-John Embry: Gold's Game-Changing Moment Could be Fast Approaching. Watch video here-http://envast.blogspot.com/2008/10/j...

-Gold Fields CEO said Gold to reach $1,000 next year and stay there. Watch video here-http://envast.blogspot.com/2008/10/g... or http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/...

-World gold production to decline 3% per year Cutifani. AngloGold Ashanti CEO Mark Cutifani says world gold production will continue to drop for the next five years and gold fundamentals will assert themselves. Read more here-http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/...

-Gammon Gold CE0 Sees Gold at $1,500 on Inflation Threat. Read more here-

-Peter Schiff CNBC interview on gold. Watch here-http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/12...

Consequently, investors should stay out of the DJIA and other major indices while they continue to hold gold, thereby keeping their money safe and sound until stock prices fall to more reasonable levels when measured in terms of gold. James Turk-Read more here-http://www.kitco.com/ind/Turk/turk_o... -

-Bangkok gold outlets stop weekend bar trade. Low world supplies and pronounced price swings have prompted local gold outlets to suspend trading of gold bars on Saturdays and Sundays until early next year, effective this weekend. Read more here-http://www.bangkokpost.com/251008_Bu...

-Vietnamese seek the security of gold. Read more here-

The front-page commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily said that Asian and European countries should banish the U.S. dollar from their direct trade relations for a start, relying only on their own currencies. A meeting between Asian and European leaders, starting on Friday in Beijing, presented the perfect opportunity to begin building a new international financial order, the newspaper said. Read more here-

CREDIT CARDS NEXT CRISIS

-Consumers Feel the Next Crisis: It's Credit Cards. First came the mortgage crisis. Now comes the credit card crisis. After years of flooding Americans with credit card offers and sky-high credit lines, lenders are sharply curtailing both, just as an eroding economy squeezes consumers. The pullback is affecting even creditworthy consumers and threatens an already beleaguered banking industry with another wave of heavy losses after an era in which it reaped near record gains from the business of easy credit that it helped create.

Lenders wrote off an estimated $21 billion in bad credit card loans in the first half of 2008 as more borrowers defaulted on their payments. With companies laying off tens of thousands of workers, the industry stands to lose at least another $55 billion over the next year and a half, analysts say. Currently, the total losses amount to 5.5 percent of credit card debt outstanding, and could surpass the 7.9 percent level reached after the technology bubble burst in 2001.

"If unemployment continues to increase, credit card net charge-offs could exceed historical norms," Gary L. Crittenden, Citigroup's chief financial officer, said. Faced with sobering conditions, companies that issue MasterCard, Visa and other cards are rushing to stanch the bleeding, even as options once easily tapped by borrowers to pay off credit card obligations, like home equity lines or the ability to transfer balances to a new card, dry up. Read more here-http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/bu...

-Russia begins to refuse credit cards in worsening global financial crisis. Russian businesses have begun to refuse credit cards as the global financial crisis worsens. Read more here-

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...

-The Bank of Israel cut the benchmark lending rate by a quarter of a percentage point, the second reduction in three weeks, as global financial turmoil imperils domestic economic growth and inflation expectations fall. The rate was reduced to 3.5 percent, a spokeswoman for the Jerusalem-based central bank said today. Read more here-

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...

-China cut interest rates for the third time in two months to stimulate growth in the world's fourth-largest economy after the global financial crisis curbed exports and production. The key one-year lending rate will drop to 6.66 percent from 6.93 percent, the People's Bank of China said on its Web site today. The deposit rate will fall to 3.60 percent from 3.87 percent. Read more here-http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...

-The Bank of Korea slashed interest rates by a record at an emergency meeting in an attempt to restore confidence after stocks lost a fifth of their value and the won fell to a decade low last week. Governor Lee Seong Tae lowered the seven-day repurchase rate by 75 basis points to 4.25 percent and cut rates on special loans for small and medium-sized companies to 2.5

percent from 3.25 percent, the central bank said in a statement in Seoul this week. It will also accept bonds issued by commercial banks as collateral in its money-market operations, giving them access to more funds. Read more here-http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...

REAL ESTATE

-House prices in 20 U.S. cities declined at the fastest pace on record as foreclosures climbed before the credit crisis deepened this month. The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index dropped 16.6 percent in August from a year earlier, as forecast, after a 16.3 percent decline in July. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007, and year-over-year records began in 2001.

The decrease in property values, which helped boost sales last month to the highest level of the year, will probably intensify in coming months as the latest tightening of credit markets threatens to dry up mortgage financing. Prolonged price declines may push even more houses into foreclosure, weakening consumer spending and the economy.

"There's still quite a bit further for prices to go down, even though the volume has probably bottomed out," William Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services Inc. in Boston, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. "Prices will probably find a bottom sometime next year." Read more here-http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...

-A majority of U.S. homeowners believe the value of their property fell over the past year, according to a survey of real estate market confidence by data company Zillow.com. The survey of 1,388 homeowners between Oct. 7 and Oct. 9 found 51 percent said their houses had lost value, while 49 percent believed the value had stayed the same or increased, Seattle-based Zillow found. In an earlier survey, taken June 30 to July 2, 38 percent said their homes had lost value and 62 percent said they had gained or stayed the same.

Three quarters of homes have actually fallen in value over the past year, Zillow said. ''The bad news on the general economy front is getting through to people and certainly is making their perception of home values more accurate,'' Zillow's Vice President of Data and Analytics Stan Humphries said in an interview. The median price of an existing home dropped to $191,600 in August, down from a record high of $230,200 in July 2006, according to the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors.

The disconnect between owners' perception of value and actual market conditions makes it harder for real estate agents to price homes to sell, Humphries said. Homeowners ''have a larger sense of the personal wealth of their portfolio than is actually the case,'' he said. Zillow's Home Value Misperception Index shrank to 16 in the third quarter from 32 in the second quarter.

An index value of zero indicates homeowner perceptions are in line with actual values. Homeowners also were less optimistic about the future. About 21 percent said they believe their home's value will rise over the next six months, compared with 32 percent who predicted price appreciation in the previous survey. About 57 percent said they thought property values in their local market will fall. Read more here-

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...

IRAN OPENS BASE AT HORMUZ STRAIT FOR GULF DEFENSE

-Iran opened a naval base on the Strait of Hormuz that's capable of keeping foreign forces out of the Persian Gulf, the chief of the Iranian navy said. "With this naval base, a new line of defense was created in the Persian Gulf,'' Admiral Habibollah Sayyari was cited today as saying by state-run Fars News.

"If necessary, we can prevent any enemy from entering the Persian Gulf's strategic area.'' The naval chief said the facility, which was inaugurated this week, is needed because of the presence of foreign forces in the region. The base in the southern port of Jask, 1,050 miles (1,690 kilometers) south of Tehran, is in the eastern part of the strait at the entrance to the Gulf.

The Strait of Hormuz has been the focus of increasing tension in recent months. Iran has said it may close the strait should the U.S. attack the country over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment as part of a nuclear program. Some 20 percent of the world's oil is shipped through the strait, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Read more here-http://www