Politico | Giving validation to Occupy Wall Street protests over the increasing burdens of student debt, a new report indicates that the amount of total amount of outstanding student loans will exceed $1 trillion for the first time ever this year. In addition, the amount of student loans taken out last year was greater than $100 billion, another new record, according to USA Today, citing the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Zero Hedge | By now nobody should have any doubts as to just how disturbing America's fiscal debacle is. For those naive and innocent few who still think there is a Hollywood ending with a pot of gold awaiting everyone at the end of the rainbow, we present the following "10 essential fiscal charts" from the Pew Policy Institute. To be sure, these are all charts summarizing data that has appeared on Zero Hedge repeatedly over the years in some way shape or form. Pew does, however, have a flair for dramatic visual presentation. In Pew's own words: "Since April 2010, the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative has published several reports explaining the medium-and long-term fiscal challenges facing the federal government. With stagnating economic conditions and the passage of new legislation, especially the Budget Control Act of 2011, the outlook for the deficit and debt has changed considerably over the past six months. We have created 10 charts that illustrate how the choices made over the last 10 years contributed to our nation’s debt and the challenges currently facing the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction." So without further ado...

Daily News | Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested in Chicago and other cities on Saturday night and Sunday morning, as the anti-corporate fury from the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York continue to spread across the country. Shortly after 1 a.m. in Chicago, police arrested some 175 protesters who had set up a makeshift tent city and formed a human chain in Congress Plaza by Grant Park, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune.  The arrests were mostly peaceful, the report said, although police did face chants of "Shame on you!" and "This is what democracy looks like!" from some of the estimated 500 protesters in the crowd, many of whom were sitting on the ground with their arms interlocked.

CNBC | All the major countries in the world are in a race to debase their currencies in order to restart their economies. Either economic growth returns or—as some doomsayers predict—the 40-year run of fiat currencies ends. And if under this worst case scenario the solution was to return to the gold standard of the Nixon years, the price of bullion would be worth $10,000-plus, six-times the current price, according to Paul Brodsky, co-managing member of QB Asset Management company and a self-professed ‘Gold Bug.’

GoldSeek.com | The recent correction in gold has once again led, to financial commentators warning of a bubble—just as they have incessantly since it first passed $400 an ounce. A bubble usually ends with day after day of speculative higher highs, not corrections like we have just seen or as we saw in August where a $200 fall was followed by the resumption of its decade long rise. That gold continues to climb a wall of worry, and that so many are even calling it a bubble, is actually an extremely bullish indicator since financial bubbles burst only after sustained periods of exuberance. We are far from the days when people lined up for blocks each day to buy gold, as they did in Toronto in 1980.

WSJ |The protesters have been sold a bill of goods. Reckless government policies, not private greed, brought about the housing bubble and resulting financial crisis. There is no mystery where the Occupy Wall Street movement came from: It is an offspring of the same false narrative about the causes of the financial crisis that exculpated the government and brought us the Dodd-Frank Act. According to this story, the financial crisis and ensuing deep recession was caused by a reckless private sector driven by greed and insufficiently regulated. It is no wonder that people who hear this tale repeated endlessly in the media turn on Wall Street to express their frustration with the current conditions in the economy.

Guardian | Stock market turmoil and record low interest rates have left workers nearing retirement with private pensions worth substantially less than those who finished work three years ago, new figures show.

SilverSeek.com | Several readers of ArabianMoney have written to us over the past two weeks to express their astonishment at the current price of silver because demand where they live is so high that stocks have run out. Consider this comment: ‘I used to buy silver from a shop in Kobar in Saudi. From the last four weeks they said they ran out of silver. I cannot find anyone who sells silver in Saudi now. I asked them from where do they get their silver. They said the UAE. The problem is they only have 1kg bars…and I still cannot find any supplier.’

Forbes | In Topeka, Kansas city officials are considering a controversial move to decriminalize domestic violence in the city after the Shawnee County government offloaded domestic violence enforcement on to city governments. Cities facing budget cuts and lost revenue are turning to many different cost-cutting measures, but this is perhaps the most extreme. Already, the county government has turned away at least 30 domestic violence cases.

DigitalJournal.com | China is one of the world's largest producers and purchasers of precious metals, especially gold and silver. Beijing has now unveiled its first gold ATM machine in a shopping district. More than 2,000 will be installed in the next two years. Since the beginning of the global economic meltdown, China has been purchasing and producing commodities at a rapid pace. Digital Journal has reported in the past that its central bank has bought gold bullion and state-television outlets have even urged citizens to acquire silver bullion.

Reuters | The Bank of England voted on Thursday to buy 75 billion pounds more in assets to shield Britain's economy from the euro zone debt crisis and keep the faltering recovery going.Thursday's decision to expand its asset purchase program to a total of 275 billion pounds highlights the precarious state of Britain's economy as global growth slows, government spending cuts and tax hikes bite and consumers face high inflation and slow wage rises.

CNBC.com | Earlier today I wrote about Kyle Bass buying $1 million of nickels. That seemed like a weird investment. Kyle Bass is a lot smarter than I pretend to be, however, so maybe I thought maybe I was missing something. It's undeniably true that the metal materials in US Nickels is worth more than the coins. But melting U.S. coins is illegal, so realizing that value might be challenging.

SeekingAlpha.com | As we anticipated earlier this year, commercial shorts including JPM are finally within grasping reach of covering their positions and transitioning to net long. For more than a decade, the large commercial trading banks have been trapped with an enormous short position in silver as the price has risen from its lows near $3 to its May high of nearly $50. Most analysts expected the commercial shorts to be broken in a short squeeze, likely launching silver above $100. However, this short squeeze will not occur.

CNS News |  The Obama administration passed another fiscal milestone this week, according to new data released by the Treasury Department. As of the close of business on Oct. 3, the total national debt was $14,837,099,271,196.71—up about $44.8 billion from Sept. 30. That means that in the less-than-three-years Obama has been in office, the federal debt has increased by $4.212 trillion--more than the total national debt of about $4.1672 trillion accumulated by all 41 U.S. presidents from George Washington through George H.W. Bush combined.

Telegraph | The fund is seeking to invest in a range of natural resources, but gaining access to physical gold is its top strategic priority. On Sunday, Qatar Holdings, which controls the wealth of the Middle East state's royal family, confirmed it would invest about $1bn in European Goldfields, a London-listed miner currently developing the largest gold-mining project in Greece.