I didn't watch the debate – I just couldn't. I read it in transcript form afterwards. I know it is widely believed that Mitt Romney won, but I don't agree. I think both candidates lost. I think they both sucked. Romney told a series of outright lies – the bit about the pre-existing conditions was incredible – while Barack Obama seemed unaccountably disinterested in the intellectual challenge of the exercise, repeatedly leaving the gross absurdities hurled his way by Romney unchallenged.

Romney's performance was better than Obama's, but only if you throw out criteria like "wasn't 100% full of shit from the opening bell" and "made an actual attempt to explain who he is and what his plans are." Unfortunately, that is good enough for our news media, which drools over the gamesmanship aspects of these debates, because it loves candidates who sink their teeth into the horse-race nonsense that they think validates their professional lives.

If you read the rest of this Matt Taibbi rant, you might figure out what he really thinks. It was posted on the Rolling Stone website yesterday afternoon Eastern time...and I thank Roy Stephens for our first story in today's column. And as you've already discovered, the usual disclaimer about Matt's 'pithy prose' applies. The link is here.

The big drop in the unemployment rate a month before the presidential election brought cries of disbelief and conspiracy theories from Jack Welch and other critics of the Obama administration Friday. But the Labor Department was quick to dismiss such claims.

"Unbelievable jobs numbers...these Chicago guys will do anything...can't debate, so change numbers."

Welch did not respond to a request for further comment. In an interview later in the day on MSNBC, he admitted that he had no evidence that the jobs numbers were manipulated, but said they "defy logic."

This story was posted on the money.cnn.com Internet site early yesterday evening...and I thank Washington state reader S.A. for sending it along. The link is here.

Headline numbers from today's jobs report looked great. Unemployment fell to 7.8 percent, non-farm payrolls came in line with expectations, and last month's number was revised up.

This prompted some to claim the numbers were made up. President Obama said, "this morning we found out that the unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest rate since I took office."

But Gluskin Sheff's David Rosenberg didn't paint such a rosy picture of the report and had a very specific response to any such claim: "That the 7.8 percent jobless rate takes it to the level that prevailed when the President took office in January 2009 has raised many an eyebrow. I don't believe in conspiracy theories. But I don't believe in the Household Survey either.

David may have been born at night...but it wasn't last night. This businessinsider.com story was posted on their Internet site during the lunch hour in New York yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens for his second offering in today's column. The link is here.

Refinery outages and a unseasonably warm weather caused gas prices to shoot up by 20 cents a gallon overnight in California, prompting some stations to close and others to charge more than $5 a gallon, the AP reports.

Temperatures are expected to head up to at least 79 degrees in L.A., while production disruptions linger at local Chevron and Mobil refineries, according to USA Today.

GasBuddy is registering an average price of $4.53 this morning for the state, near the record of $4.61 from June 2008.

This story is an update of a similar story I ran a couple of days ago...and it's obvious that gas prices have risen substantially since then. You've already read the entire 3-paragraph Bloomberg story...and the link to the hard copy is here. I thank Roy Stephens for sending it.

There’s a lot that will likely go really wrong in Europe, perhaps even in the short-term. Greece is an unmitigated disaster, and Spain is running a close second. There was further dismal economic news this week, most notably from France. But that hasn’t in the least diminished recent keen speculative interest in European debt. Indeed, after the Fed sold its soul, I’ve often believed that the speculators became adept at recognizing periods of rising systemic stress and market vulnerability as opportunities to load up on Treasuries and MBS. And then it becomes a game, “OK Federal Reserve, make the value of these securities (or spread trades) go up or we’ll dump them.” They’ve haven’t had to dump. The ECB has similarly opened itself up to blackmail. “Be ready with the OMT as promised - or we dump.” “Spanish and Italian politicians, play ball or we’ll dump.” “Mr. Weidmann and the Bundesbank, step in line - or we dump!” “All policymakers everywhere, play or we dump.” At least in Europe, this is developing into one fascinating multifaceted game of chicken.

