On the heels of Sunday’s FT report that the CFTC is dropping their investigation of silver manipulation- a fact Bart Chilton refuted as ‘premature and inaccurate‘, silver has traded in a tight range overnight and early in today’s COMEX session- with a range of $27.70 to $27.90. The tight range and lack of volatility is Read the Rest...

Read more: Silver Doctors

Jeff Horwich: U.S. stock markets are all up this morning, but few stocks are jumping like Best Buy. Shares in the Minnesota electronics retailer got as high as 18 percent in early trading -- up about 9 percent at this hour. Here's the reason: Co-founder Richard Schulze is making a bid to take the company private. Marketplace's Eve Troeh is here live in the studio with more on it. Hello, Eve! Eve Troeh: Hey, good morning. Horwich: So what does Schulze intend to do here? Troeh: Well, he already owns about 20 percent of the company, and he wants to buy back the other 80 percent at a cost of almost $9 billion. So I talked to RJ Hottovy this morning. He follows Best Buy as a stock analyst at Morningstar. And, Schulze is offering to buy all that stock, Hottovy says, for up to $26 a share. That's more than the current market price but it might not be enough for current stockholders -- they might want to hold out for $30 a share. Plus, says Minnesota law requires Schulze to get approval from the board of directors. That's not likely to be easy. And, perhaps most importantly: Hottovy says Schulze hasn't revealed a real game plan. RJ Hottovy: You know he said he had a vision to turn around this company, and while you certainly don't want to give everything away in this proposal, it's certainly lacking details on what the company needs to do. Horwich: Here's an obvious question: Why would Schulze even want to wrestle back control of something that seems to most people to be a dying company? Troeh: I think pride is the short answer. Schulze started this company, and so it makes sense that he either wants to right this ship, or go down with it. He did step down from the board in June, earlier than expected. That was amidst controversy over Best Buy's CEO, who apparently had an affair with a female employee. And Schulze has also faced criticism over many years for giving family members and friends these cushy jobs or board positions. So while the stock may be up on news that he's coming back in, sweeping in potentially, taking it over again, those longstanding concerns come back along with him. Horwich: In terms of getting Best Buy back to health, what in the store needs to change? Troeh: The big problem with any retail electronics is window shopping -- people come to the store to look, but then they whip out those smartphones and find it cheaper on Amazon or some other site and buy it there. Best Buy's been trying to combat this a little with Geek Squad staff, really focusing on customer service -- both in the store and online. Any announcements that Schulze makes beyond that, would definitely be news for this flagging industry. Horwich: Marketplace reporter Eve Troeh, thanks for coming in. Troeh: Thank you.

Read more: Latest Stories on Marketplace.org

Major banks, which often band together when facing government scrutiny, are now turning on one another as an international investigation into the manipulation of interest rates gains momentum. With billions of dollars and their reputations on the line, financial institutions have been spreading the blame in recent meetings with authorities, according to government and bank officials with knowledge of the matter.

Read more: Implode-Explode Heavy Industries news feed

A few months ago, we noted that Samsung's new phones had rather odd designs... and the theory making the rounds was that, considering the ongoing worldwide fight it was in with Apple, it was trying to go out of its way to make the phones as un-Apple-like as possible. Of course, that resulted in ugly, weirdly shaped phones. As you may (hopefully?) know, some of the patents in the fight are "design patents" rather than utility patents. When people talk about patents, they usually are referring

Read more: Techdirt.

OAK CREEK, Wisconsin (Reuters) - The gunman who killed six people at a Sikh temple in southern Wisconsin was a former U.S. serviceman, a law enforcement official said on Monday, and a monitor of extremists said the shooter had links to racist groups.

Read more: Reuters: Top News

Jeff Horwich: The Commodities Futures Trading Commission is the Washington agency that's been cracking down on banks for manipulating this interest rate we've been hearing a lot about called LIBOR. Today the Financial Times reports the CFTC may drop another price-fixing investigation it's been working on for years: whether big banks have manipulated the price of silver. Christopher Werth has more from London. Christopher Werth: Silver has been a fairly good investment over the past few years. Ben Traynor at the website BullionVault.com says five years ago you'd have paid about $10 an an ounce. Today... Ben Traynor: I'll just double check it. Yeah, it is just below $28. But some silver investors say the price could be even higher. They accuse big investment banks, such as JP Morgan, of trying to manipulate the market so they could bet on the price of silver dropping. Over the course of the investigation the CFTC it says it's pored over thousands of documents and interviewed dozens of witnesses. But today the Financial Times reports that the agency doesn't have enough evidence to prove a case. Traynor says those in the metal industry won't be too surprised by the news. Traynor: Manipulation is a very hard thing to prove. It's very hard to prove if it's happening. It's even harder to prove if it isn't happening. And many in the industry are doubtful that it is. Nevertheless, Traynor expects suspicions of wrongdoing to continue for a long time to come. In London, I'm Christopher Werth for Marketplace.

