Starting around 2:00 p.m. in Hong Kong on Wednesday afternoon [1:00 a.m. Eastern Time], and following the sun as the London and New York bullion markets opened and closed, gold managed to add about $11 by 11:00 a.m. in Hong Kong…about 20 hours later on Thursday morning. Silver, following much the same pattern as gold, added 47 cents during the same period of time.

On the whole, I have a better record of forecasting American elections than British. Distance makes one see the developments more clearly.

Last week, many of the 280 attendees at our Total Wealth Symposium asked me the same question: They all wanted to know about the possibility of the U.S. government imposing exchange controls.

Lowe’s Reports 1Q Declines; Oracle of Omaha for Obama; Microsoft, Yahoo at it Again; Staples Launches Hostile Takeover of Corporate Express; News Corp. Increases Premier Stake; Take-Two Snubs EA; Pacific Ethanol Stock Surges Despite Loss; Feds to Investigate DeVry.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the national employment data based on an archaic model that omits various important factors when calculating its report. Any guesses as to how the Mogambo feels about that? That’s right, “We’re freaking doomed!”

The war between the ‘flations drags on. Inflation has become globalized. In the United States, you are on the pot-holed highway to Hell…and more thoughts, insights and advice to take you into the weekend!

Ah, Friday. The best day of the week. Here are some quick odds and ends for you headed into the weekend — followed by an interesting research piece you won’t want to miss.

As I was contemplating how my blood got suddenly colder, I was taking a long pull from a bottle of really cheap tequila to try and calm my ragged nerves about this lack of additional TFC thing.

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is recasting herself as a crusader against Arab oil wealth and artificially inflated crude oil prices, vowing to “go right at OPEC.” From Politico.com:

“We’re going to go right at OPEC,” she said. “They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get together once every couple of months in some conference room in some plush place in the world, they decide how much oil they’re going to produce and what price they’re going to put it at,” she told a crowd at a firehouse in Merrillville, IN.

The papers have kept us in stitches today…a ‘Gas Tax Holiday’? Really? Waiting for the showdown between Hillary and Obama…the Fed has created bubble-like conditions in the commodities markets – but Kevin Kerr tells us all is not lost. Buffett tells it like it is…the art world’s big test…and more!