Well, I’ve been ranting for awhile now about the “biggest Bubble in the history of mankind.” At this point, things increasingly remind me of 1999 and 2006. Bubble Dynamics eventually reached a degree of excess that was too conspicuous to deny. Yet the stakes are so much greater today. The amount of global debt is so huge and the quality so poor. It’s completely systemic and global. Dangerous excesses have gravitated to the core of Credit and monetary systems. Policymakers are now “all in” in a desperate gambit to hold financial and economic fragility at bay. And, dangerously, highly speculative markets seem determined to extend their divergent path from economic fundamentals. It’s frightening how enormous and enormously powerful dysfunctional global markets have become.

As always, Doug Noland's Credit Bubble Bulletin is a must read every Friday...and yesterday's epistle is no exception. I thank reader U.D. for sending it my way...and the link is here.

In February of 2011, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase, approached the podium of one of the ballrooms at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Key Biscayne, Fla., where 300 senior executives from around the world were attending the bank’s annual off-site conference. By that time, the cold fear of the financial crisis was cordoned off in the near-distant past, replaced by a dawning recognition that the ensuing changes in business — the comparatively trifling risk limits, the dwindling bonuses, the elevated stress levels — might actually be permanent. That day, Dimon took the opportunity, according to a bank employee in attendance, to try to inspire his team, to rouse them from the industry-wide sense of malaise. Yes, there were challenges, Dimon said, but it was the job of leadership to be strong. They should be prudent, but step up — be bold. He looked out into the audience, where Ina Drew, the 54-year-old chief investment officer, was sitting at one of the tables. “Ina,” he said, singling her out, “is bold.”

Perhaps by now when bankers hear that kind of public praise, they simultaneously hear a distant clanging, a dim alarm that provokes an undercurrent of anxiety. It seems inevitable that an acknowledgment of such star power will eventually lead to a fall, a big one, and one year and three months later, Drew succumbed. Her team had been bold, so bold that along with Dimon, she had become the public face attached to a $6 billion mistake, a trading loss so startling in size that it dominated the business press, put Dimon on the defensive and cost Drew her job. Over and over again, online and on television, in stories about the loss, the same corporate headshot appeared: a woman wearing a hot pink bouclé jacket, showing a smile so faint it was almost frank in its discomfort.

This huge cover story was posted on The New York Times Internet site on Wednesday...and I've been saving it for today. I thank Washington state reader S.A. for digging this up on our behalf. As I said, it's a long read, but well worth the effort if you have the time...and the link is here.

On Friday morning Greece announced that German prime minister Angela Merkel would be visiting Athens on Tuesday, October 9, in an apparent show of solidarity with the plight of the Greeks.

Steffen Seibert, Merkel's spokesman, said the visit "would be 'obviously' marked by the 'very serious situation of the country,'" reports DPA correspondent Christiane Jacke.

However, the Greek people may not be too into solidarity with Germany at the moment.

In fact, as a result of the announcement of the visit – which was made only this morning – several protest demonstrations to greet Merkel have already been announced.

This story was posted on the businessinsider.com Internet site late on Friday morning Eastern time...and is another offering from Roy Stephens. The link is here.

War with Syria? Most Turks say no. But the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is aggressively responding to a deadly cross-border attack, having been granted broad military powers by parliament. His hope: After Assad falls, Turkey will gain even more influence in the Middle East.

There's a growing fear among the Turkish public that their country will be sucked further into an armed conflict with Syria. Following the firing of a mortar bomb from Syrian territory that killed five civilians on Wednesday in the Turkish border town of Akcakale, Turkish fighter jets have carried out multiple strikes on Syrian targets, including a military camp belonging to President Bashar Assad. Numerous Syrian soldiers were reportedly killed.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made it clear his armed forces would not let an attack on "our territory" go unanswered. After Syrian anti-aircraft defenses shot down a Turkish surveillance plane in June, Turkey has significantly increased its troop presence along the border it shares with the country.

This story showed up on the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and is another story that I've been saving for today's column. It is, of course, courtesy of Roy Stephens...and a must read for any student of the "New Great Game". The link is here.

