I ran across an interesting document from my research library that I have been meaning to post but kept forgetting. It is a piece on the financial condition of states released in June 2009. It's a bit long and has a lot of low-yield info, but if you scan through it you can find some good data (see "PDF version" here).

The only problem is that I feel much of the reported numbers must be a bit dated because they do not reflect the current situation.

For years, investors boosted what a great company General Electric (GE) was. Even CEOs marvelled at the company's ability to consistently deliver strong earnings growth despite its massive size. Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Balmer even began to study GE's financial statements looking to for a way to duplicate its creative use of numbers.

Apparently, Mr. Balmer was a bit too focused on the numbers and not the source. For if he had looked closely, he would have seen through the smoke and mirrors.

Amidst the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression (if not ever) and the biggest Ponzi scheme ever, (the real estate-banking Ponzi scheme) not one of the 65 Pulitzer Prizes was awarded for coverage of the events surrounding the “financial crisis.” Ironically, the media has yet to identify this crisis as the biggest Ponzi scheme ever, confirming their incompetence.

Disgraceful? Yes. Surprising? No. It’s all about content. It’s always been about content. Valuable content drives readers, listeners and viewers, which appeals to sponsors. Valuable content is highly treasured because it’s so rare today.

Despite a big boost in shares in after hours trading, Wednesday's disappointing earnings for the online auctioneer represents a continuing trend that will not be broken anytime soon. Yes, they beat estimates, but this means nothing. Estimates have been revised downward over and over.

In Part 1, I laid out some common sense explanations why gold is best utilized for short-term trading. Furthermore, I emphasized that gold rarely provides a good hedge against inflation. When it does, it’s most often a short-term phenomenon. In Part 2 of this series I’ll demonstrate this.

Let’s begin by looking at a gold price chart from 1975 to 2009. Note that gold prices in this chart have NOT been adjusted for inflation.

…the U.S. might continue its trend towards inflation merely due to continued high oil prices and weakness of the dollar. And only after some disaster such as a Fannie Mae blowup might deflation appear. Regardless of the magnitude of any economic correction, the next decade or two more will most certainly be characterized by extreme inflation. A severe catastrophe might usher in a deflationary period as an after-effect, but only after inflation has caused significant damage.Thus, the possibility of deflation will most likely be determined by the sequence of events, as well as the extent of the economic correction, while high inflation is a virtual certainty.

Source: America’s Financial Apocalypse: How to Profit from the Next Great Depression (2006)

<< Part 1

Today, America’s “New Economy” is based exclusively on services - primarily financial and technology-based services, with a whole slew of attorneys and consultants to support transactions and legal agreements.

As of Monday, Lear Corp. (LEA), an auto parts supplier for the "Little 3" joined the list of others who have been victimized by the collapse of America’s Ponzi scheme economy.

With Visteon having filed for bankruptcy protection in May of this year, and the "Little 3" essentially bankrupt with no real future, you can bet there’s much more to come from America’s financial apocalypse.

If you’ve been following my commentaries, you’ll recall how poor a job I feel Obama is doing. Perhaps you realized this on your own. But just in case you have any doubts, you might want to read an article I wrote a few weeks ago.

These elitists could care less about working-class Americans. They don’t care that millions are suffering. They only care to preserve and strengthen their power and wealth. That is specifically why free trade will never be restructured. It’s too lucrative for corporate America.

An article from the Huffington Post today claims that Ford (F) is "secretly" in talks to sell Volvo.

“Although Ford bought Volvo in 1999 for $6.4 billion, it has been the company’s best seller of the premier brands. But as a part of its only remaining way to raise cash, Ford has been looking for potential buyers for Volvo for over a year.

I ran across an interesting announcement that bodes well for Fidelity and KKR. But I’m willing to bet it will be a bad deal for unsuspecting Fidelity investors.

Kolberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), a large well-known leveraged-buyout firm (which I consider a corporate raider) has announced that it plans to give Fidelity access to IPOs from its portfolio companies. In turn, Fidelity plans to provide IPO shares to its customers.

I haven't made any comments about these so-called stress tests for the banks because it was obvious (to me anyway) it was just the latest PR scam devised by Larry Summers (carried out by his puppet, Geithner) to exaggerate the financial health of the banking system.

