A wider perspective.

Ideas and analysis on money, markets and the world around us.

Fear Index December 2012 - no free lunch

The US fiscal cliff debate is over, and if you’ll excuse me for resorting to a well-worn gold bug cliché, the can has just been given another kick down the road. The problem is of course that the can is getting ever…

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Alasdair Macleod's Outlook for 2013

I have not faced the prospect of a new year with so much trepidation as when I contemplate what is in store for 2013. Systemic risks abound, which of themselves are not the main story, only milestones on the road to…

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Japan in 2013

The Japanese government for the last twenty three years has employed the Keynesian tools of deficit spending and more recently the monetarist policies of expanding money supply in an attempt to stop the economy from…

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Goodbye to liberty

The human race, in its advanced economic form, is committing euthanasia. The US, UK, Europe and Japan are all implementing economic policies that must ultimately result in the complete destruction of their currencies;…

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Gold or mining shares?

There are many reasons to own physical gold. They arise from the financial and monetary uncertainty impacting investors around the globe. Some of the more obvious reasons are: Weakening economic activity and rising…

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Gold futures market heading for crisis

I thought I had a good idea what disasters we might face in 2013, and then I saw the most recent US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Bank Participation Report for gold and silver. On the basis of recent BPRs these…

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The value of the dollar

I very rarely criticise the work of others, but I am going to make an exception in the case of Paul van Eeden, of Cranberry Capital. Mr van Eeden, in an interview with The Gold Report stated that “the value of gold is…

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The coming silver price eruption

There was a degree of predictability about the knockdown in gold and silver at the US futures market (Comex) last Wednesday. The reason is that the Commercials (together the producers, processers, fabricators, bullion…

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A crude awakening

One of the joys of interviewing some of the best brains in the world of finance and economics is that they alert you to important factors that perhaps you haven’t fully considered. This was my experience with Chris…

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