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Maybe people don't hang around investment forums like this, but quite a few of my colleagues are talking about gold (not through my prompting). They're not buying gold because they don't really know how to or they believe it is not something the average saver invests in. I find it strange that most people in this country are conditioned to believe that their savings are better handled by advisors and experts. There appears to be some kind of comfort in letting other people take risk with their money.

That seems far too simplistic for me. Why target this missile system? It's not like Russia who are the main opponents to this are anywhere close to being USA primary creditors... From what I read this is far more likely to do with a deal between america and russia related to the russian defensive position on Iranian sanctions. At this time Iran will not budge knowing that Russia is backing them all the way. Russia is using Iran as a pawn to ensure that as long as the US retains the policy of placing missiles in Europe then they will defend Iran's enrichment programme; if the USA is claiming that these missiles are required because of the Iranian threat (and not to be used against Russia) then Russia may as well let Iran get nukes. However, now that Obama has dropped the missile plan, russia is now able to switch sides to enable additional sanctions on Iran. Obama is playing a dangerous game in which he is hoping that by dropping the missile programme, the russians will pressure Iran, Iran will drop their programme (and open their doors), this will pacify Israel who will comply with the settlement requirements; if you look at any Israel commentry they are getting backed into a corner by many nations at this time and will possibly take action against Iran by themselves as they are feeling that the world is against them and they will need to make a decisive move if they are going to protect their own interests. To all intents and purposes at this moment in time it looks like Obama has abandoned them to the rest of the world. So Obama has to act soon or this tinder box will ignite and no-one knows where it will end. Will Iran respond to Russia? Surely the closer they get to owning a nuke the less they'll care about external pressure.

I don't disagree with this analysis but it worries me a little. Does a nation that has near greater military spending than the rest of the world combined really just roll over and fade into the background?

Interesting you should mention oil. I spoke to a colleague today who used to work in the shipping industry as an engineer but still keeps up-to-date with the field. He told me that the number of tankers full of both crude oil and refined products waiting for the price to increase is phenominal. He told me of one ship parked for the last 6 months with 2+ million barrels of oil. Apparently, bought by Morgan Stanley for $40 a barrel, sold recently for $65 or so. He said the standing costs are about 30K per day for the ships but the maths work out nicely.

Watch the oil prices rise..... http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at2.shtml?5day#contents

Thanks for this, it's perfect.

Here's two interesting graphs Gold and Wheat normalised for inflation: - I wonder about the ratio between gold and wheat, not sure where I could get data on this. Kind of reflects my opinion that gold is an indicator of supply/demand of basic commodity to maintain present lifestyle.

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