Daily Dispatches

Of Public Debt and Private Wealth

By Steven Pearlstein
Washington Post
Wednesday, December 27, 2006

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/26/AR200612...

With Democrats about to take charge on Capitol Hill, we're going to be hearing a lot about the widening income gap between rich and poor.

There are a variety of measures for inequality and lots of factors that drive the data, ranging from winner-take-all labor market competition and the weakness of unions to the pace of immigration and the tendency of high-income people to marry each other.

By Elaine Kurtenbach
Associated Press
Wednesday, December 27, 2006

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061227/ap_on_re_as/china_strategic_resources_2

China will take advantage of its massive foreign exchange reserves to expand its stock of strategic resources such as oil and minerals, state media reported Wednesday, citing a top economic official.

Vice Prime Minister Zeng Peiyan told leaders of the national legislature that the government plans to step up exploration for key resources such as oil, gas, and coal. It also intends to use the opportunity afforded by the country's more than $1 trillion in foreign reserves to improve strategic resource bases, the state-run newspaper China Business News and other reports said.

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done
is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.

-- Ecclesiastes 1:9

* * *

9:25p ET Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Nothing new, that is, as Harry Truman said, except the history you don't know. And when it comes to manipulating the gold market, there is plenty of such history -- like the history recounted by H.W. Brands in his new and wonderful little book "The Money Men," which is subtitled "Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred-Years' War Over the American Dollar."

In Chile, Precious Lands Often Go for a Pittance

By Monte Reel
Washington Post
Tuesday, December 26, 2006

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/25/AR200612...

SANTIAGO, Chile -- The mountainous terrain of northern Chile is studded with precious metals, a natural cache that for years has had investors angling for land rights.

So when the world's largest gold mining company targeted about 20,000 acres owned by Rodolfo Villar, a mineral speculator, he signed a contract. Only later, he said, did he realize how much the company had agreed to pay him: