No! Really? Who would have thought that?

Securities and Exchange Commission staff found "apparent failures" at each of the 10 credit rating agencies they examined, including Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch, the agency said on Friday in its first annual report on credit raters.

The SEC sent letters outlining the staff's concerns to each of the ratings firms and demanded a remediation plan with 30 days, an agency official said in a conference call with reporters.

The SEC staff said concerns include failures to follow ratings methodologies, failures in making timely and accurate disclosures and failures to manage conflicts of interest.

This is a Reuters story from last Friday...and I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for sending it along...and the link is here.

A Greek default would make it pay down its debt by around 70 per cent, meaning every $1,100 bet would net him an astonishing $700,000, Kyle Bass said.

He said his mother tells him to put his money in 'guns and gold'.

Mr. Lewis recalled him pulling out a huge gold brick from his desk drawer and saying: 'We’ve bought a lot of this stuff.'

Mr. Bass, who lives in a 40,000 sq. ft. house, has also bought 20 million nickels for $1 million. He said the metal inside each coin is worth 6.8 cents.

‘It may not be the end of the world,’ Mr. Bass added. ‘But a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money. Our goal is not to be one of them.'

This story was in the U.K.'s Daily Mail yesterday...and I thank British reader Tariq Khan for sending it to us...and the link is here.

Thousands demonstrated in Portugal Saturday against the government's austerity measures amid projections that the economic situation is far worse than expected.

In April, Portugal became the third eurozone country after Greece and Ireland to request an emergency bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to deal with its mountain of debt.

In exchange for the 78 billion euro ($106 billion) the country agreed to impose reforms demanded by its creditors, including tough budget cutting measures.

Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho's right-of-centre government, which unseated the Socialists in a June vote, has promised further austerity, which is favoured the EU and IMF, but loathed by those on the streets Saturday.

This AFP story was posted over at the france24.com website on Saturday...and is Roy Stephens first offering of the day. The link is here.

After marathon talks with foreign auditors, the Greek government said Sunday that it had reached a deal on how to slash its unwieldy public sector by putting 30,000 workers on a scheme that would lead to early retirement for some and dismissal for others, in a bid to meet conditions set by foreign lenders for the release of crucial emergency loans.

The Greek government is in a race against time to convince representatives of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, known as the troika, that it will make good on pledges to put its financial house in order. Without the release of about $11 billion in aid — part of a 110-billion-euro bailout agreement reached last year — Greece could run out of money this month and face a default that would shake the euro zone and global markets.

This story was posted in The New York Times on Sunday...and is Roy Stephens second offering of the day. The link is here.

This spiegel.de story was posted the day after the above story appeared in The New York Times...and shows how fluid the situation really is...and steep the slippery slope has become.

What a difference a weekend makes. On Sunday, Greece announced that its 2011 budget deficit will be 8.5 percent of gross domestic product, well higher than the 7.6 percent it targeted last year as part of its ambitious plan to return to fiscal health. And on Monday, new figures indicate that the country's economy will contract by 2.5 percent in 2012 instead of the hoped for growth of 0.6 percent. Stock markets around the world plunged as a result.

The figures have been made public as officials in Athens struggle to put together a budget for 2012 amid growing doubts that the country will be able to avoid insolvency.

This third Roy Stephens offering was posted over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and the link is here.

Many conservative parliamentarians, regardless of their position on the common currency, feel as if they are being treated with contempt. His statements made during the euro crisis have rarely been unequivocal; he always leaves himself a way out. Not only does this confuse his political friends and foes, it also flusters the financial world, with its propensity for panic.

Many German politicians are also insinuating that he has a hidden agenda. They fear that one of the last fully committed supporters of the European project is taking advantage of the crisis to advance his dream of a United States of Europe -- at almost any price. Even the chancellor is sometimes annoyed by the finance minister's moves.

This is another Roy Stephens offering from spiegel.de yesterday...and the link is here.

Economist and former banker Alasdair Macleod, who spoke at GATA's Gold Rush 2011 conference in London in August, writes today at GoldMoney that Europe's main problems are ever-growing government and ever-weakening currency. Macleod writes:

"The deterioration in the underlying quality of private-sector business, the result of central planning and needless regulation, has been concealed by the expansion of bank credit, which has fueled both private- and public-sector debt. According to the International Monetary Fund, at the end of 2010 gross government debt-to-GDP for the Euro area was 87%, and household debt 72%, giving a total of 159%. Germany itself was running a combined total of 142%, which is often overlooked. On these figures alone, it is clear that the Keynesian solution of more government spending as the route to salvation is unaffordable, whatever the economic arguments."

