Some readers noted that I had said India consumes 1 million metric tons of gold a year. That's wrong, and I apologize. The total is between 850 tons and 1,000 tons.

A wise reader noted a math error in this post.   The error resulted from my writing: "If you pay a day's worth of: "   That would have meant the federal government was spending something north of $100 trillion a year.   I should have written:"If you pay a month's worth of:" I apologize. The text of the po...more

A wise reader noted a math error in this post.   I originally phrased the list of expenses the government might pay as "If you pay a day's worth of:"   The reader correctly noted that the result of that assumption would mean the government spends more than $100 trillion a year.   The phrase should have sa...more

good point, thanx.

A note: Earlier Monday evening, this post said stocks index futures were trading lower. In fact, trading hadn't opened yet. That was my fault.

Thanks and Happy New Year to all our readers.

Marketrigger says: "2011 was the worst investment year for stocks since 1999. 2008 was a rally year compared to this year!!!" I wonder if he could elaborate on the point. There wasn't a major index that didn't fall at least 30% in 2008 -- and continued to fall into March. There wasn't any similar year-over-year resu...more

My initial headline was flat wrong, and I apologize.

I said interest rates were unchanged, which is true. The cause, however, was that the bond market was closed for Veterans Day. Mea culpa.