They drive cars, but seldom new ones. They earn paychecks, but not big ones. Many own homes. Most pay taxes. Half are married, and nearly half live in the suburbs. None are poor, but many describe themselves as barely scraping by.

Down but not quite out, these Americans form a diverse group sometimes called “near poor” and sometimes simply overlooked — and a new count suggests they are far more numerous than previously understood.

This very sad [but very true] story was posted in The New York Times on Friday night...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it my way. The link is here.

Doug Casey has been talking about getting some of your assets out of your home country for years...out of the reach of your government...especially the U.S. government.

Capital flight is a perfectly logical consequence in today’s world. Barely a day passes where we are not reminded that nothing is safe any more. Not our currencies, not our equities, not our bonds and certainly not our banks/brokers.

The word “Repatriation” sounds nice enough but really it means “Theft and expropriation”. There will be nothing voluntary about this. There will be little [if any] due process.

If this happens...and the folks in Brussels are pushing hard...a very dangerous precedent will have been set. Flight capital will have been made illegal.

This story was posted over at zerohedge.com on Saturday...and I thank Washington state reader for sending it along. The link is here.

Until recently, the concern about Europe has been mostly theoretical--a potential train-wreck that would occur if/when the world's lenders decided that the continent's problems extended beyond the basket case known as Greece and cut lending to Europe's "core."

Well, that concern is no longer theoretical...it's happening, as the world's lenders are increasingly deciding that it's better to be safe than sorry, and they're pulling their money out of Europe.

This editorial by Henry Blodget is posted over at the businessinsider.com website...and I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand for forwarding it. The link is here.

Foreign bank deposits at the Federal Reserve have more than doubled to $715 billion from $350 billion since the end of 2010 amid Europe's debt turmoil, buttressing the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency.

Forty-seven non-U.S. banks held balances of more than $1 billion at the New York Fed as of Sept. 30th, up from 22 at the end of 2010, according to a survey of 80 financial institutions by ICAP Plc, the world’s largest inter-dealer broker. The dollar has appreciated 7.2 percent since Standard and Poor's cut the nation’s AAA credit rating Aug. 5th, the second-best performance after the yen among developed-nation peers, according to Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Currency Indexes.

This Bloomberg story was filed yesterday...and I thank reader Scott Pluschau for sending it along. The link is here.

A company run by former American International Group Chief Executive Maurice "Hank" Greenberg Monday filed a $25 billion lawsuit against the United States, claiming that the government takeover of the insurer was unconstitutional.

In its complaint, Greenberg's Starr International said that in bailing out AIG and taking a nearly 80 percent stake, the government failed to compensate existing shareholders. It said this violated the Fifth Amendment, which bars the taking of private property for public use without just compensation.

A fine outstanding citizen like Hank Greenberg hiding behind the skirts of the U.S. Constitution? That's rich! Mr. Greenberg is Honorary Vice Chairman and Director of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of David Rockefeller's Trilateral Commission. West Virginia reader sent me this Reuters piece that was posted over at cnbc.com yesterday...and the link is here.

A trustee seeking to distribute customer securities overseen by bankrupt MF Global Inc. estimated Monday that $1.2 billion in client money may be missing, twice as much as previously expected. "At present, the Trustee believes that even if he recovers everything that is at US depositories, the apparent shortfall in what MF Global management should have segregated at US depositories may be as much as $1.2 billion or more," the trustee said in a statement.

The 1-paragraph story posted over at marketwatch.com yesterday is cut and paste above...and the link to the hard copy is here. I thank Casey Research's own Bud Conrad for sharing this story with us.

GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk told King World News yesterday that the bankruptcy of the MF Global brokerage house may be the new "Lehman moment" for world markets. Turk speculates that the physical markets for the precious metals now may separate from the paper markets.

I thanks Chris Powell for writing the introduction...and the link to the KWN blog is here.

Given that Corzine was out of the industry for about 12 years – which is quite a bit beyond the 2 year window – he needed to re-qualify by examination but there’s no indication that he sat for the Series 7 or the Series 24, which he needed upon his return to a FINRA member firm.

This really puzzles me. I mean, you know, FINRA makes such a BIG deal about not granting registration waivers, particularly when someone has been out of the business for a few weeks or months beyond the two year window. Since I don’t see any indication that Corzine took the two exams at issue, did FINRA grant him a double waiver? Who authorized that? Why?

