Looking Back on the Greatest Depression – Gerald Celente

If it was an economic Pearl Harbor, the enemies were Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, A.I.G., Countrywide, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Bear Stearns, and all the other banks, brokerages, speculators, insurance companies, hedge funds and leverage buyout specialists that had launched the sneak attack on the American economy.

Buffett Says Economy Will Be ‘In Shambles’ for 2009

Billionaire Warren Buffett said the economy will be “in shambles” for the rest of this year as financial firms take losses tied to reckless loans made during the housing boom.

Santelli: Get the Government Out of the Banking System

Now-famous Chicago exchange floor reporter says state intervention in banking system is a drag on taxpayer money.

Orwellian Doublethink: “Nationalize the banks.” “Free Markets.”

The language of deception

Video: Jim Rogers – Abolish The IMF & World Bank

Veteran investor says Obama stimulus package only making economic crisis worse.

Acts Of Insanity Are What Destroyed The Economy

Just more Keynsianism in the works, health of banks getting worse despite injections, Why not just let them fail and prosecute their officers for fraud? no end to the bailouts, insane acts of economics, Davos a bust, the world will eventually move away from the dollar

Bailouts A Complete Fraud Against US Workers

A recent Associated Press news release exposed U.S. banks accepting billions in bailout money along with major corporations. Banks defraud American taxpayers by hiring thousands of foreign workers in place of our citizens.

MSM: Former Bear Stearns CEO Greenberg Says Wall Street Is ‘No More’

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) — Alan “Ace” Greenberg, the former Bear Stearns Cos. chief executive officer who is approaching his 61st year on Wall Street, said the investment-banking model he helped pioneer is defunct.

“There’s no more Wall Street,” Greenberg, 81, said last night in an interview on Bloomberg’s “Money & Politics” television program. “That model just doesn’t work because it’s at the mercy of rumors.”

The PRE-PLANNED Financial/Economic 911 of 2008

WHAT: A pre-planned collapse of the US (and global) financial and economic systems.

WHO: The same characters who perpetrated the original 911.

WHERE: New York City & DC, of course. Plus a sideshow in Washington state.

WHEN: The days surrounding September 11, naturally.

HOW: Instead of painted drones, missiles with wings & big fins, and fake airplanes, they used the much more stealthy short seller.

Meltdown and Bailout: Why Our Economic System Is on the Verge of Collapse

The immediate cause of our financial meltdown is unchecked, unbridled greed. Mainstream newspapers and the business press are doing a fairly good job of explaining how the lack of regulatory oversight led us into this nightmare.

But you have to dig down one layer to find the cause of that situation. Under cover of the ideological euphemism known as the “free market” and with enormous cash investments over the past four decades, business elites have captured the regulatory organs of powerful democratic states — nowhere more so than the United States — and promoted their own narrow economic agendas for short-term gain.

There’s an enormous amount of discussion about that in the independent media. But to drill down a layer deeper, to the bedrock of the crisis, you have to go to some deep thinkers who don’t get much play in our mainstream economic discourse.

A $1.8 Trillion Bailout: Where the Money’s Going

The U.S. Treasury Department is working through the weekend with Congress to craft a plan to spend as much as $700 billion to absorb bad mortgages and other assets from bank or other institution balance sheets to keep the financial system from collapsing.

US Economy: Rudderless and Reeling From Direct Hits – Paul Craig Roberts

We were promised a “New Economy” of high-tech tradable services to take the place of the offshore manufacturing economy. Wondering what had become of the “New Economy,” Duke University’s Offshoring Research Network searched for it and located it offshore. Yes, the activities of the “New Economy” are also outsourced offshore.

Call centers, IT operations, back-office operations, and manufacturing have long been moved offshore. Now high-value-added proprietary activities such as research and development, engineering, product development, and analytical services are being sent offshore. All that’s left is finance, and it is crumbling before our eyes.

Meltdown as bank collapses

Wall Street banks were preparing for one of the most dramatic shake-ups in the finance industry’s history last night as it emerged that Lehman Brothers, an investment bank with a 158-year history, was working on a plan to declare bankruptcy.

Bracing for the Big One

Suddenly, the term “too big to fail” is off the table. With Lehman Brothers likely to go into bankruptcy, Wall Street is preparing for a very rocky trading day. We’ll get a hint of what’s in store in a few hours when Asian markets open for business. Already, there’s been an emergency trading session at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association to “reduce risk associated with a potential Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. bankruptcy.”

A Complete And Systemic Breakdown

Second largest bank failure in US history has been duly noted, with a repeat bailout like Bear Stearns, paying down debts still the better plan, PPT supplies another miracle rally for the Dow, but we fear they only delay the inevitable, Fannie and Freddie collateral now Toxic Waste, liquidity drains now wide open, watch for the downward spiral

Financial Collapse Edges Closer

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two huge US home-loan institutions, began what appears to be a “death spiral” similar to that which claimed Bear Stearns four months ago.

Research: 22,000 Jobs Cut on Wall Street, With More to Come

In the past year, 22,000 New Yorkers who work on Wall Street have lost their jobs, according to a Crain’s New York Business estimate. And far more bloodletting is likely to come.