Read more: Latest Stories on Marketplace.org

Jeremy Hobson: Lawmakers have left Washington for the August recess. And they did so without taking action on one of the biggest economic hurdles ahead. That would be the so-called fiscal cliff. In January the Bush tax cuts are set to expire and hundreds of billions of dollars in spending cuts are set to go into effect automatically. Businesses and investors are trying to prepare as best they can for whatever may come. But what should the rest of us be doing? Julia Coronado is chief economist with the investment bank BNP Paribas, and she's with us live as she is every Monday. Good morning. Julia Coronado: Good morning. Hobson: Well Julia, what do you expect is going to happen here? Do you think we’ll go careening off the fiscal cliff or will we serve at the last minute? Coronado: Let’s be clear. The fiscal cliff is very very steep. It adds up to about 4 percent of GDP, so if we go off this cliff it will throw us into a recession. And for that reason, I think that there will be plenty of bluster ahead of the elections -- nothing gets done 'til after November, but come December the lawmakers on both sides of the aisle will hold hands, sing "Kumbaya" and probably pass a one-year extension of most of these measures. So we won’t, in fact, end up going off the fiscal cliff. Hobson: So, what are the rest of us supposed to do then? I mean, if Washington is driving the bus here towards the cliff are we supposed to buckle up and put on a blindfold? Coronado: Well, I would never advocate putting on a blindfold as an economist. I would say that what you should do is not panic and know that probably some of these measures will take effect at some point. In other words, we’re all going to probably pay higher taxes at some point in the future, if it’s not 2013 it may be later than that. But just sort of, plan as you usually do and go about life as usual and not make radical changes in anticipation of the fiscal cliff. Hobson: All right, we will do. Julia Coronado, chief economist with the investment bank BNP Paribas, thanks as always. Coronado: It’s a pleasure.

Read more: Latest Stories on Marketplace.org

Jeff Horwich: Politicians and government watchdogs are perpetually worried about something they call "the revolving door": private sector people take jobs in government for a while, then leave again for the private world. The worry is that their own economic incentives affect their work as public servants. A team of researchers has a new paper out today that looks at this effect on lawyers at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC. Simi Kedia is a professor of finance and economics at the Rutgers Business School. Good to talk with you. Simi Kedia: Very good to be here. Horwich: So lawyers go to work at the SEC for a while, then go on to some presumably plum job in the private sector. What specifically is the concern about how their work might be affected? Kedia: So the specific concern might be for example that if they want to get a job in a private law firm and they are involved in a case where a private law firm is defending a client against the SEC, that they might somehow compromise the SEC regulatory effort and be sort of more lenient towards the private law firm, who they might eventually want to join. Horwich: So that's the kind of gut feeling, doesn't feel like there was much data on it though. How did you actually test that? Kedia: We basically tested whether the SEC lawyers who eventually leave the SEC to join private law firms, that they somehow do less rigorous regulatory effort while they were at the SEC and possibly contemplating leaving the SEC to join the private law firms. So we found actually quite contrary that not only there was no less regulatory effort, we found that they actually worked harder while they were at the SEC. Horwich: And they might actually have, dare we say: integrity? Kedia: Yes. Horwich: Does this lessen your own cynicism? Does it give you more faith in our public servants, at least at the SEC? Kedia: It does work, although I do like to point out that we are able to look at only a very small segment of the data. So it does lessen my skepticism, and given that the SEC has been under a lot of scrutiny in the past few years, it does seem to suggest that some things are working right. Horwich: Simi Kedia, professor of finance and economics at Rutgers. Great to talk with you, thanks. Kedia: Thank you very much, Jeff.

Read more: Latest Stories on Marketplace.org

  Every morning we put out a report with the latest on global markets, companies, and economic data. In focus today; stocks in focus today include; KCG, GM, BA, BBY, HCA, AES, WMT, UG, MKS, ABE Morning Market Update    Market …

Read more: ValueWalk

Last Thursday’s ECB meeting was probably the most closely watched Central Bank event.   I’m going to dwell on Draghi’s remarks as they were highly important and, in my opinion, particularly bullish.   The initial reaction was that Mr Draghi did not meet a number of expectations (given his very strong statements a week or [...]

