[Thursday's] TIC data held two important pieces of data. The first is that in September, the month that Bernanke launched QEternity, for the first time in 2012, foreigners were net sellers of US Treasuries, dumping a total of $17.3 billion in paper, with foreign official institutions selling $919 million and non-official "Other Foreigners" offloading a whopping $18.3 billion: a record amount for this data series!

The combined outflow was a dramatic reversal from the August $42.9 billion in purchases, from the $341.8 billion in foreign purchases Year To Date, was the first outflow of 2012, the first since the $13.1 billion sold in December 2011, and finally was the biggest sale in US paper since May 2009.

This Zero Hedge story from Friday was sent to me by Marshall Angeles. It's not overly long...and there are some excellent charts. The link is here.

This short video clip from late last week is an exchange between Rick Santelli and James Koutoulas, the lawyer representing past clients of MF Global. James says that "I'm 100% convinced that he [Corzine] is a criminal and he does belong in jail". The CFTC and Gensler are also heavily criticized...and Koutoulas calls for Gensler's resignation.

I ran this video by Ted Butler...and he says it's a tragedy that Rick and James overlooked one of the real criminals in this case...the CME Group...the ones who should have made all investors whole, but didn't.

The CNBC clip runs for 4:03 minutes...and I thank reader Paul Laviers for sending it our way. It's definitely worth watching...and the link is here.

Hurricane Sandy floodwaters inundated a 10,000-square-foot underground vault downtown, soaking 1.3 million bond and stock certificates -- including bearer bonds that function like cash -- and putting them in danger of turning to mush.

A contractor working for the vault owner, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., is feverishly working to restore the paper.

But the value of the threatened notes under 55 Water St. remains unknown to all but the innermost circle of Wall Street bankers.

One source said $70 billion in bearer bonds were in jeopardy.

The rest of this very interesting story was in the New York Post on Sunday...and I found it in a GATA release. The link is here.

Wal-Mart is notorious for treating its workers terribly, but this year employees are fighting back by hitting the retailer where it hurts: on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. Walkouts and protests at locations around the country have already started, and a strike is scheduled for Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the start of the Christmas shopping season.

Wal-Mart employees have reported that if they complain about their schedules, wages, or benefits, the company either docks their hours or fires them. But during the holiday shopping rush, Wal-Mart will need all hands on deck, giving the striking employees the most leverage they’re going to get. Not to mention that, as if striking employees were ever good for business, a picket line is sure to put a damper on the holiday cheer that spurs big spending this time of year.

With 1.4 million U.S. workers, Wal-Mart is the country’s largest private employer, and one of the top 20 largest companies in the world. Clearly a force to be reckoned with, Wal-Mart has managed to quash previous attempts at organization among employees. This strike, backed by Making Change at Wal-Mart, a coalition of Wal-Mart employees, union leaders, and other supporters, will be the first in the company’s history.

This story showed up on the policymic.com Internet site on Saturday...and I thank Federico Schiavio for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.

Iconic snack-maker Hostess Brands on Monday agreed to mediate its differences with striking union members before a bankruptcy judge.

The mediation session will occur Tuesday afternoon in federal bankruptcy court in White Plains, N.Y., where liquidation hearings are underway.

Hostess released a brief statement Monday afternoon confirming the mediation session.

U.S. bankruptcy judge Robert Drain sought the mediation in an effort to save Hostess from liquidation and to save the more than 18,000 jobs at stake if the company collapses.

Twinkie lovers can cut back on their medications for at least one day. This story was posted on the foxbusiness.com website yesterday...and I thank Marshall Angeles for his second offering in today's column. The link is here.

The Australian and Canadian dollars, the world’s leading commodity-rich currencies, are being formally classified as official reserve assets by the International Monetary Fund, marking the onset of a multi-currency reserve system and a new era in world money.

In a seemingly innocuous yet highly portentous move, the IMF is asking member countries from next year to include the Australian and Canadian dollars in statistics supplied by reserve-holding nations on the make-up of their central banks’ foreign exchange reserves. The technical-sounding measure, reflecting growing diversification of the world’s $10.5 trillion of reserves, is likely over time to exert wide-ranging impact on world bond and equity markets.

Expanding by two the list of officially recognized reserve assets from the present five — the dollar, euro, sterling, yen and Swiss franc — signals a new phase in the development of reserve money. For most of the past 150 years, the world has had just two reserve currencies, with sterling in the lead until the First World War, and the dollar taking over as the prime asset during the past 100 years.

