For decades, the story of Saudi Arabia recycling petrodollars, i.e., funding the US deficit by buying US Treasuries with proceeds of its crude oil sales (mostly to the US), while the US sweetened the deal by providing the Saudis with military equipment and supplies, remained entirely in the conspiracy realm, with no confirmation or official statement from the US Treasury department.
After yesterday's US and UK market holidays which resulted in a session of unchanged global stocks, US futures are largely where they left off Friday, up fractionally, and just under 2,100. Bonds fell as the Federal Reserve moves closer to raising interest rates amid signs inflation is picking up. Oil headed for its longest run of monthly gains in five years, while stocks declined in Europe.
Submitted by Roberty Parry via ConsortiumNews.com (h/t Contra Corner blog),
When Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed recently in a US drone strike, we noted that experts cautioned that it would make local insurgents even less likely to participate in long-stalled peace efforts, and it would likely lead to an escalation of Taliban retaliation efforts.
Mullah Akhtar Mansour, Taliban militants' leader
The US Gold Market is best known as the home of gold futures
trading on the COMEX in New York. The COMEX has a literal monopoly on gold
futures trading volumes worldwide, but very little physical gold is actually
exchanged between COMEX trading participants, and gold inventories maintained
in COMEX vaults in New York are extremely low. This COMEX Gold Futures Market
infographic guides you through the largest gold futures market in the world,
COMEX.