Some people are saying that the dollar's days are numbered. Maybe so. Let's look at the dollar's long history, and see how we got to where we are today.

The "dollar" originated in the city of Joachimsthal in Bavaria (now Germany). Beginning in 1518, silver from the mines near Joachimsthal...

"New all time highs."

How many things can you say that of? Stocks? Real estate? Commodities?

No, no and no. I'm talking about gold.

This price action grabs attention. People like to bet on a winner.

The gold market is highly politicized. Official intervention is chronic. Governments understand that a...

I am a supporter of a fully British-style government-operated health care system for the U.S., which many find a little odd given my otherwise libertarian leanings.

The United States was founded on libertarian principles. There wasn't even an income tax for the first 124 years of U.S. history --...

The dollar price of gold is above $1000 and new all-time highs are likely. Maybe it will go quite a bit higher.

OK, so what? Does this mean that wedding bands get more expensive or something?

Most people probably look at gold as some minor metal -- not even in...

The International Monetary Fund operates primarily as a banker bailout machine. They cajole and tempt and confuse and threaten the leaders of governments worldwide to pay off the failed bets of the big bankers using the taxpayer funds of their countries. This has been going on a long time, at...

I'm known mostly as a conservative, libertarian economist. So, it is a surprise to some of my friends that I favor some form of government healthcare. For one thing, everyone deserves access to some basic level of service, as is the case in every other developed country. Second, other countries'...

Let's say you picked a portfolio of stocks on January 1, and a year later it had appreciated by 40%. Great job!

How would this portfolio look on a daily basis? On any given day, it would go up or down in a somewhat unpredictable manner. Let's say the standard...

You may have heard that Goldman Sachs is "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money," as Matt Taibbi put it recently.

This is true, but just calling names doesn't accomplish much. We continue here with our...

Goldman Sachs has been in the news a lot recently, but most of the commentary is of the "Hey, these guys got a bailout and now they're making a lot of money, and that's so unfair" variety. Not real deep. Actually, I'm impressed that the public is even aware of...

Let's say you had a great business idea, but you needed a billion dollars to make it happen. Fortunately, there was someone who specialized in raising money for business plans, in the form of debt and equity, in return for a percentage of the total proceeds. The business is not...

The Comex is the name for the largest gold futures market in the world, traditionally centered in New York City. Although the market recently became part of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, it has retained its old nickname. Also, the depositories which hold the actual bars of gold used to settle...