The U.S. unemployment rate of 8.1 percent is probably double that number when you include a host of measures of the jobless rate that are not included in the official data, one professional tells CNBC.

But the problem, says CEO of Richmond Asset Management in Hong Kong, Graham Bibby, is that the level of unemployment in the U.S. is probably worse than the Fed thinks it is, with the jobless rate probably closer to 16 percent when you look at other measures not used to compile the official number.

“For example, if you have been unemployed for 12 months, given some other criteria, and you haven’t been to the unemployment exchange, you haven’t been to interviews, you haven’t been looking at job adverts etc., you drop off the official unemployment numbers because you are not viewed as actively looking for employment. But technically, you are not employed,” Bibby said on CNBC Asia’s “Squawk Box”.

“Then there are statistics at the short-end such as how long you have to be unemployed before you are considered unemployed, and if you get a part-time job when you were looking for a full-time job, you also drop off the statistics. So the stats are quite a lot higher then they look,” he added.

This sounds exactly like what John Williams is saying over at shadowstats.com. This story was posted over at the cnbc.com Internet site on Sunday...and I thank Washington state reader S.A. for our first story of the day. The link is here.

Federal and state authorities are investigating a handful of major American banks for failing to monitor cash transactions in and out of their branches, a lapse that may have enabled drug dealers and terrorists to launder tainted money, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

These officials say they are beginning one of the most aggressive crackdowns on money-laundering in decades, intended to send a signal to the nation’s biggest banks that weak compliance is unacceptable.

Regulators, led by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, are close to taking action against JPMorgan Chase for insufficient safeguards, the officials said. The agency is also scrutinizing several other Wall Street giants, including Bank of America.

The comptroller’s office could issue a cease-and-desist order to JPMorgan in coming months, an action that would force the bank to plug any gaps in oversight, according to several people knowledgeable about the matter. But the agency, which oversees the nation’s biggest banks, has not yet completed its case. JPMorgan is in the spotlight partly because federal authorities accused the bank last year of transferring money in violation of United States sanctions against Cuba and Iran.

Most of the money for drugs and arms that involve America's top banks is all done in their off-shore branches...and the amount involved would stagger you. This New York Times story was posted on their website last Friday...and I thank Donald Sinclair for sending it. The link is here.

The US federal government spent $369 billion in August, but only received $179 billion in revenue. The resulting $190 billion deficit was a record for any August and the third highest monthly deficit in the current fiscal year, which ends on September 30th.

Looking at this deficit another way, the federal government borrowed 51.6% of the dollars it spent in August. Consequently, the growth of the national debt continues to accelerate

Normally economic activity revives after a recession, which in turn leads to increased revenue for the federal government, like it did from 2004-2008 when the more rapid growth in revenue almost eliminated the deficit. But not this time. Revenue is increasing, but so are expenditures at almost the same rate.

Consequently, the deficit is not shrinking, which confirms a point I have made repeatedly for two years. The US is confronting a structural problem. It is not a cyclical one that will go away with improved economic activity. Importantly, the failure to address this problem will eventually lead to hyperinflation and the destruction of the dollar.

This essay was posted over at the fgmr.com website on Sunday...and I thank reader William Gebhardt for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.

Amid the alarming violence in the Arab world, a new report about the costs of a potential war with Iran got lost this week. It says an attack by the United States could set back Iran’s nuclear program four years at most, while a more ambitious goal — ensuring Iran never reconstitutes its nuclear program or ousting the regime — would involve a multiyear conflict that could engulf the region.

The significance of the report by The Iran Project is not just its sober analysis but the nearly three dozen respected national security experts from both political parties who signed it: including two former national security advisers, Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski; former Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering; and the retired Gen. Anthony Zinni.

Yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is trying to browbeat President Obama into a pre-emptive strike. On Tuesday, he demanded that the United States set a red line for military action and said those who refuse “don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.” Later, Mr. Obama telephoned him and rejected the appeal. On Friday, Mr. Netanyahu suggested in an interview that Israel cannot entirely rely on the United States to act against Iran’s program.

Basically Netanyahu is being told to "put a sock in it". This editorial showed up on the nytimes.com Internet site on Friday...and I thank Donald Sinclair for sending it along. The link is here.

Cruisers, aircraft carriers and minesweepers from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war.

Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world’s oil traded by sea.

A blockade would have a catastrophic effect on the fragile economies of Britain, Europe the United States and Japan, all of which rely heavily on oil and gas supplies from the Gulf.

This longish story was posted on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site late on Saturday night BST...and I thank Marshall Angeles for digging it up on our behalf. It's certainly worth reading...and the link is here.

The United States ordered non-essential staff to leave its embassies in Tunisia and Sudan on Saturday after both diplomatic posts were attacked and Khartoum rejected a U.S. request to send a platoon of Marines to bolster security at its mission there.

