The United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.

Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended. This development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public. As a result, our country can no longer speak with moral authority on these critical issues.

Ex-President Jimmy Carter is one of the very few presidents who can speak to this issue with relatively clean hands...and he was also the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize...an honour he rightfully deserved...unlike the current President. I note that the 'though police' at The New York Times changed the headline to something a little softer...as you will find out when you click here. I thank reader Victor Oliveira for being the first one through the door with it.

Confidence among U.S. consumers dropped in June for a fourth consecutive month as mounting concern over jobs and incomes dimmed the outlook for spending.

The Conference Board’s sentiment index fell to 62, a five-month low, from a revised 64.4 in May, figures from the New York-based private research group showed today. Another report showed home prices were stabilizing.

The slide in confidence raises the risk that the slowdown in hiring revealed by last month’s jobs report will cause households to retrench, restraining the spending that accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. The weak labor market is overshadowing the benefit of the lowest gasoline prices in five months, one reason why companies like Ford Motor Co. are keeping an eye on attitudes.

Absolutely no surprises with these numbers. Doug Casey's 'greater depression' is a reality...and it's only going to get worse, much worse. I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for finding this Bloomberg story yesterday...and the link is here.

Officials in Stockton said Tuesday that mediation with creditors has failed, meaning the Central California city is set to become the largest American city ever to declare bankruptcy.

City Manager Bob Deis said officials were unable to reach a deal to restructure hundreds of millions of dollars of debt under a new state law designed to help municipalities avoid bankruptcy.

"Unfortunately we have no comprehensive set of agreements with our creditors that would eliminate the deficit and avoid insolvency," Deis said at a City Council meeting. He said, however, that the city was still negotiating with some creditors and could reach deals with as many as one-third of them.

"We think Chapter 9 protection is the only choice left. If we get any agreements, those will be honored in Chapter 9," Deis said.

This AP story was posted on the San Francisco Chronicle website yesterday evening...and I thank reader 'David in California' for sending it our way. The link is here.

Delta Air Lines, which Tuesday morning announced that busted fuel hedges had resulted in a $155 million second-quarter loss, became the first in what could be a series of major carriers to take pain from an unexpected plunge in crude prices.

WTI crude futures have fallen more than 27 percent since their February high, taking the market by surprise and rendering airline hedges — originally intended to ease the economic pain of higher fuel prices — largely ineffective.

At Delta, the gyrations in crude not only created a loss related to fuel hedges that settled during the June quarter, which ends Saturday, but also contributed to what the company estimates will be an $800 million charge for its open hedging positions, which run through 2013.

This is Elliot Simon's second contribution in a row...and it's a story that was posted at the cnbc.com Internet site yesterday afternoon. The link is here.

Germany's finance minister is rejecting U.S. President Barack Obama's calls on Europe to move faster in fighting its debt crisis, telling him to get the American deficit under control instead.

Wolfgang Schaeuble told public broadcaster ZDF in an interview late Sunday that "people are always very quick at giving others advice."

He says: "Mr. Obama should first of all take care of reducing the American deficit, which is higher than in the eurozone."

Touché, Mr. President...the pot calling the kettle black, one would think. This AP story was posted on their website early on Monday morning...and I stole it out of yesterday's edition of the King Report. The link is here.

Egan-Jones Ratings on Tuesday lowered Germany's sovereign rating on expectations that the country will be left with significant uncollectable receivables due to its exposure to the euro zone. "Egan-Jones Ratings has downgraded Germany from 'AA-' to 'A+' and has issued a negative watch with a projected rating of 'A-,'" said Sean Egan, managing director of Egan-Jones, in emailed comments. The ratings agency noted that Chancellor Angela Merkel is fighting a losing battle in resisting calls for EU bonds and pushing for fiscal controls. "Germany is likely to be outvoted by other ECB members and therefore will have greater prospective exposure," said Egan-Jones.

This short one-paragraph story was posted on the marketwatch.com Internet site yesterday afternoon...and you just read it. I thank Washington state reader S.A. for sharing it with us...and the link to the hard copy is here.

The European Union would get far-reaching powers to rewrite budgets for eurozone countries that break debt and deficit rules, a draft of proposals suggests.

The proposals, submitted to European capitals for review Monday night, are to be discussed at a leaders' summit of all 27 EU countries in Brussels Thursday and Friday, the Financial Times reported Tuesday.

The authors of the draft -- European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, and Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker, representing eurozone finance ministers -- fine-tuned the proposals during a meeting Monday, said the newspaper, which saw the draft.

The proposals are part of a larger plan to turn the eurozone into a closer fiscal union and give the EU powers to function as a eurozone finance ministry, the newspaper said.

The new world order crowd just keeps pushing. I thank Roy Stephens for this UPI story that was filed from Brussels yesterday afternoon...and the link is here.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble kicked a political hornets' nest when he suggested to SPIEGEL that a referendum on efforts to save the euro will have to be held sooner or later. German commentators jumped into the debate on Tuesday.

Europe, it is said, is not doing enough to solve the euro crisis. World leaders have spent weeks demanding more from euro-zone leaders and several in Germany have joined in the chorus. Just on Monday, German central bank head Jens Weidmann said during an appearance at SPIEGEL headquarters in Hamburg that the unwillingness of European politicians to make a decision has forced central banks to overstep their role.

It does not reflect my understanding of politics, Weidmann said, "when politicians deliberately avoid decisions and the central banks are forced to take up the slack."

