Financial expert Peter Schiff gives a gold update and says, “The price of gold is going to skyrocket, and it’s going to go up so much more than this because we are just getting started. What is really going to power the rise is not only are we going into a recession in the U.S., but it’s going to be an inflationary recession. When the dollar tanks, because the Fed doesn’t raise rates, then consumer prices are going to take off, and they’re going to rise so rapidly there is going to be no way the government is going to be able to hide them. . . . We are going to start to see inflation rates, annual inflation rates well north of the Fed’s 2% target level. They are not going to do anything to rein in inflation because it’s impossible. Gold is going to sense this. It’s going to smell blood. You’ve got a lot of people who are shorting the gold market. They are going to get crushed.”

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(Reuters) – Oil prices will average just over $40 a barrel this year due to subdued demand and the likelihood a tentative agreement by leading producers to freeze output will do little to drain a supply glut, a Reuters poll showed on Monday.

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China said on Monday it expects to lay off 1.8 million workers in the coal and steel industries, or about 15 per cent of the work force, as part of efforts to reduce industrial overcapacity, but no time-frame was given.

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The dour economic environment is continuing to resist the best efforts of policy makers and central bankers around the world. The latest evidence of just how tough it is proving to move the global economy above a stall speed came a few weeks ago when Japan announced negative interest rates in an effort to boost its still flagging economy.

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