As a Canadian...I'm underwhelmed. The most important currency of all has not yet been included...and that is gold. Once that happens, then we'll really have something to celebrate. This marketwatch.com story was filed from London...and posted on their Internet site in the wee hours of yesterday morning. I thank Manitoba reader Ulrike Marx for finding it for us...and the link is here.

How does a court located on Pearl Street in New York order the Argentina State Treasurer located in Buenos Aires to wire a payment on bonds, via intermediary banks, that Argentina effectively has disowned? It can't. Today, Argentina just made it very clear that once again those desperate for page views by analyzing and overanalyzing an utterly meaningless court decision's implications for rogue sovereign debtor will have to try even harder.

I'm sure that Argentina is just one small step closer to another sovereign debt default...and their bonds will be worthless...again. How many times has that happened in the last century? I've lost track.

This Reuters story is embedded in a Zero Hedge commentary from Sunday...and I thank reader 'David in California' for sending it our way. The link is here.

The Association of British Insurers says institutions are reluctant to invest in high street banks because of increasing risks and shrinking returns.

The trade group is preparing to deliver a hard-hitting report to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards on behalf of its members who control £1.5 trillion assets and are among the bank’s biggest investors.

In preliminary evidence last week, the ABI told the Commission: “We are concerned that banking regulators are currently focused on financial stability at the expense of economic growth. This has a negative impact on banks’ investability.”

The ABI added: “The prospects of sustainable economic recovery in the UK are to some extent dependent on banks being able to raise the funds necessary to finance the growth of small and medium-sized companies. From the perspective of institutional investors, it is essential that banks should be an investable proposition.”

This story showed up on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site late on Saturday night GMT...and I thank Donald Sinclair for sharing it with us. The link is here.

The Bank of England produced a sobering analysis of the outlook for the UK economy this week.

Its quarterly Inflation Report forecast showed that economic growth was likely to be lower than previously projected and inflation would be higher.

If this sounds familiar, it is. You’ve heard this story before. Since the onset of the financial crisis, the Bank has been continually revising down its forecasts for economic growth and moving its inflation forecasts up.

The official explanation for these forecast errors is that demand – from consumer spending, the public sector, businesses that want to invest and overseas markets – has been much weaker than expected. Indeed, Sir Mervyn King majored on the weakness of the global economy as the main factor contributing to the Bank’s weaker forecast of growth in this week’s latest Inflation Report.

This story was posted in The Telegraph late on Saturday evening as well...and I borrowed it from yesterday's edition of the King Report. The link is here.

The European Union looks set for fresh trouble this week as an extraordinary summit called to agree a long-term trillion-euro budget heads for an ugly showdown, possibly even failure.

Already weakened by three years of economic crisis, the 27-nation bloc of half a billion people faces new trauma at the two-day summit starting Thursday after weeks of talks that have exposed stark divisions between pro- and anti-austerity nations, as well as between the haves and have-nots.

"It's a lose-lose summit," said a senior EU diplomat. "Absolutely no one will leave this summit content if by chance we reach a solution."

"We don't exclude a breakdown," another diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

This AFP story showed up on the france24.com Internet site on Sunday afternoon...and it's worth reading if you have the time. I thank Marshall Angeles for finding this for us...and the link is here. The outstanding photo of the devilishly handsome Herman Van Rompuy is worth the trip all by itself.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded France's sovereign rating by one notch to Aa1 from Aaa, the agency said on Monday, citing the country's uncertain fiscal outlook as a result of "deteriorating economic prospects."

Moody's said it is maintaining a negative outlook on the country due to structural challenges and a "sustained loss of competitiveness" in the country.

Standard & Poor's has a AA-plus rating and negative outlook on France, which it downgraded by one notch in January from AAA. Fitch Ratings has France at AAA, also with a negative outlook.

The loss of Aaa rating from two agencies poses a problem for France, as investment funds often require their best assets to have a minimum of two top notch ratings in order to remain in their portfolios.

This Reuters story was filed just after 6 p.m. in New York yesterday evening...and it's courtesy of Roy Stephens. The link is here.

Portugal's experiment with austerity has failed, and the economy is in a worse state than the government or the country's lenders realize, the head of its main opposition party said on Friday.

Socialist party leader Antonio Jose Seguro also said he did not think the country would meet its budget goals, rejecting a planned 4 billion euros of spending cuts in 2013-14 as an attack on the country's welfare state.

