ATHELSTAN

Value in Regional Bank Stocks?

Thank you for a most valuable analysis of regional banks as a subset of the financial sector. I still like FF (First Financial) and I intend to continue to buy it on weakness.

Financial Fears Sweeping the Globe

Perhaps, the time has come for Bush to seize all national banks and their assets , in effect making the Fed our National Bank. Next, Bush needs to close the gold window, and for the Treasury Dept. to start selling gold.
Could the Federal Reserve or the Paulson gang be any worse than the clowns in the private banking universe who endangered the economies of the planet with their willingness to play monkey see, monkey do? And their allies in the U.S. financial media acting as if they too are monkeys. I see no evil. I hear no evil. I speak no evil.
Thanks to the failings of our private institutions, Bush and Bernanke will have no choice but to literally throw money at America's home owners in the form of a housing stimulus package, or see family wealth continue to erode. Thus igniting deflation on top of slowing demand.
Raising interest rates in Europe, or in the US is an act of suicide!!

Best to initiated this stimulus package before the depression starts and not during the early stages of it.

High Likelihood of a Market Crash

The real crash coming isn't in the stock market, but the drip, drip, drip downward in housing values. That process is irreversible. Bernanke, Paulson and company were too slow and too late to prevent this inevitable slide into chaos. Republicans have a long history of being too slow. Coming to the banquet or funeral with inappropriate dress and no flowers.
Now investors and the general public sense Bush is out of touch with reality, and McCain is taking the GOP down to defeat in November. What looms in the distance is the Obama Express speeding down the track at an awesome and a terrible pace to Carterville. That is to say the town named for the former president.
Where inflation, high interest rates , "touchy feely", feel good politics , with protectionism added to it, and the prosecution of countless investment bankers and hedge fund managers will lead to financial panic. This means the real plunge comes later and after the elections.

Senator Dodd's Housing Solution - Cramer's Mad Money (5/21/08)

The Dodd proposal smells of private interest money working behind his bill. It is too little, too limited, and too late.
Since nobody seems to know just how many ALT-A and higher mortgages are set to go up in the years 2010 to 2011, it is safe to say we are far from seeing the tail end of this housing and credit crisis.
That being the case, the Congress and the administration must be ready to deal head on with the most extreme scenario ready to unfold between now and 2011. Massive middle and upper middle class housing failures across the country with dire prospects for the states and their ability to raise revenue from property taxes.
Only a bailout by directing cash in the form of 35 to 50 year loans at low interest rates to help the broad middle class from going under will stave off the worst scenarios of the Bush depression now in the making.

Bring on the Alt-A Downgrades

This is a bad omen making fools of everyone from the rating agencies, the financial press which keeps giving us happy talk about the crisis being over and done with, to the Bush Treasury Department which continues to give the American people Chamber of Commerce style booster talk and beautiful scenarios about how well everything is going. The entire administration should resign today. From Bush on down.

Why the US Markets Will Continue to Struggle

and this senile simp John McCain and the Republicans think they will be victorious in November??? LOL LOL LOL LOL

Commercial Real Estate Headed the Way of Residential?

I've dumped my real estate holdings in NYC because I think the commercial real estate market there is heading for a crash. So, welcome to another exciting chapter of the Great Depression of 2008.

The White Elephant That Could Destroy Your Portfolio, Part I

Fed Director,Ben Bernanke, and company will not raise interest rates in an election year, especially with a weak Republican candidate and his party already heading into the toilet. Nor, does the director want to be accused of killing the GOP's chance of a victory at the polls. Which a raising of rates would certainly do.
So, why not have the real estate depression break the back of inflation this year and right through 2012? The Fed can't do much to prevent the loss of family wealth anyway. If it means sacrificing John McCain and the GOP in the process, those are the breaks.
Bernanke doesn't have to raise Fed rates. All he has to do is simply wait for Bush's depression to take hold and do the Fed's dirty work for him.

It's Tough To Bank On the Financial Stocks

All this hand wringing concerning the credit crisis tells me those who tell us NOT to invest in financials, especially banks, are doing just that. If you look at CEFs such as First Financial (FF), or ETFs tracing the financials, you will see they have been steadily rising as the moaning and groaning continues. Expect a major bull market move anytime now.