The need to bring mining back to North America is more urgent than ever.

For “hard money” advocates, this has been a remarkable month. Gold has risen by more than $100, silver has begun to surge, and the headlines are full of news items quite capable of raising public concerns to crisis levels.

Fundamental information on gold and silver turned more to the bullish side this past month, and we can point to three particular items as the basis for that conclusion.

This collection of positives augurs well for strengthening worldwide industrial activity leading to upward price pressures and eventually rising inflationary expectations—all of which have historically positive implications for gold and silver...

This past month has been filled with headline-grabbing news events and, for a change, it was not only politics that dominated those news stories, but rather financial markets themselves, with gold and mining shares grabbing a major share of attention.

There is one last indicator that I believe may be the most important of all. That is the “Index of Leading Economic Indicators” (LEI), which is a compendium of those economic indicators that point toward future growth, and LEI has just reached historic highs, far exceeding previous peaks in 1999 and 2006.