Who decides what money is holds immense power over what actually happens all the way down to the individual level. The big picture issues are likely more tied to how the future will unfold than any single issue in politics.

If it seems like silver has been stuck in a trading range for some time.

If you are young and your vision of the future includes a world filled with solar energy, long life batteries, cell phones, and electric cars, silver is the metal for you.

The recent news about a potential attempt to squeeze the price of silver higher has attracted the interest of millions of people who may be new to the precious metals markets and in particular the silver market.

The US election is now officially completed with no official winner.

It's election time once again and as always, the economy will probably be the biggest issue in most voters minds.

Total US debt edged up over time from around 250 Billion starting in the year 1950 to a little over 500 Billion by the year 1975.

One of the sign posts we keep an eye on here is the precious metals markets. These markets historically can provide signals that something unusual is going on in the financial system. There are a couple of things that come to mind in this regard.

We continue to monitor the topic of the potential for any increase in the allocation of SDR's (Special Drawing Rights) at the IMF. This is an important story to follow because the purpose of this blog is to watch for changes to the monetary system.

While there are constantlyarticles suggesting that major changes by central banks or the IMF are imminent in regards to converting to either central bank digital currencies or even an "e-SDR", this report clearly lays out where this really stands.

The Modern Monetary Theory proposal is making some headway in some political circles. Jim Richards has weighed in on the debate and here I share some of his thoughts and my own comments.

Did the creation of massive amounts of liquidity by the Fed acting as lender of last resort create the impression in the general public that government spending and government debt don't matter anymore?

The petro yuan contracts began trading for oil. This allows traders to buy and sell oil contracts based on the yuan rather than US dollars. Will this impact the US dollar in its role as the global reserve currency?

Right now we are in the middle of the technology battle for universal adoption of an underlying ledger system that all banks and central banks can plug into.

Some new developments in the gold space that may indicate that interest in gold as some kind of alternative payments system might be increasing.

Because these speculative OTC derivative contracts can lead to a situation where a major so called "too big to fail" entity gets in trouble, monetary authorities like the BIS have recognized the potential systemic risk.