The effort to restore power to those impacted by mega-storm Sandy will apparently take longer than initially hoped.

Con Edison said Thursday that it expects to “restore the vast majority of customers who lost power by the weekend of Nov. 10 and 11. The remaining customer restorations could take an additional week more.”

As a reminder, a Con Ed “customer” is not necessarily an individual – it can be an entire building. That said, Con Ed said it anticipated having power restored to customers in Lower Manhattan by Saturday.

Con Ed said some 900,000 customers lost power due to the storm in New York City and Westchester County. Some 250,000 customers have had power restored, with roughly 650,000 to go.

This story was posted on the CBS New York website on Thursday afternoon...and I borrowed it from yesterday's King Report. The link is here.

Trillions of dollars worth of stock certificates and other paper securities that were stored in a vault in lower Manhattan may have suffered water damage from Super-storm Sandy.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., an industry-run clearing house for Wall Street, said the contents of its vault "are likely damaged," after its building at 55 Water Street "sustained significant water damage" from the storm that battered New York City's financial district earlier this week.

The vault contains certificates registered to Cede & Co., a subsidiary of DTCC, as well as "custody certificates" in sealed envelopes that belong to clients.

The DTCC provides "custody and asset servicing" for more than 3.6 million securities worth an estimated $36.5 trillion, according to its website.

This story was posted on the CNN website just before lunch on the East Coast yesterday...and I thank reader "David in California" for sending it. It's worth reading...and the link is here.

Once a high flyer for Goldman Sachs, Greg Smith now says the company's culture has turned for the worse while the industry issues that led to the Global Financial Crisis are unchanged.

This 7:03 minute video interview come courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation...and I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand for sharing it with us. The link is here.

You wouldn't know it by watching the news or reading the paper, but America's banks are on the largest crime spree the country has ever known. Let's go to the highlight reel, shall we?

In July, Wells Fargo paid a $175 million settlement after the feds caught its brokers systematically pushing minority customers into mortgages with higher rates and fees, even though they posed the same credit risks as whites.

One study found that Wells Fargo charged Hispanics $2,000 more in what the Justice Department called a "racial surtax." The bank docked blacks nearly $3,000 extra for their own improper pigmentation.

But despite a colossal civil-rights fraud perpetrated against 30,000 customers, the settlement amounted to just .011 percent of the San Francisco bank's annual income. It was like forcing a $30,000-a-year working stiff to pay a $240 fine.

This longish article, posted on the houstonpress.com Internet site on Thursday, would certainly meet with the approval of Matt Taibbi over at Rolling Stone magazine. There are no punches pulled in this 4-page article that I consider a must read. I thank Washington state reader S.A. for bringing it to our attention...and the link is here.

In a fascinating article in Harper’s Magazine (October 26, 2012) Victoria Collier notes that in the old technology, election theft depended on the power of machine politicians, such as Louisiana Senator Huey Long, to prevent exposure.

With the advent of modern technology, Collier writes that “a brave new world of election rigging emerged.” The brave new world of election theft was created by “the mass adoption of computerized voting technology and the outsourcing of our elections to a handful of corporations that operate in the shadows, with little oversight or accountability. This privatization of our elections has occurred without public knowledge or consent, leading to one of the most dangerous and least understood crisis in the history of American democracy. We have actually lost the ability to verify election results.”

The old ballot-box fraud was localized and limited in its reach. Electronic voting allows elections to be rigged on a statewide and national scale. Moreover, with electronic voting there are no missing ballot boxes to recover from the Louisiana bayous. Using proprietary corporate software, the vote count is what the software specifies.

This article is a must read for all American voters before they cast their ballot on Tuesday. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is always controversial but, in my opinion, just about always right on the money as well. I consider this essay to be no exception. I thank reader William Gebhardt for sending it along...and the link is here.