I stole the introduction from a GATA release yesterday...and the link to the goldmoney.com article is here.

With stocks plunging once again, King World News interviewed James Turk out of London to get his take on the ongoing financial crisis. When asked about the increasing fear surrounding what is happening in Europe, Turk responded, “The situation here in Europe, Eric, continues to get worse. Earlier today, Greece announced they are missing their deficit reduction targets. As the day progressed, bank stocks continued to get hit and the EU finance ministers meeting ended without any new ideas. Attention is now being focused on the banks and in particular whether Germany is going to continue writing more checks.”

Eric sent me this KWN blog yesterday...and the link is here.

The U.S. futures regulator delayed a final vote on controversial measures to crack down on excessive speculation in commodity markets because it lacks the three votes needed for approval, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters on Wednesday.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced on Tuesday it was delaying by another two weeks to October 18 its meeting to consider the long-awaited rule on position limits. It was the second time a vote had been postponed.

This Reuters story was posted in The Baltimore Sun last week...and I thank reader John Bastian for sending it along. The link is here.

Gold? Sure, We’ll take more of that, says the CME...

CME Group will today increase to $500 million the amount of physical gold its U.S. clearing members can post as collateral for margin requirements, from the existing $200 million.

The step is the latest in a string of moves by exchanges and other financial services firms to increase the use of gold as collateral, which essentially places the precious metal in the top tier of asset classes.

This story was posted over at The Wall Street Journal yesterday...and I thank Edmonton reader 'Ray' for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.

Gold rose on Friday on lingering worries of a global economic slowdown, and the price of bullion notched its biggest quarterly gain of this year even after a sharp pullback from a record hit this month.

Gold posted a quarterly gain of 8 percent -- its biggest this year, despite a drop of 11 percent for September -- its largely monthly decline in three years.

This Reuters story from Friday is Roy Stephens last offering of the day...and the photo alone is worth the trip. The link is here.

Wealthy individuals should buy gold as it has become an attractive investment following last month's sharp reversal, private bankers in Asia said on Monday.

"Gold at $2,000 is absolutely, potentially on the up-track, despite the selloff. That is sort of the immediate target," Marcel Kreis, Credit Suisse's head of private banking for Asia-Pacific, told the Reuters Wealth Management Summit in Singapore.

The $2,000 per ounce level was Credit Suisse's 12-month target, he added.

I thank reader 'David in California' for sending me this Reuters story filed from Singapore yesterday...and the link is here.

GATA's secretary treasurer Chris Powell couldn't figure out how a positive story about gold found its way into the Financial Times...but it did.

The story, headlined Gold Can Still Outshine Mere Cash, is subscriber protected...but it's printed in the clear in this GATA release. It's well worth the read...and the link is here.

The Qatari royal family plans to spend up to $10 billion (L6.4 billion) buying stakes in gold producers through their sovereign wealth fund, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The fund is seeking to invest in a range of natural resources, but gaining access to physical gold is its top strategic priority.

This story showed up in The Telegraph yesterday...and I stole it from a GATA release. The link is here.

Gold bugs have been shaken by the size of what they see as a manipulative bear raid, but they still believe that Asian off take underpins the market.

Gold had been declining for several days, but in the early Asian hours of Monday Sept. 26 it was struck a terrific blow, plunging $130 in a few hours before recovering.

The break has provoked a great deal of suspicion. Veteran Ross Norman, now of the U.K. gold-dealing site Sharps Pixley, remarked of the sellers: "Placing such a huge order into the market when the least number of market participants were active tells you that they were out for dramatic effect. Anyone looking to offload significant amounts of metal at the best possible price would have done so when both London and New York were both [open]. Clearly finessing gold into the market was not their motive -- they wanted a statement." [Note to Norman: This is the work of what I call the not-for-profit sellers, with JPMorgan leading the pack. - Ed]

This marketwatch.com story from yesterday is a must read...and the link is here.

The Asians have been buying like crazy, all through this takedown they have been buying. We have seen massive premiums and bottlenecks in supply, they simply cannot get enough physical metal as the prices have dropped. The demand has literally been insatiable. As I have stated before, the central bank gold, which was used to sell the market down, has gone to vaults in Asia.

Eric sent me this blog yesterday...and the link is here.

Interviewed by GoldMoney's James Turk, Swiss fund manager Felix Zulauf explains how the European Central Bank is losing solvency and credibility and why he thinks gold will go higher with debasement of the euro. The video interview is 22 minutes long and is posted over at the goldmoney.com website. The link is here.