Economic Commentary

Gold closed at 651.60 dollars an ounce on Friday, up 2.1% from $638.50
the Friday before. The dollar closed at 0.7915 euros, down 2.4% from
0.8103 at the end of the previous week. That put the euro at $1.2634,
compared to $1.2341 a week earlier. Gold in euros would be 525.75 euros
an ounce, up 1.6% from 517.38 for the week. Oil closed at 71.88 dollars
a barrel, down 4.5% from $75.12. Oil in euros would be 56.89 a barrel,
down 7.0% from 60.87 at the end of the previous week. The gold/oil
ratio closed at 9.07, up 6.7% from 8.50 the week before. In the U.S.
stock market, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 11,367.14, up
0.2% from 11,347.45 at the previous Friday's close. The NASDAQ closed
at 2,322.57, down 0.9% from 2,342.86. In U.S. interest rates, the yield
on the ten-year U.S. Treasury note closed at 5.05%, up four basis
points from 5.01 the week before.

The currency and commodity markets, driven by fears of cataclysmic war
and criminally insane leadership, seem to be increasing the pressure on
the Bush administration. The open squabbling at the highest levels over
blame for the Iraq fiasco, the plummeting of Bush's approval ratings
and the looming indictment of Karl Rove, taken together with the sharp
rise of gold and oil and the drop in the dollar suggest a coming crisis
point. One gets the sense that the political and economic tectonic
plates are shifting beneath us and that a sort of earthquake in the
world power structure is imminent. More and more people are realizing,
even in the United States, that the U.S. can no longer be considered a
"superpower:"

Read more at:
http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/editorials/signs20060501_SignsEconomicCommentary.php

.