India is now the fourth-largest economy behind the US, China and Japan. Numbers from 2010 show that the Japanese economy was worth $4.31 trillion, with India snapping at its heels at $4.06 trillion. But after March's devastating tsunami and earthquakes, Japan's economy is widely expected to contract while India's economy will grow between 7% and 8% this fiscal. "India should overtake Japan in 2011 to become the third-largest economy in the world at purchasing power parity," said Sunil Sinha, head of research and senior economist at Crisil.

This 2-paragraph story was filed from New Delhi...and posted in the India Times last week. I thank Nitin Agrawal for sending me this story...and the link to both paragraphs is here.

In the fight to put risk-limiting regulations on banks, Mark Carney, the president of the Bank of Canada, has a big name in his corner: Eric Sprott.

After Mr. Carney ended up in a well-publicized argument with JP Morgan Chase chief executive officer Jamie Dimon about whether regulators are on the right track, Mr. Sprott wrote an open letter to The Globe and Mail backing Mr. Carney.

Mr. Dimon is fighting against rules that would force huge banks like JP Morgan to hold more capital to reduce leverage, while Mr. Carney is a firm advocate of the plans. The disagreement apparently boiled over at a meeting last week where both were present, and tales of the argument landed in the headlines.

This story was posted in Canada's Globe and Mail yesterday...and I thank reader Charley Orr for sending it along. It's worth the read...and the link is here.

Germany and America were on a collision course on Tuesday night over the handling of Europe's debt crisis after Berlin savaged plans to boost the EU rescue fund as a "stupid idea" and told the White House to sort out its own mess before giving gratuitous advice to others.

German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble told Washington to mind its own business after President Barack Obama rebuked EU leaders for failing to recapitalise banks and allowing the debt crisis to escalate to the point where it is "scaring the world".

"It's always much easier to give advice to others than to decide for yourself. I am well prepared to give advice to the US government," he said.

This Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering was posted over at The Telegraph website just before midnight on Tuesday night. I thank reader Scott Pluschau for sending it along...and the link is here.

U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said his 1998 comment that the euro area was “a burning building with no exits” has been proved right and that member countries will have to live with the consequences for decades.

Hague first described the euro in those terms when he was leading the Conservative Party in opposition and Prime Minister Tony Blair favored joining the single currency. In a 1998 speech in Fontainebleau, near Paris, Hague warned that the single currency could damage the stability of Europe by tying together economies that were too different.

This story was posted over at Bloomberg yesterday...and once again I thank Scott Pluschau for sharing it with us. The link is here.

The Federal Reserve, chastised by Congress for lending money to foreign institutions including a Libyan-owned bank, is once again the lender of last resort for banks around the world it knows little about.

The failure of regulators worldwide to address European banks’ fragile dependence on short-term funding is “putting the Fed in a really awkward position.”

The extended funding comes as the U.S. central bank is already under fire for its unprecedented monetary stimulus. Republican leaders wrote Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and the Board of Governors on Sept. 19, asking them to “resist further extraordinary intervention in the U.S. economy."

This is another Bloomberg story from yesterday...and is Scott Pluschau's third and final offering of the day. It's well worth the read...and the link is here.

The Russian press has reacted with alarm to the resignation Monday of Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin over Vladimir Putin's plans to run for president in 2012. The media credit Kudrin with guiding Russia through the 2008 financial crisis.

The ousting of finance minister Alexei Kudrin, a figure trusted by Western investors during over a decade in the job, is a huge blow to Russia's economy at a critical time, the press said Tuesday.

Kudrin was forced out late on Monday in a public confrontation with President Dmitry Medvedev after he became the highest-profile official to break ranks with the plan for Medvedev to swap jobs with current prime minister Vladimir Putin in 2012.

Newspapers said it was Kudrin who Putin had to thank for extinguishing the huge external debt that he inherited from the chaotic 1990s and saving the economy in the 2008 crisis with the help of reserve funds built up from oil revenues.

This AFP story was posted over at the france24.com website on Tuesday...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it along. In my opinion it's worth the read...and the link is here.

Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Indians cheer a rural activist on a hunger strike. Israel reels before the largest street demonstrations in its history. Enraged young people in Spain and Greece take over public squares across their countries.

Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. But from South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street, these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.

They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box.

And as Bob Chapman is wont to say. After the ballot box comes the jury box...then the bullet box.

This story from Tuesday's edition of The New York Times is courtesy of reader Roy Stephens once again...and is your first absolute must read of the day. The link is here.

