The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, delivered a detailed and forceful argument on Friday for new steps to stimulate the economy, reinforcing earlier indications that the Fed is on the verge of action.

Calling the persistently high rate of unemployment a “grave concern,” language that several experts described as unusually strong, Mr. Bernanke made clear that a recent run of tepid rather than terrible economic data had not altered the Fed’s will to act, because the pace of growth remained too slow to reduce the number of people who lack jobs.

Mr. Bernanke said that the Fed’s efforts over the last several years had helped to hasten economic recovery, that there was a clear need for additional action and that the likely benefits of new steps to stimulate growth outweighed the potential costs.

Today's first story is from yesterday's edition of The New York Times...and I thank Roy Stephens for the first of many contributions to today's column. The link is here.

This just looks bad on Morgan Stanley.

Reuters reports that around 40-48 advisers at the bank (who run tens of billions of dollars) are thinking of leaving the firm because of "widespread technology problems that have made it difficult to do their jobs."

They're so serious about this that they hired a lawyer to help them work out a deal so they can keep their pensions. They even allegedly wrote a letter to CEO James Gorman.

Not that Gorman hadn't been warned. Another adviser close to him tipped him off about the group's unhappiness, saying that they were facing problems ranging "from trading delays and problems with foreign currency transactions to inaccurate account statements and bounced checks," says Reuters.

This very interesting story was posted on the businessinsider.com Internet site early yesterday afternoon Eastern time...and it's Roy' second offering in a row. The link is here.

The rightwing transparency group, Judicial Watch, released Tuesday a new batch of documents showing how eagerly the Obama administration shoveled information to Hollywood film-makers about the Bin Laden raid. Obama officials did so to enable the production of a politically beneficial pre-election film about that "heroic" killing, even as administration lawyers insisted to federal courts and media outlets that no disclosure was permissible because the raid was classified.

Thanks to prior disclosures from Judicial Watch of documents it obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, this is old news. That's what the Obama administration chronically does: it manipulates secrecy powers to prevent accountability in a court of law, while leaking at will about the same programs in order to glorify the president.

But what is news in this disclosure are the newly released emails between Mark Mazzetti, the New York Times' national security and intelligence reporter, and CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf. The CIA had evidently heard that Maureen Dowd was planning to write a column on the CIA's role in pumping the film-makers with information about the Bin Laden raid in order to boost Obama's re-election chances, and was apparently worried about how Dowd's column would reflect on them. On 5 August 2011 (a Friday night), Harf wrote an email to Mazzetti with the subject line: "Any word??", suggesting, obviously, that she and Mazzetti had already discussed Dowd's impending column and she was expecting an update from the NYT reporter.

This story showed up on the guardian.co.uk Internet site early on Wednesday evening BST...and I borrowed it from yesterday's edition of the King Report. I never got a sniff of this in the US media. The link is here.

As Facebook's stock continues to collapse, the volume of whining is increasing.

Four months ago, you will recall, Facebook was viewed as "the next Google." Now, with no major change in the fundamentals, it's viewed as an over-hyped disaster. Meanwhile, there is ever-louder grumbling that 26-year-old Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is in over his head and should be relieved of command.

As I listen to all this whining, I have a simple question:

Didn't anyone even read Facebook's IPO prospectus...or the letter written directly to prospective shareholders by CEO Mark Zuckerberg?

The answer, I can only assume, is "no."

I came close to deleting this story without reading it, but I'm sure glad that I made the time for it. It's an amazing read...and I highly recommend that you make time for it as well. It was posted on the Business Insider website late yesterday morning...and I thank Scott Pluschau for finding it for us. The link is here.

World food prices jumped 10 percent in July as drought parched crop lands in the United States and Eastern Europe, the World Bank said in a statement urging governments to shore up programs that protect their most vulnerable populations.

From June to July, corn and wheat prices rose by 25 percent each, soybean prices by 17 percent, and only rice prices went down, by 4 percent, the World Bank said on Thursday.

Overall, the World Bank's Food Price Index, which tracks the price of internationally traded food commodities, was 6 percent higher than in July of last year, and 1 percent over the previous peak of February 2011.

