Free Republic

Heavenly bodies stir up routine catastrophes March 18 2003 at 01:30PM By Graeme Addison Legend has it that when two people get together and er... bond, the Earth will move – at least in a metaphorical sense. Likewise, it takes two heavenly bodies, an impactor and a target, to come together with Earth-shattering force to form a crater. There’s nothing dreamlike about this: it happens, frequently, throughout the solar system. Impact catastrophes are routine. Just over two-billion years ago, a chunk of asteroid at least the size of Table Mountain struck the landmass that is now South Africa. It hurtled...

The price of gold spiked up a bit. Hmm...maybe gold will now recognize inflation? Interesting...it's been holding stead for a long time will the price of almost everything goes through the roof.

A restaurant in Glasgow has created a pizza topped with 24-carat gold leaf after feeling inspired by Salt Bae’s infamous £850 steak, which is coated in gold. Chef Salt Bae, whose real name is Nusret Gökçe, has been making headlines for his expensive dishes at his Knightsbridge restaurant, where one group of diners reportedly left with a £37,000 bill. The chef initially rose to fame after a video of him sprinkling salt over a steak at his first restaurant in Turkey went viral in 2017. Now, Nonna Said in Glasgow has launched its own Gold Digger pizza, costing just £6.30,...

A team of treasure hunters could be on the verge of unearthing the “world’s largest treasure hoard,” said to be worth over $20 billion.The team, known as the “Temple Twelve,” have been searching in Finland for the “Lemminkainen Hoard,” which consists of gold, jewels and artifacts, since 1987.If the hoard is discovered, it is thought it will be the most valuable haul ever found.

"To fathom the magnitude of Venezuela’s financial collapse, travel southeast from Caracas, past the oil fields and over the Orinoco River, and head deep into the savanna that blankets one of the remotest corners of the country. There, in the barber shops and restaurants and hotels that constitute the main strip of one dusty little outpost after another, you’ll find prices displayed in grams of gold. A one-night stay at a hotel? That’ll be half a gram. Lunch for two at a Chinese restaurant? A quarter of a gram. A haircut? An eighth of a gram, please. Jorge Pena, 20,...

Gold rose on Tuesday as rising inflationary fears weighed on investors’ appetite for risk and a pullback in U.S. Treasury yields added to the appeal of the non-yielding bullion. Spot gold rose 0.4% to $1,761.41 per ounce by 1159 GMT, while U.S. gold futures were up 0.4% at $1,762.40. A global energy crunch has threatened the economic outlook and fanned inflation fears, driving some investors toward safe-haven assets. “There’s more risk aversion in the market and gold is benefiting from that, coupled with concerns about inflation and cooling of the global economy,” Commerzbank analyst Daniel Briesemann said. If stagflation talks...

Poland’s central bank, the National Bank of Poland (NBP), which stunned gold markets back in 2019 when it purchased 100 tonnes of gold bars in London and then promptly flew the gold back to Warsaw, has just confirmed that it now plans to buy another 100 tonnes of gold during 2022. The news was confirmed this week by Adam Glapiński, president of Poland’s central bank, in a 5 October special interview with Polish magazine ‘Strefa Biznesu’ in advance of the ‘Congress 590’ economic conference in Warsaw. As well as heading the Polish central bank, Glapiński is also an economics professor....

On the surface, Kyrgyzstan is one of the world’s poorest nations, but just beneath the ground it holds almost unimaginable wealth. Carved high into the side of the Tien Shan mountain range, the Kumtor gold mine was built to extract that wealth, making the Central Asian nation, and the Canadian firm behind the project, rich in the process. Instead, the vast mine, one of the world’s largest, has become the center of a long-running political row. In May, just weeks after being inaugurated as the country’s president following violent riots last October, Sadyr Japyrov ordered officials to roll in and...

Many are asking why gold is not rising, as just about every other commodity makes new highs in the backdrop of inflationary tailwinds.That’s a very fair question.Some are even saying gold is dead, a silly and “barbarous” old relic of ancient times, ancient math and ancient common sense.Needless to say, we beg to differ, not because we are Swiss-based gold bugs, but simply…well… let’s explain.Current Price vs. Current and Future RolesFor those who see history and math as guides rather than “barbarous” and outdated disciplines, their convictions regarding gold’s role, and even price trajectory, do not wane or rise simply...

Fifty years ago this August, United States President Richard Nixon went on TV right before Bonanza, a popular western series starring Canadian Lorne Greene, and shocked the world. Nixon unhitched the U.S. dollar from the value of gold. The move changed the global monetary system almost overnight. The eventual result was the floating international exchange rates we still use today.