It isn't yet clear who fired shells from Syria into Turkey, killing a mother and four children, or why. But if Turkey is going to launch a major incursion across the border between the two countries, be sure that the proximate reason wouldn't simply be border security or support for the rebel Free Syrian Army -- it would also be about crushing Kurdish militants.

Turkey's government had little choice but to respond in kind to the shelling from Syria, otherwise it would have come in for a shellacking at home for being weak.

The Syria crisis has reopened the region's Kurdish question, rekindling hope among some Kurds that their 30 million-strong nation, divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, could emerge from the chaos with their own state, or at least a lot more autonomy.

Since the Syrian crisis developed into a civil war, insurgents from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, better known as the PKK, have launched their most intense guerrilla campaign against Turkish security forces since the 1990s. At the same time, Kurds in Syria have taken advantage of the turmoil there to start planting Kurdish flags in towns along Turkey's border and declaring a de facto autonomy.

More unfinished business from a hundred years ago. This story showed up on Bloomberg on Thursday...and is another must read for students of the "New Great Game". I thank Washington state reader S.A. for bringing this story to our attention...and the link is here.

A flash crash on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Friday morning due to erroneous trades by a dealer in 59 frontline stocks pulled the NSE-50 (Nifty) index down 15.5% to 4,888, raising questions about the robustness of the bourse's software and leaving the exchange red-faced on the eve of a visit by the finance minister to the city. It recovered at the end of day's trade to close at 5,747, down 41, while the Sensex closed 120 points down at 18,938.

Although NSE suspended Emkay Global Financial Services, the broking house where the trades had originated, the incident invited severe criticism from market players about why the trading was not automatically stopped by the exchange given the rules of the Securities and Exchange Board of India that stipulate a circuit filter should kick in when the index goes up or down 10%. In this case the trading was stopped when the index went down 15.5%, which also triggered stop losses for several investors, thus aggravating losses for no fault of theirs. The flash crash also prompted SEBI to start a preliminary investigation into the whole affair.

This story was posted on the indiatimes.com Internet site early this morning India Standard Time. I plucked it from a GATA release late last night...and the link is here.

The phrase coined by the 17th-century English philosopher Francis Bacon is: "If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain." So, if Russian President Vladimir Putin won't come to Islamabad on Tuesday, then Pakistani army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kiani will still go to Moscow...at the same time that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is arriving in Islamabad on an unscheduled visit.

To be sure, Moscow's priority will be to sit across the table with Kiani, as he is the fountainhead of authority in Pakistan on major foreign and security policy issues. Also, he is an unusual Pakistani general, having run into difficulties with the United States, while pushing for Pakistan's "strategic autonomy" on the geopolitical chessboard.

Indeed, the present moment is pregnant with possibilities. Russia and Pakistan in varying measure - for different reasons though - have come under US pressure. Both appreciate that the US has "lost" the war in Afghanistan, is pulling out of it and would have little choice but to negotiate with the Taliban; both sense a power vacuum could develop in Afghanistan but also feel uneasy that the US is yet keeping strategic ambiguity about its future military presence in the region.

More 'great game' material. This one showed up on the Asia Times website on Wednesday...and is another story that I've been saving for Saturday's column. I thank Roy Stephens once again...and the link is here.

With the surge of American troops over and the Taliban still a potent threat, American generals and civilian officials acknowledge that they have all but written off what was once one of the cornerstones of their strategy to end the war here: battering the Taliban into a peace deal.

The once ambitious American plans for ending the war are now being replaced by the far more modest goal of setting the stage for the Afghans to work out a deal among themselves in the years after most Western forces depart, and to ensure Pakistan is on board with any eventual settlement. Military and diplomatic officials here and in Washington said that despite attempts to engage directly with Taliban leaders this year, they now expect that any significant progress will come only after 2014, once the bulk of NATO troops have left.

“I don’t see it happening in the next couple years,” said a senior coalition officer. He and a number of other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the effort to open talks.

“It’s a very resilient enemy, and I’m not going to tell you it’s not,” the officer said. “It will be a constant battle, and it will be for years.”