U.S. soybean futures hit a record high of $17.78 per bushel in trading on Thursday, while corn futures remained near the record of $8.49 set earlier this month.

This Reuters story was posted on their website at 12:07 a.m. India Standard Time...and I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for sending it along. The link is here.

Monetary policy will not resolve deep structural financial and economic issues in Europe – nor in the U.S., Japan, China or elsewhere around the world, for that matter. History informs us it will likely make things worse. With focus on Jackson Hole, it was easy Friday to miss the widening hole in the Spanish bond market. Spain’s 10-year yields jumped 27 bps to 6.81%, with yields up 45 bps for the week. Spain Credit default swap (CDS) prices jumped 21 bps this week (eight-session rise of 62bps) to an almost one-month high 518 bps. Italian CDS ended the week 12 higher to 467 bps. Curiously, precious metals gained this week while most industrial metals lost. Is this evidence of market players willing to bet on policy-induced currency devaluation, while less than convinced that impending monetary stimulus will have much real economic impact?

Draghi clearly has his plan – and his wingman at the Federal Reserve. There may be no turning back. At the same time, the European financial, economic and political issues may very well prove insurmountable. Yet why would the speculator community spend much time fretting the next round of “risk off,” not with global central bankers waiting anxiously with bazookas fully loaded. In the end, I suspect policymakers will regret inciting this particular, potentially unwieldy, phase of “risk on” market speculation and financial mania.

Doug Noland's clear-headed commentary on the world's credit markets is always a must read for me every week...and this week's effort certainly fall into that category. The link is here.

Pressure is mounting on the European Central Bank to water down emergency measures to prop up Spain and Italy, after divisions within the eurozone were laid bare by reports that the chief of Germany’s Bundesbank threatened to quit in protest at the plan.

ECB president Mario Draghi was expected next week to unveil a new bond-buying programme to help the two struggling eurozone states go on without a formal bail-out. Analysts now expect the measures to fall short of Mr Draghi’s vow to do “whatever it takes” after the German government had to persuade the influential Jens Weidmann to stay in his post.

Details of the rift emerged as economists prepared to cut their growth forecasts for the single currency bloc once again, following dismal eurozone unemployment figures that saw joblessness rise above 18m for the first time. It also came as Madrid signed up to a vital financial reform package to secure a €100bn (£79bn) eurozone bail-out for its banks.

This story was posted on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site yesterday evening BST...and I thank Donald Sinclair for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann declined to be drawn on whether he considered resigning over the European Central Bank’s plan to resume bond purchases, as tension between the two institutions mounts.

“I won’t comment on speculations,” Weidmann said in response to a report today in Germany’s tabloid Bild newspaper, when asked at a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Weidmann said he made his position clear in an interview with Der Spiegel magazine published Aug. 26.

Weidmann has considered quitting over the ECB’s plan to start a new round of sovereign bond purchases and discussed stepping down with the Bundesbank board, Bild said, citing unidentified people with knowledge of the situation. Weidmann, the only ECB council member opposed to the plan, has decided to remain in his post to defend his position at next week’s policy meeting, the newspaper said.

This Bloomberg story was posted on their website early yesterday morning...and I thank Manitoba reader Ulrike Marx for her first offering in today's column. It's worth skimming...and the link is here.

Giovanni Cimmino filled up his Fiat Multipla in Croatia before returning to Italy after his summer holiday, avoiding Europe’s highest gasoline prices.

“You need a smart strategy to save on gas,” said Cimmino, 37, who manages a metals trading company near Milan. With pump prices at a record in Italy, “I tend to use more public transportation and avoid driving when it’s not necessary.”

Unleaded fuel has climbed to more than 2 euros ($2.50) a liter, about $9.50 a gallon, in some areas of Italy, including parts of the Tuscany region. That’s made this year’s end-of- summer “rientro,” when Italians return to the cities after their August vacations, more costly than usual.

