On Tuesday morning, dozens of stocks, including Pandora and Nokia, experienced violent price swings due to one trading firm's activity within a "dark pool."

Dark pools are private stock markets that connect buyers and sellers electronically so no party's identity is revealed.

According to the WSJ, the firm responsible for today's price madness has been identified, and securities regulator FINRA is looking into the matter.

What caused the trades is still a mystery. They were corrected, but even the way that was done leaves questions, according to Eric Hunsader, an executive at Nanex, a Chicago based firm that tracks market data.

This is very similar to the story that I ran on this subject yesterday...and now here is something that is brand new. This businessinsider.com article was posted on their website very early yesterday evening...and I thank Roy Stephens for our first story of the day...and the link is here.

In choosing to focus so strongly on the need for welfare reform, the Chancellor put his finger on the nub of the problem, not just for Britain, but for virtually all advanced economies.

It’s not just that much welfare spending has become bloated, unfair and sometimes outright corrupt, it is also that it is no longer economically affordable. Osborne couched his case in highly political terms, as you might expect after the latest British Social Attitudes survey.

This showed a high degree of public support for further cuts in welfare spending. Where once the Tories were regarded as cruel and heartless for wanting to slash benefits, it now seems that they can’t be tough enough. Politically, Osborne is therefore pushing at an open door when he says this is not just about saving money – it’s about fairness and enterprise.

That pretty much sums up the problems of all western democracies. They can no longer afford the welfare societies that vote them into office every four years or so. This story was posted in The Telegraph late on Monday evening BST...and is Roy Stephens second offering in a row. The link is here.

Savouring a long lunch after a morning tending to baby quince and pear trees, the French Senate's 78 gardeners are blissfully untouched by the economic crisis gnawing at Europe's core.

They have jobs for life that pay 40 percent above the average French take-home salary and get "wet weather" bonuses when they work in drizzle, storms or snow.

Stalled growth in Europe's No. 2 economy has exposed the strain on public finances from the benefits lavished on these and other civil servants, and a growing chorus of opinion says it is time they were radically pruned back.

"I won't lie, we do very well," said one of the gardeners, who gave her name only as Natalie. "We earn much more than in the private sector and we basically can't be fired."

Even more comfortable are the hundreds of administrative staff inside who get bonuses if lawmaker debates run over into the night - regardless of whether they stayed late themselves.

They all rank as "fonctionnaires", a status held by 5.3 million state-employed teachers, medics, magistrates and clerks in a labyrinthine French administration running from the president's office to the furthest-flung town hall.

This Reuters story, filed from Paris yesterday morning, shocked me, but did not surprise me. It's certainly worth skimming...and I thank Ulrike Marx for her first story in today's column...and the link is here.

In her first visit to Greece since 2007, Angela Merkel offered verbal support for Athens, saying "there is progress every day." The German chancellor also announced two Berlin-funded development projects focusing on health care and regional administration. She was greeted by some 50,000 demonstrators in Athens protesting her tough demands for economic reforms.

They didn't necessarily represent the majority, but the message they brought with them was a bitter one. Some of the estimated 50,000 protesters on the streets of Athens greeted the German chancellor on Tuesday with swastikas, signs with epithets like "Out with the Fourth Reich" and placards depicting her face and a painted-on Hitler mustache.

This, however, did not stop Angela Merkel from delivering some encouraging words to Greece on Tuesday. The chancellor said Germany stood ready to continue helping Greece through its economic crisis, while recognizing that the country has covered "much of the ground" necessary for recovery.

"There is progress every day," she said in Athens. "But I believe that this path, as difficult as it may be, will pay off for Greece."

This story showed up on the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and I thank Roy for finding this story for us. The link is here.

The German leader – protected by 6,000 police – braved hostile crowds in Syntagma Square and Nazi insults in the Greek press as she made her first visit to Athens since the debt crisis erupted three years ago. The Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper said Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had an easier time visiting Greece in 1954, just a decade after Wehrmacht occupation.

The unflappable Mrs. Merkel offered a symbolic message of solidarity for the Greek people – now in their fifth year of recession, with an economy reduced by 22pc and youth unemployment at 55pc.

"I have not come here as teacher or judge," she said after meeting premier Antonis Samaras. "I come in the full awareness that the Greek people are going through a difficult period, and that many are suffering badly.

"You are making progress, you are coming to grips with the hard task ahead. It is in all our interests to ensure that Europe regains credibility, and to make it clear that we members of the eurozone can solve our problems."

Here's the Ambrose Evans-Pritchard spin on Merkel's visit to Greece. It was posted on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site late yesterday evening..and I thank Manitoba reader Ulrike Marx for her second contribution to today's column. The link is here.

