This is great, I wish they debated more often:


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The Chicago Way
by Howard Rich

Earlier this month, The Chicago Tribune reported that 23 retired union leaders will collect $56 million from cash-strapped government pension funds — courtesy of a few well-placed lines that were quietly inserted into the state’s 1991 labor law (with no public debate or cost-benefit analysis). It’s the latest in a long line of flagrant abuses — handouts from corrupt politicians who continue to game the system for the personal benefit of a select, powerfu...

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With gold and silver getting hammered over the past week, it's worthwhile to step-back and take a look at the last 10 years.  As you can see this recent drop is barely a blip on the chart.  Don't expect gold and silver to immediately zip back to their old highs.  This recent sell-off has caused a lot of technicial damage and it may take a few months of building a base before we really start grinding higher again.  However, the important thing to remember is that nothing has changed.  The Euro...
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As I document every month, the middle-class is getting squeezed in this country.  Between a lack of job opportunities, inflation, and lost home equity it's hard for many families to get by.  Stupid governmental policies are to blame for a lot of this.  However, one area in particular, the Federal Reserve deserves the most scorn.  As Marc Faber famously put it, Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, is murdering the middle-class.  Here are five ways the Fed is hurting the middle-class:

1) ...
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India loves gold.  According to the World Gold Council, India, the world's largest gold consumer, used 1,034 tons of gold in 2010 to make jewelry or satisfy investment demand.  To put that number in perspective, approximately 2,500 tons of gold is mined every year and that number is gradually falling as the easy to mine gold is long gone.  What's really alarming is the rapid increase in Indian gold consumption.  In 2010, Indian gold demand for coins, bars and other investments rose 83%, while...
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The Reinwasser Middle-Class Index (RMCI) was built to more accurately measure the month-to-month improvement or deterioration in the economic health of the middle-class.  The RMCI captures data in the Jobs, Housing, Wealth & Spending, Confidence and Inflation categories and compares current data to the average over the previous four months*.  If a data point is better than the four-month average it's scored +1, if it's worse it's scored -1.  As such, RMCI scores range from +10 to -10. ...
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I couldn't have been more than 10 years old.  I was in Pittsburgh visiting my grandparents and we were at a fast food chain eating lunch.  Some jerk (ok it was me) dropped a ketchup packet underneath our table and it got stepped on and squirted directly at my grandmother. As she uselessly scrubbed at her now ketchup stained dress, I still remember how upset she was.  Well good news Nanny, no more stained dresses!  Heinz, proving they are the Apple of the ketchup industry, spent three years de...
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Today I was helping a client calculate how much he'd need to save monthly to pay for his children's college education.  We assumed each child would attend an in-state college for four years, a 5% annual rise in the total cost of college (tuition, room/board, books), and a 7% annual return on his investment.  The figure we arrived at was frankly hard-to-believe.  So much so, I ran the numbers twice to make sure I didn't make a calculation error.

His third child, who was born last month, will pa...
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No surprise here, per Bespoke Investment Group, Silver and Gold have dominated market performance over the last 10 years, with oil coming in a distant third.  If your portfolio has been without one of the precious metals, you've been lucky to stay flat.  The good news is the bull run in gold and silver has many years left to go and you have plenty of time to adjust your portfolio to take advantage of the outsized returns gold and silver offer. 

The Bespoke article also list the best and worst...
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For five long, grueling, brutal, horrific, years we've watched national home values fall relentlessly month after month after month.  Well, I'm quite pleased to report Zillow's most recent data shows that home prices actually reversed the trend in June and went UP!  Even better, their September data shows home values rose in July as well, so we've got ourselves a two-month winning streak.  Last month I predicted we were getting close to an uptick in home values and thought we'd see an improve...
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Boots on the ground in Egypt - trading one dictator for another
by Simon Black

Revolution. It's a funny word when you think about it. In political terms, 'revolution' conjures images of heroes battling tyrants, of all-out forcible insurrection in the name of freedom and change.

From a celestial perspective, however, 'revolution' denotes one complete orbit of a planetary body around its center, as in the earth's revolution around the sun. In other words, after a revolution, you end up righ...
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This is a fun interview with Rick Harrison, star of the History Channel's big hit Pawn Stars.  Rick says the item he can't keep on his shelves is gold & silver, they will no longer accept construction tools and, despite the bad economy, 80% of the customers reclaim their pawned items.  And the strangest item he's ever pawned?  Well you'll have to hear it to believe it.


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Mining Stocks - On the runway, ready for takeoff
by James Turk

Gold has been rising faster than the price of mining stocks.  Here are some statistics to prove this point.

In the twelve months ending August 31st, gold has risen 46.5%, but the XAU Index of precious metal mining stocks climbed only 17.7%.  By itself, that is a good rate of return for mining stocks, but not what one would expect given gold’s appreciation over this period.

The current year-to-date results are even more telling....

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I've been to some interesting museums but never one like this.  The Museum of Bad Art is a collection of 600 pieces of the worst art ever created.  Here are a few gems, along with the museum's all-too honest description...

Badminton Anyone?

The genteel social elite in Victorian England enjoyed playing badminton at lawn parties. The handsome woman depicted in this portrait holds a shuttlecock featuring colourful feathers and, inexplicably, a modern racquet better suited for Wimbledon.

Pink Wom...
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COMEX is the futures and options exchange where the price of many commodities is set, including silver.  As you can see in this chart, the level of COMEX silver inventories has been falling sharply for three straight years.  Currently, there's about 104 million ounce of silver inventory.  However, a good chunk of this inventory is not for sale.  If this rapid fall in inventory continues, at some point there is going to be a flat-out shortage of silver on the COMEX.  When/if that happen...
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