In what can only be described as completely unsurprising, Larry Yun of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) has admitted, according to CNNMoney, that maybe, possibly they overstated, purely by accident, the number of existing homes sales statistic that has formed the cornerstone of his constant corner-turning commentary over the past few years.

We have unequivocally challenged the Ph.D.'s claims as fudged and fabricated this year and even The Wall Street Journal, back in February 2011, saw 'challenges' in the NAR's data when compared to other unbiased sources of the same reality. We can only assume that when Yun explains, in true Baghdad-Bob-style, the adjustments (when they are released on December 21st) that they will be either a signal that the bottom is in for home sales or that from such a low base, things can only get better. From our perspective, they remain irrelevant and untrustworthy with the CoreLogic data seemingly less naturally biased to an organization desperate for a foothold on the glimmering slope back to the American Dream.

Reader Phil Barlett slid this zerohedge.com piece into my in-box just minutes before I hit the send button at 5:20 a.m. this morning. It's a must read...and the link is here.

Interviewed by King World News yesterday, market analyst and former political prisoner Martin Armstrong contends that the corruption of U.S. financial companies as exemplified by the collapse of MF Global is causing money to flee U.S. markets. Armstrong says the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, clearinghouse for MF Global, should reimburse the firm's clients for the money missing from their accounts...and, in turn, seek reimbursement from the banking houses where the money ended up.

I found this story in a GATA release last night...and I thank Chris Powell for saving me the trouble of wordsmithing the introduction. The link is here.

The following article showed up posted over at the zerohedge.com website yesterday.

Not an hour after we asked who gave permission to MF Global estate to sell Italian bonds to JPM...which was a lender to MF Global...at preferential terms and we get the following headline from Bloomberg: JPMORGAN ACTIONS AS MF LENDER LIKELY TO BE PROBED: LIQUIDATOR.

Needless to say, we are quite happy. Someone who isn't however, are JPM's shareholders, as the stock just took out the lows on the news.

I thank reader Matthew Nel for sending us this very short read about U.S. Public Enemy #2...and the link is here.

GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk told King World News yesterday that the failure of the MF Global brokerage house has spread counterparty risk throughout the world financial system, causing trading to shrink and creating a crisis worse than the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Turk echoed the advice just given via King World News by Jim Sinclair: Be your own central bank with gold and silver in possession. Eric King sent me the story yesterday afternoon, but the introduction is courtesy of Chris Powell once again. Eric's title reads "Turk - Lehman II in Progress as Financial System Implodes"...and the link to the KWN blog is here.

I almost shed tears of pride this morning when I read this hilarious passage in the Daily News:

Earlier Monday, about 300 protesters in squid costumes surged outside the offices of Goldman Sachs investment bank shouting, "We fry calamari!" and "Everyone pays their tax – everyone but Goldman, Sachs!"

I wish someone had called me – I would have loved to have attended this "Let's Go Squidding" expedition. Folks, if you do this again, please let me know, and I promise to put some serious man-hours into designing a squid costume. As it is, I'd like to see in person some of the ones that turned out yesterday, especially that giant papier-mâché-looking thing I seem to see in the News photo.

I'm sure that when Matt hatched the description of Goldman Sachs as "the great vampire squid with it's tentacles wrapped around the face of humanity"...he had no idea that the name would stick. A more appropriate name for a criminal organization like this, I could not imagine.

This short story about U.S. Public Enemy #1 was sent to me by Roy Stephens last night. It's posted over at the rollingstone.com website...and, like the JPMorgan story above, is worth the two minutes of your time it will take you to run through it. The link is here.

European ministers have warned that the City of London is not shielded by David Cameron's veto of the Brussels summit proposals and have vowed to impose tough financial regulations on Britain anyway.

Amid chaotic confusion over the relevance of the Brussels summit, including Britain's veto, Olli Rehn, the EU's economic affairs commissioner said: "If [Britain's] move was intended to prevent bankers and financial corporations of the City from being regulated, that's not going to happen."

Nicolas Sarkozy said Britain's effort to protect its financial services sector would create a lasting rift. The French prime minister told Le Monde: "There are now clearly two Europes. One wants more solidarity between its members and more regulation. The other is attached only to the logic of the single market."

This story was posted over at The Telegraph late on Monday night...and is Roy Stephens second offering of the day. The link is here.

David Cameron's veto to EU treaty change has split the British. The euroskeptics in his party are celebrating, and most voters support the prime minister's actions. But in Monday's debate in parliament, the Conservative leader was viciously attacked by the opposition. Cameron's celebratory mood is likely to be short lived.

A remark by Germany's European commissioner, Günther Oettinger, on Monday made clear just how unpopular the British veto is in Brussels. Oettinger, a member of Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union party, accused Britain of putting the brakes on Europe and described the British government's role as "destructive."

Cameron said that he wanted to approach this issue in a "constructive" manner. He dashed euroskeptics' hopes that the veto might mark the beginning of a British exit from the EU. "Britain remains a full member of the EU and the events of the last week do nothing to change that," Cameron said. "We are in the EU and we want to be."

This story was posted over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and is another Roy Stephens offering. The link is here.