"The country is in a more serious situation than the government and 'troika' (of lenders) realize," Seguro told journalists. "There is a consensus in Portuguese society that the austerity recipe has failed."

This Reuters story was filed from Lisbon early Friday morning Eastern time...and is another item I borrowed from Monday's edition of the King Report. The link is here.

Yesterday, several thousand Spanish policemen took the streets of Madrid protesting the latest round of austerity, which included frozen pensions and the elimination of the Christmas bonus (they will have many more opportunities to protest not only the loss of any future upside, but the eventual cut of existing wages and entitlements).

As Russian Today reports, protesters blew whistles, shouted slogans, and carried anti-austerity banners as they marched through the city centre to the interior ministry. But perhaps the most telling message read on one of the slogans, was the following: "Citizens! Forgive us for not arresting those truly responsible for this crisis: bankers and politicians."

I hope someone in Spain puts a medal on this guy. There isn't a soul out there that doesn't feel precisely the same sentiment no matter what country they live in. This Zero Hedge story from Sunday was sent to me by Marshall Angeles...and the link is here.

An agreement among Greece's creditors on how to reduce its large debt pile should be "rooted in reality and not in wishful thinking," the head of the International Monetary Fund said as she heads into a tense meeting with European leaders.

Christine Lagarde, the IMF's managing director, cancelled the last leg of her visit to Asia, skipping a Southeast Asian summit in Cambodia, to return to Brussels for a meeting on Tuesday of the Eurogroup on Greece.

As she left the Philippines, Lagarde told Reuters she would push for a permanent solution to Greece's debts to avoid prolonged uncertainty and further damage to the Greek economy.

To Lagarde, that means countries in the euro zone should send a strong signal they remain committed to Greece by agreeing to reduce the debt Athens owes them.

This Reuters story, filed from Manila, showed up on The New York Times' website on Saturday evening...and I thank Phil Barlett for sending it along. The link is here.

Germany, Holland, and the creditor states of northern Europe have not lost a single cent on eurozone rescue packages, so far...but Greece needs €100bn of debt forgiveness to get back on its feet, and a lot of this is coming Germany’s way.

They have lent money, at a theoretical profit. They have issued a fistful of guarantees to Europe’s twin bail-out funds, covering Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and soon Cyprus. They have taken on opaque and potentially huge liabilities through the European Central Bank.

Yet little has disturbed the illusion that the euro is a free lunch for the surplus powers. An assumption persists that the creditors will - and should - be spared the consequences of flooding Southern Europe with excess capital.

The International Monetary Fund says the country cannot claw its way back to viability unless EU governments and bodies take their punishment. The Fund’s Board and the powers behind it - the US, China, Japan, Brazil - will withdraw if the current farce goes on.

This must read Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering was posted on The Telegraph's website on Sunday afternoon GMT...and I thank reader "h c" for bringing it to our attention. The link is here.

A top Iraqi diplomat urged Arab states to “use the weapon of oil” against the United States because of its alliance with Israel, raising more questions about the Middle Eastern nation's allegiance to the country that freed it from a ruthless dictatorship.

The shocking statement from a democratic government in power only after the U.S. and allies ousted murderous dictator Saddam Hussein in a costly and bloody war laid bare the Middle Eastern nation’s true allegiance.

"Iraq will invite (Arab) ministers to use the weapon of oil, with the aim of asserting real pressure on the United States and whoever stands with Israel," Qais al-Azzawy told reporters in Cairo on Friday.

"The economic weapon is the strongest one to be put into effect now, to assure of standing by the Palestinian people, in light of there being no military power that can stand in the face of Israel at the present time,” he added.

This Fox News story from last Thursday was also from yesterday's edition of the King Report...and the link is here.

Emboldened by the rising power of Islamists around the region, the Palestinian militant group Hamas demanded new Israeli concessions to its security and autonomy before it halts its rocket attacks on Israel, even as the conflict took an increasing toll on Sunday.

After five days of punishing Israeli airstrikes on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and no letup in the rocket fire in return, representatives of Israel and Hamas met separately with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Sunday for indirect talks about a truce.

The talks came as an Israeli bomb struck a house in Gaza on Sunday afternoon, killing 11 people, in the deadliest single strike since the conflict between Israel and Hamas escalated on Wednesday. The strike, along with several others that killed civilians across the Gaza Strip, signaled that Israel was broadening its range of targets on the fifth day of the campaign.

