Video: Student loans crushing future for young people

“Unlike other kinds of debt, student loans can be particularly hard to wriggle out of… ditching a student loan is virtually impossible, especially once a collection agency gets involved. Although lenders may trim payments, getting fees or principals waived seldom happens.”
(TheComingDepression) – Some governments believe that the future of their country lies in a well educated healthy population. With this in mind they make post secondary education free (tax payer subsidized, remember) to all who wishing further education as long as they can pass the academic standards and complete the course in the allotted time frame.

Economy

(Bloomberg) – Marc Faber Discusses Global Financial Markets – View Video Here

(SHTFPlan) – Economic Anarchy: Be Prepared For a Massive Meltdown

An economic calamity is brewing, and as Brian at Survive Right points out, “ the articles are becoming more urgent, more prevalent and from more mainstream sources.” The collective consciousness senses that something is not as it’s supposed to be. Read More Here

(CommodityOnline) – Gold price will surge to $5,000 in two years

Gold Prices will climb to $5,000 within two years due to US dollar weakness and significant buying by players in the hedge fund industry looking to preserve the value of their funds. Read More Here

(WhiskeyNGunPowder) – Secession as a Solution to the Washington Debt Threat

Frédéric Bastiat must have been looking toward the future of the United States today when he said, “When plunder has become a way of life for a group of people living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it.” Read More Here

Really Depressing Jobs for the Economically Depressed

As the Modern Economic Depression continues to expand and unemployment rises, job seekers struggling to make ends meet have increasingly ventured into hazardous occupations they are often ill-equipped to safely navigate. Read More Here

(AdBusters) – Chris Hedges: Zero Point of Systemic Collapse

We stand on the cusp of one of humanity’s most dangerous moments. Read More Here

(MyBudget360) – Commercial Real Estate Collapse Bigger than Subprime Implosion

Why is the Market Ignoring the $3.5 Trillion Commercial Real Estate Market Implosion? Pricing in Another Bailout Read More Here

(MoneyNews) – Laffer: Obama Budget Is Plan for Catastrophe

Economist Arthur B. Laffer, head of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan and founder and chairman of economic research and consulting firm Laffer Associates, says President Barack Obama’s proposed budget “is the perfect plan for catastrophe.” Read More Here

(NeitherCorp) – With A Deficit Like Ours, Who Needs Enemies…?

For decades, spurred by the alluring snake oil sales pitch of Keynesian Economics, U.S. financial analysts and Wall Street investors have operated on the assumption that indeed, “greed is good,” but debt… debt is better. Read More Here

(TimesOnline) – New tax bombshell: 20% VAT

A rise in VAT is looming whichever party wins the general election, as Labour and the Conservatives draw up plans to balance Britain’s books. Read More Here

(MailOnline) – Collapse of the euro is ‘inevitable’: Bailing out the Greek economy futile, says FRENCH banking chief

The European single currency is facing an ‘inevitable break-up’ a leading French bank claimed yesterday. Read More Here

(DSNews) – Commercial Real Estate Losses Could Hit $300 Billion: TARP Panel

Losses from defaults on commercial real estate loans maturing in the next few years could go as high as $300 billion, threatening to topple nearly 3,000 community banks nationwide, a federal watchdog group has concluded. Read More Here

(LATimes) – In Utah, a plan to cut 12th grade – altogether

The proposal by state Sen. Chris Buttars would chip away at Utah’s $700-million shortfall. He’s since offered a toned-down version: Just make senior year optional. Read More Here

Video: Real list of countries on verge of bankruptcy

(TheComingDepression) – Let’s talk a bit about these supposedly broke governments that have been reaching insolvency, and in cases like Iceland in 2006 and Argentina in 2001, have declared bankruptcy. It seems to most, as it would to anyone not ideologically retarded, that for all the public “brokeness” going on, there is always enough money for a bailout for some big bosses. Indeed, there’s never a shortage of money (or credit; whatever you want to call it) when it comes to buying up some big boss’ bad debt, or fleecing the public purse to provide him (them) with a fat tax cut so they can “create jobs” (see: off shore, low wage).