Anyone watching Tuesday’s US market cash session sees red across the board. One of the strongest selling programs in months dumped stocks, and equity volatility exploded to the upside. Quite frankly, this could be the beginning of a market storm. Ahead of what could be further market turmoil, Palantir Technologies warned about an upcoming “black swan event,” according to Bloomberg. The software company, co-founded by the technology billionaire Peter Thiel and CEO Alex Karp, wrote in a filing last week that it stockpiled $50.7 million in gold bars earlier this month. The filing also said it acquired technology startups, blank-check...

Tomorrow Sunday August 15, 1971 is the 50th anniversary of Richard Nixon closing the Gold Exchange Window that allowed foreign holders of US Dollars to exchange their US Dollars for gold priced at $35/ounce......an agreement that had been in place since the end of WW II.... When this decision was announced it's hard to imagine the impact after 50 years...think of Bill Clinton getting NAFTA passed, repealing the Glass/Stegall Act, think of GWB invading Iraq and Afghanistan, etc....actions by President's have monumental impact over time, when at the time it seemed to be insignificant... Not advocating one position over the...

In the volume void that follows the resumption of futures trading, and which saw US futures trade modestly lower, a sudden burst of selling in the gold futures contract sent Gold futures plunged as low as $1,677.0 or almost $100 lower from the Friday close of $1,761.50. Together with Friday’s post-payroll plunge, this has been the biggest 2-day drop in gold (in dollar terms) since the March 2020 crash.

News Bites Why did gold price drop 2% today? More downside coming? Gareth Soloway on metals, stocks, Bitcoin David Lin David Lin Friday August 06, 2021 15:56 Kitco News Gold price saw its biggest single-day drop today since June on the back of a strong jobs report.

by Samantha FosterTamyra Mensah-Stock won a gold medal in the women’s 68 kg freestyle wrestling final on Tuesday.She is just the second America woman is history to win an Olympic wrestling gold medal.Tamyra was interviewed shortly after she won. She was overcome with emotion and hoped to inspire young girls.VIDEO:And then, when asked how she felt about representing the US she beamed with pride and said she loves the US and gave all the glory to God.What a contrast to the America-hate spewing from entitled brats like Olympic losers Meghan Rapinoe and Gwen Berry.VIDEO:

Tamyra Mensah-Stock might have been the happiest person at the Olympics even before she stepped onto a wrestling mat here Tuesday night. She had, after all, packed a karaoke machine, which, during a pre-Games training camp, she used every single day. But also because, as she said last month: “I definitely find pleasure in getting beat up and beating up people.” She did much more of the latter here in Tokyo, and so, throughout her stay, she was a 5-foot-5, 150-pound, frighteningly muscular bundle of joy. Every sentence she uttered seemed to end with a laugh or an exclamation. “I’m...

American Sunisa Lee became the new Olympic women’s all-around champion Thursday, following the stunning departure of her fellow Team USA teammate from the competition. Lee scored 57.433 to finish ahead of Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, who got second-place, and Russia’s Angelina Melnikova, who got third. Her victory extended the United States’ domination of the all-around event following Olympic gold medal champions Carly Patterson in 2004, Nastia Liukin in 2008, Gabby Douglas in 2012, and Simone Biles in 2016. “Coming into this competition I didn’t even think I could be competing for a gold medal,” Lee said afterward. “I was competing for...

The top three finishers of each Olympic competition are awarded the gold, silver, and bronze medals, respectively. While the name seems to imply it, Olympic gold medals are not 100% gold. At one time the prize given to the first-place finisher in each competition was solid gold, but now Olympic gold medals are made mostly from silver. For that matter, the second-place silver medals aren't always 100% silver either, though they do contain the same amount of silver as the gold medal. As for the third-place bronze medal, it is made of exactly what its name claims. The specific composition...

Reagan White House Budget Director and best-selling author David Stockman says, “This is not the time to be invested in the markets . . . . A reset is just a pleasant name or a clinical name for a crash of epic proportions, which we will have because the markets are so inflated. There are trillions of dollars that are at risk. To put a dimension on this thing or a way of sizing this, is we have a $60 trillion bubble on the balance sheets of 130 million people in American society, but especially in the top 5% to...

Curtin University research has found tiny amounts of gold can be trapped inside pyrite, commonly known as ‘fool’s gold’, which would make it much more valuable than its name suggests. This study, published in the journal Geology in collaboration with the University of Western Australia and the China University of Geoscience, provides an in-depth analysis to better understand the mineralogical location of the trapped gold in pyrite, which may lead to more environmentally friendly gold extraction methods. Lead researcher Dr. Denis Fougerouse from Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences said this new type of “invisible” gold has not previously...