Recently, though, it has become clear that doing much more is problematic in its own right, particularly in Germany. A discussion about democratic legitimacy has recently gained steam in Berlin -- triggered first and foremost by Germany's highest court -- and has led Chancellor Angela Merkel to change her approach in her pursuit of parliamentary backing for currently planned measures to counter the euro crisis. Furthermore, the country is now also arguing over whether it is time for a country-wide referendum on efforts to save the euro.

This Roy Stephens offering was posted on the German Internet site spiegel.de yesterday...and the link is here.

European leaders have been muddling through instead of properly tackling the debt crisis. Now it threatens the very foundations of the European Union and could destroy a lifestyle that millions of Europeans take for granted. But the high expectations for this week's summit in Brussels can only lead to disappointment.

This eye-opening two-page essay was posted over at the spiegel.de website yesterday. I consider it a must read...and don't let the rather innocuous title fool you. I thank reader Donald Sinclair for sending it along...and the link is here.

Spain is poised for a downgrade to junk by Moody’s Investors Service, according to investors who sent the cost of default insurance for the nation’s biggest banks and companies close to record highs.

Credit-default swaps on Banco Santander SA, the country’s biggest bank, jumped 23 percent this quarter to 454 basis points, compared with an all-time high of 474 in November. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA rose 26 percent to 477, approaching May’s record 516, while phone company Telefonica SA surged 70 percent to a record 540 basis points.

Moody’s downgraded 28 Spanish banks yesterday including a two-step cut for Banco Santander and a three-level reduction for BBVA, a week after it lowered Spain’s rating to Baa3, on the cusp of junk. The country remains on review for another cut by New York-based Moody’s after it sought a 100 billion-euro ($125 billion) international bailout for its banks and on speculation losses from its real estate industry will worsen.

This Bloomberg story was posted on their website early yesterday morning...and I thank Elliot Simon for his third offering in today's column. The link is here.

Sir Mervyn King’s words, which pushed his earlier prediction for a full recovery back by three years, reflected the scale of problems in the eurozone as well as his fears for the global economy.

Addressing MPs at the Treasury Select Committee (TSC), Sir Mervyn said: “When this crisis began in 2007, most people did not believe we would still be here. I don’t think we’re yet half way through this. I’ve always said that and I’m still saying it. My estimate of how long it will take to recover is expanding all the time.

“We have to regard this as a long-term project to get back to where we were, but we’re nowhere near starting that yet. We’re in a deep crisis with enormous challenges.”

Doug Casey's greater depression is just getting started...and Sir Mervyn's five years will prove to be wildly optimistic. However, the world's current economic, financial and monetary system will probably be toast long before then...and with the slate wiped clean, Britain, along with the rest of the world, might be able to start fresh with a precious metals-backed currency...if that's what we end up with. This story was posted over at the telegraph.co.uk Internet site early yesterday afternoon BST...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it. The link is here.

This is the headline to a Zero Hedge story that Elliot Simon sent me in the wee hours of the morning Eastern time...and it's pretty self-explanatory. The link is here.

The first is with the BMO's Don Coxe. It's headlined "Get Ready, Banks to Collapse In Europe". The second one is with John Embry. It's entitled "We're On The Edge of Collapse, We've Run Out of Time". Lastly is this blog with Citibank analyst Tom Fitzpatrick. The headline here reads "Major Markets to Resume Their Decline".

An astonishing hoard of 50,000 Iron Age coins has been unearthed in Jersey. They are thought to have been hidden from the European power of the time, Caesar’s Rome. Being silver, they had an intrinsic value. Many bear heads with strange haircuts – perhaps representing Iron Age bond-holders who had unwisely invested in the debts of the Aedui and the Segusiavi, the Veneti, the Senones and the Aulerci, all economies operating at different speeds in Gaul.

In future millennia, archaeologists might come across great piles of discarded discs marked “euro”. What, they may wonder, could these unheard-of tokens be? Of copper, zinc, nickel, aluminium and tin, their intrinsic value will be marginal. Perhaps, future historians might speculate, these were used as some kind of propaganda rather than as currency, a passing fad, like cathode-ray tubes and compact discs.

You've just read the entire 2-paragraph story that was filed on The Telegraph's website yesterday evening...and I thank Roy Stephens for his final offering in today's column. The link to hard copy [and the imbedded photo] is here.

This is a brand new interview that was posted on the goldseek.com Internet site yesterday...and I haven't even had time to listen to it yet. It runs a bit over 13 minutes...and I thank reader Dennis Meredith for bringing it to my attention...and now to yours. The link is here.

"The platinum market is expected to be in a substantial deficit this year and palladium could fall into a deficit, due to lower South African and Russian output," CPM forecast Tuesday in its CPM Group Platinum Group Metals Yearbook 2012.

"Rhodium's surplus is expected to decline in 2012, similar to platinum and palladium, mostly due to a decline in mine production in South Africa, the largest producer of PGMs," said the New York City-based commodities consultants.

In the yearbook, CPM observed platinum and palladium supply and demand growth slowed in 2011; demand growth due to weaker economic conditions; and supply growth slowed due to production disruptions at South African PGM mines.

I found this story posted over at the mineweb.co.za website just now...and the link is here.

Chris has been in Hong Kong giving speeches at various conferences during the last week or so...and all the GATA dispatches were filed from there while he was gone. Here's the stump speech that he gave at all three conferences. It's not overly long...but there are lots of links to keep you in reading material for a while. It's well worth your time...and it's posted over at the gata.org Internet site. The link is here.