The iconoclastic rating agency, and fully recognized NRSRO to the dismay of some tabloids, which just refuses to play by the status quo rules, and which downgraded the US for the second time last Friday, to be followed soon by other rating agencies as soon as US debt crosses the $16.4 trillion threshold in a few short months, has just done the even more unthinkable and downgraded Fed boss JPMorgan from AA- to A+.

West Virginia reader Elliot Simon sent me this zerohedge.com piece late last night...and the link is here.

An Obama administration task force established to investigate misconduct that fueled the financial crisis is turning to a little-used statute that may make such cases easier to bring, according to people familiar with the matter.

The federal statute, FIRREA, was passed in the wake of the savings-and-loan scandals in the 1980s. It requires a lower burden of proof than criminal charges, has a longer statute of limitations than other financial laws and potentially could bring big fines.

It is unclear how successful the growing use of FIRREA will be. Lurie, the former Justice official, said it's "largely uncharted territory," and defense lawyers have already started pushing back on the government's use of the law.

This Reuters story from yesterday was sent to me by reader Andrew Holland...and the link is here.

"By this point in the ongoing global Credit crisis, it should be clear that the real villain is the anchorless global Credit “system” devoid of anything, any mechanism, or any “sound money and Credit” ideology that might help to restrain excess. Self-adjustment and automatic self-correcting mechanisms would be invaluable. Instead, our central bank, steward of the world’s so-called “reserve currency,” indicates its willingness to become even more “activist” - and global finance spirals only further out of control.

For decades now, global Credit has been allowed to expand unchecked – with no limit to either the quantity or quality of debt instruments. Perhaps the timing and sequencing of various crises was unknowable, though the end results were, for the most part, predictable."

Doug Noland is at the top of his game in his weekly Credit Bubble Bulletin posted over at the prudentbear.com website. It's a must read for sure...and I thank reader U.D. for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.

This is the speech that Richard gave at the Casey Research/Sprott Summit in Phoenix, Arizona on October 1, 2011. I thank reader 'David in California' for sending it to me in the wee hours of this morning. The link is here.

The IMF is raising its forecasts for global growth from levels it expected in January, but there is still a "high degree of instability" in the world economy, Managing Director Christine Lagarde says in an interview with the WSJ's David Wessel.

This 11:44 minute video was posted over at the marketwatch.com website on Thursday. I had to click on the "Pop Up Player" feature in order to get it to play...and you may have to resort to that as well. I thank Florida reader Donna Badach for sending it...and the link is here.

Iceland's main exports are aluminum and fish. Now the isolated nation is hoping to offer the world a new commodity: a cheap, guiltless way to store its data.

In February, a startup called Verne Global opened a large server farm on an old NATO base near Iceland's main airport and began offering "100% renewable" computing services to the rest of the world. It's one of three data centers in Iceland and part of what Iceland's government hopes will be a new local industry.

Iceland produces more electricity per capita than any other country in the world. Nearly all its power is renewable, coming from either glacier-fed rivers or steaming geothermal vents. And it's cheap, too. At 4.3 cents per kilowatt-hour, electrons on the island cost around half the average retail rate in the United States.

This very interesting story was posted on the technologyreview.com website on Wednesday...and I thank Roy Stephens for his first offering of the day. The link is here.

The volcanoes of Iceland could soon be pumping low-carbon electricity into the UK under government-backed plans for thousands of miles of high-voltage cables across the ocean floor.

The energy minister, Charles Hendry, is to visit Iceland in May to discuss connecting the UK to its abundant geothermal energy. "We are in active discussions with the Icelandic government and they are very keen," Hendry told the Guardian. To reach Iceland, which sits over a mid-ocean split in the earth's crust, the cable would have to be 1,000 to 1,500km long and by far the longest in the world.

Hendry has already met the head of Iceland's national grid about the plan. The web of sea-floor cables – called interconnectors – planned for the next decade would link the UK to a Europe-wide supergrid, which is backed by the prime minister. The supergrid would combine the wind and wave power of northern Europe with solar projects such as Desertec in southern Europe and north Africa to deliver reliable, clean energy to meet climate change targets and reduce dependence on fossil fuel imports.

This is also an interesting read...and was posted in the Wednesday edition of The Guardian. I thank Roy Stephens once again...and the link is here.

Sinkholes are common hazards in mining regions, plaguing areas where miners have burrowed into layers of soluble minerals and accidental floods have followed. But in Berezniki, as often happens in Russia, the problem has been magnified by past practices in which safety was not always the foremost concern.

In the West, mines are usually located far from populous areas, to reduce the risks of sinkholes to homes and other buildings. But Berezniki, a city of 154,000 that began as a labor camp, was built directly over the mine — a legacy of the Soviet policy of placing camps within marching distance of work areas.