We’re today in the midst of the manic financial Bubble phase. Especially here in the U.S., the markets will finance virtually anything. There’s hardly a junk bond the market doesn’t love. CDOs are back. Relatively higher-yielding municipal debt induces salivation. There are, then, no worries regarding the ability to finance Sandy recovery and rebuilding efforts. Costs really don’t matter. Wealth destruction is basically irrelevant. If it’s “money” that’s needed, well, we’ve got the Bernanke Fed. And why not just rebuild on the water’s edge and buy cheap federal flood insurance. “Broken windows,” broken subways, broken transformers, broken communication hubs, and broken neighborhoods are sure to incite a borrowing and spending boom. Dr. Bernanke’s “mopping up” strategy in action.

Yet caution is in order. There will be more storms, some weather-related. And there will come a post-Bubble environment and a profoundly altered backdrop. Previous Credit excesses, suspect debt and market revulsion will make it profoundly more difficult to finance all types of spending. Deeply entrenched structural shortcomings will have surfaced conspicuously. And, importantly, I would expect previous consumption-based borrowing and spending excesses to restrict the system’s ability to finance needed investment and infrastructure projects. Along with economic structure, market confidence really matters.

Doug spends most of Friday's column discussing Hurricane Sandy and its effect on high finance, credit...and risk. As always, Doug's weekly Credit Bubble Bulletin posted over at the prudentbear.com Internet site is worth reading if you have the time. I thank reader U.D. for sending it along...and the link is here.

This video debate took place at the 2012 New Orleans Investment Conference about ten days ago. It runs for a bit over an hour...and I thank Atlanta, Georgia reader Ken Hurt for sharing it with us. It's posted over at the Kitco website...and the link is here.

The video is headlined "An Empire of Debt Leading to a "Crack-up" in the Global Monetary System". The whole program, which runs 28:04 minutes, is well worth your time. This is real journalism, dear reader...and is one of the main reasons why Russia Today is doing so well. The video is posted over at youtube.com...and I thank Casey Research's own Bud Conrad for bringing this video to my attention...and now to yours. The link is here.

Does Britain belong in the European Union? There are plenty both in the United Kingdom and on the Continent who have their doubts. Now, with the debate over the EU's next budget raging, a European Commissioner has challenged London to decide. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel is also losing her patience over the squabble.

Many in the European Union have long rolled their eyes when conversation turns to the United Kingdom. Britain is often seen on the Continent as one of the most problematic members of the 27-member club, wary of any moves that might lead toward further European integration.

Now, as the EU begins earnest negotiations aimed at passing a budget to cover the years 2014 to 2020, it appears Brussels is beginning to lose its patience. Britain this week has been adamant in its refusal to accept the budget proposal of €1 trillion made by the European Commission and has demanded that it be slashed by up to 20 percent. Other member states would also like to see the budget proposal adjusted downward, but so far, the rhetoric from London has been uncompromising.

This story was posted on the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens for his first offering in today's column. It's certainly worth reading...and the link is here.

For many Eurosceptics, Wednesday night’s vote in Parliament was a watershed moment which unambiguously sets Britain on the road to eventual exit from the European Union. Even among pro-Europeans, there is a growing sense of resignation. On the current trajectory, it now seems more likely than not that Britain will be out of Europe by the end of the next parliament.

Almost everywhere, the Eurosceptic voice is in the ascendancy, so much so that hardly anyone dares put the other side of the case any longer. If there is any kind of an argument for inflation-busting increases in the EU budget, it’s virtually impossible to find those prepared to venture it in public.

Don’t worry, I’m not about to try, but the turnaround in thinking is nevertheless remarkable. Even Nick Clegg’s warning that “stamping your foot” over Europe risks further marginalisation sounded less than convincing. He too seems to recognise that there are few votes left in notions of European solidarity.

This excellent must read commentary showed up on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site at 7:50 p.m. GMT last night...and is Roy's second offering in a row. The link is here.

Greece is undergoing a crisis of democracy with press censorship at its centre, says the magazine editor in the middle of the media storm that has engulfed Athens. Speaking to the Guardian a day after being cleared of breaching privacy laws, Kostas Vaxevanis said Greece was ruled by a clique of corrupt politicians in thrall to businessmen who owned – and gagged – the media.

