Optimism, hype, wishful thinking, hope - call it what you will (unabashed cheerleading?) - abounds regarding the future for the price of both gold and silver. Below are just a few such views.

It has been put forth that the U.S. dollar will soon lose its position as the world's reserve currency, and that when that happens, the world will fall into a deep depression. Is such an event really likely to unfold? Would such an event be really something to fear? How would/should we prepare for such a presumed collapse?

When markets expect that U.S. interest rates will be hiked, it typically strengthens the dollar because people rush to change other currencies into dollars where they can make more money and this higher demand for the USD drives its value up.

With interest rates being pushed lower year after year, interest expense as a % of disposable income has been declining in Canada and, for the moment, these low interest rates keep the whole thing glued together but, were interest rates to ever rise, Canada's economy would blow up. Here's why.

It’s safe to say that the EU, the U.S., and quite a few other jurisdictions are nearing currency crashes, and in all likelihood, the euro will go before the dollar. When the euro and U.S. dollar fall, however, there is a very sound alternative - and it is NOT gold!

The current stock market volatility is really not about interest rate ticks in the federal funds market. It's actually about the fact that the entire post-crisis bull market is a monumental house of cards built on a historically aberrant monetary regime that is unsustainable and eventually heading for a crash landing. Let me explain.

Though the river of gold market analysis runs wide and deep on the Internet, precious little of that content is devoted directly to the most basic rationale for gold ownership. Here we fill that void in chart form – a quick reference for the first-time investor.

The Canadian housing market is deep into bubble territory. We all know that bubbles can go on for longer than most people think but with the crash in oil prices and people fully believing their own hype, the market is set up for a big fall from grace. Canadian households are deep into debt and make American households look like penny pinchers. Here are five charts showing that the implosion in Canada’s housing market is inevitable.

The unemployment statistics provided by the U.S. Government are bogus... The devil is in the detail and a lot of people don’t properly analyze the information they are being provided with. Here is that detail which explains how those stats have been manipulated downwards to show a supposed unemployment rate of 5.7% rather than the true rate of 11.3%. Yes, 11.3%!

For a couple of years the world's central banks fooled the public into believing that perpetual debt was a good way to rejuvenate the markets but, alas, there will be no free lunch. Having a system addicted to perpetual debt is NOT a solution as the following 9 indicators clearly suggest. Again, nothing comes for free in this world.