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In our research at House Mountain, we focus on several macro themes, one being accessibility to cheap and reliable energy. It's no secret that increasing GDP and access to cheap energy go hand-in-hand. Energy storage is going to become more and more important and this is where the VRB can play a significant role. I wouldn't call VRBs an emerging technology because they were actually developed in the late 1980s, so the idea of using vanadium to store electricity has been around for a number of years. VRBs just haven't been in mass, widespread use. Growing economies in countries like China and India and even in continents like South America are becoming accustomed to an increase in the quality of life. In my opinion, to maintain and increase that quality of life, you need access to energy-cheap and reliable energy. The electricity grid has been described as the only supply chain without storage capacity. VRBs can address this.

As global stock markets have plummeted in the last few days, both Greece and South Korea have banned the short-selling of securities, the attempt by some investors to make money by betting that their holdings will decrease in value. On Monday, Greece ordered a halt in the short selling of stocks, and South Korea did the same on Tuesday. In both countries, stock indexes fell sharply in the aftermath of Standard & Poor's downgrading of the U.S. government's credit rating, and cost investors billions of dollars in losses.

Sure enough, in the 3 weeks following, M2 dropped to very much unremarkable weekly change levels. Until the week of August 1, or the week in which the specter of a US bankruptcy came to life, and in which the market took its first notable leg down. In that week, the broadest publicly released monetary aggregated - the M2 - soared to an all time high $9.5 trillion, or a $159 billion weekly change. This make it the third largest weekly spike in history After the Lehman bankruptcy and September 11.

Wondering what caused the dramatic plunge in gold and silver earlier? Wonder no more: the CME's counterpart in China, the Shanghai Gold Exchange, decided to follow through with an identical, if more substantial, action to that undertaken by the CME on Friday, and announced an increase in the Silver T+D contract margin from 15% to 18%, a 20% bump; the SGE also noted an increase in the price range limit from 12% to 15%, which will be promptly fulfilled, as margin hikes traditionally tend to lead to a sudden spike in vol, contrary to well-meaning expectations. There was a second announcement, slightly more cryptic one, noting that if volatility were to persist, the SGE would outright halt silver trading (although the Google Translation of this previously unseen form announcement is a little sketchy). Expect to see more exchange intervention in precious metals today. Regardless, those who bought silver 15% lower a whopping, oh, two hours ago, courtesy of the out and out sheer panic, are quite grateful to the Chinese.

In the instant case, we will need to create a neutral RESERVE CURRENCY whereby all exchange in goods globally will need to be between two independent currencies converted through the  RESERVE CURRENCY. Therefore, all commodities instead of trading in dollars will be traded in this new NEUTRAL RESERVE CURRENCY. Each nation will have its own currency that will allow it to retain its national culture and sovereignty. Because the dollar is the RESERVE CURRENCY at this time, it enjoys a status that means the demand for dollars will be retained for central banks will require dollars in the forms of bonds and this is created by both the need for reserves as well as the fact that most commodities trade in dollars and thus a supply of dollars is necessary to facilitate trade.

It means the spot market in gold could be headed for China- and away from London's Metals Exchange or the Comex in New York. I'd like to know who is going to oversee and regulate all this action.  For example, when the Comex raises margin requirements to dampen speculative fervor- will  China bew governed by that? I doubt it very much. In June you'll be able to buy spot gold or futures contracts in China. It also means that the Chinese currency- not dollars- will for the first time become the ruling currency used in one of the major speculative commodities of our age. All eyes will be on the influence of the gold trade in China  rather than New York, London, Switzerland or South Africa.

This summer, the State Legislature and Governor of Louisiana passed a law that bans individuals and businesses from transacting in cash if they are considered a "secondhand dealer". House Bill 195 of the 2011 Regular Session (Act 389) broadly defines a secondhand dealer to include "… Anyone, other than a non-profit entity, who buys, sells, trades in or otherwise acquires or disposes of junk or used or secondhand property more frequently than once per month from any other person, other than a non-profit entity, shall be deemed as being in the business of a secondhand dealer. " The law then states that "A secondhand dealer shall not enter into any cash transactions in payment for the purchase of junk or used or secondhand property. Payment shall be made in the form of check, electronic transfers, or money order issued to the seller of the junk or used or secondhand property…" The broad scope of this definition can essentially encompass everyone; from your local flea market vendors and buyers to a housewife purchasing goods on ebay or craigslist, to a group of guys trading baseball cards, they could all be considered secondhand dealers. Lawmakers in Louisiana have effectively banned its citizens from freely using United States legal tender.