"There's a huge problem in Greece, a problem of democracy and essence," he said in his fifth-floor office, surrounded by copies of Hot Doc, the investigative magazine that last week published the names of more than 2,000 high-earning Greeks with bank accounts in Switzerland. "The country is governed by a poisonous combination of politicians, businessmen and journalists who cover one another's backs. Every day laws are changed, or new laws are voted in, to legitimise illegal deeds."

With a substantial chunk of the Greek media owned by magnates or financed by banks, journalists were in effect silenced. "It's tragic. Greeks only ever learn half the truth and that is worse than lies because it has the effect of creating impressions," he said. "Had it not been for the foreign media taking such an interest in my own story, it would have been buried."

This story showed up in The Guardian yesterday evening...and it's no surprise that it's also courtesy of Roy Stephens. The link is here.

Pimco's managing director Andrew Bosomworth has said the ECB may have to take losses on its Greek sovereign bonds because the country is unlikely to repay its debt in full, reports Bloomberg.

"At the end of the day it's the Greek government's decision, therefore the ECB might unwillingly accept that it doesn't get everything back," Bosomworth said in an interview in Riga, Latvia, today.

"Its extremely difficult to see any way, any possibility how the country pays back its debt without receiving assistance in the form of debt relief.

"Greece is insolvent and it's going to default. It's just a question of how and when that is realized."

This short item showed up at 15:05 GMT in this debt crisis blog over at The Telegraph yesterday. It's Roy's fourth offering in a row...and the link to the hard copy is here.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday he wants Turkey to be a full member of the EU by 2023. Chancellor Angela Merkel assured him the talks would be "honest.' Their meeting in Berlin once again showed that relations between Turkey and Germany have become complicated.

At the end of the news conference Angela Merkel narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. Her face seemed to say: What's he talking about? Next to her, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was talking about Cyprus. It was a mistake, he said, to allow "South Cyprus" into the European Union, and he added that the chancellor shared that view.

It's a claim Erdogan has made before, most recently on Tuesday evening at the opening of the new Turkish Embassy in Berlin. That doesn't make it any truer, say officials close to Merkel. Some might say it's not especially diplomatic of him to repeat the statement in her presence. But perhaps the prime minister really believes it. Merkel is wise enough not to contradict him in public. She prefers to direct him to the side for the obligatory photo in front of the flags of their two nations. A handshake, smiles, and off they go.

This is a must read for any student of the "New Great Game"...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending this spiegel.de story from earlier this week. The link is here.

When he took office as Egypt's new president in June, Mohammed Morsi pledged to follow a pluralist policy that respected the rights of women and non-Muslim minorities. But everything he has done since then indicates that he intends to replace the secularist dictatorship of his predecessor with an Islamist one.

Morsi has been in power for four months. In June, with the backing of the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi won a narrow victory over a representative of the country's former regime. Many voters supported Morsi only out of fear of a return to the days of dictatorship. But the new president has remained an enigma to his people. Who is this man with an American Ph.D. in engineering, who sometimes presents himself as a democrat and a peacemaker and sometimes as a hard-line Islamist?

The tasks facing Egypt's first freely elected president remain unresolved. Indeed, these are immense economic and social problems that can't simply be waved away. At the same time, precisely the thing that secularists, leftists and Christians have long feared is coming true: Egypt is growing ever more religious.

For the last three weeks, the activists who previously protested against the country's military council and the old regime of Hosni Mubarak have once again been gathering regularly on Cairo's Tahrir Square. Their new opponent is the Muslim Brotherhood, which the demonstrators believe is in the process of establishing a new dictatorship -- but an Islamist one.

This spiegel.de story from earlier this week is another item courtesy of Roy Stephens...and the link is here.

Next week, Beijing will open its 18th party congress at which the Communist Party will select the country's new leader. One of the core issues at the meeting will be the role in China of a military that has gained considerable influence. Some in the party are unhappy with its powerful position.