You wouldn’t believe it to listen to the fulminating indignation directed at the UK from across the Channel, but David Cameron did the eurozone’s political leaders a favour last weekend. By refusing to sign up, he managed to create a convenient Aunt Sally for Europeans to throw stones at, and divert attention from the summit’s failure to come up with anything remotely credible to address either the single currency’s existential crisis or the gathering economic slump. The latest in a long line of self-styled “make or break” summits, it was in truth no more momentous than any of the others.

There was no fiscal compact of any significance agreed last weekend. Nor was there any progress made in providing a credible backstop. Even with the extra funds which European leaders are laughably promising via the IMF “back door” (as if they cannot trust themselves with their own money), the financial firewall remains dwarfed by the ever-growing size of the problem. Italy’s funding needs would gobble up the entire bail-out money within two years. In any case, the IMF back-door support is already in trouble. There’s no clarity on where the extra 200 billion euros are going to come from, with the Bundesbank refusing to cough up unless underwritten by the German parliament and confusion over whether non-euro countries are expected to contribute.

This story was posted in The Telegraph late last night...and I thank Roy Stephens once again for sharing it with us. The link is here.

The actual title to this story that appeared in The Wall Street Journal this morning reads "All That Glitters, Will Not Solve Europe's Debt Woes".

The story starts off with the line that "Europe governments have a lot of gold, but that won't be much help." But Chris Powell added the line..."Not at current gold prices, it won't"...and I agree entirely. As I [and a growing list of other voices] have been going on about for many years, is that re-pricing of the world's central bank gold reserves would be a ticket out of this mess.

I thank Washington state reader S.A. for sending me this WSJ story yesterday...and the link is here.

In continuing efforts to save governmental money (and waste) the Washington Post is reporting that the United States Mint will cease production of Dollar coins (with each carrying a deceased President's likenesses). More than 40% of the coins have been returned to the Fed because no one wants them. Who needs real money when 1s and 0s are all that counts nowadays?

White House cutting production of presidential dollar coins will save taxpayers a stunningly irrelevant $50 million.

This very short story was posted over at zerohedge.com yesterday...and I thank Phil Barlett for sending it along. The link is here.

So with nickels worth slightly more than 5¢ and pennies minted before 1982 worth almost 3¢ due to their copper content, it isn't hard to imagine that they will someday disappear from circulation as the Fed continues to expand its monetary base. Kyle Bass, who heads the hedge fund Hayman Capital Management, has already purchased $1 million worth of nickels according to Business Insider. For any more proof that the 5¢ and certain 1¢ pieces may disappear soon, just consider how many Roosevelt dimes or Washington quarters minted pre-1965 you see around today. Both are composed of 90 percent silver and are worth far more for their metal content than they are as legal tender.

Anyone looking to make a small investment might think twice about throwing nickels or pre-1983 pennies into a jar with the rest of their accumulated change.

This short piece was posted over at mises.org yesterday...and I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for sending it along. The link is here.

Gold, in the 11th year of its longest winning streak in at least nine decades, is poised to enter a bear market, according to Dennis Gartman, who correctly predicted the slump in commodities in 2008.

The metal, which traded at $1,666.30 an ounce at 2:43 p.m. in London, may decline to as low as $1,475, the economist wrote today in his Suffolk, Virginia-based Gartman Letter. He sold the last of his gold yesterday. Bullion has already dropped 13 percent from the record $1,921.15 reached Sept. 6 and $1,475 would extend that to more than 20 percent, the common definition of a bear market.

“Since the early autumn here in the Northern Hemisphere gold has failed to make a new high,” Gartman wrote. “Each high has been progressively lower than the previous high, and now we’ve confirmation that the new interim low is lower than the previous low. We have the beginnings of a real bear market, and the death of a bull.”

If there's ever a sure sign that we're approaching a significant low in precious metals prices, it's when Dennis starts trashing gold. If I wasn't already 'all in'...I'd be a buyer on news like this. I thank Washington state reader S.A. for sharing this Bloomberg story with us...and it's certainly a must read...and the link is here.

Gold bugs over the last two weeks have become even more discouraged than they were at the end of November...and that’s saying something, since they were already quite dejected.

As a result, contrarians detect a very strong wall of worry forming in the gold market, one which could very well be the springboard for bullion rallying into new all-time high territory.

There’s another reason to expect bullion to soon begin rallying: The end-of-year period historically has been a strong one for gold. We haven’t seen any such seasonal strength this year, needless to say. But gold’s seasonal tendencies are yet more evidence pointing in the same direction as contrarian analysis: Gold is due for a strong rally.

Mark has been measuring gold market sentiment for three decades with 95% accuracy...and combined with what Dennis Gartman is saying...I surely wouldn't want to bet against him.

I thank reader U.D. for bringing this absolute must read marketwatch.com story to my attention...and the link is here.

What do you get when you mix negative real interest rates with stimulative money supply efforts by global central banks?

An exceptionally potent formula for higher gold prices that could send gold to the unimaginable level of $10,000 an ounce. Negative real interest rates and strong money supply growth are two key factors of what I refer to as the Fear Trade.

Negative real interest rates occur when the inflationary rate, or CPI, is greater than the current interest rate. A quick account of the G-7 and E-7 countries shows that the majority have negative real interest rates.

This 3-page article by GATA's good friend, Frank Holmes, was posted in the Monday edition of Forbes...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it along. It's certainly worth reading...and the link is here.