It would be a shame were this election season to go by without at least one newspaper commenting on Congressman Ron Paul’s vow that were he elected president the person he’d nominate to be chairman of the Federal Reserve is James Grant. This happened on Fox News, where it was noted that Dr. Paul’s call for the abolition of the Fed wouldn’t start right away. So who, he was asked by journalist Stephen Hayes, would be his pick for Fed chairman? “Hmmmm,” the congressman replied. “Probably Jim Grant.” Adds he: “He’s an Austrian economist, he has experience on Wall Street, he’s brilliant, he’s a good historian. He would quit printing money.”

This very short editorial appeared in the November 21st edition of The New York Sun...and I thank reader Jack Anderson for sending it along. The link is here.

We highlight the current 5-year CDS (credit default swap) prices for the sovereign debt of 44 countries. The list is sorted by the least to most risky countries, and we also include the year-to-date change for each country. As shown, Norway currently has the lowest default risk, followed closely behind by the USA. Switzerland, Finland, Sweden and Australia are the only other countries with CDS prices that are lower than 100 basis points.

At the bottom of the list is Greece, which has astronomical default risk. Portugal, Argentina and Venezuela rank 2nd, 3rd and 4th worst and all have CDS prices of more than 1,000 basis points.

This short commentary includes an excellent chart that's well worth spending a few minutes on. This piece was posted over at the seekingalpha.com website yesterday...and I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand for sharing it with us. The link is here.

Here's a short essay by Paul Craig Roberts that was posted over at counterpunch.org on Wednesday...and there's not a thing in it that surprises me.

As a Canadian, it's sad to watch what America has become since its greatness in the 1950s and early 1960s. G. Edward Griffin was right about everything...and if you haven't read his book "Creature From Jekyll Island"...it's still not too late to do so.

The link to this must read piece by Roberts is linked here...and I thank Roy Stephens for his first offering of the day.

Thousands of workers have downed tools from the factory hotspot in the east of Guangdong province, to sports and electronics plants to the south and west.

The social tension comes as manufacturing orders are slowing in China in the wake of slowing external demand from trade partners hit by the eurozone debt crisis.

"We are willing to work but you must also pay us enough to survive, even during the financial crisis we didn't see pressure like this," factory workers told Reuters.

Although factory strikes are relatively frequent in China, the current raft of action comes amid growing tension about the deteriorating global economic backdrop and tighter domestic credit conditions.

This short Reuters piece found a home over at The Telegraph yesterday morning. It's a very short must read...and, as usual, I thank Roy Stephens for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.

Moody's slashed Hungary's government bond rating to "junk" late yesterday, citing high debt levels, weak growth prospects and uncertainty about its ability to meet fiscal goals, in what the government called part of "financial attacks" against the country.

Moody's cut Hungary's government bond rating by one notch to Ba1, below investment-grade, with a negative outlook hours after rival Standard & Poor's held fire on a flagged downgrade on news of Budapest's planned talks on getting international aid.

Hungary returned to the International Monetary Fund and the European Union last week after the forint currency fell to record lows against the euro in the wake of a warning by S&P that Hungary could lose its investment-grade credit score.

This story was posted over at the irishtimes.com website yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens once again. The link is here.

The English translation of this story [and its associated headline] showed up over at the economicsnewspaper.com website yesterday...and it leaves something to be desired. I've cleaned up both the headline...and the three paragraphs below...but the rest of the article is more than a little rough around the edges.

Belgium, one of the countries of the eurozone, suffered pressure after Italy and Spain, has been downgraded from ‘AA +’ to ‘AA’ by Standard & Poor’s.

[The] return demanded by Belgian 10-year bond's has soared from 3.6% to 5.8%. Thus, the risk premium against the German ‘bund’ is now around 360 basis points.

Already partially nationalized, the Franco-Belgian bank Dexia may need more support with public money, according to the rating agency.

This is another offering courtesy of Roy Stephens...and the link to this very short read is here.

Italy's borrowing costs soared to their highest levels since Rome joined the euro on Friday, piling pressure on the newly installed government of Mario Monti at the end of a week in which the euro zone crisis tainted even safe haven Germany.

A punishing bond sale, in which Italy was forced to pay a record 6.5 percent for six months paper, came after a disastrous German bond auction earlier in the week and the leaders of France, Germany and Italy failed to make headway in tackling the growing debt crisis.

Amid signs that the euro zone contagion is spreading, indications emerged in Madrid that the People's Party, getting ready to form a government in the coming weeks, may apply for international aid to shore up its finances.

This Reuters story was filed from Rome and Madrid yesterday afternoon. I thank Roy Stephens once again for sharing it with us. It's worth the read...and the link is here.

If someone suddenly says "Grunderkrach" to you today in an animated state, they're not hurling abuse with an obscure Germanism, no matter what it might sound like.

