Economy

(LewRockwell) – Beware the Recent Situation in Greece: It Will Happen Here! – Gary D. Barnett – Read More Here

(WashingtonsBlog) – Mervyn King: “World’s Worst Financial Crisis Ever”

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King says: “We are still halfway through the world’s worst financial crisis ever.” He is in good company.

The following experts have said that the economic crisis could be worse than the Great Depression: Read More Here

(CalculatedRisk) – California: “Absolutely terrible” budget cuts to be announced at 4 PM ET – Read More Here

(YahooFinance) – Video: TechTicker – Dow Tumbles as “Disintegration” Fears Haunt Europe

Hopes that a massive $1 trillion bailout for Europe would hold the financial markets together came unglued Friday. Stocks tumbled around the world and the U.S. followed suit. Heading into the close, the Dow was down more than 230 points. – Video Link Here

(GeorgeWashingtonBlog) – The Bailout of Big American Banks Has Cost Trillions More Than We’ve Been Told

Granted, the $700 billion dollar TARP bailout was a massive bait-and-switch. The government said it was doing it to soak up toxic assets, and then switched to saying it was needed to free up lending. It didn’t do that either. Indeed, the Fed doesn’t want the banks to lend.

True, as I wrote in March 2009: Read More Here

(MarketWatch) – The second debt storm

The debt mountain that brought down some of the world’s biggest banks and dragged the international financial system to the brink of disaster has simply shifted to governments. Now it’s threatening countries around the globe — and, if left unchecked, could rip the very fabric of Europe’s economic system and wreck economic recoveries in the U.S., China and Latin America. Read More Here

(USAWatchdog) – Is the Financial System Corrupt?

Recent headlines coming out of the financial world have been jaw dropping. Here are a few: Read More Here

(WSWS) – US media demands Greek-style austerity for American workers

In recent days, the US media—led by the standard bearer of American liberalism, the New York Times—has insisted that workers in the US, like their brethren in Greece, have been living the good life for far too long and must accept a drastic and permanent reduction in their living standards. Read More Here

(CNBC) – Video: The Economy & Your Portfolio with Rick Santelli ‘This European Crisis Should Be A Wake Up Call’

A look at the big issues facing the economy and how investors are playing them, with Michael Pento, of Delta Global, and Jordan Kimmel, of National Securities. Video Link Here

FLASHBACK – (WashingtonExaminer) – In 2005, U.S. intelligence warned of Euro econ crisis and EU’s demise unless welfare states downsized

In 2005, the National Intelligence Council prepared a prescient report warning that overextended welfare states could lead to economic crisis and possibly the collapse of the European Union sometime in the next 15 years: Read More Here

(FinanceMarkets) – US banks under investigation

Eight Wall Street banks are facing an investigation following allegations that they provided misleading information to several ratings agencies in order to gain a better rating for mortgage securities. Read More Here

(ChartingStocks) – Dollar Jump Resembles ‘08 Crash

On Wednesday, I wrote about the troubling signal given by the Volatility Index (VIX) as it surged in a manner which resembled the 2008 crash. Today we can add another market indicator to the “trouble” list – The US Dollar. Read More Here

(AlethoNews) – New Iran sanctions bill to kill 20,000 US jobs each year

Major US firms are warning Congress against passing legislation to impose new sanctions against Iran, saying such sanctions will further damage the US economy.

Boeing Co. and Exxon Mobil Corp. are lobbying to fend off tightened sanctions against Iran that business groups say will cut US exports. Read More Here

Video: The New World Order Currency Crisis

(Kitco) – Five Facts You Need to Know About the Financial System

Let’s connect the dots on the ENTIRE financial system right now. Read More Here

(LondonTelegraph) – US faces same problems as Greece, says Bank of England

Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, fears that America shares many of the same fiscal problems currently haunting Europe. He also believes that European Union must become a federalised fiscal union (in other words with central power to tax and spend) if it is to survive. Just two of the nuggets from one of the most extraordinary press conferences I have been to at the Bank. Read More Here

(LondonGuardian) – Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to pull France out of the euro

French president Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to pull his country out of the euro if other EU countries, especially Germany, did not agree to help rescue debt-laden Greece. Read More Here

(Bloomberg) – Volcker Sees Euro ‘Disintegration’ Risk From Greece

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said he’s concerned that the euro area may break up after the Greek fiscal crisis that sparked an unprecedented bailout by the region’s members. Read More Here

(InfoClearingHouse) – Financial Chaos And The Smell Of Napalm In The Morning

What in God’s name should we make of it all? On Thursday, the New York Stock Exchange had its most severe plunge in history – nearly 1000 points, before it recovered minutes later. On Monday, it shot up 400 points, one of the biggest spikes in memory. All told, the variance was around 1400 points over the period of a couple of days.