“Given the security situation in Tunis and Khartoum, the U.S. State Department has ordered the departure of all family members and non-emergency personnel from both posts, and issued parallel travel warnings to American citizens,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

The U.S. embassies in Tunis and Khartoum were attacked on Friday by protesters infuriated by a widely disseminated anti-Islamic film, made in the United States, that insults the Prophet Mohammad and has provoked a violent reaction across the Muslim world.

This Reuters story, complete with embedded video, was posted on the france24.com website on Sunday sometime. I thank Roy Stephens for his second offering in today's column...and the link is here.

A year to the day after his allegedly fraudulent trades were discovered on September 14th 2011, Kweku Adoboli appeared in court to hear the charges against him. The 32 year-old former trader at UBS is accused of having lost the Swiss bank $2.3 billion.

Mr Adoboli faces four criminal charges: two of false accounting and two of fraud by abuse of position. According to prosecutor Sasha Wass, Mr Adoboli exceeded his trading limits, invented fictitious deals and lied to his superiors.

He allegedly adopted an approach known in the gambling world as “martingale system”: a gambler doubles his bet after each loss and continues to do so until he eventually wins—or runs out of money. Starting in 2008 Mr Adoboli hid his actions and losses through the creation of false accounts and clients, according to Ms Wass, who described Mr Adoboli as “a plausible liar and an accomplished fraudster”.

This story showed up in the Economist on Sunday...and I thank London, U.K. reader Iain Doherty for sending it along. The link is here.

For some time now, the path out of the euro crisis has been a clear one for Angela Merkel. Of course, the German chancellor believes that her policies are the right way out. Last Wednesday, when the German Federal Constitutional Court approved the ratification of the treaty implementing the permanent euro bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), with a few conditions, the chancellor once again felt affirmed.

"Germany is sending a strong message today -- to Europe and beyond," she said, cheering the decision. The Karlsruhe-based court, she said, had "freed the path that had always guided us and me very personally."

The chancellor was relieved and all of Europe could breathe a little easier. European leaders could now continue as they have up until now in their efforts to rescue the common currency. All signs indicated that the tense situation would begin to relax. Stock markets rose and the euro also gained against the dollar. Risk premiums on Italian and Spanish government bonds also sank. Once again, the euro appeared to have been rescued. The only question: How long will the latest rescue effort last this time?

The question arises because the ruling is a preliminary one, and the court's final decision could still hold a few surprises for European leaders. The ESM can now be ratified, but some aspects remain unclear and may not be clarified until the court rules in the main proceedings in the cases against the ESM ratification and the European Central Bank's plans to purchase unlimited government bonds from crisis-plagued euro-zone countries. The justices in Karlsruhe have left plenty of wiggle room in the language used in the preliminary ruling for a final decision later.

This story appeared on the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens for sharing it with us. The link is here.

Tens of thousands of people from all over Spain rallied in the capital Saturday against punishing austerity measures enacted by the government, which is trying to save the country from financial collapse.

Large anti-austerity protests also took place in neighboring Portugal. Demonstrators in Lisbon threw tomatoes and fireworks at the Portuguese headquarters of the International Monetary Fund. Two protesters were arrested, but otherwise the rally was peaceful.

Spain is stuck in a double-dip recession with unemployment close to 25 percent. The conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has introduced stinging cuts and raised taxes in a bid to reduce the deficit and to reassure investors and officials from the 17-nation eurozone.

The situation looks set to get worse in coming weeks. At a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Cyprus on Friday, Spain revealed it would present a new set of economic reforms by the end of the month. It’s a move that raises expectations that Spain might soon ask for financial help.

This AP story showed up on the france24.com Internet site sometime on Saturday...and is Richard Craggs first contribution to today's column. The link is here.

Finance minister Luis de Guindos ruled out further fiscal cuts needed to qualify for a eurozone rescue, leaving it unclear whether the European Central Bank can activate Europe’s grand plan to stabilise markets.

Mr de Guindos said over the weekend that Madrid’s €100bn (£81bn) austerity measures are “sufficient” to meet a deficit ceiling of 6.3pc of GDP this year, although it is an open secret that Spain will miss its target.

Germany’s parliament is unlikely to approve any rescue without deeper cuts, but further austerity risks pushing Spain into civil conflict. Tens of thousands marched in Madrid at the weekend to protest against drastic cuts, including a 7pc cut in public wages. A man set fire to himself in Portugal, where clashes turned violent.

This AE-S offering was posted on The Telegraph's website late on Sunday night BST...and is well worth your time...and I thank Ulrike Marx for her first offering in today's column. The link is here.

