Industrialised countries today face serious risks – for their financial sectors, for their public finances, and for their growth prospects. This column explains how, through our financial systems, we have created enormous, complex financial structures that can inflict tragic consequences with failure and yet are inherently difficult to regulate and control. It explains how this has happened and why there are more and worse crises to come. Words: 2434

QE3 looks like a desperate act to feed money to large banks, offload MBS toxic waste from their balance sheets, devalue the dollar against houses, commodities, and other currencies and create significant collateral damage in the form of consumer price inflation according to a number of respected economists and critical thinkers on the subject of QE3. [Let's take a look at what they have to say.] Words: 1661

Optimism has seized stock markets in the past month on the back of better economic data in the United States and a late-summer lull in the euro crisis. Market volatility is at its lowest level in years. [That being said, however,] BofA's top economist Ethan Harris...thinks the U.S. economy is "in the eye of the storm" right now. Below is what Harris sees on the horizon. Words: 363

Many investors are treating inflation as a certainty because the Fed has expanded its balance sheet to unheard of levels through its quantitative easing strategy. Some have even gone so far as to say that this program will utterly destroy the U.S. currency. To demystify this conclusion, I’m going to explain quantitative easing and why the Fed is using this monetary strategy. Afterward, I’ll explain why gold is still positioned to rise even if inflation continues to be low. Words: 786

For over two years now, I've been warning that the 2008 Crash was just a warm up and that the REAL Crisis would occur when the stock market realized that the Central Banks, lead by the US Federal Reserve could NOT actually hold the financial system together. Well, the Crisis I've been warning about is here. [Let me explain.] Words: 306

There are several variations of Long Wave theory, but the most famous is based on the work of Nicolai Kondratieff, a Russian economist who gave the various stages seasonal names, with summer and autumn denoting the peak of financial speculation and winter the aftermath of the resulting crash. The conditions for a global catastrophic failure are in place. Snow (in the form of trillions of new dollars and euros) is falling. There’s no way to know which dollar (or which external event) will start the avalanche, but without doubt something will. [Let me expand on why I hold that view.] Words: 888

Gold is one of the rarest metals in the world, and has a long history as a valuable and intensely sought-after element. The precious metal has served as the basis for physical currency for thousands of years, and many monetary systems throughout human history have utilized a gold standard that focused on the precious metal. Exploration and production of gold has become a major industry in regions that maintain significant deposits of the metal, and quests for gold have been the impetus of countless expeditions and discoveries. [Below are a list of the top 10 gold producing countries, the top 10 gold producing companies and a definitive guide as to the multiple options of investing in the metal.]

With the pop from the USFed’s latest attempt at financial shock and awe already seeping from lackluster markets, and the teleprompter news networks losing steam over their promotion of the same, it is time to take a look back at the decisions made on 9/13/2012 and set the record straight on some things.

When it comes to investing in gold, investors often see the world in black and white. Some people have a deep, almost religious conviction that gold is a useless, barbarous relic with no yield and an asset no rational investor would ever want. Others love it, seeing it as the only asset that can offer protection from the coming financial catastrophe, which is always just around the corner. Our views are more nuanced and, we believe, provide a balanced framework for assessing value. Our bottom line: given current valuations and central bank policies, we see gold as a compelling inflation hedge and store of value that is potentially superior to fiat currencies. [Here are the details of our analyses.] Words: 1316

All thing considered, it seems clear that the long-term real returns of gold have been poor (compared to stocks and bonds), and I see no reason to expect long-term price appreciation for gold to be above inflation. In fact, as with any non-income producing asset, it would be unreasonable to expect gold to provide significant positive real returns over an indefinite period of time...I would argue that buying gold is a short-term gamble that is completely dependent on the unpredictable vagaries of perception, market psychology and the "greater fool" theory...While it is true that gold can be a good short-term trade and offer superior returns over shorter periods (as has been the case in recent years) I believe that stocks will continue to substantially outperform gold over time. [Let me explain these less than popular conclusions further.] Words: 1258