This is an interesting take because it has yet another call to increase the capitalization of the so-called too big to fail banks. It sound great and 24/7 Wall St. is all in favor of big banks being on solid ground. The ultimate problem is that the big banks are so big that increase their capitalization requirements effectively withdraws too much capital from the economy.  It is without any doubt that you have heard of the calls to break apart the big banks before. You will here those same calls tomorrow and beyond as well.

When you consider that a mere handful of banks have about half of the country’s personal and commercial bank deposits you have a right to be scared. Increasing the capital requirements above the 10% hurdles set by Basel banking standards. Imagine how strong and able these banks would be able to hold up in another recession if their bank capital requirements went from 10% to say 15%.   Now for the bad news if you look at the tally of assets as of the end of 2012. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) was about $2.36 trillion in assets and Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) has $2.2 trillion in assets, with Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) behind it at $1.86 trillon and then followed by $1.42 trillion for Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC).

These four banks alone have $7.84 trillion in assets. The CIA World Factbook tracks just about all global economies and its final estimate for 2012 GDP was put at $15.66 trillion for 2012. Different regulators have many different means of calculating what they think the capitalization are best and keeping up with the flavor of the day or week is for government accountants and regulators. Still, this asset base for just the four biggest banks is right at half (actually 50.06%) of 2012 GDP on the purchasing power parity calculation preferred by economists.

It is very easy to merely say in a vacuum that the too big to fail banks should just increase their capital to hedge against future bailouts. Various regulators have various means of evaluating capitalization metrics and requirements. The unfortunate outcome is that by forcing banks to hold even more capital will tighten credit even further than it has been. With much of the world back in recession, that puts the U.S. back in recession.

Here is what Mr. Plosser said,

“Today, I will highlight why I think current efforts may not be sufficient and discuss a two-pronged approach to ending the problem of too big to fail. The first aspect of this approach is establishing a framework that permits a large financial institution to, in fact, fail without placing the financial system at risk. Large financial firms, and particularly their creditors, should not be rescued or protected by government guarantees or supports or by regulatory discretion. The second line of defense that I will discuss is to expect all financial firms to maintain sufficient levels of capital to significantly reduce the ex-ante risk of failure. Increased capital requirements can lower the incentive for financial institutions to become systemically important and lower the probability that such firms will fail in the first place.”

There is an admission that these “TBTF” banks would become less systemically important. We have no problem with the notion that 20 of the top 50 banks should be allowed to grow and take assets from the top 4. The question is how you can do it without creating a recession. No one seems to have the stomach to actually break apart these businesses. Merely lifting capital reserve requirements comes with a serious price due to the economies of scale here.

Finally, just imagine breaking all of these big banks up as the ultimate step that many people would like to see. This would be very messy and would likely throw the economy back into a self-imposed recession. At first there would be many layoffs and many immediate hits in the economy. That would likely reverse itself and perhaps in as short as one or two quarters of the year. During that period of chaos, businesses would have limited access to capital again just like in 2008 and 2009 at the same time that individuals would not be able to easily get mortgages and loans. The list of problems can just go on and on even though we agree that the big banks are just too big and too economically important.

It is easy for politicians and regulators to propose more strict and tighter standards. As you can see, the actual path to take is harder to walk down than it is to talk about. If you do not believe that there would not be real problems here, ask yourself why the moves have been so slow even after the financial crisis. Even with the anti-money sentiment that much of the public and their elected officials have today, the powers that be must also believe that the price to pay would be too costly.

Investors used to be addicted to stock splits for more than a generation. As share prices rose and rose, companies kept splitting their stock. Some consider this a means of keeping a share price low to keep attracting new investors. Other investors consider a stock split nothing but a gimmick.

Whole Foods Market Inc. (NASDAQ: WFM) was the latest company to join in on the bandwagon. The stock rose by 10% and hit yet another all-time on the news. The reality is that the shares have risen on a solid earnings report and on its ability to maintain much higher gross margin than traditional grocery stores.

