US house prices have fallen to fresh lows, according to a widely-watched report that managed to stand out among a blitz of worrying data for the world's biggest economy.

Average home prices slumped 5.1pc in the first quarter of the year from the same period in 2010, the latest report from the S&P Case-Shiller index showed yesterday. The index's reading of 125.41 for the quarter was the lowest since house prices began falling in the summer of 2006.

The report "is marked by the confirmation of a double-dip in home prices across much of the nation," said David Blitzer, chairman of the committee that puts together the report. "Home prices continue on their downward spiral with no relief in sight."

This story was out of last night's edition of The Telegraph...and is courtesy of reader Roy Stephens. This is definitely worth reading...and the link is here.

It's hard to believe that this headline refers to the same Case-Shiller Home Price Index as the one from The Telegraph above, but it does. The original title to this article read "House Prices Fall to New Post-Bubble Low as More Rent". But then the 'thought police' over at The New York Times decided to spin it with the-cup's-half-full title you see above.

“By far the bulk of the downturn of housing prices is beyond us,” said Paul Dales of Capital Economics. He expects the market to slip 5 percent further, slightly more than he was expecting a few months ago.

“There are some amazingly favorable signs. Housing is the most undervalued it’s been in 35 years,” Mr. Dales said. “At some point, it’s going to do very well.”

Well, Mr. Dales, as I've been saying since January 2007...call me in 2013 and we'll talk about a bottom in the U.S. real estate market.

As I said in the opening paragraph, this story was in yesterday's edition of The New York Times...and it's their attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear...and I thank reader Phil Barlett for sending it along. The link is here.

Here's a 5-minute video that's posted over at finance.yahoo.com. Michael Pento is Senior Economist at Euro Pacific Capital. This is well worth watching...and I thank reader David Mancini for sharing it with us...and the link is here.

The forecast for the summer driving season: Hit the road early. Not to beat the traffic, but to beat the higher gas prices expected in mid-July.

Goldman Sachs' crystal ball is proclaiming that oil will soon soar to $135 a barrel, and likely have service stations jacking up fuel prices to $5 a gallon in New York just like the summer of 2008 that preceded the recession.

This story was in this past weekend's New York Post...and I thank reader Geoff Ruttan for sending it along...and the link is here.

This marketwatch.com piece was sent to me yesterday by Florida reader Donna Badach.

Consumer confidence fell in May as Americans grew slightly more pessimistic about future job prospects and business conditions, according to a closely followed survey.

The nonprofit Conference Board said its consumer-confidence index fell to 60.8 in May — the lowest reading in six months — from a revised 66 in April. Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast an increase to 67.5.

One can only imagine what it will fall to when gas hits $5/gallon. The link to the story is here.

Murray Pollitt of Pollitt & Co. in Toronto has, once again, graciously allowed GATA to print his May commentary in the clear. Chris Powell has already done the honours in his preamble...and you can read it, plus the linked pdf file, here.

Here's a Matt Taibbi blog over at Rolling Stone magazine about the ongoing disaster in Jefferson County. As usual, Matt takes no prisoners.

Bloomberg has done an excellent write-up of yet another gnarly development for Jefferson County, Alabama, the locale that was on the business end of a multibillion-dollar fleecing at the hands of J.P. Morgan Chase and other banks.

It has been established in various courts that bank officials literally bribed Jefferson County Commissioners to refinance using outrageously expensive interest rate swap deals, but despite a number of convictions of local pols like former Commissioner Larry Langford (who got 15 years for accepting bribes), Jefferson County will still be stuck paying this tab for the next gazillion years.

This piece is definitely worth your time...and I thank Roy Stephens for sharing it with us. The link is here.

A former chairman of one of Egypt's major banks was arrested Monday on charges of sexually abusing a maid at a Manhattan hotel, just weeks after the arrest of former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on similar allegations, police said.

I don't know about you, dear reader...but something stinks here. I've heard rumours [more than rumours, actually] that this...along with the arrest of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on similar charges two weeks prior...was a 'sting' operation.

