It is amazing how many things have NOT happened.

Probably most incredible is that the dollar has NOT collapsed. It has lost ground, and was trading at $1.43 per euro on Friday, but no one laughs at you when go to exchange dollars…or offer to pay in dollars rather than the local currency.

For the last 10 years, the money supply in the United States has expanded at roughly twice the rate of GDP growth. And the Fed doubled its balance sheet in just the last 18 months. This last bit of information is stunning. It took the central bank nearly 100 years to build a balance sheet of $1 trillion. Then, under the leadership of Ben Bernanke, it added another $1 trillion in just a few months.

What does that mean, exactly? It means they bought a lot of debt from US agencies and the financial sector. It means also that they

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You may have noticed that you’re hearing a lot about America’s national debt recently. No doubt you’ll be hearing a lot more about it in the future. And, along with it, you’ll be hearing a lot more of the “T” word (trillion). In fact, it’s about the only time the average person will ever hear the word trillion, because there just aren’t many things we deal with in life that are that big. After all, a trillion is equal to a million million.

• If you took all of the cars that exist in the entire world, old and new, the number would be under 1 billion, a number that’s a thousand times smaller than a trillion. This sounds about right when you consider the fact that the entire population of the world is under 7 billion. It would take over 140 planet earths to equal 1 trillion people. • If you

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“First Ounce Bounce” Set to Pay 1,100% Government filing NI 43-101 is mandatory in Canada. It shows the proven reserves of any company intending to mine gold. The latest filing from a small renegade company we’ve just uncovered lists their reserves at an astounding 10.1 million ounces. It’s the biggest gold strike in Canadian history – and one of the biggest in the world. Yet few investors have seen or heard of NI 43-101 yet. Getting in before the “first ounce bounce” – when the first ounce comes out of the ground – is likely to yield an initial return of 1,100%. Go here for the full report.

Brazilians used to joke that their country was the country of the future – and always would be because a new crisis seemed to crop up every time the economy came close to fulfilling its potential.

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At least something good has come out of the economic crisis; it blew off the purple robes that clothed economists and exposed their naked flanks. Still, they don’t deserve the beating they’re getting in the press – with snide remarks and sarcastic comments; they deserve better. A beating with sticks!

Even Alan Greenspan admitted he had “found a flaw” in his own thinking. We will have to imagine the giggles from the back of the room – if anyone had been awake. It was as if Stalin had confessed to being rude to his mother or Bernie Madoff copped a plea for shoplifting. The mea was fine, but the culpa didn’t seem to measure up to the facts. He, more than any living human being, was responsible for the biggest financial debacle in history; you’d hope he’d be a gentleman about it and hang himself.

Meanwhile, the queen of England visited

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Gold didn’t do a lot in Far East trading on Tuesday. The low of the day occurred at the open in London…and for the next two hours, gold put on a spirited rally [$10+] that ended with the price going vertical about half an hour before the Comex open. However, as is always the case at moments like these, the usual not-for-profit sellers showed up and did their dirty until it was time for them to go for lunch at 12:00 noon in New York. Once ‘da boyz’ were at lunch, gold made a $7 run higher, which ended the second that floor trading was over on the Comex…and electronic trading began.

And by the time that gold trading was over for the day…most of that gain had been made to disappear…and gold finished down about a dollar from Monday’s close.

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Three Investing Lessons from Bernie Madoff

by Mark Skousen, Contributing Editor

Last week I caused a bit of a controversy on Fox News when I suggested that Bernie Madoff might do more good than harm in the long run - there are some good investing lessons for everyone to note.

Don’t get me wrong. Madoff himself is a despicable person. Over a twenty-year period, he created the world’s biggest Ponzi scheme worth an estimated $65 billion. Hundreds of individuals, retirees, and charities were hurt or destroyed by Madoff’s deception.

He deserved to get the maximum penalty (150 years).

Nevertheless, I look at all the positive side effects of the Madoff scandal. Here are the three most valuable lessons we can learn from the biggest crime on Wall Street in a hundred years.

Investigate before you invest

Millions have now learned a powerful investing lesson. Don’t blindly turn your hard-earned funds over to a money manager just because he

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The holiday-shortened week saw investors pondering the depth of the economic rabbit-hole. As investors vacillated, most financial markets were characterized by a roller-coaster ride. Friday’s worse-than-expected jobs data left no doubt that the economy was in recession.

The highlights of the week’s discussions were captured on video and are included in this video-o-rama compilation. Strutting their stuff was a star-studded cast including the likes of George Soros, Hugh Hendry, Dan Greenhaus, Paul Krugman, Bill Gross, Nassim Taleb, Jeff Immelt, Stephen Roach, Bob Prechter and Marc Faber.

As an aside, the weather in Europe - where I am spending two weeks with my family in Slovenia and Switzerland - has been characterized of late by endless thunderstorms. Strikingly, the economic mood is no less despondent than that of the holiday-makers trying to escape the ominous dark clouds. But wait, is that a forecast for better days ahead?

Elsewhere, the jail

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I always check out the Ludwig von Mises Institute from time to time, as they always have some interesting viewpoints. Interesting piece today called Free Bernie Madoff.br /br /Here are a couple of quotes. a href="http://mises.org/story/3546"Click here to read the whole article/a. br /br /blockquoteHis life is already ruined. He is a pauper. He will never again do business. From the innovative genius whose information technology in the 1960s became the basis of NASDAQ, he rose to the heights and fell to the depths where he will stay this way until death. He won't be able to be seen in public for the rest of his life without encountering scorn and derision from everyone around him.br /br /What, then, precisely, is the point of jailing him? He is no direct threat to anyone. Society would not be safer because he is in the slammer. He is not going ...

A 4-day rally gets stopped at the border…  Home Prices fall at a -18.12% pace…  Alice Rivlin gives her 2-cents… * Kiwi bond maturities galore next month… And Now… Today’s Pfennig! Good day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! As tradition with the Pfennig would have it, here’s my introduction to July… There I was… On a July morning… Looking for love… With the strength of a new day dawning, and… The beautiful sun…

Yes, for those “old rockers” from the 70’s like me… That’s Uriah Heep, at their best!

OK… So, welcome to July! The last day of June was quite the volatile one to say the least! There we were waiting for the S&P/CaseShiller Home Price Index to print, and show that home prices were still down by quite a bit, when it did, it did, it printed at -18.12%… But! The media was all over that like a cheap suit, clamoring that

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Bernie Madoff and his Finacial Crime.

Let the punishment fit the crime!

Poor Bernie. The man has been ordered to spend 150 years in the hoosegow. What for? Who did he kill? A century-and-a-half seems a little excessive for a financial crime. You could hold up three liquor stores and rape a whole convent and still not get 150 years. With a little good lawyering, a history of child abuse in the family and good behavior in the big house, you’d be back on the street in 18 months.

But all the papers seem delighted. “Locked up for Life!” says one of today’s headlines. The judge “threw the book at him,” says another. His victims wanted him to get no mercy. The judge gave him none, imposing the maximum sentence. He is “extraordinarily evil,” said the man on the bench.

Justice has been done. Right?

Here in the building with the gold balls, we’re not

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