Other companies have upcoming stock splits as well. The earnings calendar and stock split calendar show that A.O. Smith (NYSE: AOS) and Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL) will both go ex-split on a 2-1 basis with an ex-split date of May 16. Noble Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NBL) will go ex-split on a 2-1 basis on May 29.

Ask Warren Buffett what he thinks about stock splits. His A-shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) have never split and recently put in an all-time stock price high of almost $167,000. Even his more newly created B-shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B) trade at a high price of $110.00.

Many companies do not like to split their stocks. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) might greatly benefit from this as it is more expensive to buy share of common stock than it is to buy an iPhone or an iPad. Still, its shares went to above $700 and the sell-off down to under $400 was never really directly attributed to Tim Cook not splitting the stock.

What about Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). Its stock just hit a new all-time high of $873.50 on Tuesday and this company’s efforts were being aimed at a split that was actually a division of power more than a traditional stock split investors are used to.

Some investors love stock splits. Others think of them as mere gimmicks. The debate remains alive, but as share prices rise and rise there will likely be more and more stock splits coming down the pipe. We have considered this merely as a poor man’s dividend. When you see stock split after stock split being announced, you generally know you are deep into a bull market.

Investors also are finding themselves wondering what to do now that the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average keep hitting new record highs. 24/7 Wall St. has gone through literally hundreds of recent research calls from May and the end of April to find the speculative hidden gems in independent research and in Wall Street research that are calling for expected returns way above market.

Analysts are saying that these stocks could rise by 40%, 50% or even 100%. Our list of 13 fresh analyst stock picks calling for upside of 40% to 100% includes the following: Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD), Alliance One International Inc. (NYSE: AOI), Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: AAWW), Boulder Brands Inc. (NASDAQ: BDBD), Carbonite Inc. (NASDAQ: CARB), Chimerix, Inc. (NASDAQ: CMRX), Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW), Gulfport Energy Corp. (NASDAQ: GPOR), Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: KERX), LifeLock, Inc. (NYSE: LOCK), Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE: OAS), Pure Cycle Corp. (NASDAQ: PCYO) and Swift Energy Co. (NYSE: SFY).

We have added color or shown how these calls compare to the consensus price targets from Thomson Reuters to keep things in perspective.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) has been on a run, and the stock is threatening to break out of a long-term trading range. Wells Fargo recently maintained its $5 to $7 price range and its Outperform rating when it was talking up the lagging processor designer’s price changes. This still implies that AMD could double in price under the best case scenario from around $3.60 now. This may sound crazy to us, and maybe even to you, but AMD’s 52-week high is $7.32, even if the consensus price target is only about $2.85 here.

Alliance One International Inc. (NYSE: AOI) was just featured in a list of small caps from Deutsche Bank to buy. It provides cigarette manufacturers with the leaf tobacco to make their products. Its consensus price target is $6, which represents implied upside of more than 60% from the current share price around $3.70.

Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: AAWW) rose more than 5% at the start of the week to $44 because Barron’s gave it a writeup showing that it could rise 60% from recent prices. The report showed that cutbacks in military-cargo flights and international deliveries have hurt Atlas Air but its upgraded fleet and more growth elsewhere would drive the value and interest. Barron’s quoted a BB&T Capital Markets analyst calling for $60 on the stock, although it is barely above the consensus price target of $58.44, and one analyst still has an official target price much higher.

The conglomerate is set to report earnings on Friday ahead of the annual meeting, but earnings do not really matter here. Mr. Buffett has said over and over that Berkshire Hathaway could make its earnings magically go up or down based upon purchase or sale transactions. He maintains over and over that the book value per share is what really matters here. As always, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B) and Warren Buffett’s latest full stock holdings can be tracked here.

These are the portfolio changes that 24/7 Wall St. believes Mr. Buffett and portfolio managers Todd Combs and Ted Weschler have made ahead of the annual meeting.

Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) was a new position at the last report and with Buffett giving more investing money of about $1 billion to Ted Weschler and Todd Coombs lately, our bet is that this position has been added to. ADM was a new position of 5.95 million shares worth some $163.1 million as of the end of 2012.