While I was confident the results of these “tests” would be ludicrous, I wanted to hold off until they were released so I could deliver the knockout punch. In short, it's clear these "stress tests" weren't so stressful, as I had suspected.

It's been a while since I made any posts about the market because there hasn't been much to discuss. A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the 8200 level was fairly significant and represented a pivotal point in the market. Since then, the market has rallied to this level and has stuck around.

From that level, I felt the market would make a large move; either up or down. A few weeks ago I was inclined to believe that the market would make a downward move. However, the longer such a move is held off, the longer the economy would have to respond to the trillions of dollars being pumped into the economy, ridiculously low interest rates, changes to mark-to-market accounting and other short-term remedies that will only create bigger problems down the road. It is also likely that the recent swine flu media mania has served to distract from the realities of the economy.

Last week I released a piece that no other (qualified) financial professional was willing to expose because (in my opinion) they don’t want the masses to know how event-driven media-hyped trading works. If everyone knew how the game is played, they wouldn’t be able to make the easy money.

The key thing to focus on here is the trading volume. As you can see, while still holding up, it appears as if it might soon show signs of dropping off. When that happens, look out below. If you’re in this stock, you’d better have stop-losses in place.

In just over three months, President Obama has equaled the destruction created by President Bush’s eight years in the White House. Given what lies ahead, I have no doubt he will surpass Bush’s record as the nation’s most disastrous president. I never thought I’d live to see a president exceed Bush’s record. Perhaps this is one of America’s new trends.

It’s unlikely the polls will confirm this inevitable reality because the media will continue to blame Bush for everything that goes wrong, while giving Obama full credit for anything that might go well. But you shouldn’t expect much to go well. All we’re likely to see are illusions, false claims, denials and cover-ups.

I wanted to discuss this whole swine flu hype that’s been blown out of proportion to illustrate how the media creates illusions from what would seem to be valid information. This also relates to the investment world because today, virtually everything that hits newswires is spun further by the financial media. This of course is done intentionally.

In the end, most who jump aboard the hype - whether it’s the stem cell hype, the ethanol hype or the swine flu hype – end up losing while the ones who understand what’s going on take your money.

It’s a bit funny to see that the Sirius (SIRI) stock pumpers are still at it, despite facing nothing but absolute humiliation after making ridiculous claims and clinging onto their delusions of grandeur as the stock collapsed by over 95% after merger with XM.

In the end, the stock price says it all. Since the dotcom bubble collapsed, reality has set in. SIRI has done nothing but fall - and with good reason. The company has been very poorly run. It’s had a terrible strategy, ridiculous payouts for content and unbelievably ridiculous payouts to executives. The management has been horrendous from day one and remains so.

You might recall a recent article I wrote called "Madoff in Perspective" where I point out that the real Ponzi scheme is being ignored - the one orchestrated by the financial industry. I also make mention of this intentional fraud in "America's Financial Apocalypse 2009 Update" a few months earlier.

Throughout this debacle, I have made accusations against the executives of the major financial institutions, claiming they intentionally made bad loans and sold them off to naive investors. They did this of course to boost earnings, which automatically boosted their bonuses. Let me reiterate. The executives of every single large financial institution (as well as some medium-sized ones) engaged in shareholder and securities fraud. And due to the response from Washington, one could argue that our political leaders are guilty of taxpayer fraud.

The news of Andrew Cuomo's letter to Congress revealing that former Treasury Secretary Paulson threatened to fire Bank of America's CEO Ken Lewis and oust the board if they tried to block the Merrill Lynch (MER) deal is not at all shocking to me. Nor is it a surprise that Bernanke “requested” this from Paulson. If you’ve been reading my articles, you know that the Treasury Department is the subordinate of the Federal Reserve.

For Part I click here.

Fact #5. Most of the Lost Jobs Will Not Return.

What no one seems to understand is the fact that these job losses are not temporary. Most of them simply aren’t coming back. I’ll guarantee it. The only jobs that will return are those that no one wants; the low-paying, no benefit, dead-end jobs. It’s the same situation that played out after the dotcom collapse. This is part of the reason why there’s been no real recovery since 2001. As I discussed in America’s Financial Apocalypse, it was all an illusion fueled by a real estate bubble. It was another one of Greenspan’s bubble. And now Bernanke is creating his first bubble. But all bubbles eventually burst.