Three of the four executives at MF Global called to testify before a House panel on Wednesday said that they were cooperating with federal authorities.

Democrats and Republicans alike mocked the executives before them.

“I actually don’t have a clue what to ask you,” Representative Michael Capuano, Democrat of Massachusetts, told the witnesses. “How am I supposed to ask you questions if none of you knew what was going on and have no information whatsoever?”

“It is absolutely disgraceful,” said Representative Steven Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts. “It’s not believable at all up here.”

You can't make this stuff up. This story was posted in The New York Times late yesterday afternoon...and I thank reader Phil Barlett for sending it along. The link is here.

When considering the shocking decision by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to change its board structure, don’t think of the firm as a typical Wall Street bank, think of it as a professional gambling cartel...then, suddenly, everything makes sense.

If there’s one thing Goldman is good at, it’s knowing the odds and making bets or cutting the firm’s losses when those odds are too foreboding.

After former Goldman employee Greg Smith’s op-ed on March 15 in The New York Times, Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein went on the defensive. He dismissed the complaints that Goldman treated its clients, in Smith’s words, as “muppets.” Behind the scenes, Goldman painted Smith as a whiner, outcast and disgruntled banker to the press.

Even then, Goldman probably knew the damage had been done. And it would face a serious revolt at its annual meeting. It’s an obvious trade for a trader, or bet, if you’re a gambler. At Goldman it’s impossible to tell the difference.

This short marketwatch.com story was sent to me by Florida reader Donna Badach. It's a must read in my opinion...and the link is here.

An annual report from a regional Federal Reserve bank is typically a collection of banalities and clichés with some pictures of local worthies who serve on the board.

And so it is with this year’s annual report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, whose pages are graced by the smiling, stolid portraits of board members who run local companies like Whataburger Restaurants.

But the text is something else entirely. It’s a radical indictment of the nation’s financial system. The lead essay, which is endorsed by the president of the Dallas Fed, contends that despite the great crisis of 2008, a cartel of megabanks is still hindering the economic recovery and the institutions remain too big to fail.

This is another story from yesterday's edition of The New York Times...and I thank Phil Barlett once again for sharing it with us. It, too, is a must read...and the link is here.

The Federal Reserve is propping up the entire U.S. economy by buying 61 percent of the government debt issued by the Treasury Department, a trend that cannot last, Lawrence Goodman, a former Treasury official and current president of the Center for Financial Stability, writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion article published Wednesday.

"Last year the Fed purchased a stunning 61 percent of the total net Treasury issuance, up from negligible amounts prior to the 2008 financial crisis," Goodman writes.

Goodman also warns that U.S. economy and markets are “at risk for a sharp correction” if conditions aren’t “normalized.”

"This not only creates the false appearance of limitless demand for U.S. debt but also blunts any sense of urgency to reduce supersized budget deficits."

This Wall Street Journal story showed up over at the moneynews.com website yesterday. I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for bringing it to my attention. It's certainly worth skimming...and the link is here.

The Bank of Spain said the “contractionary dynamic” in the economy continued into early 2012 for the second quarter in a row, with an “intensifying” pace of job losses. It expects GDP to fall by 1.5pc this year.

Mr Rajoy said at a meeting in Seoul that he would press ahead later this week with a “very austere budget”, ordering 15pc cuts in spending across the ministries.

It is unclear how he can slash the budget deficit from 8.5pc of GDP last year to 5.3pc to meet the compromise target agreed with Brussels after a bruising confrontation.

“It is frankly impossible, given that it would aggravate the recession and this would crush state revenues,” said Jesús Fernández-Villaverde from the University of Pennsylvania.

This Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering was posted on The Telegraph's website late Tuesday evening. I borrowed it from yesterday's King Report...and the link is here.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti on Wednesday said the root of Europe's debt woes lay partly in the irresponsible parenting of Germany and France during the bloc's infancy.

Monti told reporters in Tokyo that because the eurozone's two largest players had not abided by fiscal rules, they had set a bad example for the rest of the continent.

"The story goes back to 2003 (and) the still almost infant life of the euro," Monti said.

"It was in fact Germany and France that were loose concerning the public deficits and debts."

This AFP story was posted on the france24.com website yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it our way. The link is here.

The European Central Bank (ECB) said loans to the real economy fell in February, scotching claims that radical long-term refinancing operation (LTRO) would stem the crisis.

Open Europe's Raoul Ruparel said: "The LTRO has succeeded in avoiding a severe funding crunch...[But] it does not tackle the underlying lending risks which the banks are still keen to avoid, particularly with the looming recession in Europe."

As Spain faces a general strike on Thursday, economists called for the eurozone to use its bail-out funds to support the country's banks.

