Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, has long advocated fiscal conservatism. In a recent interview for CNBC, he told the U.S. to stop printing money, bite the bullet and go on an austerity program. His ideas are sound but are falling on deaf ears at the Federal Reserve. Rogers said that he would rather have Europe manage our fiscal policy.

We must remember that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has already pledged and spent $12.8 trillion dollars to bail a handful of bankers. Now he says he will spend more if needed. He is already pumping money into the economy by buying treasuries with the proceeds of expiring securities.

Why buy the Swiss franc? There are many reasons. Here are just a few:

• The Swiss franc is the stand-alone currency of Switzerland. By this we mean that Switzerland is not part of the European Union and does not use the euro as its currency.
• The Swiss franc offers currency exposure to Europe, while not subject to problems of countries like Greece and Spain defaulting on their sovereign debt.

Can you believe this? Railroad company Norfolk Southern has issued a 100-year bond with an interest rate of only 5.95%. In other words, you would be buying a 100-year bond without the slightest clue about will happen in the next 100 years in the railroad industry -- or in the world.

Nevertheless, Norfolk Southern (NSC) has raised $250 million in bond sales, more than double the $100-million minimum originally announced. Norfolk is believed to have gotten the lowest rate possible for its bonds.

Meanwhile, the 30-year U.S. treasury bond yields have dropped to their lowest level ever -- 3.65%.

Speaking to state legislators, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke detailed specific areas in the economy that are still weak and holding back full recovery.

Among them are:

• Topping the list is high unemployment and a weak housing market. Speaking to this point Bernanke said: "We have a considerable way to go to achieve full recovery in our economy, and many Americans are still grappling with unemployment, foreclosure and lost savings."

It seems as if everyone is worried about the economy going into a double-dip recession these days. Worry in and of itself can be very destructive, both to your mental state and to the economy overall. Besides pulling out your hair, causing acid reflux and other health problems, worry can actually become self-fulfilling prophecy and cause the very thing you are most afraid of.

A number of years ago when I read Dale Carnegie's book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, one method he suggested was just to accept the worst case scenario and then move on with life from there.

So accept it: THE ECONOMY IS DOOMED! it's going to be 10 years of economic nightmare!

Now what?

Now here's a real worry for the Federal Reserve. According to the Associated Press,25% of Americans have a credit score below 600.

A score below 600 automatically puts you in an unwanted category. If you happen to fall below 600, forget about buying a house. Lenders and landlords will look at your FICO score before renting and really don't care what the reason is for the low score.

If you were a potential home buyer and heard talk of a double dip recession, what would you think? You might think that the next drop will be worse than the first and that you probably shouldn't buy now. You might wait a bit to see what happens. That's exactly what most Americans are doing and that's exactly why demand for home loans is at a 13-year low.

This is happening despite record low mortgage rates of 4.69%. The record low rates attracted refinancing, which accounted for 78.7% of all applications last week. But even refinancing fell 2.9%

Twenty years ago, Nathan Most invented the exchange-traded fund (ETF) as a simple mutual fund that trades on exchanges like a stock. Then other creators like Blackrock Inc. (BLK) joined in, creating ETFs for commodities as well as exotic ones that double and triple returns. They are called 2x and 3x shares.

When first introduced, ETFs were shunned, mainly because investors knew little about the way they worked. Slowly, they gained momentum, and now there are some 260 such funds trading $40 billion globally. On some days, more than four out of ten trades on U.S. stock exchanges involve ETFs.

Bond yields around the globe are painting a grim picture for anyone who is still bullish on the stock market.

Yields on the U.S. Treasury's 10-Year note dropped to a 52-week low of 3.09% on Wednesday, at the same time the yield on Japan's 10-year bond is hitting seven-year lows of 1.145%.

Investors also pushed yields on Germany's 10-year Bund to 21-year lows of 2.5%.

Sinking bond yields indicate demand for bonds is increasing, and we typically only see demand for bonds rise to these levels when investors are jumping out of the stock market.

Well, millionaires of the world, your club has become a bit less elite. The number of millionaires across the globe rose by an astounding 17% in 2009, according to the 14th annual "World Wealth Report" published by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini SA. That's a lot of wealth in a time of global economic crisis.

But first, what defines a millionaire? No, having a baseball-card collection that might fetch that kind of a price tag doesn't count (unfortunately). The way the Merrill study defines it is those households with at least $1 million in investable assets, not including primary residences. There are now 10 million of these households in the world, up from 8.6 million in 2008.

The price of gold has recently set a new high, which may indicate a lot of fear about the future by investors. Could high gold prices be telling us the financial storm is far from over? Might record gold prices be indicative of more fiscal trouble in the years to come?

It has been 15 months since the March 2009 lows in the stock market and we have seen significant improvements since. Yet, Europe is full of fiscal problems; governments are spending too much money; and there is still a lot of uncertainty in the market.

George Soros plays the bear much more often than the bull. In a dramatic statement at a conference in Vienna, he said: "We have just entered Act II" of the crisis Again in dramatic fashion he states: ""The collapse of the financial system as we know it is real and the crisis is far from over." "Indeed we've just entered Act II of the drama."

What does Soros see that makes him so bearish? For one thing he believes that the financial crisis in Europe will worsen and attempts to cut budget deficits will push the global economy back into a recession.

Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan, predicts trouble ahead for world economies. The Black Swan is a metaphor for unexpected events because people view the world as something structured, ordinary and comprehensible.

Some of his statements are factual, and some are conjecture. Here is list of quotes from his interview on CNBC:

The $8,000 tax credit for first time home buyers has ended. That created a vacuum. Home loans fell off 5.7% in the week ending June 4, the lowest level since 1997. Purchase applications dropped 35% below their level four weeks ago. Let's keep in mind that applications are a good predictor of future sales.

The refinance market is also suffering. The MBA refinance index fell 14.3%, after rising for four straight weeks. This is taking place even when mortgage rates are below 5%. 30 year loans are down to 4.81%.

Gold is on the move today. August gold futures are trading at $1,240.30 per ounce, up $22.60 (12:30 EDT.) One of the triggers that set the rally off was a breach of the $1.19 level in the euro. The June euro traded at $1.18740 earlier this morning.

Leonard Kaplan of Prospector Asset Management commented: "People are still buying gold for currency protection." "People should remember that the euro was once at 85 cents and I see no reason why it shouldn't go there again."