Today's first offering is from yesterday's edition of The Wall Street Journal...and is courtesy of Florida reader Donna Badach. It appears that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is not a happy camper.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke defended U.S. efforts to overhaul regulation of financial markets after the financial crisis Tuesday, rejecting suggestions from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. chief Jamie Dimon and other bankers that regulators have gone too far.

Mr. Bernanke, speaking before a group of international bank executives, including Mr. Dimon, said the changes to financial oversight in the Dodd-Frank financial law were necessary.

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

Here's a CNBC story on the same subject from West Virginia reader Elliot Simon. This is a far more in-depth story...and takes a bit longer to run through, but is worth your time if you have it.

Jamie Dimon’s confrontation with Ben Bernanke was notable because we rarely see corporate chiefs so publicly confront their primary regulators.

JP Morgan Chase Chief Dimon can have a meeting with Federal Reserve Chair Bernanke any time he wants. There’s no need to take the microphone at a public Q&A to question regulatory reforms...and the confrontation is being interpreted in two contradictory ways.

The link to that story is here.

Here's Rolling Stone magazine's Matt Taibbi at his best.

"I've been trying not to say anything bad about Andrew Ross Sorkin. I even made a point of not watching Too Big To Fail so as not to get upset -- and when I heard from friends that the film turned Hank Paulson into Joan of Arc, that decision seemed to have been validated.

"Now I’m bummed to see that Sorkin has written an elaborate defense of Goldman in the New York Times "Dealbook" section, arguing among other things that Lloyd Blankfein probably did not commit perjury and that the bank did not have a huge directional bet against mortgages in 2007.

"The Sorkin piece reads like it was written by the bank's marketing department, which may not be an accident.

This is well worth your time...and the link to the rollingstone.com article, which is courtesy of reader Roy Stephens, is here.

Republican lawmakers are "playing with fire" by contemplating even a brief debt default as a means to force deeper government spending cuts, an adviser to China's central bank said on Wednesday.

The idea of a technical default -- essentially delaying interest payments for a few days -- has gained backing from a growing number of mainstream Republicans who see it as a price worth paying if it forces the White House to slash spending, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

This story was posted over at finance.yahoo.com yesterday...and was sent to me by reader Scott Pluschau. I'll stick this in the must read category...and the link is here.

The Feri Rating & Research AG downgraded the credit rating for the United States from AAA to AA. Feri analysts justify the downgrade by the continuing deterioration of the creditworthiness of the country due to high public debt, inadequate fiscal measures, and weaker growth prospects.

"The U.S. government has fought the effects of the financial market crisis primarily by an increase in government debt. We do not see thank that there is sufficient attention being paid to other measures, "said Dr. Tobias Schmidt, CEO of Feri Rating & Research AG. "Our rating system shows a deterioration in economic health, so the downgrading of the credit ratings of U.S. is warranted."

The story is posted over at Jesse's Café Américain...and was sent to me by reader 'David in California'...and the link is here.

The Education Department is confirming that its inspector general authorized a raid on a Stockton, California home on Tuesday, but says the officers were conducting a criminal probe — not pursuing a woman because she could not pay her student loans, as has been reported.

The woman who police were looking for, meanwhile, wasn’t in the home at the time. Her estranged husband lives there.

One wonders what the Education Department is doing conducting a criminal probe...but, in the meantime, the 'estranged' husband is looking for someone to pay for his smashed-in front door.

Casey Research's own David Galland sent this story around to all CR editors yesterday...and the link to the politico.com story is here.

These next two stories are from The Telegraph in London...with this one courtesy of British reader David Ball.

When other utilities follow Scottish Power's price hike, which will push up gas bills by 19pc and electricity costs by 10pc, the Government’s preferred measure of inflation – the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) – will be seen as meaningless.

Simple-minded souls who believe the official handouts, might imagine that money is losing its real value or purchasing power at a modest rate of only 4.5pc – the current annual rate of change in the CPI. But that is less than a quarter of today’s gas and electricity shock, which follows double-digit increases in the cost of transport and many basic foods.

All of this soon to be coming to your country as well...and the link is here.

The oil price [North Sea crude] has soared above $118 per barrel, after most of the world's key producers voted against releasing more supplies to the market at a stormy meeting.

Experts said the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries [OPEC] cartel, which accounts for 40pc of the world's supply, was on the brink of breaking up, with two opposing camps emerging.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates wanted an increase to dampen an oil price that has gained 25pc since tensions erupted in the Middle East this spring while Libya, Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Venezuela, Iraq and Iran wanted to keep production unchanged.

The meeting in Vienna ended on Wednesday with no formal decision on how much oil should be produced.

This must read short story from late last night in The Telegraph is courtesy of reader Roy Stephens once again...and the link is here.

The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials.

The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen that has left the government in Sana, a United States ally, struggling to cling to power. Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to the capital, and American officials see the strikes as one of the few options to keep the militants from consolidating power.

The American Empire has been busy trying to save all its puppet regimes in the Middle East for the last little while...and now it's busy in Yemen.

This story was posted late last night in The New York Times...and is courtesy of Roy Stephens. It's well worth your time...and the link is here.

Margins, the amount of collateral investors must post against their trades, are designed to help reduce the risk to exchanges and calm overheated markets.

But recently that safety valve is being blamed by some for wreaking havoc on markets such as silver, gasoline and cotton. As prices swung wildly, major commodity exchanges ratcheted up their demands for collateral, setting off a chain reaction that forced many investors to liquidate their holdings, sending prices tumbling.

This is a story out of yesterday's edition of The Wall Street Journal that was sent to me by reader James Akers. The reporter doesn't get the margin story right on silver, as the CME only increased margin requirements in silver after the 'drive by shooting' on May 1st...not while the price was going parabolic to the upside. Other than that, the story is of interest...and the link is here.

ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema says in a new documentary that the country's mines must be nationalised to return mineral wealth to the black majority that was stolen by white colonists.

The film, "Mining for Change: A Story of South African Mining," debuted in March and is currently making the rounds at the Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival in Johannesburg and Cape Town, which runs June 9 to 26.

I thank reader Matthew Nel for sending us this Reuters story that was posted over at the miningmx.com website yesterday...and the link is here.

Here's another story about silver that has a serious flaw in it. Erica Rannestad over at CPM group said that the fall in silver's price came on a reduction of investment demand...which is absolutely not true...as the silver ETF, SLV, had huge withdrawals after the May 1st 'drive by shooting'...not before. The rest of the story is worth your time.

This Kitco piece was sent to me by reader George Findlay...and the link is here.

The editor of Casey Research's BIG GOLD, Jeff Clark, has a short piece and an excellent graph posted in yesterday's edition of Casey's Daily Dispatch. This is a must read...and the link is here...and you have to scroll down a bit to get to it.

Yesterday morning I ran a Jim Sinclair blog in this column. Then yesterday afternoon, Eric King sent me the link for the entire audio interview...and it's here. I haven't had the time to listen to it yet, but I would think it's a must listen.

As concerns grow once more about the health of the global economy and the nature of gold demand shifts, so the yellow metal is likely to shrug off its traditional summer funk.

Here's reader George Findlay's final offering of the day. It's a short interview posted over at the mineweb.com...and the link is here.

Here's a blog that Eric sent me early yesterday evening. It's an absolute must read from one end to the other...and I'm sure the full audio interview [when it's posted] will be a must listen as well. The link to the King World News Hathaway blog is here.