The forum praised the U.S. for its productivity, highly sophisticated and innovative companies, excellent universities and flexible labor market. But it also cited "a number of escalating weaknesses" such as rising government debt and declining public faith in political leaders and corporate ethics.

I borrowed this msnbc.com story from yesterday's King Report...and the link is here.

Here's another story I lifted from yesterday's King Report.

Consider, at a place and time such as this, with the economy teetering on the verge of another recession, none of the 1,485 stocks that make up the S&P 1,500 has a consensus “Sell” rating. And just five, or 0.3%, are ranked as being a “Weak Hold.”

And just 79 (or 5%) of the 1485 stocks have consensus “Buy” recommendations, while 1,003 (68%) are ranked “Buy/Hold,” 398 (27%) are ranked “Hold.”

This is a marketwatch.com story from Tuesday...and the link is here.

The futures regulator looks set to grant the massive swaps market more relief from complying with new financial reforms until sometime in 2012 as the agency remains well behind in completing many of the largest and most contested rules.

And, for the first time, Gary Gensler outlined a timetable for the rules it expects to consider in 2011 and the first quarter of 2012. The agency expects to consider clearinghouse rules, end-user exception, position limits and real-time reporting this year, and rules for capital and margin, disruptive trading practices and swap execution facilities in 2012.

So we should find out soon enough if Gensler is going to do what is right...or will he do what he's told regarding silver position limits in the Comex futures market. This Reuters story from yesterday was courtesy of Washington state reader S.A...and the link is here.

This op-ed piece was posted over at Bloomberg on Tuesday evening. It's another one of those stories that comes out of the top drawer of the "You can't make this stuff up" filing cabinet...and the drawing the accompanies the article gives a pretty strong hint as to where this Catch 22-type story is headed...and the opening paragraph reads as follows...

"The Vietnam War gave us the expression, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” The same kind of thinking might help explain the U.S. bank rescues of 2008: We had to save the banks in order to sue them."

It's worth the read if you have the time...and I thank Washington state reader S.A. once again for sharing this story with us...and the link is here.

A series of wildcat actions stopped work at ports in Seattle, Tacoma, Everett and Anacortes, and there was no indication Thursday night when workers would return.

Early Thursday morning, at least 500 Longshoremen and sympathizers stormed the Port of Longview and broke windows in the guard shack, according to Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha. As men wielding baseball bats and crowbars held six guards captive, others cut brake lines on boxcars and dumped grain, the chief said.

A freight train carrying 107 cars of corn from Splitrock, Minn., destined for the Longview port was vandalized, spilling grain from 72 of the freight cars onto the tracks, said Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway spokesman Gus Melonas.

This story was out of yesterday's edition of The Seattle Times...and Washington state reader S.A. deserves our thanks once again...and the link is here.

Greece ruled out quitting the euro on Thursday, shrugging off warnings by its biggest creditor Germany and yet another set of bad economic figures showing it is struggling under the weight of EU/IMF-imposed austerity.

Faced with the threat of its EU partners blocking an 8-billion euro bailout tranche due next month if it does not get its act together, the country’s socialist government pledged on Tuesday to step up long-promised budget cuts and asset sales.

But economic figures released on Thursday show austerity is stretching the economy to the limit, making it more and more difficult for the country to meet its 2011 budget deficit target of 7.6 percent of GDP, from 10.5 percent last year.

This Roy Stephens offering was posted over at the france24.com website yesterday...and the link is here.

Germany and Holland have threatened to block rescue payments to Greece unless the country complies to the letter with bail-out terms, raising the spectre of default and a chain-reaction through southern Europe.

German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble said there will be no more money until Greece "actually does" what it agreed to do. "I understand that there is resistance among the Greek population to austerity measures. But in the end it is up to Greece whether it can fulfill the conditions necessary for membership of the common currency. We offer no discounts," he told Deutschlandfunk.

Brinkmanship it is...and this Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering posted over at The Telegraph last night is a must read. The link is here. Roy Stephens sent me this story, for which I thank him.

