Courtesy of the Golden Jackass..

"Empires such as the former Soviet Union and the Roman empires can collapse quite quickly. The tipping point is often when the cost of servicing an empire's debt is larger than the cost of its defense budget. That has not been the case I think at any point in US history. It will be the case in the next five years." -- Niall Ferguson (Harvard professor)

"The path of least resistance is a gangplank. Capitalism encourages both productivity and consumption. In its early stages, productivity drives consumption. In its later stages, the opposite is true. In its final stage, the debt produced by each destroys both. Ten years after the bursting of the dot.com bubble, America is still desperately trying to reflate the credit bubble that caused its temporary prosperity." -- Darryl Robert Schoon

"[Bernanke] knows he needs cover for QE2 [huge money printing initiative] and that means some sort of deflationary shock that scares the masses and makes many clamor for help like sad scared little children (we are being conditioned like animals)." -- Jesse (Cafe Americain)

"But I think something ahead of the markets is a likelihood of the Fed stepping on the gas once more, so-called Quantitative Easing. I think that is likely to happen. The Fed is already clearing its throat. You can see this in the newspaper leaks." -- Jim Grant (from Interest Rate Observer)

"Gold and silver are going much higher. The sky is the limit for gold. Governments are losing control of gold. They cheat, steal,lie, maneuver... but gold will beat them and is already doing so, in stages." -- Harry Schultz

"A gold standard and a redeemable currency& enable a people to keep the government and banks in check. It prevents currency expansion from getting ever farther out of bounds until it becomes worthless." -- Walter Spahr (Chairman Dept Economics, New York Univ, 1927-1956, from an age when universities did not teach economic heresy)

"As long as the USFed and EuroCB are stuck at 0%, gold will rise. As long as US and EU banks refuse to liquidate ruined assets, gold will rise. As long as the USGovt obstructs or ignores urgently needed reform, gold will rise. As long as government deficits remain extraordinarily high, gold will rise. As long as the USEconomy cannot be revived, gold will rise. As long as the USDollar sits arrogantly as the global reserve, gold will rise. As long as Goldman Sachs controls the USDept Treasury, gold will rise. Witness the failure of fiat currency and the central bank franchise model." -- the Jackass

"If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of Progress?" -- YES

[Editor Note: No price charts will be offered in this report. Ranges are being defended vigorously, with some gold slippage, before the assured strong price breakouts. The previous price charts are still relevant, but with extensions of selfsame except for the Euro short cover and the USDX slide. Gold & silver shortages are growing more acute by the week. The real story is not technical but rather in the gradual inexorable breakdown that leads toward a monumental monetary crisis. Its epicenter will be all currencies and the sovereign debt that reinforces them, not just the USDollar. The tectonic plate that cracks will be gold, where corrupt hands are losing the tight grip. The breakdown and historical monetary crisis is fully covered, without commodity references.]