Don’t trust Glenn Beck, he is bought and paid for controlled opposition

I used to be a big fan of Glen Beck. I thought here is a guy, first on CNN/Headline News and then FOX News, as well as his massive mainstream radio show, telling it like it really is without most of the Politically Correct spin and party politics pandering that we are all so used to.

Video: Dr. Bruce Levine on Alex Jones – The Psychology of Tyranny

Alex welcomes to the show Bruce Levine, a clinical psychologist in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Levine is the author of Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic and Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life from Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations, and a World Gone Crazy. Levine provides a compelling alternative approach to treating depression that makes lasting change more likely than with symptom-based treatment through medication.

Video: Greece On Brink of Bankrupcy – the E.U. Bailout

(BBC) – Greece is 300 billion in debt, and the biggest E.U. country leaders have met in Brussels and agreed to bailout the Greek economy.

Economy

(MarketWatch) – How to invest for a global-debt-bomb explosion

Wake up investors. Are you prepared for the economic anarchy coming after a global-debt time bomb explodes? Are you thinking outside the box? Investing differently? Act now — tomorrow will be too late. Read More Here

(Spiegel) – German Auto Sales Crash in January

Domestic car sales hit an all-time high in Germany in 2009 thanks to the government’s cash-for-clunkers program. Now that the program is over, however, sales have plummeted. Is the worst still to come? Read More Here

(CityWatchLA) – Drastic Steps Needed to Prevent Bankruptcy

As you know, the City of Los Angeles faces a budget shortfall of nearly $208 million, and we expect it to exceed $400 million next year. This is the most serious situation we have faced in 75 years and without drastic steps, the City is threatened with bankruptcy. We cannot allow that to happen. Read More Here

(ABC) – Australia close to defaulting on debts: Joyce

Opposition finance spokesman Barnaby Joyce is courting controversy again, warning that Australia is getting to the point where it will not be able to repay its overseas debt. Read More Here

FLASHBACK – (Telegraph) – Société Générale tells clients how to prepare for potential ‘global collapse’

Société Générale has advised clients to be ready for a possible “global economic collapse” over the next two years, mapping a strategy of defensive investments to avoid wealth destruction. Read More Here

(TheBulletin) – Without water

Hundreds of Central Oregonians who can’t pay their bills have their water shut off. For people like Lynette Nicks, who’s recovering from cancer, that’s especially dangerous. Read More Here

(Bloomberg) – No Job Growth for Small Business Spurs Recovery Doubt (Update1)

Small businesses are becoming the Achilles heel of the U.S. recovery by limiting growth and job creation. Read More Here

(Time) – The Great Recession: Will Construction Workers Survive?

The middle and working-classes have been hammered by the Great Recession and no industry has taken it more on the chin than construction. Read More Here

Another (sobering) slice of the jobs data

Here’s a pretty depressing picture, courtesy of the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Read More Here

(NYTimes) – This Crisis Won’t Stop Moving

YOU know we’re in trouble when we’re told that the economic problems in Greece, Portugal and Spain, the most indebted countries in the euro zone, are likely to remain safely contained in those nations. Read More Here

(ZeroHedge) – The Run On Greece Is Here: Investors Pull Out €10 Billion From The Troubled Country; Crisis Escalation Approaches

Remember the proverbial run on the bank? Well, that was the norm (or rather the outlier) before governments decided to backstop entire financial industries residing within their territory. As a result, the post-Lehman version of “the bank run” will henceforth be referred to as “the country run” and for an example of one in practice, look no further than Greece. The Guardian reports that investors have pulled a stunning €8-10 billion since the Greek crisis commenced in earnest last November. If true, this is the beginning of the end for the troubled EMU-member country. Read More Here

