This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Mohamed El-Erian and Ramin Toloui (Financial Times): How to fill the gaps left by dollar decline, November 5, 2009. We should expect to see more discussion in the next few years on new types of reserve assets.

• James West (GoldSeek): Gold price is no bubble, November 4, 2009. The price performance of gold recently has all sorts of armchair economists waxing philosophical on the idea that this is the advent of a price “bubble”. While certainly everyone has and is entitled to their opinion, there are other features of humanity that we all possess, and much like many opinions, are best obscured from view. Declaring that gold is in a “bubble” demonstrates complete ignorance of or disregard for

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Source: James West, Midas Letter  05/26/2009
Here we go again. The forces of legitimate money versus the incumbent purveyors of the candy floss economy squared off at the $1,000 an ounce line over which yet another battle will be fought. Arrayed against either side are formidable new elements and tried and true old ones. As usual, the first volley has been catapulted over the walls of the hucksters by the defenders of the essential timeless truth of gold’s naturally stored value against the counterfeit paper currencies.

The liabilities of the enemy have increased, and the short positions in the COMEX market are sufficiently stacked that the big bank defenders simply cannot allow gold to win decisively. G7 governments are allied against gold to a man, while emerging economic behemoths China and Russia stand in opposition.

In particular, China’s revelations that it has been in a continuous accumulation mode for the last several …

A gold bug who prefers equities as investments to bullion and bars, Midas Letter publisher James West expects his portfolio picks to shine to the tune of at least 15% appreciation on average. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, that sunny outlook stands in stark contrast to other things the well-regarded adviser sees on the horizon. He anticipates no letup in the storm of market volatility and holds out even less hope for the U.S. currency’s ability to stay afloat in a multi-trillion-dollar flood of new money.

The Gold Report: You’ve predicted that the United States’ defaulting on its debt is not just likely; it’s inevitable and imminent. Given the state of the world economy, can the federal government do anything to avoid this—and the resulting monetary collapse it would trigger?

James West: In pure theoretical terms, absolutely. Stop printing money and put the whole American system on a …

Author: James West, posted on Seeking Alpha

The prospect of the United States defaulting on its debt is not just likely. It’s inevitable, and imminent.

The regulatory black holes into which sanity and reason disappear on a daily basis are soon to collapse under the mass of their sheer size. The circle jerk going on among G7 governments has to end – the steady advance of gold, even in the face of a managed price, exposes the real value of the U.S. dollar, as opposed to its apparent value expressed in the dollar index.

Is 2009 the year that the United States formally defaults? And with that, will the dollar collapse be rolled back ten for one or more?

There are a lot of reasons to support that theory. To Wall Street economists, such an event is heresy and therefore unthinkable. Yet Wall Street is the very La-la-land that bred the idea of a

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A massive slump in oil exploration spending pummeled Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB), the world’s largest oilfield services corporation, as profit fell 17% in the fourth quarter. But the company said curtailed spending could be setting the stage for a rebound in oil and gas prices as supplies dwindle. Schlumberger is pulling back as a collapse in petroleum prices led to a sharp drop in exploration spending by its customers. Commodity prices have plummeted in recent months, as recessions in some of the world’s largest economies dampened demand. Like all oil producers, Schlumberger has been hurt by the plunge in the price of oil, which has fallen from $147 per barrel in July to about $42 per barrel now. The company has also seen its budget for exploration cut by 40%....

Source: James West, Midas Letter  10/07/2008
During the most recent turn in the financial debacle, and in a masterful display of “perception management”, the bill to inject a further $700 Billion dollar remedy into the $500 TRILLION dollar (derivatives-driven) problem was amped up to $812 Billion and passed during a late Friday vote. Raising the maximum insurable amount for bank deposits to $250,000 from $100,000 during the process is actually a sneaky and effective way to add untold trillions more ostensibly to the total bailout number if banks continue to fail in quanitity.

Any semblance of a democratic or capitalistic appearance to addressing this problem has now been thoroughly abandoned, even as market observers suggested the first bill was voted down because it was perceived as “exceedingly socialist”.

Since it would appear that “democracy” has been redefined to embody government of the masses by the select few richest groups that wield absolute …