DaVita Inc. (NYSE: DVA) was already more than a 10% stake and the firm keeps raising its stake. Frankly, we would not be shocked if this company was just acquired outright down the road by Berkshire Hathaway.

DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) has been added to and we see no reason that the latest stake of almost 34 million shares would not be added to yet again. The satellite TV provider is up 16% year to date, just hit a new high on Friday and is up by close to 4% since the end of the first quarter.

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) has been added to before. It is possible that Buffett is adding to the stake here, although he would likely want to buy these at a discount in the government offering of “Government Motors” stock rather than in the open market.

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) is going to likely keep growing for Berkshire Hathaway as the company keeps buying back stock and recently raised its dividend. Warren Buffett told CNBC, “I won’t be a seller of IBM.” This was over 68 million shares last quarter for a 6.03% stake, and our bet is that Buffett added a bit to it after the stock went on sale after a poor earnings report.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is likely to be void entirely now in the Berkshire Hathaway stock portfolio. This was a mere 327,100 shares last time and has shrunk through time. The stake is so small that it was likely just not exited right before the end of the last quarter.

Moody’s Corp. (NYSE: MCO) has been confirmed that the stock holding is shrinking here. Berkshire Hathaway recently sold off about 1.7 million shares of . The position is very profitable for the conglomerate despite the woes of the past for the ratings agency. Buffett’s stake is still over 26 million shares.

Precision Castparts Corp. (NYSE: PCP) was a larger stake last quarter at roughly 2 million shares versus being a new position of 1.25 million shares in the prior quarter. If the new portfolio managers have new funds, they may have added to this even the stock has been range-bound so far in 2013.

Berkshire Hathaway keeps adding over and over to its position of Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) and we expect that to have continued in the first quarter. What is perhaps more interesting is that Bloomberg showed a video with Warren Buffett praising J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) and CEO Jamie Dimon. Buffett told Bloomberg that he is in full 100% support of Jamie Dimon and his dual role as CEo and Chairman.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced late on Thursday that it filed suit against Chemed and against its hospice subsidiaries. The subsidiaries being sued are Vitas Hospice Services and Vitas Healthcare, with the allegations being over false Medicare billings for hospice services.

Investors need to tread softly here because this could turn into criminal situation if the allegations are proven. The DOJ alleges that Vitas:

…knowingly submitted or caused the submission of false claims to Medicare for crisis care services that were not necessary, not actually provided, or not performed in accordance with Medicare requirements.

Another instance is even worse if it is true. The DOJ said:

In addition, the government’s complaint alleges that Chemed and Vitas knowingly submitted or caused the submission of false claims for hospice care for patients who were not terminally ill.

Shareholders are reacting to claims that Chemed and Vitas violated the False Claims Act and that the companies misspent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. If proven, that goes well beyond just civil penalties for the executives who participated. Shareholders do need to know that the DOJ ended its release by saying, “The claims asserted against Chemed and Vitas are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability.”

The DOJ said:

The companies allegedly paid bonuses to staff based on the number of patients enrolled in the program and based on patients who were admitted for longer lengths of stay, and took adverse employment actions against marketing representatives who did not meet monthly hospice admissions goals.”

Vitas is the largest for-profit hospice chain in the United States, with hospice services in 18 states. Chemed acquired Vitas back in 2004. Chemed’s shares are down 18% at $66.60, and the 2 million shares traded before noon are already more than 10 times the 150,000 or so shares traded on an average day. After the drop, Chemed is worth only about $1.23 billion, and its 52-week trading range is $54.06 to $82.00.

Be advised that this early annual outlook comes a day ahead of the PMI and ISM manufacturing reports for April and three days ahead of the Labor Department’s report on payrolls and unemployment. This outlook is also three days ahead of the ISM nonmanufacturing report for April. A cynic’s view would likely be that this report is meant to sugar-coat weaker-than-expected economic reports due this week.

We have broken out the operating rates and the capacity rates projected in different groups to keep the report consistent. These projections are also broken out individually for manufacturing and nonmanufacturing for 2013.