The context for this, of course, is the financial turmoil that has spread from Greece and is sweeping across Europe, threatening the very existence of the European Union and the Euro as a common currency. Last week alone, it is estimated that global stock markets lost $3.7 trillion of their value as a result of this crisis (1). According to the Canadian finance minister Jim Flaherty, not even the Canadian economy is immune from the financial contagion. Read More Here

(EconomicPolicyJournal) – Geithner Briefs Super Power Elite, Friday Afternoon

In addition to Rockefeller and Lady de Rothschild, on Friday afternoon, Treasury Secretary Geithner will also meet with the other members of the Board of Directors of the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics to discuss the Administration’s agenda for economic growth and strengthening the global financial system.

Here’s the hefty list of the Institute’s Board of Directors: Read More Here

(HomeSolutionCounselors) – You are not in default. Freddie Mac is making your payments!

Yes it is true. I have seen it with my own eyes and IN WRITING. In our office we have on record a statement from Freddie Mac, which they submitted to the courts, that “Freddie Mac has made all relevant and required payments to the investors on behalf of the borrowers.” Did you catch that?!?!

Yes, Freddie Mac acting as the Master Servicer, has been making payments to the debt owners of a mortgage. How can the borrower be in default? Read More Here

(Bloomberg) – Euro Breakup Talk Increases as Germany Loses Its Currency Proxy

What was conceived as a club for Europe’s strongest economies was expanded for political reasons, leaving the currency union with minimal powers to police deficit spending and no safety net for dealing with countries, like Greece, that veer toward default.

German officials are already debating what was unthinkable to the euro’s architects: that a currency union designed in its founding treaty to be “irrevocable” might not be. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said March 12 that expulsion from the euro may be the ultimate penalty for serial violators of debt rules. Read More Here

‘Greece being forced to buy arms’

(PressTV) – A leading European parliamentarian has accused France and Germany of forcing Greece to buy billions of euros in arms in exchange for their bailout money.

France and Germany, while publicly urging Greece to make harsh public spending cuts, bullied its government to confirm billions of euros in arms deals, Franco-German lawmaker Daniel Cohn-Bendit alleged on Friday.

Video: Goldman Sachs fraud, how they cheated investors with exploding bonds

(MSNBC) – The Dylan Ratigan Show – April 16, 2010

Video: James Delingpole on Alex Jones Tv – After Climategate, Pachaurigate and Glaciergate!

Alex welcomes back to the show British journalist and novelist James Delingpole. Mr. Delingpole is the author of How to be Right: The Essential Guide to Making Lefty Liberals History, and Welcome to Obamaland: I Have Seen Your Future and It Doesn’t Work. He writes for The Times, Daily Telegraph, and as a TV critic for The Spectator. Delingpole regularly posts blogs on The Daily Telegraph website and his personal website. He is a vocal critic of climate change.

MSM: Russia diversifies into Canadian dollars

(FinancialTimes) – Russia’s central bank announced on Wednesday that it had started buying Canadian dollars and securities in a bid to diversify its foreign exchange reserves.

Last decade was the worst ever in the stock market

“Since the end of 1999, the Standard & Poors 500-stock index has lost an average of 3.3% a year on an inflation-adjusted basis, compared with a 1.8% average annual gain during the 1930s when deflation afflicted the economy”
In nearly 200 years of recorded stock-market history, no calendar decade has seen such a dismal performance as the 2000s.

MSM: Greece sees few glimmers of hope

(FinancialTimes) – With Greece’s budget deficit at record levels and the country’s banks exposed to troubles both at home and abroad, doomsayers are predicting that Greek banks will go the way of Iceland’s.

MSM: Beijing official urges gold, crude-oil purchases

(MarketWatch) – China should use the shockwaves created by the Dubai crisis as an opportunity to buy gold and oil, a senior Chinese official who helps oversee some of the nation’s biggest enterprises was quoted as saying Monday.

MSM: Saudis drop WTI oil contract

(FinancialTimes) – Saudi Arabia yesterday decided to drop the widely used West Texas Intermediate oil contract as the benchmark for pricing its oil, dealing a serious blow to the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Iran to completely drop dollar from foreign exchange

(PressTV) – Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization has announced a near future plan to completely exclude the US dollar from the country’s foreign revenues and reserves.