Italians now spend more each week to fill their tanks than they do to feed their families, according to agricultural trade group Coldiretti. Topping up a car’s 60-liter (16 gallon) tank costs about 120 euros compared with the 111 euros an average Italian household spends per week on food, according to Coldiretti.

This Bloomberg story was filed from Rome and Milan yesterday...and I thank Ulrike Marx for her second offering in a row. The link is here.

As I did last week, I'm putting all these must read stories under one headline, as I'm getting pressed for time in the not-so-wee hours of Saturday morning. The main stream media does not provide the in-depth coverage [if they provide any coverage] on the really important issues that drives the parts of the world to which these stories refer.

Roy Stephens provided me with five of these stories this week...and reader U.D. sent me one as well. One is from The New York Times, two are from the oilprice.com Internet site...and three are from the Asia Times. In one way or another, the American Empire and/or NATO is up to their necks in all of them.

1] East Asia’s Sea Disputes: Scar Tissue from War Wounds [NY Times]

2] Nationalism runs high in Asian disputes [Asia Times]

3] India strengthens eastern naval flank [Asia Times]

4] The Endless War: Saudi Arabia Goes on the Offensive Against Iran [oilprice.com]

5] Turkey peculiarly absent from Tehran [Asia Times]

6] Turkey's New Role in Mideast Worries Many [oilprice.com]

The first is with Dr. Stephen Leeb...and it's headlined "Bernanke, Europe, China & the Surge in Gold & Silver". The second is with Art Cashin...and it's entitled "The Most Disastrous Economic Event in US History".

Two weeks after the police opened fire on a crowd of 3,000 workers engaged in a wildcat strike at a platinum mine near Johannesburg, killing 34 people in the bloodiest labor unrest since the end of apartheid, prosecutors are bringing murder charges against a surprising set of suspects: the miners themselves.

Using an obscure legal doctrine frequently relied upon by the apartheid government in its dying days, prosecutors did not accuse the police officers who shot and killed the strikers as they surged forward, machetes in hand. Instead, officials said Thursday that they were pursuing murder charges against the 270 miners who were arrested after the dust settled and the shooting stopped.

It was the latest astonishing turn in a story that has gripped South Africa, unleashing a torrent of rage over deepening inequality, poverty and unemployment.

You can't make this stuff up. Without doubt this will add fuel to a fire that's already showing signs of burning out of control. This story, filed from Luanda, Angola on Thursday, showed up on The New York Times website...and it's a must read. I thank Roy Stephens for bringing it to my attention...and now to yours. The link is here.

South African bullion miner Gold Fields said about a quarter of its 46,000 workers had been on a wildcat strike since Wednesday evening in the latest labour unrest to hit the mining industry of Africa's top economy.

The strike at the world's No.4 gold producer follows a deadly stand-off at platinum miner Lonmin Plc which is still not resolved after three weeks.

Gold Fields said in a statement on Friday that about 12,000 workers had been on an "unlawful and unprotected" strike at the east section of its KDC mine in South Africa.

This Reuters story, filed from Johannesburg yesterday, is posted over at the mineweb.com Internet site...and I thank Ulrike Marx for sending it along. It, too, is a must read...and the link is here.

When 360,000 gold and coal miners walked off the job in South Africa in 1987, protesting the poor pay and grim working conditions of apartheid-era mines, a charismatic young man named Cyril Ramaphosa, the firebrand leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, led the charge.

But as the police opened fire on workers engaged in a wildcat strike at a platinum mine two weeks ago, killing 34 people, Mr. Ramaphosa, now a multimillionaire business tycoon and senior leader of the governing African National Congress, found himself in a very different position: on the board of the company the workers were striking against, the London-based Lonmin.

Now, as the shock of the killings reverberates through the nation, the party that liberated South Africa is facing perhaps its gravest challenge since it took power in the country’s first multiracial elections in 1994: seething rage from the poor in one of the world’s most unequal societies and a sense that the A.N.C. has created a wealthy black elite, including men like Mr. Ramaphosa, without changing the lives of ordinary people.

Here's another story that was filed from Johannesburg yesterday, but this one was posted in The New York Times. It's also courtesy of Ulrike Marx...and is her last offering in today's column. It's another must read...and the link is here.

