Today's first story is courtesy of reader Phil Barlett and was posted in yesterday's edition of The New York Times.

Businesses added to their stockpiles for a 16th consecutive month in April. But their sales grew at the slowest pace in 10 months, supporting other data that show the economy weakened this spring.

Supply levels grew 0.8 percent in April and sales rose for a 10th straight month, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. But the 0.1 percent sales increase was the smallest since sales fell 0.5 percent in June of last year.

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

The U.S. futures regulator on Tuesday put the brakes on reforms to the massive swaps market scheduled to automatically kick in July 16 and threaten the validity of billions of dollars in derivatives trades.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's proposed delay was a relief to traders, who were facing a daunting gap between the old regulatory regime and the new one called for in last year's Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

The CFTC, which must write regulations to cover dozens of complex reforms for the $600 trillion global swaps markets, has missed a series of deadlines for finalizing them.

Gensler said he hopes to finalize regulations on clearing, swap execution facilities in September. The agency also has targeted taking up entity and product definition rules shortly after Labor Day.

He did not offer a time for position limits.

I guess that would include position limits in silver as well. Too bad. Washington state reader S.A. sent me this Reuters piece filed from Washington yesterday...and the link is here.

Time is running out for Minnesota's parks, highway rest stops and public universities, not to mention 36,000 state employees.

If Gov. Mark Dayton and lawmakers don't agree on a budget by June 30, the state government is expected to shut down. The state moved one step closer to this outcome on Friday by sending layoff notices to much of the state workforce.

Reader Scott Pluschau sent this cnn.com story yesterday...and the link is here.

UNASUR, looking at the EU, freezes project for common currency and central bank

The Union of South American Nations, UNASUR has frozen the project for a common currency and Central Bank following on conclusions from the European Union experience [and crisis], said the Argentine representative before the organization.

“When we launched UNASUR we were thinking of an only Central bank and a common currency, but the European experience made us decide to shelve the proposal”, said Rafael Follonier.

International Speculator editor, Louis James passed this story around last night with the comment that is was "quite telling about the euro and European Union, if banana republics look on the E.U. as a cautionary tale." Amen to that, bro'...and the link is here.

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi acknowledged defeat Monday in referendums on nuclear power, water privatisation and trial immunity for ministers, saying the will of Italians was "clear" and that the government would have to "respond fully".

Berlusconi has been a major supporter of atomic power, which the centre right says is indispensable for the future of a country that imports nearly all its energy.

The referendums could not have come at a worse time for the 74-year-old premier, who faces a sex scandal and three fraud trials and was weakened by crushing losses in last month’s local elections, including in his northern power base, Milan.

The story was posted over at the france24.com website yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens for sharing it with us. It's worth the read...and the link is here.

The chances of positively resolving Europe's serious debt problems are decreasing from day to day as authorities focus on "buying more time," not solving problems, billionaire investor George Soros said on Tuesday.

"There is a resolution, probably under pressure of the crisis, a resolution will be found but the sooner it is done the better."

The story, posted over at yahoo.com, is courtesy of reader Scott Pluschau. It's only a handful of paragraphs...and I've already hit the high points. The link is here.

U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion, sent by the planeload in cash and intended for Iraq's reconstruction after the start of the war.

Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time.

This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash — enough to run the Los Angeles Unified School District or the Chicago Public Schools for a year, among many other things.

You can't make this stuff up...and I thank Washington state reader S.A. for sending me this story out of yesterday's edition of the L.A. Times. The link is here.

Syrian security forces are reportedly widening an operation in the north of the country aimed at cracking down on anti-government protests amid reports of defections from the army's ranks.

Troops pushed towards the town of Maarat al-Numaan after detaining hundreds of people in a sweep through villages near Jisr al-Shughur, the Reuters news agency reported on Tuesday, citing residents who fled the area.

Refugees have poured across the Syrian border into neighbouring Turkey to escape the government's operation in Jisr al-Shughur, the site of a military takeover on Sunday.

This is a story posted over at aljazeera.com...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it along...and the link is here.

To intervene or not to intervene? Having watched the Assad regime kill more than 1,400 Syrians, arrest tens of thousands, use helicopter gunships and tanks on its own population, reportedly abuse and kill children, many are asking why, if action was deemed necessary for Libya, it is not for Syria. The Syrian regime has behaved little better than its Gaddafi counterpart and yet the west does not know what to do to, how to do it and with whom, and above all has not been invited to intervene. There is a famous Syrian proverb: "The ziwan (rye grass) of your own country is better than the wheat of the stranger." In other words, Syrians may prefer the worst of the regime to the best foreigners would offer.

Syria used to be part of the Ottoman Empire...and was a French colony after the Ottoman Empire was carved up at the end of WW1 This is very short history of that...and well worth your time. I thank Roy Stephens for this story out of yesterday's The Guardian...and the link is here.

Eric King sent me this rather longish Rick Rule blog yesterday...and I feel that it's well worth your time. The link is here.

As you know, reader Scott Pluschau has been a regular contributor to this column almost since day one. Scott is an expert in technical analysis...a discipline that's virtually a closed book for me...especially in a rigged market such as gold and silver.

But, for those of you who live and breath T.A...here's his take on SLV and silver in general. His commentary is posted over at etfdigest.com...and the link is here.

Here's a GATA release of a cnbc.com story that's headlined "Is Gold in Fort Knox Real? Ron Paul Wants to Know". This story is a must read...and the link is here.

GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk tells King World News last night that the rallies in gold and silver today signaled the bottom in the precious metals and that they'll be pressing upward within a couple of weeks. The link to the KWN blog is here.

Here's another GATA release where Chris Powell has already wordsmithed the preamble for us...and the link is here.

An exhaustive report by Standard Chartered predicts that gold will more than triple to $5,000 an ounce because of a lack of supply, not just because of a surge in demand that most bullion bugs cite in their bullish calls.

The rather 'exhaustive report' that is mentioned in this cnbc.com story runs 68 pages...so consider this article an executive summary in lieu of the whole thing. I thank reader Scott Pluschau for sharing it with us...and the link is here.

The June edition of the Gold Standard Institute's newsletter leads with an editorial warning that while bankers will be blamed for the worldwide financial collapse, this will be a distraction. Rather, the editorial says, the real culprit is infinite irredeemable money.

I stole the story...and the preamble...from a GATA release last night...and the link to the article is here.