And so Berezniki is afflicted by sinkholes, yawning chasms hundreds of feet deep that can open at a moment’s notice. So grave is the danger that the entire city is under 24-hour video surveillance. On a screen in the command center late last year, one such hole appeared as a small dark spot in a snowy field in the predawn hours, immediately threatening to suck in a building, a road and a gas station.

Here's another fascinating story that was sent my way earlier this week. It's a piece from the Wednesday edition of The New York Times...and I thank Phil Barlett for sharing it with us. The link is here.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood signaled its intent last Sunday to push the country into economic chaos. With liquid foreign exchange reserves barely equal to two months' imports and panic spreading through the Egyptian economy, the Brotherhood's presidential candidate Khairat al-Shater warned that it would block a US$3 billion emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) unless the military government ceded power.

"We told them [the government], you have two choices. Either postpone this issue of borrowing and come up with any other way of dealing with it without our approval, or speed up the formation of a government," Khairat al-Shater said in a Reuters interview.

Last week, Egypt's central bank reported that total reserves had fallen to $15 billion, but - more importantly - liquid foreign exchange reserves had fallen to only $9 billion, equivalent to just two months' imports. Foreign exchange futures markets expect the Egyptian pound to lose half its value during the next year, and Egyptians have responded by hoarding diesel fuel, propane gas and other necessities.

This very interesting background material on what's going on in Egypt right now is something that you would never find in the main stream media...and for that reason alone it's a must read. It was posted over at the Asia Times website on Wednesday...and is another story courtesy of Roy Stephens. The link is here.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, repeated calls for United Nations action against Syria, and went on to refer to Article 5 of the Nato treaty. That calls an attack on one Nato member like Turkey an attack on all members.

Invoking the treaty would allow Nato members to take military action against Syria legally without a UN security council resolution. Article 5 has only been invoked on one previous occasion – in the action taken against Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.

"Options are plentiful," he said, referring to shooting incidents on the Turkish-Syrian border which sent bullets spraying into refugee camps on three consecutive days earlier this week and killed four Syrians. A Turkish official and interpreter were also injured.

"Nato also has duties regarding Turkey's borders, according to the fifth article," he added.

I dug this story up over at The Telegraph late last night...and the link is here.

Last year NATO countries bombed Libya, demanding “democracy” in the country. But now it’s clear it was all about oil and it’s not like the Americans and Brits are going to be democratic about it, and share those spoils equally with France and Italy.

So…oil giants Total from France and ENI from Italy are just going to have to wait in the sidelines while the hungry American and British big boys take their juicy oil slices first… ExxonMobil, Chevron, Texaco, BP, Shell…

It’s no surprise then to read in The Wall Street Journal that the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), together with the puppet Libyan “authorities” are launching “investigations” into both companies’ “financial irregularities” in their shady dealings during the forty-two years of Gaddafi’s power. Now who would have imagined this! An Italian oil company involved in kick-backs? Corruption at the highest echelons of the French oil industry?!? Tsk, tsk!!! Unheard of…! The US and UK would never do something like that!! Just ask Enron, ask Halliburton, ask BP…

This story comes as no surprise to me. Not only is the rest of Europe out...so is China, as it recently discovered. This is another very interesting read...and it was posted over on the Russia Today website earlier this week. Of course it's another Roy Stephens offering...and the link is here.

The shortfall in oil production relative to what would have been expected based on the 1983-2005 growth pattern amounted to 4.7 million barrels in 2011. This is far more than any country claims as spare capacity. This is no doubt one of the reasons why oil prices are as high they are now. These high oil prices tend to interfere with economic growth of oil importing nations.

The shortfall in growth especially occurred in crude oil. Between 2005 and 2011, crude oil production rose only 0.5%. It was mostly the oil substitutes that grew.

This very long must read is full of excellent charts and graphs...and is another less-than-subtle reminder that peak oil is upon us. I thank reader Bob Fitzwilson for bringing this essay to our attention. It's posted over at the ourfiniteworld.com website...and the link is here.

Broad hints have been coming out of China that the country might start small-scale military strikes over disputed waters that are believed to hold rich energy reserves. The consequences of such endeavors would be tolerable to Beijing, international experts say.

Bitter territorial disputes China has with neighbors in the East and South China Seas have long grabbed media headlines. Virtually all countries in the region are involved in spats with China, from South Korea and Japan to the Philippines and Vietnam. In March alone, Beijing had verbal clashes with Seoul over a submerged rock; with Manila over the Philippines' plan to build a ferry pier; and with Hanoi over China's biggest offshore oil explorer's moves to develop oil and gas fields.