This story was posted on The New York Times website on Sunday...and is another offering from Roy Stephens. The link is here.

Most of the world's media are currently obsessed with the new Chinese leadership, the prospect of the United States tumbling over the fiscal cliff and the latest grim news from the eurozone. The smart money, however, is switching focus to Japan, which could be gestating the next global disaster.

In the last quarter, Japan's gross domestic product shrank 0.9 percent and industrial production is down 8 percent. Its flagship car manufacturer, Toyota, has announced another of now routine mass recalls of its vehicles.

And Japan's once flagship electronics giants are floundering. Sharp is forecasting more than $5 billion in losses this year, Panasonic is shedding 10,000 jobs and Sony's stock hit a 30-year low as the company scrambled to raise $2 billion in new cash.

Some of these problems can be attributed to the crisis in Japan's relations with China, triggered by a territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands, followed by boycotts of Japanese goods. The underlying crisis, however, is far more serious.

This must read UPI story was filed from London yesterday...and it's also courtesy of Roy Stephens. The link is here.

1. James Turk: "This is the Chart That Every Investor Needs to See". 2. John Embry: "$67 Trillion Shadow Banking System & $10,000 Gold". 3. Robert Fitzwilson: "We are Speeding Towards Economic & Social Devastation". 4. Michael Pento: "Risk Assets are Ready to Get Red Hot & Soar". 5. Art Cashin audio interview is here. 6. Ben Davies audio interview is here.

Market analyst and fund manager Bruce Pile argues today that the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, a division of the Bank for International Settlements, is, with its "Basel III" banking rules, gradually returning gold to its role as international money and that this will increase demand for gold among banks everywhere.

If Basel III is actually going to return gold to the center of the world's monetary system, they are doing it slowly. However, one thing I can absolutely guarantee is that when they do make that move, there won't be a person on Planet Earth that will be able to trade the news, because the announcement will be done on a weekend when the markets are closed. The general public will either be all the way in, or all the way out. This commentary is embedded in a GATA release from Sunday...and the link is here.

Mostly road-less and undeveloped, the Bristol Bay watershed doesn't look like a battlefield, yet it has become the Gettysburg of natural resource conflict in Alaska.

Located some 250 miles (400 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage, the 40,000-square-mile (104,000-square-kilometer) region is home to the largest population of wild salmon in the world. Every summer, 30 to 40 million adult sockeye salmon return to the bay, then swim upstream to complete an ancient cycle of renewal. And that's where two vastly different interests have clashed, because located in the upper reaches of the spawning grounds, a few miles north of Iliamna Lake, is a world-class ore deposit containing about 80 billion pounds (36 billion kilograms) of copper and 110 million ounces (3 million kilograms) of gold.

On one side of the conflict are two companies—Northern Dynasty Minerals, of British Columbia, and Anglo American, an international behemoth headquartered in London. Called the Pebble Partnership, after the name of the mine they have proposed, Northern Dynasty and Anglo insist that a large-scale industrial enterprise—including a pit mine up to 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) wide and 1,700 feet (520 meters) deep, a comparable underground operation, a mill to crush and separate metals, and tailings ponds that likely will dwarf the mines—would pose no serious threat to habitat and wildlife.

This story was posted over on the National Geographic website on Friday...and it's courtesy of Washington state reader S.A. The link is here...and it's definitely worth skimming.

I found this 10-photo essay posted on the bbc.co.uk Internet site...and it was embedded in a Zero Hedge story on Sunday. The photos...and associated captions...are well worth looking at. I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for sending them along...and the link is here.

Scott posted commentary over at the silverseek.com website on Friday...and here is the opening paragraph from it...

There is a Bullish Inverted "Head and Shoulders" pattern on the daily chart. What makes this pattern so attractive on the next breakout above 32.94 is the fact that all of the Open Interest that was put on to the short side of the contract in Silver over the past month will be in the “red” and feeling pressure to exit the trade before it gets too late. Traders who want to get long will begin feeling they are missing the boat on the next breakout and when they begin to move off the sidelines in what is known as the "Initiative" type trade, we have potential for an "Igniter Move" in price and volume. Igniter moves increase the probabilities for sustained vertical development.

Well, that certainly proved to be the case on Monday, so let's see how things progress from here as the week moves along. The link to Scott's complete commentary, plus charts, is here.

