Economy, spending, and debt
There's a lot happening, so this installment is teasers and links to several important financial news items. Bloomberg: Bernanke Asset Purchases Risk Unleashing Inflation (Update1) Bernanke next week is likely to preside over a decision to launch another round of large-scale asset purchases after deploying $1.7 trillion to pull the economy out of the financial [...]
The saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. But David Broder's column in WaPo yesterday brushes aside all pretenses. Titled "The War Recovery?", Broder openly suggests that the U.S. ramp up for war as a way out of our economic crisis, and that the Republicans would likely support this: The steps that have been [...]
1. Implement Constitutional Adherence. The list of possibilities here in endless, isn't it? 2. Implement Limited Government. For starters, someone can show me where in the Constitution it says that taxpayers are supposed to bail out banks. If no one can, then maybe we can consider NOT BAILING THEM OUT. 3. Implement Fiscal Restraint. Refuse [...]
Blythe Masters...call your office. I have so enjoyed watching this story unfold. Remember this piece? A certain commodity market analyst named Ted Butler has been writing about commodity manipulation for decades. He found that a few large banks held short positions (had sold promises to deliver) silver on the COMEX equal to hundreds of millions [...]
This ArmyTimes article from 15 October 2010 contains this gem: For the second year in a row, there will be no cost-of-living adjustment in military and federal civilian retired pay, nor in veterans’ disability and survivor benefits, in 2011. “You have to look for the silver lining,” said Steve Strobridge of the Military Officers Association [...]
Here's part 3 in the continuing video series by Bill Whittle about the beliefs of small government advocates. This one debunks the myth that wealth is finite and must be obtained unjustly at the expense of others.
Reggie Middleton's BoomBustBlog.com offers a wealth of information about finance, especially housing market / mortgage market related finance, mortgage securitization, and their impact on the big banks. Reggie was interviewed on CNBC today, it's about 4 minutes and worth watching. Reggie has made some excellent calls. His blog posts are usually long and somewhat technical [...]
Props to Jesse's Cafe Americain for the link. This article outlines a judicial "Notice and Order" submitted by a retiring securities judge at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC): Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Administrative Law Judge George H. Painter made serious allegations regarding fellow CFTC judge Bruce Levine in announcing his retirement. In a notice [...]
My dear friends in the Liberty Community, For some months now I've been ranting here about the banks, their misdeeds, their ownership of CONgress, their ability to avoid coming under the rule of law. Many of you don't know about the burgeoning mortgage scandals. This is a fast-moving story that has resulted in the Attorneys [...]
The words in the title are attributed to investor James Dines. On the other hand, we have the PhD-holding geniuses at the Fed saying things like this: But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes [...]
Or are they bankrupting us? To me, those seem to be the only two choices. Here's why. And, by the way, if you're home's being foreclosed on, keep reading. This is not investment advice, and I am not a lawyer. A home mortgage is essentially a string of payments made over time. From an investor's [...]
Our coverage of the Iceland meltdown continues. As you'll recall, the three major banks in tiny Iceland (Glitnir, Kaupthing, Landsbanki) went on a borrowing and derivative-fueled lending spree. Icelandic banks opened bank branches in the EU and took deposits from mostly Britain and Netherlands. The deposits were used to fuel a real estate lending boom. [...]
