Heading into Labor Day

This has been a very busy news week with the situation in the Ukraine escalating even further, the situation in the Middle East still very volatile and uncertain, and news that IMF Chief Christine Lagarde might have some legal problems in France.

If that's not enough we have Foreign Affairs running an article calling on Central Banks to give out free cash directly to the people because the economy is not responding to current monetary policy. 

If current policy is not working now, what will happen to the economy if sanctions are ramped up even more against Russia and Russia retaliates? We also have Russia talking about moving away from the US dollar again and news that Russia is adding tons and tons more gold reserves to diversify away from the US dollar.

With so much happening we will not attempt to do an indepth article on all these news items. Instead we will list some links below readers can use to get various takes on all this news. Any of these news items could end up impacting the monetary system so we will need to follow all of them this fall. We will let readers take their time looking over these links this holiday weekend and then be back for more after Labor Day.

Russia and Ukraine - various news reports (some Russian, some Western)

Russia Today - Putin compares bombing by Kiev to Nazis in WWII

Russia Direct - How the Russian Media reacted to the "Invasion" of the Ukraine

USA Today - US Says Russia has "outright lied" about Ukraine

Another Rickards prediction coming True? Russia hacking US banks?

IMF - Christine Lagarde

Yahoo News - IMF Chief charged with Negligence

France24- IMF's Lagarde Investigated in French Corruption Case

Recall our article about the Foreign Affairs article (linked above) on free cash from Central Banks directly to the people? Here is another take on that article:

Another view on the Foreign Affairs article calling for free cash from Central Banks

If all that is not enough to tide you over until after Labor Day,

Here is a transcript of Jim Rickards latest in depth interview with Anglo Far-East

One thing I have learned following news and doing research for this blog is that while things can seem quiet with little change for a long time, there are events happening all the time that could lead to major monetary system changes. It's why I need to follow all this for myself and our family. Since I have to do the research anyway, it is not much extra work to just publish it here on the blog for others to use as well. And it gives us all an archive in one place to refer back to.

We can all use this blog as a free resource not only for following news and opinions, but also to track various forecasts over time. We will continue to do that into 2015 and see where things stand then. Change might happen slowly or rapidly, but we will follow it either way.

I hope everyone has a safe and pleasant Labor Day weekend!