U.K. Royal Mint First-Quarter Gold Output Slips 50%

The U.K.’s Royal Mint, established in the 13th century, said first-quarter gold coin production shrank 50 percent.

Irish Banks Need $43 Billion on ‘Appalling’ Lending

Ireland’s banks need $43 billion in new capital after “appalling” lending decisions left the country’s financial system on the brink of collapse.

State Debt Woes Grow Too Big to Camouflage

California, New York and other states are showing many of the same signs of debt overload that recently took Greece to the brink — budgets that will not balance, accounting that masks debt, the use of derivatives to plug holes, and armies of retired public workers who are counting on benefits that are proving harder and harder to pay.

March Records Fastest Ever CMBS Delinquency Deterioration In History According To TREPP

On top of the previously announced record delinquency rate for Fannie, here comes some even worse news out of commercial real estate, which together with record high downtown vacancy rates, should be enough to push all REITs to 1052 week highs tomorrow. RealPoint has just released its March CMBS delinquency data, according to which delinquencies hit an all time high 6%. Not to be ignored, according to TREPP this number is even worse, at nearly 8%, after the single biggest monthly spike in 30 day + delinquencies.

UK Treasury Relases FOIA On Gordon Brown's 1998 Gold Sale, Catches Tony Blair Lying, Questions US Treasury's Good Delivery Standards

One of the bigger stories in the UK over the past several days, has been the increasing pressure on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to justify his sale of 395 tons of gold in 17 auctions in the period from 1998 through 2002, when Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer, a role identical to the one Tim Geithner now performs in the US as Treasury Secretary.

Deceit, secrecy surround British gold sales as records are pried loose

Today's story from the Daily Mail in London, appended, shows what a pinch the British government and other gold market-rigging governments are in. They are forced to conceal information and cannot explain why their selling gold at lousy prices was actually a great success of policy -- a matter of sustaining the value of their own currencies and government bonds. Let those who deny the gold price suppression scheme explain the terrified secrecy around Western central bank gold reserves. Indeed, let them put to a central bank even one critical question about gold and then wonder aloud when they don't get an answer. Until they do, they can be presumed to be intellectually dishonest.

That technicals says about Gold

Why gold will not make new highs or lows this year