Aggressive last-minute deals in the days before Christmas are good for procrastinators, but they could be an alarm bell for the retail industry.

While scattered markdowns are standard every year, discounts across entire stores — which analysts say are more widespread than last year — suggest merchants are stuck with too much merchandise.

Many retailers entered the season “with pretty optimistic plans” that shoppers would rush into stores and pay full price, Mr. Bassuk said. But that did not pan out, and the final days before Christmas have retailers being “much more aggressive in terms of promotions being offered,” he said.

This story was posted in the Thursday edition of The New York Times...and I borrowed it from yesterday's King Report. The link is here.

Former State Senator and Republican Cook County Board President candidate Roger Keats and his wife Tina left Illinois to live in Texas. They bid farewell to their Illinois friends in a Wilmette Beacon article, and with this letter, saying they’re “voting with their feet and their wallets.”

As we leave Illinois for good, I wanted to say goodbye to my friends and wish all of you well. I am a lifelong son of the heartland and proud of it. After 60 years, I leave Illinois with a heavy heart. BUT enough is enough! The leaders of Illinois refuse to see we can’t continue going in the direction we are and expect people who have options to stay here. I remember when Illinois had 25 congressmen. In 2012 we will have 18. Compared to the rest of the country we have lost 1/4th of our population. Don’t blame the weather, because I love 4 seasons.

I feel as if we are standing on the deck of the Titanic and I can see the icebergs right in front of us. I will miss our friends a great deal. I have called Illinois home for essentially my entire life. But it is time to go where there is honest, competent and cost effective government. We have chosen to vote with our feet and our wallets. My best to all of you and Good luck!

The entire letter that he had printed in the Wilmette Beacon is well worth the read. It's another story that I 'borrowed' from yesterday's King Report...and the link is here.

People who own what is considered the safest type of municipal bond may be in for a surprise.

This safe debt, called a general-obligation bond, is said to be the next strongest thing to Treasuries because it is backed by a “full faith and credit” pledge. That means the government that issued it will pay it on time, no matter what.

But now Jefferson County, Ala., has stopped paying such debt, breaking with convention and setting up a fundamental test of what full faith and credit truly means.

This is no surprise considering what JPMorgan did, along with the help of corrupted government officials in that county. This story appeared in The New York Times yesterday...and I thank reader Phil Barlett for sending it along. The link is here.

Everyone knows that the term fascist is a pejorative, often used to describe any political position a speaker doesn’t like. There isn’t anyone around who is willing to stand up and say: "I’m a fascist; I think fascism is a great social and economic system."

But I submit that if they were honest, the vast majority of politicians, intellectuals, and political activists would have to say just that.

Fascism is the system of government that cartelizes the private sector, centrally plans the economy to subsidize producers, exalts the police State as the source of order, denies fundamental rights and liberties to individuals, and makes the executive State the unlimited master of society.

This describes mainstream politics in America today. And not just in America. It’s true in Europe, too. It is so much part of the mainstream that it is hardly noticed any more.

This is a speech that Lew delivered at the Doug Casey conference..."When Money Dies"...in Phoenix on October 1, 2011. It's a must read in my opinion...and I thank Casey Research's own Doug Hornig for digging it up on our behalf. The link is here.

Hopes that the emerging economies of Asia will come to the West's rescue next year have been dealt a blow after Fitch Ratings downgraded its growth forecasts for the region in 2012 from 7.4pc to 6.8pc.

Asia has long been seen as the best hope the heavily indebted countries of the West have to climb out of their economic torpor. Growth rates in China and India have been almost 10pc for a number of years, but they are now expected to cool.

Fitch said that although growth prospects for the region "remain relatively favourable", it is "not immune from problems elsewhere in the world. The cut in its forecast for "emerging Asia" was in part because of the crisis in the eurozone and the sluggish US recovery.

This story was posted in The Telegraph late in the afternoon yesterday...and is Roy Stephens first offering of the day. The link is here.

Amid a fresh raft of poor eurozone economic data, Scott Bugie, head of S&P's financial institutions division doused the key cause for pre-Christmas optimism. Although he agreed Wednesday's long-term refinancing operation was a "big deal", Mr. Bugie told Reuters: "It is not solving the fundamental issues though... It's kicking the can a long way down the road rather than just a little bit, but in the end it is still kicking the big old can down the road."