When strategists speak of the "Malacca Dilemma", they mean that Beijing's sea lines of communications are highly vulnerable. In times of conflict between the US and China, the supply of crude and iron ore needed to keep the Chinese economy alive and kicking could be relatively easily cut off in the straits that connect the Indian Ocean with the Pacific.

The war for world's last remaining potential oil reserves is really gathering a head of steam...and China is being forced to fight for oil even in its own backyard, as the U.S. is attempting to shut them out everywhere else. This Asia Times story was posted on their website on April 6th...and is Roy's final offering in today's column. It's certainly worth reading if you have the time...and the link is here.

In the Australian Securities Exchange's Sydney data room, which is about the size of a big lounge room, there are six "cuckoos". These are the banks of servers installed by high-frequency traders.

They sit against the wall opposite the ASX servers and each is connected directly into the host by a fat fibre optic pipe. Each cable is precisely the same length by agreement with the ASX so that none gets an advantage; if one server is closer to the input, its cable is looped around to lengthen it.

Think about that: one less metre of optic fibre carrying data at 299.8 million metres per second - that is, the speed of light - would give one share trader an unfair advantage over the rest. It suggests that something pretty quick is going on.

The question is whether it's fair to the rest of us; whether those six parasites with their suckers fastened directly into the heart of the ASX should be allowed to get away with it.

This is "High-Frequency Trading for Dummies"...and this very well written piece was posted at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation...abc.net.au...website on Wednesday. I thank reader Wesley Legrand for sending it along...and the link is here.

THE gold medals that will be awarded in London this year will be the biggest and heaviest handed out at any summer Olympics. At 400 grams (14 ounces) they will be 17 times heavier than at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. On the other hand, the 1912 games were the last one where gold medals were made entirely of gold. Now they consist mainly of silver with a thin coat of gold—6 grams is the minimum requirement. The London medal will have a gold content of only about 1.5%, and at current prices will be worth $706.

This tiny article was posted over at the economist.com website on April 5th...and I thank reader Federico Schiavio for sending it. The link is here.

Both of these were posted as blogs in yesterday's edition of this column...and now KWN has provided the audio links to both. The link to the John Mauldin interview is here...and Rick Rule interview is here.

Gold bulls have plenty of room to graze in the stockyard these days as the investing herd migrated to other assets during the market’s steep climb in 2012. For the fourth time in the past year, gold bears outnumbered the bulls in Bloomberg’s weekly Gold Bull/Bear Sentiment Survey. In fact, the bears had the bulls outnumbered by almost 2-to-1.

Today’s growing sloth of gold bears is a “buy” signal for contrarian investors like us at U.S. Global. Research from the gold team at Canaccord Genuity found that gold rallied about 10 percent on average during the month following each of these sentiment “cross-overs.” This historical increase means that gold could potentially rally to the “high $1,700’s per ounce,” which Canaccord believes “would breathe some new life into the gold equities.”

The first part of this 'Investor Alert' is all about gold equities...and is definitely worth the read. I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for bringing it to my attention. It's posted over at Frank's website...usfunds.com...and the link is here.

Some analysts say the 11-year bull market in gold is over, gold is in a bubble that has or is about to bust.

If that be the case, clients of GoldMoney & BullionVault (two of the more established and popular physical gold dealer and custodians) have got it all wrong and hence are “of all men most to be pitied”. Look at how their collective gold holdings have been increasing relentlessly, even during periods of sharp price declines.

This short term chart covering the period since gold’s intermediate top in August 2011 shows steady increase of total holdings from quarter to quarter. The growth in BullionVault is particularly impressive.

What then can be said of the apparent dichotomy between the declining trend in gold & silver prices and the increasing demand seen in the metal purchases? Just two words: Paper & Physical.

The author of this excellent piece, C.K. Diong over at the politicalmetals.com website, sent it to me yesterday...and I am more than happy to post it here. It further confirms that 'Total PMs Pool' graph that Nick Laird sent me...and is posted further up in this column. It's definitely worth reading...and the charts are great. The link is here.

Gold fund manager Caesar Bryan told King World News yesterday that there was a mysterious dumping of gold contracts on the New York Commodities Exchange just minutes before today's close. "This is very odd trading on a Friday afternoon when there was no other discernible movement in other markets," Bryan says.

Of course GATA's adherents may not find such an event quite as odd as Bryan does, but we're glad of his calling attention to it, gladder still for his noting that "the backdrop for gold is still very solid" and that the European financial system continues to disintegrate.

I stole both the headline and the two introductory paragraphs from a GATA release yesterday...and the link to the KWN blog is here.