Here's a 5:10 Fox Business News interview with Charlie Gasparino. He has it on good authority that the CME is going to be broken up. I was happy to hear that...and Ted Butler, who has always considered them to be a criminal organization, was dancing on his computer desk when I spoke to him about it yesterday morning. It's a must listen...and I thank reader Kip Lee for sending it along. The link is here.

The lawsuit filed today by three farmers and a cattle- raising operation in Montana seeks to represent a nationwide group of commodities futures customers whose money went missing amid the $41 billion bankruptcy of MF Global, parent of the futures brokerage that is being liquidated. A trustee is looking for $1.2 billion or more in money missing from commodity customers’ accounts.

Corzine, the former governor of New Jersey, and other executives at MF Global made “knowingly false statements” to induce the plaintiffs to enter into contracts with the brokerage, according to the complaint filed in federal court in Missoula, Montana.

The executives failed to disclose to customers that their money was used to finance MF Global’s bad bets on European sovereign debt, the farmers said in the complaint.

This Bloomberg piece was forwarded to me by Casey Research's Aaron Bedrick yesterday...and the link is here.

Could Greece’s next rescue payout go straight into the pockets of London hedge funds?

That, more or less, is the bet that a growing number of investors are making now as they load up on Greek government securities that mature in March. That is when Athens hopes to receive a potentially make-or-break bailout payment — a lifeline of as much as 30 billion euros ($38 billion) from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Greece’s new prime minister, Lucas D. Papademos, has warned that without that infusion, his country might well default on its debts, a move that might force Greece to leave the euro currency union.

Reader Phil Barlett sent me this story from yesterday's edition of The New York Times...and the link is here.

Organized crime has tightened its grip on the Italian economy during the economic crisis, making the Mafia the country’s biggest “bank” and squeezing the life out of thousands of small firms, according to a report on Tuesday.

Extortionate lending by criminal groups had become a “national emergency,” said the report by anti-crime group SOS Impresa.

Organized crime now generated annual turnover of about €140-billion ($178.89 billion) and profits of more than €100-billion, it added.

I hate to say it, but there's not much difference between the Cosa Nostra and all the power and money in the world on Wall Street. They're one in the same to me. The only major difference is that the crooks on Wall Street have the government protecting their criminal enterprises. Casey Research's own Erik Nelson passed this National Post story around yesterday...and the link is here.

Four decades after the 1973 oil shock, Iran and the West are once again embracing oil as a weapon. Tehran is threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz, while the industrialized countries are considering a boycott of Iranian oil. But both sides will suffer if such tactics are used.

Surprisingly enough, supertankers don't burn very well. Although the crude oil they transport is highly flammable, there is not enough oxygen in their tanks to create an explosive mixture.

On average, 14 of these giant tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz, located between Iran and Oman, every day. If Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually ordered his forces to fire missiles at one of these tankers, quite a bit of firepower would be needed to set off a Hollywood-style inferno.

But the verbal attacks from Tehran are more than sufficient to set the global markets ablaze.

This story was posted over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it along. The link is here.

If the most recent wave of escalations in the Middle East is a bluff, it is a very convincing one. Russian analysts speculate that a military intervention against either Syria or Iran (or both) could start by the end of the month; the latter is still hard to imagine, but the time frame seems to correspond to the nature of the developments and the rate at which they are being announced.

Barring a full-scale war in the Middle East in the next few weeks, we could think of what is happening on both sides as a modern version of a war dance, a dress rehearsal for a showdown and a spectacle for domestic consumption, for the enemy and for the international community alike.

There is a widespread perception that the crises with both Iran and Syria are nearing a climax. There is a massive Western naval presence off the coasts of both countries, and the opposing sides are conducting war games at a dizzying rate. In fact, it looks suspiciously as if the games are an excuse for them to keep their militaries on near-constant high alert (a dangerous situation, not least because an isolated incident or a miscalculation could lead to a full-scale clash). The diplomatic war is near a peak level as well.

This story was posted in the Asia Times early yesterday morning...and I thank Roy Stephens once again for sharing it with us. The link is here.

An EA source reports that a relative in Tehran ordered a washing machine for 400,000 Toman (about $240) this week. When he went to the shop the next day, he was told that --- amidst the currency crisis and rising import costs --- the price was now 800,000 Toman (about $480). Another EA source says that the price of an item of software for a laptop computer has tripled from 50,000 Toman to 150,000 Toman within days.

[This is a]100% replica of the US-planned Japanese escalation that led to the Pearl Harbor attack, and gave America the green light to enter the war.

For those of you who have never read Robert Stinnett's book Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor...now would be a good time to do so.

This zerohedge.com piece was sent to my by Australian reader Wesley Legrand. It's a must read...and the link is here.

At least 33 Iranian MPs were told on Tuesday that their candidacies had not been approved even though they currently serve in the parliament, local news agencies reported.

Many reformist MPs and even some conservatives are among those barred from running in the March vote, which the country's intelligence minister has described as "the most sensitive elections" since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Ali Motahari, a conservative MP whose father, Ayatollah Morteza Motahari, was among the key founders of the Islamic republic, is among those on the blacklist. As an outspoken critic of the government's political and economic policies, Motahari was the driving force behind an impeachment motion against Ahmadinejad.

This story showed up in The Guardian yesterday evening...and is courtesy of Roy Stephens. The link is here.

China's trade surplus shrank last year as import and export growth slowed sharply, official data has showed, after domestic tightening measures and the global economic crisis weighed on consumption.

The figures add to evidence that the Eastern economy is slowing, and will increase pressure on Beijing to further loosen policies to prevent the world's second largest economy from suffering a hard landing.

The news came as China's securities regulator has pledged broad reforms to the country's capital markets, including boosting investment in the stock market, which has slumped to a near three-year low.

This story was posted in The Telegraph yesterday morning...and is Roy Stephens final offering of the day. The link is here.

This graphics-intensive story showed up as a posting over at the wealthwire.com website yesterday. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the figures, but it appears that the author has done his homework.

Reader Tolling Jennings was the first person through the door with this story yesterday...and it's a must read. Use the 'click to enlarge' feature to bring the commentary up to full-screen size once the website has loaded. The link is here.

I posted this blog in my Tuesday column, but Eric slid this audio link into my in-box in the wee hours of this morning. His covering e-mail said that this was Rob's "best interview ever". Of course Eric pretty much says that about everything he posts on his site. The link is here.

Tocqueville Gold Fund manager John Hathaway told King World News yesterday that he's expecting a "terrific short squeeze" in gold and gold mining shares, as gold's fundamentals are strong and improving, even as sentiment in the gold sector has entered "the dry-heave stage".

I thank Chris Powell for writing the preamble for me...and an excerpt from the interview is posted at the KWN website. The link is here.