Everyone who attended the event later said that this sort of thing had never occurred before, not once since the communists assumed power in China 63 years ago and the party assumed control of the military. It also happened when everyone was in a mood to relax, at a "holiday banquet" in honor of top generals.

The Communist Party in Beijing had organized the banquet in February to emphasize harmony between politicians and the military. When a senior officer in the air force was about to make a toast to his comrades in the political camp, General Zhang Qinsheng pushed him aside and shouted: "Enough of this cajolery! There are pigs in the party who are plotting against me!" Then he berated President Hu Jintao, who was also sitting at the table, and accused him of being part of the conspiracy against him. The outraged Hu stormed out, and the military officers still in the room had trouble controlling Zhang, who allegedly kept yelling obscenities.

Half a dozen of the attendees confirmed the incident, and their report was leaked to the New York Times and SPIEGEL. What is unclear is how inebriated the general was, and what has happened to him since then.

This very interesting story showed up on the spiegel.de Internet site yesterday...and is certainly a must read...especially for all students of the "New Great Game". It's Roy Stephens final offering in today's column...and the link is here.

The blog is with Pierre Lassonde...and it's headlined "Don't Panic, This Is Normal Trading In Gold". Of course I totally disagree with Pierre...and he knows better as well. But what can one expect from an ex-chairman of the World Gold Council? The party line, that's what. There was nothing free market about what happened in gold and silver yesterday...it was a pre-planned engineered event...and I said so in my Friday column...more than 24 hours before it happened.

I'll have more on this in 'The Wrap' section. The link to the KWN blog is here.

The audio interview is with BMO's Don Coxe...and it would be my bet that it's worth listening to.

BHP Billiton has announced that it will implement a fleet of automated trucks at its new Jimblebar mine, and is investigating going completely truckless at future operations.

Taking a leaf out of Vale's book, the miner is looking towards in-pit crushing and conveying systems as an alternative to trucks on site, the SMH reports.

Earlier this year Vale announced that it will make its Carajas Serra Sul S11D iron ore mine completely truckless.

This story was filed from Sydney yesterday...and was posted on the mineweb.com Internet site. I thank Donald Sinclair for sending it...and the link is here.

According to a note from HSBC out earlier this week there is a loose correlation between Democratic control of the White House and Congress and higher bullion prices.

While at pains to point out that this line of inquiry shouldn't be taken too far or relied on at all heavily because gold prices are influenced by far more than the red or white nature of the White House, a look at gold's performance in light of who is in charge does show some interesting trends.

This is another story from the mineweb.com Internet site yesterday...and I thank Manitoba reader Ulrike Marx for sharing it with us. The link is here.

Bullion traders have stopped sales of gold bars and gold coins and concentrated solely on sales of gold ornaments after gold supply received from commercial banks started to fall short to meet the demand that has picked up since the onset of festive season.

Officials of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers Association (Negosida) said they resorted to such measure particularly after daily demand for gold surged to 30 kg, which is twofold of the supply they receive from commercial banks.

“As supply from other sources has not been coming, we were left with no option but to stop sales of gold bars and coins,” Tej Ratna Shakya, president of Negosida, told Republica on Wednesday.

This story showed up on the financenepal.com Internet site on Thursday...and it's an area of the world that we hardly ever hear from. This makes it a must read, in my opinion...and I thank Ulrike Marx for her second story in a row. The link is here.

Italy has lost its position as the world's premier gold jewellery exporter, overtaken by India and the United States, and risks slipping further due to its high cost base and tariff barriers.

For years Italy was the world's biggest manufacturer and exporter of mass-produced and crafted gold jewellery. Bulgari, Damiani and Roberto Coin are Italian luxury brands celebrated worldwide for their opulent use of gold and precious gemstones and cutting-edge designs.

But the Italian goldsmith sector is fighting an uphill battle against punitive import duties imposed by markets such as China, and competition from lower cost producers benefiting from improving design skills and the latest technology.

This Reuters story was filed from London yesterday...and it's Ulrike's third story in a row in today's column. The link is here.

