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Dow Puts Up a Fight While Nasdaq Takes a Breather

I like your final chart ... is it available (monthly updated) somewhere?

Makes me wonder, if leading indicators don't lead after 6 months of improvements, are they really leading indicators anymore?

Telltale Signs That a Significant Correction Isn't Imminent

i agree with kim's analysis!

Want a Pension Over $100,000? Be a Government Worker in California

Ok, stop being insane. Are you all nuts? How can you possibly earn a $100k pension on a salary of $100k?!

Simple lesson in actuarial math here folks, and I'm giving it to you for free, no charge (yes, it's very big of me, lol):
2% X years of work X average of best-5 years salary
That's your pension.
And the maximum recognized years of work is 30. So the best you'd ever get would be 60% of the average of your best 5 years of salary.

Latest data (www.payscale.com/resea...) shows the average California state government salary as $63,172. So even if that were the "average of best 5" (which it won't be, since the previous 4 years of that typical guy's salary would be less, dragging the average down), the best annual pension he could draw would be (drum roll):

$37,903

NOT $100,000 !!!

As for claims above that somebody can earn an annual pension of $241,000 when their salary at retirement was only $185,000 ... what planet do you think their pension plan was invested on? It would have to be earning like a 7,000% annual ROI !!

Are you <i>insane</i> ??

Don't you people ever think and do some calculations before you write things? Don't you ever do any <i><b>math...

Or are you all sheep? You just believe any old tripe that the Right wing hands you? "Oh my Goodness, some reporter with the Contra Costa Times reported this, so it <i>must</i> be true!"

Didn't it ever dawn on you that reporters are as lazy as you are when it comes to math? Why do you think they get into reporting in the first place? "Those that can, do ... those that can't ... become newspaper reporters..."

Obama Wants a 'Better Plan'? Here's One: Bite the Bullet

The San Francisco Chronicle had an article on Sunday about the lack of prosecutions and an assertion that this credit crisis is not real. The writer said that it's a deep recession from too much debt and too much debt-financed consumption but that the idea that it's because consumers and businesses can't borrow more is a lie devised by the banks to justify handing them a lot of money that they aren't going to lend to consumers and businesses anyway.

Check it out: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin...

We're Not Buying This Rally

The San Francisco Chronicle had an article on Sunday about the lack of prosecutions and an assertion that this credit crisis is not real. The writer said that it's a deep recession from too much debt and too much debt-financed consumption but that the idea that it's because consumers and businesses can't borrow more is a lie devised by the banks to justify handing them a lot of money that they aren't going to lend to consumers and businesses anyway.

Check it out: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin...

The Worst Isn't Over Yet

The San Francisco Chronicle had an article on Sunday about the lack of prosecutions and an assertion that this credit crisis is not real. The writer said that it's a deep recession from too much debt and too much debt-financed consumption but that the idea that it's because consumers and businesses can't borrow more is a lie devised by the banks to justify handing them a lot of money that they aren't going to lend to consumers and businesses anyway.

Check it out: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin...

An Autopsy of the Glass-Steagall Act

Mark Levin's new book _Liberty & Tryanny_ has a great description of this whole meltdown. It's a must.read

An Autopsy of the Glass-Steagall Act

Russ, I am the descendant of legal immigrants. This is not racism. It's the law. If you promote breaking certain laws, which ones are acceptable to break?

As for the facts. Perhaps you could explain the million-plus web pages -- from the mainstream media -- that describe the ability of illegal aliens to secure home mortgages. It is a well-known fact among every mortgage broker in California that millions of the bad loans were given to illegals.

Here's the San Francisco Chronicle in 2006, for example... not exactly a right-wing newsletter:

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin... ("Selling illegal immigrants the American dream")

How many articles like this should I find before you admit you were wrong and apologize?

An Autopsy of the Glass-Steagall Act

Eh, here's the cookbook:

Step one: Force banks to underwrite mortgages to unqualified buyers (including illegal immigrants) through threats of legal action and restrictions on M&A. "It's for the children!" Culprits: HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo and AG Janet Reno.

Step two: Provide a government-backed buyer for mortgages that would "jet issue" mortgages with minimal documentation. Culprits: Fannie Mae executives Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, Jim Johnson, et. al.

Step three: Allow the GSEs to securitize the debt for resale with the implicit guarantee of the US government standing behind the instruments. Culprits: see #2.

Step four: Allow the GSEs to "invest" millions in Congress to prevent any scrutiny of executive pay-packages, capital-to-asset ratios, hedging strategies and risk management... even in the midst of multi-billion dollar accounting scandals. Culprits: Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, Congressional Black Caucus, Chris Dodd, etc.

Step five: when the GSE equity prices melt down because of poor management and accounting, devastating the capital-to-asset ratios of AIG and other financial institutions that held billions in GSE instruments, blame the entire debacle on Bush.

From Subprime to Meltdown: Is Peak Oil Responsible?

Early 1970s: What was happening back then? Oh, that's right. 1970 is the year that the real income of working-class Americans began its permanent decline, which has amounted to workers making 50% less today than they did back then (and look how much better off we are! Just as the economists predicted!). So why is it a surprise that nobody has any money today? The mortgage crisis wasn't limited to people who were too poor to buy houses in the first place. Many people were rich enough when they got the mortgage, but then their jobs went to China, Indonesia, Mexico, Malaysia, India, or other third-world countries (with the assistance of abundant oil), and they eventually had to settle for lower-paying jobs that didn't cover the mortgage anymore.

So the current economic crisis is only partially caused by the Peak. It was exacerbated by stratification (known to previous generations as class war).