In its ‘Interim Silver Market Review’, the Thomson Reuters unit highlighted growing interest in precious metals, especially gold, as a hedge against possible high future inflation and currency debasement, following a series of announcements of monetary loosening from the major central banks.

GFMS global head of metals analytics Philip Klapwijk said the rejuvenated gold market, along with ongoing monetary loosening, persistent ultra-low short-term interest rates and rising fears about high inflation in the long run rekindled investors’ interest in silver.

“We wouldn’t be surprised also if silver’s gains outpaced gold’s, not only as the usual result of lower liquidity, but also as memories of early 2011’s painful losses continue to fade,” he said in a statement.

This miningweekly.com story was filed from Johannesburg yesterday...and is worth reading. I thank Elliot Simon for sharing it with us...and the link is here.

In their analysis, ScotiaMocatta acknowledged, “There remain a multitude of factors influencing the gold price, but one of the main reasons we are still bullish is because of the mess the Western world is in.”

“Europe has a debt problem that is proving all but impossible to solve and all efforts to date have revolved around throwing more money at the problem to avoid the monetary system from breaking down,” ScotiaMocatta observed. “That should be reason enough to be bullish for gold and we think the latest move higher in gold prices shows that it is.”

“It is hard to have much confidence in the economic outlook and in governments’ ability to get a grip with all the interlinked problems.”

Considering Scotia Mocatta is one of the largest precious metal shorts on the Comex, this is quite a comment. But they also predict that gold will fall to $1,100/$1,200 once the bull market runs its course. What are these idiots smoking, because we'll never see these prices again...ever. The story was posted on the mineweb.com Internet site on Monday...and I thank Ulrike Marx for her second offering in today's column. The link is here.

Option Pit Mentoring & Consulting COO Mark Sebastian discusses gold volatility. He speaks with Deirdre Bolton on Bloomberg Television's "Money Moves."

This very short video clip was posted on their website yesterday...and it's worth a look. I thank Washington state reader S.A. for sending it along. The link is here.

Far from being backward, as their government thinks they are, Indians are actually the most successful investors in the world for having placed their faith in gold, GoldMoney research director Alasdair Macleod writes.

Macleod notes that many if not most Indian gold purchases are actually monetary gold as much as jewelry. Many other Asians, Macleod concludes, are following the Indian example, as they "instinctively know that what is actually happening is that paper money is going down, and hard experience tells them it never goes up."

I thank Chris Powell for the headline and the introductory paragraphs. Macleod's commentary is headlined "Understanding Asian Gold Demand" and it's posted at the goldmoney.com Internet site here.

On Monday, the Reserve Bank of India directed banks not to give loans for purchase of gold in any form, including primary gold, bullion, and jewellery, to dissuade people from indulging in speculative activity.

"It is advised that no advances should be granted by banks for purchase of gold in any form, including primary gold, gold bullion, gold jewellery, gold coins, units of gold exchange-traded funds, and units of gold mutual funds," the RBI said in a notification.

No advances should be granted by banks against gold bullion to dealers or traders in gold if, in their assessment, such advances are likely to be used for purposes of financing gold purchase at auctions or speculative holding of stocks and bullion, it said.

I found this story embedded in a GATA release yesterday. It was posted on the indianexpress.com Internet site yesterday...and I consider it a must read. The link is here.

This rather long...46 minutes...podcast was posted over at Chris Martenson's Peak Prosperity website on Saturday...and I thank Elliot Simon for his last offering in today's column. I'm sure it's worth your time, if you have it...and the link is here.

GATA consultants Rob Kirby of Kirby Analytics in Toronto and GoldMoney founder James Turk appeared this week on Max Keiser's program on the Russia Today network, "The Keiser Report," to discuss manipulation of the gold and silver markets. GATA figures heavily in the discussion.

Max is on an outrageous rampage here...as it's the two year anniversary special of their Crash JPM, Buy Silver campaign and, as you are already beginning to suspect, he has nothing nice to say about JPMorgan Chase...and he isn't afraid to say so, either. Until I heard this youtube.com video, I had no idea that Russia Today is as widely viewed as it is. Of course it's not distributed in the USA, except on youtube.com...but elsewhere on Planet Earth, it's a different story entirely.

The show runs 25 minutes...and is a must watch. It was posted on Saturday...and it already had 30,000+ hits by the time I posted it at 2:52 a.m. Eastern time this morning. I found it in a GATA release...and the link is here.