At Citigroup's annual meeting, owners of the stock voted 55 to 45 against a $50 million executive pay package, including $15 million for CEO Vikram Pandit.

Shareholders have every right to be upset with Vikram.

Over the last decade, Citigroup has had the worst stock price performance of the big banks, but consistently had some of the highest executive compensation.

Now, the vote is non-binding, but the chairman of Citigroup Dick Parsons said he took it seriously, and promised the board would consider it carefully.

This story was posted over at the foxbusiness.com website on Wednesday...and I thank reader George Findlay for sending it along. The link is here.

Sean Egan told CNBC Thursday the Securities and Exchange Commission had no reason to charge his credit-rating firm with intentional misstatements when it applied to be a "nationally recognized'' rating agency.

Egan spoke before Egan-Jones counsel Alan Futerfas told Reuters later Thursday the SEC had voted to file civil charges against the agency.

Futerfas said the SEC did not indicate what relief it is seeking as part of the enforcement action, which has yet to be formally filed.

West Virginia reader Elliot Simon, who sent me this story, was wondering out loud if this "could be retaliation for their having lowered again the credit rating of dear old Uncle Sam?" Nothing would surprise me. This story was posted over at the cnbc.com website late yesterday afternoon...and the link is here.

So you think you know what a trillion dollars looks like? Then try to imagine $228 trillion. That's the amount of derivatives held by the nine largest U.S. banks.

A derivative is a legal bet (contract) that derives its value from another asset, such as the future or current value of oil, government bonds or anything else.Here's a pictorial of the derivatives held by the nation's largest banks...and the pile of money they have bet in the derivatives market. This is a must read for sure...and I thank Nick Laird for bringing it to my attention...and now to yours. The link is here.

The derivatives industry is squeezing Washington like a python. Desperate to control the tone and thrust of derivatives regulation, industry lobbyists have been swarming over the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, each of which is writing derivatives rules as mandated by the Dodd-Frank reform law.

In case their lobbying falls short, the industry -- largely dealer banks and commodities firms -- has been pushing legislation that would preempt the rulemaking process and tie the agencies’ hands. So far, no fewer than 10 such derivatives bills have been introduced in the House; two have passed and several more have cleared committee.

Not satisfied with that, influential lawmakers have been not so subtly warning regulators to go easy on derivatives. This is incredibly intimidating: Congress controls the agencies’ budgets, and the increase in workload mandated by Dodd-Frank leaves them woefully short on funds.

This Roger Lowenstein piece was posted over at the bloomberg.com website on Tuesday. And in light of the previous story, is another absolute must read as well. I pulled this story out of yesterday's King Report...and the link is here.

German Chancellor Merkel has made it clear that she would like to see French President Nicolas Sarkozy win a second term. Indeed, if his challenger François Hollande emerges victorious in the country's upcoming election, she could face isolation in Europe. But a Sarkozy re-election might be problematic, too.

As Europe continues to integrate both economically and politically, the outcomes of national elections have grown in importance to reach beyond their own borders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel knows that, and it's why she will travel on Sunday to Paris, where voters will be heading to the polls in the first round of the French presidential elections.

For Merkel, this is an election like no other, and one that is even more important to her than many German state elections. Whoever wins in France will help drive European policy by her side. If the victor proves to be Hollande, who differs with Merkel's closely allied partner Sarkozy on many issues, not the least of which involve rescuing of the euro, things could become uncomfortable for her, both in Brussels and at home in Berlin.

This story was posted on the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and is Roy Stephens' first offering of the day. The link is here.

Controversy is raging in Germany over soaring "payments" by the Bundesbank to shore up Europe's monetary system and cope with a tidal wave of capital flight from southern Europe.

Professor Hans-Werner Sinn, head of Germany's IFO Institute, said German taxpayers are facing a dangerous rise in credit risk from a plethora of bail-out schemes. "The euro-system is near explosion," he told Austria's Economics Academy on Thursday.

Dr Sinn said Germany is on the hook for much of the €2.1 trillion (£1.72 trillion) in rescue measures for EMU debtors - often by the back-door - that will saddle Germans with ruinous losses one day.

"It is a horror scenario," he said, warning that the euro system is splitting friendly countries into blocs of mutually hostile creditors and debtors, exactly the opposite of what was hoped.

This offering from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard was posted on The Telegraph's website early in their evening. The story is courtesy of Roy Stephens, of course...and the link is here.

A few months before submarines became the talk of Athens, Yiannis Panagopoulos, who heads the Greek trade union confederation (GSEE), found himself sitting opposite Angela Merkel at a private meeting the German chancellor had called of European trade unionists in Berlin.

When it came to his turn to address the leader, he instinctively popped the question that many in Greece have wanted to ask. "After running through all the reasons why austerity wasn't working in my country I brought up the issue of defence expenditure. Was it right, I asked, that our government makes so many weapons purchases from Germany when it obviously couldn't afford such deals and was slashing wages and pensions?"

