The outlines of the Volcker Rule, one of the flagship provisions of the sweeping financial regulatory overhaul passed last year, will begin to take shape this week as regulators propose rules to limit the ability of most banks and Wall Street firms to use their own funds to buy and sell stocks, corporate bonds and derivatives.

The proposed rules would allow firms to do so in areas where regulators believe healthy markets would not exist without Wall Street’s own trading, including the markets for government bonds, commodities and foreign currencies. And some otherwise-forbidden bets would be allowed only if they are used as a hedge, to keep a Wall Street firm from losing money on a transaction made to accommodate a customer’s trading.

What b.s. this is. This means that the rigging of the commodity markets by the big commercial U.S. banks will be allowed to continue.

This story was from the Monday edition of The New York Times...and I thank reader Phil Barlett for sending it along. The link is here.

The securities industry in New York City faces likely job cuts of nearly 10,000 through 2012 as Wall Street banks cope with lower trading revenue, new regulations restricting their activities, and bruised stock prices, according to a new report.

I thank Florida reader Donna Badach for sending me this marketwatch.com story yesterday...and the link is here.

Protesters campaigning against corporate greed take their demands for reform of the financial system to cities across America.

"I'm extremely angry that Wall Street is taking over Main Street America. It's absolutely ridiculous that a company as large as GE pays no taxes ... people are without healthcare, without jobs. This is ridiculous," said one student on the march in Boston.

In Columbus, Ohio a protester who identified herself as a veteran said she had volunteered for military service "to protect the United States of America not the corporations of America."

This story [and video] from yesterday's edition of The Telegraph is Roy Stephens first offering of the day...and the link is here.

In my Saturday column I posted a blog with Jim Rickards...and Eric informed me that the audio interview wouldn't be available until Sunday. I would have posted this yesterday, but this column was already stuffed to the gills. Here's the KWN interview now...and, in my opinion, it's a must listen. The headline reads "People should be arrested & gold headed to $2,000"...and the link is here.

Slovakia's lawmakers have rejected a revamp of the eurozone's European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) rescue fund in a crunch vote that also toppled the country's centre-right government which had staked its future on the motion.

Only 55 of 124 lawmakers present in the room voted in favour, while nine were against and 60 did not vote, effectively blocking the fund and toppling the four-party coalition cabinet of Prime Minister Iveta Radicova.

The country's leaders said earlier they would try to pass the EFSF revamp in a repeated vote with support from the opposition, but no date has been fixed for that vote yet.

This must read story from late last night in The Telegraph is another Roy Stephens offering...and the link is here.

European leaders fear that Slovakia’s attempt to block the new bail-out fund is as dangerous as David’s stand against Goliath. But it’s not just the difference in size and power that’s the worry - it’s that Slovakia’s rebel might have “right” on his side.

Slovakia’s hero is Richard Sulik, head of the Freedom and Solidarity Party (SaS) the junior partner in a four-party coalition.

Mr. Sulik has articulated the dismay of many that in Greece, Slovakians are faced with a country that bent the rules, rather than sacrificed, to gain entry - and now are demanding their luxuries are maintained by others.

This is another article from The Telegraph [courtesy of Roy S.]...and it, too, is well worth your time. The link is here.

Belgium’s bill for bailing out Dexia could be much higher than meets the eye. After a weekend of frantic negotiations, Brussels is to pay 4 billion euros to take the Belgian assets of the vanquished lender into public ownership. If that was it, the direct costs to the state would be only 1 percent of GDP.

But there are many questions left unanswered after Dexia was stripped for parts on the weekend. There are only a handful of paragraphs in this article posted over at the breakingviews.com website...and it's definitely worth the read. This is Phil Barlett's second offering of the day...and the link is here.

Germany is pushing behind the scenes for a "hard" default in Greece with losses of up to 60pc for banks and pension funds, risking a chain-reaction across southern Europe unless credible defences are established first.

The shift in German policy has ominous echoes of last year when Chancellor Angela Merkel first called for bondholder haircuts, setting off investor flight from Ireland and a fresh spasm in the EU debt crisis.

"This could set off a snowball effect," said Andrew Roberts, credit chief at RBS. "The markets will instantly switch attention to Portugal, where two-year yields are already 17pc".

This Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering was posted late Monday night in The Telegraph. Once again I thank Roy Stephens...and the link is here.

The value of Irish bonds on the secondary market fell yesterday, leading declines in the debt of Europe’s high-deficit nations, amid speculation that weaker economic expansion and vulnerable banks in the region may hamper a resolution of the euro zone debt crisis.

Benchmark 10-year Irish yields rose the most since July 6th as credit-rating company DBRS said slower growth in the US and Europe will probably damage Ireland’s prospects for recovery.

This story was posted over at the irishtimes.com website early this morning...and is another Roy Stephens offering. The link is here.

"The crisis is systemic and must be tackled decisively," Mr. Trichet told the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.

"The high interconnectedness in the EU financial system has led to a rapidly rising risk of significant contagion. It threatens financial stability in the EU as a whole and adversely impacts the real economy in Europe and beyond."

This is another story from the irishtimes.com...and another contribution from Roy Stephens. The link is here.

Sprott Asset Management's John Embry told King World News yesterday that the nationalization of Dexia shows that the European banking system is toast, that trillions more of fiat currency are on their way to bail out the rest of the insolvent world, that all markets are being manipulated now, and that gold and silver investors should not be demoralized out of their positions.

I thank Chris Powell for providing the introduction to this KWN blog...and the link is here.

The head of the U.S. futures regulator has the support he needs to pass a long-awaited rule that would curb excessive speculation in commodity markets, a source with knowledge of the agency's rule-making told Reuters on Tuesday.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced on Tuesday that it would vote on October 18 on a rule limiting the number of contracts any one speculative trader could hold in commodity markets.