MSM: Dollar Reaches Breaking Point as Banks Shift Reserves

(Bloomberg) – Central banks flush with record reserves are increasingly snubbing dollars in favor of euros and yen, further pressuring the greenback after its biggest two- quarter rout in almost two decades.

A Media Failure Compounds The Financial Failure:

The Press Is Still Missing The Story Of Fraud and Economic Decline Ahead

Video: DHS Doles Out Fed Cash to Deploy Military LRADs in U.S. Cities

The LRAD devices used against protesters and the residents of Pittsburgh last month were a beta test for things to come. As reported by the Washington Times on October 1, the Department of Homeland Security is doling out federal money to get police departments around the country stocked up on the LRAD weapons.

Iran Replaces The US Dollar With The Euro… And So It Begins

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the replacement of the US dollar by the euro in the country’s foreign exchange accounts.

New world currency order starts to unfold

The US dollar still retains a disproportionately large representation in international trade transactions, official reserves and exchange rate regimes.

MSM: UN Says New Currency Is Needed to Fix Broken ‘Confidence Game’

(Bloomberg) – The dollar’s role in international trade should be reduced by establishing a new currency to protect emerging markets from the “confidence game” of financial speculation, the United Nations said.

Have Physicists Cracked the Stock Market?

(WashingtonsBlog) – New Scientist is reporting that physicists have largely figured out how to predict the end of bull markets:

MSM: Common Sense 2009

(HuffPost) – The American government – which we once called our government – has been taken over by Wall Street, the mega-corporations and the super-rich. They are the ones who decide our fate. It is this group of powerful elites, the people President Franklin D. Roosevelt called “economic royalists,” who choose our elected officials – indeed, our very form of government.

The Expiring Economy – Paul Craig Roberts

Tent cities springing up all over America are filling with the homeless unemployed from the worst economy since the 1930s. While Americans live in tents, the Obama government has embarked on a $1 billion crash program to build a mega-embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, to rival the one the Bush government build in Baghdad, Iraq.

The Second Wave Of The Depression – Hyperinflation Likely

(WebsterTarpley) – The second wave of the world economic depression is coming soon. Larry Summers, the economics czar of the Wall Street puppet regime currently in power in Washington, recently confessed to the Financial Times in an unguarded moment: “I don’t think the worst is over ….” A few weeks earlier, Jacques Attali, who served in the 1980s as the main economics adviser to French President Mitterrand, told an audience at the International Economic and Financial Forum (FIEF) in Paris that the world might well soon face a “planetary Weimar” in the form of a hyperinflationary depression similar to the German events of 1922 to 1923.

Video: Trader on Bloomberg says markets are manipulated and volumes ‘ficticious’

(6-30-09) – Joe Saluzzi talks on Bloomberg and explains how machine trading is distorting the financial markets.

MSM: Federal agency Web sites knocked out by massive, resilient cyber attack

(AP) – A widespread and unusually resilient computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of several government agencies, including some that are responsible for fighting cyber crime, The Associated Press has learned.

Banks run Congress, top Democrat says

(Raw Story) – It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that the banking and financial services industry has an outsized influence in Congress.

MSM: China Increases Gold Reserves 76% to Fifth-Largest

(Bloomberg) – China boosted its gold reserves by 76 percent since 2003 and has the world’s fifth-biggest holding by country, said Hu Xiaolian, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

China Voices Support For New Global Currency To Replace Dollar

China has expressed support for Russia’s proposal to hand the IMF the power to create a new supra-national global currency in response to the call for an alternative to the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency.

China’s spending spree likely to include Canadian companies

Asia’s dealmakers say a Chinese resource spending spree will accelerate throughout the next 12 months, with Canadian mining and energy companies likely on the shopping list.

MSM: Iran threatened with economic meltdown

The sharp downward spiral of oil prices has prompted economists to predict that Tehran is facing severe financial hardship within the space of a few months.

MSM: Dow Drops 500 Points In Turbulent Trading

(CBS/AP) Wall Street has had yet another dismal day Tuesday, extending its heavy losses as investors’ worries about the financial sector wiped out early enthusiasm over the Federal Reserve’s efforts to inject confidence into the credit markets. Trading remained fractious and grew more turbulent in the last hour, with the Dow Jones industrial average losing more than 500 points and all the major indexes falling more than 5 percent.