The debt crisis is fueling the fortunes of separatists in a handful of European Union countries. Affluent regions in Spain, Britain, Belgium and Italy no longer feel a sense of solidarity with poorer parts of their own countries -- but they want to remain part of the EU.

The Catalans, who make up one-fifth of Spain's total economic output, have grown tired of "not making any progress within Spain." For the last 30 years, says Mas, the central government has invested too little in his region.

Just as concerns are growing in Europe over Spain's government finances, the economically powerful Basque Country is also on the rise. Polls show that the separatists are likely to do well in Basque regional elections scheduled for the Sunday after next.

Spain isn't the only country where the economic crisis is fueling independence movements. The Scots are planning to hold a referendum on independence in the fall of 2014. In Northern Ireland, Molotov cocktails are flying through the air and shots are occasionally being fired. And in communal elections in Belgium next Sunday, the leader of the Flemish separatists, Bart de Wever, stands a good chance of being elected mayor of Antwerp, the country's commercial capital. His supporters see the office in the largest Flemish city as a springboard for the position of leader of an independent Flemish state.

This spiegel.de story from yesterday was sent to me by Roy Stephens...and it's your first must read in today's column. The link is here.

The EU plans to enforce its rules by imposing tough penalties in the future. But experience suggests it won't be able to gets its way against major EU countries. Even the much-vaunted fiscal pact pushed through by Chancellor Angela Merkel to underpin the euro is at risk of being watered down.

According to this proposal, the European Commission, the EU's executive, would gain the right not only to recommend amendments to national draft budgets, but also to enforce them. If a government resists, the Brussels-based institution would have the power to impose fines.

In many European capitals, though, Van Rompuy's reform plans are controversial. Indeed, many politicians have been put off by the numerous rules and regulations that Brussels has already used to intervene in the economic policies of crisis-stricken countries. Until now, the threat of EU sanctions has mainly been confined to smaller member states.

By contrast, large countries such as Spain, Italy and France have so far had little to fear. Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs in Brussels, knows better than to antagonize certain countries by imposing sanctions.

This is another Roy Stephens offering from the spiegel.de website yesterday...and the link is here.

The idea of a financial transaction tax in the European Union has been slowly gaining support over the last two years, with Germany and France advocating most vehemently in favor. Now they have convinced nine other EU states to join them -- though details remain scarce.

Finance ministers from 11 European Union countries agreed at a meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday to support a tax on financial transactions, hoping to discourage risky trading while simultaneously raising revenue.

Germany and France, the EU's two largest economies, have long supported the idea of the tax, while countries like the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom remained staunchly opposed out of fears the tax could harm the competitiveness of their financial markets.

Sweden imposed a similar tax in the 1980s, only to lose much of its trading activity to London. Stockholm later repealed the law.

"We still think that the financial transaction tax is a very dangerous tax," Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg said ahead of the meeting. "It will have a negative impact on growth."

This tax is an attempt to clip the wings of the high-frequency traders...as they would suffer heavily if such a tax was implemented. The U.S. and the U.K., are vehemently opposed to it, as they would no longer be able to rig theirs...and others...stock, bond and currency markets.

This is another story from the spiegel.de Internet site...and I thank Roy Stephens for sharing it with us. The link is here.

The International Monetary Fund said European banks may need to sell as much as $4.5 trillion in assets through 2013 if policy makers fall short of pledges to stem the fiscal crisis, up 18 percent from its April estimate.

Failure to implement fiscal tightening or set up a single supervisory system in the timing agreed could force 58 European Union banks from UniCredit SpA (UCG) to Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) to shrink assets, the IMF said. That would hurt credit and crimp growth by 4 percentage points next year in Greece, Cyprus, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, Europe’s periphery.

“Intensification of the crisis has manifested itself in capital outflows from the periphery to the core at a pace typically associated with currency crises or sudden stops,” the IMF wrote in its Global Financial Stability Report released today. “Restoring confidence among private investors is paramount for the stabilization of the euro area.”

This is all very wonderful, but which assets are they referring to...and what is their real mark-to-market value...and who are the buyers going to be? The banks are obviously going to have to take a big haircut here. Stay tuned. I thank Roy Stephens for sending us this Bloomberg story that was posted on their website late yesterday evening Mountain time. The link is here.

The connection between currency debasement and social upheaval makes sense - hyperinflation only occurs in times of domestic drama. For example, in 1946 Hungary experienced the greatest episode of hyperinflation on record - in the context of a small, economically limited nation wracked by the Great Depression and then Nazi occupation in World War II. Zimbabwe earned second place in hyperinflation's record books when its dollar inflated 7.96 billion percent from early 2007 to late 2008. The cause? Robert Mugabe's land-reform policy slashed agricultural output and destabilized a fragile society.