Finance ministers are under pressure to boost Europe's "firewalls" in Copenhagan on Friday. But Jens Weidmann, Bundesbank president, warned that "just like the 'Tower of Babel' the 'Wall of Money' will never reach heaven".

This very short story was posted over at The Telegraph yesterday evening...and is worth your time. It's another Roy Stephens offering...and the link is here.

Fund manager Egon von Greyerz, was interviewed by King World News yesterday...and remarked that money printing in Europe has only begun and that saving the European banking system will require many trillions more euros. Devaluation, he says, is Europe's only option and gold the only defense against it.

An excerpt from the interview is posted at the KWN blog...and I thank Chris Powell for writing the introduction for us. The link is here.

The first blog is with MEP Nigel Farage...and is headlined "Western World Collaborated in Giant Ponzi Scheme". The second blog is with Eric Sprott. Eric says that the world's productive capacity can no longer carry its debt burden. Governments and central banks are posing as if everything is OK, but it isn't...and the merits of gold are growing ever stronger. The title to this blog is "Mainstream Bashes Gold, but new Highs Coming". Both are worth reading.

Columnist and novelist Matthew Lynn earned his tin-foil hat for his commentary over at the marketwatch.com website yesterday..."The Next Leg of Gold's Bull Run," which acknowledges that central banks hold gold reserves for currency market intervention and manipulation.

Lynn notes: "You can't manipulate the markets without anything to sell, and that means holding reserves." He speculates that even Western central banks will start buying gold for "insuring themselves against their own profligacy. They print money. The price of gold goes up. And if they hold a lot of the stuff in their vaults, they are the big winners from the rise in price. If you can pull it off -- and there isn't anything to stop you -- that sounds like an easy way to make a living."

I thank Chris Powell for wordsmithing the above preamble...and Florida reader Donna Badach for being the first one through the door with this story yesterday. The link to this marketwatch.com piece is here.

Some of gold's friends in Europe have started a campaign called "Repatriate Our Gold" to persuade all nations to call their gold reserves home from custodial nations and banks that do not have the owners' interests at heart.

Repatriating reserves of the monetary metal is a prerequisite of regaining national sovereignty and liberating the world's currency markets. GATA's executive officers are among the initiators of the campaign and we urge all our friends to learn about it.

The link to this GATA release is here.

The head of Newmont Mining told CNBC on Monday he sees the price of gold rising to $2,000 an ounce and the time to buy it is now before inflation "comes roaring back."

At a time when investors want to invest in gold exchange-traded funds rather than the gold miners that pull the metal from the ground, Newmont CEO Richard O'Brien said either option is an "opportunity to participate in a bull market."

This cnbc.com story was posted on their Internet site on Monday...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it my way. The link is here.

People of Uzbekistan do not recognize the latest advances in prosthetics. Gold teeth are a sign of high social status and good investment. Sometimes the Uzbeks even replace healthy teeth with gold crowns. It took a lot of effort for photographer Irina Popova to make her subjects show their teeth.

The above is the English translation of a Russian story that was sent to me by reader 'Dmitry G'. The story is written in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet...and I thank Dmitry for doing the translation as well. He also commented in his covering e-mail that it was "A bit weird, but nevertheless, on the subject of gold as an "alternative" investment."

There are at least a dozen photos to run through...and you don't need a translator for those. They're posted over at the lenta.ru website...and they are definitely worth a look. The link is here.

Financial writer Chris Martenson hurled himself into the gold market manipulation camp with brilliant commentary that cites some of the documentation GATA long has been publicizing.

We disagree with him only insofar as, like some others, he shrugs off the manipulation as an opportunity for investors to obtain metal at a wonderful discount. As long as we live in a world where time is limited and thus equivalent to money, such a discount may be consolation only for those with long lives ahead of them.

Many gold investors have gone to their graves thoroughly cheated, without consolation, and of course the manipulation also entails constant deception of both investors and citizens generally, which is repugnant in itself.

But we wish Martenson the longest of lives so that he, unlike some of our departed friends, may cash in on his perceptiveness and so the rest of us might benefit from many more commentaries like his new one. I thank Chris Powell for providing this introduction...and this must read essay is posted over at the chrismartenson.com website...and the link is here.

In their March "Markets at a Glance" commentary, Eric Sprott and David Baker of Sprott Asset Management in Toronto remark at length on the manipulation of the gold and silver markets through paper trading grossly disproportionate to the amount of real metal likely to be available.

Not only do Eric and David go into the market management of the silver and gold prices, they also spend considerable time talking about the U.S. recovery that really isn't a recovery at all.

All the talk about economic recovery is in the first half of this essay...and discussion of the silver/gold price management scheme is contained in the second half.

This is an absolute must read from beginning to end. It's posted over at the sprott.com website...and the link is here.