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Those already outraged by the president's health care legislation now have a new bone of contention -- a scarcely noticed tack-on provision to the law that puts gold coin buyers and sellers under closer government scrutiny. The issue is rising to the fore just as gold coin dealers are attracting attention over sales tactics. Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will amend the Internal Revenue Code to expand the scope of Form 1099. Currently, 1099 forms are used to track and report the miscellaneous income associated with services rendered by independent contractors or self-employed individuals.

New Gold-Backed Currency Could be in Use Next Month By Rocky Vega 07/21/10 Alexandria, Virgina — Malaysia, well, at least its northern state of Kelantan, is putting the Islamic gold dinar and silver dirham into circulation as legal tender and it could be implemented as early as mid-August. It won’t be the first nation using gold coins — Indonesia has already minted about 25,000 pieces for use in Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore — but, they are going to be useable in a rather comprehensive fashion. According to The Guardian: “If information on its website is to be believed, the council...

I've been bullish on gold in varying degrees since 2001. Since then, the price has quintupled -- from about $250 an ounce to as much as $1,250. Over the same period, stocks show a net loss. And yet we still hear from some commentators that gold is a bad investment. Not just because it's gone up so much that maybe it's not positioned to go up more. That, at least, I could understand as an argument, though I disagree. I hear over and over that gold is always a bad investment, no matter what, when or why. In a nutshell...

VIENNA (Reuters Life!) – A Spanish precious metals trading company bought the world's largest gold coin for 3.27 million euros ($4.02 million), its exact material worth, from the estate of an insolvent investment firm at a rare auction in Vienna on Friday. The 100 kg (220.5 lb) piece, one of only five Canadian $1,000,000 Maple Leaf coins the Royal Canadian Mint has ever produced, was snapped up immediately in a written bid from ORO direct, a gold trading company based in Madrid.

Weiss Research Natural Resources Analyst Sean Brodrick expects the bull market for precious metals to run for "quite some time," with gold hitting $1,450 /oz. by year-end and silver at $25 not long after. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Sean sees silver reasserting itself as a monetary, investment and industrial metal. South of the border, some of the Mexican miners have an "embarrassment of riches"-which have largely escaped the attention of Wall Street. The Gold Report: You recently remarked that we're "trillions of dollars in debt and we can't seem to grow our way out of it,"...

Gold added another $11.30 Tuesday to hit $1,226 an ounce, and although the yellow metal is still well off its nominal all-time high of about $1,240 set just a few weeks ago, you don't have to be a member of the build-a-bunker-in-Montana crowd to believe gold could hit $2,500 in the next couple of years. David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist at Canada's Gluskin Sheff, tends to be pretty bearish, but he's also about as dispassionate and data-driven a guy as you can find. In other words, he's hardly some kooky gold bug. And if past relationships among data sets...

In today’s New York Times, Ross Douthat takes on Rand Paul and paleoconservatism on the Civil Rights Act and other issues. “Like many groups that find themselves in intellectually uncharted territory,” writes Douthat, “they have trouble distinguishing between ideas that deserve a wider hearing and ideas that are crankish or worse. (Hence Ron Paul’s obsession with the gold standard and his son’s weakness for conspiracy theories.)” Douthat is being a bit unfair here. Paleoconservatism isn’t intellectually uncharted territory; whatever its faults or merits, its acolytes built the philosophical foundations of Cold War conservatism. But I don’t want to digress into...

The Bank of Greece has received as much as $409 per coin, which works out to a price of more than $1,700 per ounce of gold! Prices paid on the black market are reckoned to be even higher.

The man that predicted the economic and financial collapse two years ago advised people that are concerned about inflation to buy Spam rather than gold. As you can't turn on a TV these days without seeing an ad for gold or some economist recommending you buy the precious metal, Nouriel Roubini's comment on Friday's "Real Time" deliciously went against the tide of financial advisors across the fruited plain. "Gold has no intrinsic value," he amazingly told host Bill Maher. "If you're really worried about say inflation rising, I would buy Spam."

When gold prices turn skyward, like they did for the past two weeks before some recent flattening, some mix of greed, fear and uncertainty are likely ruling the market. What better time to remember what really drives prices over the long-term: market fundamentals. Through that lens, gold might not be such a hot investment. The gold market works much like any other, with supply and demand eventually equalizing, and runaway prices returning to long-term averages. Since 1980, the price of gold has averaged about $440 an ounce in U.S. dollars. But much like U.S. home prices over this decade, it...

We have crossed the Rubicon and events in the world economy are now likely to unfold in a totally uncontrollable fashion. Clueless governments still don’t understand that it is their ruinous actions that have created a credit infested and bankrupt world. They will continue to prescribe the same remedy that caused the problem in the first place, namely more credit and more printed money. The consequences are clear; we will have hyperinflation, economic and human misery as well as social unrest...

