Free Republic

Most anybody in the mortgage business will tell you that August was a month that will live in infamy: The market was in turmoil, as doubts about the stability of subprime loans spread to other sectors of the mortgage world. How bad was it? A survey of mortgage brokers suggests that one in three consumers who recently signed purchase contracts canceled in August -- up from just 4 percent three years ago, according to the research firm that conducted the survey for Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade journal. The cancellation rate undoubtedly was fed by two scenarios playing out: Many...

FIAT and CREDIT – “The coming Financial Holocaust”   By Nigel Maund June 1, 2006   clivemaund.com Setting the Scene This article builds on earlier essays by the writer based on a similar theme. However, as the reader will see, this gold boom cycle will be like none before it, and, as is often the case in human affairs, events of the past, whilst similar in outline, may differ significantly from presently unfolding events. To quote Winston Churchill, they are "variants on a familiar theme". That theme is determined by repetition of man's own inherent weaknesses: lust, greed and...

My wife and I have recently purchased about 11K worth of gold. Our average buy price is at $650 per ounce. We have about another 15K of "mad money" we are not sure what to do with. We both have IRA's and money in some mutual funds. No debts outside of mortgage. This money is not emergency type funds. This is absolute "mad money". But I do not want to sit in a bank for 4%. With everything going on in the world, how safe are the banks anyways?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. benchmark gold futures scaled a new 25-year high at $700 an ounce on Tuesday, boosted by relentless investor buying powered by geopolitical concerns and expectations of further price gains ahead, dealers said. By 11:30 a.m. EDT, June delivery gold on the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division was up $20.10 or 2.9 percent at a session peak of $700, which marked the loftiest level for futures since September 1980.

Before the U.S. House of Representatives, April 25, 2006: The financial press, and even the network news shows, have begun reporting the price of gold regularly. For twenty years, between 1980 and 2000, the price of gold was rarely mentioned. There was little interest, and the price was either falling or remaining steady. Since 2001 however, interest in gold has soared along with its price. With the price now over $600 an ounce, a lot more people are becoming interested in gold as an investment and an economic indicator. Much can be learned by understanding what the rising dollar price...

Gold continued its downward correction for a third day in succession but held above the psychological $500 level during European trading on Thursday.Dealers said the precious metal was finding support at the lower levels. Gold sank to $500.25 but recovered to trade at $506.70/$507.50 a troy ounce late in London. But there could be further downward pressure on prices after the Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM) took steps to allow sell-orders to be cleared. Gold has fallen by the maximum daily limit imposed by TOCOM immediately after opening for the last three days so not all sell orders have been processed....