(Telegraph) – Global bear rally will deflate as Japan leads world in sovereign bond crisis

Milton Keynes will be vindicated. Lord Keynes will lose some of his new-found gloss. The Krugman doctrine that we should all spend our way back to health by pushing deficits to the brink of a debt spiral – or beyond the brink – will be seen as dangerous. Read More Here

(Risk) – Citi plans crisis derivatives

Credit specialists at Citi are considering launching the first derivatives intended to pay out in the event of a financial crisis. The firm has drawn up plans for a tradable liquidity index, known as the CLX, on which products could be structured that allow buyers to hedge a spike in funding costs. Read More Here

(Katu) – That’s a wrap? Future of Hollywood Video cast in doubt

Once one of the wealthiest companies in Oregon, Wilsonville-based Hollywood Video’s final scene may be written as many customers discovered Tuesday upon finding a dozen of its stores closed. Read More Here

The Inflationary Depression – Bob Chapman

The inflationary depression still dominates and probably will continue to do so. In time the stimulus will fail to work and the world will slip into total insolvency and deflationary depression. The old M3 is about 3%, but we still have $23.7 trillion floating around. Not only is the US bankrupt, but also so is the rest of the world. It is now only a question of when the dominos will fall. It looks like the first wave in the collapse of the bear market rally is underway. Bonds will follow with higher interest rates and eventually commodities will be hit. Only gold and silver will survive, as the bankers and Wall Street complete their destruction of the world economy.

Sovereign Debt Fears Signal New Stage of Global Crisis

Stock markets in Europe and Asia fell sharply Friday in the second day of a near-panic selloff fueled by fears that the debt crisis facing weaker European economies will throw the world economy into a “double-dip” recession.

Video: Deliberate Economic Collapse

Economy

Secret summit of top bankers

THE world’s top central bankers began arriving in Australia yesterday as renewed fears about the strength of the global economic recovery gripped world share markets. Read More Here

(Pravda) – Paulson and US Collapse, Lets Blame It On Russia, We Do Everything Else

It’s good to see that US officials and former officials continue acting to par, God forbid they actually shock us and change their stripes. The latest tripe out of the mouths of the mega corrupted and their hand picked puppets is Henry Paulson’s tripe about Russia trying to collapse the US economic bubble and that being the reason that the US is now down on its luck. Read More Here

(JBS) – Ending the Government Monopoly on Currency

The legal tender laws of the United States are found in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution and grant power to Congress to “coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.” Nothing more. Read More Here

(WSJ) – ‘Fear Gauge’ Spikes 20%

The so-called fear gauge jumped nearly 20% as stocks took a tumble and looked ready to close at their lowest point of the year. Read More Here

(Bloomberg) – 824,000 Jobs will Disappear on February 5th – Read More Here

(BusinessDay) – Warning of Greek crisis spreading across EU

THE Greek debt crisis has spread to Spain and Portugal in a dangerous escalation as global markets test whether Europe is willing to shore up monetary union with muscle rather than mere words. Read More Here

(Reuters) – U.S. commercial property prices hit new cycle low

U.S. commercial real estate prices fell 4.9 percent in the fourth quarter, setting a new low for the current downturn, according to a leading property index released on Friday. Read More Here

(FoxBusiness) – TrimTabs Estimates Take-Home Pay of All Taxpayers in 2009 Plunged $800 Billion, or 12%, While Value of U.S. Stocks Surged $3.5 Trillion, or 27

TrimTabs Investment Research estimated today that the take-home pay of all taxpayers in 2009 plunged $800 billion, or 12%, to $5.8 trillion. Meanwhile, the market value of all U.S. stocks rose $3.5 trillion, or 27%, to $16 trillion. Read More Here

(Fortune) – Next in line for a bailout: Social Security

Don’t look now. But even as the bank bailout is winding down, another huge bailout is starting, this time for the Social Security system. Read More Here

