Here's a finance.yahoo.com piece from late last week that I stole from yesterday's King Report.

Putting pressure on an already lousy job market, the mass layoff is making a comeback. In the past week, Cisco, Lockheed Martin and Borders announced a combined 23,000 in job cuts.

Those announcements follow 41,432 in planned cuts in June, up 11.6% from May and 5.3% vs. a year earlier, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Meanwhile, state and local governments have cut 142,000 jobs this year, The WSJ reports, and Wall Street is braced for another round of cutbacks. This week, Goldman Sachs announced plans to let go 1000 fixed-income traders.

Yep, it should be obvious to all that the economic recovery is well under way. There's also a 5:36 minute video that you can watch as well, if you wish...and the link to all this is here.

Sitting smugly 'down under' and watching the U.S. real estate market head for the nether reaches of the earth over the last few years, reality has finally struck the Australian housing market. It is now at the beginning of an ugly retrenchment in housing prices that will shake the very foundations of both the real estate market, Australia's financial system...and its dollar.

You have to wonder why they didn't see it coming, as all the usual signs were there...and the U.S. U.S housing market was a blueprint for what was about to happen to them. As a 27-year veteran of residential real estate here in Edmonton, I can tell you from first-hand knowledge that people just never learn.

This 5:55 minute video from Channel 7 in Australia on Friday tells you all you need to know. I thank reader Matthew Nel for sharing this with us. It's a must watch...and the link is here.

Here's a Bloomberg story from last Friday that I ripped out of a GATA release yesterday.

Vietnamese inflation accelerated for an 11th month in July after the central bank cut a key interest rate even as the nation faces the fastest price gains in Asia.

Consumer prices rose 22.16 percent from a year earlier, compared with June’s 20.82 percent pace, data released by the General Statistics Office in Hanoi showed today. Prices climbed 1.17 percent from June.

I guess that's why the Vietnamese people have been buying gold hand over fist for the last few years. The link to this rather short story, is here.

Thousands of Spain's "indignant" protesters, including hundreds who crossed the country on foot, marched through Madrid Sunday to demonstrate against high unemployment and the economic crisis.

Six columns of more than 500 protesters who marched for weeks from cities across Spain formed the core of the demonstration. They were joined by protesters who arrived in Madrid by bus from over 30 cities and residents of the Spanish capital.

"Cutbacks for the rich first", and "People of Europe rise up", were among the placards on display.

This is an AFP story that was posted over at france24.com website yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it to me. The link is here.

Greece's second bailout will have a "limited" impact on its massive debt burden, warned credit rating agency Moody's, as it put the country's debt further into "junk" territory.

"Greece will still face medium-term solvency challenges: its stock of debt will still be well in excess of 100pc of GDP for many years and it will still face very significant implementation risks to fiscal and economic reform," said Moody's in a statement.

The warning came as the agency said the €159bn (£140bn) rescue deal thrashed out by eurozone leaders on Thursday means the likelihood of Athens defaulting is "virtually 100pc."

No surprises here in this story that was posted late last night over at The Telegraph. It's another Roy Stephens offering...and the link is here.

Here's another story that I borrowed from yesterday's King Report. This is from The Telegraph...and is an Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering from yesterday morning.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing a storm of protest at home after yielding to EU calls for radical action to shore up Spain and Italy, raising doubts over her ability to implement the package.

Frank Schäffler, finance chair for the Free Democrats (FDP) in the ruling coalition, said the summit deal threatened "the castration of Germany's parliament" by shifting budget power to Europe.

Jens Weidmann, the Bundesbank's chief, said the accord exposes Germany and other creditor states to "sizeable risks" and greatly alters the EU's constitutional landscape.

"The euro area has taken a big step toward a collectivisation of risks. This weakens the foundations of a monetary union where each is responsible for its own budget.

I consider this a must read...and the link is here.

The British government did not decide to take sterling out of the ERM...the European Exchange Rate Mechanism...on September 16, 1992. It just happened. [This is the day that George Soros broke the Bank of England and made a cool $1 billion dollars...which was big money back in those days. - Ed]

Indeed, not long before that fateful day, the Prime Minister, John Major, spoke of the pound potentially replacing the deutschmark as the strongest currency in the system.

What forced us out was the overwhelming flood of sterling sales on the exchanges. Once it became obvious that the pound would have to leave, the potential volume of sales grew exponentially. Late in the day, the Bank of England gave up the attempt to keep the pound above the lower limit of its fluctuation band.

That evening, various commentators appeared on radio and television to say that the Government still had not decided to leave the ERM. They had completely missed the point.

