Today's Big Stories (and the ones that should be big but aren't...yet)

What's new and important today, or not so new but still important? How about this:

1. The United Arab Emirates is buying gold too! Last week I mentioned the UAE was going to diversify its currency reserves by buying fewer dollars more euros. Now, gold is in the mix, with the UAE's central banker saying he may convert as much as ten percent of his country's currency reserves into gold "very soon." Gold is up seven bucks on the day and at US$620 as I write.
2. The Fed shooting for Six Percent? Barclay's Capital is predicting the Fed funds rate will hit six percent by the end of the year. That would certainly put a damper on the party in the stock market that began last week. Six percent yield isn't a bad return on your money, even if it's from U.S. government paper. People forget that the total return from U.S. stocks over the years is greatly helped by reinvested dividends from boring stocks that pay a healthy yield.
3. Another Explanation for the Fed's Actions? And while we're talking about the Fed (as we inevitably must) we might as well ask if there isn't a different explanation to its actions and its real motives. Click on the link for more below.
4. Drilling for Gas in the OCS Back on the Political Map The House and the Senate must reconcile on a plan to expand drilling for gas on federally protected lands, or under federally protected waters. They're getting closer to that reconciliation. The key issue? You guessed it, money. Specifically, who will get royalty checks, the States or the Federal government?
5. Spiderman vs. Superman: the Great Comic Divide Why only ordinary people can be heroes.
6. Listerine on a Sunday: Is the modern world turning us into lonely, over-medicated, retreatist isolationists? "What we say is what's important," says hobo Dan in the cane thicket.