Manufacturing growth is expected to continue in 2013 with revenue gains of 4.8%. Capital investment is expected to increase 9.1%. Capacity utilization is projected to be 80.2%, which is well above the recent trends running in the 78% and higher range reported for the broad economy when the Commerce Department reports its overall capacity utilization. We would point out that the ISM represents that this manufacturing operating rate projection is above the 77.5% reported in December 2012, but it is also lower than the 81.6% reported in April 2012. On the capacity rate projection, this production capacity in manufacturing is expected to increase 6.7% in 2013, under the 6.8% increase predicted in December 2012, but much higher than the 1.3% increase reported in December for 2012.

The report says on manufacturing:

Sixty-six percent of respondents from the panel of manufacturing supply management executives predict their revenues will be 9.9 percent greater in 2013 compared to 2012, 12 percent expect a 14.6 percent decline, and 22 percent foresee no change.

Nonmanufacturing growth also is expected to continue in 2013, with revenue increasing by 3.5%. Capital investment is expected to increase by 3.6%, and capacity utilization in services and nonmanufacturing running at 84.7%. Be advised that this operating rate is actually less than the 85.4% reported in December 2012 and less than the 85.2% reported in April 2012. The capacity to produce products or provide services in the nonmanufacturing sector is now projected to increase by 2.3% during 2013. This compares to a gain of 3.2% for 2012 and a prediction in December 2012 for an increase of 3.4% for 2013.

The report says on nonmanufacturing:

Fifty-six percent of non-manufacturing purchasing and supply executives expect their 2013 revenues to be greater by 7.9 percent than in 2012. Overall, respondents currently expect a 3.5 percent net increase in overall revenues, which is less than the 4.3 percent increase that was forecast in December 2012.

Today’s report comes from a survey of the nation’s purchasing and supply executives in their spring 2013 Semiannual Economic Forecast. That full report can be found here.

For starters, Bloomberg is calling for GDP to come in at 3.1% and its economist range is 2.3% to 3.3%. The GDP price index is expected to come in lower at 1.4%. Dow Jones is calling for a reading of 3.2% on the headline GDP and 1.3% on the chain-weighted price index.

We recently gave a “Sell in May and Go Away” primer and blueprint, and this GDP report could certainly be a part of the cause-and-effect here.

Durable goods figures from the Commerce Department came in weak for the month of March just on Wednesday, and the durable goods report from February was unexpectedly revised lower. We believe that this was the final straw to lowered sentiment for GDP.

And then there is the continual reporting we see on Bloomberg TV for an earnings season scorecard. They show that earnings are managing to generally come in better than expected across the board. That sounds good on the surface, but the sales are actually coming in about 0.5% lower in general than expected. This matters, and it is one more feather in the cap for those looking for a weaker GDP reading on Friday. The consumer also had to deal with higher payroll taxes starting in the first quarter, and retailers said that this was hurting sales. Consumer spending is a key component of GDP. We still have not seen official estimates come down for GDP, but we consider this a formality and believe that sentiment is already lower.

The one point that may save the GDP report could be consumer discretionary spending. This has remained resilient even in the face of much consumer pressure and less robust consumer sentiment.

More supporting data to derive a weaker GDP expectation can be found from the following:

The United States is not the United Kingdom, but the fresh U.K. GDP reading was so weak that the growth might has well have been contraction as it officially avoided a triple-dip recession. Other readings from Europe have pointed to ever lower growth and even contraction, which is of course bad for U.S. exports and for international operations.

More weak data was seen from a national reading from the Chicago Fed for March.

Leading economic indicators are not exactly that leading, but this report also pointed lower for March.

The latest consumer sentiment report was from early in April, but this shows how the consumer deteriorated at the end of the quarter as well.

March industrial production rose only 0.4% in March.

Even the small business confidence reading fell in March.

Both ISM readings of manufacturing and non-manufacturing for March came in weaker than expected.

