Water resources face many pressures, including: population growth, increased urbanization and overconsumption, lack of proper management, and the looming threat of climate change. [This article looks at each area of water stress and offers suggestions on how they can be alleviated to a certain degree.] Words: 917; Charts: 4

Three indexes of the Federal Reserve...calculate and report statistical measures of financial stress in the U.S. economy on a regular basis...[and] all three have returned to their pre-recession levels last seen in May 2007. [What does that mean for stock market valuations? Let's take a look.]

In 1975, 8% of all Americans were on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). That percentage is 15% today. Enrollment soared to 47.8 million participants in recent months, an increase of 70%. Below is an interactive graphic showing the number of SNAP recipients in each of the 50 U.S. states.

Bitcoin is the first peer-to-peer (P2P) digital currency and payment system to gain significant interest. This month its marketcap surpassed $1 billion. [Below is a description of what Bitcoin is, and isn't, and why it has caught on to the extent it has.]

To believe that governments...[won't confiscate your] gold to help support their national finances... would be naïve, especially in light of past and recent events. That's why it is now incumbent on all investors to look at the meaning of ownership in investing and investors' vulnerability to government confiscation as well as vulnerability to exchange and capital controls. We do this below.

It is possible that Bitcoins are starting to steal some of gold's historic role as a safe haven asset, and if that comes to pass it will be a headwind for the metal and the miners of it going forward....

Freedom is a relative concept. Compared to other states in the U.S., how does your state rank in terms of these 40 aspects of freedom?

Use a portion of your portfolio in the form of credit spreads to protect and drive income over the next nine months. It's an extremely simple strategy to learn and arguably the most powerful strategy in the professional options traders' tool belt

Both Gold Futures and Gold Stocks (HUI) remain on their respective steep rising 10-year support lines. The question now is whether or not support and oversold sentiment conditions keep Gold and the HUI from falling any further. [Let's hope not!]

What currency is feared by the European Central Bank as a threat to fiat monetary institutions? What currency is cash-like, but digitally transmittable allowing for ultimate anonymity and global mobility? What digital currency is up over 2,200% over the last year? The answer? Bitcoin.