That brings me to today... and to Iran, where that volatile mix of domestic drama and hyperinflation is pushing a fragile society to the brink of revolution.

If history repeats itself and Iran descends into revolution, the outcome is both unclear and obvious. In the unclear category: the details of the resulting regime and how far an Iranian revolution might spread through the Middle East. What is obvious, though, are the generalities: a post-revolution Iran would remain Islamist and vehemently anti-US.

This article by Marin was posted in Tuesday's Casey Daily Dispatch...and is well worth reading. The link is here.

The first is with Dr. Stephen Leeb...and it's headlined "Gold, Silver & the Smart Move by the Chinese in Commodities". Next is Rick Rule. His blog is entitled "We Have Tight Gold Supplies & Future Supply Constraints". And lastly is this blog with Dan Norcini. It bears the headline "More Incredibly Important Developments in Both Gold & Silver".

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission may decide as soon as this week to appeal a judge’s ruling against trading limits for oil, natural gas and other commodities, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The five-member commission plans to vote following a recommendation from the agency’s general counsel’s office to appeal the ruling, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the schedule is private. U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins ruled on Sept. 28 that the CFTC failed to assess whether the limits imposed under the Dodd-Frank Act were necessary and appropriate.

The decision blocked rules scheduled to take effect Oct. 12 that were challenged by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and International Swaps and Derivatives Association Inc. The associations represent JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and other banks and energy-trading firms.

This Bloomberg story was posted on their website during the New York lunch hour yesterday...and I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for sending it along. The link is here.

One of the world's largest oil trading groups has warned of "inaccurate pricing" in the benchmarks for the energy market that underpin billions of dollars of trading each day in contracts such as Brent and West Texas Intermediate.

Total Oil Trading SA, the trading arm of Total of France, has told international regulators that "several times a year, estimates of market prices on key [energy] indices ... are out of line with our experience of the day."

The International Organisation of Securities Commissions, an umbrella group of financial regulators, last week backed away from its initial tough proposals for regulation of the benchmarks in the physical energy market.

This Financial Times story was posted on their website on Monday...and showed up in the clear in this GATA release yesterday. It's worth reading...and the link is here.

Vitol SA, one of the world’s biggest oil traders, is being enticed from its Geneva base by Dubai and Singapore as Switzerland considers scrapping policies that made the country a global center for commodities.

“I’m concerned for the future both in Switzerland and elsewhere,” said David Fransen, chief executive officer of Vitol Group’s trading arm, citing the threat of over-regulation and higher taxes. “Other jurisdictions are actively courting us,” he said, including Malaysia and the Caribbean.

The Swiss government, which has been probing the commodities industry since May, said the Alpine nation is “exposed to risks to its reputation” by being an oil, grain and coffee trading hub. The review, due later this year, follows Switzerland’s decision in March 2009 to meet international standards to avoid being listed as a tax haven and attempts to settle a U.S. investigation of 11 banks that allegedly helped American clients hide money from the Internal Revenue Service.

While Vitol, Glencore International Plc (GLEN) and Trafigura Beheer BV surpass Nestle SA as the biggest Swiss companies by sales, politicians are concerned a lack of industry regulation may hurt a nation struggling to find a response to a global crackdown on tax evasion.

This longish Bloomberg story was posted on their Internet site on Monday afternoon, is another story courtesy of Elliot Simon...and it, too, is worth reading. The link is here.

Coutts, the private banking arm of Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland, says investors should double the amount of gold they hold as the value of paper currency diminishes along with the prospects for global economic growth.

Ideally, investors should aim to have 7 to 8 percent of their assets in gold, above the wealth management industry's average of 3 percent, Gary Dugan, Coutts' chief investment officer for Asia and Middle East, told Reuters.

"What's happening in precious metals is that they are becoming more mainstream," Dugan said, adding that ten years ago investors rarely held any gold in their portfolios.

"Some of the clients ask where gold prices are going, and I say don't even think about prices. It's a store of value."

I love it when banks start talking dirty like that. I found this Reuters story, filed from Singapore earlier today, posted over at the mineweb.com Internet site in the wee hours of this morning...and the link is here.

In commentary published in the new edition of Forbes magazine, editor and publisher Steve Forbes endorses both a gold standard and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul's proposed legislation to facilitate competition in currencies.

In support of the latter, Forbes cites the prosecution of Liberty Dollar founder Bernard von Not Haus.

I thank Chris Powell for wordsmithing the paragraph of introduction above. Forbes' commentary is headlined "Gold Can Save Us from Disaster" and it's posted at their Internet site...and the link is here...and is a must read.