The answer is billions of dollars per year, but when you tally up more than a decade that figure goes into the trillions of dollars. You have to first think about the loss of life, then the economic damage, and then the raw dollars which get spent by governments, agencies, and individuals fighting terrorism. After that there are the costs of rebuilding.

We recently gave a list of American companies which are tracking terrorists and selling to law enforcement agencies. These services and products range from mail screening, bomb detection, telephone surveillance, guns, bullets, equipment and much more. These companies have seen combined spending in the billions of dollars if you consider that this war on terrorism is over a decade old now. Just last year we showed how outrageous some of the costs are in the war on terrorism have grown to after Brown University claimed that the total costs had risen to close to $4 trillion.

The long and short of it is that terrorism has cost billions of dollars to many nations. That would be in the trillions combined in America and its allies because of our counterterrorism efforts that also included two armed force invasions in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden was one of the men who suggested that the Al Qaeda and other terrorists should target financial stability as their means of how to win a fight against America.

There are some raw figures which start to become rather alarming. Steve Killelea is the founder of the Institute for Economics and Peace and he gave an interview to CNBC at the end of 2012 showing that the cost of the fight against terrorism was on the rise. This group put out a publication at the end of 2012 called the Global Terrorism Index ranking 158 nations around the world. This shows that in 2011 alone there were some 4,564 terrorist incidents globally which resulted in 7,473 deaths and also 13,961 injuries.

On the CNBC video, Mr. Killelea said that the cost to fight terrorism has risen handily. His estimate of the 9/11 cost the U.S. economy about $80 billion or 0.8% of GDP at the time. More recently, the cost to the airline sector in the United States alone went up by 25% to about $7.4 billion. Mr. Killelea said that this $7.4 billion cost compared to industrywide annual profits of about $8.6 billion at the same time.

While calculating the costs against terrorism are more than challenging, one issue stands out from the 2012 Global Peace Index: the economic benefit to the global economy was projected to be $9 trillion in the last year if the world had been completely peaceful.

If we go back further, there is a report from the Congressional Research Service showing the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan along with other terror operations since September 11, 2001. This showed in 2011 that Congress had approved a total of $1.283 trillion for things such as military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and health care for veterans for the three operations initiated since the 9/11 attacks. Of that amount, $806 billion was allocated to expenses for Iraq and $444 billion for Afghanistan and related expenses.

Read Also: 10 Countries That Hate America The Most

One article from 2010 rom the Kabul Press even went out and showed that the estimated cost to kill each Taliban member is conservatively and $50 million and that it could be as much as $100 million. We are leaving the methodology and fact-checking up top them for that.

Our guess is that the true cost of terrorism and the real expenses to fight to terrorism on a global basis over a decade or more are too difficult to count with a finite dollar sum. With one Tsarnaev brother dead and one on the run in Boston, this current terrorism event is unfortunately just one more costly event that resulted in death and injury and will drive up costs for security at all major public events.

Just this April, the White House asked Congress to appropriate $48.2 billion for the Fiscal Year 2014 National Intelligence Program and the Pentagon’s intelligence budget was another $14.6 billion. Keep in mind that this is lower than the prior year by close to $9 billion, but we think it is fair to guess that now more intelligence dollars will be sought now. Fiscal year 2010 was shown to be the highest budget expense when $80.1 billion was appropriated by Congress for intelligence activities.

Our case is not truly a case against the future of digital currency, or even against virtual currencies. We have supported and would continue support anything that allows the most efficient and most cost-effective method of transferring money from consumer to companies and/or consumers to peers. The problem is that the history of Digicash, eCash and other virtual currencies have never been able to stay afloat. Ditto for micropayments, with most of those exchanges having shut down as well.

After trying to go to the Mt. Gox website on Thursday before noon EST, all we saw was a 502 Bad Gateway message on the website. The translation is that its servers are not communicating properly. That website is back, up but we took a snapshot of the image to capture it.