Share of gold in the gold and currency reserves of Kazakhstan's central bank has increased by 30 percent from the beginning of the year, Tengri News reports citing deputy chairman of Kazakhstan National Bank Bissengali Tadzhiyakov as saying at the plenary meeting of Majilis (lower chamber of the Parliament).

“Starting from the beginning of this year international reserves of the country, including the foreign currency reserves of the National Fund, have increased by 17.2 percent and made $80.5 billion. Gold and currency reserves of the National Bank made $30 billion and assets of the National Fund made $50.5 billion. In line with a presidential decree, last year the National Bank was given a priority right to purchase fine gold in bars inside the country. In this relation, the share of gold in the gold and currency reserves of the National Bank grew almost 30 percent starting from the beginning of this year,” Tadzhiyakov said.

The Republic of Khazakhstan is another area of the world most of us know little, if anything, about...and this short story is worth skimming as well. It's Ulrike's fourth and final offering in today's column...and was posted on the tengrinews.kz Internet site on Thursday. The link is here.

A Visa card produced in Russia is now available for some of Kazakhstan's richest clients. It is made from solid gold and is encrusted with 26 diamonds.

Wow, you just know that the world's money and power base is shifting from Europe and the U.S. when you read stories like this. Thirty years ago, this would have been unheard of. I thank Washington state reader S.A. for sending me this 26 second video clip from Bloomberg yesterday...and the link is here.

On learning that French gold was being held by the U.S. Federal Reserve, French President Charles de Gaulle is reported to have said, “I could hardly sleep easily with such an arrangement.” So in 1965 he ordered French navy ships to cross the Atlantic to pick up $150 million in gold held in the Fed’s New York vaults and deliver it to the Banque de France in Paris.

It was a prudent move by de Gaulle. And it was consistent with the advice I have long given: Do not leave your gold in the care of somebody else. Take physical possession of your gold.

De Gaulle realized the United States was running an international con. It had promised that holders of U.S. dollars would always be able to redeem them for gold at the official rate of $35 per ounce. But like someone writing bad checks, it was clear that the U.S. was printing more dollars than it could possibly redeem at that rate.

This article, written by Charles Goyette, was posted over at the moneyandmarkets.com Internet site yesterday...and it's definitely worth reading. I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for bringing it to our attention...and the link is here.

Writing today for Resource Investor, Jeffrey Lewis of Silver-Coin-Investor.com notes the irony that even though we're "in the age of the LIBOR scandal, Financial Accounting Standards Board mark-to-market rule changes, high-frequency trading programs front-running retail investors, MF Global's dramatic demise, and Bernie Madoff's outrageous Ponzi scheme ... it continues to be taboo to even entertain the idea that the precious metals markets could actually be managed."

But Lewis more than entertains the idea. A central bank that arranges or backstops price suppression in the monetary metals "can print effectively unlimited amounts of dollars to pay for its losses, and it would never be forced to deliver physical metal it did not have because it would generally be trading futures on the short side," Lewis writes. "Since the seller of a futures contract controls physical delivery, it can simply opt not to deliver and cash-settle instead."

This is one of many things to read in this most excellent GATA release from yesterday. It's posted on the gata.org Internet site...and the link is here.

Our friend the German financial journalist Lars Schall calls attention to remarks delivered Thursday by a member of the executive board of the German Bundesbank, Andreas Dombret, at a reception held at the Bundesbank's office in New York in the presence of the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Dudley. Dombret's remarks, appended here, confirm that, as GATA often has reported, Germany's gold reserves are held in large part at the New York Fed to facilitate their presumably secret trading, since, as Dombret notes, "Frankfurt is not a gold-trading center."

Dombret's remarks seem meant to pretend that the clamor and controversy over the foreign vaulting and secrecy around the German gold reserves will end quickly, preserving the trust between the Bundesbank and the Federal Reserve.

And yet the Bundesbank continues to refuse to answer whether it has any gold swap arrangements with the Fed or any other agency of the U.S. government.

This is another GATA release with a few stories embedded...and it, too, is worth your time...if you have any left, that is. The link is here.