He said the action did not "change the fundamental picture but it does buy valuable time". He added: "The move in itself will not lead to any improvement in (banks') credit ratings."

This story was posted in The Telegraph yesterday evening...and is another Roy Stephens offering. The link is here.

Following a move by the French lower house of parliament to pass a bill making it a punishable crime to deny the genocide of Armenians, Turkey has announced retaliatory measures. The issue of the killings between 1915 and 1917 has long divided Ankara and European countries.

In the end, repeated protests from Turkey had little impact: France's lower house of parliament voted on Thursday to approve a draft law that would impose stiff penalties on any person in France who denies the genocide of Armenians by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1917.

In an interview with French foreign broadcaster France 24, Patrick Devedjian, a member of Sarkozy's UMP party of Armenian origin, praised the vote. "The purpose of the bill is to stop foreign nations from coming to France and pushing discriminatory propaganda against people living here," he told FRANCE 24. "We are not seeking to rewrite history; the Armenian genocide is an established fact, an undeniable truth."

This story was posted on the German website spiegel.de on Thursday...and is Roy Stephens third and final offering in this column. The link is here.

In what can only be described as a barnstorming performance at a recent EU conference on innovation, the controversial but successful Ryanair boss describes the process of innovation at Ryanair...and is very critical of the Commission. Critical? He rips them a new one!

Michael O'Leary is the business equivalent of British politician Nigel Farage. This is 17:40 video is a an absolute must watch from one end to the other...as it's a hoot! The video clip is posted over a the politics.ie website...and I thank reader Bill Goodwin for sharing it with us. The link is here.

Paul Mylchreest's Thunder Road Report always makes for fascinating reading...and his take on the global economy, gold and silver is frightening and disturbing. Read, learn and inwardly digest.

This report was posted in a GATA release on Monday. But at fifty-two pages, there was no way that it was going to go in a weekday edition of this column, as I'm sure few readers would have the time or the patience to go through it on a busy pre-Christmas weekday.

Now that it's the Christmas weekend, it may meet the same fate, but an article of this size belongs in my Saturday missive.

Chris Powell has already provided an extensive preamble to this piece, so I will let him do the honours from this point. The link is here.

The world dollar standard’s death certificate arrives in the mail this week. The Bank of England — “the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street” — one of the most staid, cautious, and dignified entities in the world of monetary policy — signals that the fiduciary currency standard ushered in on August 15, 1971 is, empirically measured, far inferior to the (dilute form of the) gold standard erected at Bretton Woods. Fellow Forbes.com columnist Charles Kadlec thoroughly reprises and analyzes the facts submitted to a candid world by the Bank of England in a paper to be officially published December 20, 2011.

The Bank of England’s Financial Stability Paper No. 13, Reform of the International Monetary and Financial System, reported at Bloomberg Business Week and reviewed here, is being seen by many monetary policy observers around the world as the “coroner’s report” on the death of the world dollar standard.

The world dollar system has been pronounced, now almost officially, a failure. The main surprise is that the pronouncement took so long. The call by Steve Forbes for a discussion about how to restore gold, and the work of monetary savants such as Lehrman, Shelton, and White laying out precisely how, could not be more timely — or needed. Public pollsters show gold to be extraordinarily popular with voters. Monetary reform is at the core of the conservative consensus. Presidential aspirants are taking note. Anticipate legislation.

Onward to gold — and prosperity.

The author, Ralph Benko, is the senior advisor, economics, to The American Principles Project and advisor to, and editor of, The Lehrman Institute's thegoldstandardnow.org website. I thank reader John Bastian for sending this my way. It's certainly worth reading...and the link to this piece, posted over at the forbes.com website, is here.

The other day I posted the blog of this interview in this column. Eric King slid the audio interview into my in-box in the wee hours of this morning...and the link to that is here.

Turkey lifted its gold reserves by a hefty 1.328 million troy ounces, or 30 percent, last month as central banks around the world maintained their positions as net buyers of the precious metal.

According to data from the International Monetary Fund, the Turkish central bank increased its gold reserves to 5.758 million ounces in November, from 4.429 million ounces the month prior. This followed a rise of 697,000 ounces in October, the latest IMF figures show.

This Wall Street Journal story from early yesterday morning is posted in the clear in this GATA release. It's an absolute must read of course..and the link is here.