The U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July. Although an improvement over the first quarter, the ranks of the unemployed swelled another 45,000.

The unemployment rate rose to 8.3 percent even as 348,000 workers quit looking for work and were no longer counted in the official jobless tally.

In the weakest recovery since the Great Depression, nearly the entire reduction in unemployment since October 2009 has been accomplished through a significant drop in the percentage of adults participating in the labor force -- either working or looking for work.

Without doubt, the real unemployment numbers are much worse than reported here...once they were run through the BLS b.s. machine. This UPI story from yesterday was sent to me by Roy Stephens...and the link is here.

Of course, these unemployment numbers looked a lot different in a posting over at Zero Hedge yesterday.

We got the pre-spun job quantity data already, where we learned that nearly 3 times the headline print was due to seasonal and B/D adjustments and is thus nothing but noise. Now we get the quality.

As can be seen from the chart below, in July the number of part-time jobs added was 31,000, bringing the total to 27,925, just shy of the all time record of 28,038. Full time jobs? Down 228,000 to 114,345,000 lower than the February full-time jobs print of 114,408,000.

Once again, more and more Americans are relinquishing any and all benefits associated with Full Time Jobs benefits, and instead are agreeing on a job. Any job.

I thank U.K. reader Tariq Khan for sending this Z.H. story this along...and the link is here.

Workers can kiss their retirement plans goodbye unless they take more risk to keep nest-eggs growing in a world where playing safe can be even more costly.

Four years of near-zero official interest rates and successive market panics have driven the returns from low-risk German, British or U.S. government bonds on which pension funds traditionally rely to record lows.

That may yet rescue the global economy by supporting borrowing and growth, but it is very bad news for several generations of workers already set to retire later — and for longer — than their predecessors.

Without returns that outstrip inflation — still running at around 2 percent in much of Europe — they face the real value of their savings declining rather than ratcheting up over the next few years.

This Reuters piece was posted on the CNBC Internet site late yesterday morning...and I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for sending it. The link is here.

The trading firm Knight Capital recently rushed to develop a computer program so it could take advantage of a new Wall Street venue for trading stocks.

But the firm ran up against its deadline and failed to fully work out the kinks in its system, according to people briefed on the matter. In its debut Wednesday, the software went awry, swamping the stock market with errant trades and putting Knight’s future in jeopardy.

The fiasco, the third stock trading debacle in the last five months, revived calls for bolder changes to a computer-driven market that has been hobbled by its own complexity and speed. Among the proposals that gained momentum were stringent testing of computer trading programs and a transaction tax that could reduce trading.

This story was posted on The New York Times website late Thursday evening...and it's courtesy of Roy Stephens. The link is here.

Things get wackier by the week. My proposition has been that once a Credit crisis comes to afflict the “core” (gravitating from the “periphery”) the deleterious consequences tend to be irreversible. As such, with Spain now engulfed in full-fledged financial, economic, political and social crisis, the overall European debt crisis has turned interminable. Of course, desperate politicians and central bankers promise to do whatever it takes to finally resolve the crisis. “Pointless to short the euro,” Mr. Draghi warned yesterday. Their determination is surely intensified by the fact that they are fighting for the very survival of euro monetary integration.

Policymakers and market participants alike appreciate what’s at stake. With global risk markets these days enveloped in an extraordinary “risk on, risk off” speculative melee, the historic battle to “save” the euro has come to dictate global trading dynamics. The European crisis is taking an increasing toll on the global economy, though the incredible measures to combat the bursting of the European Credit Bubble fuel an escalating speculative Bubble throughout global risk markets.

This Friday's Credit Bubble Bulletin is another must read. It's certainly on the longish side, but it's worth it. I've been reading Doug's commentaries for over a decade...and nobody understands the big credit/financial picture better than Mr. Noland. I thank reader U.D for sharing it with us. It was posted on the prudentbear.com website yesterday evening...and the link is here.

The markets were disappointed. European Central Bank head Mario Draghi's press conference on Thursday sent stock indexes around the world plummeting, as investors had been hoping the bank would immediately resume buying up sovereign bonds from crisis-stricken euro-zone countries. Even worse, Spain's borrowing costs on 10-year bonds rocketed above the critical 7 percent mark -- a product of Draghi's press-conference pledge that the ECB would only step in if a country applies for a euro-zone bailout.

Many politicians in Germany, however, were ecstatic. Leaders from most of the country's major parties welcomed Draghi's inaction, including lawmakers from parties in Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing coalition.

"I completely agree with ECB President Mario Draghi that decisive consolidation and reform policies at the national level should be the absolute top priority and are indispensable," said Economy Minister Phillip Rösler. The leader of Merkel's junior coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), Rösler is also deputy chancellor. He added that monetary policy cannot replace national efforts and "does not offer a lasting solution to the crisis."

This story was posted over on the German Internet site spiegel.de yesterday...and I thank Manitoba reader Ulrike Marx for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.