I ran the blog in this column yesterday morning...and then Eric sent me the link to the full audio interview yesterday afternoon. Eric says that "He was tremendous as always"...and I know Eric wouldn't lie to us. The link is here.

Casey Research's own Jeff Clark, the editor of BIG GOLD, had a few things to say about gold stocks in yesterdays' edition of Casey's Daily Dispatch. You have to scroll down to find this very worthwhile read...and the link is here.

Reader [and often contributor of stories to this column] Scott Pluschau posts the occasional commentary for ETF Digest. Scott is heavily into technical analysis...something I steer well clear of in a managed market. But if T.A. is your bag, this is worth your time...and the link is here.

I was not happy with this interview...and I begged Chris not to post as a GATA dispatch...but he talked me into it nonetheless. I could barely bring myself to watch it and, mercifully, it only runs 5:28...and the link to the GATA release is here.

This is the third in an ongoing series of short educational videos that Endeavour Silver is producing about all things silver. The first two, entitled "How Silver is Mined" and "The Value of Silver", appeared in this column earlier this year.

It's well worth watching but, like the two videos that preceded it, it's too brutally edited for my liking. They could have run this video another three or four minutes...and put a lot more stuff in it. I mentioned this fact to Hugh Clarke over at Endeavour after the first two came out...and he obviously didn't listen...but it's fascinating to watch nonetheless. The link is here.

With the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 coming up this Sunday, below we highlight how various asset classes have performed since then. While gold and oil probably come to mind as two of the top performing assets over the last ten years, silver has actually done the best by a large amount. As shown below, silver is up a whopping 900% since 9/10/11. Ten years ago, silver was trading at $4.16. The metal is currently at $41.57. Gold has certainly done well also with a 10-year gain of 568%. Oil ranks third out of the asset classes shown with a gain of 225%.

This is the reason why my personal portfolio is 70/30 silver/gold. It's a must read...and the first chart shown in this story is worth the trip all by itself. The story is posted over at the bespoken.com website...and I thank reader Randall Brainwasher for sending it along. The link is here.

With continued volatility in gold & silver yesterday, King World News interviewed acclaimed money manager Stephen Loeb to get his thoughts on gold, silver and what's happening with the Fed. When asked about the comments by Chicago Fed Governor Charles Evens, Loeb responded, “It’s the first time, at least in my lifetime and I think in the history of the Fed, where they have said explicitly that fighting unemployment is much more important than worrying about inflation. That’s a very big deal. When people think of central banks they think of one thing, controlling inflation.”

A big deal it is...and the link to this very worthwhile KWN blog is here.

Physical gold purchases swelled after prices dipped below $1,800 on Wednesday, as physical demand is expected to rise ahead of India's wedding season and the cloudy outlook of the global economy continues to brighten gold's appeal as a safe haven.

"We see more buying now and no one is selling," said a Singapore-based dealer.

This short Reuters piece was filed from Singapore yesterday morning...and is Roy Stephens last offering of the day. The link is here...and the photo makes the trip worthwhile.

Here's a GATA release from yesterday, which includes an extensive preamble by Chris Powell. Here is the first paragraph to give you the flavour of the rest of it...

Julian Phillips of Gold Forecaster today takes note of the cables from the U.S. embassy in Beijing confirming the Chinese government's knowledge of the Western central bank gold price suppression scheme. Phillips writes: "The Chinese are absolutely correct in believing that the United States and Europe have suppressed the price of gold. The evidence is glaring at us through history."

The rest of Chris Powell's preamble, plus all the associated links, are must reads...and the link is to the GATA release is here.

Yesterday afternoon Zero Hedge quoted the chief gold trader for Goldman Sachs, Zak Dhabalia, as acknowledging that "authorities" may be tampering with the gold market. Maybe JPMorgan will soon admit that they are the ringleader of the whole thing?

It's obvious that this whole market-rigging operation is becoming more widely accepted...and it's also common knowledge at the highest levels of some of the world's governments.

The zerohedge.com story is well worth your time...and the link is here.