In this segment from one of his talks at the Casey Research Recovery Reality CheckSummit, economics expert and author Harry Dent explains how shifting demographic trends lead to economic cycles and why the current US federal government is so afraid of deflation.

Harry's complete presentation – as well as the speeches of 30 other economic and investment luminaries from this Summit – is available

Unlike Eurocrat rhetoric, which is increasingly full of lies (thank you Jean Claude), prevarications, and half-truths, math is simple and binary. There either are enough numbers, or there aren't. In the case of the European firewall, there aren't (and that is even assuming the IMF somehow manages to convert all the money pledged for a European bailout bailout into money available for disbursement... because there is a world of difference between the two)

Greece, the tin pot tail of Europe appears to wagging the economic dog of Europe at will as their inability to appoint a pro-austerity government has failed. This situation is further exasperated by France, with its newly elected 'no austerity' leader, stating that he will spend more now and not less in an attempt to boost economic activity if France. The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is now toast

One special session at the April 27–29 Casey Research Recovery Reality Check Summitwasn't on the agenda—a private panel for The Gold Report readers with three of the premier summit speakers: Global Resource Investments Founder and Chairman Rick Rule, Casey Research Senior Editor Louis James and Casey Energy Opportunities Senior Editor Marin Katusa. You won't pin them down to a timeframe, but they're looking forward to a buyer's market, as equity prices fall and volatility increases. As Rule puts it, "When the luster is off the sector, it's off all parts of the sector, so in bad markets the best companies are cheap. When the best come cheap, you have to play."

The Gold Report: When we talked last fall after the When Money Dies summit, Rick, you were looking forward to the volatility preceding the decline of paper currencies as an opportunity to take advantage of the liquidity crisis.

Rick Rule: The volatility I anticipated didn't happen because the amount of quantitative easing—I would call it counterfeiting—was extraordinary. That cash coming into the system acted as a soporific,

Protesors at Bankia in Spain

Spain will swoop in with public money this week to clean up huge bad loans at the nation's fourth-biggest listed bank, Bankia, the government said Monday.

As news emerged of the impending rescue of Bankia, created in 2010 from a merger of seven savings banks, its executive chairman Rodrigo Rato announced his resignation, according to Yahoo.

Shares in the bank, which has the industry's largest exposure to the property market at 37.5 billion euros ($49 billion), closed down 3.26 percent at 2.375 euros on a day which saw Spain's main share index rise 2.72 percent.

 While Becky Quick's CNBC interview with the Charlie Munger has a little for everyone to love and hate (from Keynesian-doctrine to easy-living-Greeks and Bad-trading-robots), Buffett's right-hand was particularly eloquent in his views (at around 9:08) on Einhorn's distrust of the Fed and buying Gold:"gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939 but civilized people don't buy gold - they invest in productive businesses." End quote.

James Turk 

With increased demonstrations across the globe, today King World News interviewed James Turk out of Europe.  Turk told KWN that banks and governments around the world are set up for a massive collapse, and they will go down together.  Turk also discussed key markets and what he is doing with his own money right now.  But first, here is what Turk had to say about the situation:

  “Have you seen the growing demonstrations here in Europe, Eric?  So far,

AMSTERDAM — Of all the people rocked by the debt and austerity tumult rattling Europe, the famously prudent but prosperous Dutch were seldom on anybody’s watch list. Until now.

This bastion of probity became a flash point of euro zone turmoil last week, when the government fell in a showdown over how to cut the budget to keep the nation from getting caught in Europe’s long-running debt crisis. The action focused fears in other European capitals that austerity, rather than helping to put countries back on their feet, will impede growth and make it harder for them to recover,

By: Eric Sprott & David Baker

This may not come as a surprise, but we're still not seeing it. We're not seeing a US recovery.

Here we are, well into 2012, and the fact remains that the US housing situation is still a bust. There is simply no housing recovery happening in the United States. US New Home Sales fell for the fourth time in a row month-overmonth in March, representing a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 328,000, down from 353,000 in February.1 Do you know what the annual rate of New Home Sales was back in 2006? About 1.21 million.2 No recovery there.