Collapse predicted as housing prices continue to soar

Predictions have flooded the Internet in China this week about the country's runaway property market collapsing in 2011.

L.A. to Run Out of Cash in a Month, Controller Says (Update1)

Los Angeles will run out of cash on May 5, city Controller Wendy Greuel said today in a release in which she requested a $90 million transfer of reserve funds to pay bills.

Paranoids have enemies, radical gold bugs have Wall Street

Paranoids notoriously have enemies, but sometimes they have friends too. Long-derided financial conspiracy theories are finally being reported in the mainstream media. Could be ominous.

Lihir Gold rejects A$9.2bn Newcrest bid

Lihir Gold, the Australian miner, on Thursday rejected an A$9.2bn (US$8.4bn) takeover offer from Newcrest Mining, the country’s top gold miner, thwarting its plan to create the world’s fourth-biggest gold producer

Regulator seeks to rein in energy market trading by big Wall Street firms

The nation's commodities regulator is proposing to limit the vast amounts of oil, natural gas and other vital goods the world's biggest investment firms can buy and sell, seeking to eliminate the unfettered access these companies have had to energy markets for 20 years.

Fed Reveals Bear Stearns Assets It Swallowed in Firm’s Rescue

After months of litigation and political scrutiny, the Federal Reserve yesterday ended a policy of secrecy over its Bear Stearns Cos. bailout.

A “New Dynamic” in the Gold Market

The shorts in gold – and particularly the shorts in silver – felt some pain today. Gold climbed $11.80 to close on the Comex at $1125.10, a 1.1% gain for the day. Silver did nearly twice as well, up 2.1% for the day and ending at $17.876, the highest in ten weeks. The gold/silver ratio fell to 62.9 from 63.6 the day before.