Read more: The Big Picture

``... the "audit" seems intended to dispel "conspiracy theories" without actually having to disclose anything about the U.S. government's gold market intervention policy, the issue at the heart of GATA's freedom-of-information lawsuit against the Fed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a lawsuit that was decided more or less in GATA's favor last year and revealed that the Fed has secret gold swap arrangements with foreign banks as well as many other gold-related records that are being kept secret:''

Read more: Implode-Explode Heavy Industries news feed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Monday that although broad measurements of the economy point to recovery, many people and businesses are facing tough times.

Read more: Reuters: Top News

(Reuters) - Best Buy Co Inc founder and former Chairman Richard Schulze offered to take the struggling electronics retailer private on Monday in a deal valued between $8.16 billion to $8.84 billion.

Read more: Reuters: Top News

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch company Spyker said it was suing General Motors for $3 billion on behalf of its subsidiary Saab, accusing the U.S. automaker of deliberately driving Saab into bankruptcy by interfering with a planned deal with a Chinese investor.

Read more: Reuters: Top News

Jeremy Hobson: When I think Cayman Islands, I think of beaches, island breezes, and tax havens. The British territory has $91,000 registered companies, including 235 banks. But now, because of pressure to plug a budget hole, the government is proposing a 10 percent income tax on foreign workers. Anthony Travers is chairman of the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange and he joins us now. Good morning. Anthony Travers: Good morning. Hobson: So how long have you been living and working in the Cayman Islands? Travers: Thirty-seven years, I'm happy to say. Hobson: That sounds pretty nice. And how have things changed since then, if at all? Travers: Well, dramatically. When I came here, there were no roads, no newspapers, no television, no radio. And now it's the fifth largest financial center in the world. So we believe in the tax-free structure here. The Cayman Islands is probably the last bastion of free capitalism. Hobson: OK, so, as you understand it, who is this new tax going to hit? Travers: If it were enacted, the proposal is that it only applies to foreign workers in the Cayman Islands. Hobson: These are just people working there -- not somebody who has an account there or who is running their business there -- they actually have to be working there. Travers: That's correct. It certainly doesn't apply to investors or any of the financial industry. It's people who are residents on the island who Caymanian -- that is to say, the ex-patriot workers. Hobson: OK, so what's wrong with that? Why shouldn't the government do that to try to fill a budget hole? Travers: Well, I think the firestorm of negativity that's been caused here comes about because for 200 years, the Cayman Islands has never had any form of direct taxation on anyone resident on the island -- so it is a major change. Hobson: But where do you think businesses or people are going to go if this tax goes into effect? I mean, there's not a place, really, that exists that is going to have a competitive tax situation, even if they put in this 10 percent tax, right? Travers: I think the concern is that this is seen as a thin end of a wedge. The pressure on this is coming from the British government, not the Cayman Islands government. And I think what they want to see is higher taxes generally, and the feeling is that if taxes are introduced here -- any form of direct tax -- rates will only go up. Hobson: Anthony Travers, chairman of the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange. Thanks so much. Travers: Thank you.

Read more: Latest Stories on Marketplace.org

The Banksters like stealing candy from little children. No, I'm not exaggerating...they really do. At least according to a new study out of the University of California Berkeley and the University of Toronto. Two teams of researchers discovered that wealthy upper-class Americans are more likely than middle-class or poorer Americans to break traffic laws -- lie for financial gain -- and yes -- steal candy from children.

Read more: Implode-Explode Heavy Industries news feed

``There are signs we've hit bottom. Nothing to worry about here. Why risk the possibility of a small outlay merely to provide relief to hundreds of thousands of desperate people? This is such a perfect statement of the way the American elite has approached the economic crisis. They concede that it is a problem. But there are other problems, you know. ''

Read more: Implode-Explode Heavy Industries news feed

Bain Capital, under Romney as chief executive officer, made about $1 billion in a leveraged buyout 12 years ago that remains controversial in Italy to this day. Bain was part of a group that bought a telephone-directory company from the Italian government and then sold it about two years later, at the peak of the technology bubble, for about 25 times what it paid.

Read more: Implode-Explode Heavy Industries news feed