United States

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

I serve on the Board of Directors of a large Singapore-based company that’s in the gold and silver business.

And, last night during our quarterly conference call, the management team gave me a lot of intriguing information.

Sales of physical gold and silver are collapsing across the entire industry.

At the US Mint, for example, sales of US Eagle gold coins fell by 67% between February 2016 versus February 2017.

At the beginning of 2016, a minor war broke out between two intellectual camps: one said that as a result of the collapse in energy prices, the US economy would slide in a recession as the bulk of the states responsible for job gains under Obama were the same ones that would get crushed with oil plunging. The opposing camp - which boasted Janet Yellen at one point - vociferously claimed that sliding oil prices are great for consumers and with thanks to the extra purchasing power, the US would not only avoid a recession but prosper.

Amnesty International has urged the US President to cancel impending weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain or risk being complicit in war crimes.

Last year Goldman Sachs entered into a settlement with federal and state governments over its role in packaging and selling toxic mortgage-backed securities in the housing meltdown to unsuspecting buyers while subsequently turning around and shorting those very same securities.  As part of the settlement, Goldman agreed to provide $1.8 billion in homeowner debt relief to delinquent U.S. borrowers.