I heard all this stuff before as the U.S. was heading for the door in Vietnam. This story showed up in The New York Times on Tuesday...and it's also something that I've been saving for today's column. It's from Roy Stephens once again of course...and the link is here.

The first blog is with John Embry...and it's headlined "Physical Gold Demand May Now Overwhelm The Manipulators". Next is Gerald Celente. It's entitled "Exclusive Sneak Peek Of New Trends Journal & Gold". The audio interview is with Rick Santelli.

Wealthy Europeans who have pushed up the price of luxury London homes in a bid to shield their wealth from the eurozone crisis could have been better off buying gold, according to estate agent Knight Frank.

They have helped push up the price of super-prime homes in the capital - those above £10m - by almost 40pc since the March 2009.

A respectable return considering interest rates at historic lows of 0.5pc and "substantial economic, financial and political challenges".

However, gold in that time has risen 89pc to $1,786 a troy ounce and in gold terms the value of a luxury London home has plunged.

Liam Bailey, head of Residential Research at Knight Frank, said: "In 2002 it would have taken you 24,000 ounces of gold to buy a super-prime mansion in SW1. A decade on, you would get change from 9,800 ounces."

This story showed up on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site mid-afternoon BST yesterday...and is Roy Stephens' final offering in today's column. The link is here.

In India, the country plays host this fortnight to the mourning period for dead ancestors (Shraadh) in a period which is generally considered highly inauspicious for starting anything new, like buying a house, getting married or even buying gold.

In neighbouring China, on the other hand, the Golden Week holidays are on (Sept 30-Oct 7). The time is ripe for retailers to roll out the incentives, which is leading to a massive jump in sales across bullion counters.

One would have thought that the inauspicious nature of the fortnight in India would have led to a massive decline in gold sales, casting a shadow on the purchase of gold jewellery. However, the contrary is true.

This interesting story, filed from Mumbai on Friday, was posted on the mineweb.com Internet site...and I thank Manitoba reader Ulrike Marx for sending it along. The link is here.

In his latest commentary, GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk explains that as gold is money, its value is calculated as a function of ever-inflating government-issued currencies. "Some say that the gold price rises and falls," Turk writes, "but they are grabbing the wrong end of the stick. It is the purchasing power of national currencies that rises and falls. Here is an analogy to make this point clear. When standing in a boat and looking at the shore, it is the boat (currencies)and not the land (gold) that is bobbing up and down."

Turk's commentary is posted over at the goldmoney.com Internet site...and I thank Chris Powell for writing the introductory paragraph above. It's a must read...and the link is here.

The obscure Belgian economist Robert Triffin is not only very dead he also isn't exactly a household name, yet. Triffin, who died in 1993 studied at Harvard, taught at Yale, worked at the Federal Reserve, the IMF, and was a key contributor to the formation of the European monetary system. Triffin exposed serious flaws in the Bretton Woods monetary system and perfectly predicted it's inevitable demise yet his work remains largely ignored and unstudied by today's mainstream economists. This "flaw" became known as the Triffin dilemma, and many believe Triffin's dilemma has as serious implications today as it did 50 years ago. In short, Triffin proposed that when one nations currency also becomes the worlds reserve asset, eventually domestic and international monetary objectives diverge. Have you ever wondered how it's possible that the USA has run a trade deficit for 37 consecutive years? Have you ever considered the consequences on the value of your Dollar denominated assets if it eventually becomes an unacceptable form of payment to our trading partners? Thankfully for those of us trying to navigate the current financial morass, Robert Triffin did.

Triffin's dilemma continues to play an important role in the ongoing financial crisis the world has found itself in since 2008. The governor of the Peoples Bank of China specifically referenced Triffin's Dilemma as the root cause of the current financial disorder and suggested an immediate effort to transition away from the US dollar to avoid more catastrophic consequences.

Well, if I had to pick just one work for you to read out of today's column...this would be the one. It was written by Joe Yasinski and Dan Flynn...and was posted over at the bullioninternational.com Internet site on Tuesday. I'm grateful to reader U.D. for bringing this story to our attention...and the link is here.