JWR’s Introductory Comment: Gee, in light of all the following very bad economic news, can someone please send me something cheery to post? Perhaps some more articles about gun makers making record profits and building huge order backlogs?
Frequent contributor HPD sent this: Brown told us not to question banks on risky practices, says City watchdog
Reader “Bigbird” mentioned a piece in The Australian by Niall Ferguson with some biting criticism of Keynesian economics: The Great Repression
CJB flagged this news story on the Chinese economy: China warns of unemployment risk
GG sent us this one from Smart Money: Nothing Shines Like Gold. “Amazingly, just a month ago, gold and the S&P 500 were trading at about the same price — gold at $854, the S&P 500 at 840. From there, stocks have fallen 10% to near their bear-market lows of last November, while gold has risen as much as 16%.”
GG also sent this piece by Michael Klare at Salon: We’re on the brink of disaster: Violent protests and riots are breaking out everywhere as economies collapse and governments fail. War is bound to follow. It sounds a lot like the next stage of my warnings penned in September of 2006: is coming to pass. I wrote: “If and when the global derivatives bubble ever pops, it may topple not just trading companies like Goldman Sachs, or corporations like GM, Daimler-Chrysler, or RCA, but entire nations. I’m not kidding.”
JHB sent us the link to this history lesson: How Americans Lost Their Right to Own Gold
KT and Charley S. both spotted this piece from a Le Monde: editor, commenting on the most recent LEAP analysis: After the Financial Crisis, Civil War? Get Ready to “Leave Your Region …” (BTW, I used to consider the LEAP papers quite sensationalistic and OTT (in part because of some atrocious French-to-English translation work), but they have been largely accurate in the past 18 months.)
KT also forwarded an article link on counterfeiting of gold bullion and numismatic coins. JWR’s Advice: If you plan to buy or someday barter for any gold coins, protect yourself with a set of Fisch coin-checking gauges.
Jon Christian Ryter asks: What happens when the whole economy sinks underwater?
HD liked this article from The International Herald Tribune: EU chiefs attempt to cool bloc’s crisis
Tom W. thought this news story from England was worthy reading: MI5 On Alert for Bank Riots