Anyone who listens to talk Radio knows that many shows are predicting more economic problems. Not the least of which is Inflation 'and financial instability caused by massive deficits and the public spending currently taking place under the Obama Administration . This has led to a number of Gold companies advertising on Conservative Talk Radio. The most prominent of these companies is Goldline. Now it appears that a Liberal Democrat Congressman may be getting ready to start some sort of Government or Liberal offensive against Goldline. Today Democrat Anthony Wiener is suppose to have a press conference to issue some...

Here's Why The Gold Run Is Just Getting Started The Mad Hedge Fund Trader May. 18, 2010, 5:18 PM The good news is that you no longer have to be crazy to buy gold. Until recently, certifiable believers chasing the barbaric relic were driven by a host of urban legends and conspiracy theories, such as the imminent bankruptcy of the US Treasury, Fort Knox holding only titanium bars that had been painted gold, Weimar style hyperinflation that is just around the corner, or the gold ETF (GLD) owning only paper, and not physical gold. No more. The long term structural...

Diversification is the most important part to any solid financial plan, and precious metals are no exception. Silver investors should plan to diversify within their silver holdings to protect their wealth and to allow for opportunities to profit in the future. Diversification in Silver The variety of silver products available to investors is unreal. From junk silver and American Eagles to the generic silver round and bars, silver investors have more choices than any other kind of investor. However, despite having numerous choices, silver investors often choose to buy only their favorite coin, bar, or round without effectively diversifying their...

TOKYO - Investors are finally giving gold's "ugly sister" a second look. Silver's gains in recent months have significantly outpaced gold's, with silver climbing around 30% since early February, compared with gold's nearly 17% price gain. And some analysts say silver hasn't yet caught the attention it deserves. Investors "are not taking notice yet it looks like the world is far more focusing on gold," said Gijsbert Groenewegen, a managing partner at Silver Arrow Capital Management. That's fair to say given that silver's more than two-year high above $19 pales in comparison to gold's highest-ever settlement price of more than...

Gold prices are soaring because of growing inflation fears--both the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve seem to be on the path to permanently easy money with the Greek bailout and huge U.S. budget deficits. Neither the reforms attached to the Greek bailout nor banking legislation in Congress get at the structural problems that caused failures in Athens and on Wall Street. Soft reform is no reform--investors are fearful too much money will undermine the value of euro bonds and U.S. Treasuries--even if those bonds don't outright default. The bailout for Greece and aid for other debt ridden Mediterranean...

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Sears Holdings Corp (SHLD.O), which expanded its layaway program to help cash-strapped consumers pay for purchases during the recession, is now helping its customers exchange their jewelry for cash as gold prices soar. The new service, available at the jewelry departments of Sears and Kmart stores, allows customers to send their gold and silver items to Pro Gold Network, a company that buys precious metals from consumers. Pro Gold makes an offer on the gold or silver and the consumer can choose to accept the offer or have the items returned, free of charge, Sears said.

When the mentality toward the market becomes negative, Cramer said during Monday’s Mad Money, there is nothing you can do to change it. But you can try and make some money. Buying gold is not only the best play on market negativity today, Cramer explained, it is your insurance against economic chaos and inflation. Here are six reasons why you should buy gold right now: Dependability: Expected to climb to $2,000 an ounce, Cramer said the precious metal tends to rise when other currencies fall. Can’t Be Copied: As the commercial says, “Central banks are printing money like mad.” That’s...

Beyond the Point of No Return: You Need to Buy Gold - Bud Conrad by: The Report May 13, 2010 "We're heading toward government devaluing its currency to devaluate its debt in order to survive. That means you need to protect yourself. You can't just have savings accounts paying no interest. You need to go and buy gold," says Bud Conrad, chief economist with Casey Research, in this exclusive Gold Report interview. Despite the grim outlook for the U.S. dollar and other paper currencies worldwide, Conrad believes he and other speakers at the recent Casey Research 2010 Crisis and Opportunity...

Is The S&P As Measured In Gold The Ultimate Sign Of The Fed's Bluff Being Called? Joe Weisenthal May. 13, 2010, 9:02 AM Last night we jokingly posted a chart of lean hogs priced in gold, but where you see this kind of calculation typically made is in stocks. Arthur Cutten at Jesse's Cafe Americain has posted the latest update of this, and not surprisingly, it's an ugly chart. Cutten argues that this is why Bernanke "fears" gold. We're not so sure if that's what it means, but it is interesting. Thoughts? [snip]