Newspapers are dying. That is the message from the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations, an independent firm that checks the average circulation of various print periodicals.  The average drop of newspaper circulation nationally was 8.7 percent. This was somewhat smaller than the last quarterly audit, which showed an average circulation drop of 10.6 percent, but the circulation figures were bad enough.

The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to impose higher taxes on banks as a way of cutting the deficit. Proposals that have been mentioned but rejected include a tax on financial trades and a special tax on bonuses paid to bank executives. Proposals now being actively considered by the administration include taxes based upon the size of a financial institution, a tax on the riskiness of the financial institution's loans, or a tax on the bank's profits.

The Associated Press has conducted an economic analysis to determine the effect of the first 10 months of federal stimulus spending to build roads and highways on creating jobs in the construction industry. This analysis was conducted by five different economists at five different universities.

 China is the largest producer of rare earth elements, or “rare earths, “which are important for many sophisticated technology applications. In fact, it has been estimated that China has 97 percent of the current production of these elements. The Chinese government has restricted exports of these rare earths and at least part of the reason appears to be to push up the price of the rare earths on the international market, and closely related to that was the goal of giving Chinese manufacturers a competitive advantage in international markets by giving these operations lower production costs of the rare earths that they use.

The New York Times and CBS has come out with a new poll that shows Americans have a strong mistrust of government. Almost 90 percent of Americans do not trust government to do the right thing and almost three quarters say that they believe the nation is on the wrong track. As the poll probes deeper into what Americans believe the government ought to do, partisan differences appear. Nearly nine out of 10 Democrats believe that the distribution of wealth in the country should be fairer, while two out of three independents agree with that, though only one out of three Republicans believe that to be true. This poll also showed that a significant percentage of Americans support the “Occupy Wall Street” movement while a much smaller percentage support the Tea Party Movement.

America at the end of WWII produced 60 percent of all the petroleum in the world. In fact, its status as the chief exporter of oil (the United States produced much more than the consumer and war economies needed) was a salient factor in the American victory. Interestingly, at one point the nation produced so much oil and gas that natural gas was “flared” or burned away because it was not economical to transport it. Once, in the lifetime of many Americans, filling stations engaged in “price wars” and sold gas at or near cost to consumers.

Anyone who watches television news for more than a few hours is likely to see an advertisement for gold. As the Federal Reserve continues to print fiat money in vast quantities — backed by nothing except the vague promise that this paper is legal tender and can be used to pay all debts public and private — people are increasingly looking for something of real value. And that something is gold.

Roger Jinkinson is a British writer, and he lives in a remote Greek village on the island of Karpathos (left). Although the village is not immune to the meltdown of the Greek economy caused by a huge problem with sovereign debt creditworthiness, simmering most furiously in the ancient capital of Athens, 400 kilometers away, the small village has found its own way to survive the crisis.

The Constitution and the early organization of the federal executive branch properly limited the scope of government activities to a few areas. Education was left to the states or to individual Americans. The Northwest Ordinances, originally adopted under the Articles of Confederation, did set aside some land for the support of education, but that was minimal and that was all. Energy, which then meant wood, coal, and water power, was entirely in the hands of private citizens and companies. No funds were used to fight a “war on terror” or to spy on other nations or to try to bribe other nations with foreign aid.  America participated in no international organizations at all. 

Constitutionally minded members of Congress Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Representative Mike Lee of Utah have introduced federal legislation that would exempt gold and silver coins issued by state governments as legal tender from federal taxation. This bill, called the Sound Money Protection Act, is intended to protect efforts by states to create a stable, inflation-free form of money. In particular, it would protect from federal gains taxation transactions between legal money in states which are species (e.g. gold or silver) and paper.