Bearish News

Interesting video from Mises about America’s Gilded Age, during which the nation experienced its fastest period of growth. A gold standard was in place during most of this remarkable period, and of course there was no income tax.

I’m no expert technician, but the metal does seem to find solid support around the $30 level.

Live 60 day chart:

From Kitco.

Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan, a book that predicted (a) financial crisis in the near future and sold over 3 million copies, published in 2007, has endorsed Ron Paul for president. Makes sense when you think about it. Considering Ron Paul warned of the housing bubble in 2001. And one of his intellectual influences, Ludwig von Mises, godfather of Austrian Economics, predicted America’s Great Depression in the early 1920′s.

Taleb is one of the more logical economic voices in the punditshphere, which explains why he hasn’t been on CNBC lately (as is awkwardly discussed in the clip, below). Please do watch:

Jim Grant was in top form in the above piece. But I’m also impressed with Kelly Evans. First time I came across Evans she was challenging JPM’s chief economist in an online interview for the WSJ, and doing a fine job. I suspected she might be headed for something big. A few years later, and she’s a CNBC talking head, chatting with Jim Grant. Congrats. Keep it up, that unique anti-establishment bug you have.

h/t ZH