This story was posted in Forbes on November 4th...and I thank reader 'David in California' for sending it along. Better late, than never..and the link is here.

Wolfgang Schäuble said that, despite the current crisis in the eurozone, the euro will ultimately emerge as the common currency of the entire European Union. He said he “respects” Britain’s decision to keep the pound, but insisted that the survival and eventual stabilisation of the euro will convince non-members to join the currency club. “This may happen more quickly than some people in the British Isles currently believe,” he added.

Is this guy dreaming in Technicolor...or does he know something that the rest of us don't? This very short story appeared in The Telegraph last Friday...and is worth skimming. It's another Roy Stephens offering...and the link is here.

As the debt mess in Europe deepens, bankers are pressing Greece's bond holders to swallow big losses.

Behind the scenes, however, BNP officials seem to be twisting some arms. A big point of contention is — surprise! — derivatives.

Investors who own Greek debt and have bought insurance on it, in the form of credit default swaps, wonder why they should accept the offer that’s on the table. If Greece stops paying after the restructuring, those swaps are supposed to cover their losses, much the way homeowner's insurance would cover a fire.

This story from the Saturday edition of The New York Times was written by Gretchen Morgenson...and is well worth your time. I thank reader Phil Barlett for this story...and the link is here.

The Euro zone’s debt crisis swept closer to the heart of Europe yesterday despite a clear-cut election victory in Spain for conservatives committed to austerity, adding to pressure on the European Central Bank to act more decisively.

Austrian bank supervisors instructed the country’s banks to limit future lending in their east European subsidiaries, another sign of the potential knock-on effects of the euro zone crisis for economies around the world.

The decision by Austria, which appears to be unilateral, shows how even the euro zone’s strongest economies are feeling the pressure of the sovereign debt crisis.

This story appeared in the Irish Times yesterday...and is a must read. It's another story that Roy Stephens sent me, for which I thank him. The link is here.

Rising bond yields and a weakening forint has forced the country's Fidesz government to swallow its pride and request a "precautionary" credit from both the International Monetary Fund and Europe, reportedly of €4bn b(£3.4bn).

The growing likelihood that Hungary's debt will be downgraded has accelerated capital flight, causing two-year debt yields to jump from 5.5pc to 7.5pc since September.

"Hungary is a warning sign," said Neil Shearing from Capital Economics. "It is the country where the risks are most acute in the region, so this is where you would expect to trouble to start. We fear this may spread to Ukraine and the Balkans.

This Roy Stephens offering is an Ambrose Evans-Pritchard piece that was posted in The Telegraph late last night. It, too, is well worth the read...and the link is here.

A rise in interest rates on French government debt and weaker growth prospects could be negative for the outlook on France's credit rating, Moody's warned in a report today, adding to pressure on European debt markets.

Worries that France has the weakest economic fundamentals among the euro's six AAA-rated countries have drawn the euro zone's second largest economy into the firing line in the debt crisis this month.

The rating agency said the deteriorating market climate was a threat to the country's credit outlook, though not at this stage to its actual rating.

This is the second story from The Irish Times in today's column...and is another Roy Stephens offering. The link is here.

The European Commission faces a tough sell in Germany as it advances long-awaited plans for a “eurobond” system for countries in the single currency to issue debt with a common euro zone guarantee.

Even before the commission unveils its proposals tomorrow, Berlin’s response to the initiative has been as swift and dismissive as always...“The chancellor and the federal government do not share the belief of many that eurobonds would be a cure-all for the crisis,” said Steffen Seibert, government spokesman...“Rather, they see the danger that such eurobonds would distract from getting to the root of the problem.”

Let's hope they resist forever. This is another story posted over at the irishtimes.com website...and is, of course, another Roy Stephens offering. The link is here.

The transformation of government bonds into a credit market is raising the prospect of the collapse of the primary dealer model, removing any semblance of secondary liquidity and meaning euro zone debt managers may struggle to prop up distribution.

"The primary dealer system in Europe is wandering slowly to the elephants' graveyard of financial markets, as liquidity dries up in all but the most liquid of government bonds," said one public sector banker.

Investment banks are increasingly weighing the benefits and costs of dealerships, especially the extent and manner of their participation in increasingly volatile auctions.