Obama’s Budget Would Increase Penalties Five-Fold on Tax Protesters

Under current law, the willful failure to pay taxes is a misdemeanor. You could go to jail for up to a year and pay a maximum fine of $25K (for individuals, $100K for corporations) for each year you fail to file a return. There is a proposal in the new budget to increase the penalty for repeated failure to file a tax return: Read More Here

(ToledoBlade) – Ohio state income tax off $97.7M

For the first time since the state enacted its two-year budget in July after dramatically lowering its revenue expectations, tax coffers contain less than the amount officials had projected at this point. Read More Here

(IndyStar) – State revenue is $74.8M off forecast

Groundhog Day may have already passed, but it doesn’t feel like it in Gov. Mitch Daniels’ second-floor Statehouse office. Read More Here

(ETFGuide) – Real Unemployment 18 Percent – Will Stocks Falter?

The unemployment picture painted by today’s jobs report headlines is much rosier than reality. Yet, the Dow broke below 10,000 for the first time in months. The real unemployment number reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is much higher and scarier than they want you to believe. What’s next? Read More Here

(Telegraph) – Fears of ‘Lehman-style’ tsunami as crisis hits Spain and Portugal

The Greek debt crisis has spread to Spain and Portugal in a dangerous escalation as global markets test whether Europe is willing to shore up monetary union with muscle rather than mere words. Read More Here

MSM: Global sell-off shudders markets as euro plunges to 8-month low amid fears of debt default

(DailyMail) – London’s top stocks lost another one per cent today as worries over US and European economic health sparked a sell-off for the second session in a row.

MSM: Job losses from Great Recession about to get worse

(Yahoo) – Job losses during the Great Recession have been huge and they’re about to get bigger.
When the Labor Department releases the January unemployment report Friday, it will also update its estimate of jobs lost in the year that ended in March 2009. The number is expected to rise by roughly 800,000, raising the number of jobs shed during the recession to around 8 million.

Video: Ron Paul Warns of Social Unrest and Martial Law

(C4L) – February 2, 2010

Video: Why You’ve Never Heard of the Great Depression of 1920

(C4L) – As President Obama continues to try to sell the country on the necessity of government intervention, this Mises Institute video from April 2009 looks at what happened when a president made the rare choice to restrain government action in an economic crisis.

Global Insolvency: How will the US Service its Debt? – Bob Chapman

The recent election in Massachusetts of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate was a seminal event. It ended the Democratic administration’s ability to ram through legislation. It changed the game. The locomotive hit the bunter.

Why Are Americans Passive as Millions Lose Their Homes, Jobs, Families and the American Dream?

An unnatural economic and psychological disaster has struck America. Five contributors, each interacting with and shaping the others, have devastated the American moral, economic, psychological, and social landscape. Each is fed by related streams, but each contributes its own force to the disaster. The American dream in which each generation surpassed the previous generation in real wages has all but disappeared, along with dreams of an intact family, a steady job, a home, and an honest supportive community.

Video: Peter Schiff Vlog on Congress Confirming Bernanke

February 1st 2010

MSM: Huge Deficits May Alter U.S. Politics and Global Power

(NYTimes) – In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power. Read More Here

MSM: The Depressing News About Antidepressants

(NewsWeek) – Studies suggest that the popular drugs are no more effective than a placebo. In fact, they may be worse. Read More Here

Video: Jim Rogers – Federal Reserve is worsening the depression

(CNBC) – “What would be the first two things you would do if you were in Mr Ben Bernanke’s seat?” Jim Rogers: “I would Abolish the Federal Reserve and Resign.”

Wages growth lowest in 27 years; minimum wages are bad?

(ComingDepression) – The Labor Department said Friday that wages and benefits rose by 0.5 percent in the three months ending in December. For the entire year, wages and benefits were up 1.5 percent, the weakest showing on records that go back to 1982.

