Every so often Jesse understates the obvious with simplicity and brilliance: I think that over time the US markets will become increasingly less relevant as a price-setting mechanism for a number of commodity prices including the metals. The failure of MF Global and the blatant cheating of the customers, both before and after the fact, [...]

It was Anne Barnhardt’s interview (where she seemed perplexed to find herself somewhere between a cult hero and a pariah) that is the inspiration for this post. After the unprecedented “legalized theft” of over one billion dollars from MF Global client segregated accounts, Anne closed her commodity brokerage firm, returned all client trading funds, and [...]

Just why do those gosh-darned silly “old-fashioned” central banks hold (real physical) gold in reserve? Yes, central banks do lease, move, and “hold” gold in reserve, unlike any time  in the last 50 years, yet … like the FED … they tend to be quite opaque regarding their actions involving this “tradition”. Still … there is nothing in the financial [...]

This Rob Kirby article could be the most satisfying, relatively concise, accurate and complete description of the current state of affairs in the world economy I’ve ever read. Surely, readers of Zero Hedge will recall Bill Gross’s recent lament of “paranormal” activity in the bond markets, though several good articles about the crucifixion of bond [...]

It’s pretty likely that there will be another bailout of the real estate market, but why? I mean after all, we already did that by marking the MBS balance sheet valuations of the Too Big To Fails to fantasy. And then we “bailed out” the difference between those fantasy values and true mark to market values. Well that’s [...]

As I write this, many “gold bugs” are shaking their heads in dismay. How can gold now be plunging again? It’s rise yesterday affirmed all our suspicions that the “weak hands” had been “flushed out”. Now “gold” will inexorably rise and never fall again. Why are our experts always DEAD WRONG? I’ll tell you why. Because [...]

2012 will be the year that people will ask themselves, “Am I part of the problem or part of the solution?” 2012 will be the year that paper gold is written into the dirt, as bigger MF Globals go talons up, in more frequent succession. The deflationists will have all manner of technical explanations for the “plunging value” of [...]