Five European Union member states have already sought bailout aid from the euro rescue fund. Is Slovenia about to become the sixth? Late Thursday evening, the US ratings agency Moody's downgraded the country's government bonds by three levels, shifting its previous A2 down to a Baa2, and threatened a further reduction in the future. The agency also changed Slovenia's economic outlook to "negative."

The small eastern European country's sovereign bonds now stand just two notches above "junk" status, the level at which bonds go from being a solid investment to a purely speculative one.

Moody's said it slashed the rating because of bad loans worth billions in the banking sector, government funding troubles and "substantial" risks to its financial system. Three of Slovenia's biggest banks are now asking for capital injections from the state. The ratings agency also cited the swiftly rising interest rates on Slovenian government bonds as one factor in its decision.

It will be interesting to see if Slovenia caves to the big banks...or pulls an 'Iceland'. This is another story that was posted over at spiegel.de yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens for this one as well. The link is here.

U.S. Congressman Ron Paul said on Wednesday that the imposition of sanctions on Iran by the United States is an act of war, noting that a war with Iran would hurt the U.S., particularly its economy.

Paul, a Texas libertarian congressman and 2012 Republican presidential candidate, made the remarks during a speech before the U.S. House of Representatives voted 421-6 on a bill to intensify the sanctions imposed on Iran under the allegation that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

The Iran Sanctions bill, which changes the existing sanctions law by adding penalties for those that aid Iran’s petroleum, petrochemical, insurance, shipping and financial sectors, is what Paul views as an unnecessary step towards war with a country that in his opinion has no intention to produce nuclear weapons, RT reported.

“A vote for this… will show that it’s just one more step to another war that we don’t need,” the congressman said, adding, “We have not been provoked, (Iran) is not a threat to our national security, and we should not be doing this. For the past 10 to 15 years we’ve been obsessed with this idea that we go to war and try to solve all the problems of the world. At the same time, it is bankrupting us.”

This story showed up on the Tehran Times Internet site yesterday...and is also courtesy of Roy Stephens. The link is here.

In the great global political and economic chess game, the US pieces have mounted a seemingly irresistible attack, but while Iran's position appears hopeless, the game is not yet lost.

There is speculation in Tehran that the wily and pragmatic former president Akbar Hashem Rafsanjani will shortly - at the Eid-ul-Fitr celebration of the end of Ramadan later this month - be mandated by the Supreme Leader to negotiate a solution to Iran's nuclear problems.

If Rafsanjani - or anyone else - is indeed to be given the authority to make major concessions to address the nuclear demands made by the P5+1 - the United Nations Security Council permanent five members plus Germany - then the result could be extremely interesting.

The US has painted itself into a corner. President Barack Obama is in no position to agree any concessions before the US presidential elections in November, and indeed both he and congress are bent on introducing further sanctions as though the existing sanctions have had no effect (this week he announced new sanctions against foreign banks that help Iran sell its oil). This is political overkill of the highest order.

The new US president will find concessions politically difficult against the entrenched power of the Israel lobby, while a president set on regime change - and Republican candidate Mitt Romney at least appears to meet that description judging by his recent performance in Israel - would marginalise the US completely.

This story was posted in the Asia Times early this morning...and is well worth reading if you're a student of the 'new great game'. It's also courtesy of Roy Stephens...and the link is here.

It took Reuters quite a while to be allowed to report that US President Barack Obama had approved an intelligence finding letting the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) loose in its support for the weaponized "rebels" fighting for regime change in Syria.

By now even fishermen in Fiji knew about this "secret" (not to mention that everyone and his neighbor across Latin America knows a thing or two about the CIA's regime change adventures). Reuters cautiously describes the support as "circumscribed". That's code for "leading from behind".

Whenever the CIA wants to leak something it uses a faithful scribe, such as David Ignatius from the Washington Post. Already on July 18 Ignatius was reproducing his briefing, according to which "the CIA has been working with the Syrian opposition for several weeks under a non-lethal directive ... Scores of Israeli intelligence officers are also operating along Syria's border, though they are keeping a low profile."

This interesting story showed up on the Asia Times website yesterday. Pepe doesn't take any prisoners in this short essay...and I thank Roy Stephens once again for bringing this story to our attention. The link is here.

The behaviour of the NATO-aligned, anti-Syrian bloc is now blatant enough for us to better understand what is happening in Syria. On the one hand, we find political operators such the ad-hoc group ‘Friends of Syria’, and on the other, two Arab personalities, both ministers of two Gulf sheikhdoms.

The first group includes NATO-led heads of states, with a barely disguised Israeli master-plan conceived by the likes of Bernard-Henri Lévy. Rather than being the friends of Syria, these personalities are arguably working to secure their own financial interests in, around, and via Syria. The two Arab politicians are the two foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. They have declared that those forces acting violently against the Syrian state should be armed and financially supported. In short, these conventions of the so-called ‘Friends of Syria’ are probably no more than a ‘modern’ version of those meetings conducted by Viceroy Lord Curzon, who, in 1903, addressed the ‘Chiefs of the Arab Coast’ on HMS Argonaut in Sharjah (UAE).