MSM: FDIC clocks 15 bank failures so far in 2010

(Reuters) – Six more U.S. banks were seized on Friday as regulators continue to close the doors of banks struggling to cope with fallout from the financial crisis.

MSM: Q+A-Will Japan face a sovereign debt crisis?

(Reuters) – Japan’s ballooning public debt is raising concerns in debt markets as the largely untested government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama tries to balance the need for economic stimulus with a need for fiscal prudence. Read More Here

The Audacity of Obama’s State of the Union – Campaign for Liberty

Last night, I suffered through Obama’s speech. I noticed the overarching theme was: in 2010, the administration will finally getting around to all it promised for 2009, as well as a whole other year worth of miracles.

Video: Peter Schiff on Rifkin Radio – Economic Crisis in Our Future

January 28, 2010

China pulls financial plug on Western debt

“This year we will continue to control the pace and demand of the credit supply,” Mr. Liu said at a conference in Hong Kong. All banks, he added, had been ordered to “heighten their vigilance against an impossible, embedded credit risk.”
For about a year now, China has been giving signs and exerting influence on world markets and political circles that they would be ending their massive purchases of Federal Reserve bonds (also known as buying US government debt bonds) to which they know the US will never repay. It is looking more and more like the predictions by many have been right a long time; that is that China’s revaluation of their currency and the cessation of spending on financing debts abroad for countries unlikely to pay them back will cause “financial tsunami” around the world.

TheComingDepression.net Headlines

Will we see double digit interest rates from the 1980s?

Spending is bad when it’s on credit and made frivolous on non-essential items. On the other side of the coin, spending is good when it’s out of savings without compromising the future. Living off credit is very, very bad and interest rates will need to go up eventually to help savers, not borrowers. The problem is that interest rates have been manipulated by central banks in the majority of industrialized countries since about the beginning of the 20th century. Coincidentally, this is when central banks were introduced en-mass to countries around the world as a form of supposed financial stability which couldn’t be further from the truth. Read More Here

Empty McMansions, Spoiled Government Workers and the Barrage of Illegal Aliens; the Death of Orange County

In 2005 and 2006 my neighborhood had a plethora of McMansions built. Developers in a frenzy leveled apartment complexes and displaced hundreds of tenants to build overpriced McMansions that were so close to each other that you could literally hear your neighbor flush his/her toilet. Privacy? Please. Read More Here

20 Reasons The US Will Never Recover & Why

How long will it take for Americans to realize they’ve been had by their own corporations? US jobs are not coming back because the factories will not re-open, because those factories are now in communist China. This did not happen in previous recessions, except to a smaller extent where there was a manufacturing scare in the 1980s when Japan was taking manufacturing jobs. Read More Here

US Homeowners: Sell your home now!

A year from now you won’t be able to sell your house. Yes, you read that right. The caveat is (there always is a caveat) that if you have enough money to make required major upgrades to your home, then you can sell it. Read More Here

BANKSTERS hit Main Street $11 Trillion taken in Heist!

American households have lost $11 trillion in wealth since the peak in the bubble. Read More Here

Canada is world’s largest sub-prime lender

All the news reports from Canadian real estate associations touting that the housing “recession has ended” is just about as worthless as the hot air coming out of politicians mouths. Very low interest rates made houses and condos too expensive, especially compared to the price of renting equivalent properties. Read More Here

Congratulations! You’re donating $2,000 per family to Wall Street’s Bonuses

(AlterNet) – President Obama won’t tell us in his State of the Union address. The deficit hawks won’t crow about it. Don’t expect the Tea Party or Rush and Beck to highlight our generosity either. But the sad fact is this: During the worst year since the Great Depression, with 30 million people out of work or forced into part-time jobs, Wall Street is awarding itself $150 billion in bonus money…..and it comes from us!