Here's what Bill Buckler over at The Privateer had to say about this in his bi-weekly commentary on Saturday..."Osama Bin Laden was simply “taken out” by US armed forces. That’s the official line anyway. IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn did not suffer so terminal a fate. He was simply stung, hauled off to jail and removed from his post. As with the Bin Laden episode, the timing could not have been improved upon. Strauss-Kahn was removed just as he was on his way to a meeting with European Union (EU) and Euro zone officials to “deal with” the latest flare up of the Greek debt drama. Presto, the Greek debt drama duly worsened, commodity prices fell some more (for a few days), the US Dollar rebounded and the Treasury’s debt limit was hit without a tremor.

As to Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s “indiscretion”, the entire thing is peurile in the extreme. In what has been called the “honey trap”, it had little to do with removing him as a potential rival to President Sarkosy of France in the next French elections. The whole idea was to put the IMF in disarray. This served and serves two purposes. First, it removes the “international” aspect of the moves the EU is making to damp down the ongoing Greek (and others) debt crisis. That turns the “sovereign debt crisis” into a strictly European problem and makes sure the headlines keep coming. Second, the stoush of who the next IMF head will be is now predicted to last until (at least) June 30. This takes the spotlight off the winding down of the Fed’s QE2, which is scheduled to end on - that’s right - June 30th.

I have a couple of stories on this. The first is an AP article that was posted over at cnbc.com yesterday. The headline is the one above..."Former Bank Head Arrested on Sexual Assault Charges". The second story is posted over in Britain at dailymail.co.uk...and is headlined "Vladimir Putin claims Dominique Strauss-Kahn is the victim of a conspiracy to force him out"

Both of these stories are must reads...and I thank reader Charleston Voice for sending them along.

Bruce Rockowitz, the chief executive of Li & Fung, the largest trading company supplying Chinese consumer goods to American retail chains, said in a speech in Hong Kong on Tuesday that the company’s average costs for goods rose 15 percent in the first five months of this year compared with the same period last year. Executives at other consumer goods companies have encountered similar or larger increases.

The increases confront Western retailers with cost increases and are making higher prices likely for American and European consumers.

This story was in The New York Times yesterday...and is another offering from reader Phil Barlett...and the link is here.

For German Chancellor Angela Merkel, it should have been a routine trip abroad. But her flight to India was disturbed by a diplomatic incident that could further sour relations between Berlin and Tehran.

Iran temporarily denied Chancellor Angela Merkel's plane overflight rights during her flight to India. The plane had to circle over Turkey for two hours before being given permission to enter Iranian airspace. The Germany Foreign Ministry has summoned the Iranian ambassador as a result.

This very interesting story was posted over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it along. The link is here.

The Group of Eight summit exposed not only the financial weakness of the old industrial powers when faced with the challenge of the Arab Spring but also the crisis in its Middle Eastern alliances that is forcing the United States to choose between its immediate interests and its values.

On the face of it, all seemed generosity as the G8 leaders announced that some $20 billion would be available over the next three years to support new democratic governments of North Africa. However, the money won't come directly from the indebted G8 members but from international institutions like the World Bank and the European Investment Bank. And the small print of who was to pay for what and how was left vague.

This UPI story was posted from Paris yesterday...and is another offering from Roy Stephens. The link is here.

Yemeni forces opened fire on a protest camp and killed more than 20 demonstrators Monday in the southern city of Taiz while government warplanes launched airstrikes on another southern town seized by radical Islamists.

The new attempts to suppress the uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh with overwhelming force, following a weekend when high-level military defectors formed a united front in support of the protesters, all pointed to the longtime leader's increasingly tenuous grip on power.

This story, from yesterday's Huffington Post, is Roy's last offering of the day...and the link is here.

Eric King sent me this Rick Rule blog yesterday evening...and I consider it a must read. The link is here.

Here's a 4:41 minute CNBC 'Squawk Box' Europe interview that was posted over at finance.yahoo.com. The interview is with Eugen Weinberg, senior commodity analyst at Commerzbank. I thank reader Peter Handley for forwarding it...and the link is here.

Editor-in-chief Steve Forbes has a few things to say about gold in this editorial piece. It's a 3-page tome...but it's an interesting read...and I thank reader Nick Arnold for sharing it with us...and the link is here.