The most recent figures show the consumer becoming a little freer with his money. But look beneath the surface and you find government statisticians juking and jiving with the numbers.

This week we do some review on a very important topic, the velocity of money.

Insurrection is in the air all over the world.

The US dollar fell against all G10 currencies except for the Japanese yen, breaking out of its tight range against the euro and testing its recent lows in the trade-weighted US Dollar index.

Should there be a second round of panic focused on this struggling EU member, it is not likely that the issue would pass so easily on mere assurances of action and reiterations of confidence from various policy officials.

An unexpected drop in the Japanese unemployment rate continued the theme of improving fundamentals.

The British pound may rise if the Bank of England is able to successfully convince the markets that it is truly shifted gears from an outright dovish posture to a wait-and-see approach with the release of minutes from the March meeting of the MPC.

The Swiss National Bank raising their forecasts for inflation and growth also helped generate bullish Franc sentiment.

China has quietly bought stakes in America’s leading companies, and in various businesses all over the world. But the only way large amounts of US dollar cash can be readily and safely deployed is in US bonds.

Let’s look at the private sector. There, we find unemployment still around 10%. Adult males in their prime working years, however, have fewer jobs than ever before.