Golden Minerals Company

Bank of America is completing an agreement to pay $8.5 billion to settle claims by investors that purchased mortgage securities that soured when the housing bubble burst, according to people briefed on the deal. It represents what is likely to be the single biggest settlement tied to the subprime mortgage boom and the subsequent financial crisis of 2008.

The settlement would wipe out all of the company’s earnings in the first half of this year, and it could also provide a template for deals with other big banks that face tens of billions in similar claims.

That's a big chunk of change...but amounts to only a small fraction of the money that BoA and the other Wall Street Banksters have screwed their clients out of over the last decade.

I thank reader U.D. for sending me this story out of yesterday's edition of The New York Times...and the link is here.

Jennifer Cavallaro, owner of The Bee Hive Cafe in Bristol, Rhode Island...was a recruit in the retail industry’s surprise victorious assault on one of the most reliable income streams for big banks, worth $16 billion a year. Her message hailed the U.S. Senate’s decision that week to include a cap on debit-card fees in its bill overhauling rules for Wall Street.

During her recent trip to Washington, she lobbied to cut the average 44 cents that merchants must pay a bank whenever a customer uses a debit card. Her message hailed the U.S. Senate’s decision that week to include a cap on debit-card fees in its bill overhauling rules for Wall Street.

Far from ending the matter, the vote touched off one of the most intense lobbying duels in memory as the banking industry, Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., sought to kill or delay the debit-card measure. It raged for more than a year, culminating on June 8th when the banks lost a cliffhanger of a vote in the Senate.

Perhaps we should send here to see Gary Gensler and get her to work her magic on him regarding JPMorgan's grotesque short position in the silver futures market.

This very interesting Bloomberg piece is courtesy of Washington state reader S.A...and is well worth the read. The link is here.

The citizens of Alto, Texas are bracing for a spike in crime after the city put its police force on furlough.

City Council members sent the police home when they decided they couldn't afford them. On June 15, the police chief and his four officers secured the evidence room, changed the passwords on their computers and locked the department's doors for six months—longer if local finances don't improve by then.

For now, the Cherokee County sheriff's office, based 12 miles north in Rusk, is policing Alto, a city of about 1,200.

Calling a population center of 1,200 people a 'city' is a bit of a stretch...even for Texas.

This Wall Street Journal story from yesterday is also courtesy of Washington state reader S.A...and the link is here.

Here's a bbc.co.uk story that I 'borrowed' from yesterday's King Report.

Police have fired tear gas in running battles with stone-throwing youths in Athens, where a 48-hour general strike is being held against a parliamentary vote on tough austerity measures.

Thousands of protesters gathered outside parliament in the capital where public transport ground to a halt.

PM George Papandreou has said that only his 28bn-euro (£25bn) austerity plan would get Greece back on its feet. If the package is not approved, Greece could run out of money within weeks.

The link is here.

Here's a UPI story filed from Beijing yesterday...and it's courtesy of reader Roy Stephens.

The European charm offensive of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has been conducted with characteristic Chinese thoughtfulness and efficiency.

"There will not be real socialism if there is no real democracy, and there will not be protection of economic and political rights if there is no real freedom," Wen told a meeting at the venerable Royal Society, founded in the 17th century as one of the first great institutions of science in the West, where he received a medal.

The effect of this back home in China was somewhat muted, since the CCN TV news report of the meeting suddenly blacked out at a point when human rights were raised.

This is a must read piece...and the link is here.

Senegal deployed extra troops at ministry buildings, armoured personnel carriers near the presidential palace and at least one helicopter gunship in the capital Dakar on Wednesday after riots over lengthy power cuts.

Many Dakar homes and businesses have been without electricity for more than 30 hours, catalysing anti-government sentiment. Overnight, demonstrators burnt tyres and ransacked the offices of state electricity company Senelec and ministers' homes.

Senegal has earned a reputation as West Africa's most stable and democratic country but is seeing rising public frustration over backsliding public services, particularly in power generation, since Wade took power in 2000.

This Reuters piece, filed from Dakar yesterday, is courtesy of reader Scott Pluschau...and the link is here.

A growing split between the world's biggest oil consumers and major Opec producers over prices means Saudi Arabia may no longer increase its oil output by as much as it pledged.

The International Energy Agency's (IEA) attempts to bring down the oil price have sparked a war of words with Opec, the 12-country cartel that produces 40pc of the world's crude output.

Opec is also divided between groups of members such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait which would be happy with lower prices, and others such as Iran and Venezuela, which do not want to raise production and dampen prices.

This story was filed over at The Telegraph shortly after midnight...and, once again, I thank Roy Stephens for sharing it with us. It's worth running through...and the link is here.

More speculation has been raised on the reasons for NATO's intervention in Libya. As RT's Laura Emmett reports, the organisation may have been trying to prevent Gaddafi from burying the American buck.

I'd heard rumours of this...and knowing what I know, it certainly strikes a chord with me. This 3:11 minute RT video was sent to me by reader Tariq Khan...and it's worth a look. The link is here.

These recent failures are not good reasons to give up on contrarian analysis, however. Unless you think that there has been a fundamental shift in the relationship between investor psychology and the gold market, the best guess is that the last couple of weeks are the exception that proves the contrarian rule.

And, if so, odds remain that gold’s next significant move will be up.

I couldn't agree more...and I thank Florida reader Donna Badach for sending this marketwatch.com story along...and the link is here.

Eric King sent me this James Turk blog yesterday afternoon...and it's worth the read...and the link is here.

Here's another King World News blog that Eric sent me yesterday. It's a must read as well...and the link is here.

Here's a story from yesterday's edition of The Salt Lake Tribune that ended up as a GATA release last night.

Utah Senator Mike Lee joined with fellow Republicans on Tuesday to introduce legislation that would jettison federal capital gains taxes for gold or silver coins.

Lee noted that the U.S. dollar has lost about 98 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913.

"This bill is an important step towards a stable and sound currency whose value is protected from the Fed's printing press," Lee said.

It's a very short must read story...and you've already read about half of it...and the link to the rest is here.

Here's a GATA release that came out late last night...and it's an editorial from yesterday's edition of the New York Sun...and is commentary on the previous Salt Lake Tribune article above.

Since Chris Powell has already written the preamble for me, the link to that...and this must read GATA posting, is here.