The Government might not have decided, but the market had. The pound was out, and that was that. Could something similar happen with the euro?

This is a very interesting history lesson from twenty years ago that's well worth your time. This is Roy Stephens last offering for today's column...and the link to the story, posted in yesterday's edition of The Telegraph, is here.

Here's a story out of Saturday's edition of The New York Times that showed up in a GATA release.

The worse things get, the better it looks for gold. That’s been the pattern this summer.

Worried about Greece, the future of the euro, the debt ceiling in the United States, or maybe even about the entire global economy? Buy gold bullion.

Plenty of investors, at least, have been thinking that way, driving the price of gold to nominal, if not inflation-adjusted, highs.

This is a longish read, but well worth it if you have the time...and the link is here.

Here's a short Reuters story from last Thursday that was sent to me by Washington state reader S.A.

Looking to stock up on gold bullion as gold prices soar to all-time highs? Plenty of Americans are turning to eBay’s Gold and Silver outpost. The company says sales of gold bullion have increased more than 60 percent from 2007 through 2010.

Some notable facts about precious metals sales on eBay:

* The top three states for precious metals sold per capita are Alaska, Wyoming and Nevada.

* Almost half of the silver and gold buyers in the first quarter of 2011 never purchased these items on eBay before.

* There are two silver buyers for every gold buyer because silver is so much cheaper.

* Privately minted bars are purchased more frequently than the American Eagle, the bullion coin issued by the U.S. Mint.

As I said, it's a very short story...and there's not much left to read...and the link is here.

Here's a story out of yesterday's Financial Times that was sent to me by Bron Suchecki from The Perth Mint in Western Australia on Monday.

The FT headline reads "Ex-Moore Manager Given Platinum Futures Ban".

A former portfolio manager at Moore Capital, one of the world's most successful hedge funds, has been barred from trading US platinum and palladium futures after the government said he tried to manipulate the two small commodities markets.

Christopher Pia, now with hedge fund Pia Capital, has been ordered to pay $1 million to settle charges that he frequently tried to drive up closing prices for the precious metals on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

One has to wonder if the CFTC will show this much enthusiasm to the mega-short sellers in the silver futures market.

Chris Powell was only too delighted to post this subscriber-protected story in the clear the moment I sent it to him...and the link to the GATA release is here. It's a short piece, which is a must read.

Here's a blog that Eric King sent me very late yesterday evening. I haven't had time to read it yet, but I would think it's worth the read...and the link is here.

More than 200,000 South African gold miners will join coal and diamond mine workers in a strike this week after failing to reach agreement with producers over pay, the country’s National Union of Mineworkers said.

The gold miners are demanding pay increases of 14 percent, the union said today in a statement. Johannesburg-based AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. offered workers 8 percent to 9 percent, the union said. Harmony Gold Mining Co. Ltd. and Rand Uranium Pty Ltd. offered 7 percent to 8.5 percent, it said.

This Bloomberg story [which I stole from another GATA release] was filed from Johannesburg very early this morning...and the link is here.

Newsletter writer Marc Faber told King World News that gold has actually declined against U.S. government debt and the U.S. monetary base since the 1980s...and thus can be considered undervalued. Faber expects what he calls "the great reset" of currencies to adjust them for un-payable debt, which will be no fun for those holding currencies.

I thank Chris Powell for the preamble...and the link to this must read KWN blog is here.

It's not often that silver analyst Ted Butler has something posted in the public domain. He has almost become a recluse since he started his subscription service several years back...and I'm very fortunate that he has allowed me to be able to post the odd paragraph from his bi-weekly commentaries...like the ones you read further up in this column.

Here's an article that he's got posted over at Jim Cook's website, investmentrarities.com. I've already read it...and it's a must read. The link is here.

I've had this story in my back pocket since late last week...but wasn't allowed to post it until it went up in the public domain yesterday...and here it is. I'll let Chris Powell do the honours...

"In his latest commentary mine financier and stockbroker Murray Pollitt of Pollitt & Co. in Toronto acknowledges decades of gold price suppression by Western central banks and even reproduces commentary from The Economist in 1961 that acknowledges such price suppression, which is wonderful since for years The Economist has refused to examine the issue despite GATA's appeals. Pollitt argues that if price suppression could be ended, a massive upward revaluation of gold could provide central banks and the world economy with the new liquidity they need. His commentary is titled "Sooner Rather than Later".

As you know, this is topic that's near and dear to my heart, dear reader...and it's wonderful to see Murray become a spear-carrier for the cause. Pollitt has been in the mining business for 50 years. This is an absolute must read...and the link is here.