This eye-opening Reuters story was filed from London on Friday...and is well worth the read. I thank reader U.D. for spotting this story...and the link is here.

Bernanke will not be willing to let the European Central Bank's ineffectiveness infect U.S. banks and destroy the global economy.

He points to statements from well-known independent economist Ed Yardeni to elaborate on that idea:

"Given the ECB’s reluctance to act, I suspect that the Fed will spearhead the formation of a Global Liquidity Facility (GLF) to avert a global financial meltdown. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke demonstrated that he is a master at putting together such emergency measures back in 2008. In effect, it would act as the world’s central bank. Mr. Bernanke is clearly very worried about the prospect that the European sovereign debt crisis is a contagion that could spread to the US, as evidenced by his bizarre town hall meeting with troops returning from Iraq on November 10. The GLF would receive deposits from the Fed and other participating central banks, including the ECB. The funds would be used to buy the bonds of debt-challenged governments that would be required to accept strict supervision of their fiscal and regulatory policies by the IMF."

This story was posted over at the businessinsider.com website...and I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand for sharing it with us. The link is here.

Two brothers and their father were sentenced to death on Monday for cheating 15,000 investors out of over $1.1 billion in east China’s Zhejiang province.

Ji Wenhua, president of the Yintai Real Estate and Investment Group, was sentenced to death for the crime of fund-raising fraud, said the Intermediate People’s Court in the city of Lishui, where the company was based.

The family, along with others, had illegally raised over 7.04 billion yuan ($1.12 billion) between 2003 and 2008 before they were taken into police custody in 2008, holding the truth from investors that their company had been losing money for years, according to the court.

This story was filed from Hangzhou, China...and posted over at thechinamoneyreport.com about ten days ago...and I thank reader Randall Gallimore for sending it to me. The link is here.

The founder of a Lake Worth-based precious metals firm that was a front for a $29.5 million fraud was sentenced Friday to more than 12 years in prison.

Jamie Campany, the owner of the grandiose-sounding Global Bullion Exchange, took money from more than 1,400 customers nationwide who thought precious metals would be good to have in uncertain economic times. The firm told customers that the metals would be stored at secured locations until they wanted to sell.

But those metals were never bought, Campany admitted. Global Bullion Exchange was a Ponzi scheme, with old clients getting paid with new clients' money.

The story was posted over at the South Florida website sunsentinel.com...and I thank Florida reader Donna Badach for digging this item up on our behalf. The link is here.

Here's a short essay about silver that was written by Casey Research's own Louis James. It was posted in yesterday's edition of Casey's Daily Dispatch.

This is a very interesting article...and well worth your time. The link is here.

Iran's economy and finance minister, Shamseddin Hosseini, advised citizens not to buy dollars or gold coins because of their high cost, the newspaper Iran reported.

"Foreign currencies and gold coin rates will drop so those who buy them at high cost must not complain later," Hosseini said yesterday, according to the Tehran-based daily.

Rising inflation in Iran, which the International Monetary Fund has forecast will reach an annual 22.5 percent this year from 12.4 percent in 2010, and a cut in bank deposit interest rates have boosted demand for foreign currency and gold.

I borrowed this Bloomberg story from a GATA release on Sunday...and the link is here.

Kazakhstan plans to begin construction of a third gold refinery next year to process an expected increase in volumes of the precious metal, the country’s Industry Ministry said on Monday. There are currently two other gold refineries in Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest economy, has ambitious plans to raise annual gold output to 70 tonnes or more by 2015. It produced 27.5 tonnes of gold in the first nine months of 2011, including 12.5 tonnes of refined gold, official data show.

The central bank has committed to augment its gold reserves and ease exposure to the dollar by purchasing Kazakhstan’s entire bullion output from next year until at least 2014 or 2015.

This Reuters story was posted over at China Business News on the weekend...and is well worth the read. I thank reader A.C. for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.

Here are a couple of stories out of the Financial Times...one on Friday and the other on Thursday. They are printed in the clear in this GATA release. Both are must reads...and the link is here.

Sprott Asset Management's John Embry told King World News yesterday morning that the smashing of gold and silver prices today was a predictable consequence of the advent of futures option expiry on Tuesday. He advises being ready for "extreme money creation at all levels and virtually throughout the world."

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