The Qataris and Saudis give financial support to the ‘rebels’ for weapons, payments to fighters and mercenaries, and logistical oversight of attacks on Syria. All of this is in addition to their support with telecommunication services, combat tactics, and strategic military advice. Unsurprisingly, the Western military advisors, who operate for the armed groups behind the scenes, do not feature in any media outlets. Neighbouring states also provide geographical assistance to the armed groups, with Jordan providing a passage for mercenaries from Libya, and Turkey acting as the northern military base for operations.

This story was posted on the deliberation.info Internet site...and was written by Dr. Makrma Khoury-Machool. He is a Palestinian scholar based in Cambridge, UK. This, too, is a must read for all students of 'the new great game'...and I thank U.K. reader Tariq Khan for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.

When Facebook was listed earlier this year, we suggested the stock would be trading around US$10 before any serious investor would feel the urge to start buying. Having dropped close to 50% from the IPO price, Facebook is surely making investors nervous. The stock has speculative weak hands stuck with stocks they don’t want. Rinsing out those will take longer than many anticipate. After disappointing many last weeks, Facebook continued the free fall today. From Bloomberg.

“There were obviously some people who didn’t want to sell on the first day in anticipation that you would see some stabilization and the stock price sort of return a little bit,” said Mark Harding, an analyst at JMP Securities LLC who has a market outperform rating on the stock and doesn’t own it. “Perhaps they’re disappointed by the lack of a recovery, and maybe now they’re using the opportunity to perhaps pare back.”

But perhaps possibly much more disturbing facts regarding Facebook’s ads is this article “softly” suggesting the ads business could be a scam.

This short, but very interesting read, was posted on the Zero Hedge Internet site on Wednesday...and I thank reader Marshall Angeles for sending it. The link is here.

The first is with Egon von Greyerz...and it's headlined "The Risk Of Systemic Collapse Is Now Enormous". The second blog is with James Turk. It's entitled "Gold is in Backwardation and About to Rocket Higher". The first audio interview is with Michael Pento...and the second audio interview is with Dr. Stephen Leeb. Both discuss gold.

Gold could be one of the few assets to profit from the political and economic turbulence in the United States as the “fiscal cliff” approaches, potentially creating a rally in the precious metal later in 2012 for it to reach $1,900 per ounce by the end of the year, analysts at HSBC said.

“Economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and the uncertainty of the U.S. November elections are theoretically gold-bullish,” and gold should perform better later in the year “when U.S. growth is poor and the dollar is weak,” a new HSBC report said. “We expect prices to rally to above $1,900/oz by the end of the year. Patience is the most important commodity.”

HSBC recommends holding onto gold as an asset that will gain in value as investors fear the future of the euro and dollar, with governments and central banks expected to intervene to shore up their currencies’ strength.

This story was posted on the CNBS website early Friday morning...and I thank Elliot Simon for sending it. The link is here.

The recent fully subscribed $200 million offering of new units by the Sprott Physical Silver Trust has received an additional boost by the offer underwriters - Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital Markets - taking advantage of an option that enables them to buy additional units on their own accounts. The two underwriters have between them taken up 1.8 million units, in addition to the 18.1 million units on offer at US$11.15 each, bringing the amount raised by the Trust to a little over $220 million.

As previously noted here, Sprott plans to use the proceeds to purchase, and take delivery of physical silver to the value of the amount raised, which at current silver prices would amount to some 8 million plus ounces of physical metal.

This story was posted on the mineweb.com website yesterday...and was written by Mineweb's General Manger and Editorial Director, Lawrence [Lawrie] Williams. It's a must read for sure...and the link is here.

On Thursday, The Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S. Treasury Department is "auditing" the gold vaulted at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, most of which is held in custody for other countries, but only to the extent of confirming the gold content of the bars kept there, and not touching on issues of ownership impairment, like swapping and leasing, the issues raised by GATA and others aggrieved by manipulation of the gold market.

Indeed, the "audit" seems intended to dispel "conspiracy theories" without actually having to disclose anything about the U.S. government's gold market intervention policy, the issue at the heart of GATA's freedom-of-information lawsuit against the Fed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a lawsuit that was decided more or less in GATA's favor last year and revealed that the Fed has secret gold swap arrangements with foreign banks as well as many other gold-related records that are being kept secret.

Responding to the L.A. Times story, Zero Hedge quickly explained why the Treasury's "audit" of the New York Fed's gold is a fraud. "What the 'conspiracy theorists' allege," Zero Hedge notes, "is that claims existing in paper format on the physical gold held under Liberty 33 are orders of magnitude greater than the actual physical gold these claims supposedly have recourse to.

This must read GATA release was posted on the gata.org Internet site...and the link is here.