"...Just like the Bank of England, the US Fed seems to have Britney-sized 'issues' with its core stock-in-trade – money itself..."

There are lots of reasons why a small company share can go up in price quickly. Usually it's an innovative new product, a new market, or, in some cases, a sudden change in the market value of a good, product, or service.

"Does the US matter any more?" The question comes to us from the head of research at Societe Generale. Looking at the data from the International Energy Agency in Paris, reported in this space yesterday, he noticed that now China, Russia, India and the Mideast use more oil than the USA.

Rome did melt into the Tiber. The place was invaded by barbarians...the population sank from over a million to under 100,000. And when the city was "rediscovered" by tourists with a sense of history in the 17th century...there were goats grazing amid the ruins of the ancient city.

According to the press, the world's prettiest face, Gisele Bundchen, wants to be paid in euros for U.S. modeling gigs, and in his new video, the rapper Jay-Z triumphantly holds euros - not dollars - in his upraised fist.

"Pity poor Zimbabwe...." writes Byron King, referring to a story in the Times of London.

Campaigns run on money. Staff has to be paid, venues rented, ads bought, transportation gassed and ticketed. Most candidates for their party’s nomination don’t drop out as a direct consequence of losing one too many contests, they drop out because after they start losing, their campaign contributions drop off and they run out of money.

The only fun that will be had is when gold, silver and oil go to the freaking moon that you get so rich that can you Super-Size those fries at every meal! Whee!

In England, as in America, consumers are caught between the hammer of inflation... "Prices soar at the fastest rate for 17 years," says a Daily Express headline.

Before the debate was halfway complete, the blogosphere was erupting in outrage at the lack of questions about substantive issues.

You can link the historic surge in gold prices starting mid-August 2007 to many apparently disparate things.

America's triple-A credit rating may be in danger, says Standard and Poor's.

It's bizzaro world in the Aussie market today. Financial shares got a boost from a merger bid. The Prime Minister moves down the track toward price controls to bring local petrol down during a global oil crunch. And the RBA says only "risky borrowers" are facing tighter credit conditions these days.

"...The infamous Dow/Gold Ratio just touched its long-run historic average. So which way next amid the Fed's inflationary melt-up...?"

Talk about the rich getting poorer! Just look what's happening to those million-dollar McMansions out in the deserts of the USA.

BHP Billiton may already be taking advantage of that massive 240% price increase in coking coal it scored last week. Turning coal into cash, that gives BHP anywhere from US$5.5 to US$7 billion in 2008 revenues it didn't have before.

It's said that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Less well known but perhaps more useful these days is the knowledge that the way to his fear is through brain.

Why do poor and lower middle class people keep voting for the party of the rich? Why don't they vote in their own best economic interests? It turns out that these questions have already been debated by some of the greatest minds in history. The French revolution of 1848 provided some answers.

Has the trade imbalance reached its limit as China stops buying US treasuries?

The impact of the credit crunch is going to get personal.

The international currency debate was addressed yesterday in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research called "The Euro May Over the Next 15 Years Surpass The Dollar as Leading International Currency," (and no, we didn't' make that title up.)

In the beginning of the resource bull market, all commodities were created equal. They all rose together, with the exception of a few products like aluminium and rubber, which lagged the rest of the group. Now, things are different. Call it the great energy sorting.

While the share market digests the news of collapsing brokers and falling financial profits, the grand poobahs of the world's economy are wringing their hands in worry. What's keeping them up at night? The three Fs, each its own kind of crisis: food, fuel, and finance.

Four charts, one metal, and the whole world wrapped up in trying to price risk and reward in a fast-shrinking currency...

Read between the lines of Hillary Clinton and her surrogates criticizing Barack Obama and his ‘bitter’ statement and that is one of the places her logic takes you. Hillary seems to be saying that Americans aren’t bitter because they have no reason to be.

All over the world, food is causing trouble. Why? Not because there is too much of it or too little, but because it has gone way up in price.

What a strange economy Australia has. A country in the midst of a record boom still manages to run a trade deficit. Yesterday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that the February trade deficit blew out by 30%, from a revised $2.59 billion in January to $3.29 billion in February.

"If our analysis is correct, the inflation that is holding up stock prices will be felt even more in other places - namely, in commodities, gold and consumer prices. When one bubble pops, the next one always appears somewhere else. So don't even think about buying back into the finance sector."

It seems like just another Monday. But the world always changes a little over the weekend. And this weekend, we reckon it changed a lot.

Like most people I was told to plow as much money into my 401k pension plan as possible. So like millions of other workers out there, I did as I was told. Since then I came to realize that the 401k model is hopelessly flawed and will lead an entire generation to despair.