Run on Silver Has Coin Shops Scrambling

This 3-paragraph story from reader Scott Pluschau is posted over at cnsnews.com...and needs no further comments from me...and the link is here.

Here's a zerohedge.com piece that was sent to me by reader U.D. Once again, the headline pretty much tells all. This is the closest that Bill has come to making a political statement...and is now without doubt putting his money where his mouth is. If Gross is indeed right, something very wicked this way comes. The link to the story is here.

Reader G.G. sent me this very interesting Letter to the Editor from Donald Trump that appeared in the Friday edition of The New York Times.

He starts off his comments with this sentence..."Even before Gail Collins was with the New York Times, she has written nasty and derogatory articles about me. Actually, I have great respect for Ms. Collins in that she has survived so long with so little talent."

And it goes straight down hill from there. This is a hoot to read...and the link is here.

Here's a story that I got from several readers...but Tariq Khan was the first one through the door. The zerohedge.com story bears the title "With Its Economy On The Mend, Iceland Stuffs Bankers For Second Time". Tariq's title is the unvarnished truth.

In a shining example of how it can be done, Iceland, for the second time in as many years, by popular vote refused to provide up to $5 billion to Britain and Netherlands banks. The just completed referendum once again rejected a $5 billion Icesave debt deal, pushed on Iceland by its European banking brethren.

One wonders how long it will be before other EU nations decide to do the same. Ireland comes to mind...and the link to this very important read is here.

Well, it didn't take long [less than a day] for the U.K. to say they were going to sue Iceland to get the money back. The British government has "an obligation to get that money back, and we will continue to pursue that until we do," said Danny Alexander, the chief secretary of the Treasury.

He was speaking Sunday after Iceland's people voted to repeal a law aimed at solving the dispute. This is a cnn.com piece that was sent to me by Washington state reader S.A....and the link to the story is here.

George Soros' little wiener roast at Bretton Woods on the weekend brought out the NWO crowd in force...and Joe Stiglitz was up on his 'one world currency' soapbox once again. Washington state reader S.A. sent me this Bloomberg piece bearing the above headline...and the link is here.

Here's a longish read that reader Roy Stephens sent me. It's a 2-page essay that was posted over at spiegel.de yesterday.

Europe's sovereign debt crisis is threatening to take on new dimensions as Portugal becomes the third euro-zone member to ask the EU for a bailout. Germany is opposed to giving Greece any more financial aid, meaning that Athens will have little choice but to restructure its debt.

However, something that worries the Europeans even more is the possibility that Portugal won't be the last country to ask for a bailout. Belgium and Spain could also find themselves in dire financial straits.

If you have the time, this is worth the read...and the link is here.

Here's the weekly column from UPI Editor Emeritus, Martin Walker...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it along.

Governments across the developed world are behaving like the little Dutch boy who tried to block the seawater by sticking his fingers into the leaking dike. He ran out of fingers. So will the governments. For instance, the U.S. government isn't just having to run faster and faster to stay in the same place. It's running faster and faster and still falling behind.

It's a short read...and the link is here.

Here's a real interesting AP story that was picked up by news.yahoo.com on Sunday...and I thank reader U.D. for sharing it with us.

There are no cars inside the parking garage at Ofunato police headquarters. Instead, hundreds of dented metal safes, swept out of homes and businesses by last month's tsunami, crowd the long rectangular building.

Safes are washing up along the tsunami-battered coast, and police are trying to find their owners — a unique problem in a country where many people, especially the elderly, still stash their cash at home. By one estimate, some $350 billion worth of yen doesn't circulate. There's even a term for this hidden money in Japanese: "tansu yokin." Or literally, "wardrobe savings."

As I said, it's a very interesting piece...and the link is here.

I ran a video in my Saturday column about the radiation levels around the Japanese nuclear plants...and now comes this. Japan is to raise the nuclear alert level at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to a maximum seven, putting the emergency on a par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

When I sent this story to Casey Research's own Bud Conrad last night, this is what he had to say..."I've been watching the developments and have been saying for a long time that it is worse than the Japanese government have been telling us, or that the shills of the energy industry have been saying."

Reader Scott Pluschau was the first one through the door with this story...but another [and more updated] version arrived from Swiss reader B.G...and I'm using that one instead. It's a posting from The Guardian in London that came out early this morning. It's a must read...and the link is here.

Here's another story from The Guardian...this one from the Sunday edition that was sent to me by reader "Jivasattha".

Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as "blessings" and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

Ecuador, which also has powerful indigenous groups, has changed its constitution to give nature "the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution". However, the abstract rights have not led to new laws or stopped oil companies from destroying some of the most biologically rich areas of the Amazon.

This is the first I've heard of this sort of thing. It's another very interesting read...and the link is here.

Here's an item I stole from a GATA release yesterday...and I'm going to steal Chris Powell's preamble as well. "Chris Weber, author of a new book inquiring into the status of U.S. gold reserves supposedly kept at Fort Knox in Kentucky, remarks in an essay published this week: "There has been the atmosphere of a sham -- even a fraud -- about the U.S. policy toward gold for generations." Weber's essay is headlined "Where Is America's Gold? The Mystery of Fort Knox"

The story is posted over at lewrockwell.com...and the link is here.

It may not be another California-style gold rush, but a silver stampede is occurring in local coin and antique shops. Coin dealers are not the only ones struggling to keep coins in stock. Bob Flinn owns an antique shop in south Georgia and is experiencing the same surge as local shop owners. “We cannot keep silver items stocked. We have buyers, many of them dealers, coming in from as far away as Atlanta. The dealers are coming looking for inventory items,” he said.

It's not an overly long read...and I thank reader "Charleston Voice" for sending it along. The link is here.

And this just in from Eric King as I was about to hit the send button. It's a Richard Russell blog posted over at King World News...and the title says it all. I haven't even read it yet, but I know for sure it's a must read for all you nervous Nellie newbies out there. The link is here.

Here's another story I'm borrowing from a GATA release that came out yesterday.

A small increase in U.S. interest rates could provide cover for more bond monetization by the Federal Reserve, economist and former banker Alasdair Macleod writes in his latest commentary.

Along the way Macleod adds: "The Fed and the Band of England are having their hands forced by the unstoppable rise in gold and silver prices. This is a suppression scheme the central banks have finally and demonstrably lost, and in doing so the mounting costs of the short positions on Comex and in the unallocated accounts of LBMA members have become a serious systemic risk."

This is definitely worth reading...and the link is here.