If you want to argue that the economy is still shaky, look no further than the gold market. On one side, The Wall Street Journal [2] boasts that gold prices have hit more than $1,300 per troy ounce for the first time ever in a "seemingly unstoppable surge that has confounded skeptics and turned bears into bulls." But it's not really a record when the numbers are punched to account for inflation.

In fact, you'd have to go back three decades to find gold's real high: $2,318 if adjusted for 2010 dollars, according to the Columbia Journalism Review [3], which just can't understand why the Journal and a slew of other trusted outlets aren't doing the proper math. Perhaps they don't know that the federal government provides a handy online Inflation Calculator [4], making the task a breeze.

Regardless, a real gold rush is on, and as Bloomberg News [5] reports, the United States' largest producer of the shiny metal, Denver-based Newmont Mining Corporation, is apparently looking for more action. During a conference in London this summer, Newmont officials pushed the idea of developing gold resources in war-torn Afghanistan. The company has since been in contact with the country's officials, says Afghanistan Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani. The nation could soon reap $1.2 billion to $3.5 billion a year by exploiting natural resources such as gold, iron ore, copper, oil, and gas deposits there.