a Human Right … An international consortium of medical cannabis organisations are demanding that humans, regardless of state or allegiance and without qualification, be able to use cannabis therapeutically. In a joint declaration, the organisations from Europe and North America refer to Article 3 of the Declaration of Human Rights adop...Read More

Charles Plosser thinks there's a ticking time bomb at the Fed … The way Charles Plosser sees it, the Federal Reserve is sitting on a ticking time bomb that could severely damage the economy unless the central bank reacts quickly to defuse the looming threat. The Philadelphia Fed president, viewed as one of the bank's leading hawks, is worried about some $2.5 trillion in "excess&...Read More

Hemp Enters the Mainstream … The sachets of hemp hearts on the shelves at Costco (COST), Safeway (SWY), and Whole Foods Market (WFM) are Mike Fata's last laugh. The founder of Manitoba Harvest has spent the past decade working to transform hemp—a variety of cannabis—from the butt of weedy jokes into a supermarket staple. Fata's investors are particularly happy about the m...Read More

Europe's centre crumbles as Socialists immolate themselves on altar of EMU … Francois Hollande must be willing to rock the European Project to its foundations, and even to risk a rupture of the euro. This he cannot bring himself to do The ECB is once again sitting on its hands, trifling with deflation … By a horrible twist of fate, Europe's political Left has become the enforce...Read More