Video: Congressman Admits – ‘We’re Told Not to Call it Another STIMULUS Bill — Calling it a JOBS Bill’

Naked Emperor News “A big chunk of that work is going to be done in 2013, 2014.” – Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 – Video Link Here

Video: Gerald Celente on Freedom Watch – Greatest Depression and War

(Fox) – Gerald Celente predicts the Greatest Depression and War. “War, regrettably, is the health of the state” – Judge

Video: The Dollar is now collapsing – Peter Schiff

(January 23, 2010) – Peter Schiff is an American economist, author, commentator and popular video blogger who regularly appears in the role of a bearish pundit on numerous financial news networks. Schiff, a licensed stock broker, is the president of Euro Pacific Capital, a brokerage firm founded in 1980 and later reincorporated in 1996, now headquartered in Westport, Connecticut.

Are we in an Economic Depression? – Bob Chapman

Few professionals are yet willing to admit we have been in a depression for the last year.
You have to understand the position that economists and analysts are in. They work for corporations, insurance, Wall Street, banking and government and if they thought we were in a depression and they publicly announced that all chances for advancement would be lost or they would be squeezed out of the firm or simply fired.

Doug Casey Says Bet Against Wall Street, Bonds, and after a few months the U.S. Dollar

(MakretOracle) – L: Doug, I saw a Wall Street Journal headline a few days ago that boldly proclaimed, “Car Makers May Hire Soon.” Be still, my trembling heart! It’s hard to believe the WSJ would stoop to such a meaningless headline, but I guess they are just trying to give their desperate customers what they want: some hope, whether valid or not. What do you make of the unemployment situation?

MSM: Crash of 2008 winner says bear market is back

(MarketWatch) – Proponents of a weird investment theory say another crash is coming. Even weirder: they were right last time.

Video: Ron Paul on Competing Currencies

(C4L) – In his special order speech on Wednesday, Dr. Paul talks about the need to legalize competing currencies and outlines the steps necessary to do so.

Video: Government Is Too Big to Succeed – Ron Paul

Last week, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission kicked off their first round of hearings on the causes of the economic meltdown on Wall Street. The commission is being compared to the the Pecora Commission launched in 1932 to investigate the causes of the Great Depression. The Pecora commission is beloved by those who believe the solution to every problem is more laws because it was used to justify a number of new laws, including Glass-Steagall. Of course, none of those laws addressed the real causes of the Great Depression. It was the introduction of unsound monetary policy and central economic planning pursued by the Federal Reserve that really threw everything off balance. The Fed was founded in 1913 to stabilize the economy and prevent a recurrence of the short-lived Panic of 1907, but instead it promptly produced the Great Depression which lasted more than 15 years.

Is The U.S. Economy Being Tanked By Mistake or By Intent?

(LewRockwell) – The government wants Americans to believe the greatest economic collapse in history was the result of ineptness and mistakes yet still have confidence in their financial institutions.

Economic News

(AmericaHijacked) – More and More States on Budget Brink

California is hurtling into the budgetary abyss — and it’s not alone.
Across the nation, state tax collections in the first three quarters of 2009 posted their steepest decline in at least 46 years, according to a report this month from the public policy research arm of the State University of New York. Read More Here

(BBC) – Video: UK’s inflation rate jumps massively – Video Link Here

(CNBC) – Video: Jim Rogers- Except for Gold, Commodities Still Depressed – Video Link Here

(WorldNetDaily) – Forecast: Debt to dwarf GDP – Jerome Corsi

A blue-ribbon panel that includes three former heads of the Congressional Budget Office is telling President Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress that the federal deficit must be cut now or the national debt within about two generations will be 600 percent of the gross domestic product. Read More Here

If Government Won’t Break Up the Giant Banks, Let’s Do It Ourselves

(WashingtonsBlog) – As everyone knows, the economy cannot permanently recover and truly stabilize until the giant banks are broken up. The top independent experts agree that the “too big to fails” are a drain on the economy and put the entire system at risk.