How does a bank work? In very simple terms, a bank collects deposits from savers, and lends the money to borrowers. It pays interest on the deposits, charges a higher rate of interest on what it lends, and keeps the difference as profit.

The dollar is a bit softer this morning going into the Jobs Jamboree, and rightly so, given the forecast. However, the dollar is still swinging a mighty hammer and I’m a bit perplexed by this.

It’s enough to set off one’s contrarian radar. I mean, predictions of $200-a-barrel oil have been everywhere over the last week. CIBC analyst Jeff Rubin, with an eerily accurate track record of previous predictions, kicked it off last week with a forecast of $225 by 2012 with $7 gasoline to match.

“Both gold and silver were off and running shortly before Comex trading ended in Sydney yesterday morning.”

“This lasted until the boys showed up for work in New York where things really got serious to the up-side. But once the London p.m. fix was in, the boys wasted no time in getting things cooled down in both metals. The stocks did well too” says Ed Steer.

Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) Azvitt sent a piece by John Browne of Euro Pacific Capital, who writes that professor Robert Shiller “has determined that house prices rose in line with inflation, between 1900 and 1995, at 3.3 percent per annum.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson made history this week with his blueprint for a comprehensive financial overhaul, a plan so detailed that it even covers regulations that date all the way back to the Civil War.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson yesterday said that plans to bailout Americans caught in the housing crisis would do more harm than good.