Dear Valued Customer,

It is with tremendous regret that I am writing to inform you of our recent decision to discontinue offering our services to all customers resident in the Netherlands. Please note, we at GoldMoney have explored all possible options to prevent this outcome, and this is not a decision we have taken lightly. This position is unique to the Netherlands, and unfortunately because you are resident in the Netherlands, you are one of those affected, which we very much regret.

Before I posted this story, I thought it wise to run it past James Turk, who I've known for more than ten years. This was his reply..."Yes, it's true. Even though we are regulated by the Financial Services Commission in the island of Jersey where we operate, the Dutch regulator was requiring that we also be regulated by them. So for now, closing accounts for people resident in Holland was the only practical solution. We are examining alternatives in the hope that we can accept business from Dutch residents in the future." James.

The story was posted over at the dgcmagazine.com website...and I thank reader Charley Orr for sending it along. It's a must read as well...and the link is here.

Bill Fleckenstein of Fleckenstein Capital told King World News yesterday that gold, silver, platinum, and copper had gotten very leveraged because for the last year they were the only investments that were working...and thus they were vulnerable to the recent washout of speculators. But, Fleckenstein adds, the underlying fundamentals, including lots of inflation already and a lot more to come, haven't changed, and he expects the metals to begin working their way up again.

I thank Chris Powell for wordsmithing the above introduction...and the link to the KWN blog is here.

Here's some information that a lot of readers have been asking me about. I'm more than interested myself, because I hold a small position in this company...and have gone through what every other shareholder has been through.

This was posted in yesterday CDD by BIG GOLD editor, Jeff Clark...and is a must read for any stockholder...or potential stockholder. The link is here. [Note to Aaron Krowne...It worked! Thanks a lot! - Ed]

Since yesterday was Wednesday, it was also 'Conversations With Casey' day over at the CR website. The topic was all about what you just read in the headline. I can't add another thing to what Doug has to say and, as always, he's interviewed by International Speculator editor, Louis James. The link is here.

Here's a story that is no surprise to me. Well, not exactly, the big surprise is that we weren't seeing these sorts of stories sooner...but late than never, I suppose.

Physical demand right now is not just decent, it is exceptionally strong, said UBS in a research note, after observing strong buying from India and elsewhere in Asia, as well as robust retail demand for coins in Europe.

Asia's gold buyers have raced to snatch up physical material after the sharp correction in prices, just as the world's biggest gold consumer India prepares for its festival season.

The surge in buying interest boosted gold premiums in the region. In Tokyo, the spread between local and global prices returned to the positive territory for the first time since March.

Gold traders in India rushed in, after domestic prices fell to their lowest in seven weeks on Monday, pushing premiums up, traders said.

The correction has come in at a right time as we are entering into the festival season, said Pinakin Vyas, assistant vice-president with IndusInd Bank, a private gold importing bank in Mumbai.

As I said yesterday in this column, all the precious metal investors on Planet Earth are gorging on this price mark down by JPMorgan et al. I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for sharing this financialexpress.com story filed out of Mumbai and Singapore on Tuesday. The link to this short, but very worthwhile read, is here.

Emerging-market countries continued to top up their gold reserves in August, with Russia, Thailand and Bolivia among those to add to their holdings.

Central banks have bought gold as some seek to diversify foreign-exchange reserves that have grown along with emerging market export industries. The purchases have helped drive the price of gold higher, because they absorb supply and boost market sentiment.

This year, central-bank officials also began buying in earnest in reaction to the government debt woes affecting the U.S. dollar and the euro.

This story was posted in The Wall Street Journal yesterday...and printed in the clear in this GATA release...but I thank Washington state reader S.A. for being the first one through the door with article yesterday morning. The link to the GATA release is here.

I had the honour and privilege of meeting Hugo and his lovely wife Esther at GATA's conference in London early in August. A more charming, dedicated...and funny guy...you could never hope to meet.

Hugo is one of Mexico's richest men and, despite his wealth, he has never stopped pounding at the gates of all the power and all the money in the world.

Hugo is the president of the Mexican Civic Association...and he writes this week that the imminent failure of the euro is not a matter of the lack of "fiscal union" but rather the euro's lack of fixed gold convertibility. A golden currency, Salinas Price writes, is a great unifying and stabilizing factor in human affairs. His essay is titled "The Destiny of Mankind Hinges upon Gold"...and is posted over at the plata.com.mx website...and the link to this must read is here.