Instead they're more likely to be students of German history eager to share their latest conclusions with you about what the late nineteenth century can teach us.

I'm indebted to Strategy Economics for nudging my own memory in this field. Grunderkrach or "Founders crash" hit Germany in 1873 after the collapse of the then powerful Vienna Stock Exchange and led to the Long Depression which, until the 1930s, was known as the Great Depression but lost the title to the years following the 1929 Wall Street crash.

The point they would be trying to make is that the events leading up to the Grunderkrach and subsequent Long Depression bear remarkable similarities to the financial crisis that Germany is now at the centre of.

This story was posted in The Telegraph late last night...and is another Roy Stephens offering. The link is here.

James Shugg, a senior economist at Westpac Banking Corp., talks about the outlook for the euro zone in 2012 and the role of the European Central Bank in backing indebted nations. He speaks with Maryam Nemazee on Bloomberg Television's "The Pulse."

This guy is wound up a little to tight for my liking...and I certainly wouldn't want to work for him. It's a real rant. Once again I thank Roy for sharing this 4:41 minute video with us...and the link is here.

King World News interviewed Hinde Capital CEO Ben Davies just after the Gold Symposium in Sydney, Australia, this month and found him impressed by the rise of inflation there and around the world but still predicting that the European Central Bank and Federal Reserve will undertake new rounds of debt monetization.

I borrowed the introduction from a GATA release...and the link to this longish KWN audio interview is here, but it's definitely worth your time.

An interview with geopolitical analyst James G. Rickards at King World News last night illustrates the sort of dilemma GATA has experienced many times in its 12 years. Rickards recounts how this week he was denounced by celebrity economist Nouriel Roubini for failing to acknowledge in his new book, "Currency Wars," something Rickards indeed does acknowledge in the book -- that the gold standard had something to do with the Great Depression.

Chris has a lot more to say in this GATA release from yesterday evening. It's a must read...as is the KWN blog that's imbedded...and the link is here.

With so much happening...and so many stories to post this week...I just didn't have room to post this, or quite a few other items, until today's column.

It's almost a week old now, but still very relevant. Dave runs his weekly radio program "Operation Freedom" out of all talk radio station WAAM 1600 in Ann Arbor, Michigan...and I'm always flattered to be invited as a guest on his show. The interview runs about 25 minutes...and the link is here.

Gold traders are more bullish after investors accumulated the biggest-ever hoard of the metal, with Europe's deepening debt crisis driving them to protect their wealth with this year’s second-best performing commodity.

Eighteen of 26 surveyed by Bloomberg expect bullion to rise next week. Holdings in exchange-traded products backed by gold reached a record 2,350.8 metric tons on Nov. 23, now valued at $127.6 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Hedge funds and other speculators increased their net-long position, or bets on higher prices, for four weeks, the longest stretch since March, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show.

It seems that I ran a very similar bullish Bloomberg story on gold this time last week...and look what happened. So you'll excuse me if I take this story with a big grain of salt. I thank reader Richard Craggs for sending it along...and the link is here.

Amid wild celebrations, a first shipment of gold bars arrived home in Venezuela on Friday after President Hugo Chavez ordered almost all the country's foreign bullion reserves be repatriated from Western banks.

Excited crowds lined the roadside waving big Venezuelan flags and chanting "It's returned! It's returned!" as a convoy of soldiers and armored cars carried the ingots from Maiquetia airport to the central bank in Caracas.

Experts had cautioned that the operation, which will eventually transport more than 160 tonnes of gold bars worth more than $11 billion to the South American country, would be risky, slow, and expensive.

This Reuters story filed from Caracas yesterday, along with a more subdued story from The Wall Street Journal on the same subject, is printed in the clear in this GATA release. With the difference in reporting style, it's hard to believe they're talking about the same event. They're well worth reading...and the link to both is here.

The almost insane world of debt is rolling close to the cliff and I see increasingly hard times ahead. Crumbling debt will act like a cement roller, crushing everything in its path. The occasional rebound or bounces on the lows will be sudden and short lived.

Eric King slid this 'R' man piece into my in-box just before I hit the send button...and the link to this must read KWN blog is here.

Here's an absolute must listen interview with Ted that's posted over at the tfmetalsreport.com website. It was posted late Thursday night...and I'm more than happy to post it in today's column. I haven't had the time to listen to it yet, but it will be at the very top of my list of things to do when I turn my computer on later this morning. The link is here.

This highly successful conference was held in Sydney on the above dates...and the list of speakers is quite extensive. When you click on the link, you'll find the complete list of speakers, but only some of them have their speeches posted beside their names.

But there are enough that it will keep you entertained for quite a while. I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand for sending me this most important link...and it's certainly worth some of your time this weekend. It's posted over at the symposium.net.au website...and the link is here.