Yes, that's probably the truth...but if you think that the 1,500 contract limit for silver will be part of this, your dreaming in Technicolor. I'm sure that the interests of the general public will get sold down the river by all and sundry at the CFTC, no matter what nice things that Chilton and Gensler have been telling us for years.

This Reuters story was sent to me by Edmonton reader B.E.O...and the link is here.

Writing for MineWeb, David Levenstein of Lakeshore Trading in Rivonia, South Africa, has been persuaded by the attack on gold amid the Swiss franc's devaluation that central banks are intervening surreptitiously to push the metal's price down. Levenstein writes:

"With regard to the recent selloff in gold, I am absolutely certain that there is a great deal of truth to the commentaries that suggest that this selloff was engineered by central banks and their agents the bullion banks in an attempt to thwart the upward momentum in gold and thus take the spotlight away from the yellow metal.

This mineweb.com story is a must read from top and bottom...and I thank Nick Laird for sending it along...and Chris Powell for wordsmithing the introduction. The headline of the article reads "Politicians, Financial Regulators, Banking Officials and Gold." The link is here.

Here's a story that was posted over at the china-briefing.com website yesterday.

"It may become more difficult for the Western gold market regulators -- who often have an interest in seeing a reduced gold price -- to govern China's action. As a result, the little-controlled speculative fervor may drive gold prices to a new high and investors may see greater price discrepancies between the exchanges."

I stole this story...and the headline...from a GATA release. The actual headline reads "China's Pan Asia Gold Exchange: A New Playing Field for Speculators?"...and the link is here.

For the second time in as many months, a torpedoed ship carrying silver has been discovered.

Last month, Odyssey announced its discovery of the British steamship Gairsoppa off Ireland and estimated its cargo at up to 240 tons of silver — a trove worth more than $200 million. The Gairsoppa was torpedoed in 1941.

This time it's the WWI British steamship Mantola sunk by a German torpedo, sending the vessel and its cargo of an estimated 20 tons of silver to the seabed more than a mile down.

The story circulating on the Internet that Jamie Dimon and Blythe Masters are heading up the salvage operations on both ships is patently false...tee hee!

This story was posted in The New York Times on Monday...and, once again, I thank Roy Stephens for this story. The link is here.

GATA's secretary treasurer has been giving numerous speeches in both Hong Kong and London during the last month. On the weekend, Chris gave this speech to a group of high-powered investors in London...with a reporter from the Financial Times in the audience.

Powell's preamble is extensive...and I'll let him carry the ball from here. This GATA release is certainly a must read...and the link is here.

Columbia, the world’s largest cocaine producer, said illegal gold mining is becoming the “next major threat” to security as government efforts to crack down on drug crops prompt rebels to seek new revenue sources.

Unlike cocaine, gold can easily be sold into the economy and be used to finance terrorist groups, Mines and Energy Minister Mauricio Cardenas said in an interview.

This Bloomberg story was sent to me in the wee hours of this morning by Russian reader Alex Lvov, for which I thank him...and the link is here.

Here is an excellent short essay by Christopher Barker from The Motley Fool website.

For whatever reason, I could not cut and paste from this story, so you'll just have to take my word that it's an absolute must read by any gold investor...especially those that are new to the gold investment world. And it's an excellent refresher on gold hedging by those of us who have been around for the last ten or fifteen years.

The story is posted over at the dailyfinance.com website...and the graph alone is worth the trip. I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for digging up this wonderful piece...and the link is here.

With plans to roll out 2,000 more throughout the country, the Beijing Agricultural Commercial Bank officially installed its first gold ATM during the Chinese National day holiday.

The machines are operated jointly by Beijing Agricultural Commercial Bank and a gold trading German firm. Plans call for installing more of them in secure locations and in private clubs at banks and at landmark buildings in large cities across the Asian country.

This story isn't new...but the number of machines certainly is. The story was filed from Mumbai on Monday...and is posted over at the mineweb.com website. It's Roy Stephens final offering of the day...and the link is here.

At least so says Nick Barisheff in an article published in the October edition of Resource World Magazine. Nick Barisheff is the President and CEO of Bullion Management Group.

"[Gold] will continue to be subjected to the most aggressive “perception management” assault of any asset class, because it is a direct challenge to all the world’s fiat currencies. Since no paper currency is convertible to gold at this time, this is some challenge. The warnings of bubbles and the many other reasons for not owning gold will continue unabated as gold persists to $10,000 an ounce, or higher. Independent study of the underlying causes of gold’s rising price, in my opinion, is the best way to gain sufficient confidence to buy and hold gold long enough to protect one’s wealth through the turbulent years ahead."

This is your long read of the day...and the essay contains excellent charts and graphs. It's well worth your time to read this...and I thank reader U.D. for sending it my way yesterday. It's posted over at their website...bmgbullion.com...and the link is here.

I received a GATA dispatch on this story just before I hit the 'send' button at 3:20 a.m. Eastern time.

At The Heritage Foundation's Conference on a Stable Dollar last week, former Bush economic adviser and Federal Reserve Governor Larry Lindsey said the weight of history leaned toward gold.

The country moved to a fiat currency during the Civil War and then restored the gold standard years later, he noted, pointing out that this kind of back-and-forth is natural. "I'm sure we'll do it again," Lindsey said. "Probably in the next 10 years."

If Larry is saying things like this, you can pretty much bet that it's a done deal. And I'll bet big money that we won't have to wait ten years, as I'll be surprised if the current financial and monetary system lasts another ten weeks.

The story was posted over at the politico.com website very late last night...and the link to this absolute must read is here.