Brazil said on Friday it is pressing Venezuela to determine whether Brazilian gold miners crossed the border and massacred a village of about 80 indigenous people from a helicopter.

The alleged assault, which a tribal group says could have killed more than 70 people in early July, came to light earlier this week when the group asked Venezuela's government to investigate. Because of the remoteness of the region and the scattered nature of the native settlements, fellow tribe members were able to alert the government only on Monday.

The border area between the two countries - a long, dense swath of the Amazon rainforest - has increasingly become the site of conflicts between indigenous people, gold miners, and others seeking to tap jungle resources.

This Reuters story, filed from Caracas yesterday, was posted on the CNBC website...and I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand for sending it. The link is here.

Global Gold’s vision is that the Gold bull market still has a long way to go. The current economic climate provides the ideal conditions for a continuing rise in the Gold price. The view of Global Gold is influenced by the Austrian School of Economics. In their essay, they come to the following conclusions: savings and investment are the basis of a sound economy, not consumption and debt; values of currencies are declining and fiat money has no intrinsic value; today’s debt levels are unsustainable; physical Gold is the antidote against the ongoing global debt crisis.

This video presentation is posted over at the Swiss Internet site globalgold.ch...and it runs for about 36 minutes. I thank Wesley Legrand for digging it up on our behalf...and the link is here.

China and India have always been crazy for gold and the yellow metal remains the choice store of value in those two countries, says Don Coxe, a strategic advisor to the BMO Financial Group. In an exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Coxe explains how demographic shifts are affecting the price of gold and delves into the logic of investing in gold as a long-term strategy. Coxe also draws an important lesson in economics from his reading of Lenin.

This rather short interview, posted over at theaureport.com Internet site yesterday, is definitely worth your time...and the link is here.

Even the hardiest investors have been lamenting that gold prices have been stuck in a rut for a long time. Others with less experience have watched the market waiting for something to happen….

And as always, many bailed out of the market entirely, licking their wounds.

But some, including me, have been stocking up.

We're convinced prices won't stay down forever.

In fact, I think there's a good reason to buy gold if you can, and as soon as possible.

Here's why: Based on the data I chart below, I believe the window of time to buy gold for less than $1,700 an ounce is very limited.

Jeff's timing on this couldn't be more prescient, as he obviously wrote it before yesterday's big run up. The way things are going at the moment, we could be looking at that price point in the rear-view mirror by the time New York opens for trading on Monday. The story, along with a most excellent chart, was posted on the Casey Research website yesterday...and I thank reader U.D. for sharing it with us. This, too, falls into the must read category...and the link is here.

More important than anything that Ben Bernanke might say in his long-awaited speech Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyo., is the thing he won’t say, but should.

Positively out of bounds for the chairman of the Federal Reserve is the admission that he is in the wrong line of work. The institution he leads was created to conduct a central banking business. But Congress and he have steered it into the central planning business. In so doing, the Fed has exchanged a job it could do, for one it can’t.

When the Fed opened its doors in 1914, its job was to lend against sound collateral to solvent banks and to protect the value of the dollar. The Founders gave no thought to empowering their brainchild to steer the course of the economy. The future would take care of itself if the dollar were sound and the banks were solvent, they reasoned. As for the dollar, it was legally defined as a weight of gold. You couldn’t just materialize it.

Today’s monetary mandate comes in innumerable parts, written and unwritten: to keep the economy growing, the workforce fully employed, stock prices rising, the banking system under surveillance and the inflation rate modulated (neither too high nor — oddly enough — too low). To achieve these desired ends, the Fed manipulates interest rates, plays mind games with the stock market and creates hundreds of billions of dollar bills, with a few taps on a computer keyboard. The Bernanke dollar is lighter than air: a piece of paper or a swarm of pixels.

Of course Mr. Grant doesn't mention the fact that the precious metal markets are rigged seven ways to heaven, as that would really be politically unacceptable. This op-ed piece appeared in The Washington Post late on Thursday...and is also a must read. I thank reader Neil West for finding this story...and the link is here.