We are all living in the shadow of the problems of the Middle East still, however. 

Gold and silver stabilized today even on President Obama's softer rhetoric in a national address last night on television. 

There is solid belief that the road to neutralizing the Syrian poison gas weaponry will be a long and tricky one and that tensions can flare into a more warlike posture at any time. Stupidly, the Russians, in the midst of a time when good will is called for, shipped advanced surface to air missiles to Iran. Whether the old lumbering bear can be an honest broker naturally has been called into question. 

Once again we hear Goldman Sachs blow the anti-gold horn, a regular event in the company's commodities wing. "Gold prices have started to decline with the declining probability of a military intervention," Goldman said in a report before Obama's address. "We continue to expect that gold prices will decline into 2014 on the back of an acceleration in U.S. activity and a less accommodative monetary-policy stance." Yawn - conventional wisdom. 

Goldman, of course, has an agenda. Namely, they want equities to flourish because dealing with that sector is the largest part of its business, including the strength of its own stock's price, a major component of trading exchanges.

Analysts like those at Goldman believe that Fed tapering of QE3 is a foregone conclusion come September 17/18. It seems to us that economic signals are muddy. Good news is always balanced by bad news. Defeat seems to be consistently snatched from the jaws of victory. 

Yesterday we had indicators from a small businesses survey that said even though July and probably August looked a little downbeat, September and October were looking peachy.

Yesterday, though it was reported that the number of positions waiting to be filled declined by 180,000 to 3.69 million, from a revised 3.87 million the prior month that was weaker than initially reported, the Labor Department said. Hirings rose and firings cooled down some, but still, the loss of 180,000 openings is more than the number of jobs created last month (169,000).

Yesterday's Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed the number of people hired climbed to 4.42 million in July, keeping the hiring rate at 3.2 percent.

Job openings decreased at construction companies, retailers, health service providers and government agencies, while increasing in manufacturing and hotel and food services. August is not economically a good month in which to see construction hiring slow down.

Ironically, the threat of QE tapering is forcing employers to take a second look at future hiring. "The labor market is still recovering, though slowly," Russell Price, a senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc., said before the report. "We're going to see businesses become a little more cautious."

One factor that gold and silver bulls must start keeping a very close eye on is Treasury yields, especially on the 10-year bond. As yields rise, regular, at-large interest rates rise, sucking money out of other areas, such as gold and oil. It also signals more faith in the future of the American economy. More money flowing into bonds is a leading indicator of higher risk appetite outside the government bond market. Why? Because it makes corporate bond issues pay more interest - i.e. above and beyond the Federal benchmarks' yields - and that in turn means investors are showing faith in companies' abilities to earn more money. (See stories today about Verizon's successful bond auction).

On a side note, today we heard that the cost to the United States of the financial crisis and subsequent recession is being put at $14 trillion. That's some real money.