“What is holding the economy back? Why is it that we’ve had such incredibly accommodative monetary policy for so long (but) we’ve had so little growth? I think it remains a puzzle,” said Donald Kohn, who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, citing “grave” concerns about stagnation in the labor market in remarks that were seen as advancing the case for another round of bond purchases by the U.S. central bank, talked about headwinds obstructing a recovery that included the debt crisis in Europe and U.S. fiscal policy.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi canceled his attendance at the conference to stay home to prepare for a meeting on Thursday, at which he may advance a controversial plan for the ECB to buy Spanish and Italian government bonds to win time for the region to tackle its festering debt crisis.

Why is Putin stockpiling gold? I can’t imagine it means anything cheerful that Vladimir Putin, the Russian czar, is stockpiling gold as fast as he can get his hands on it.

According to the World Gold Council, Russia has more than doubled its gold reserves in the past five years. Putin has taken advantage of the financial crisis to build the world’s fifth-biggest gold pile in a handful of years, and is buying about half a billion dollars’ worth every month.

Perhaps it is due to the effort by the BRICs to reconstitute the SDR, with some gold in the basket of currencies, as a major instrument for international trade when the US dollar falters as the world’s reserve currency. It is the most important thing that no one is even discussing.

Big things are underway behind the scenes, the kind of sea change that everyone understands after the fact, but almost no one sees coming, especially those whose gaze is fixed from within deep wells of subjectivity.

“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rise and fall, and you can foresee the future, too.” Marcus Aurelius

The only certainty is change. Let’s see what happens.