The copy/paste function of the exchange says, “Trade with confidence on the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange! Mt.Gox is the world’s most established Bitcoin exchange. You can quickly and securely trade bitcoins with other people around the world with your local currency!” At 12:03 p.m. EST, we see the following U.S. dollar quotes from Mtgox.com:

• Last price:$94.40000
• High: $95.00000
• Low: $83.00000
• Volume: 175987 BTC
• Weighted Avg: $90.71355

Maybe it will be Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), with its own currency, that will win long term. EBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) has the wildly successful PayPal unit, but its fees can be high. Maybe the answer is merely Square and its competitors for transacting credit card payments right through your smartphone. Regardless of what the effort will be in the future, it seems unlikely to us that Bitcoin will rule the roost in the future.

How can you have a virtual currency trade at a premium or discount to intrinsic values, and then not be able to trade because the systems cannot handle the volume or because servers will not properly communicate? The answer has to be “not very long.” Keep in mind that the real world currency markets are almost 24/7, and they are the most active and most liquid of all world markets. Imagine having a currency that could be worth more or less than its real value but not being able to even trade it.

Bitcoin is losing its luster. If Bitcoin ultimately goes the way it looks today, we don’t want to take credit for assigning the name “BS-coin” to it. Sadly, “BS-coin” will likely be its name.

Here is a Bitcoin price chart from Mtgox.com:

Of course, a major market concern is that Cyprus is now likely a gold reserve seller. The World Gold Council shows that Cyprus’s 2013 gold reserve is only 13.9 tonnes, which is 61.9% of the small nation’s total foreign reserves. Concerns about selling from Cyprus are compounded by worries that larger troubled nations, including Italy, Portugal and Spain, may start selling gold to either raise capital or because of the existing Central Bank Gold Agreement sale programs. However, it does not appear that there is panic selling among most of these nations, so that effect can be discounted for the time being.

The six nations that could offset or at least mitigate gold sales by other central banks, institutions and individuals are Russia, Turkey, South Korea, Brazil, Kazakhstan and Iraq. In its analysis, 24/7 Wall St. has avoided specific speculation on why these nations may be acquiring gold because the reasons may differ from country to country.

It is worth noting is that the World Gold Council report evaluates central bank holdings and does not include investor and industrial demand in any of the countries. As recently as February, the World Gold Council showed that global central banks had bought the most gold since 1964. But India and China were no longer the demand mechanisms they had been in the past.

Many of the official central banks’ gold holdings of large nations, based on gross domestic product (GDP), are nearly the same as they were in 24/7 Wall St.’s last report: The 13 Countries That Own the World’s Gold. But if that changes and some of the troubled nations actually sell gold as a source of funds, then it be beyond the scope of retail investors and speculators to help keep gold price at even the current depressed levels.

Here are nations with largest gold reserves as measured by tonnes. This list includes the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.

• The United States (#1) was static at 8,133.5 tonnes
• Germany (#2) was down slightly at 3,391.3 tonnes (April 2013), versus 3,401.8 tonnes in late 2011
• The International Monetary Fund (#3) was static at 2,814 tonnes
• Italy (#4) was static at 2,451.8 tonnes
• France (#5) was static at 2,435.4 tonnes
• China (#6) was static at 1,054.1 tonnes
• Switzerland (#7) was static at 1,040.1 tonnes
• Russia (#8) increased reserves from 851.5 tonnes in late 2011 to 976.9 tonnes (April 2013)
• Japan (#9) was static at 765.2 tonnes
• The Netherlands (#10) was static at 612.5 tonnes
• India (#11) was static at 557.7 tonnes
• The European Central Bank (#12) was static at 502.1 tonnes
• Taiwan (#13) was static at 423.6 tonnes
• Portugal (#14) was static at 382.5 tonnes

24/7 Wall St. has analyzed the World Gold Council data and added comments on how and why the central banks of Russia, Turkey, South Korea, Brazil, Kazakhstan and Iraq could act as the stabilizing mechanisms for gold if selling pressure continues. If history is a measure, it seems highly unlikely that retail buyers and speculators will start another wave of gold purchases. Central banks buy gold in support of their currencies, and the recent massive drop may give the central banks that can a chance to increase their gold holdings.

GDP and population estimates were both taken from the CIA World Factbook.