Spain’s bonds fell, with 10-year yields climbing above 6 percent, as the nation’s debt office said it plans to sell as much as 4.5 billion euros ($5.92 billion) of three- and 10-year securities this week.

Spanish two-year notes dropped for a third day after European Union finance ministers meeting in Cyprus last week failed to agree on a timetable for a more unified banking system. Spain’s securities also declined on concern the government will hold back from an aid request that may include debt purchases by the European Central Bank. German bunds gained as investors sought the region’s safest securities.

“There’s obviously a focus on the supply,” said Richard McGuire, a senior fixed-income strategist at Rabobank International in London. “There’s some concession building ahead of that issuance, but then the concession building is being exacerbated by this uncertainty as to if and when Spain might request a bailout.”

Spain’s 10-year yield climbed 20 basis points, or 0.2 percentage point, to 5.99 percent at 4:07 p.m. in London after rising to 6.01 percent, the highest since Sept. 7. The 5.85 percent bond due in January 2012 dropped 1.435, or 14.35 euros per 1,000-euro face amount, to 98.99.

This Bloomberg story was filed from London yesterday morning BST...and I thank Richard Craggs for sending it along. The link is here.

His business rivals never fully understood how Manoj Jayaswal got so rich so fast, except that he often seemed joined at the hip with powerful politicians. He hosted them at lavish parties, entertained them at his daughter’s opulent Thai wedding and stood among them at India’s presidential palace, where a year ago he was praised as a leader in the India growth story.

But now Mr. Jayaswal is embroiled in a $34 billion coal mining scandal that has exposed the ugly underside of Indian politics and economic life: a brazen style of crony capitalism that has enabled politicians and their friends to reap huge profits by gaining control of vast swaths of the country’s natural resources, often for nothing.

“Today in India, politicians are so powerful,” said Santosh Hegde, a former Supreme Court justice who recently led a sweeping investigation of a different mining scandal in southern India. “All together, they are looting the country.”

This very interesting article showed up on The New York Times website on Saturday...and is Roy Stephens third offering in today's column. The link is here.

Panasonic said that one of its plants had been sabotaged and would remain closed throughout Monday and Tuesday, amid angry protests resulting from a territorial dispute between Japan and China.

Over the weekend, smoke and flames were reported as coming from Panasonic's plant in Qingdao, with car maker Toyota also reporting that an auto dealership in the same port city was damaged. Toyota said, however, that its offices and factories were operating as usual in China on Monday.

Protests flared across China in response to the Japanese government's decision last week to buy a number of disputed islets in the East China Sea from a private Japanese owner, incensing Beijing.

This story was posted on The Telegraph's website early yesterday morning BST...and I thank Roy Stephens for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.

The first blog is with John Hathaway...and it's headlined "$2,000 Gold Will Happen Very Quickly". Next is Michael Pento. His blog is entitled "Gold Will Soar as the World Sinks Further Into the Abyss". Here's commentary by Bill Fleckenstein...and his blog is headlined "Gold Bullish as the Deflation Scare Has Ended". Next is James Turk...and it's entitled "Gold & Silver to Overrun Central Planners". The last blog is with Citi analyst Tom Fitzpatrick. It's headlined "Gold & Silver Will Smash Through All-Time Highs". And the audio interview is with Egon von Greyerz.

Chinese banks and companies looking to seize steel pledged as collateral by firms that have defaulted on loans are making an uncomfortable discovery: the metal was never in the warehouses in the first place.

China's demand has faltered with the slowing economy, pushing steel prices to a three-year low and making it tough for mills and traders to keep up with payments on the $400 billion of debt they racked up during years of double-digit growth.

As defaults have risen in the world's largest steel consumer, lenders have found that warehouse receipts for metal pledged as collateral do not always lead them to stacks of stored metal. Chinese authorities are investigating a number of cases in which steel documented in receipts was either not there, belonged to another company or had been pledged as collateral to multiple lenders, industry sources said.

One has to wonder whether or not this sort of situation exists in the gold and silver markets as well. If one pried open the LBMA, the Comex...and GLD and SLV...would all the metal be there? Just asking. This Reuters story was filed from Shanghai on Sunday...and it's well worth reading. I thank Richard Craggs for this story as well...and the link is here.

At least a thousand soldiers were deployed in Marikana on Saturday evening, the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) said.

"The soldiers were deployed at the request of the police to support them in their operation,' said SANDF spokesperson Brigadier General Xolani Mabanga.

Mabanga said the soldiers sent to Marikana included members from the air force, the army, and the military health services.

Earlier on Saturday, police fired rubber bullets to disperse striking mineworkers who had gathered in Nkaneng informal settlement in Wonderkop.

This story, filed from Johannesburg, was posted on the news24.com Internet site on Saturday evening local time...and I thank Manitoba reader Ulrike Marx for her final offering in today's column. The link is here.