They form an exclusive group, whose loosely regulated members are often based in such tax havens as Switzerland. Together, they are worth over a trillion dollars in annual revenue and control more than half the world's freely traded commodities. The top five piled up $629 billion in revenues last year, just below the global top five financial companies and more than the combined sales of leading players in tech or telecoms. Many amass speculative positions worth billions in raw goods, or hoard commodities in warehouses and super-tankers during periods of tight supply.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak issued a statement regarding the attacks: "This is a serious terrorist attack in a number of locations. The event reflects the weakening of Egyptian control over Sinai and the expansion of the activity of terrorist forces.  The origin of these acts of terror is in Gaza and we will act against them in our full force and determination."

A measure of global equities fell 10 percent from this year's high in May, entering its first so- called correction in more than a year, as concern grew that the economic recovery is faltering. The MSCI All-Country World Index of stocks in developed and emerging markets slid 1.2 percent to 320.91 at 1:45 p.m. in London, extending the decline from the near-three-year high on May 2 to 10.3 percent. The measure is on course for its biggest weekly drop since May after retreating 4.5 percent over the past four days.

Google Employees in Spain are getting a surprise SIM card with their Nexus S phones these days.  What you see above and below is Google's own SIM card which allows the 'sorta search monopolist' to become a MVNO in Spain.  While Google doesn't own its own towers or infrastructure (it buys bulk data from the local telecoms - in this case Telefonica, Vodafone, etc.), the move allows Google to control more of the phone experience.  For instance, it can pay one price for bulk data rather than on a per phone basis.  It can also dictate which carriers the phones pull in data from based on quality of service or price.  Roaming internationally can also be controlled and owned as well.

Mandarin could become a compulsory part of the school curriculum in the Karachi, Pakistan's commercial capital, and the surrounding province of Sindh, in a move that is further evidence of the warming relations between Islamabad and Beijing. The authorities want Mandarin to be taught by 2013 to all secondary school children in the region, according to a Sindh government statement.  It may be wishful thinking in a province where over 40 per cent of people can't read at all. But as a sign of China's growing influence it's significant.

If you're looking for a safe place to put your investments, Chad Venzke has a suggestion: Dig a hole in the ground four feet deep, pack gold and silver in a piece of plastic PVC pipe, seal it, and bury it. The 30-year-old central Wisconsin resident trusts no one but himself to store and protect his gold and silver-not banks, not investment funds, and certainly not the government. It's precisely because of this suspicion of institutions that he invests in those metals to begin with. In case of emergency, "you always want to have your precious metals within arms reach," he says.

The BBC Persian TV channel has at last acknowledged the role of the BBC Persian radio in the toppling of the democratically elected government of Iran in the 1953 coup. The coup overthrew the government of the then Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh leading to the restoration of absolute monarchy under dictator Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi who was later toppled in the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Employers announced plans to shed 115,730 workers from their payrolls in September, making it the worst job-cut month in over two years. Heavy reductions planned by the military accounted for a large portion of September job cuts, signaling what may lie ahead as the federal government seeks across-the-board cuts in spending.

About 80% of the SMEs in Zhejiang province are using underground banking loans to fund their businesses, even though the black market interest rates in the province have surged as high as 10% monthly, Cai Hua, a spokesman of the Zheshang Research Association, which represents entrepreneurs in the province, said. Zhejiang and other eastern provinces accounted for 53% of the country's GDP last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. More than 7,300 companies in Zhejiang were forced to close from January to April this year due to Beijing's monetary tightening measures, according to People's Daily newspaper.

As of Monday, which may have been a holiday in the US but was anything but in floundering Europe, the ECB held a whopping €166.8 billion in its deposit facility. This is an increase of €15 billion over Friday, and is the highest since August 2010. What this means, simply said, is that European banks are so terrified of holdings cash with each other or frankly in any market conduit not explicitly backstopped by the ECB (we will spare you the LIBOR chart, suffice it to say that 3M USD Libor increased again, this time from 0.333% to 0.336% as perfectly non-shadow interbank funding is becoming rares than hen's teeth).

Last Friday, Amazon took on the U.S. Post Office and opened a real world locker box service as a delivery portal for the stuff people buy on Amazon.com. The lockers, which come in several sizes, are located on a wall in a 7-11 convenience store in Seattle surrounding an ATM-like device that allows a customer to key in a PIN and pick up their Amazon package.

China sold Japan's medium- and long- term debt for the first time in nine months in June as the yen traded near a record high against the dollar and benchmark yields approached their lowest level since November.

ust eight months ago, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega declared a "truce" in competitive currency devaluations. Now, Japanese and Swiss moves to weaken the yen and the franc show reviving tension in foreign-exchange markets as the deteriorating U.S. economy weighs on the dollar. Japan sold yen today, causing the currency to weaken more than 4 percent against the dollar after rising 5 percent last month. "Ongoing one-sided moves" would hurt the recovery from a March earthquake, Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said. Yesterday, the Swiss National Bank cut interest rates to rein in the franc after a gain of about 36 percent in the past 12 months.