ATHELSTAN

The Deteriorating Real Economy's Financial Indicators

Don't expect the Obama administration to take Bush's depression seriously with corrective measures as an alternative to the weak pablum he and the Clinton Democratic holdovers around him seem bent on following at the moment until we have reached 15% unemployment, are experiencing food riots, and see burning cities on television screens.

Leaking Geithner: Good News for Currencies, Markets

Despite everything Paulson and Geithner have done to date credit markets are tight and getting tighter again. Paulson now exacerbates our financially perilous state by deciding not to use the last $350 billion before leaving office January 20? This man is a mental case.

Nationalize the banks, forget about the bank investors, create a new National Bank of the United States which will make the loans and liquify the markets the spineless crooks in the banking profession won't do.
Short of that, the President elect is facing a Bush induced revolution, food riots, and a social melt down which makes the burnings in cities of the 1960s look like a child's birthday party.

Thursday Market Preview: The Bears Are Firmly in Control

I fear more than just a melt down of markets and banks. Now we are facing the strong prospect of a societal paralysis, plunging prices,a rapid increase in business failures, and anarchy manifesting itself in food riots and rebellion. On a scale which will make the 1960s city burnings and lootings appear as a Sunday picnic.

Meltdown: State and Local Governments Falling Short

Here in the New Jersey and New York area you are already seeing a return to the economic decline of the early 70s and early 30s. Despite the happy talk and rosey pictures painted by Mayor Mike in Manhattan.
Both state legislatures cannot say "no" to anyone, or any interest whatsoever. "No" is not in the vocabulary of New Jersians and New Yorkers.
For that reason, the recession and downfall of their economies will be particularly harsh.

Number of U.S. Homes With Negative Equity Is Stunning

What is even more frightening is that banks can't prevent people from losing their jobs. Which only adds to the burden of trying to negotiate new mortgage terms. The U.S. Government can provide all the incentives to lenders, investors, and borrowers it wants to provide, but until the tidal wave of dismissals is arrested by the Obama administration we won't see any improvement.

In fact, if Dr, Martin Feldstein of Harvard is correct, we are still seeing simply the beginning of the housing crisis.

Hank Paulson, Buy-Sider

If nothing else, the Chinese and the Japanese will give a second thought about dumping U.S. Treasuries. With the 1.2 trillion dollar bail out, new Treasury issues will be generated and they will be extremely popular the world over. Bank stocks are going to continue to rise, but in the long run gold will come out the real winner.

Poltically, it means the end of the McCain candidacy and the GOP because of its treasonous maladminstration of the US government , and its criminal neglect while bankers , hedge fund managers and other thieves fleeced the "system". Not to mention the American people and their economy.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg can be as sanguine about New York City's ability to weather this mess as he wants to be, but the the truth is the financial hegemony of New York City as the money center of the universe is now history. It ended once and for all this past week.

Another Depression?

This depression has been in the making for some time now. It's characteristics will be a sort of Chinese water torture of drip, drip, drip as everything goes down, down, and down.

The American family's wealth is built upon inflated home values going back to the 70s. These values were intoxicating to the point where the national mantra and cocktail chatter turned to how real estate can't fail!!! This, of course, led to greater borrowing, extended credit card commitments, and a tendency to eschew savings entirely. Real estate turned into a casino , a roulette wheel, and a Ponzi scheme at the same time.

The crash is inevitable, inexorable, and ineluctable, but don't look for a "black Friday" event to kick it off. The same old groups will be blamed for it as those blamed in the last depression. You can see it now in the chat rooms.

Until the crash blows over, I'm out of stocks and in cash, treasuries and gold.

Obama Is Bad for the Economy - Barron's

I have the utmost confidence in President Obama taking us back to the good old days of Jimmy Carter. Sell your stocks, buy gold, ,but dollar cost average into real estate. Because Ben Bernanke is putting the Fed's feet into cement. To solidify a Fortress Fed to withstand the buffetings of inflation.
Bernanke won't increase interest rates this year or anytime soon in the new year. He's prepared to permit Obama to spend lavishly on a scale we haven't seen since the 1970s. It may be the only way to keep his job too.

Gold: The Commodity Bull Market Isn't Over

While the author undoubtedly has a vested interest in promoting gold, he makes a bunch of very sound arguments for holding it. With very few exceptions, tell me a stock analyst or investment advisor who doesn't have a vested interest in his or her recommendation. It is the rare guest on CNBC , Fox, or Bloomberg who hasn't a his , or his firm's money riding on their recommendations.