Merkel's reaction was instant. "She immediately said: 'But we never asked you to spend so much of your GDP on defence,'" Panagopoulos recalled. "And then she mentioned the issue of outstanding payments on submarines she said Germany had been owed for over a decade."

Greek profligacy may be blamed for triggering the debt crisis that now threatens to tear the eurozone apart, but if there is one area where Berlin is less excoriating of state largesse it is in Athens's extravagant taste for arms.

This is a very interesting read, with the emphasis on the word 'very'. This story was posted in yesterday's edition of The Guardian...and I thank Roy Stephens once again. The link is here.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti followed in the footsteps of his Spanish counterpart on Wednesday (18 April) by announcing that Italy would need extra time to reaching its deficit target amid a deepening recession.

The Italian government had pledged to balance its budget in 2013, but it now expects the economy to shrink by 1.2 percent of GDP this year, the cabinet said in a statement. It added that the deficit of 0.1 percent previously estimated for 2013 would not be reached until 2014, while a balanced budget would be reached only in 2015.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) put out an even more pessimistic forecast about Italy's recession earlier on Tuesday, when it said the Italian economy would contract by 1.9 percent.

This story was posted over at the euobserver.com website yesterday...and I thank Roy once again for sending it to me. The link is here.

The first one is headlined "Iran will cut oil exports to 'entire Europe' if sanction not lifted: minister". The second is entitled "Iran stops oil sale to Royal Dutch Shell". Both stories are courtesy of Roy Stephens once again.

The government showed no signs of backing down Thursday from expropriating a Spanish company's controlling stake in Argentina's formerly state-owned energy company, shrugging off international condemnation while finding overwhelming support for the plan in congress.

Top officials also suggested that Argentina won't pay anywhere near the $10.5 billion sought by Repsol-YPF SA for its stake, and that the company might not see any money at all before years of battles in international courts, if then. Repsol shares have tumbled 17 percent this week, and Standard and Poor's downgraded the company's stock Thursday to one step above junk.

This story was posted on the businessinsider.com website early yesterday evening...and is another Roy Stephens offering. The link is here.

Whenever gold is in a longer term sideways pattern as it is now for nearly seven months, a lot of smaller investors lose their patience and doubt their investment. Therefore we enjoy offering to you today a very powerful talk with Egon von Greyerz, founder and managing partner of Matterhorn Asset Management and GoldSwitzerland. Egon strongly reminds us the real important things, investors shall always focus on…

Egon von Greyerz talks to us about unlimited money printing done by the central banks, why governments and political leaders are in an official denial and what a deflationary implosion would really mean. Von Greyerz, born in Sweden and living in Zurich, Switzerland, has his view from in- and outside his own country. He therefore is a real professional source to discuss the current situation in Switzerland and if it is still safe to store one’s physical gold in this country.

The interview runs 21:30...and it's posted over at the metallwoche.de website...and the link is here.

For the second day in a row I have an interview with Eric Sprott for you. This one is conducted by Charles Biderman...and was posted over at the trimtabs.com website yesterday...and it runs for 8:21 minutes. I thank Roy for sharing this with us...and the link is here.

The first is with Stephen Leeb. It bears the headline "QE3 is now 80%-90% guaranteed...and I'm Going All-In Gold if it Dips". The second is with legendary value investor Jean Marie Eveillard. The headline reads "We are Looking at Catastrophe Going Forward". And lastly is this James Turk blog that's headlined "The Most Important and Extraordinary Chart for 2012". Of all three blogs, the one by James Turk is the most important...and a must read.

Despite the overshadowing of the last forty years, what remains true is that gold is acceptable to all nations as collateral even between bitter enemies. It remains a common denominator of every nation. All accept that gold is an important reserve asset. The very fact that 'the worse get, the more relevant gold is in the money world' is inescapable. The euphoria of the 40-year experiment with paper, based on trust in governments alone, is failing. It's at the stage where it's being forced on an unwilling world, a world that is fully aware of its failings and manipulation.

If gold were retained as part of the monetary system and its value "floated" against a currency's value at a much higher price (five figures in the U.S. dollar or more) alongside other pieces of updated financial engineering, then an effective way of using gold in the monetary systems would return to the system. In a financial world that is failing, a measure of value to do that job is needed simply to give the system a semblance of credibility.

Developed world central bankers are fully aware of its future usefulness in times of need because gold has never left the vaults of the developed world central banks; they only just reduced slightly. Why? To quote the Washington and subsequent central bank gold agreements, "Gold remains an important reserve asset."

This is Part 4 of a 5-part series that Julian Phillips has written about gold. As I've been saying for years, the only way left to save the current financial and monetary system [if that is the plan of the 'powers that be'] is to revalue gold to some fantastic five digit price to square the books of the world's central banks. That day is coming, it's just a matter of when. This was posted over at the safehaven.com website yesterday...and is Roy Stephens final offering in today's column. It's a must read for sure...and the link is here.