South African police stopped ANC renegade Julius Malema from addressing striking miners on Monday as the government intensified efforts to contain labor unrest at mines in the world's top platinum producer.

The strife has cost the industry 4.5 billion rand ($548 million) in lost output, President Jacob Zuma said, as two mines reopened but there was still no end in sight to a deadly strike at world No. 3 platinum producer Lonmin in which 45 people have died.

Strikers also said they would keep shut four mines run by the world's top producer, Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), which the company aims to reopen on Tuesday.

"There is no need to resort to violence. I believe we must not encourage that," Zuma told a conference of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, a partner with the African National Congress (ANC) in the governing alliance.

This Reuters story was filed from Marikana, South Africa yesterday...and was posted on their Internet site late Monday morning Eastern time. It's Richard Craggs last contribution to today's column...and the link is here.

Ex-ANC Youth League President Julius Malema may be arrested before the end of the week by the Hawks.

Eyewitness News reported that the law enforcement body was close to completing an investigation into allegations of corruption against Malema.

The Hawks probed Malema’s Ratanang Family Trust, alleged tax irregularities and possible tender fraud.

It was alleged previously that Malema had about R15m in unpaid taxes owed by On-Point Engineering, a company partly owned by Malema’s family trust.

This story comes as no surprise. The powers-that-be were going to get this guy one way or another...if not by 'lead poisoning', then some other way...and this looks like it. I thank Ulrike Marx for sliding this story into my in-box just before I hit the 'send' button on today's column. It was posted on the news24.com Internet site early this morning South Africa time...and the link is here.

Lonmin, the crisis-hit platinum miner, cancelled a contract for 1,200 staff as it temporarily shut down a shaft at the mine at the centre of South Africa’s violent strikes.

Marking the first job losses to arise from its troubles, the company said that as part of its review of its spending plans it is moving its K4 shaft at the Marikana site out of production.

That means it is ending a contract which supplies 1,200 staff to develop the shaft, with effect from October 18. The company’s total workforce for staff and contract workers, the bulk of whom work at Marikana, currently numbers 38,000.

Lonmin now expects to produce between 685,000 and 700,000 ounces of platinum for the year to the end of this month, having already said it would miss its previous target of 750,000 ounces.

This story was posted on the telegraph.co.uk website early yesterday evening...and is Roy Stephens final offering of the day. The link is here.

A Carson City, Nev., recluse whose body was found in his home at least a month after he died left only $200 in his bank account.

But as Walter Samaszko Jr.'s house was being cleared for sale, officials made a surprise discovery: gold bars and coins valued at $7 million.

"Nobody had any clue he was hoarding the gold," Carson City Clerk-Recorder Alan Glover told the Las Vegas Sun, adding it was found stored in boxes in the house and garage.

The gold coins had been minted as early as the 1840s in such countries as Mexico, England, Austria and South Africa, he said...and based on just the weight of the gold alone, Glover estimates their worth at $7 million. Because some of the coins appear to be collector's items, the value could go much higher, he said.

This AP story was posted on the foxnews.com Internet site yesterday...and I thank Florida reader Charles Dubelier for sending it. The link is here.

Republican talk of restoring the United States to a gold standard isn't likely to go anywhere, the economist Alasdair Macleod writes, but he refutes the silly complaint that there isn't enough gold for such a conversion. It's just a matter of re-pricing the gold, Macleod writes. He believes that governments will never again accept the financial discipline a gold standard imposes.

I borrowed Chris Powell's introductory paragraph from a GATA release yesterday. Macleod's commentary is headlined "A New Gold Standard" and it's posted on the GoldMoney.com Internet site...and the link is here.

The silver price has received a significant boost with the announcement of the new U.S. Fed policy to resume pumping money into the economy to try and kick-start employment recovery. As Ted Butler has noted in his latest newsletter, although the gold price has risen by over 9% over the past four weeks, that of silver has risen by some 23%, continuing the past pattern of silver tending to rise faster than gold on the upside. However Butler points out that the price rises in both appear to be being driven by large volumes of paper gold and silver traded on COMEX, but is puzzled by the lack of silver deposits into the major silver ETF, SLV. This, he reckons, could be a sign of tightness in the market.

However, Butler also warns that this could prelude the big short position holders in silver, and in gold, acting to try and take down the market. (Butler is one of the premier believers in the ongoing rigging of the silver markets by the big banks which tend to hold major positions in the metals) and points out that we are at around the anniversary of what he feels was a major take-down in silver last year when it fell $15 - or 35% - in three days.

Lawrie doesn't mention any names, but we know who the "big short seller" is. This commentary from Lawrence Williams was posted over at the mineweb.com website yesterday...and is your only must read in today's column. I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for finding our last story of the day...and the link is here.