OFF TOPIC;
But of interest:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/12143395/Blood-test-to-spot-five-deadly-cancers-could-prevent-thousands-of-deaths.html

I agree with Jay, in that the gold standard was replaced by a de facto oil standard in the 1970s.
I disagree, however, with the relative strength militarily of the US versus China and Russia.
It appears to me that China could and would win any conventional war.
It would appear that Russia has recently technologically out-paced the US.
I don’t think that any country wants any nuclear war, but it is not clear to me that the US could win such a war.
At the moment a nuclear war appears to be a lose-lose proposition.

Hence my concern over US destruction (probably slowly and methodically) by financial means.

The US has released about $100 Billion of Iranian money; as part of Obama’s US-Iran treaty.
How is Iran going to spend that money?
Their biggest chunk so far has gone towards ordering planes from China.
These are not passenger aircraft, but versions of the American designed, F22,.
(This is currently the US’s best fighter plane, in my opinion.. (Not the F35 which has all kinds of problems)
China stole their version of the F22 cyberwise, and clearly the US will increasingly have significant problems with arms sales.

Russia, on the other hand, is clearly re-arming as fast as their economy will allow:
http://podbay.fm/show/589864479/e/1454653741?autostart=1

GOLD LOOKING GOOD…………1162