VIDEO: Gold tarnished by illegal trade

Christie Malry has mocked my concern with bankers’ bonuses: shouldn’t the left support profits going to workers? This raises an awkward point for Marxists.

The great oil and gold booms are over. That's according to Ruchir Sharma of Morgan Stanley, writing at Bloomberg View. Sharma, an emerging markets specialist, blames the slowdown in China.

Richard Exell draws attention to figures from the US's BLS, which show that since the early 90s, manufacturing productivity growth in the UK has far outstripped real wage growth. This strikes me as odd. It poses the question: if UK manufacturers have been increasing the rate of exploitation, how come their rate of profit is so low?

Mongolia is arguably experiencing the biggest gold rush of the 21st century — yet  large swaths of its population remain extremely poor. Unemployed herdsmen are among those who have turned to gold mining in an effort to eke out a living. And soaring demand for gold from neighboring China has got many locals thinking they could make a fortune.

During the spring and summer of 2012, a procession of syrup-filled trucks from Quebec arrived at Maple Grove Farms in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. There was nothing seemingly unusual about that, considering that Maple Grove is the largest packer of pure maple syrup in the United States, selling to retail giants such as Wal-Mart and Safeway — and considering that nearly 80% of the world’s maple syrup supply comes from Quebec.

By Bob Johnson: Introduction