This Recession Will Be Neither Short Nor Shallow

The financial press and the business TV shows have lost all credibility, particularly the latter. They have deteriorated into nothing more than sounding boards for short-term traders who sing a different song every day, representatives of financial services who don't know what they're talking about, those who know how to lie with a smile and also have different stories to tell each day, and out and out liars.

Only reliable news events and serious academic analysis should form the basis for any investment decision. Brokerage house based economists have become totally untrustworthy because they have become little more than toys in the hands of management.

For the first time since the 1950s, I've moved out of stocks and into gold and 30 year Treasury bonds. To prepare for the greatest depression of all time.

Please, Mr. Greenspan, Shut Up

The old boy may be suffering from senile dementia. To add insult to injury Dr. Greenspan also charges his listeners big bucks to receive his advice. So, perhaps he hasn't lost all his marble.
He is evidence of what happens when Republican presidents turn to someone they think is an expert.

In Bush's case, "Allan, you're doing a great job." Sounds familiar doesn't it?

Greenspan and Ben Bernanke are living proof the Federal Reserve should be abolished lock, stock, and barrel. The corrupt bargain that was created by bankers and the US Government in the Wilson era is a corporate socialist experiment which has proved to be an unmitigatged disaster. It may also lead to yet the greatest crash of all time.

Greenspan: Still Almost Childlike in His Idealism

There is nothing "child like" about the fees Allan Greenspan charges to groups to deliver his apologias for years of neglect at the Fed. The media obsession with this man is the equivalent of guru worship.
All for a man who continued to bend over backwards to encourage home ownership during his years at the Fed, and did anything but "regulate" banks and the financial structure for providing housing credit.

The American people have every right to be angry and should be deeply concerned for the future. It is no longer a matter of housing prices and when those prices improve, or when the supply of homes starts declining. It is now a question of how severe will the national ,systemic loss of family wealth be. Will it be in drips and drabs? The slow movement from affluence to poverty over time. Or will it come very suddenly with a 5000 point drop on the Dow? Something on the scale of October 1929.
I have no confidence anyone in Washington, Wall Street, or Main Street has a clue of what lies out there and how to come to grips with it.
A year from now, we may be witnessing a total social meltdown plunging the nation into civil war and anarchy.

Careening Towards a Financial Crisis?

The thought of the well-heeled, instant millionaires created since the early Reagan years losing their fortunes today may bring cheers to doctrinaire left wingers, but it is a scarey sign of ominous things to come for the rest of us. When one stops to think some guy and his wife are living in a $20,000,000 house in the Hamptons or in Fairfield County Connecticut, and now have had their credit cut off. Due, of course to plummeting wealth and declining mansion values.

The rest of us may feel relieved to see the rich suffering. We tend to think somehow we are left off the hook, but be careful about celebrating the bad fortune of the rich or anyone else for that matter. Your turn may be coming soon.

I can't help wondering, where and when does it all end?

Home Prices in 20 Major Cities: You're OK If...

Amazing how supposedly sophisticated investors and observers of the market and economy are so easily impressed with analyses like this. The entire financial services profession has deteriorated into a monument to deceit, plays to the gullibility of its followers, feeds naivete, and conducts fraud on a scale one might find in the side-show entertainments of a small 19th century traveling circus. Only fifty cents to see the Egress!!!

Wall Street also proves time and time again there truly is one born every minute.

Don’t Worry About a Return to ‘70s Stagflation

The worse it gets the more I dollar cost average into financials, especially regional banks and S&Ls. What we are all witnessing now is the demise of New York City and Charlotte NC as financial centers.
If the stand alone investment bank is history, and it may be, then the world will be looking for new financial money centers. London? Shanghai? Abu Dhabi?
The short-sigtedness and stupidity of Greenspan and Bernanke are hastening that demise. The latter is now out of control of events and world markets sense it too. The former is left to collect $70,000 a speech talking about the past. What a pathetic sight.
Poor John McCain has been dealt a terrible hand and he's going to take the Republican Party down to the worst defeat since 1932.

While it's great to have more service sector jobs, you can't export them. Most high tech within 15 years will come from India, eastern europe, Israel, and the middle east . Our high tech centers, Raleigh-Durham, northern Virginia, Boston area, the west coast, are living on borrowed time. They are not price competitive and never were.
Like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" ,we'll all wake up from our dream to discover our real roots as an economy now lie in Kansas, or some other agricultural setting.